So I just got Dark Souls

[Ml33tninja]

I would say going to the skeleton graveyard in the beginning is a good idea. Now before others burning me alive, the reason why is because of the items around. You will more likely get killed doing it and its okay. Once you grab the weapons leave and try them out and you can see the styles, plus and negatives of each, and find what you like.

 

[Denamic]

Indeed. The weight thresholds at which you start rolling slower are 25% and 50% encumbrance. Personally, I stick below 50% if I can help it.

Actually, the first threshold is at 0%. If you have no items that has weight equipped, you roll even faster. Though that's not very useful information because in no circumstance is being completely naked and unarmed a good thing. Personally, I keep under 25% weight.

Having some extra armour is probably best when you're new though, so wearing the maximum amount of armour you can while still being under 50% is probably best when you start out. Mostly so you can take some hits and not lose 50% of your health when you fail to avoid, block, or parry. That being said, whatever build you go for, endurance is the best stat. Level up endurance. I cannot stress that enough. ENDURANCE. Get it to at least 20 ASAP.

 

[The Heik]

I figured I might wait and pick up Dark Souls 2 when it came out instead, but this is currently discounted to £4 on Xbox live.

What tips have you for someone new to it? Aside from drinking lots of water so I don't get dehydrated from all the tears I shed, I mean.

Well there's a lot of basic advice I can give for your first playthrough:

ie
- play around with armor and weapons loadouts to see what you like
- upgrade your weapons (preferably only to level 5 unless you've settled on your preferred playstyle)
- spend your souls ASAP (seriously, don't hoard them. You will regret it)
- try learning to parry (it doesn't work on everything, but if you can pull it off it will help a lot)

But if there's one thing that I cannot stress enough, it's for you to explore and observe everything. Dark Souls, in spite of it's reputation, will rarely throw you a curveball without at least some indication beforehand. So if you enter a new area and nothing immediately attacks you, take a look around to see what doesn't match the rest. If you see a new character or enemy, see what it does and experiment with it's behaviour. If you gain a new weapon or armor, test it out on different enemies to see if it affects each in a different manner.

Above all, this game rewards players who act intelligently. So if you take the time to understand the challenges ahead of you, you can take on anything in this game and never feel like you're getting the short end of the stick. Oh it'll still be one heckuva challenge, but every enemy in this game functions off the same basic rules as you do, so if you can die, so can they. And everything has a weakness.

Enjoy

 

[Zero of Arcadia]

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT play online until you leave the Burg. There are droves of twinked minmaxed gankers just waiting for new players, and nothing you have can beat a laggy Lightning Shotel with a Force Miracle. You may have to give up on early co-op, but at least you won't be driven off before you can get anywhere.

On the game itself, grab a bow. You will never not be happy that you got a bow, having range on targets is a godsend and can lure out single enemies so you can deal with crowds one at a time.

Learn Pyromancy. Most enemies are weak to fire, and Pyromancy is the catchall class of magic for spells that just don't fit anywhere else. Faith and Miracles are also nice. I tried role-playing an atheist once and immediately regretted not having Homeward and Heal.

Become a SunBro. The SunBros get an immensely powerful Lightning spell, which gets more powerful the more you play co-op and help people. So you get to replay old bosses and areas for souls with no risk, and you get to help others doing it, all while earning a spear of lightning. Jolly cooperation indeed :3

One other thing, if an enemy has a tail, cut it off. Any dragonkin with a tail can and will drop you a special weapon if you go Monster Hunter on his tail.

 

[Garrett Horvath]

The simple #1 tip new players should know:

There are 3 paths to explore from the Firelink Shrine (your bonfire after the tutorial). You are only ready for one of these.

 

[EvilRoy]

Geesh this game seems to have a lot to it. I actually just picked it up myself on the steam sale. It seems fun but I'm blown away by the amount of stuff you apparently have to learn to beat it. I swear my accumulated knowledge of Skyrim when I stopped playing didn't come close to the sheer volume you guys seem to be hinting at.

It looks like I'll have plenty of time to read up though, I tried playing keyboard and it just didn't work, and my PS2 controller is a little gammy on the thumbsticks, so I'll have to wait until I get an xbox controller.

