This has been sitting on my hard drive for weeks now, figured I might as well post it and get with the live feedback editing. There's still a few placeholders for some images and videos I'd like to eventually insert. Dark Souls: The First Few Hours Attention conservation notice: this guide is meant for players who are brand new to Dark Souls. Much of the the guidance on offer will be supplanted and caveated to hell and back as you gain more experience. However, for purposes of clarity and brevity, I'm keeping it simple. So understand that when I make absolute statements like "You must…" these statements are only absolute insofar as you're learning the game, as you develop as a Dark Souls player you'll learn about the many exceptions these absolute statements have. The Goal Dark Souls is a phenomenally rewarding game. It's also got an enormous potential to frustrate new players. There's no manual to speak of (at least not that I know of), the in-game tutorial is brief and lacking and the same goes for the in-game help. Likewise, in terms of "where should I go now," the game is similarly opaque. This guide will provide an introduction to the various game systems that you'll spend the entire game exploring, as well as some early direction. This guide is not a walkthrough, in terms of providing specifics on where to go and how to kill stuff I'm only going to provide guidance insofar as it pertains to getting a better handle on the game's systems. Assumptions For the purposes of this guide, I'm going to assume that you've completed the (woefully inadequate) tutorial level - the Undead Asylum - and that you're currently hanging out at the fire at Firelink Shrine. If you haven't that's fine! You can probably still get something out of this guide. But the Undead Asylum will at least introduce you to some of the super-basic concepts, as well as get you your starting gear. I am also going to assume you're playing on the PC with an XBox 360 controller. If you're not then you'll have to figure out how to interpret the inputs I give you. I'll refer to the various buttons. For clarity sake: L1 is the left bumper, L2 is the left trigger, and L3 is clicking down on the left thumbstick. Same goes for the right hand inputs, R1, R2, and R3. Finally, I am going to make no assumptions about your starting class or gift. This means that I won't be mentioning a few neat early-game tricks you can pull to get some solid gear. Master-Key specific advice will come later. Credit where credit is due The information in this guide comes largely from the Dark Souls community over at Broken Forum, specifically within the My Souls So Dark sub forum. I've played a grand total of thirty hours of Dark Souls, and I've probably spent almost as much time asking questions of that community. They very patiently offered me detailed answers, which form the bulk of this guide. There are too many names to mention specifically, but understand that for the most part my role here is only as an editor, there the ones who provided the material. A Note on Class Classes in Dark Souls are not like classes in D&D or many other RPGs. They represent only a set of starting statistics and equipment. They'll influence how you experience the very early part of Dark Souls, but after gaining several levels you'll find that one class is pretty much as good as another. It's often suggested that brand new players start with the Pyromancer because Pyromancy is a pretty awesome thing to have access to early in the game (see the appendix on magic if you want to know more) and the starting armor set is pretty good; but it's not at all necessary. Likewise, it's very common to see veterans advising new players to start with the Master Key, because it provides access to some pretty keen loot early on (again, see the appropriate appendix if you're curious). Consider taking that advice, but know that your starting class and your starting gift are not very impactful choices. Start with whatever you like! Prepare to Die This is the most important piece of advice for playing Dark Souls: you're going to die, you're going to die often, and it's OK. In many RPGs, death represents a fail state: all progress is lost and you hope that you haven't forgotten to save recently and inevitably you haven't and now you've got like forty-five minutes of slogging through bullshit to get back to the tough fight that killed you and it sucks so you just turn off the game and go sulk. That's not how death works in Dark Souls. Death is not a fail state, rather, it's an important gameplay mechanic, and in many cases dying is entirely intentional. For example: what we're going to do now. Assuming you're in the Firelink Shrine, we're going to begin your Dark Souls experience with a suicide run. Suicide runs exploit the death mechanic in Dark Souls. When you die, all of your souls and "soft" humanity (an important and somewhat complex thing we'll return to later) remain in a glowing pile on top of your bloodstain wherever you died. If you want them back, your only choice is to fight back through whatever is between the last bonfire and your bloodstain and reclaim them. Note that if you die during this retrieval, your old bloodstain (and souls) are permanently lost and you'll have a new one to collect. On the other hand, any items you've picked up or upgrades you've made will stick with you. Which means that death in the pursuit of items or upgrades is A-OK! In fact there are some areas where you can avoid some very powerful monsters just long enough to get yourself some very powerful early-game gear (see the Master Key section for details). So here's what we're going to do. First - assuming you have some souls - rest at the fire and upgrade some of your stats. Suicide runs usually involve losing your souls, and if you've come through the Asylum you might have a couple thousand. Losing them isn't that big a deal (you will get millions more), but it can't hurt to upgrade stuff. If you're not sure what to upgrade, right now Endurance is always a good choice (I'll explain why later), and so is Vitality. Anyway, after resting, strip off your armor. Where we're going it's not going to help you, and being naked will make you potentially quite a bit faster. To strip off your armor, just go into the equipment screen, highlight each piece of equipment, and hit the X button. Strictly speaking you don't have to strip off all of it, just enough to get you below 25% of your