Just got the game. Any Advice you wished you knew?

[Thy Dickith]

I played Elden Ring a lil bit, and a friend recommended this game to me. I like Duel Wielding swords. Yall got any advice for me?

[Rock]

Even if your Magic and Dex stats are not your main stats I recommend putting 30 point to each as soon as possible. You get soft cap on your Onmyo Magic and Ninjutsu capacity. That way you get access to powerful jutsus that will help you a lot.

Things like Quick-Change scroll let's you respawn on spot with critical health should you die for example.

Both Onmyo Magic and Ninjutsu are very powerful skills, take time to familiarize yourself with them. Jutsus will help you out immensely.

[HeeRoTH]

if you dont main dex and magic i recommend you to add both state to 30 only because you get cap 35 slot

[Angel]

don't fall into the trap of heavily levelling the stat your main weapon scales with right away, get all your stuff to level 10 first then decide where you want to take your build, as mentioned previously 30 magic and dex are extremely helpful for more combat and utility options

don't get too attached to your gear early, you're gonna be swapping things out all the time, pick the stuff with the highest numbers that don't make you heavy

use soul core abilities, A LOT

[Ny]

When a fight is not going well, and you dying over and over, take a moment and analyze what you doing when you engage the fight and what you could be doing differently. being aware of this, kinda goes over our head when facing brutal challenges.

This could include use of tools, items or where you fight. i often find myself in these situations where i stubbornly cling into same methods and i fail over and over until i realize i should be doing it differently.

all the pointers like "learn to dodge" "study boss move sets and skills" are all fine and well but if you are not aware of your own way of fighting and just blindly throwing skills and items at it, they wont work very well.

[Thy Dickith]

Originally posted by Ny:

When a fight is not going well, and you dying over and over, take a moment and analyze what you doing when you engage the fight and what you could be doing differently. being aware of this, kinda goes over our head when facing brutal challenges.

This could include use of tools, items or where you fight. i often find myself in these situations where i stubbornly cling into same methods and i fail over and over until i realize i should be doing it differently.

all the pointers like "learn to dodge" "study boss move sets and skills" are all fine and well but if you are not aware of your own way of fighting and just blindly throwing skills and items at it, they wont work very well.

I got to the Giant Minotaur beast looking thing. Im using fists but i also got demon twin blades.

[Ny]

That one is an optional boss you do not have to engage, you can return to it later as it's meant for people who are more familiar with the game. but it in no way is impossible to do even for a new player. my previous comment was more of a general advice that works in the entire game.

However, if you wanna take him down right now, his attacks has a long range but he is rather slow. trying to stand behind him is a viable option as he only has one spin attack which he use to turn around and face you, you will notice when that attack is coming by the way he moves his body to prepare to turn around.
You can also use the walls and obstacle around the area to bait him into charging the walls.once you put distance between yourself and him, he begin charging to reach you.
The terrain here is really helpful to keep him busy and avoid danger. while he charges there is a moment right before he reaches you when its the best time for a dodge in any direction. after he reaches you he moves his head upwards like he is about to throw you up, you need to be dodging before that animation starts.

I recommend using your dual sword for this fight as its a bit easier to learn at start. Fist has a bit more complexity to it and the speed of chaining the attacks can leave you with no Ki rather quick. If you find yourself running out of Ki quick use low and mid stance attacks and attack him in short bursts.

game teaches you about Ki pulse after this boss, which is an extremely important game mechanic in keeping Ki (or stamina) up as much as possible. so i recommend you do this mission first or atleast progress a bit further then return to this boss if you are set on beating it now.

[Creep Gnome]

Use your Yokai abilities early and often. Anima is not a precious resource; you'll be generating loads of it by attacking enemies.

[Maraxus]

I would say pick your first weapon by preference, and then pick a secondary that shares scaling stats with it, ideally two stats but one is fine. Level those two (or one) stats and put a bit into magic and dex as well to keep a rounded setup, letting you use onmyo and ninjutsu for utility

[Rock]

Another thing I'd like to point out that "grapple" move is a trap. That would be the move you can perform to an enemy when their KI is exhausted.