Hope you enjoy the game OP, the 20 mins of it that I played through seemed pretty fun, though it was only a tutorial and hampered by wandering-joystick.

 

[Church185]

At the point where you enter Anor Londo, Andrei will be the only blacksmith 90% of newcomers see. And the only methods of ascension will be Divine and Raw/+10, both enabled by the Large Ember.

Incorrect, you only need a +5 weapon to go Raw or Divine.

EDIT: I was wrong about Raw, you do need the Large Ember, but that is a terrible upgrade path. Divine still only requires a +5.

 

[Church185]

For a 1st time player, it's a solid template of what to level. You can level 4 main stats just fine as well, it might not be the optimal build but you will have a great number of options available; you will be good with Str or Dex weapons, one kind of magic (and you can still level pyromancy too if you want), and you will be awesome with bows if you choose Dex over Str. IIRC you will get better weapon scaling and damage with Str and Dex as well especially early in the game when you can't even upgrade weapons to scale with Int or Faith.

You can fight the Moonlight Butterfly as your first boss outside of the Asylum if you have the master key, unlocking the Divine upgrade path at the very beginning of the game. To upgrade your weapons to scale with INT, you can start them on the Magic path from the very first blacksmith available to you in the game, Rickert of Vinheim.

 

[loa]

-Don't level resistance ever, it literally does nothing.
-Try to pick 1 weapon to build your character around e.g. spears, the zweihänder, rapiers, falchion etc. and get the minimum stat requirements to hold that weapon in 1 hand. Put points into endurance/vitality afterwards so you can run around in heavy armor and poise tank hits or go intelligence/faith if you want to cast spells.
-Poise keeps you from flinching, heavy armor gives poise. Stability makes shields consume less stamina when hit, use a shield with high stability.
-Don't ever level a stat above 40, it'll stop scaling. Only put points into attunement if you really need another spell slot.
-Every weapon is viable, it comes down to preference in playstyle.
-You don't actually need to grind for levelups. The game is beatable at level 1.
-Playing a sorcerer doesn't mean you have to use daggers or spells only. A quick weapon enchanted with sorcery is pretty much the highest damaging thing in the game.
-Time your blocking. Your stamina will almost stop refilling if you keep the shield up all the time.
-Everything other than the master key as a gift is a consumable or garbage. There's no reason not to get it.
-There's also no reason not to get pyromancy. It scales with how many souls you spend upgrading your flame (you can do that later with na npc if you can find him) so everyone can use it regardless of stats.
-DON'T MISS THE FIRST BLACKSMITH! He's in undead burg but you can easily run past him if you don't upgrade your weapon and don't use the drake sword, the first boss will murder you.
-The first boss will murder you anyway. Try summoning other players to help.

 

[Zero of Arcadia]

For a 1st time player, it's a solid template of what to level. You can level 4 main stats just fine as well, it might not be the optimal build but you will have a great number of options available; you will be good with Str or Dex weapons, one kind of magic (and you can still level pyromancy too if you want), and you will be awesome with bows if you choose Dex over Str. IIRC you will get better weapon scaling and damage with Str and Dex as well especially early in the game when you can't even upgrade weapons to scale with Int or Faith.

You can fight the Moonlight Butterfly as your first boss outside of the Asylum if you have the master key, unlocking the Divine upgrade path at the very beginning of the game. To upgrade your weapons to scale with INT, you can start them on the Magic path from the very first blacksmith available to you in the game, Rickert of Vinheim.

True, but I wouldn't want to give a first-timer the Master Key. There are better items available for Gifts in the long run, and the Master Key will cause a newbie to get off track and killed by things he has no right to be fighting more often than not.

 

[Church185]

At the point where you enter Anor Londo, Andrei will be the only blacksmith 90% of newcomers see. And the only methods of ascension will be Divine and Raw/+10, both enabled by the Large Ember.

Incorrect, you only need a +5 weapon to go Raw or Divine.

EDIT: I was wrong about Raw, you do need the Large Ember, but that is a terrible upgrade path. Divine still only requires a +5.

