Solaire of Astora's character building guide for beginners

This guide is meant for beginners who'd love to learn a few combat basics about Dark Souls 3 and building a balanced character that suits their own playstyle.

Intro

Praise the Sun dear fellow travelers of Lothric!

This guide is meant for beginners who'd love to learn a few combat basics about Dark Souls 3 and building a balanced character that suits their own playstyle.

Combat basics

First of all we need to learn the tricks of combat. I highly advise getting a controller instead of keyboard + mouse for this game.
I prefer the Xbox 360 controller, because at this moment the price/quality balance is pretty fair and the button icons ingame are based on the Xbox 360 buttons.


BASIC STATS:

Health: This is your basic healthbar, if it runs to 0 you die. You can use Estus flask, some usable items, miracles or a special ring to regen health.

Stamina: Stamina is used for nearly every action ingame: Running, rolling, attacking, blocking, jumping, using spells, etc. If stamina runs out you aren't able to do any of those actions. If you get hit with 0 stamina you get staggered/stunned as well. So always try to manage your stamina at all times. You can use a special ring and shield to regen stamina faster if you like.

FP: This stat is used for spells, miracles, pyromancy and weapon special attacks, it doesn't regen unless you carry a simple infused weapon and can be refilled using the estus bottle.

Some advice on combat:

- If you can walk or roll back instead of block an attack, always do so, as it consumes less stamina. During the roll you have an invincibility frame, it isn't very large, but large enough to avoid those heavy attacks. Blocking only blocks a certain % of damage, depenings on the damage type: Physical, magic, fire, lightning etc.
- If you think you can't roll in time, simply block, preferably with a 100% physical block shield. Good choices include the "Silver Eagle Kite Shield (Art)" you find early game, or the "Kite Shield (Parry)" or "Knight Shield(Parry)", both bought from Geirat. If your carry weight allows it, you can farm for the "Lothric Knight Shield (Parry)" or the "Black Knight Shield (Art)", both of which have much higher stability.
- Keep in mind, keeping your shield up slows your stamina regeneration significantly. Unless the enemy has a near-instant attack that you can't react to, you should only be blocking when the enemy actually starts an attack.
- Above tip goes double for PvP. Getting guardbroken by a human player is extremely punishing as they'll be able to perform a riposte on you as if they had parried you. Watch out for kicks as well, its short-ranged, but will likely break your guard if it hits.
- In PvP, you may want to consider getting a shield with higher stability instead of focusing on 100% phys block shields. Higher stability reduces stamina damage taken when blocking, and receiving a bit of chip damage through your shield is better than being guardbroken and riposted. Good lightweight choices include the "Wargod Wooden Shield (Art)" or the "Round Shield (Parry)".
- During PVP, don't spam R1 like crazy, people will notice and parry such attacks. Be especially careful when you see someone with a buckler shield or fist-like weapon in their left hand. Those are specialised parrying equipment, meaning your opponent intends to parry you.
- Learn to parry, there are enough videos on youtube with Parry guides, and practise on low level easy to parry enemies first.
- Learn to manage your estus, don't drink for every low health, but save when really needed, else you run out of estus before you really need it. Also, try to use it only when your HP is low enough to make full use of the estus heal.
- Don't be afraid to run back and use all those precious souls to level up before going further in the game.
- Upgraded weapons can do more damage than just leveling strength, Dexterity etc. So always level up weapons.
- Only play embered if you want to coop with other players or don't mind getting invaded. If you prefer solo play without getting invaders, make sure you aren't embered.
- Always keep your equip load (armor and weapons) at 70% or below, else you roll like a sticky turd.
- Always have a bow or xbow with you, it helps greatly with some of the challenges like fighting dragons. Black Bow of Pharis is one of my favorites due to it's range. Also learn the difference between arrows. Heavy arrows hit harder, but have shorter range, so at long range you prefer normal or feather arrows. Try out all arrow types at all ranges and you know what works best at the situation you are facing.
- Carry buff items (resins) depending on the weaknesses of the enemies, for example the fire/lightning buff resins give mini stuns when hitting enemies.
- Carry knifes with you, they are great for PVP when an enemy has low health and tries to run away for a heal. It's low stamina use and are pretty fast at throwing.
- With PVP I personally like having different weapons with me, for example an Ultra Greatsword and a Broad/Long sword, to quickly swap fighting styles. Also whips can be nice to carry around, because they can't be blocked or parried. The more you swap around, the less people can easily read your actions during PVP.

