Elden Ring New Player’s Guide

Comprehensive Elden Ring Starter guide teaching new players how to use Flasks and Runes, the importance of Gear, how Stats Scaling works, Builds, Questing System, Online Play and more!

How to manage Healing, Flasks, and Lost Graces

HP and FP are regenerated almost exclusively through Flasks of Tears. Crimson Flasks regenerate your HP while Cerulean Flasks regenerate your FP. This is the same concept as Estus from previous Dark Souls games.

Your flasks are refilled each time you sit down at a Lost Grace. Elden Ring is largely structured around providing you enough HP and FP regeneration via the flasks to get from one Lost Grace to another.

If you’re really struggling and most enemies in the area are able to defeat you from full health in 1-2 hits, you’re definitely not ready for that area yet.

You should be able to survive from one Lost Grace to the next, though it can be a bit close sometimes. When you sit down at or quick travel to a Lost Grace, all the enemies (except bosses) will respawn. This system is the same as Bonfires from previous Dark Souls games, though you have more things you can do at Lost Graces compared to Bonfires.

FromSoftware sometimes likes to re-use Lost Graces by having the map wrap back around to them by having doors and elevators unlock and take you back to the Lost Grace as you reach them from the other side. Make sure to activate any elevators or doors that you see. They could be a shortcut back to a Lost Grace.

When you’re out in the open world instead of a dungeon, survival works a bit differently. Lost Graces are less important because you can clear out single groups of Enemies to replenish your Flasks. If you get defeated, you can also revive at these little statues that are closer to where you were than the last Lost Grace that you rested at was.

It can still be beneficial to visit Lost Graces even in the open world. You can do things like level up, add and change Skills on your Armaments, and swap out your skills or incantations.

Read the in-depth guide to HP and FP Flasks in Elden Ring and learn how to allocate them according to your needs, upgrade their tier and expand their numbers.

There is a unique Flask in Elden Ring called Flask of Wondrous Physick – an item you can pick up as soon as you start the game and I highly recommend you do it. This special flask has one use only, but its effect can be almost “whatever you want and need” and it gets replenished when you rest at a Lost Grace location.

What are Runes and how to use them

Runes are both your money and your XP in Elden Ring. Enemies drop them when defeated and the amount is proportional to their difficulty, so bosses drop a whole lot more than normal enemies. When you are defeated, you drop your Runes on the ground and have to go pick them up or you will lose them permanently the next time you are defeated.

Since Runes have the dual functionality, you should typically only spend Runes on the things you absolutely need for your build, like Sorceries as a spellcaster or incantations as a person of Faith. Don’t buy armor or weapons you can’t use because those are levels you are missing out on.

In past games, sometimes you have to buy everything or at least something from a vendor to progress their story, so if it’s a core vendor, you might want to buy everything.

I will usually buy the reusables like Cracked Pots and major consumables like Stonesword Keys, especially if they’re cheap. If they’re expensive, I might only buy them when I need them or before going to New Game+. I always make a (mental) note of where they are if I don’t buy them right away.

To learn how to take full advantage of the Elden Ring Map, check out this guide. You can utilize the beacons and markers system to keep track of your discoveries.

You can also find Golden Runes out in the world that give amounts according to the number in brackets [tier]. The higher the number, the more Runes you’ll get when they’re consumed. Since these don’t get dropped when you are defeated, it’s best to keep them in your inventory until you need to buy something or level up before a boss.

How Equip Load affects your Mobility

Your equip load affects how good your roll is and how quickly you regenerate stamina. Your equip load is equal to the total weight of everything equipped divided by your carrying capacity. Your carrying capacity is determined by your Endurance stat, so if you want higher carrying capacity, allocate points to Endurance when you level up. 

Different items have different weights. From Software (the developer) uses this equip load system to make your character feel more real and physical, so heavier armor and armaments (like larger swords or shields) weigh more than lighter armor and armaments. Additional weapons you have equipped also count towards your equip load, so don’t equip more things that you can realistically use. You can see what each item weighs on the stats page:

The big thing with equip load is that it determines how good your roll is. The lower your equipment load, the better your roll. Better rolls allow you to use them to mitigate damage more effectively. There’s less of a delay between when you press the button and gain temporary immunity and there’s less time spent in the animation where you aren’t immune, allowing you to be more responsive with your rolls.

If your equip load is higher than your carrying capacity, you’ll just stumble instead of actually rolling. It’s very ineffective at avoiding damage, as it would be if you tried to roll when carrying too much stuff. Stamina recovery is also faster when you have a lower equip load.

There are 4 different thresholds of equip load: light, medium, heavy, and overencumbered. These thresholds determine which roll you have and how quickly your stamina regenerates. Since these thresholds are all that matter, you want to equip the heaviest (most protective) armor you have while still remaining below your desired equip load threshold. 

There isn’t too much of a difference between light and medium equip load. There is no difference in terms of stamina regeneration rate and only a slightly more responsive roll (it’s possible there are additional immunity frames too), but you give up a lot of mitigation from having to wear less armor or invest more points into Endurance than you might need, so I only recommend shooting for a light load if you absolutely need the best roll. 

There is a much larger distinction between medium and heavy. The roll is a lot slower some players refer to it as the “fat roll” and your stamina regeneration is slowed significantly. It’s not good to have the heavy load and you should invest more points in Endurance if you can spare it or equip lighter armor. If you’re deliberately using a heavy load, you should be able to sprint away from all attacks that you can’t block.

You absolutely don’t want to be overencumbered, your stamina regenerates very slowly, you can’t sprint, and you just stumble instead of roll. Here’s a comparison of how stamina regenerates depending on your equip load.

What Types of Gear you can have

Armor

This is 4 pieces of gear that (with a potential few exceptions) provide the bulk of your passive defensive capabilities. The 4 pieces are head, chest, arms, and legs. The heavier the gear, the more damage it mitigates; different armor sets perform differently against different types of damage. Some are better at mitigating things like magic while others are better at mitigating physical attacks. 

Armaments

This is what you can equip to your left and right hand, so weapons, shields, etc. These can be upgraded by Smithing Master Hewg using Smithing Stones. You can two-hand an armament by holding Y/△ and pressing either RB/R1 or LB/L1 depending on the hand that holds the armament you want to two-hand.

You may want to take a look at the Elden Ring PC and Console Controls Guide. It will help you learn the keybinds, swap some of the default ones and discovered some secret combinations that the game doesn’t list for you.

When two-handing an armament, you will be more effective with said armament and your Strength stat is effectively increased by 1.5x. For example, if you have 20 Strength, you can two-hand a greatsword that requires 30 Strength.

Talismans

These items provide a variety of special buffs. In other RPGs, these effects are similar to what you might find in a skill tree or a set bonus, but Elden Ring doesn’t have those systems. Initially, you can only equip 1 Talisman at a time, but as you play through the game, you earn the ability to equip more than 1. In previous Dark Souls games, these were called Rings. Talismans are not Faith-based catalysts like they were in previous games. Faith-based catalysts are now called Seals.

Stats, Scaling, and Weapon Affinity

Your stats determine how strong you are in combat, but you don’t need all of them to be successful with each weapon, nor can you afford to level all of them.

Each weapon’s damage (or healing) scales with (typically) 1-3 of the following stats: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and/or Arcane.

For example, if you have a weapon that specifically scales with Strength, you’ll deal more damage with that weapon the more Strength you have. You can see which stats a given weapon scales with by looking here:

You probably have noticed that there are letters next to the stats, not just a simple yes or no. The letter determines how strongly a weapon scales with a particular stat. It typically ranges from E to A with E being the worst, though some weapons can go beyond A scaling to S scaling, which is the best. Having better scaling is both good and bad. If your relevant stat is low and you have a weapon that scales poorly, you might do worse damage than you would with a weapon with weaker scaling.

Most Ashes of War can offer an alternative affinity for the weapon, which makes it scale with an additional stat, though it also weakens the overall scaling. For example, an Ash of War might give C scaling for Faith, but could also reduce the existing Strength scaling from B to C. This is very similar to how Gems worked in the Dark Souls series, though it appears you can’t fully switch scaling anymore. Upgrading the weapon with Smithing Stones can also improve its scaling.

Scaling is ultimately just a method for determining damage output, and damage output is what truly matters. It may seem confusing when you’re trying to determine which weapon deals more damage, but Elden Ring tells you how much of a damage boost you’re getting from scaling. You can see it on this screen:

If you add the base damage to the amount provided by scaling, you get the total damage dealt contributed by that stat. If you add up all the values for each stat it scales, you get the total damage dealt by that weapon, before resistances. In the above image, we’d be doing 164 damage before mitigation is considered.

How to decide which stat to level up

Deciding on a Build

You should decide on the general build you’re going for as soon as possible, usually when picking your class in the character creation menu. Since this game is so difficult and leveling up gets more expensive with each consecutive level, you can’t afford to waste runes improving stats you don’t need for you build. It is possible to reallocate your stats (respec), but this will not be immediately accessible. Don’t rely on respeccing./

Your build is centered around your armaments and the stats they scale with. When you’re just starting out, you want to settle on which stats you’ll focus on. This means deciding which 1-2 scaling stats (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, Arcane) you’re going to put the majority of your points in. Do you want to do a pure caster build with a boatload of Intelligence? Maybe you want to do the “quality” that uses both strength and dexterity. Are you planning to use a shield?

Once you have your build sorted out, you can start thinking about leveling up and keeping your eye out for weapons that would be a good fit. Perhaps if you’re going pure strength, you will want to keep an eye out for the famous Zweihander, or if you want a super strong shield, you might need be on the lookout for greatshields or perhaps incorporate a spell that can buff your shield.

Leveling Up

You can spend Runes to level up your stats when sitting at a Lost Grace. I typically prioritize the scaling stats I’ve chosen for my build if I need to meet a certain threshold, like I just found a weapon or spell that requires a certain amount of scaling stat. I also prioritize scaling stats if I find enemies are suddenly taking an additional hit to defeat than they used to since reducing the number of hits it takes to defeat an enemy is the most meaningful threshold

If you’re happy with where your scaling stats are at the moment, level up more generic stats like Vigor and Endurance, depending on what you feel you could use more of at the time. I think it’s unwise to hold more than a level’s worth of Runes on me at a time because it isn’t guaranteed that you will be able to recover your lost Runes after you are defeated.

How to upgrade your current gear

You can upgrade your Armaments and Ashes using Smithing Stones and Gloveworts respectively. You cannot upgrade your armor.

What are Smithing Stones and how to get them

Smithing Stones are the primary way to upgrade your Armaments. As you progress through the game, you’ll find larger pieces of Smithing Stones that will enable you to upgrade your Armaments to higher levels. Smithing Stones are found as glowing items and can drop from some enemies. They are primarily found in mines. They are not a general crafting material.

There are 2 varieties of Smithing Stones: Regular and Somber. Regular stones are for upgrading most armaments in the game. Somber Smithing Stones are for upgrading special armaments, like boss weapons. You can tell which will be required when you go to upgrade the armament. 

Armaments can be upgraded by Smithing Master Hewg in the Roundtable Hold.

What are Gloveworts and where to find them

Gloveworts are the only way to upgrade your Ashes. The are primarily found in catacombs. Similar to Smithing Stones, they come in 2 varieties: Grave and Ghost. Grave Gloveworts are used to upgrade regular spirits while Ghost Gloveworts are used to upgrade named spirits. 

You can upgrade Spirits with Roderika by completing her quest in Stormveil Castle and talking to her and Smithing Master Hewg in Roundtable Hold.

How quests and storylines work

Quests and storylines are a bit different than they are for some modern RPGs and open-world games. There is no mission log or icon above a quest giver’s head. They are also the core stories besides what you read in item descriptions and may be crucial to a secret or alternative ending.

In this way, it’s more similar to the quests from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild where it isn’t just some pointless busywork where you have to harvest 15 things or defeat 20 of some specific enemy.

Practically all NPCs you meet have some sort of quest associated with them, except for some generic vendors. Sometimes advancing the quest requires specific timing where the quest only becomes available after completing some hidden objective. Make sure to exhaust all dialogue where the enemy just repeats the same phrase. Sometimes you don’t get a quest or item until you’ve talked to them a few times. The game also only updates the story upon sitting at a Lost Grace.

It’s also possible to advance too far and fail the quest. It’s best to immediately move on to the next step as soon as you meet the requirements.

How vendors and merchants work

NPCs that offer more than a storyline will utilize the vendor system, and a good chunk of the NPCs you encounter will be vendors.

There are generic and specialized vendors. Generic ones almost always have a least one or two things you want to buy and most of their stuff is cheaper than leveling up but can provide you with a pretty significant boost in combat. Think of it like finding a shiny new item out in the Lands Between only it’s a whole bunch of items.

The specialized vendors perform a specific function. Some apply to everyone, like Smithing Master Hewg will upgrade everyone’s weapons, but some might only apply to certain builds. For example, you might not need the Sorcery teacher if you are leveling intelligence.

