First time warrior build

[Chris]

First time playing the souls games, I do like the lack of handholding but it also seems like you can be punished pretty hard if you set your skills wrong early game.

I was wondering if I was mainly going a warrior build, str/end/vitality I wondered if I was "missing out" if I did not fill at least one attunement slot with some kind of magic.

I have no idea how magic works, so far I only understand you need the fire hand item to use pyromancy spells and possisbly another item for miricles.

It just feels odd if I did had a blank spell icon the entire game, as if i'm handicapping myself.
What are your suggestions/advice?

[dcy665]

1st, there are rewards for playing the game several times; ng+. If you want to get all the achievements, one has to play three times because you need an object that only exists as one copy. But you have to make three different objects with it.

2nd, I enjoy trying different things and giving DS another try; To be truthful my Vit/10 wasn't as successful as I had hoped. I know others can do it because there are videos of players that do zero damage runs.

First play through takes some time, each one takes less. Until you can approach 20h from start to finish. After that, either playing another character or finding the Blue slab you only discovered too late.

Good Luck

[Melth]

In this game, magic of any kind is EXTREMELY powerful. Both because it does a lot of damage and because the enemy AI often struggles to respond to any kind of ranged attack, and because there are many useful utility spells which solve some of the game's major challenges.

You are definitely handicapping yourself if you don't use it. Magic is the game's easy mode. For that reason, I often play without magic, but a new player should definitely try it and see what they like!


Honestly, one of the great things about Dark Souls is how many different kinds of weapons and types of spells there are. You can play in a lot of different ways and have a very different experience.

If you are a first time player, my advice would be to try a lot of different things and see what you like, rather than locking yourself into one weapon or one fighting style.


Here is some basic info:

!) Pyromancy, one of the 3 types of magic, is unique in that it does not require ANY Intelligence or Faith to use. This means that it's extremely easy to fit it into absolutely any build! All you need is 10-12 attunement so that you have a spell slot or two available and you're good to go!

There are several pyromancies which are self-buffs such as Power Within and Iron Flesh, which can be cool and effective ways to enhance a warrior character! Try them out, see if you like them! Power Within in particular is absolutely fantastic and a lot of fun too in my opinion.

Pyromancy also includes a lot of short ranged offense. A few have an area of effect, but that's not as useful in Dark Souls as it is in some RPGs since you seldom fight many foes at once.

You won't deal much damage with pyromancy unless you spend a LOT of souls having a trainer NPC upgrade your pyromancy flame.


2) Sorcery has most of the game's generic ranged offense spells. All sorceries require some intelligence. The most powerful offense spells require a LOT of intelligence, so they won't be viable for a warrior.

However, Sorcery also includes a bunch of really useful utility spells which require almost no intelligence. For 14 int or less you can turn invisible, create light, create illusory sounds to distract enemies or lead them into clever traps, and buff your weapon or your shield to be better. Again, neat little additions to a warrior's arsenal.

One nice thing about sorcery is that there is a catalyst (magic wand) available early on called the Oolacile Ivory Catalyst. This makes all your sorceries deal high damage even if you have almost no intelligence at all. So you can just grab 14 int for the fun utility spells, grab an Oolacile Ivory Catalyst, and be ready to blast away with high damage on any occasions when you do want to do a ranged attack.


3) Miracles are the third type of magic. They're my favorite, but they're also honestly the worst for a new player. Most of the Miracles available early game are worthless, all the good ones are hidden behind secret covenants or require completing NPC questlines, or require a massive amount of Faith, etc.

The best thing you can get out of miracles as a new player is some additional healing. This requires only 12 faith and a talisman. If you're willing to spend some souls to buy it from Petrus of Thorolund (an NPC available in Firelink right at the start of the game) the Thorolund Talisman is very powerful for characters with low faith and will make you good at healing.



My advice to you would be to do the following:
1) At the start of the game, get to 16 Strength and 14 dexterity. That will let you wield 95% of the weapons in the game, so you can see which ones have moves you like.

Don't spend your level ups going above about 16 Str and 14 Dex for a while. Early in the game, increasing those stats doesn't help much, and you don't want to waste level ups on, say, strength if it turns out later on that you really prefer Dex weapons.


2) Get 10-12 attunement and 12-14 Intelligence next. You can unlock the good spells and the good catalyst once you get to Darkroot Basin, which is available very early in the game and is full of goodies for warrior characters too. The most basic sorcery spells are available right at the start of the game from an NPC named Rickert who is in a safe area of New Londo Ruins right below Firelink Shrine.


3) Don't bother with faith unless you find that you really, really need more healing all the time. In that case, get 12 faith and grab the heal spell from Petrus. You can check out the other miracles too if you like, but most of the early game ones are pretty disappointing.


Once you've hit those minimum requirements, throw your other level ups into Vitality and Endurance. Those stats are universally useful and are more helpful in the early game than Str/Dexterity, so they're a good thing to invest in while you figure out what weapons and spells you like.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Melth:

In this game, magic of any kind is EXTREMELY powerful. Both because it does a lot of damage and because the enemy AI often struggles to respond to any kind of ranged attack, and because there are many useful utility spells which solve some of the game's major challenges.

You are definitely handicapping yourself if you don't use it. Magic is the game's easy mode. For that reason, I often play without magic, but a new player should definitely try it and see what they like!


Honestly, one of the great things about Dark Souls is how many different kinds of weapons and types of spells there are. You can play in a lot of different ways and have a very different experience.

If you are a first time player, my advice would be to try a lot of different things and see what you like, rather than locking yourself into one weapon or one fighting style.


Here is some basic info:

!) Pyromancy, one of the 3 types of magic, is unique in that it does not require ANY Intelligence or Faith to use. This means that it's extremely easy to fit it into absolutely any build! All you need is 10-12 attunement so that you have a spell slot or two available and you're good to go!

There are several pyromancies which are self-buffs such as Power Within and Iron Flesh, which can be cool and effective ways to enhance a warrior character! Try them out, see if you like them! Power Within in particular is absolutely fantastic and a lot of fun too in my opinion.

Pyromancy also includes a lot of short ranged offense. A few have an area of effect, but that's not as useful in Dark Souls as it is in some RPGs since you seldom fight many foes at once.

You won't deal much damage with pyromancy unless you spend a LOT of souls having a trainer NPC upgrade your pyromancy flame.


2) Sorcery has most of the game's generic ranged offense spells. All sorceries require some intelligence. The most powerful offense spells require a LOT of intelligence, so they won't be viable for a warrior.

However, Sorcery also includes a bunch of really useful utility spells which require almost no intelligence. For 14 int or less you can turn invisible, create light, create illusory sounds to distract enemies or lead them into clever traps, and buff your weapon or your shield to be better. Again, neat little additions to a warrior's arsenal.

One nice thing about sorcery is that there is a catalyst (magic wand) available early on called the Oolacile Ivory Catalyst. This makes all your sorceries deal high damage even if you have almost no intelligence at all. So you can just grab 14 int for the fun utility spells, grab an Oolacile Ivory Catalyst, and be ready to blast away with high damage on any occasions when you do want to do a ranged attack.


3) Miracles are the third type of magic. They're my favorite, but they're also honestly the worst for a new player. Most of the Miracles available early game are worthless, all the good ones are hidden behind secret covenants or require completing NPC questlines, or require a massive amount of Faith, etc.

The best thing you can get out of miracles as a new player is some additional healing. This requires only 12 faith and a talisman. If you're willing to spend some souls to buy it from Petrus of Thorolund (an NPC available in Firelink right at the start of the game) the Thorolund Talisman is very powerful for characters with low faith and will make you good at healing.



My advice to you would be to do the following:
1) At the start of the game, get to 16 Strength and 14 dexterity. That will let you wield 95% of the weapons in the game, so you can see which ones have moves you like.

Don't spend your level ups going above about 16 Str and 14 Dex for a while. Early in the game, increasing those stats doesn't help much, and you don't want to waste level ups on, say, strength if it turns out later on that you really prefer Dex weapons.


2) Get 10-12 attunement and 12-14 Intelligence next. You can unlock the good spells and the good catalyst once you get to Darkroot Basin, which is available very early in the game and is full of goodies for warrior characters too. The most basic sorcery spells are available right at the start of the game from an NPC named Rickert who is in a safe area of New Londo Ruins right below Firelink Shrine.


3) Don't bother with faith unless you find that you really, really need more healing all the time. In that case, get 12 faith and grab the heal spell from Petrus. You can check out the other miracles too if you like, but most of the early game ones are pretty disappointing.


Once you've hit those minimum requirements, throw your other level ups into Vitality and Endurance. Those stats are universally useful and are more helpful in the early game than Str/Dexterity, so they're a good thing to invest in while you figure out what weapons and spells you like.

Thank you for the above and beyond answer!
Also I noticed that since i'm "late to the party" for dark souls I seem to find less and less players mid game. When I started a new game I often see a bunch of white signs and even tried out a few invasions with the given cracked orbs, I'm guessing it's because people often like to create new characters like a mmorpg. Now that i'm in new game I have yet to find one single white sign (i'm around lvl 35 now) in the world let alone getting invaded while I'm human. I'm guessing most people (since there's only 2k concurrent) are on their...5th NG or more and no longer "match" with my char level/weapon level.

If that's the case, the road feels pretty lonely haha. Gotta finish D1 and 2 since everyone is playing 3 now.