Equip. Load, but since I haven't talked to you about Equip. Load yet and I'm probably already boring you with a wall of text, we'll just say go ahead and strip it all off. Now, from the campfire in Firelink Shrine head toward the watery area (walk around a little bit and you'll find it). Off to the left of this reflecting pool you'll find an exit that leads out toward a graveyard. This graveyard is full of skeletons who will kick the ever-loving crap out of you. However, these skeletons are currently laying around as piles of bones and will take a few moments to form up before they start whacking you. This suicide run will exploit that delay, allowing you to get past them and score some cool gear. Speaking of cool gear: the gear itself (along with all manner of other loot) is found as glowing white things lying around. Whenever you see a glowing white ball, that's an item you can pick up. Walk near it, make sure your shield is down, and hit the A button to pick it up. You actually have to hit A twice; the first time you hit it picks up the item and displays a description on the screen, the second dismisses that description. This is a fiddly bit of UI but it's important, especially if you want to pick up multiple items and have a bunch of enemies breathing down your neck! So the idea is going to be simple: we're going to sprint through the graveyard (holding down the B button will make you sprint), running past all enemies, in an attempt to get as much of those glowing white things as we can. If anything catches up with you and tries to attack, roll away by tapping the B button while pushing the control stick away from them. If you're very lucky you can get everything. If not don't worry, when you die (and you will) you'll be back at the bonfire at Firelink Shrine. You can just go back into the graveyard and get the stuff you missed, or (if you're satisfied) you can move on. From the graveyard, you can get the following: - Winged Spear (a nice weapon, if spears are your thing) - A Zweihander (another nice weapon; this time a giant sword) - A Caduceus Round Shield (Perhaps a nice shield upgrade, depending on your starting class) - Some Binoculars (Not as handy as you might think, but later on you can use it to line up long-range shots with various ranged weapons) There's some other handy stuff stashed in and around Firelink Shrine, go ahead and do some exploring if you're up for it. But don't worry if you don't get everything; none of it is absolutely necessary. Re-equip your armor, and we'll move on, and congratulations on your first suicide run! Before we move on toward the Undead Burg, it's time to learn some basics about Dark Souls statistics.
Stats: The Missing Manual The in-game help does a pretty good job of going over the basics. However, there are some areas that it doesn't do a very good job of explaining. I'm going to go over four of them now: equipment load, poise, stability, and stat requirements. Go ahead and pull up your character status. [IMG STATUS SCREEN]. Toward the middle of this screen you'll see a stat called Equip. Load, expressed as two numbers. The first number is how much you're currently carrying, the latter is your maximum. The maximum is based on your endurance; increasing endurance will allow you to equip more stuff (up to a point). All weapons and armor (but not items) that you equip will encumber you. Like many RPGs, Dark Souls includes thresholds of encumbrance that will affect your performance: at 25% of your max load, and 50%. Specifically, at 25% and below you will move quickly, roll with great agility, actions will drain less stamina (more on stamina later), and you'll recover stamina more rapidly. From 25% to 50% you'll move a bit more slowly, your rolls will be more sluggish, actions will cost more stamina, and you'll recover more slowly. At 50% on up you will be a walking target; you move very slowly, your rolls send you face-first onto the floor, and you'll take forever to recover. There are also some intermediate values within these ranges, but for the time being you should just focus on the 25% and 50% thresholds, which is where the biggest changes occur. Figuring out how much equipment to carry ends up being the first of many tradeoffs you will make in Dark Souls. Heavier weapons often have neat additional abilities such as AOE attacks. Plus they look cool. Damage, on the other hand, ends up being a function of a lot more than raw weapon size. Heavier armor will cause you to take less damage when hit, and heavier shields will often perform better. However, all of this heavy equipment will add to your encumbrance, causing you to move more slowly. Maneuverability is a very important of combat in Dark Souls. I really can't tell you what the right thing is, you'll have to experiment for yourself. I'd suggest staying at or 25% for now because - frankly - you're so weak that you're going to die in a few hits regardless of how much armor you wear. Focus on equipping a good weapon and shield, and don't worry about the rest. But if you really have a thing for being a dude in clanking armor, you can go up to 50%. Just be aware that it might make your life more difficult in some of the battles to come. The next stat on your status sheet to pay attention to is poise. It's over at the top of the right column. Poise is a stat that comes from armor, and it determines how likely you are to be interrupted when hit. For example, the starting Pyromancer armor has absolutely no poise, which means the Pyromancer is very vulnerable to being interrupted. If the Pyromancer takes damage while being hit, he's almost certain to be interrupted, sent into a stagger animation, and lose that action. On the other hand, my Pyromancer has a ring equipped that gives him +40 poise, which allows him to swing his weapon all day while taking modest amounts of damage. It's very much something to keep in mind when considering your armor choices. Your chances of being interrupted are going to be a function of your poise and the type of weapon that's hitting you (certain weapons will disrupt your poise more than others), which (like so much in Dark Souls) ends up turning into a rather complicated subject. Suffice to say that for now, all things being equal, more poise is better. There are two other important piece of information, but in order to discuss it we've got to back out of the status screen and head over to the item screen (it's that little bag icon). While on the item screen, head on over to weapons and shields. This is a good place to mention something: unlike many RPGs, the game world is still very much active while you're in your inventory, so you need to be careful about when you access it, lest some Hollow attack you while you're busy fiddling. Scroll over to one of your shields, and hit X. Notice that it brings up much more detailed information about the shield? Hit X again, and now you're looking at a description of the shield. You can view a description for every item in your inventory, and much of the lore of Dark Souls is revealed in item descriptions. Anyway, hit X as many times as it takes for you to get back to the detailed item description. Notice that there is a stat called Stability on the bottom of the upper right set of stats? Stability is a shield-specific stat that is very important. Unlike the other stats in this area (which measure how much of each type of damage your shield will absorb), stability determines how much stamina you lose when you block (remember when I said every action takes stamina?). For example, the Pyromancer's starting shield - the Cracked Round Shield - has a stability of 30, which is pretty dreadful. The Hollow Soldier's Shield, which I picked up somewhere along the line, has a stability of 52. The shield I currently run around with - a Tower Kite Shield +5 - has a stability of 63. The largest shields in the game - which are also rather heavy - have stability reaching into the 80s when fully upgraded. In general, most decent shields will block 100% physical damage; what differentiates them is their ability to block elemental and magic damage and - more importantly - their stability. In general, you want a stability that's at least in the 50s, less than that and you're going to get knocked around. Up in the 60s is probably the bare minimum to block boss attacks. When you get up into the 70s and 80s, things get pretty ridiculous pretty quickly, as you'll be able to hide behind your shield and weather a ton of incoming damage without missing a beat. OK, final thing: almost every piece of equipment you might care to equip requires you to meet certain stat requirements. Go ahead and use the dpad to scroll over to one of the weapons you picked up in the graveyard, either the Winged Spear or the Zweihander. Note that at the bottom of the middle column is a group of stats called "ReqParam." These are the minimum stats required to equip the weapon. Each icon corresponds to one of your character's attributes: the flexing bicep is strength, the hand is dexterity, the hing that looks like a bullet is intelligence, and the starburst is faith. The Zweihander requires 24 strength and 10 dexterity to wield, while the winged spear requires 13 strength and 15 dexterity. Earlier, when I said you should only consider increasing stats to meet the minimum requirements to wield a weapon? This is what I was talking about. You can equip a weapon for which you don't meet the stat requirements, but your attacks will be quite ineffective and will drain your stamina like nobody's business. So don't do it. There's a lot more going on in these screens, but I'm already boring you with another wall of text. Sorry about that. Get ready, because it's time to fight! Combat: The Very Basics: Prepare to Die (again) Dark Souls has one of the most detailed combat systems of any game ever made. The wide variety of weapons (each having a unique set of attacks), armor choices, magic, shields, enemies, and environments means that you're going to face a bewildering array of tactical options in every encounter. This will almost certainly overwhelm you! That's OK, it's expected. Much of the remainder of this guide is going to try and bring some clarity to the game's combat mechanics. This is not a comprehensive combat guide! Rather, it's a basic introduction to your tactical options, along with some general advice as to how you might deploy them. Right, enough of that. Let's go kill something! From the bonfire back at the bonfire in Firelink locate a nearby well with a corpse draped over it (if you haven't gotten it yet, the corpse has some humanity on it. Humanity is very valuable, and it's something we're going to discuss later in this guide. Just a little ways beyond the well is a staircase that heads up alongside a cliff. You're going to walk up this staircase, and fight some enemies. For now, here are the only things I want you to focus on as you fight them: 1) Keep your shield up (hold L1). 2) Approach slowly; try to lure the enemies to you one at a time. If you're successful, back up and fight the one guy you lured to you. If you end up with multiple guys it's OK. 2) Lock on to enemies by pressing R3. Locking on to enemies allows you to circle around them, and will keep you facing them (so your shield will take the hits). 3) Let enemies hit your shield. When they do you'll notice they (hopefully) stagger backwards. At this point, attack them by tapping the R1 button. Probably you are going to die on this staircase. Get used to it, and don't sweat it! We're not really trying to progress right now, so much as give you a feel for the very basic rhythm of combat while you're in a relatively controlled environment. Focus on the basics: shield up, locked on target, counter-attack when the enemy staggers from hitting your shield. If you're feeling comfortable with that you can try throwing in some rolls (tap B while pressing the left thumbstick in the direction you want to roll), a well-timed roll will avoid an enemy's attack. Be careful not to roll off a cliff, though! Also note the different attacks the enemies throw your way: sometimes it's a strong attack with a big long windup, other times it's a faster attack, and other times it's multiple attacks in quick succession. As you play Dark Souls you're going to fight each enemy hundreds of times; you will learn how to predict their attacks and how deal with each one. You'll learn how to exploit their attack patterns to hit them with well timed parries that set them up for devastating ripostes (often giving you a one-shot kill), or you'll learn to maneuver behind them for a critical backstab. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now, focus on the basics: block, counter attack. While you're doing that, also try and pay attention to where the enemies are and how to lure them out. If you do, you'll notice that you've got the potential to fight three enemies simultaneously at the top of the stairs, and to make matters worse one of them throws firebombs. Keep your wits about you, be patient, and try to lure them out as much as you can. If you're having trouble, you can watch this video, wherein I take a brand new character up the stairs. Notice how (for the most part) I'm careful to try and lure them out one at a time, and how I wait until they've bounced an attack off my shield before I counter attack. Also notice that she's got a pretty sweet looking shield, that's one of the benefits of starting with the Master Key. [VIDEO HERE] At this point, I'm going to cut you loose for a while. Eventually you're going to get up that hill, where you'll enter an aqueduct. On the way up there are some items lying around that you can grab; the one below the aqueduct can be a little tricky but give it a shot if you're feeling agile. When you're done gathering items, hop into the aqueduct. Off to the left is a rat; you can try and kill it but beware: its bite is poisonous, and a couple of bites will probably kill you. To the right and down a short way is the entrance to the Undead Burg. In the Burg you're going to face more Hollow Ones, including several fights against multiple opponents (though you can still try to get them to engage you solo). You'll encounter more guys with firebombs, and a crossbowman. If you follow the path through the Burg it will pretty much take you to straight to the bonfire. However I encourage you to do some exploring! In particular, try smashing the various barrels and whatnot that you come across; you might just open up a path to some additional treasure. Remember to proceed cautiously, and keep your shield up to defend against sneak attacks. Eventually you'll arrive at the bonfire, and that's where we'll pick up. Bonfires: Where you go when you die Interact with the bonfire; go ahead and light it. Bonfires serve several very important roles in Dark Souls. Here are the basics: 1) Resting at a bonfire restores your health and removes negative status effects. It will also respawn everything you've killed (with some exceptions). 2) Resting at bonfires will also refill your Estus Flask. 3) While at a bonfire, you can level up. 4) While at a bonfire, you can change your spell selection (called "attuning"), if you're a spell caster. 5) When you die, you will return to the last bonfire you rested at. This is very important, and is something that deserves talking about. So I'm going to talk about it here. Dark Souls is very much a game of exploration. You've got this rather detailed world that you're moving around in, killing stuff along the way. When you enter a new area your first goal is to find the bonfire, which might even take a few deaths (as you learn about the new challenges you're facing). Eventually you'll find the bonfire and start venturing out from it, exploring your surroundings. As you get more familiar with the area you'll venture out further and further, until you find either the next bonfire, or a boss. Bonfires are very much the only safe place in this world, and your progress through Dark Souls will be measured in terms of what bonfires you have reached. There are two other very important things that can happen at bonfires: you can Reverse Hollowing, and you can Kindle them. In Dark Souls, you are Hollow: an undead creature, doomed to an endless future of madness (kind of like all those rotted corpses we've been killing). When you Reverse Hollowing you - temporarily - become human again. Once human, you can do a few things you couldn't do before. One of them is Kindling the bonfire. A kindled bonfire will restore your Estus Flask up to 10 swigs (an unkindled bonfire will restore only 5). Remember when I said bonfires are your base of exploration? The capacity of your Estus Flask very much determines how far out you can explore; eventually you will take damage, heal it with the Estus, and slowly you'll run out of Estus and have to return to your bonfire). Being human has some other advantages (and one notable disadvantage), which we'll discuss later. For now, we're going to kindle the bonfire. The number in the upper left corner next to your health and stamina bar represents how much humanity you have. Humanity is acquired in a variety of ways, and if you're lucky that number may not read double-zero. Don't worry if it does, because by now you should have picked up a couple of items called (confusingly) Humanity. I'm really confident of this, because that corpse over the well in Firelink Shrine had three of them. Anyway, go into your inventory and use one or two humanity; however much it takes to get that counter up to two. Then go ahead and Reverse Hollowing, then Kindle the bonfire. Congratulations! With the Undead Burg bonfire kindled you've taken your first big step in exploring the world of Lordran! This bonfire is going to be your base of operations for some time to come.
Combat: Advanced Basics: Prepare to Die (again, and again, and again…) By now, you should be comfortable with the basic flow of combat. You know how to target your enemies so that you're always facing them with your shield up, ready for their attack. You've learned how to block their attacks with your shield, and then counter attack. You're beginning to be able to identify what attacks are coming, and when it will be safe to counter attack. Hopefully you've even begun to become comfortable with moving while fighting, maneuvering to keep your enemies in front of you, and to ensure that you're dodging any incoming missile fire. Those are the very basics of Dark Souls combat, and now that you're comfortable with them it's time to add a few new tricks to your repertoire. But first, I want to discuss what is probably going to be the most important part of every fight you're in for the rest of your Dark Souls career: stamina. You've probably already gotten a bit of an intuition on how this works, but I'm going to go over it explicitly just so you get what's going on. Stamina is that green bar at the top of the screen. You'll notice that when you do anything other than move or cast a spell, it goes down. Notably: blocking attacks with your shield costs stamina. When you do nothing other than walk around, stamina comes back up. If your stamina goes to zero, you will be staggered momentarily and very vulnerable. Against a single enemy this moment of vulnerability probably won't be fatal, but against multiple enemies or a boss? Get ready for a corpse run. This brings us to a very important point with regards to stamina: stamina regenerates much more rapidly when your shield is down. This bears repeating: if your shield is up, your stamina will regenerate very slowly. Combat in Dark Souls is in no small part a game of resource management: you have a finite amount of stamina, and so long as you've still got a bit left in the tank you can do things to avoid damage: rolling out of the way, blocking with your shield. You can also dish out damage via attacks. When your stamina runs low, you are going to have to regenerate, but the act of regenerating - lowering your shield - is going to cause you to be vulnerable. The pace of any extended fight - whether it's against a group of normal enemies, or against a powerful boss - is going to be dictated by this stamina consumption and regeneration cycle. No small amount of boss strategy is going to boil down to finding opportunities to get a respite from incoming attacks so you can regenerate stamina. Speaking of your shield, there are some other important subtleties about having your shield up or down. When your shield is up, your maneuvering will be slightly slower. It's not a lot slower, but it's noticeable and can be important. And while you can launch attacks while your shield is up, these attacks will cost more stamina relative to when they're initiated while your shield is down. Finally, certain weapons will actually allow you to make full attacks while keeping your shield up! Early on in your Dark Souls career it's pretty much OK to keep your shield up at all times; most fights are short enough and/or against enemies that are sufficiently passive that you can disengage easily and lower your shield. However, later on you will find yourself developing cycles of shield raising and lowering, in order to keep your stamina up. Still later you'll begin to learn to only raise your shield to intercept incoming attacks, ensuring that your stamina cup always runneth over! OK, I apologize for the big wall of text without any action. We'll get back to fighting pretty soon, but I just need to cover a few more things. This stuff was gone over in the tutorial, but it bears repeating. First, your weapons havetwo basic attacks. The first is the R1 attack. In general, the R1 attack is going to be your bread and butter. But depending on circumstances and your weapon, you may find yourself using the R2 attack. The R2 attack may be a powerful sweeping attack capable of hitting several enemies at once (or capable of hitting a single boss multiple times). Or it might be a ferocious overhand smash that delivers a horrific amount of damage to a single enemy. It might even be imbued with some sort of power that gives you an AOE effect. As you play Dark Souls you'll get a feel for the different types of attacks each weapon offers. I don't know what you've got equipped now, but while you're in the bonfire room (and thus relatively safe) try a couple of R2 attacks. Pay attention to the arc your weapon takes, and be aware of it as an option. The next thing to consider is wielding a weapon with two hands. All weapons - regardless of how ridiculously huge they may seem (and some of them are grotesque) - can be wielded in one or two hands; you switch between the two modes by pressing the Y button. Wielding a weapon in two hands will generally cause you to do more damage per attack and open up new attack patterns, but you will forego the advantage of a shield. While you can try and block with a weapon, you won't intercept much incoming damage. When you wield a weapon two-handed you will rely on maneuvering and rolls for your defense, punishing your vulnerable enemies with devastating attacks. In general you'll go through most of the game with your weapon in your right hand, but be aware that using a weapon two-handed is always an option, and in some circumstances (e.g., against a boss whose attacks cannot possibly be blocked) may be preferable. Now that you've become comfortable with the attack patterns of enemies in the Undead Burg, go ahead and try wielding your weapon two-handed whenever you find yourself in a one-on-one situation. You'll need to be a bit light on your feet, but you'll find those fights ending much more rapidly. Finally, there are two special combat moves that you will find extremely useful: the backstab, and the riposte. Both are situational, and both will deliver absolutely massive amounts of damage. In order to execute a backstab, you need to maneuver so you are behind your enemy, and then launch an R1 attack. You also need to launch the attack with your shield down, so let up off of that L1 button You'll know when you do it; you'll enter a special animation. In addition to doing horrific things to your enemy, you're also totally invulnerable during the animation. That's never a bad thing! There are a lot of subtleties to backstabbing that I'm not going into; for more information on it check out this video. NOTE: the video says you should not lock onto a target. Backstabs are perfectly possible to execute while locked on; not locking on merely makes it a bit easier to maneuver behind an opponent for the attack. Personally I remain locked on and I have no problems executing the backstab. The backstab is a very powerful technique that will serve you well against many enemies in the game, make sure to practice it as much as possible when in the (relatively) safe environs of the Undead Burg. The riposte is an even more devastating attack than the backstab, but it's also more difficult to pull off. In order to riposte, you first need to parry: with a shield equipped, you'll hit L2 as an enemy attacks, and if your timing is right (and the timing is very fiddly), you will successfully parry. You'll know because you will hear a sound effect and see your opponent stagger backward. Follow immediately with an R1 attack and you will perform a riposte, the most devastating basic attack in the game. Of course, if you mistime the parry you are going to take the brunt of your opponent's attack, so be careful! Parrying is a difficult skill to master but one that will serve you as well as backstab; a good video to start with can be found here. There is one final special attack you should be aware of at this point: the kick. Kicking is situationally useful, but it's nonetheless an important weapon in your arsenal. You perform a kick by pressing forward on the left thumbstick while simultaneously pressing the R1 button. Go ahead and try this now, while you're safe in the bonfire room. Probably you're just going to launch a normal attack. That's OK, the timing of kick is - frankly - more than a little fiddly; I've got close to 30 hours put into Dark Souls and I still cannot kick with more than about 66% reliability. Keep trying a few times, see if you can't get one or two off so you at least know what it looks like. Kicks are mainly useful against human-sized opponents. If they're cowering behind a shield (which you'll see soon) it breaks their defense, opening them to your attack. And if they're standing at a ledge, well, they won't be for very long. Please note: some weapons - notably curved swords and thrusting swords - do not have a kick attack. If you have one of these equipped (such as he Wanderer's starting scimitar), do not drive yourself crazy trying to kick. You cannot! In case you're wondering: there is a corresponding attack for the R2 button. Pressing forward+R2 will execute a leaping attack, which closes distance and does some healthy damage. Frankly I hardly ever use this attack; I can't execute it reliably and I find it leaves me too open. Occasionally I'll do it just to look cool against a single enemy, but that's about it. OK, enough of the wall of text. Go back out into the Undead Burg, and kill some enemies. Stick to the areas you've cleared so far and try to arrange some one-on-one fights. When you get your enemies one-on-one, try doing a backstab (hint: lowering your shield allows you to move faster, which in turn will let you circle behind the more readily). If you're feeling brave and have lots of health, give the parry-riposte combo a try. Or switch to two-handed wielding your weapon. Collect some souls, and go ahead and level up a bit with them. Speaking of… Leveling At some point, you're going to have to start figuring out where to go with your character. That's a topic that's like four pay grades above this guide. That being said, right now you aren't really committed to anything, nor will you with these early levels, but you should at least kind of start thinking about it. There are a myriad of possible ways to level a Dark Souls character, and it's pretty hard to screw things up totally. For now, here are some basic guidelines that we'll hold operative for the duration of this guide: - Level STR, DEX, INT, and Faith to meet the minimum requirements of some weapon you want to use. Likewise, level INT and Faith to meet the requirements of some spell you'd like to cast. You cannot purchase new spells yet, so it's not something you'll need to worry about until later, but nonetheless be aware of it. Spellcasting will be covered as an addendum to this main guide. - Leveling END is a great default choice; it will increase your stamina and your carry capacity. Everyone is going to be leveling END at some point, so if you've got the souls to spare and nothing else presents itself, level END. - Leveling VIT is not a bad choice as well, but it's not as important. Early on your survivability will not be a function of how many hit points you have, it's more gear and shield and - frankly - screwup dependent. - Only level INT if you're using sorceries; divine spells and pyromancy do not scale with INT. - Only level Faith if you're casting divine spells, sorcery and pyromancy do not scale with INT. - Do not level Resistance; pretty much ever; RES is a dump stat used to differentiate the starting characters and little more. All of your resistances will come from your gear.
Branching Out Hopefully by now you are feeling pretty saucy, at least as far as fighting basic undead goes. It's time to branch out! Head out of the bonfire room again, kill the usual guys, head down the stairs to your right and kill the rest. From the bottom of these stairs, on the left hand side of these ramparts is a path to another platform, with a pair of spear wielding undead on it. These guys are a step up from your normal undead: they're far more conservative about using their weapons and will, in general, turtle behind their shields and wait for you to screw up before attacking you. They've also got a multi-stab attack that, if it lands once, is probably going to kill you. When dealing with them, you will want to maneuver to keep them away from one another so you're only dealing with one at a time. From there you have a few options. - Provoke them into an attack, block it, and then quickly counter attack. This is probably the safest and slowest option. - Drop your shield and circle them for a backstab. Somewhat less safe, but oh-so-satisfying - Kick them. This will cause them to drop their shields, at which point you can make quick work of them with twoR1 attacks. These guys are definitely a new challenge, and one it's going to take you a few tries to get through. This may seem frustrating - especially because it's just two random dudes on top of a bunch of guys you've already been killing - but trust me, being able to deal effectively with these two guys represents some major progress in terms of early Dark Souls. You'll die, respawn over at the bonfire, go grab your bloodstain, and fight them again. Eventually you will prevail. Once they're dead, it's time to go down to meet your first merchant (named Male by the community; as far as anybody knows he doesn't actually have a name but since there are only two undead merchants in the game, they are named according to their sex). To get to Male, you'll want to smash the boxes and pottery on the platform on which those two spear-wielding undead reside, revealing a staircase. Head downstairs, and be aware that there's an undead soldier hidden behind some rubble in this room. Dispatch him, then head outside to talk to Male. He sells all sorts of stuff, much of which is going to make your head swim. For now, don't worry about buying any armor, purchase a weapon if it seems intriguing to you. You might also strongly consider purchasing a bow or a crossbow (though if you explore, you'll find a crossbow sooner or later), and some arrows or bolts (ranged weapons need ammo). I'd suggest purchasing a bow, because it's going to make your life a bit easier in the near future, and because I'm also going to include a brief tutorial about how to use a bow. Note: Be VERY careful about swinging your weapon around Male. Every NPC in Dark Souls can be attacked, and they won't take kindly to it. At the very least you'll have to find a way to apologize to them (which you'll be able to do a bit later). At worst you'll end up in a fight to the death, and that NPC will be gone forever. Now that we've met Male and you've made some purchases, go back toward the bonfire. From here, we're going to push on toward the boss of the Upper Undead Burg. Mostly we're done with walls of text. I'm going to stop describing individual encounters, and instead I'm going just highlight a few interesting areas and give you some general advice as to how to proceed with them. If you're not yet feeling good about combat, feel free to rest at the bonfire and respawn everything and fight it again. Likewise, if you've got a weapon in your inventory that you'd like to try out, just do that repeatedly until you've got enough souls to raise the appropriate attributes (at this point in the game it shouldn't take very long. Incidentally, this process is called farming souls. Later you might want to farm for other stuff). The Winged Spear is a pretty solid starter item, as is the Reinforced Club that Male sells. On my first play through, I got lucky and one of the Hollow Soldiers dropped a Battle Axe, which I used for a while. Depending on your starting class, you might also want to consider grabbing the Heater Shield from Male; it has 100% physical resistance and pretty good stability as well. Then again, if you've got the Master Key, you may already have a badass shield… Male has a few other useful items worth considering. The bottomless box will give you the ability to manage your inventory at bonfires. The key he has will open a couple of doors throughout the Burg, especially if you don't have a Master Key. The repair kit he has can be useful, though you'll get access to one at a cheaper price before too long. Onward to the Boss: Prepare to Die (yet again) OK, eventually you're going to want to push further through the Undead Burg. By now you've probably noticed that there's a bridge across from the bonfire room. If you've tried crossing that bridge, you'll notice a group of Hollows that throw firebombs onto it. And in the room across from the bridge - spoiler alert - you'll meet three Hollows just aching to make your acquaintance. This is one of the trickier early challenges in Dark Souls, tactically speaking. As with pretty much every encounter in Dark Souls, there's no right way to do it, but I'll go over a few options: - Run across the bridge, into the room, and hope you can take on three hollows at once in a confined space. This was my preferred strategy at first, and I died a lot. - Run just far enough across the bridge to lure one or two guys out, run back across the bridge and engage them. Then return to finish off the rest. You may take some fire damage here, but you should be OK otherwise. - Use a bow to line up a shot against one of the guys in the room across the bridge to lure him out. Rinse and repeat as possible, before moving in to engage whoever is left. - Use a bow to snipe the guys throwing firebombs so that the bridge is clear, then fight on the bridge. There's no right answer here; some options are just easier than others. Know that you're probably going to die a few times, and that's OK. If you did purchase a bow and some arrows (and make sure you equip those arrows), here's how to use them: - Equip the bow in your right hand. Note that you can have two weapons in each hand; switch between them by pressing right or left (depending on the hand you want to switch) on the D-pad. Also note that both will count against your Equip. Load. - Wield the bow with two hands by pressing Y. - Enter aiming mode by pressing L1. - Nock an arrow by holding down R1 while lining up your shot. - Release R1 to fire the arrow. Anyway, you'll notice that the aim might be a little off; I find that arrows tend to fire a bit to the right of the target reticule. Ranged weapons are very useful in Dark Souls; with the proper investments they can do a tremendous amount of damage on their one from a relatively safe distance, and even without investing souls they're useful for bringing enemies to you (a term known as pulling, as in pull the Hollow Soldiers to you one at a time.). Crossbows cannot be aimed; to use them you just equip them, lock on to something, and tap the appropriate button (L1 for left hand, R1 for right hand). I almost always walk around with a crossbow in my left hand; I alternate between it and my shield depending on what I'm trying to do. There are also some consumable ranged weapons: throwing knives and fire bombs. Both are equipped in your item slot (along side your Estus flask), you can switch which item you're using by hitting down on the D-pad, then just hit X to use the item. Make sure you're locked on to something, though! Knives don't have much range, but are useful for thinning out crowds of weaker enemies. Fire bombs are often useful against groups of enemies, as well as certain bosses (if you don't have pyromancy). Anyway, once you clear this challenge, you'll move through some rooms and eventually end up at a staircase, at the top of which are four more Hollows. Generally I tried to lure them down the staircase and engage them at the bottom, it allows you to fight them one at a time. You can also try to engage them as a group if you're feeling confident in your skills and equipment. Once you get through them you'll go down some stairs, up some stairs, through more Hollows, past a trap, and eventually you'll find yourself in a tower, with stairs going up and down. Sidenote: One of the reasons I'm not providing a step-by-step walkthrough is because exploration is a very big part of Dark Souls. The above is a vague description for a reason, you should be poking your nose into every little nook and cranny to see what you can find. By now you've got the tools you need to handle almost everything the game is throwing at you in this area. Be patient, advance slowly, and don't be afraid to check out what's around you. There are quite a few opportunities to find treasure chests and optional loot in this area, so explore! And don't worry if you die; just get back to your bloodstain and continue. Sidenote 2: When I said that you can handle almost everything the game is throwing at you at this point, I used the word almost for a reason. There are two notable exceptions. Before the tower there is a staircase leading downward, to a hallway containing a dude wearing cool looking armor and carrying a sword and shield. This is the first of the Black Knights, which are a recurring challenge in Dark Souls. Black Knights are optional sub bosses who will almost always provide a tremendous challenge if you tackle them immediately upon encountering them. I'd suggest bypassing him, but if you're up for a challenge and you're very confident in your backstabs and/or ripostes, you can try fighting him. The best way to do it is to lure him back up to an open area where you'll have room to circle behind him and backstab. Depending on your endurance you may be able to absorb one hit with your shield; but that's probably about it. If you do manage to kill him you'll get a pile of souls, as well as possibly a rare item. Afterward, head back down to where you found him; he's guarding a pretty nice ring. If you don't want to try fighting him but want that ring, consider a suicide run. Lure him out, then while he's attacking you take a headstart back down to the chest. The other thing you may come across that you can't kill is a fellow named Havel. He's downstairs in the tower. Probably there's no way for you to defeat him at this point. In general, if you come across something in Dark Souls that kills you in one hit regardless of how much you block, it's the game's way of saying "Go somewhere else." You don't have to listen and these fights are all possible as soon as you encounter them, but they're going to be very, very difficult. Head upstairs in the tower, and while your'e doing it smash every barrel you see. A critter might come scurrying out; kill it for a nice reward. Don't worry if he doesn't appear, you'll come through here again and eventually snag him. You'll go through a glowing portal, and onto a large rampart. If you're in online mode you'll see the ground littered with those glowing messages. Glowing portals and lots of messages are usually a pretty good sign that you've got something nasty incoming. Before dashing along this rampart, turn around and climb the ladder; there are a pair of archers up here that you can dispatch. It's time for your first boss fight: the Taurus Demon. Once more I'm not going to give you specific strategies; you can look him up on various websites if you want to know how to beat him. I'll offer the following, though: - As soon as he appears run back to the tower and climb the ladder. Wait until your new friend gets to the bottom of the tower, and leap down onto him (there's a break in the fortifications that will let you do this). Hit R1 on the way down to launch an attack that will take off about 1/3 of his health. Don't spend too much time up there though; he'll eventually get lonely and come up to join you, with hilariously bad results. - You can dodge all of his attacks by rolling. If you have a shield with 100% block and solid stability, you can also block them (though watch your stamina!). - In general, whenever you face a giant two-legged opponent, hanging out behind one of his back legs gives you an area of comparative safety. - The Taurus Demon is very vulnerable to lightning; depending on how much exploring you did you may have an item that will allow you to temporarily add lightning damage to your weapon. This will greatly expedite the fight. Note: don't use this item from your inventory; instead "equip" it in your item slot. Use down on the dpad to select it, and then hit X to use it (just like your Estus flask). This does involve a brief animation; if you go this route do it while you're at the top of the tower waiting for him to join you (that way you also get the damage bonus on your plunging attack). It will probably take you a few tries to defeat him; but don't worry about it. Eventually he'll go down, and depending on how generous the game's Random Number Generator is going, you might get some nice items. You'll definitely get a pile of souls, along with a humanity or two. Congratulations on completing the very beginning of Dark Souls! At this point you may be tempted to go back to the bonfire. Don't, because we're going to open up a shortcut. Head to the end of the ramparts, in and out of the area at the other end. Go downstairs and you'll meet Knight Solaire, who is a big fan of the sun for some reason. If you agree with him lots, you'll get the item you need to begin offering people coop play. Now head back up the stairs and out and you'll come to a bridge with a dragon hanging out on it. This area is a little tough: the dragon is going to strafe the bridge, and probably kill everything on it (possibly including you). You have a couple of options: 1) Halfway across the bridge, on the right, are some stairs that will take you down to safety. If you're below the 25% Equip Load, consider making a dash toward it. 2) Depending on your shield, having it up during the strafing run might save you. Either way, you want to get down those stairs under the bridge. There's another downward stairway, that will take you toward the bonfire! There's a ladder here that you can give a kick to, creating a shortcut between the bonfire and the bridge. From here you can proceed under the bridge, avoiding the dragon (and meeting some ugly new monsters) and proceed to the next area: the Undead Parish, where you'll face new enemies, new bosses, and begin getting the opportunity to upgrade your weapons! That's it for this guide. Following are a few appendices that flesh out some of these concepts, as well as a few others that we haven't discussed yet. For now though, we're done! Future appendices (to be completed): - Basic Spellcasting: starting with Pyromancy, Sorcery, and Miracles - A bit more about ranged combat - A bit more about character development - Basics of online play
I started Dark Souls for the first time this weekend. It's incredibly frustrating, but there's something there. Thank you for this.
So true. The most important aspect about death is learning something from it and soldiering on. If you've gained even a little knowledge from the experience then it's not wasted time (or souls), even if what you learned is simply "don't take this enemy for granted". And I would also add that while there is some difficulty it's not hard in the usual sense: the game is not going to cheat you. It's not going be unfair or unduly punishing or break its own rules because its designers were lazy or short on time. What you see is what you get. Observe, analyze, and try different approaches if you find yourself stumped. This game rewards lateral thinking like no other.
