What is humanity? The explanation doesn't suffice

[skyhrg]

I don't really understand what this "humanity" is and why it's good for me. Does it turn me back to human? If I die and then get my restoration back, do I get the humanity back too?

Why is it important?

[Groen90]

Humanity raises curse resistance and item discovery, and can be used to kindle bonfires and go back to human form. I'd say it's pretty valuable... also consuming a humanity will restore your health to 100%.
Yes when you recover the souls from your bloodstain you'll recover lost humanity as well.

[zero hope >:(]

Lore-wise: Humanity is a shard or primal Dark Soul which is mankind inherits from Furtive Pigmy. Losing all the humanity usually means going hollow.

Gameplay-wise: Humanity is a dynamic disposable stat which affects some of your stats, and can be spent to kindle bonfires, progress in two covenants, remove curses, reversing hollowness. And just just to heal yourself if it is item-humanity.

[Fashionbeast]

Humanity fullfills various roles in the game.

There are two kinds of humanity, solid and liquid

There is "solid humanity" (black things in your "consumables" inventory)
It can be found or farmed from certain enemies and stored for future purposes in your inventory.

"Solid humanity" can be consumed to fully heal yourself (useful while being a phantom) and to strengthen your humanity counter upper left counter.

Humanity in this counter is referred to as "liquid humanity". Those can be retrieved from your bloodstain.
1 liquid humanity gives you the option to "reverse hollowing" and appearing human again.
The one humanity is consumed in the process and cannot be retrieved from bloodstains!
Another use, while being human, is to kindle bonfires. Kindling gets you more Estus charges from this bonfire, when you rest at it.

Being human initiates multiplayer in Dark Souls.

Other players and npcs can invade you and you can invade other with the right tools.
You can also now see and use white and golden summon signs from other player and npcs, who can help you against invaders and bosses.


"Liquid humanity" has also some general bonuses, which work without being human:

Boosting your "item find". Caps at 10 liquid humanity.
(Enemies have goodies they drop. You want to maximize your chances, that they drop these goodies)
Boosting your curse rsistance. Caps at 30.
(Some enemies have curse attacks with a nasty effect)
Boosting your general physical and magical defence values. Caps at 99.
Boosting damage parameters for a certain weapon upgrade path. Caps at 10.


Even further reading materials:

Originally posted by Teenage Dirtbag:

here you go op https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity_%28virtue%29

[skyhrg]

Ah, so the benefit of being human is that you can write and read signs?

[Groen90]

Originally posted by skyhrg:

Ah, so the benefit of being human is that you can write and read signs?

Yes, but there's also the downside that you're open to invasions!

[LarsenB]

Originally posted by skyhrg:

Ah, so the benefit of being human is that you can write and read signs?

Well, no, not exactly... re-read what the user above just wrote, it pretty much explains everything.

[valkyriebonfire]

Originally posted by Groen90:

Humanity raises curse resistance and item discovery, and can be used to kindle bonfires and go back to human form. I'd say it's pretty valuable... also consuming a humanity will restore your health to 100%.
Yes when you recover the souls from your bloodstain you'll recover lost humanity as well.

Do people bother to waste humanity for HP?

[Hjelpmooglene]

Originally posted by thehotsung8701:

Do people bother to waste humanity for HP?

Yes. If you invade someone, you either use a humanity, elizabeth's mushroom, or a divine blessing to heal.

[Sir Harlz]

Humanity does more then just raise your curese resistance. LEMME EXPLAIN.

1. Every humanity you take gives you a liquid humanity and heals you.

2. Liquid humanity can make you go human. Going human lets you summon, invade, and pretty much do anything that involves having other people in your world or you in their world. (expect getting summoned.)

3. Liquid humanity also raises you defence. If you have 30 liquid humanity you will notice the difference. Yesterday I was doing some low level PvP in the parish with red eye orb and found most people could barley damange me even though I was only wearing hollow armor. It was because I had 42 liquid humanity, I had to handicap myself and go naked.

[Tech Priest]

humanity is very powerful in this game.. use it well.

[zero hope >:(]

Originally posted by thehotsung8701:

Originally posted by Groen90:

Humanity raises curse resistance and item discovery, and can be used to kindle bonfires and go back to human form. I'd say it's pretty valuable... also consuming a humanity will restore your health to 100%.
Yes when you recover the souls from your bloodstain you'll recover lost humanity as well.

Do people bother to waste humanity for HP?

"Wasting" is a wrong term. It is the most wide usage of humanity actually

[Shifty Mario]

Liquid humanity raises defenses equivalent to gaining a SL. A SL1 with 99 humanity has the defense of a SL100. SL and humanity share the same bonus so a higher SL having 99 will not see as much gain.