What Level Should I Be Before Facing The First Major Boss?

[xRKK]

I believe he is in the castle. It has been a while sorry.

[zab]

Around 25 should be fine, remember to upgrade your weapons too

[vamirez]

Just try and see if you can beat him. If you can't beat him yet, you can go explore all of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula to the south - these areas are set before the castle progression/level-wise.

[XΞИOΛLIΞИ]

You don’t “have” to be any level. You just try him on and if you notice he’s giving you a rough time, go explore and level some more. I haven’t watched any speedruns yet because i only recently got started, but i’m sure people defeated him without even leveling up at all.

[SHOCKNUTZ]

25 or lower, with a +3-4 weapon and enough health to not get 1 shot. just watch out for his holy daggers and dodge his combos.

[Beer Expert 420]

I literally kill everything in Limograve/weeping Peninsula end up at like level 33.

[Basarab Laiota]

I was like level 50

[Sgt. Flaw]

Originally posted by SHOCKNUTZ:

25 or lower, with a +3-4 weapon and enough health to not get 1 shot. just watch out for his holy daggers and dodge his combos.

this...your item level and vigor is most important

[CazadorDeLobo]

you should be about level tree fiddy

[Sabaithal]

Just get 20 vigor and a +3 weapon and you should be fine.

[Butcher]

You are fine to kill him straight away on level 1 with +0 weapon, just use NPC phantom to distract him and deal damage.

[Yal]

IMO level doesn't matter a whole lot, but it's good to prepare with:
- a strong spirit ash (the starting wolves aren't good against bosses since they're very vulnerable to area attacks, you'll probably want a single big spirit or something with ranged attacks)
- a good shield (blocking is easier than dodging, but you need high enough Guard Boost and physical block rate to tank hits for it to help)
- upgrading your favorite weapon as high as you can (this contributes more to damage than scaling bonuses early on)
- bringing a source of blood, frost or fire damage (e.g. put an ash-of-war on your weapon or craft a bunch of greases)

Bosses are weak to different things but very few things resist frostbite so it's always worth going for. Bleed does more damage but has no effect on stuff without blood, like skeletons and golems, so it's a bit more situational.