You do more damage by hitting them with your best active skills. Since you like dual swords the "water sword" active skill is a perfect move to get behind a large enemy (yokai) and max punish them when they are out of KI. Against human opponents you use some other active skill and keep punishing them. If the human opponent falls flat on their face punish them with "final blow" and continue your attacks.
Some of the weapons get absurdly long grapple animations against human opponents therefore you should avoid doing grapples against human bosses with those (most of those grapple animations are bonus moves that you may get as a drop reward from certain bosses), unless you have fast grapple attacks like say Izuna drop or some other active skill "out of KI" move bonus like Odachis "charging bull" or Fist weapons "battering ram" for example, those are fine and fast and wont mess up potential damage output too much.

This is even more important if you play coop. Doing grapple move gives the enemy invulnerability frames and instantly ends the exhaust time and the only benefit from that move was that 1 player was able to do INFERIOR damage to the enemy. Where as 1-3 players slapping the ever living noodles out of the enemy does easily more damage than 1 dude performing a subpar grapple, even if he had some sort of dedicated grapple build (more acceptable on solo play, you do you).

This is more of a advanced player knowledge but if you take this into heart it will serve you well in the future.

I do random coop on the side and the amount of people on Wise and Nioh difficulty without running Quick change scroll is staggering. Everyone makes mistakes. It's kinda silly to be summoned to another players world only to see them get 2 shotted by a random enemy 2min later. And sometimes they end up grappling the boss and they die 15 seconds later of that meanwhile I'm thinking "that boss would have died before you did if you didn't grapple him" or "wish he knew about quick change scrolls".

Example damage of grapple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgqRRyX2gDQ
Example damage of no grapple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weFxJD6aEAM

The no grapple video actually has double KO going on so before the chain crack observe that damage on health bar vs the grapple damage.

There are times when grapple is a good move but I don't wanna waste more of my time typing something most people won't probably read anyway because Wall of Text.

Edit: Someone will wonder anyway: videos are Depth floor 11 with no kodama buffs.

[HeeRoTH]

You can take advantage of opening rooms in the game. Once you die, you can revive as many times as you want. until the blue gauge runs out (open room alone)
But if someone else joins The difficulty increases with the number of people entering.

[Big Cliff]

Even spread your stats, it won't effect your damage. By the end of your first ng cycle you should be around 20 at each core stat and 30/30 for magic/dex for needed utility.

Learn to burst counter
Brute- easiest and can double as q damaging move as well, you hit it right when they turn red
Feral- middle, you dodge into the red attack when it's coming, doubles as a dodge
Phantom- timing is around a souls parry, right when it's going to hit you, doubles as a shield

Use your yokai abilities all the time, if you pair your guardian spirit with the same type ie a brute soul on a brute guardian will get bonus damage. Easy way to do this, check the bottom right of the guardian spirit
Red-brute
Blue- feral
Purple- phantom

Practice skills at the dojo and see which ones work vs humans and which ones vs yokai. You'll find what wep is best for you as you go along, I started at axe, went to sword and now I'm at splitsaff.

Use and abuse everything at your disposal. Obviously be prepared to die a bit and don't stress about the xp, this game is very very generous with it. Have fun! If you wanna co op shoot me a request I'm starting a new save.

[SealedSecret]

When it comes to stats, it's generally better to follow putting at least 10 into every stat to start then 20-30 into Dexterity and Magic to get better access to the tools they provide, then pump whatever stat you're interested in. I prefer Heart and Courage since they increase my Ki pool and recovery respectively.

I wouldn't stress putting points into your preferred weapon's primary scaling stats since I don't find the increases to be that significant (doesn't mean it's useless though, just not a massive difference or anything). Use what you like/what interests you.

To explain the Yokai Ability/Soul Core advice a little, you're able to regenerate Ki while using these, which lets you sustain/recover Ki while also dealing damage and Ki damage to an enemy.

You can Block attacks from any direction regardless of where your character model is facing. So if an enemy is going to strike you from behind or something, Blocking is an option.

I always recommend getting the Divination Talisman in the Onmyo Magic Tree since it helps a lot with exploration. It marks everything for you on your compass, Items, Chests, Kodama, and (most importantly), Enemies.

Lastly, learning how to use your Burst Counter will be very helpful. In the Shiftling Tree, you can get upgrades that give you a Ki Recovery Buff (left side of tree), restore almost your entire Ki Bar (bottom tree), and even heal you if you're low on health (top tree) when you use it successfully.