Stat Priorities?

[SolarUpdraft]

I'm on my first playthrough and uncertain of whether I ought to be leveling one thing before all others or balancing my growth. I know there's a lot of flexibility here, just checking to see if there's a good beginner's approach.

I'm aiming for a dex faith build, it's doing pretty well. I've just gotten the Lord Vessel, so I'm starting to learn how to play this game. Lemme know if you have any tips.

[76561198006416723]

don't level up resistance

[Caboose]

raise your stat depending on your equipment, want something heavier to wear raise end (40end is still good for any build)
faith dex aim for a 40 each to begin with, depending on the scaling of your weapon consider going higher but 50 is the max cap most people will stop at (consider changing weapon also), VIT should be ok with 25/30 in normal mode, upgrade it a bit in NG+ but you can perfectly clear your first run with 40 in dex faith and end

[SundownKid]

Originally posted by CrossGuard:

I'm on my first playthrough and uncertain of whether I ought to be leveling one thing before all others or balancing my growth. I know there's a lot of flexibility here, just checking to see if there's a good beginner's approach.

I'm aiming for a dex faith build, it's doing pretty well. I've just gotten the Lord Vessel, so I'm starting to learn how to play this game. Lemme know if you have any tips.

An explanation of the stats:

Vitality - Never wasted, but also not incredibly necessary to have a lot unless you are doing PvP.

Endurance - Never wasted, good for all builds until it reaches 40.

Attunement - Self explanatory, just gives you slots for magic spells.

Strength and Dexterity - Typically you either get 50 strength, 40 dex, or 27/40 for a quality-type build with longsword and claymore since 27 is the 2 handed stat cap for strength.

Faith and Int - They are usually mutually exclusive and also soft cap at 40.

Resistance - Useless, don't level it.

[SolarUpdraft]

I'm definitely going to be taking all this advice, thank you. However, I need to restate my question: Do I bring *one stat at a time to 40*, or do I try to bring them all up in balance? Does it matter?

Thanks for the note about endurance in particular, I was worried that putting any more in there than I needed for my equipment would go to waste.

[H]

I'd say to level your Str and Dex first to meet minimum requirement of your weapons of choice, then dump the rest in Vitality and Endurance. After a boss fight or after having saved up significant amount of souls, i'd advise you to spread it out between them all (Vit, End, main attack stat (Str or Dex)).

There are a few weapons with strong base attack and bad rating. By using them you won't need to invest too much in Str and Dex initially. Higher Vit and End mean you're more likely to survive a combo from the enemy to run away and heal up, be able to wear heavier armor, and attack more often in one combo.

[SolarUpdraft]

Awesome, thank you for explaining it to me clearly, even better than just knowing what to do is knowing why it works.

[H]

I just realized that you want to do a dex/faith build. The obvious important thing for a dex/faith pve build is to get enough faith to use the really powerful Faith weapon buff (both are obtainable from Anor Londo, 1 is more effortful than the others) that would really make your future boss fight easier. And use that on a quick weapon (i.e., a falchion).

Higher END would come in handy here as more slashes = more buff damage. It's a staple of DS1 pvp to apply faith weapon buff on falchion and cheese people.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKxSJbR1znI for pvp application of the dex/faith build.

[SolarUpdraft]

You're awesome, thanks for the advice. Looking forward to true lethality with this build.

[SundownKid]

Well, for Dex builds I would definitely suggest getting Dex to 40 asap and then focusing more on the other stats. Dex weapons have high scaling so it makes the game easier if the stat is high.

For Strength builds on the other hand, you can probably level the stats equally as it won't make as much of a difference.

[Herba]

only level resistance and attunement, but dont use any spells