Elden Ring beginner guide: everything you need before, during and after your first 20 hours

• Pick Vagabond if you want the easiest first run. Every class can become anything later, so the choice only shapes the first ten hours.
• Put your first levels into Vigor. Most early deaths in Elden Ring are a health problem, not a skill problem.
• Do not fight the golden knight on horseback at the start. Ride past him, get Torrent, get the map fragment, and let Limgrave teach you.
• Spirit Ashes are the built-in difficulty setting. Grab the Spirit Calling Bell at Church of Elleh and use it without shame.
• Margit blocks the road to Stormveil Castle. If he stops you, go south to Weeping Peninsula and east to the catacombs first, then come back stronger.
• Upgrade one weapon with Smithing Stones instead of spreading runes over many stats. A +5 weapon at level 25 beats a +0 weapon at level 40.
• Shadow of the Erdtree is for later: it unlocks after Radahn and Mohg, and it is balanced for characters around level 120 to 150.

What to know before you start#

Elden Ring is FromSoftware's open-world action RPG, released on 25 February 2022 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Since 28 August 2026 it also runs on Nintendo Switch 2 as Elden Ring Tarnished Edition, a package that bundles the base game, the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion from June 2024 and the small Tarnished Pack of extra classes and gear. The current version on every platform is patch 1.17, released the day before the Switch 2 launch. That patch matters for new players because it made shields lighter and stronger, made parrying faster with daggers, curved swords and small shields, and added two more starting classes. Anything you read about Elden Ring from 2022 is still broadly true, but the defensive playstyles are better now than they have ever been.

There is no difficulty setting. That single fact shapes everything else in this guide. The game does not scale to your level, it does not show you where to go, and it does not stop you from walking into areas designed for a character three times stronger than yours. What it gives you instead is a very large set of tools, and knowing that those tools exist is most of what separates a frustrated first week from a good one.

Three concepts carry the whole game:

The story is deliberately thin on its surface. The Elden Ring has shattered, the demigods each hold a fragment called a Great Rune, and you, a Tarnished, are called back to the Lands Between to collect them and become Elden Lord. A golden ray of light from each site of grace, the guidance of grace, points roughly toward the next main objective. Everything else is optional, and the optional content is where most of the game lives.

Choosing a class: all twelve starting classes compared#

The class chooses your starting level, your attribute spread and your starting gear. It does not lock you into anything. Every level-up puts one point into any attribute you want, and after the second main boss you can even redistribute all your points with an item called a Larval Tear. So the honest advice is: pick the class whose first ten hours you want, not the class whose final build you imagine.

Here are the ten original classes plus the two added by the Tarnished Pack in patch 1.17, with their starting level and all eight attributes.

The recommendation, ranked

1. Vagabond is the best first class and it is not close. Fifteen Vigor is the highest starting health in the game, the armour is the heaviest of any start, and the Longsword plus Heater Shield combination lets you block, guard counter and learn enemy timings without dying every time you misread an attack. The Halberd in the back pocket is a real weapon too.
2. Heavy Knight is the second-best pick if you own the Tarnished Pack. Seventeen Endurance means more stamina and higher equip load than anyone else, the Steel Armor Set is genuinely heavy, and the Hefty Scimitar is a curved greatsword that scales with Strength and Dexterity. It plays like a Vagabond that trades a little health for a bigger swing.
3. Samurai is the pick for players who want to attack more than they block. The Uchigatana is one of the best weapons in the entire game, it causes bleed, and the Longbow solves a lot of early problems from a distance. Twelve Vigor is enough.
4. Astrologer is the easiest class for people who have never played a FromSoftware game, on one condition: you must accept that you are fragile. Glintstone Pebble kills most early enemies before they reach you, and Sorceress Sellen in Limgrave sells better spells almost immediately. The trade-off is nine Vigor, which means two mistakes in a row can kill you well into the midgame.
5. Confessor and Prophet are the faith starts. Confessor is more flexible because it has a real sword and a real shield; Prophet has higher Faith but a Rickety Shield and a Short Spear. Faith builds become superb later (healing, buffs, fire and lightning), but the early game is slower than sorcery.
6. Prisoner is the hybrid for people who want a rapier and spells. It is a great class in the hands of someone who knows the game. It is a mediocre first class because it asks you to manage two damage stats from hour one.
7. Idus Knight is a Dexterity knight with a Faith side. The Idus Sword and Silver Grooved Shield are a fine light-armour combination, but ten Vigor and level 7 make it a slightly slower start than Samurai for the same kind of playstyle.
8. Warrior has sixteen Dexterity and two scimitars, which is fun but fragile: eleven Vigor and almost no armour. Good second run, tough first run.
9. Hero is Strength with an axe and a leather shield. It works, and 14 Vigor is solid, but Vagabond does the same job with better gear.
10. Bandit starts at level 5 with 14 Arcane, which sets up bleed builds beautifully later but gives you a Great Knife and a Buckler now. The Buckler is the best parrying shield in the game, and patch 1.17 made small-shield parries faster, so an experienced player can do a lot with this. A beginner will mostly die.
11. Wretch starts at level 1 with a club and no clothes. All ten stats at 10 means maximum freedom and minimum survival. It is a challenge run, not a first run.

