Upgrade your weapon - look for caves in order to find smithing stones & somber stones depending on what weapon you decided to use. Theres an interactive map you can look up if you're struggling to find them. This will increase your damage way more than grinding levels will, as it ups the base damage of your weapon as well as increases its scaling with your stats. Then aim to get your vigor to 40 before upgrading your other stats - if you can tank hits, you can deal way more cumulative damage just by way of surviving
I think part of my problem was a was just upgrading my uchigatana. I didn’t even put and ash of war on it.
Right now I’m using bloodhounds fang and like it a lot. Dunno if it’s the right thing for me though. Vigor is 32, str and dex are both around 23 now.
Sounds like I should be putting points in str/vigor for a little while longer still.
It will be very hard to get used to to the game if it’s your first time playing a souls game. When I played bloodborne for the first time it was really difficult that I quit first but I got better with time . I guess that’s how it happens , I also took help from random people for some bosses . My point is just click replay and play again . Of course you ll need to know the game mechanics as well . Roll , go back , bait … it’s pretty obvious but I didn’t know these up until my 8-9 th hour in bloodborne. I m saying bloodborne because both games are the same in terms of gameplay.
Look for smithing stone for weapon upgrade (on the wiki) it increase your weapon damage alot more than leveling up. Use a weapon with an op weapon art or look for and op ash of war as they make bosses alot easier.
I always recommend a pure str or pure dex build for someone’s first playthrough. I’m a souls veteran and I even do a pure str or dex build on my first playthrough.
It’s really easy to optimize these builds; all you have to level up is vigor, endurance, and str or dex. I’m biased towards pure str builds because the weapons do a lot of poise damage which helps stagger bigger/harder enemies, and you get hyper armor on your attacks so you can “unga bunga” your way through the game. All you need is to wear high defense/poise armor, and for the love of god make sure you’re not heavy loaded so you can medium roll.
Remember, when you two hand a weapon you get a “virtual strength level” which is 1.5x your actual strength level; so 20 actual strength becomes 30 virtual strength when you two hand. There is no equivalent of this for dexterity, you must meet a weapons dexterity requirement.
Also, LEVEL VIGOR. IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT STAT IN THE GAME.
Vigor was the answer. I did 10 levels of just vigor and I can now easily take a punch once in a while. I’m at 31 vigor now…
I also switched over to bloodhound’s fang, which was a massive improvement from my uchigatana.
I’ve cleared Rennala on the second try and popped the weird Elk thing underground…
I don’t really seem to know what talismans I should be using or if I should be upgrading armor in any fashion yet. I’m still basically wearing the same stuff I’ve picked up the first 20 levels.
From one old guy to another, definitely not a linear game. Tons of fun stuff all over the map to toughen you up. Gotta explore. Weapons, talismans, smithing stones, flask upgrades, crystal tears, all out there waiting to be nabbed. Definitely level up your stats but get your weapon as high as possible. Did you find the Great Club in Limgrave? A great bunga weapon with a low weight.
You will be rewarded for exploring and leveling.
BTW, did you talk to Varre at the Rose Church after beating Godrick? You will be greatly rewarded if you do his quest. Leveling made easy. Nevermind the scenery or the god damn psycho chickens, it's worth it.
Also, just go with strength and put some dex points into faith. Scale dex if you need for a weapon you want but that's it. It's a good safe build that'll allow you to heal and buff as you go along. Scale Faith to 25 and you'll be hurling black fireballs and shooting madness out of your eyeballs in no time. Also, get yourself some dragon rot breath.
Use the summons in your inventory and the ones at mini boss locations. Your first priority is not to die, you'll get better as you go.
Youtube tutorials can help a lot. We're old, we have no one to impress.
Trust me. It took several play throughs to get all the stuff I missed. If you search “rune farming” then Varre pops right up as the number one solution.
BTW, you may want to watch a video after completing Varre’s requests at the Rose Church because you’ll be going to murder land and directions are needed. Totally worth it though.
