Prepare to Die: The Beginner's Spoiler-free Guide to Dark Souls

A spoiler-free guide for getting into Dark Souls that thoroughly explains all the mechanics, so that readers can play through the game without having any surprises or secrets ruined.

Getting started: Configuration.

Dark Souls' PC port is, quite frankly, terrible. Although with a bit of modding and configuration, it can become the best version of the game.

• The PC port of the game is locked at 30 FPS by default.
  
• The game has a few nasty hackers, unless you have protection.
  
• The game has pretty terrible keyboard and mouse controls, and they keys won't show up during regular gameplay; Xbox 360 buttons will instead.

In order to deal with these problems, I first of all suggest that you install a few mods.

The following mods are relatively simple to install if you read the respective Nexus pages, and they'll significantly, significantly improve your experience.

First of all, a must-have mod is DSFix, which can be found here:
http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/19/
This generally improves performance, and uncaps the game from 30fps to 60fps, making for a much more enjoyably smooth experience. If you'd rather play at 30fps, though, or if it performs slightly better that way, though, this mod allows you to press Backspace at any time to toggle between a 30fps and 60fps cap.
Also note that this may glitch out boss health bars. If it does, then simply disable HUD modifications in the DSFix.ini.

Second of all, in case you're playing with a mouse and keyboard, I highly reccommend that you either get a controller, or, in case you're unable to get one working, you can install the following mods to improve the keyboard and mouse experience.
http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/840/? (This mod will add mouse and keyboard prompts to the interface, replacing the Xbox 360 button prompts)
Also, make absolutely sure to install this, and its patch for the Steamworks version, which can be found elsewhere, to fix the otherwise vomit-inducing mouse camera: http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/28/?

Third of all, install PvP watchdog, which can be found here. It allows you to detect and kick any cheaters, so that they don't screw up your game or unfairly kill you, in case they invade your world.: http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/849/?

I also recommend that you install the following, to replace the pixelated text, designed for 720p, with something that looks much, much better at 1080p, what your computer will render Dark Souls at:
http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/21/?
I'd also recommend that you install the following mod to make enemy health bars a bit more visible:
http://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/40/?

There are plenty more mods available, but in the interest of preserving what the developers wanted the player to experience, and not spoiling some later characters and events, I only reccommend that you install the mods featured above, at least on your first playthrough.

Creating your character

Picking your class

When you decide to start a new game, you'll be asked to create a character. You may be a bit overwhelmed, and maybe confused at what to pick, but first of all, note that your character class only determines your starting stats and equipment. Compared to most other Action RPGs, Dark Souls gives the player a lot more liberty after the initial choice of their class.
A knight character can end up as a sorcerer in the end game, or vice versa, and one of the schools of magic, Pyromancy, doesn't actually have any stat requirements, theoretically meaning that anybody can use it.

That said, picking your class still has an effect, so I'll succinctly summarise each class and its starting strengths and weaknesses. It's generally agreed that the best class for beginners is the Pyromancer, although I'd argue that the Knight is better.

• The Warrior: It has good strength, dexterity and endurance, and the warrior starts out with good armour, a great shield (that defends against fire very well), and a basic longsword.
  
• The Knight: Starts off very tanky, with some high defense armour that gives the Knight poise. Poise is a stat which determines how hard it is to interrupt your actions. They also start with good vitality, so the knight is essentially a more defensively-oriented Warrior. Note that with all their armour on, the Knight will move incredibly slowly, and its dodge roll will be nearly useless. Note also, though, that you can remove one or two pieces of armour to roll more
  quickly.
  
• The Wanderer: A good class for beginners. They start with a fast scimitar, a decent shield, light armour which allows them to move and roll quickly, and they have high dexterity, a stat which both increases the damage of weapons like the scimitar they wield, but also allows characters to wield more advanced dexterity weapons.
  
• The Thief: A rogue which will, due to its light, relatively defensive armour, be able to roll and move quite quickly. It starts off with a good dagger (daggers being very effective for parrying and backstabbing), a very light shield more suited to parrying than blocking, and the Master Key, which allows you to go through certain doors you wouldn't generally be able to go through until later in the game, or without a special key.
  
• The Bandit: Essentially the strength counterpart of the Wanderer, wielding a battle-axe and a slightly more heavy shield instead of the scimitar and leather shield. It also has slightly higher Vitality (Health), and Endurance (Stamina and equipment load), at the cost of worse Faith and Intelligence.
  
• The Hunter: The Hunter will start off with very mixed stats, with little emphasis placed on magic, and they are also the only class to start with a bow, and 30 arrows. They start with a decent shield, great Strength and Dexterity, and decent Leather Armour.
  
• The Sorcerer: The Sorcerer is a class that starts off solely specialised in Sorcery, an intelligence-oriented school of magic. They start off with Soul Arrow, a very robust projectile spell that does magic damage, a fair amount of intelligence, and enough Attunement slots to memorise three spells, should you find any. Sorcery has the potential to be ridiculously powerful, although like the other schools of magic, the best spells are only sold by hidden, enigmatic vendors and found in hidden locations. Keep an eye out, and explore thoroughly. They are by far the weakest in terms of melee attacks, though, starting with a pitiful dagger, and the lowest Vitality, leaving them the most vulnerable in melee combat.
  
• The Pyromancer: The Pyromancer starts at Level 1, meaning that levelling up will be cheaper in the long run. They start with good overall stats, a solid hand axe, a weak shield, but a very strong pyromancy spell, Fireball, which essentially acts like a free Firebomb, which would usually be a somewhat scarce consumable item. Note that unlike the Sorcerer and Cleric, Intelligence and Faith respectively will not increase the damage dealt by Pyromancies. Only by reinforcing the Pyromancy Flame with a few select, special vendors, can you increase the damage dealt.
  
• The Cleric:
  Starts with a decent mace, a fair amount of strength (although little dexterity), high faith, and the Heal miracle. Having high faith, this class naturally specialises in Miracles, which usually constitute healing, regeneration buffs, and a few more niche spells, like Seek Guidance, which reveals hidden messages. Resourceful players, however, will be able to find a few highly-damaging miracles very effective in the heat of the battle. Keep an eye out, and explore thoroughly.
  
• The Deprived:
  Starts off with all stats at 11, no armour, a plank shield, and a club. A bit of a 'challenge class', which can also be good for players who aren't sure of how they'd like to build their character.

Picking a gift.

The descriptions for these are perfectly fine, and true, except note the following:

The Tiny Being's ring doesn't actually regenerate your HP, it just adds a small quantity of max HP. The description is due to a translation error.
• The Tiny Being's ring doesn't actually regenerate your HP, it just adds a small quantity of max HP. The description is due to a translation error.
  
• The Pendant may have a hidden interaction with the environment or a certain boss NPC at some point in the game.
  
• The Master Key can let you in to a lot of deadly areas early on.
  
• Divine Blessings are very rare full healing and status removal items. Use them sparingly, or just never use them because you're afraid of wasting them.
  
• Twin humanities are just a humanity sprite that gives you two humanities instead of one. The humanity system is explained in another chapter.

A look at equipment.

During your time in Lordran, you'll no doubt come across all manner of equipment with wildly varying stats, requirements, scaling and origins.

A visual explanation of the Equipment Screen

The Weapon Screen

The weapon screen is fairly self-explanatory, although a few aspects need a bit of explanation.

• Damage reduction isn't relevant unless you try blocking with the weapon.
  
• ReqParam refers to the parameters you must meet to wield a weapon. The muscle represents Strength, the hand represents Dexterity, the candle represents Intelligence, and the star represents Faith.
  
• ParamBonus refers to how well the weapon scales with the stats mentioned above. Also note that the (+7) in this case comes from the Strength and Dexterity scaling shown. Scaling means that a weapon's damage increases as you level up a certain stat. E is the worst possible scaling, S is the best possible scaling, although there is some variation within these letter grades.
  
• On the subject of scaling, note that diminishing returns come into effect, usually past 40 in the respective stat, meaning that the extra damage gained from levelling up a stat isn't worth it past 40.
  
• The Aux Effects below the ParamBonus refer to the extra effects a weapon will have. The red blotch is a bloodstain, and it represents bleed buildup on a weapon. Generally daggers, katanas, and some specific weapons will build up bleed, and once enough bleed has been built up, a huge percentage chunk of the enemy's health will be instantly depleted.
  The purple tear drop represents poison or toxic buildup. Once the opponent has been hit enough, they will be inflicted with a poison or toxic debuff.
  The white and dark rings represent Divine or Occult power.
  Divine power is feared by the undead, and can ward off dark resurrection magic.
  Occult power is a truly unholy power feared by the Gods and Lords. For its terrifying properties which the Lords fear, Occult weaponry is rare, and generally tucked away and hidden from view.
  
• Different types of weapons tend to scale best with Dexterity and Strength respectively: Straight Swords tend to scale with a mix of Strength and Dexterity, Greatswords tend to scale with Strength and Dexterity, Ultra Greatswords tend to scale best with Strength, Curved Swords, Katanas and Curved Greatswords scale best with Dexterity, Axes scale with either a mix, or Strength, Greataxes scale with Strength, Clubs and Great clubs scale best with Strength, and Spears usually scale with both, or they may favour dexterity. Make sure to check how a weapon scales with your stats, and also keep in mind that you'll find plenty of magical weapons which scale with Faith or Int, or with nothing at all on your journey through Lordran.

Shields

Shields share the same screen as weapons, except this time, unless you plan to use the shield as a weapon by putting it in your right hand, you need to pay attention primarily to the right hand side of the screen.

• The DmgReduction values are fairly self-explanatory, determining how well your shield reduces the damage of respective damage types. Note, however, that if an attack does enough stamina damage to break your guard, you won't block it properly anyways.
  
• Stability refers to how well a shield holds against an attack, essentially determining how much stamina damage you take upon successfully blocking a hit.
  
• Note that there are three types of shields; Small Shields, which are light and highly practical for parrying, Greatshields, heavy, bulky, high-strength requirement shields that can't be used for parrying, and Medium Shields, which are decent for parrying, and medium-weight.
  
• If you only want to parry, and don't care about blocking, note that Scimitars, Daggers and Katanas, or nothing at all can be equipped in your left hand for a different parrying animation, and the potential for some left-handed attacks.

Armour

Armour is very self-explanatory, although Poise deserves an explanation.
Poise is a fairly obscure word, and its archaic meaning (which is relevant to the time period Dark Souls is set in) refers to balance.
Poise in Dark Souls refers to how difficult it is to stagger you or interrupt your actions. A character with no poise will have any action interrupted, even if they're just hit by bare fists, or a dagger.
A character with high poise, on the other hand, will be able to endure a few attacks without getting interrupted or staggered.

Note: Pay attention to how much of your max Equip Load is filled when equipping yourself.
Everything equipped will increase it.
At less than 25% of your max equip load, you'll move and roll quickly.
Between 25% and 50%, you'll move and roll at a fair speed, and your Stamina regeneration will be slightly slowed.
At above 50%, your roll will become borderline ineffective, and you'll move noticeably slower.
At above 100%, your character can't roll, and movement becomes exhaustively slow.
Unless you have a strong shield or lots of endurance, I highly, highly reccommend that you stay below 50%, or most ideally, below 25% equip load.

Magic.

In case you opt for a magic build, magic could very well end up being your bread and butter, so this section of the guide is dedicated to detailing everything relevant to a magic user.

Casting Magic

In order to cast magic in the first place, you're going to need a catalyst. 'Catalyst' is the general term for any tool that allows you to cast a spell, and each school of magic; sorcery, pyromancy and miracles, has its own respective catalyst; sorcery is casted using staves, miracles using talismans, and pyromancy using a pyromancy flame.
In order to cast magic, simply equip a spell and a catalyst compatible with said spell, and press R1 or L1, depending on which hand the catalyst is in.

Magic Adjust

Magic adjust is what allows your spells to get stronger with Faith and Intelligence.
Each catalyst will have a flat base Magic Adjust, and it will also have a scaling for either Faith or Intelligence. It's these catalysts that will determine the damage spells deal, and generally, talismans will scale with faith, and staves with intelligence.
Some catalysts may have side-effects, such as lowered castings, and keep in mind that each catalyst has its own scaling and base MagAdjust. Also keep in mind that the Pyromancy Flame's MagAdjust can only be increased through reinforcement.

Note: Magic players should be more observant and more willing to explore than other classes. Explore every route and try to find any hidden merchants or NPCs, so that you can find as much magic as you can.

The Bonfire, Levelling Up, Reinforcement and Repair.

At the bonfires, your only true places of respite in Lordran, you'll be able to do many things, namely level up, Reverse Hollowing, Kindle, and reinforce and repair weapons and armour, although reinforcement and repair don't become available at bonfires until soon into the game.

Levelling Up

So you've found a bonfire which you're able to level up at, and you're deciding what to level up, and you're not sure.
Well, the following should help you in making decisions.

• Never level resistance. Seriously. It's useless.
  
• Keep in mind the scaling of the weapons you like. If you don't know about that, read up on the Weapon Screen in the Equipment section. Also keep in mind whether you want weapons with scaling at all.
  
• If your character is using magic, you'll want to level up Intelligence, Faith or Attunement."
  Keep in mind that Intelligence is required for sorceries, and increases their strength, that Faith is the same, but for Miracles, and that Attunement is necessary to remember spells in the first place. Levelling up attunement will allow you to equip more and more spells. Also keep in mind when building your character that Dexterity slightly increases how quickly you cast spells.
  
• Points in Vitality and Endurance, Endurance especially, are never wasted. Endurance significantly increases your combat flexibility due to the increased Stamina, and it allows you to efficiently wear more Armour due to the higher Equip Load.
  

  Reinforcement and Repair

  Using many varieties of titanite shards, one will be able to reinforce one's weapons. This can be accessed at blacksmiths, but it's most efficient to reinforce at bonfires, due to the convenience.
  
  Repair is completely self-explanatory (your weapon will barely work when it's broken, when its durability has depleted it has broken), and reinforcement is fairly self-explanatory, but keep in mind the following:
  
  • Catalysts, i.e Staves and Talismans, cannot be reinforced. The Pyromancy Flame may be reinforced, although it can only be reinforced with a select few special Pyromancy trainers, and in order to let the Pyromancy flame reach its full potential, you need to find an elusive, special individual.
    
  • There are regular weapons and armour, and there's special armour. Regular weapons can be reinforced until +15, provided that you have the tools to Ascend them from +5 to +6, and +10 to +11, and regular armour can be reinforced to +10 without any special tools.
    
  • Special weapons and armour can only be reinforced with Twinkling Titanite or Demon Titanite to +5, and they cannot be ascended.
    
  • If you've modified a weapon, or you want to modify a weapon to a magical state, reinforcement will require a different sort of titanite for that respective magical state.

  Weapon Ascension

  
  Weapon ascension allows you to change the properties of a weapon.
  Weapon ascension can be done when a weapon is reinforced to +5 or +10, and it allows you to either further reinforce a weapon, or completely change the sort of scaling or damage for a weapon. In order to make most of the ascension system, keep an eye out for special embers and blacksmiths. This is especially important if you're a magic user, as you may be able to ascend your weapons to a magical state.
  
  

  Reverse Hollowing

  Reverse Hollowing allows you to turn yourself from the sickly, disgusting hollow appearance on the right, to a human, albeit potato-faced appearance. In terms of gameplay, being human as opposed to hollow opens up multiplayer features (which are explained in the following chapter), and allows you to kindle bonfires. In order to reverse hollow, you need to use or absorb humanity first. You'll know how much humanity you've absorbed by looking at the counter at the top left, next to your health bar.
  

  Kindling

  Kindling allows you to increase the amount of estus flasks that resting at a bonfire will give you. By default, you'll be able to increase the amount of estus flasks a bonfire gives you by five, but you can't, however, kindle bonfires that are already kindled to the maximum any further. When another player kindles a nearby bonfire in their world, the fire's strength will resonate with other players, and give them an extra estus flask.

Multiplayer

Bloodstains and apparitions

Even when you aren't human, you'll occasionally notice ghosts running through the world, or bloodstains left in the environment. The visions of ghosts are indeed other players, and the bloodstains do indeed represent the death of another player. Make sure to use bloodstains to your advantage, so that you don't suffer the same fate that another player did.

Jolly Cooperation

While human, you may come across white, or yellow glowing signs left on the ground, which, when touched, show another player. These allow you to summon other players to your world, and cooperation has a few rules affecting both parties.

• Cooperating players cannot use Estus Flasks. In order to heal they must use Miracles or Humanity.
  
• Once a cooperating player has successfully helped the host of a world defeat a boss, they will leave and return to their world, with an extra humanity added to the counter at the top left.
  
• You can put down your sign to get summoned even when hollow, so you can essentially help out a player in order to summon help yourself.
  
• You cannot summon players into an area if the boss of said area is already dead.
  
• Summoned, helpful players will always have a white, or a brilliant yellow glow/tinge to them.

Invasion

While being human may allow for summoning, it also brings up the terrifying prospect of invasions.
Invasions can only occur when you are human, and they entail another player entering your world, and cooperating alongside enemies to kill you. Once the invader is killed, or once they've killed you, they'll return to their world, and whoever survived will receive a humanity and a bounty of souls.
Unlike summoning, invasion is only possible through scarce, hidden consumable items, or through certain covenants. They can also be blue or red, respectively, and invaders cannot appear in any area as long as the boss is dead.
Keep in mind the following about invaders, though.

• Red invaders can appear in any area, at any time, as long as you are human
  
• Blue invaders are much more rare, and unlike the nearly purely malicious red invaders, blue invaders usually exist to eke out justice.
  
• Invaders are nearly always much more prepared than you are. Stay vigilant.
  
• Keep an eye out. Explore, and do things a certain way, and you may be able to become an invader.

The consequences of death.

When you die, you'll turn from human to hollow, if you were in human form, and you'll also drop a bloodstain with a green, glowing particle on top.

This bloodstain will carry all your souls, and any spare humanity on the counter on the top left. If you die again before collecting this bloodstain, you will lose these souls, and this absorbed humanity forever. After a death, be careful to retrieve your lost souls, but keep in mind that you can always repeatedly kill enemies to get any souls lost back.
The loss of souls and humanity can be frustrating, but make absolutely sure that loss of faith and frustration aren't consequences of death, too!

Prepare to Live: Final Tips and Guidelines

That's all I'm going to mention in this guide, because I think it should be as spoiler-free as possible, in order to avoid ruining all the amazing spoiler, surprises, secrets and shocks that you'll get as you go through the game. I'm not going to provide a guide to any specific areas, enemies or bosses, because figuring out how to deal with these things is half the point of the game.

• If you need to roll faster, remember that you can always unequip some armour.
  
• Always explore. You might find a shortcut to make the journey from bonfire to boss quicker, a shortcut back to a previous area, a new area entirely, or valuable equipment and magic.
  
• A death is never a failure. It's a part of learning, and it's OK to die often.
  
• Avoid spoilers.
  

• Most important of all, have fun!

[desteldavid]

man, I can't wait to start this one . my first was elden ring . habe to try this trilogy and hope bloodborne'll be on pc as well

[SHocke'r]

(May or may not be a spoiler thats for you to judge)Yo I've been trying to get past the boss on the bridge right after the tutorial and I think this will help.

[Defileros]

This guide is pure gold!

[_Lich]

Much appreciated, just starting to play dark souls, planning to see if I can main the gravelord sword.

[Roz]

Thx for those mods, now it's much better to play

[Nananannannn]

hmmm nice for newbies

[jesse]

very good

[Cahzin]

It's always nice to read a guide, always learn something different. Thanks!

[Snape]

thanks

[steve bosell]

I'm quite far through my first playthrough of DS, but I still found parts of this guide to be helpful. Thank you, I'm sure this would help a brand new player a lot.