Stats and their soft/hard caps

All stats that you can level up in Dark Souls have a soft cap/hard cap, meaning if you level them up beyond those caps, they don't give enough bonusses to spend those hard earned souls on.

Vigor = 17/26/44
Depending on if you want a tanky character with high health, or a DPS like character you either take 17 to 44 Vigor. 17 I advise getting with every character, else you can easily get 1 shot by certain enemies and bosses. 26 is great for melee characters and 44 if you want to be extremely tanky.

Attunement = 35/40
At 35 attunement doesn't give much FP points beyong that, however at 40 you get an extra slot for spells. So if you go a pure mage/miracles build I highly advice going all the way to 40.

Endurance = 17/40
At 40 it doesn't level up much more, for most my characters I dont go beyond 17-20, because if you manage your stamina well, you don't need much more. Unless you use really heavy stamina consuming weapons, then 30-40 is a must.

Vitality = ~/~
This stat I always level up depending on the armor and weapons I like to carry around. Make sure your equip load is always below 70%.

Strength/Dexterity = 40
If you go for a str or dex build, 40 is your cap you want to aim for, unless a weapon requires more str or dex. You can also go for both str and dex at 40 if you want to make refined infusions on weapons (meaning it scales better if you have both str and dex in your build)

Intelligence/Faith = 40/60
Depending on if you want to have Magic/Miracles as a little extra or as your main focus, either go 40 or 60. So pure mages/miracle build always aim for 60.

Luck = 99
Luck is meant for special Hollow build and people that love finding more items. For beginners I don't advice spending points in it at all.
Luck also increases Bleed and Poison damage or application, one of the two. It's useful on Status builds.

Building your character

So with what we know now, we can finally start to build our character. Most people prefer to stick at Soul Level 120 for PVP and Coop gaming.
To build a character you want to play we first need to decide what sort of role we want to play.
There are a few basic type of builds which I will go into deeper later in this guide.
Basic roles are:

- DPS (melee or mage type):
DPS builds deal very high damage, but aren't the best at absorbing damage. You can either choose for a melee build or mage build like Mage, Pyromancer, Miracle builds

- Tank:
Tanks are most of the times high health, great at shielding incoming damage characters. They always try to keep all agro from bosses and enemies so the DPS guys can hurt them without being afraid to get hit themself. Tanks wear heavy armor/shield, have enough health and stamina to absorp incoming damage and also can land a few hits when needed.

- Healer:
Healers are always based on Healing Miracles, but also dealing a bit of DPS using either weapons or miracles. They heal the team when needed.

- Hybrid builds:
Build that mix between 2-3 of the above, for example a tanky build that also does high DPS using a strength based weapon.

PVP Builds:
These are builds only meant for PVPing and there are several builds to find on youtube. Some prefer using parrying weapons combined with a weapon that after a parry can 1 hit kill an enemy. Some are based on using tactics like ranged battle, whips (cant be blocked or parried) and other stragegies like using exploits in the game.

Solaire's example builds

Ok it's time for a few basic builds for you guys. It's very important to know what kind of build you want to make. Melee, mage, tanky, DPS etc.
Depending on that build you need to start using a class you begin with and the armor/weapons/spells/rings you want to use for the build.

Below are a few examples of builds...

Knight

Starting Class: Knight

Stats:
Vigor: 32
Attunement: 10
Endurance: 32
Vitality: 28
Strength: 40
Dexterity: 40
Intelligence: 10
Faith: 10
Luck: 7

Weapons:
Right Hand:
(Refined) Astora Greatsword
Longbow
Left Hand:
(Refined) Broadsword (nice to dual wield with the greatsword)
Dragon Crest Shield
Pyromancy Flame

Armor:
Silverknight Armor Set

Pyromancies:
Carthus Flame Arc (weapon buff)

Rings:
Havels Ring +3
Ring of Favor +3
Ring of Steel Protection +3 (defense)
chloranthy +3


Overal this build has a nice belance between defense and hitting hard when you buffed your sword with Carthus Flame Arch. Having a broadsword in left hand can help alot to stun lock enemies (or players) and also cost less stamina compared to the greatsword.

