Dark Souls is one of the toughest games you’re ever likely to play. But with the guidance we provide life in this hell hole may be a little easier to manage. Check out these beginner tips.
Combat
Observe your enemies – Before you rush in like an idiot, take some time to examine your opponent. Learn his attacks, the tells for those attacks, and the strength of them. See how fast he is, and how aggressively he will push. Look at his weapon and determine if you can block or should focus on dodging. Look for openings that they provide after or before attacks. Only after thoroughly examining your opponent do you move in to strike.
Use a shield - Let me repeat. Use a shield. For the love of God use a shield. Once you have the game down, you can disobey this rule, but the range from novice up to intermediate-advanced is dominated by shields, and even the experts use them religiously. If you’re going into a fight, keep it raised. You will be quite surprised how much even the lowliest enemy can harm you if he gets in an unblocked strike. Do keep in mind, however, that you cannot block everything, and you need to lower it to regain stamina at any reasonable rate. There is an art to keeping it down and only raising it when attacked. But when in doubt, shield.
Don’t JUST use a shield - Yeah, that’s right. The idea here is that a number of foes will have unblockable attacks. Enemies wielding large weapons like greatswords and hammers will be harder to block, and many enemies have unblockable grapple attacks that are devastating. The moral then, is this: if it can’t be blocked, dodge. Dodging is a very useful skill that you ought to hone, else you will face certain death from many enemies in the game. On a final note though, if you KNOW you should dodge, but realize it’s too late, block anyway. It’s better than nothing.
Don’t pick fights you know you can’t win - There will be areas you go that will be too tough. Don’t try and take them on too early, and if you see a foe who is particularly hard for the area you’re in, wait. Only when you can be certain you have a chance, should you engage.
Pick a build and stick to it – Jack of all trades, master of none. Don’t do this. It’s okay and I would even recommend fleshing your expertise out to include a good mix of magic and melee, but a 50-50 split will be too tough for a beginner. If you’re just starting, focus on melee and throw a bit of magic in when it helps but don’t go overboard, and don’t try and shift focus to it (unless that’s your focus to begin with).
Upgrade your stuff -The drake sword (explained in the proper section below) is great for the early game, but quickly becomes useless as time goes on. Upgrade your weapons so that you have something that will work for the end-game. Keep in mind certain upgrade paths will mess with the scaling (see below for what scaling is).
Pay attention to stat scaling – Weapons will scale with certain attributes, such as DEX or INT. Pay attention to this, and pick a weapon that scales with the kind of build you’re doing. Don’t go all DEX and use a hammer. Also, this is the reason the drake sword sucks so much in the end-game. It scales with nothing.
Be wary of equip load – Armor is fine, but keep your equip load under the max or you won’t be able to move. I feel that in many cases less is more, and that you should avoid weight above even 50% unless your build centers around being a tank. If you really want to wear a set, but cant get it under your equip load, theres a stat for that. See endurance.
So. That’s it. Follow these rules and you will have a vastly easier time. There are fancier tactics like parry and riposte, but ignore these for the most part unless they are genuinely better in some situations than the standard block and attack combo.
Gameplay
Kindle your fires – Every time you defeat a boss or mini-boss, you get a little bit of humanity, a substance you can use to ‘kindle’ your bonfires. When you do this, the number of healing potions ‘Estus Flasks’ you get is increased by 5. Don’t waste humanity and do this to every fire, but if you need that extra juice, then don’t be afraid to spend that humanity.
Upgrade your flasks – It’s rather unclear what the ‘fire-keeper soul’ does if unexplained. It does this: it upgrades your Estus flasks so they heal more per swig. The guide will let you know when and where the fire-keeper souls can be found.
Read hints – If you’re connected to XBL or PSN, people will leave hints all over. Read them if you can, as they tell you about upcoming ambushes, items, and strategies. You can also leave hints by using an orange soapstone, which I will describe in greater detail when you can get it. Also keep in mind that if you are human, you can summon other players to help with the boss of an area. You can do this while offline too, as the NPC’s are actually fairly helpful.
Choose the Master Key - When you make your character, select the Master Key as your gift. Please. Please please. You can get everything else through the course of the game, but the master key is one of a kind.
Tags: Dark Souls, gameplay
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