To clarify for casters specifically, there are vendors that almost exclusively sell Sorceries or Incantations. They may refer to themselves as teachers or instructors, but they function the same as vendors.

You may find scrolls and such out in the wild and you can turn them in to a specific vendor to get new items for sale. The Sorceries and Incantations they sell have stat requirements to use just like armaments.

Specialized vendors like Sorcery or Incantation instructors are more likely to have storyline or quest advance by purchasing everything they sell.

How does online play work

FromSoftware has a fairly unique online system featuring messages, blood pools, summoning, and invasions.

Messages on the Ground

There are messages players can leave on the ground and other players can see them. You can’t type whatever you want, you’re limited to specific phrases and nouns, though you have enough of a lexicon to talk about the game, even if you have to get a bit creative sometimes.

Be wary of trolls, some players will try to trick you by writing messages saying things like there’s hidden treasure if you walk off this cliff. Once in a while, there is actually some treasure, but not always.

The appraisal system is a bit misleading too, it just says how many players have voted, not how many have upvoted or downvoted.

Blood Pools

You can also see blood pools on the ground that depict where players have been defeated. If you see a lot of them near a message telling you to jump off a cliff in search of treasure, you can be reasonably sure that the message is false. Blood pools can also warn of you of enemies that are hiding and you can view a player’s final moments by activating a blood pools.

How Invasion and Summoning work

You can interact directly with players too by having them join your world or you joining theirs. Using the Furcalling Finger Remedy item grants a buff that persists until you are defeated. It reveals the cooperative and PvP summon signs, but you’ll also open yourself up to getting randomly invaded against your will.

If you are summoned to help someone, you will leave when the objective is complete, usually when the area boss is defeated. Invaders leave when either you or the invader is defeated. Activating the Furcalling Finger Remedy is basically the same thing as being embered or human in past games without the other benefits like higher HP.

If you want to leave another’s world before your objective is completed or want to kick a co-op partner out of your world, you can use the Finger Severer item, which you can pick up in the Stranded Graveyard.

If you don’t want to deal with any of this online stuff, Elden Ring can be a completely solo experience, all you have to do is set the game to offline mode. You will still see occasional NPC summon signs and messages on the ground, but none are from actual players.

More Quick and Helpful Tips for New Players

After we have exhausted the “How to” and “What that does” topics, it’s time to talk about a few helpful and insightful tips and tricks you can apply in your early gameplay in Elden Ring to gain an advantage. I’ll be sharing these in separate paragraphs each.

Use the Guard+Counter Attack technique
For a very brief moment, after you block an attack from your opponent, you can do a Heavy Attack, which will be very powerful. It will often break the enemy’s posture and overwhelm them, allowing you to do a Crit-attack by simply performing a normal attack in front of them or at a glowing spot (for giant creatures).

Jump as a gap-closing technique
Jump is a new thing for the Souls games. In Elden Ring your character can jump. Both while on its own and while riding the mount. These jumps, when combine with an attack, can be a very powerful tool. You close distance fast while at the same time attack your opponent(s) from above, which deals extra damage too.

Don’t beat on friendly NPCs for no reason
You meet all kinds of NPCs that are not aggressive to you. In fact, most would want to talk to you and will likely give you a quest. In many cases, you can strike them down to take their armor, weapon, or something else that they may drop. You would then be locked out from completing that NPC’s quest or quests chain and those would almost certainly give you a far better reward.

The importance of Taking Breaks
Elden Ring is gigantic in terms of content size and challenge. It is more than likely that sooner or later you will get stuck on a boss that wipes you out continuously. Take a break, get rest and do something else. You will often see that when you return to it again with a clear and calm mind, things would seem different and somewhat easier perhaps even.

Open World vs Dungeon vs Boss
In relation to the previous topic, when you are stuck with a tough boss (the first major boss Margit is a great example for that), just go back to the open world and explore more. Find items that will boost your stats, gather runes to level up a little bit and see if there might be easier boss encounters you can take on. They all drop valuable loot and you might just stumble on an item that will help you defeat that challenging foe you were having troubles with.

Torrent is incredibly valuable
I highly recommend that you get your spectral steed Torrent as early as possible. Check out the guide on how to get your mount early in Elden Ring. The Lands Between is a gigantic place and despite the fact that you may stumble on something interesting every minute of your exploration, having a mount to move quickly from point to point, is fantastic. Mounted combat gives you great advantage over many enemies in the open world. You can’t use Torrent in dungeons and against special bosses, though.

Use the map to its full potential
The Map of Elden Ring is a great source of information. It is beautifully drawn, contains tons of information and you should take full advantage of it. Place beacons to guide you towards your next objective or place you want to explore. Use markets to remind yourself of special items, NPCs or bosses you have discovered and would like to revisit later. First, of course, you have to reveal it. You do that by finding fragments of the map for each region. To learn more on how to reveal and use the map in Elden Ring, head to the dedicated guide we have available on the topic.

Take advantage of the Day and Night Cycles
Elden Ring has day and night cycles and you can freely rotate the “wheel of time” when resting at a Grace point. During the night there will be special additional or different types of enemies roaming the world. Night-time bosses will spawn in the world too. An added benefit is that you earn a little more runes per defeated enemy during the night. I suggest you stick to daytime gameplay in your first steps with the game as a beginner.

Craft your own things
In Elden Ring you can craft. Purchase the Crafting Kit from Kale at the Church of Elleh and buy any cookbooks you find useful for your build from various merchants. You can craft things like weapons coatings or throwable weapons. Everything you craft is made out of resources you pick up in the world. And most of them respawn each time you rest at a Grace point.

Rainbow Stones and Fall Damage
You can use Rainbow Stones (a crafted item) and drop them off ledges to determine if you would survive a fall or not. If the Rainbow Stone shatters (you’ll hear a loud noise), you will not survive.

Aim for the head
Do what Thor should have done to Thanos at the end of Infinity War. Many enemies, especially larger ones, take significantly more damage if you hit them in the head, even if you can’t target their head specifically, like with Trolls.

How to perform critical hits
In order to actually perform a critical hit, you need to press your regular attack button (RB/R1/LClick) without inputting anything else on the controller. You’ll know you were successful if you do a special backstab or frontstab animation. You can only do this special attack if the enemy’s stance is broken. NPCs will have an orange glowing bit when they are vulnerable, usually on their head. Critical damage boosts are governed by how vulnerable a given enemy is (some take more critical hit damage than others) and what weapon you’re using (some weapons deal more critical damage than others). Sometimes you can deal more damage by hitting them repeatedly, especially if you can hit their head than you would from a single critical hit.

Utilizing Sacred Tree Branches and Rune Arcs
Sacred Tree Branches (called Rings of Sacrifice in Dark Souls) allow you to not lose runes upon being defeated. Rune Arcs (basically Embers or Humanity in Dark Souls) make you stronger. These are great when you need to make sure that you recover lost runes (often in conjunction with a Rune Arc) because they make it more likely you’ll survive to pick them up and guarantee that you won’t lose them if you do get defeated.

Map Pillars
Unlike other open-world games, Elden Ring does not feature towers or high points to give you maps. Instead, there are these comparatively small pillars that have the map item for the immediate area at their base. You can see the location of these pillars on the incomplete portions of your map as little rectangles.

Golden Footsteps
This is a new feature in Elden Ring, you may see golden or sometimes silver footsteps scurrying around. If you manage to hit the invisible enemy generating the footsteps, you will defeat it and get some loot, often a special Ash of War. Each enemy has a set pattern, so it’s easiest to find out what the pattern is and stand in front of it. When the footsteps are almost in range, use a big sweeping attack and you should defeat the invisible dung beetle.

Use your horse (Torrent) to traverse poison
Since Torrent is a spirit type thing, he is immune to poison and Scarlet Rot, allowing you to traverse the area without having to worry about building up the relevant meter. Most of the time, you are able to ride your horse through the swamp, though there are a few areas where this doesn’t work, like the Lake of Rot underground. It also doesn’t work for lava like you’ll find on Mt. Gelmir.

Items give you hints
If you see a glowy spot (like to pick up an item) in a place that looks impossible to reach, From Software (the developer) is trying to tell you that you can get up there, but the way to get there might be hidden or hard to see, so take a close look at your surroundings to try and figure it out. Usually, the item you see won’t be anything unique or special, but there might be some other super valuable item up there somewhere else.

We have in-depth guides on several of the above-discussed topics and a lot more that we didn’t touch base on today. Take a look at the Elden Ring Beginners Guides collection or browse through the Elden Ring Boss Guides catalog to read helpful information on how to beat a tough encounter.

When you are ready to tackle the DLC content in the new Shadow Realm area, check out our guide on how to make the Shadow of the Erdtree easier. The Expansion features a noticeable jump in difficulty compared to the base game.