2. Dark Souls General hints and tipsUpdate notes

There is a simple fact about Dark Souls that you will need to accept, you WILL die and it will be often, sometimes unfairly sometimes by your own mistakes and sometimes at the hands of other players but it will happen, with that in mind I will use this page to give you the best possible advantage I can to understand Dark Souls and at least give you more of a fighting chance.

Game Mechanics

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Souls - Souls are the lifeblood of this game, they represent both your currency and experience points as they can be spent to acquire new spells or items as well as to level up your stats at a bonfire. Souls come in both 'loose' and 'solid' forms. Loose souls are the souls you are awarded each time you kill an enemy, it is these that you will be using on a regular basis. Solid souls come as either loot items or rewards for bosses, they can usually be told apart as the loot item souls have generic names such as Soul of an Undead Soldier while the souls gained as rewards are generally named after the boss creature you have slain to get it ie. Soul of Sif. Boss souls may be used the same as other solid souls however they have a secondary function in which the can be used by a blacksmith in Anor Londo to create unique weapons or be given in exchange for a new spell, most boss souls will need to be won at least twice to obtain all necessary weapons/spells for your achievements, Sif's is the only soul that is required three times. Finally you have Firekeeper Souls, these serve a different function in that they can be given to one of the Firekeepers in the Dark Souls world in exchange for upgrading your Estus Flask.

Humanity - Humanity is another item that comes in two forms, Solid and Soft. Solid Humanity can be found as loot or rewarded as a drop (all bosses will drop solid Humanity). As solid Humanity is a consumable item you will retain any in your possession in the event of your death, when used they add to your soft Humanity stat which is indicated in the orb to the left of your HP and Stamina bars. Soft Humanity can be used at a bonfire to reverse hollowfication and become human again, it can also be used to kindle bonfires to give you more Estus Flasks when you rest. Soft Humanities also affect your stats, each soft Humanity you apply will increase your overall defence as well as increase the damage you deal with some weapons that scale with Humanity (Chaos Blade, Quelaag's Furysword -capped at 10 Humanity) and increase your item drop rate (also capped at 10). There are a few other possible uses for Humanity such as -

- Increase resistance to Curse

- Give to Quelaag's Sister to rise in rank through the Chaos Servant Covenant

- Give to Darkstalker Kaathe to rise in rank with the Darkwraith Covenant

Estus Flasks - The Estus Flask serves as your primary form of health regeneration in Dark Souls, to begin with you will be allowed five at a time, should they all be used you will need to return to a bonfire to refill them. As you progress through the game you will obtain Firekeeper Souls which can be given to one of three Firekeepers, Anastacia of Astora in Firelink Shrine, Lady of the Darkling in Anor Londo and Quelaag's Sister in Quelaag's Domain, there are seven unique Firekeeper Souls in the game allowing you to upgrade your Estus Flask to the maximum +7 but it is better to do so over two playthroughs as you will need to kill the Firekeepers if you wish to do it all in one making the bonfires they watch over become extinguished.

Bonfires - Bonfires serve as a hub for your character, when one is activated it will be where you respawn until you activate a new one. At a bonfire you can level your character, repair and upgrade equipment (providing you have the right items), attune (equip) your magic and miracles, reverse hollowfication and kindle the bonfires.

Kindling - Kindling is a process of upgrading a bonfire to allow you extra Estus Flasks when you rest there, in the early stages of the game you will only able to use this technique once but as you progress you will be able to Kindle bonfires further giving you more Estus.

Advanced Controls

Jumping - To jump you need to sprint by holding the B button down while moving, when you reach the spot you wish to jump from quickly let go and tap B once more to jump.

Kick - To perform a kick push forwards with the left analog stick and RB, the kick is useful for knocking enemies off guard and creating an opening to attack.