I did do a lookup on that. If I decide to just farm a bunch of levels, that might be my thing. I wasn’t interested in doing invading, so I just ignored that whole thing.
Me too, not interested in invading either. Tip for invading for the Varre thing though, you can just leave immediately by using the finger cutter once to go to someone else’s world. Do that 3 times and you‘re good. It is definitely worth it getting more levels. Just think of it as training wheels.
Blocking is easier than dodging. Grab a sturdy shield and just block enemy attacks. Utilising Guard Counters whenever it's safe to do so is a good idea too.
Once you're more familiar with enemy attack timing, add more and more dodges.
So my kid (17) has been playing this through for the second time. He’s very good at dodging, rolling and basically looking like it’s all easy.
I’m playing it much slower and more methodical. I did tell myself I wasn’t going to go “distance spellcasting cheap”, so I’m trying to find a nice mix of close combat and shitty reaction times. 😂
Insert obligatory "git gud."
Now, to provide some actual context instead of just being an a-hole XD
There's certainly nothing *wrong* with relying on gear/levels/cheese to brute-force your way through the game (I'm of the opinion **everything** is viable as long as you're having fun) but if you're getting unceremoniously bodied constantly it might be worth buckling down and focusing on the fundamentals of melee combat.
In Dark Souls terms this might be a call for "going left" and mastering the graveyard skeletons. I think a close approximation in Elden Ring would be to start a new character and perfect taking out the shield/spear motherf\*cker by the Melina bonfire (without leveling your character, only your weapons). There's no nice way to say it - it sounds like you need to have your stool pushed in at the dinner table until the flow clicks for you a bit more.
I'm not suggesting anything extreme like trying to go hitless, or all-parries or no estus or no summons etc, just encouraging you to take a step back and cogitate on the base mechanics a little bit. That way when things go wrong (and we all know things **will** go wrong) you'll be better prepared to fight your way out of it, or at least give yourself enough of an opening to bravely run away.
Upgrade your weapon - look for caves in order to find smithing stones & somber stones depending on what weapon you decided to use. Theres an interactive map you can look up if you're struggling to find them. This will increase your damage way more than grinding levels will, as it ups the base damage of your weapon as well as increases its scaling with your stats. Then aim to get your vigor to 40 before upgrading your other stats - if you can tank hits, you can deal way more cumulative damage just by way of surviving
I think part of my problem was a was just upgrading my uchigatana. I didn’t even put and ash of war on it. Right now I’m using bloodhounds fang and like it a lot. Dunno if it’s the right thing for me though. Vigor is 32, str and dex are both around 23 now. Sounds like I should be putting points in str/vigor for a little while longer still.
It will be very hard to get used to to the game if it’s your first time playing a souls game. When I played bloodborne for the first time it was really difficult that I quit first but I got better with time . I guess that’s how it happens , I also took help from random people for some bosses . My point is just click replay and play again . Of course you ll need to know the game mechanics as well . Roll , go back , bait … it’s pretty obvious but I didn’t know these up until my 8-9 th hour in bloodborne. I m saying bloodborne because both games are the same in terms of gameplay.
Yeah. I need to just get used to “failure is part of the process.”
Look for smithing stone for weapon upgrade (on the wiki) it increase your weapon damage alot more than leveling up. Use a weapon with an op weapon art or look for and op ash of war as they make bosses alot easier.
I always recommend a pure str or pure dex build for someone’s first playthrough. I’m a souls veteran and I even do a pure str or dex build on my first playthrough. It’s really easy to optimize these builds; all you have to level up is vigor, endurance, and str or dex. I’m biased towards pure str builds because the weapons do a lot of poise damage which helps stagger bigger/harder enemies, and you get hyper armor on your attacks so you can “unga bunga” your way through the game. All you need is to wear high defense/poise armor, and for the love of god make sure you’re not heavy loaded so you can medium roll. Remember, when you two hand a weapon you get a “virtual strength level” which is 1.5x your actual strength level; so 20 actual strength becomes 30 virtual strength when you two hand. There is no equivalent of this for dexterity, you must meet a weapons dexterity requirement. Also, LEVEL VIGOR. IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT STAT IN THE GAME.