Keepsakes

After the class you choose one keepsake. Two of them are worth taking; the rest are trivia.

Do not spend long on the appearance sliders. You wear a helmet for two hundred hours.

Your first hours in Limgrave, step by step#

Limgrave is the starting region, and it is built as a tutorial that never announces itself. This route covers the things that make the rest of the game easier, in an order that keeps you alive. It assumes no spoilers beyond place names.

1. Finish the Stranded Graveyard. You start in a cave. Straight ahead, a drop leads to a dead end with a ghost telling you to go back; that back way, the Cave of Knowledge, is the actual tutorial. Read every glowing message on the floor, because they explain jump, crouch, guard and backstab. The tutorial boss, Soldier of Godrick, is slow. Learn to dodge through his swings and hit him after the second one.
2. Rest at The First Step. The grace outside the cave is your first checkpoint. Talk to Varré, the white-masked man, and ignore his tone. Look at the golden ray of light from the grace: it points toward Stormveil Castle in the north. You are not going there yet.
3. Do not fight the Tree Sentinel. The golden knight on the golden horse patrols the road right outside. He has more health than anything else you will see for hours, and he is there to teach you that not every fight is meant for now. Ride or walk around him on the left side and head north.
4. Reach Church of Elleh. The ruined church is a couple of minutes north. Rest at the grace. Talk to Kalé, the merchant sitting by the fire, and buy the Crafting Kit; it turns the flowers and bones you pick up into arrows, throwing pots and cures. Do not buy anything else yet.
5. Ride to Gatefront Ruins and take the map. North-east of the church, past a soldiers' camp, stands a stone stele with a piece of the map, Map: Limgrave, West. Every region has one of these. Until you find it, the map only shows an outline. In the cellar in the middle of the ruins, a chest holds the Whetstone Knife and the Storm Stomp Ash of War. The knife is what lets you swap weapon skills at any grace.
6. Meet Melina and get Torrent. Rest at the Gatefront grace, or the one at Agheel Lake North, and a woman in a hooded cloak offers you an accord. Accept. From now on you can level up at any grace, and you have the Spectral Steed Whistle. Put it on your quick item bar. Torrent, the horse, can double jump and is the reason the map is not exhausting.
7. Go back to Church of Elleh for the Spirit Calling Bell. With Torrent in your possession, return to the church. Renna, a witch sitting on the ruined wall, gives you the Spirit Calling Bell and the Lone Wolf Ashes. If she is not there, rest at the grace and change the time of day to night. Three wolves that fight alongside you in boss arenas are the single most important item in the first twenty hours. If you somehow miss her, the Twin Maiden Husks at Roundtable Hold sell the bell later.
8. Clear Stormhill Shack and Groveside Cave. North of Gatefront, on the road toward the castle, sits Stormhill Shack. Talk to Roderika until she gives you the Spirit Jellyfish Ashes, a tanky summon that spits poison and takes hits for you. A Golden Seed grows by a small glowing sapling on the same road, between the Stormgate and the shack: it is your first flask upgrade. Then head back down to Groveside Cave, just north-west of Church of Elleh, where a Beastman of Farum Azula guards the Flamedrake Talisman. It is an easy first dungeon boss and a lesson in fighting in tight spaces.
9. Take the road to Limgrave Tunnels for Smithing Stones. On the north shore of Agheel Lake, a mine entrance leads down to Limgrave Tunnels. The miners drop Smithing Stone [1], and the boss at the bottom, a Stonedigger Troll, is slow enough to be a fair fight. Every Smithing Stone [1] you pick up goes straight into your main weapon. The anvil at Church of Elleh takes it to +3; later, Smithing Master Hewg at Roundtable Hold does the rest.
10. Find Sorceress Sellen at Waypoint Ruins. East of Agheel Lake, the Waypoint Ruins hide a cellar guarded by a Mad Pumpkin Head. His head is armoured; hit his body. Behind him, Sellen sells sorceries, so an Astrologer or Prisoner should come here in the first two hours. Everyone else gets a useful reminder that a bell bearing or a merchant sits behind most cellar doors.
11. Visit Third Church of Marika. East again, just before the border to Caelid, a small church holds the Flask of Wondrous Physick and a Sacred Tear on the altar. The Physick is a customisable one-use flask; the Sacred Tear increases how much each flask heals. This is the last stop before Caelid, which is the red, rotten land to the east. Do not go east. Behind the church, in the bushes by the water, a hidden portal leads to the Bestial Sanctum in Dragonbarrow; that is a farming trick for later, not a destination now.
12. Do the Weeping Peninsula. South of Limgrave, across the Bridge of Sacrifice, lies a whole second area balanced for a level 15 to 25 character. Talk to Irina at the bridge, take her letter, and follow the road to Castle Morne. On the way, a Sacred Tear waits at Church of Pilgrimage, another at Callu Baptismal Church, a third at Fourth Church of Marika, and a Golden Seed grows under a phantom tree beside the main road. The castle boss, Leonine Misbegotten, drops the Grafted Blade Greatsword and is a good rehearsal for fast, aggressive enemies.
13. Buy Margit's Shackle from Patches. Murkwater Cave, in the river north of Agheel Lake, contains Patches. Survive his ambush, spare him when he yields, and he becomes a merchant who sells Margit's Shackle for 5,000 runes. Used twice during Margit's first phase, it pins him to the ground for free hits.
14. Pick up the Bloodhound's Fang. In the south of Limgrave, the Forlorn Hound Evergaol holds Bloodhound Knight Darriwil. He is fast and hits hard, but he drops the Bloodhound's Fang, a curved greatsword that scales with Strength and Dexterity, bleeds, and carries one of the best weapon skills in the game. Many players use it until the end. If he is too much now, come back at level 25.
15. Then go to Margit. By now you should be around level 20 to 25, with a +3 or better weapon, five or six flask charges, wolves or a jellyfish, and, ideally, the Shackle. Take the Castleward Tunnel grace on the road north and walk up to the bridge.

Torrent, the map and sites of grace#

Torrent

Torrent is summoned with the Spectral Steed Whistle and works almost everywhere outdoors. He cannot be summoned inside dungeons, castles, caves or catacombs, and he is unavailable while you have co-op partners in your world. He has a double jump that clears fences and small cliffs, and he can use spiritsprings, the upward gusts of glowing wind scattered around the map, to launch to plateaus that would otherwise take ten minutes to climb. If his health hits zero he vanishes; calling him back costs one Crimson Flask charge, so dismounting before a big fight is cheaper than losing him in it.

Two things to know: Torrent gives you a free escape from almost any open-world fight, which is how the game expects you to survive early Limgrave, and mounted attacks with a long weapon are the easiest way to kill the sleeping dragons and the giant enemies wandering the fields. Since patch 1.12 you can even ride him during the very last boss fight.

The map

The map starts blank. Each region has a map fragment at a stone stele, marked by a faint pillar of light in the distance. After you find it, the map draws roads, rivers and building outlines, but never icons: no question marks, no quest markers, nothing but what you place yourself. You get a small set of custom markers and a beacon that shows as a beam of light in the world. Use them. Mark caves you found while under-levelled, NPCs you want to return to, and merchants.

The visual grammar of the map is consistent and worth learning: a small rectangle with stairs is a catacomb or cave; a ruined structure usually has a cellar; a church silhouette means a Sacred Tear or an NPC; a golden, glowing sapling means a Golden Seed; a large red tree in the distance means Caelid and, at your level, death.

Sites of grace

Resting at a grace refills flasks, respawns every regular enemy, lets you level up, change the time of day, sort your inventory and, with the Whetstone Knife, swap Ashes of War. Fast travel works from the map screen almost anywhere in the open world, not just at a grace, as long as no enemy is nearby. Inside a boss arena or in specific sealed areas it is disabled. Stakes of Marika, the golden statues near bosses and big encounters, let you respawn right there instead of at the last grace, so you never lose more than a minute between attempts.

The guidance of grace, the golden ray from each grace, only ever points toward the main path. It is a compass, not a route. When it points at something that kills you, look for a different direction; that is the intended experience, not a failure.

Combat: the mechanics that actually matter#

Stamina first

Every attack, dodge, block and sprint costs stamina from the green bar. When it hits zero, you cannot roll. Almost every early death follows the same script: three attacks, an empty bar, a hit you could not dodge. The fix is a habit: attack twice, then step back and let the bar refill. Endurance raises the maximum, and the bar refills faster when you are not blocking, so drop the shield between exchanges.

Rolling and dodging

The dodge roll has invincibility frames at its start, which is why you roll into or through attacks rather than away from them. Rolling away from a sweeping swing keeps you inside its arc; rolling toward the enemy usually puts you behind it. Your equip load changes the roll: under 30 % of your maximum gives a light roll, up to 70 % gives the standard medium roll, above 70 % gives a slow, useless heavy roll. Check your load in the equipment menu whenever you pick up armour. Medium roll is the target; do not go above it.

FromSoftware bosses in this game are built around delayed attacks. An enemy raises the weapon, holds it for a beat longer than you expect, and then swings. Rolling as soon as the arm goes up means you roll too early and get hit. The rule that works: roll when the weapon starts moving, not when it starts rising.

Lock-on and the camera

Lock-on centres the camera and lets you strafe around an enemy. Use it on single targets and drop it in groups or against enormous bosses where it swings the camera into a wall. Locking on to a dragon's head is worse than fighting it unlocked and aiming for the legs.

Jumping is a dodge too

Jumping avoids any low sweep and any ground shockwave, and a jump attack deals extra stance damage and staggers enemies more often than a normal hit. Against enemies who sweep low, a jump attack is both a dodge and a punish. Against a group of soldiers, a jumping heavy attack from a two-handed weapon is often the whole fight.

Guard counter

Block an attack with a shield or a two-handed weapon, then press the heavy attack button immediately. The guard counter is faster than a normal heavy attack and deals a very large amount of stance damage, comparable to a fully charged heavy. Two or three guard counters break most human-sized enemies and open them to a critical hit. It needs enough stamina to absorb the hit and still swing, so it works best with a decent shield and Endurance above 15. After patch 1.17 shields have higher guard boost and lower weight, and this is the best it has ever been for a beginner.

Stance and critical hits

Every enemy has a hidden stance meter. Heavy attacks, jump attacks, guard counters and charged attacks fill it. When it breaks, the enemy staggers and glows at a point on its body; walk in and press light attack for a critical hit that takes a large chunk of health. Bosses like Godrick and Margit can be stance-broken. Heavy weapons and Strength builds do this faster than anyone else, which is why a colossal sword is far more forgiving than it looks.

Parrying

A parry with a small shield, buckler or dagger, timed on the incoming swing, staggers a humanoid enemy for a critical hit. The Buckler has the largest window. Since patch 1.17 the parry animation on daggers, curved swords and small shields activates faster. It remains a skill to learn in Limgrave against soldiers, not something to attempt for the first time against a boss. Margit can be parried, but needs two parries in a row.

Status effects

Bleed, frost, poison, scarlet rot, sleep and madness build up with each hit and trigger at a threshold. Bleed removes a percentage of maximum health at once, which is why bleed weapons like the Uchigatana and Bloodhound's Fang are so strong against big bosses. Frost also lowers stamina recovery and damage negation. Poison and scarlet rot tick over time and are mostly things enemies do to you: carry Neutralizing Boluses for poison and Preserving Boluses for rot once you can craft or buy them.

Two-handing and weapon requirements

Holding a weapon in two hands multiplies your Strength by 1.5 for the purpose of meeting requirements and scaling. A Vagabond with 14 Strength two-hands as if he had 21, which opens up greatswords immediately. Weapons you do not meet the requirements for still swing, but slowly and with bad damage, and you cannot use their skill properly.

Ashes of War, the basics

Ashes of War are weapon skills you can attach to any non-unique weapon at a grace. Each ash also sets the weapon's affinity, which changes its scaling: Heavy scales with Strength, Keen with Dexterity, Quality with both, Magic with Intelligence, Flame Art or Sacred with Faith, and so on. Storm Stomp from Gatefront Ruins is a good first skill, a shockwave that knocks down soldiers. The skill is used with the weapon-skill button, costs FP from the blue bar, and refills with the Cerulean Flask. A beginner needs three ashes to understand the system: one that hits everything around you, one that closes distance, and one that buffs the weapon.

Upgrading beats levelling

Weapon damage grows much faster from Smithing Stones than from attribute points. Regular weapons go to +25 using Smithing Stones [1] through [8] and an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone at the end; unique and special weapons go to +10 with Somber Smithing Stones. In Limgrave, the [1] stones come from Limgrave Tunnels and miner enemies; the Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel in Liurnia hides the Smithing-Stone Miner's Bell Bearing [1], which lets the Twin Maiden Husks sell [1] and [2] stones forever. Pick one main weapon, upgrade it every time you have stones, and switch only when you find something clearly better.

Runes and levels in short#

Runes are both experience points and money. Every enemy drops some, bosses drop a lot (Margit gives 12,000, Godrick 20,000), and when you die they stay on the ground where you fell, shown as a golden glow. Reach them again and you get them back; die on the way and they vanish. Spend runes before risky trips, and if you are sitting on a pile, walk to a grace and level up rather than exploring further.

Each level costs a little more than the last, and each level puts one point into one attribute. The single most important decision for a beginner is where the first twenty points go, and the answer is Vigor. Health scales like this:

Forty Vigor is the first soft cap, and it is the number a first character should reach before the Altus Plateau. A sensible early priority for a melee character is Vigor to 25, Endurance to 15, your main damage stat to 20, then Vigor to 40. Casters push Mind to 20 early, because running out of FP mid-fight is their equivalent of an empty stamina bar. A separate GameAvant guide goes into runes and levelling in depth, including soft caps for every stat, rune costs per level and the best farming routes at each stage; this section is only the minimum you need to make good decisions in Limgrave.

Great Runes are a related system: Godrick's Great Rune, activated at the Divine Tower of Limgrave after his fight, gives a bonus to all attributes, but only while a Rune Arc is active, and the effect ends when you die. Rune Arcs are found in the world, sold by merchants and earned from co-op boss kills, so use them for boss attempts, not exploration.

The first bosses and how to handle them#

Elden Ring's early bosses are placed so that most of them can be done in any order, and a few of them can be skipped entirely. Here is the Limgrave roster with what you should know.

Margit, the Fell Omen

Margit has 4,174 HP and stands on the bridge in front of Stormveil's main gate. He is designed to stop a fresh character, and he is the first boss where the delayed attack becomes the whole fight. His staff swings hold for a beat before they land; his glowing golden daggers are the signal that a combo is coming; and at around two thirds of his health he pulls out a spectral hammer for a leaping slam that kills a low-Vigor character in one hit.

The recipe that works:

1. Summon Sorcerer Rogier. His gold summon sign sits right by the fog gate. He tanks and casts, and a boss fighting two targets is half as dangerous.
2. Summon your Spirit Ashes as soon as you enter the arena. Lone Wolf Ashes are ideal here because three targets confuse his targeting.
3. Use Margit's Shackle twice early. Each use drops him to the ground for several seconds of free hits. It only works in the first phase.
4. Fight with a slashing weapon. He takes extra damage from slash attacks, and he resists bleed, frost, poison and rot, so status builds are wasted on him.
5. Roll late. When the staff starts moving, not when it starts rising. Roll toward his right hand, then hit twice, then back off.
6. Watch the hammer. In phase two, when he leaps, he lands where you were standing. Roll sideways as he comes down, not backward.