Parry & Riposte - To perform a parry you must have the correct shield equipped, as a general rule the smaller shields are used for the parry such as bucklers, kites and heater shields. With accurate timing hit the LT to swing your shield at your enemy deflecting their attack, this will stun them for a second or so it is during this short stun you must hit RB to land a critical hit riposte severely damaging the enemy. A parry followed by a riposte will inflict a further 25% damage.

Backstab - To perform the backstab simply circle around or approach an enemy from behind and push forward on the right analog stick and hit RB, if timed correctly and in the right position you will land a critical hit against the enemy. A backstab attack will deal up to an extra four times damage.


Advanced Combat Tactics

Stagger - Being staggered is a state in which your character or an enemy is sent backwards and during the animation cannot act. Being staggered is different to poise break as characters that have been staggered will take an extra 40% damage if hit during the animation. The following actions can result in being staggered -

- A blocking character is drained of stamina

- An attacking character is deflected

- An attacking character connects with a wall

- An attacking character is parried

- An enemy is kicked

Poise - Poise is a value that determines a characters resistance to being stunned, all characters and enemies have a poise stat which is drained each time they are hit, when poise is completely drained the character/enemy will be stunned, unable to move or attack. If you avoid being hit for a moment or so it will begin to regenerate similar to the stamina bar.

Deflection - Deflection is a hidden value that relates to shields (all weapons also have a hidden deflection stat but it will always be 0 and thus irrelevant). The value is not upgradable through items differs from stability. If an enemies attack connects with your shield and you have a high enough deflection rate the opponent will become staggered allowing extra damage (so long as the attack doesn't drain the last of your stamina and guard break you). Any shield that is equipped without it's parameters being met will have a deflection rate of zero regardless of size. The deflection ratings for each type of shield are as follows -

Small Shields - Light Deflection

Normal Shields - Medium Deflection

Greatshields - Heavy Deflection

Unique Shields - Light Deflection

Overkill - An Overkill is performed when you defeat an enemy in one hit with the damage exceeding 150% of the enemies maximum HP, so for example an enemy with 100HP would have to be hit for 150+ damage to qualify. An Overkill bonus rewards you with an extra 20% of the souls you would normally gain from killing the enemy, the conditions for getting an Overkill are as follows -

The damage must be dealt in one attack - The enemy does not need to be at full HP, Backstabs and Riposte attacks do count as a single attack although the animations may inflict damage in multiple stages.

Combo attacks do not count, this includes sorcery attacks such as Homing Soulmass

Poison and Toxic statuses are unable to grant an Overkill bonus

Fall damage (knocking an enemy off a ledge) does not trigger Overkill.

Jump Attack - To perform a jump attack you need to push Up+RT at the same time, personally I almost never use these as they can leave you wide open and vulnerable and the reward is not enough for the risk.

Stats and Equipment

Here I will list each stat that you will be able to see on your character screen and what levelling it up will affect as well as each stats Soft Cap (when it begins to lose it's effectiveness) as well as what the Soft Cap will reduce it to. I will also list all equipment stats/parameters as well as give a explanation on scaling.

Character Stats

Vitality - Raises HP - Soft Cap 40/50 -At level 40 max HP gained per level drops by 10, at level 50 the gain each level is reduced to 8 or 9.

Attunement - Allows more Attunement slots for spells - Soft Cap = 50 - After level 50 no more new slots can be gained.

Endurance - Raises max Stamina, Equip Burden, Bleed Resist - Soft Cap = 40 - Stamina becomes maxed at 40.

Strength - Increases damage on weapons with STR scaling - Soft Cap = 40/50 - Attack rating scaling drops drastically at each soft cap

Dexterity - Increases damage on weapons with DEX scaling, increases casting speed of spells - Soft Cap = 40/45/50 - Attack rating scaling drops drastically at both 40 and 50. Casting speed will no longer increase after 45.

Resistance - Raises Physical DEF, Fire Resist and Poison Resist - Soft Cap = 15/30 - Extremely low increase in Poison Resist after 15 and 30

Intelligence - Increases damage with INT scaling weapons, Magic Adjustment UP for most catalysts - Soft Cap = 40/45/50 - Contribution to damage scaling drops drastically after 40 and 50, Contribution to Logan's Catalyst's MagAdj UP drops drastically at 45.