...I never said it didn't.

*reads again* "the only methods of ascension will be Divine and Raw/+10, both enabled by the Large Ember"

Ah, the "and" you used there threw me off. I thought you were saying Divine required the Large Ember.

 

[loa]

True, but I wouldn't want to give a first-timer the Master Key. There are better items available for Gifts in the long run, and the Master Key will cause a newbie to get off track and killed by things he has no right to be fighting more often than not.

Those 5 gold pine resins you can only get early on with the master key will make the first bosses a LOT easier/possible at all if you run past the drake sword which is likely.

 

[Church185]

Also, in regards to upgrade paths: you can't upgrade anything to Divine nor Magic until you get at least one Green Titanite Shard which isn't exactly easy to get until the Depths or Catacombs.

Which is great, because up until that point in the game stat scaling isn't really necessary. Faith or INT builds will simply destroy things from a distance.

 

[Zero of Arcadia]

True, but I wouldn't want to give a first-timer the Master Key. There are better items available for Gifts in the long run, and the Master Key will cause a newbie to get off track and killed by things he has no right to be fighting more often than not.

Those 5 gold pine resins you can only get early on with the master key will make the first bosses a LOT easier/possible at all if you run past the drake sword which is likely.

Personally I like the Black Bombs, not the best choice by a longshot but they are easy to use and simple to master. There are also some Pine Resins in the first portion of the Burg if you buy the Residential Key from the merchant. A door near the fire boulder trap and the Black Knight, if I remember correctly.

 

[IFS]

People like to be friendly and give you advice that will bite you in the ass later. Therefore, some counter-advice:
- don't get the drake sword, it's bad. Trust me.
- the claymore is in fact not the be-all, end-all of dark souls
- don't take the master key as a starting gift

Good advice overall, though the last few points are debatable. The Drake Sword is good for a certain part of the game, it just loses efficacy quickly, the claymore does remain one of my favorite weapons so while it's not the greatest (all the weapons have their value really) it is pretty fun to use. The master key though is definitely best saved for a second playthrough when you know where everything is.

As for what other advice I have to offer I recommend starting as a Pyromancer or a warrior, and in general being cautious and paying attention to surroundings. I also recommend for a first playthrough not using the wiki too much (for say convenants, slabs, and embers I do still recommend it) but a lot of the game for me is figuring things out and discovering things myself.

 

[jnixon]

seems some silly advice is being given here so i think i'll give it a go:

1: decide early on what stats you're going to upgrade so later on you can choose one weapon to upgrade and keep to match that particular character
2: don't upgrade a weapon that you won't use for the whole game, a weapon at +15 is amazingly strong but hard to get the souls/materials to create, so don't waste them
3: use the online wiki, it is beyond helpful and as the game is so hard anyway it's not really cheating
4: get a greatshield asap, i recommend the eagle shield as it's also light
5: get the drake sword asap, you will use this for a hefty chunk of your first playthrough, does decent damage and can be wielded by most characters

good luck!

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

For a 1st time player, it's a solid template of what to level. You can level 4 main stats just fine as well, it might not be the optimal build but you will have a great number of options available; you will be good with Str or Dex weapons, one kind of magic (and you can still level pyromancy too if you want), and you will be awesome with bows if you choose Dex over Str. IIRC you will get better weapon scaling and damage with Str and Dex as well especially early in the game when you can't even upgrade weapons to scale with Int or Faith.

You can fight the Moonlight Butterfly as your first boss outside of the Asylum if you have the master key, unlocking the Divine upgrade path at the very beginning of the game. To upgrade your weapons to scale with INT, you can start them on the Magic path from the very first blacksmith available to you in the game, Rickert of Vinheim.

And a 1st time player is going to know that or even look that up? The TC probably hasn't even played Demon's Souls as they appear to be on Xbox. I was just giving the TC a solid template to go by, nothing else. Plus, someone in the thread told them not to get the master key. I only played through the game once and my Dex and Faith build worked out just fine while giving me many options as well. Is it an optimal build? Probably not but the build was extremely competent to get through the game so much so I don't even consider Dark Souls to be a hard game.

 

[Church185]

And a 1st time player is going to know that or even look that up? The TC probably hasn't even played Demon's Souls as they appear to be on Xbox. I was just giving the TC a solid template to go by, nothing else. Plus, someone in the thread told them not to get the master key. I only played through the game once and my Dex and Faith build worked out just fine while giving me many options as well. Is it an optimal build? Probably not but the build was extremely competent to get through the game so much so I don't even consider Dark Souls to be a hard game.

Who said anything about Demon's Souls? How is that relevant to building a character in Dark Souls?

It's fine if you want to take the time to level all of those stats, but some people don't like to farm souls. By sticking to one damaging stat the game becomes much more simple to understand and streamlined for a beginning players. I also highly disagree with the notion that the OP should skip the master key. It is the only useful starting gift and encourages exploration.

 

[Drizzitdude]

- The important thing to do when exploring is to keep your shield up and take it slow your first time through an area, keep yourself medium-light weight so you can roll effectively.

- Do not consume boss or fire keeper souls, boss souls can be used to create unique weapons and firekeeper souls can be used to a perm estus flask upgrade.

- I completely recommend going down a magic path, there is no reason not to dabble in spells, miracles are a great way of providing overall utility to your character for pve contenet and sorcery is more pvp and burst focused. Pyromancy is something you should always learn, because unlike other spell forms it does not scale off any certain stat, but rather just the level of your pyromancy flame (the 'wand' for pyromancies)meaning you can put the points you would have to spend on intellect or faith (for sorceries and miracles respectively) in to more meaningful stats

- Always improve endurance and Vitality, two most important stats as vitality will increase you overall health and endurance gives you more stamina and carry weight

- Never level a stat past 40, after reaching level 40 in a stat the diminishing returns hit stupid levels and 40 is the highest you will ever need for most items and spells, note that after level 40 in endurance, your stamina will no longer increase at all.

- ALWAYS upgrade your weapon, if you want a good starting weapon for beginners I recommend spears and longswords as they are easy to use, put out respectable damage and are able to be used with a shield (with the added benefit of longswords being able to both slash and thrust)

- Learn to parry and riposte, back stabs can only get you through so much of the game. By parrying an attack just before it hits you it will leave you opponent open to a powerful counterattack, think of it like a a backstab from the front.

- Skeletons are assholes, when you first go into the crypts you will find that enemies you defeat there will regenerate after being killed, normally you can only prevent this from happening by hunting down the necromancers chilling around the area, but if you have a weapon with a divine enchantment it will also keep them down.

- If you can help it, always dodge magical attacks, most shield have very little in the way of magical protection, so don't try to block it.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

And a 1st time player is going to know that or even look that up? The TC probably hasn't even played Demon's Souls as they appear to be on Xbox. I was just giving the TC a solid template to go by, nothing else. Plus, someone in the thread told them not to get the master key. I only played through the game once and my Dex and Faith build worked out just fine while giving me many options as well. Is it an optimal build? Probably not but the build was extremely competent to get through the game so much so I don't even consider Dark Souls to be a hard game.

Who said anything about Demon's Souls? How is that relevant to building a character in Dark Souls?

It's fine if you want to take the time to level all of those stats, but some people don't like to farm souls. By sticking to one damaging stat the game becomes much more simple to understand and streamlined for a beginning players. I also highly disagree with the notion that the OP should skip the master key. It is the only useful starting gift and encourages exploration.

I didn't play Demon's Souls, but I'm just guessing if you played Demon's Souls, the mechanics and everything about Dark Souls will be much easier and quicker to grasp. It seems like the TC is brand new to the series.

I didn't go out of my way to level any of my stats. I played through every dungeon and I got a full experience of the game. It doesn't require any farming or grinding to level one more stat if you want. What if the TC wants to just have a straight forward sword or katana and have some magic as well? That's what I wanted. It's like you want the TC to make a perfectly optimal build on their first character, which just isn't going to happen because he/she doesn't even know what they want at this point. They will probably want something different after they play through the game than what they want now. All I was trying to do with my post was make the TC make some basic decisions before playing and then use a general template to go by so they have several options open to them.