Mage

Starting Class: Knight

Stats:
Vigor: 27
Attunement: 40
Endurance: 23
Vitality: 15
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 12
Intelligence: 60
Faith: 9
Luck: 7

Weapons:
Right hand:
Moonlight Greatsword (does great on high int)
Scholars Candlestick (use this in right hand, it boosts your sorceries)
Left hand:
Court Sorcerer's Staff (best staff for 60 int use it in your left hand)
Silver Eagle Kite Shield (100% physical blocking and lightweight)
(simple) caestus (for mana regen and parrying)

Armor:
Crown of Dusks (boosts magic)
Leonhard's Garb
Leonhard's Gauntlets
Assassin Trousers

Spells:
Soul Greatsword (PVP)
Crystal Soul Spear (PVP/PVE (bosses)
Homing Crystal Soulmass (PVP mostly)
Great Heavy Soul Arrow (PVE)
Soul Stream (PVP/PVE extreme high damage)

Rings:
Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring
Young Dragon Ring
Magic Clutch Rings
(all 3 boost magic damage)
Sage Ring +2 (boosts cast time)


This build can pop some insane damage with most of the spells. But also the Moonlight sword has a nice moveset, range and DPS as well.

Faith Knight

Starting Class: Knight

Stats:
Vigor: 30
Attunement: 18
Endurance: 27
Vitality: 26
Strength: 24
Dexterity: 18
Intelligence: 9
Faith: 50
Luck: 7

Weapons:
Right Hand:
(Lightning) Lothric Sword
(Raw) Lothric Greatsword
Light crossbow
Left hand:
(Simple) Knight Shield (mana regen)
Saint's Talisman

Armor:
Brass Armor Set

Miracles:
- Sunlight Spear (best damage)
- Soothing Sunlight (massive heal spell)
- Lightning Blade (needed to buff the raw weapons)
(optional)
- Darkmoon Blade/Dark Blade (optional for bosses immune to lightning)
- Sacret Oath (optional damage buff)

Rings:
Morne's Ring
Ring of the Sun's First Born
Havel's Ring +3
Ring of Favor +3


This build can deal some nice damage and be support when healing. Thanks to the armor and vigor it can take a few hits as well. The raw weapon deal pretty ok physical damage, however with the Lightning Blade buff the real damage starts to happen.

Pyromancer

Starting Class: Pyromancer

Stats:
Vigor: 25
Attunement: 24
Endurance: 25
Vitality: 16
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 18
Intelligence: 40
Faith: 40
Luck: 7

Weapons:
Right hand:
Onyx Blade
Witch's Locks
Black Bow of Pharis
Left hand:
(simple) Silver Eagle Kite Shield (great defense and a life saver at bosses, and also recharges mana)
Pyromancy Flame

Armor:
Pyromancer Crown
Black Dress
Black Gauntlets
Black Leggings

Pyromancies:
- Rapport (being able to turn enemies into helping you instead of killing)
- Great Chaos Fire Orb (main DPS skill)
- Black Fire Orb (cheaper than Great Chaos Fire Orb and used against fire immune enemies)

Rings:
Witch's Ring
Great Swamp Ring
Sage Ring +2 (boosts cast time)\
Ring of Favor +3 (some extra stamina and health)


Great at dealing DPS and turning enemies into allies with Rapport.

Tank

Starting Class: Knight

Stats:
Vigor: 30
Attunement: 10
Endurance: 20
Vitality: 60
Strength: 50
Dexterity: 12
Intelligence: 10
Faith: 10
Luck: 7

Weapons:
Right hand:
(heavy) Greatsword
Heavy Crossbow
Left hand:
(Heavy) Longsword/Broadsword (for dual wielding and faster attacks)
Black Iron Greatshield (or any other greatshield)
Pyromancy Flame

Armor:
Black Iron set (or any heavy armor)

Spells:
Carthus Flame Arch (always a great buff)

Rings:
Chloranthy Ring +3 (stamina regen)
Ring of Favor +3 (more carry weight, health and stamina)
Ring of Steel Protection +3 (more defense)
Havel's Ring +3 (more carry weight)


Overall this build can take and land a few hits, you can swap the greatsword with any other heavy infused weapon if you like.

Assassin

Starting Class: Mercenary

Stats:
Vigor: 27
Attunement: 14
Endurance: 27
Vitality: 25
Strength: 22
Dexterity: 57
Intelligence: 18
Faith: 10
Luck: 9

Weapons:
Right Hand:
(sharp) Carthus Greatsword (high ranking on dex)
(sharp) Crow Quills (great on backstabs and crits)
Black Bow of Pharis (for sniping purposes, Feather Arrow for long range, Large arrow for short range)
Left Hand:
(sharp) Crow Talons (high ranking on dex and great moveset)
(simple) Caestus (for parrying and mana regen)
Sorcerer's Staff (spell casting)

Armor:
Sellsword Armor Set

Rings:
Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring (perfect for sneaking, because you make 0 sound)
Carthus Milkring (3 extra dex to hit 60 dex and invisible while rolling)
Hornet Ring (for critical backstabs)
Lingering Dragoncrest Ring +2 (to make invisibility spell work longer)

Spells:
Hidden Body (turn you invisible, this plus the slumbering ring makes you nearly 100% invisible to all enemies... aka easy backstabs)
Chameleon (turn in to objects, perfect for PVP)

Extras:
Some fire bombs, buff items for your weapons depending on situation and whatever else comes in handy.


This time I came up with a pure ninja build, which also needs some of the DLC weapons. This is more like a turn invisible and go full ninja on all enemies. Backstab nearly every enemy, snipe them from long distance without them seeying where from etc.
Basicly turn DS3 into Hitman/Splintercell/Thief game.

Samurai (bleed)

Starting Class: Warrior

Stats:
Vigor: 33
Attunement: 6
Endurance: 40
Vitality: 11
Strength: 35
Dexterity: 35
Intelligence: 10
Faith: 9
Luck: 30

Weapons:
Right Hand:
(Hollow) Onikiri and Ubadachi
(Hollow) Washingpole (swap this with Onikiri and Udabachi when you fight more than 1 enemy)
Black Bow of Pharis
Left hand:
(Hollow) Parrying Dagger
Simple Caestus (used for mana regen and parrying)

Armor:
Eastern Armor Set (except helmet)
Any helmet that doesn't make your weight go above 70% or no helmet at all for cosplay

Rings:
Chloranthy Ring +3
Ring of Favor +3
Knights Ring
Hunter Ring

Consumables:
Carthus Rouge (for buffing your katana's with bleed)
Throwing knifes that cause bleed, in case people run off to heal


This is basicly a bleed build based on hollowing/luck and buffing, but with samurai cosplaying. Always apply Carthus Rouge to your weapons when fighting players or big enemies to cause bleed damage. You must do the right questline to get full hollow, else this build won't work. Also don't reverse hollowing at the firekeeper... ever. This isn't a build I came up with myself, but tweaked it a little to make it look like a samurai.

http://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Yoel+of+Londor questline for Hollowing

About hybrid builds

For hybrid builds simply pick those stats you need for your spells/gear. Always spend your souls considering the soft/hard caps. No need to waste souls on skills that don't add much to your build.
Try out a few weapon and spell types and put them in a great mix. You can even choose to use pyromancies/miracles/sorceres/dark sorceries in one build with a 40/40 fth/int build using the pyromancy build I gave. Mixing the spells you like the most.

Depening on your stats you must either choose to infuse with raw weapon or scale weapons with the int/fth using chaos/dark for fth+int, crystal for int or lightning for fth. Whatever gives the best total ammount of damage.
Do notice not all weapons level up great with Raw tho, as it is mostly considered for early game. However some weapons do nice damage as raw.

Have fun testing with builds and remember each playthrough you can reset all your stats 5 times at Rosaria NPC.

Conclusion

Some advice:
- Look at what kind of stats you prefer to level up and infuse/buff your weapons depending on those skills. No need to heavy infuse a weapon if you aren't going to level up strength for example.
- Try out every weapon/spell/armor in the game and see what suits you best
- Try mix spells with melee to be more diverse (also at PVP)
- Look up on youtube for builds, there are a few great youtubers with awesome builds happening.

This was my guide, I hope you all enjoy some jolly cooperation in the future and if you need any help, do ask.
Also if you need help defeating a boss, I will be glad to help you out!

Praise the sun!

[Crab Lord]

[Dr_Dank]

If you're fine with being very cheap, you can respec into a ranged magic build at Rosaria to absolutely cheese her by attacking and hiding behind the staircase and respec back after. Gitting gud isn't actually too hard, just smack her in the butt until you finally kill her . Gold pine resin also helps.
If you do Rosaria think, look up the glitch so you don't use up two of your five respecs

[Solaire of Astora]

Depends on the build + gear and your ability in rolling/dodging/blocking if needed, however blocking/rolling costs stamina as well as attacking... so basicly stamina management.

[Elzi]

Hi there, thanks for this, very helpful! I'm trying to kill dancer on Knight build, around SL90, and she's kicking me right in the motivation. Getting gud is unlikely but I am prepared to be extremely cheap. Any tips please?

[Solaire of Astora]

You are very welcome!

[Dr_Dank]

The soft caps are definitely my favorite part of this guide, I like to make my own builds but don't want to waste my stats, so this is really nice to have favorited

[camm]

sweet

[semper]

You're too kind!

[Solaire of Astora]

I can send u some picks of my hard wood if you need!

[semper]

not enough pictures