If he still wins after ten attempts, stop and come back stronger. Weeping Peninsula, the two Limgrave catacombs and Limgrave Tunnels together give roughly ten levels and a +3 to +5 weapon. There is also a side path: Stormveil can be entered by climbing the cliff north of the bridge and dropping onto the ramparts, and a mostly-dead character called Castellan Gostoc will open a small side gate for you after Margit as an alternative to the ballista-covered main gate. Take his offer.

Godrick the Grafted

Godrick waits at the far end of Stormveil Castle with 6,080 HP. Stormveil itself is the first legacy dungeon, a castle full of shortcuts, ambushes and a lot of the game's best early equipment; a beginner should explore it slowly, rest at every grace and expect to die to the birds with knives on their legs. Before the boss door, find Nepheli Loux in her room between the Liftside Chamber and Secluded Cell graces and exhaust her dialogue. Her summon sign then appears outside the boss room, and she is a strong ally.

Godrick is a stagger fight. He is vulnerable to bleed, frost and stance damage, so jump attacks and guard counters break him and open him to critical hits. In phase one he swings a big axe in wide arcs and stomps to make the ground quake; the quake is jumped, not rolled. At about 60 % health he cuts off his own arm and grafts a dragon's head onto the stump. From then on he breathes a long sweeping stream of fire; run to his back while he does it, because the head cannot turn quickly, and the fire always follows the same arc. Stay close, stay behind, use the Spirit Ashes, and he goes down.

He drops Godrick's Great Rune and the Remembrance of the Grafted. Take the Great Rune to the Divine Tower of Limgrave across the long bridge east of the castle to activate it, and trade the Remembrance with Enia at Roundtable Hold for one of his weapons.

The other early fights, briefly

The Tree Sentinel is a real boss with a lot of health; fight him on Torrent from a distance with a spear or a bow, or leave him until level 30 and take him on foot with jump attacks. Flying Dragon Agheel lands in Agheel Lake and is a lesson in mounted fighting: circle him on Torrent, hit the legs, leave when he breathes fire, and take the Dragon Heart to the Church of Dragon Communion later. Bloodhound Knight Darriwil in the Evergaol is quicker than anything you have fought; his attacks come in pairs, so dodge twice and hit once. Leonine Misbegotten in Castle Morne jumps in and out of range constantly; a shield and guard counters shut him down. Erdtree Burial Watchdog and Grave Warden Duelist are catacomb bosses you will see again in different places, and each teaches a pattern that repeats: the Watchdog telegraphs everything, the Duelist has an infinite stamina bar and needs to be dodged, not blocked.

What not to miss and what not to do#

The map is huge, and the cost of missing something is usually a dozen extra deaths rather than a locked door. These are the mistakes with real consequences.

Do not miss

• The Spirit Calling Bell at Church of Elleh. Without it, the Spirit Ashes you find are dead weight. See step 7 in the route above.
• Roundtable Hold. Melina offers to take you there after you have rested at a few graces around Stormhill. Say yes. The hub has the blacksmith Hewg, the Twin Maiden Husks merchants, the Spirit tuner Roderika once her quest advances, Enia for boss weapons, and a table that becomes a fast-travel point.
• Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears. Fourteen flask charges and twelve potency levels are the difference between a boss you can afford three mistakes against and one where you can afford none. There are thirty seeds in total, and the upgrade costs rise (one, then two, then three, four and five seeds per step). Every glowing sapling and every church is worth a detour.
• Map fragments. They cost nothing and change everything.
• The Whetstone Knife and the Ashes of War in Gatefront Ruins. Without the knife, no swapping of skills.
• Talisman Pouches. Margit drops the first, which unlocks a second talisman slot. A third comes from a boss in the capital, a fourth from a quest item. Talismans are the biggest passive power boosts in the game.
• Larval Tears and Rennala. After the second main boss you can respec. Do not agonise over stat mistakes before then; they can be undone.

Do not do

• Do not go to Caelid before level 40. The fall-through trap chest in Dragon-Burnt Ruins in Agheel Lake teleports you to the Sellia Crystal Tunnel in Caelid. If it happens, do not open the chest; if you already did, sneak out, rest at the grace and fast travel home.
• Do not attack NPCs. Hitting Kalé, Patches, or anyone friendly turns them hostile forever and can break quests. If you did it by accident, the Church of Vows in Liurnia sells absolution with a Celestial Dew.
• Do not use Rune Arcs for exploration. They are for boss attempts; the effect vanishes when you die.
• Do not skip the tutorial cave. It takes four minutes and explains guard counters and crouch attacks, which no menu will ever explain again.
• Do not two-hand a shield. Sounds obvious, happens constantly: the two-hand button toggles whichever hand you press it for.
• Do not sell items to merchants for runes. Selling gives almost nothing. Keep everything; storage at graces is unlimited.
• Do not open every fog gate as soon as you find it. A fog gate means a boss. Rest first, summon second, enter third.

Ten mistakes almost every beginner makes#

1. Ignoring Vigor. The most common one. A level 30 character with 12 Vigor dies in two hits in Liurnia. Fix it now; nothing else in this guide works without health.
2. Rolling early. Delayed attacks punish the instinct to dodge on the wind-up. Watch three swings before you commit to a timing.
3. Playing with a heavy roll. Above 70 % equip load, the roll is slow and the invincibility short. Check the number in the equipment screen.
4. Fighting groups head-on. Three soldiers are more dangerous than one boss. Pull one at a time with an arrow or a throwing dagger, or ride through them and come back.
5. Saving consumables. Fire pots, throwing knives, Boiled Prawns and Exalted Flesh are meant to be used. The crafting kit makes them from things you pick up anyway.
6. Never blocking. With a medium shield of 100 % physical guard, most soldiers cannot hurt you at all. Blocking is not cowardice; it is how you learn attack patterns without dying.
7. Chasing the ray of light. The guidance of grace is a compass, not a route. If it points somewhere that kills you, it is telling you that you are early.
8. Not levelling the weapon. A +0 weapon at level 40 is a bad character. Smithing Stones are the priority.
9. Never using Spirit Ashes. They exist for a reason, and the game gives you the same reward whether you used them or not.
10. Reading the map with your eyes closed. Every ruin, every church and every cave shape means something. Ten minutes learning the visual language saves ten hours of blind wandering.

Difficulty tools: how to make the game easier without a menu#

Spirit Ashes

Spirit Ashes are the closest thing to a difficulty slider. The Lone Wolf Ashes are strong through Stormveil; the Spirit Jellyfish is a wall of health that distracts anything; Banished Knight Oleg from Murkwater Catacombs hits hard and holds aggro. Later, the Mimic Tear, found in Nokron behind two Stonesword Keys, copies your own character and equipment and is the strongest summon in the game for most builds. Spirit Ashes can be upgraded with Grave Glovewort and Ghost Glovewort once Roderika moves to Roundtable Hold and becomes a spirit tuner; a +5 wolf pack is night and day compared to +0. Summons cost FP or, for a few, HP, and can only be called near a rebirth monument, marked by a small tombstone icon on your screen, which includes every boss arena and most open-world boss spots.

NPC and player summons

Gold summon signs near boss doors are NPCs: Rogier at Margit, Nepheli at Godrick, and many more later. Summoning an NPC raises the boss's health but splits its attention. Player co-op works the same way through the Furlcalling Finger Remedy; more on that below.

Farming runes

You never need to farm in Elden Ring, but a few levels can turn a wall into a door. In Limgrave, the soldiers' camp outside Gatefront Ruins and the trolls on the road give a few hundred runes a trip. The first real farm is the portal behind Third Church of Marika: it drops you at the Bestial Sanctum in Caelid, where the Vulgar Militia enemies on the cliffs nearby give roughly 1,000 to 1,300 runes each and die to a few hits; the enormous guardian in front of the sanctum ignores you as long as you do not attack him. Later, the giant bird at Mohgwyn Palace, reached through Varré's quest or a portal in the Consecrated Snowfield, gives around 11,000 runes per kill and respawns at a grace ten seconds away; that is the endgame and DLC-preparation farm. A Gold Scarab talisman and a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot raise rune gains further.

Gear that carries beginners

• A 100 % physical shield: the Heater Shield from Vagabond, the Brass Shield from Stormveil soldiers, or the Beast Crest Heater Shield in Stormveil.
• Bloodhound's Fang or the Uchigatana for bleed, or a Greatsword, found in a caravan chest in Caelid's Dragonbarrow, for stance damage.
• Flamedrake Talisman from Groveside Cave for the fire-heavy phase of Godrick.
• Green Turtle Talisman from Summonwater Village, for faster stamina recovery.
• Erdtree's Favor from Fringefolk Hero's Grave, if you can survive the chariot: more HP, stamina and equip load in one talisman.

Ranged options

A bow with fifty arrows solves groups, pulls single enemies and kills dragons from horseback. The Shortbow and Longbow are sold by merchants; Kalé sells arrows. Even a pure Strength character should carry one.

Multiplayer basics#

Elden Ring's co-op is old-fashioned and works through items rather than a lobby.

• Furlcalling Finger Remedy reveals other players' summon signs on the ground near you. Craft it from two Erdleaf Flowers with the Crafting Kit, or buy it.
• Tarnished's Furled Finger, given by Varré at The First Step, lets you place your own sign so a host can summon you into their world.
• Small Golden Effigy, from the Martyr Effigy statues near many bosses, sends your sign to summoning pools so hosts in the area can find it without standing next to it.
• Rune Arc is the reward for helping a host kill a boss, and the item that activates your Great Rune in your own world.
• Password: set a multiplayer password in the system menu and only players with the same password see each other's signs. Passwords also bypass the level restriction and scale the stronger player down.

Without a password, matchmaking uses a level range of about 90 % of your level minus 10 to 110 % plus 10, and it also considers the highest weapon upgrade you have ever owned, even if you sold it. That is why upgrading a random weapon to +10 early can suddenly empty your summon pool: keep your upgrade level roughly in step with your level.

A host can have up to two cooperators, and being in co-op opens your world to invaders, hostile players who arrive through the Bloody Finger. Without co-op partners you are never invaded unless you switch on the Taunter's Tongue yourself. Torrent is unavailable while phantoms are in your world, co-op ends when the boss dies or the host dies, and crossing area boundaries sends phantoms home. There is no cross-play between platform families: PlayStation plays with PlayStation, Xbox with Xbox, PC with PC and Switch 2 with Switch 2, but PS4 and PS5 share a pool, as do Xbox One and Series X|S. On PC, an unofficial Seamless Co-op mod exists that removes most of these limits; it is popular, it is not supported by FromSoftware, and it disables achievements while active.

Duels in the Colosseums, added free in patch 1.08 in December 2022, are a separate PvP mode with its own rules. They are not for your first character.

Performance and settings per platform#

Elden Ring has never been a perfectly smooth game, and knowing which mode to pick saves a lot of frustration.

Two settings help on every platform. In the camera options, turn off camera auto-rotation if you find the camera fighting you in tight dungeons. In the network settings, set Launch Setting to Play Offline if you want to remove invasion risk and the occasional online stutter entirely; you can switch it back at any grace to summon help.

HDR is supported on consoles and PC; if the image looks washed out, lower the HDR brightness slider rather than the in-game brightness. Keyboard and mouse on PC works but is worse than a controller for a game built around eight-directional rolling; a controller of any brand is the recommended way to play.

DLC order: when Shadow of the Erdtree makes sense#

Shadow of the Erdtree, released on 21 June 2024, is the one expansion. It is enormous: a new region called the Land of Shadow roughly the size of Limgrave and Liurnia together, a dozen major bosses, ten new weapon categories, and its own progression system. It is also, boss for boss, the hardest content FromSoftware has made.

It is not for a first character in the first fifty hours. To enter it at all you must defeat two bosses in the base game: Starscourge Radahn, the midgame boss of Caelid's Redmane Castle, and Mohg, Lord of Blood, an optional boss deep under the Mohgwyn Palace, reached either through Varré's quest line or a portal in the Consecrated Snowfield. Then you touch the withered arm reaching out of the cocoon in Mohg's arena. Radahn is comfortable at level 60 to 70; