Praise the sun. Our Dark Souls Walkthrough provides tips for surviving the adventure, a guide to the entire world, and hints for slaying bosses.
Character Stats
In Dark Souls, each of your character's eight statistics determines your overall level. Instead of being limited to the RPG norm of level 99, you can gain upwards of 700 levels. You can level up at Bonfires and spend accumulated Souls that improve your abilities. Each overall character level costs more Souls than the last, so you should be mindful of which stats you build up.
Because you can lose your cache of Souls easily, it is handy to hold onto consumable items such as Soul of a Nameless Soldier or Soul of a Proud Knight. Using these items will instantly fill your Soul counter with several hundred or thousand Souls, topping you off for a new level or two.
Each level raises your defense against Physical, Magical, Flame, and Lightning attacks. Because of this, leveling in general makes things defensively easier.
Vitality
Vitality improves your HPs, allowing you to survive longer in battle. The best strategy is to avoid taking damage all together, but even with the best evasion and shields you'll still probably wind up getting hit at some point. Because of this Vitality is recommended for all builds, but should be left alone until after both your primary offensive stat and Endurance are high enough.
Attunement
A higher Attunement score will allow your character to equip more types of magic. Unlike in Demon's Souls, where this was only needed for Sorceries, Miracle users will also need to boost Attunement to have more magic slots (Instead of just relying on Faith alone). Obviously, you should raise this stat to allow you to equip new spells; however, if you don't have an additional studied magic, leave Attunement alone. It's a useless stat for characters that plan on never casting at all.
Endurance
Determines your Stamina and Equip Load. This is probably the most universal stat, as any build can make use of more Stamina. Your Stamina meter allows you to withstand block hits, swing weapons, dash, and roll out of the way. Your big weapon or shield won't do you much good if you lack the Stamina to use them. Likewise, being able to escape an enemy's attacks will save the need to stop and heal; dodging should always be the prime strategy for those lacking heavy armor.
Equip Load is also great as it can allow you to move quicker with heavier items, but you need to put in a lot of points into Endurance: you might need upwards of 20 or 50 levels worth of Endurance to make a piece of armor lighter.
As an added bonus Endurance will also raise your resistance to Bleeding. Overall, raise Stamina after your main attack stat is a decent level (around 30 is a good start).
Strength
Strength is required to wield "powerful" type weapons such as swords and axes. Each point of Strength will also increase the damage of most melee weapons, even some which depend on Dexterity to equip. With enough Strength you can also hold two-handed weapons in one hand with a small damage penalty.
Strength is one of the key offensive stats. Because of this, you should either build up Strength quickly or forget it entirely. If you prefer to use brutish large weapon, consider a Strength build.
You can start leveling up once reaching Lordran. The first few levels will cost around 740 Souls.
Dexterity
Dexterity is needed to effectively wield more "advanced weapons" such as bows, spears, and daggers. These weapon types have the advantage of being much quicker or having range. Because of this, they are best paired when carry a lighter Equip Load, allowing you to move quickly and roll. This stat is also well suited for riposte counters and getting in back stabs.
Dexterity is one of the four main offensive stats, so much like the other three, you should either max out this stat or leave it alone. If you want a speedy, agile character go with a Dexterity focus.
Resistance
Resistance boosts your protection against poison. It also gives a few extra points of Physical Defense (But does not provide extra protection from Magic, Flame, or Lightning). Overall the worst stat, not because it's bad, but because every other stat has so many more uses. Still, you should raise this in places where you know there will be an absurd amount of unavoidable poison and you lack another means of healing.
Intelligence
Intelligence determines the power of your Sorceries and Pyromancies. This stat can also improve the damage of magic based weapons. Obviously this is the stat to improve if you plan on using either type of offensive spell or are looking to fight with magic weapons.
You will also need a Sorcerer's staff or Pyromancer's flame to cast your respective school of magic. Because of this you need to switch out your melee weapon often to cast destructive spells. In general, Sorcery catalysts gain large bonuses from Intelligence (A rank for even the most basic staff), while Pyromancy catalysts gain far less (E or no rank for early flames, C and B rank for very strong ones).
Like with Strength and Dexterity, either max this stat quickly or ignore it if you don't want to cast magic.
Faith
Faith controls of the power of your Miracles and divine weapons. The main stat for a defensive caster or healer. To use Miracles you'll need a Cleric Talisman in your right hand. Also, some Miracles will require you to kneel and pray, making them risky to use while already in combat.
You should either make your character based on Faith or leave the stat at the default level. Because Miracles are mostly defensive in nature, Faith builds can be challenging. However, you'll be a giant help when teaming up with other players.
Starting Classes
The starting classes come with various equipment, possibly magic, and stats. They also have different levels, making leveling up further easier or harder.
Because of this, each class makes it slightly easier to specialize in something, or have some backup skills. For example, the hearty Warrior can be built to use both melee and range weapons, while a Thief might be able to dabble with magic after some training. Still, with enough grinding you can level every stat and gain all spells. It's just a question of how much of a starting boost you desire.
| Class |
Level |
Vital |
Attune |
Endure |
Strength |
Dex |
Resist |
Intel |
Faith |
Notable Equipment |
| Warrior |
4 |
11 |
8 |
12 |
13 |
13 |
11 |
9 |
9 |
Longsword, Leather Armor |
| Knight |
5 |
14 |
10 |
10 |
11 |
11 |
10 |
9 |
11 |
Heavy Armor, Heavy Shield |
| Wanderer |
3 |
10 |
11 |
10 |
10 |
14 |
12 |
11 |
8 |
Scimitar |
| Thief |
5 |
9 |
11 |
9 |
9 |
15 |
10 |
12 |
11 |
Dagger, Master Key |
| Bandit |
4 |
12 |
8 |
14 |
14 |
9 |
11 |
8 |
10 |
Battle Axe |
| Hunter |
4 |
11 |
9 |
11 |
12 |
14 |
11 |
9 |
9 |
Bow and Arrow |
| Sorcerer |
3 |
8 |
15 |
8 |
9 |
11 |
8 |
15 |
8 |
Soul Arrow Sorcery |
| Pyromancer |
1 |
10 |
12 |
11 |
12 |
9 |
12 |
10 |
8 |
Fireball Pyromancy |
| Cleric |
2 |
11 |
11 |
9 |
12 |
8 |
11 |
8 |
14 |
Mace, Heal
Miracle |
| Deprived |
6 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
Unclothed! |