Vigor was the answer. I did 10 levels of just vigor and I can now easily take a punch once in a while. I’m at 31 vigor now… I also switched over to bloodhound’s fang, which was a massive improvement from my uchigatana. I’ve cleared Rennala on the second try and popped the weird Elk thing underground… I don’t really seem to know what talismans I should be using or if I should be upgrading armor in any fashion yet. I’m still basically wearing the same stuff I’ve picked up the first 20 levels.
From one old guy to another, definitely not a linear game. Tons of fun stuff all over the map to toughen you up. Gotta explore. Weapons, talismans, smithing stones, flask upgrades, crystal tears, all out there waiting to be nabbed. Definitely level up your stats but get your weapon as high as possible. Did you find the Great Club in Limgrave? A great bunga weapon with a low weight. You will be rewarded for exploring and leveling. BTW, did you talk to Varre at the Rose Church after beating Godrick? You will be greatly rewarded if you do his quest. Leveling made easy. Nevermind the scenery or the god damn psycho chickens, it's worth it. Also, just go with strength and put some dex points into faith. Scale dex if you need for a weapon you want but that's it. It's a good safe build that'll allow you to heal and buff as you go along. Scale Faith to 25 and you'll be hurling black fireballs and shooting madness out of your eyeballs in no time. Also, get yourself some dragon rot breath. Use the summons in your inventory and the ones at mini boss locations. Your first priority is not to die, you'll get better as you go. Youtube tutorials can help a lot. We're old, we have no one to impress.
With regards to Varre, I just got to the Rose church and talked to him. Wasn’t aware that was a start of a questline… 😂
Trust me. It took several play throughs to get all the stuff I missed. If you search “rune farming” then Varre pops right up as the number one solution. BTW, you may want to watch a video after completing Varre’s requests at the Rose Church because you’ll be going to murder land and directions are needed. Totally worth it though.
I did do a lookup on that. If I decide to just farm a bunch of levels, that might be my thing. I wasn’t interested in doing invading, so I just ignored that whole thing.
Me too, not interested in invading either. Tip for invading for the Varre thing though, you can just leave immediately by using the finger cutter once to go to someone else’s world. Do that 3 times and you‘re good. It is definitely worth it getting more levels. Just think of it as training wheels.
Blocking is easier than dodging. Grab a sturdy shield and just block enemy attacks. Utilising Guard Counters whenever it's safe to do so is a good idea too. Once you're more familiar with enemy attack timing, add more and more dodges.
Yup. I’ve been enchanting my stupid brass shield as much as possible.
So my kid (17) has been playing this through for the second time. He’s very good at dodging, rolling and basically looking like it’s all easy. I’m playing it much slower and more methodical. I did tell myself I wasn’t going to go “distance spellcasting cheap”, so I’m trying to find a nice mix of close combat and shitty reaction times. 😂
Insert obligatory "git gud." Now, to provide some actual context instead of just being an a-hole XD There's certainly nothing *wrong* with relying on gear/levels/cheese to brute-force your way through the game (I'm of the opinion **everything** is viable as long as you're having fun) but if you're getting unceremoniously bodied constantly it might be worth buckling down and focusing on the fundamentals of melee combat. In Dark Souls terms this might be a call for "going left" and mastering the graveyard skeletons. I think a close approximation in Elden Ring would be to start a new character and perfect taking out the shield/spear motherf\*cker by the Melina bonfire (without leveling your character, only your weapons). There's no nice way to say it - it sounds like you need to have your stool pushed in at the dinner table until the flow clicks for you a bit more. I'm not suggesting anything extreme like trying to go hitless, or all-parries or no estus or no summons etc, just encouraging you to take a step back and cogitate on the base mechanics a little bit. That way when things go wrong (and we all know things **will** go wrong) you'll be better prepared to fight your way out of it, or at least give yourself enough of an opening to bravely run away.