Elden Ring Getting Started Guide — New Player Roadmap

Choosing Your Class

Elden Ring has ten starting classes. Your class determines your starting stats and level — it does not lock you into a playstyle. Every class can eventually learn any skill or spell, but starting stats accelerate your early game dramatically. Pick based on how you want your first twenty hours to feel.

Class	Playstyle	Starting advantage
Astrologer	Pure sorcerer — ranged magic damage from level 1	INT 16 at start; comes with a staff, Glintstone Pebble, and Glintstone Arc. Best entry point for magic builds. Full guide →
Vagabond	Melee tank — high Vigor and Strength foundation	Best starting Vigor (15) and Endurance (11); comes in light armor with a sword and shield. Forgiving for first playthroughs
Samurai	Dexterity melee — fast attacks, katana start	Starts with the Uchigatana (bleed on hit) and a longbow; excellent for aggressive Dex playstyles
Prophet	Faith caster — incantations and healing	INT 7 / FTH 16; starts with Heal incantation. Faith builds are strong post-patch 1.16
Hero	Pure Strength — big weapons, big damage	STR 16; starts with Battle Axe. Good for players who want straightforward melee
Wretch	Blank slate — all stats at 10, club start	Most flexible for planned min-max builds; least forgiving in the opening hours
Prisoner	Hybrid INT/Dex — spells and weapons together	INT 14 + DEX 14; suited for Moonveil-type hybrid builds that mix sorcery with blade attacks

First-time recommendation: Vagabond if you want to learn the combat at close range. Astrologer if you want to play a mage and keep enemies at distance. Both are excellent starting points. Avoid Wretch on your first run — the early hours are brutal enough without starting at level 1 with a club.

Keepsakes — Which One to Take

You choose one keepsake at character creation. Most are minor conveniences. Two are genuinely strong picks.

Keepsake	What it does	Worth taking?
Golden Seed	Gives you one extra Flask charge from the start	Best general pick. An extra Flask charge in the early game is equivalent to 50+ hours of Golden Seed farming. Works for any build.
Stonesword Key	Two imp statues keys — opens Imp-locked doors	Strong for experienced players who know specific Imp-sealed areas worth opening early (Fringefolk Hero's Grave, for example). First-timers won't know what to use them on.
Cracked Pot ×3	Containers for throwing pot consumables	Fine if you plan a crafting-heavy playstyle; unnecessary for most builds.
Lands Between Rune	A rune worth ~3,000 rune levels of currency	Minor rune boost that's irrelevant by level 20. Skip.

Avoid the Bewitching Branch. This keepsake's five charming items sound useful but you can buy Bewitching Branches from Gostoc later in the game. The Golden Seed cannot be obtained this early by any other means.

Attributes — What Each Stat Does

Elden Ring's eight attributes all have soft caps — points beyond these thresholds yield sharply diminishing returns. Plan your stat targets before you commit runes.

Attribute	What it scales	Soft cap(s)	Who needs it
Vigor	Max HP (the most important defensive stat in the game)	40 / 60	Everyone. 40 Vigor minimum before endgame. 60 for NG+/DLC.
Mind	Max FP (mana for spells and skills)	50 / 55	Sorcerers, Faith casters. Aim for 40–50 to sustain heavy spell use.
Endurance	Max Stamina + Equipment Load (determines armor you can wear)	50 (stamina) / varies (equip load)	Melee builds who want medium or heavy armor. Light-rolling sorcerers keep it low.
Strength	Scales Strength-affinity weapons; required for heavy weapons	54 / 80	Two-handing a weapon grants virtual +50% Strength for requirement checks.
Dexterity	Scales Dex-affinity weapons; reduces spell cast time slightly	55 / 80	Katanas, curved swords, bows. Note: DEX reduces sorcery cast animation speed.
Intelligence	Scales sorceries and INT-affinity weapons	20 / 50 / 60 / 80	Sorcerers. 60 is the main soft cap; 80 for endgame optimization with best staffs.
Faith	Scales incantations and FTH-affinity weapons	30 / 45 / 60	Incantation builds; also unlocks several powerful hybrid weapons.
Arcane	Item discovery (rare drops), scales Arcane-affinity weapons, some bleed scaling	25 / 45 / 60	Bleed builds, Dragon incantations, Rivers of Blood katana.

The First Hours in Limgrave

Don't Rush Stormveil Castle

Stormveil Castle — the first major dungeon — is accessible within an hour of starting. Do not go there at level 10. Spend your first three to five hours exploring Limgrave: the Weeping Peninsula to the south, the coastal caves, the early catacombs, and the towers scattered across the region. By the time you're level 25–30 with upgraded weapons and a Spirit Ash you've leveled at the Roundtable Hold, Stormveil's enemies stop one-shotting you.

Find Melina Immediately

You cannot level up until you meet Melina, who appears after you rest at three Sites of Grace. She offers you a Spectral Steed Whistle (summons Torrent, your horse) and the ability to convert Runes into levels. Get to a Site of Grace, rest, move to the next one — she appears automatically after the third. Until then, you have no way to spend your accumulated runes.

Always Ride Torrent in the Open World

Your horse Torrent is faster, harder to hit, and lets you disengage from fights that go wrong. In the open world, most mounted enemies become significantly easier when you stay mobile. Torrent also has its own HP bar — if your horse dies, use a Rowa Raisin to revive it. Never dismount into a large open enemy group unless you intend to fight.

Upgrade Your Weapon Early and Often

Smithing Stones are the primary bottleneck of your power curve. A +4 weapon of any type will outperform a +0 weapon dramatically — don't spread smithing stones across multiple weapons early. Pick one primary weapon and upgrade it consistently. Smithing Master Hewg at the Roundtable Hold handles upgrades; Smithing Stones [1] and [2] are plentiful in early-game mines.

What Elden Ring Doesn't Explain

You Can Customize Your Flask Split

At any Site of Grace you can adjust the ratio of HP flasks (Crimson Tears) to FP flasks (Cerulean Tears). Sorcerers should run a heavy Cerulean split — try 4 Crimson / 10 Cerulean, adjusting as you find Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears that increase your total flask count and potency.

Roundtable Hold Is Accessed Automatically

After progressing far enough in Limgrave, Melina invites you to the Roundtable Hold — a hub area with merchants, upgrade NPCs, and several important questlines. Visit every NPC there and exhaust their dialogue; multiple quests and vendors are gated behind conversations you can easily miss.

Two-Handing Doubles Your Effective Strength

Holding a weapon in both hands (Triangle/Y to toggle) multiplies your Strength stat by 1.5 for the purposes of weapon scaling and meeting STR requirements. A character with 20 Strength can wield a weapon requiring 30 Strength by two-handing it. This is why many Strength builds run lower than you'd expect.

Guard Counters Are Extremely Powerful

If you block an attack and immediately press the heavy attack button, you perform a Guard Counter — a high-damage follow-up that deals bonus poise damage and can stagger enemies. For melee builds using a shield, Guard Counters are one of the most efficient moves in the game. The game never teaches this explicitly.

Five Mistakes New Tarnished Make

1. Neglecting Vigor. Elden Ring's late game and DLC are tuned around 40–60 Vigor. Underinvested Vigor means one or two hits from any endgame boss kills you outright. New players pour stats into offensive scaling and wonder why they keep dying. Aim for 40 Vigor before Stormveil; 50 before Leyndell; 60 before Shadow of the Erdtree.

2. Holding onto Runes. Runes have zero value while they sit in your inventory and you're not spending them. Every second you're carrying large amounts of runes, you risk losing them to a bad death. Level up aggressively. The fear of losing runes causes players to hold them too long and then lose them anyway.

3. Not using Spirit Ashes. Spirit Ashes are not a crutch — they're a core system. Summoning a Spirit Ash (near any Rebirth Monument) splits the boss's aggro and gives you breathing room to attack safely. For sorcerers, Spirit Ashes are essential. The Lone Wolf Ashes are free and excellent in the early game.

4. Spreading damage types across multiple weapons. Infusing a weapon with an Ash of War changes its scaling and damage type. Mixing Fire scaling weapons with a pure INT build wastes both — your fire scaling is low, your INT scaling is diluted. Pick a primary damage type and commit. For sorcerers, stick to magic and standard physical weapons.

5. Missing Ranni's questline. The most content-rich NPC quest in the game — and the one that unlocks the Age of Stars ending and several of the best sorcery-adjacent items — begins with a visit to Ranni's Rise in northwest Liurnia. Visit her immediately after entering Liurnia. See the Missables guide for the full quest chain.