Faith - Increases damage with FTH scaling weapons, MagAdj UP for most talismans, Magic Defence UP - Soft Cap = 50 - Contribution to MagAdj for all talismans drops drastically after 50.

Humanity - Item Discovery UP, All Defences UP, Curse Resist UP, Increase damage on weapons with Humanity scaling - Soft Cap = 10/30 - No longer gain bonus damage or item discovery at 10, no longer gain curse resist at 30.

Soul Level - All Defences UP

Equipment Stats

Explaining the equipment stats and how they work would be extremely difficult by text alone so I have take some photos and numbered the relevant areas (sorry for the average quality I am not practiced with editing etc) and uploaded them to a photo hosting site for you to use as a reference while reading.

Weapon Stats

1. The attack type tells you what type of physical damage inflicted based on the attack you use shown as RB/RT, the weapon I have shown here deals regular damage with the standard RB attack and Thrust damage with the RT attack.

2. This shows the damage output of the weapon, on the left it shows you the base damage for that attack type, in the picture you can see that my weapon deals 304 base damage, the right side number (here +155) shows the extra damage dealt based on the scaling of my Strength and Dexterity stats.

3. This shows you the efficiency at which a weapon will scale with each start starting from E and ascending to A and then S with S being the highest possible. A - simply means it does not scale with this stat.

4. These four symbols indicate Auxiliary effects, from left to right they are as follows along with their effects

- Bleed - Weapons that have a Bleed effect will build up on an enemy. Once the enemies Bleed resistance bar has filled (not visible to you) they will take damage equal to 30% of their Max HP, this effect is increased to 50% if done with weapons related to Priscilla. Some bosses are vulnerable to the bleed affect, they will not lose such a large percentage of their HP as regular enemies but it is still a substantial loss.

Poison - Weapons with the Poison effect will build up on an enemy. When the enemies Poison resist bar is filled they will begin taking low amounts of damage consistently over 3 minutes, how often the damage is dealt depends on the weapon, ie. a Poison Dagger inflicts 4 damage per second dealing a total of 720 damage in 3 minutes.

Divine - Weapons with the Divine auxiliary effect will ensure that the Skeleton enemies of the Catacombs area do not resurrect once they have been defeated, without the use of a Divine weapon they are technically immortal.

Occult - Weapons with the Occult effect deal extra damage to specific enemies and one specific boss they are -

- Royal Sentinel

- Sentinel

- Silver Knight

- Dark Sun Gwyndolin

5. These symbols show what level each stat must be to wield the weapon efficiently from left to right the values are Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Faith. It is worth remembering that if a weapon is wielded in two hands it halves the required strength to use it effectively.

Armour Stats

1. This shows the overall defence against physical attacks

2 & 3. These stats show the armours defence against each specific type of damage from physical to elemental.

4. This shows the armour pieces Poise value, the higher the poise value the greater the chance you wont be interrupted or staggered when you get hit.

5. These values show how resistant the armour is to each negative status effect

Shield Stats

The values here indicate how much damage is mitigated for each damage type while blocking with your shield.

Collectibles - Checklist Link

To complete Dark Souls you will need to explore every corner of the games world to collect every weapon, shield and spell required to complete the game, I have created a Google document that you can find by clicking the link above, simply download the document and open it in whichever spreadsheet program you use to keep track of things as you find them, I will also alert you when a checklist item is found through the story walkthrough.

Blacksmiths & Upgrading - Upgrade Table

You can begin upgrading your weapons, armour and shields once you locate your first blacksmith in Undead Parish, once available you can use materials found throughout your travels as well as paying a fee with collected souls to boost the parameters of your items, follow the link above to see the upgrading paths available as well as which materials are required for each path and which blacksmith you must find/visit to be able to make the upgrades for you as the four available in the game each specialise in different areas.

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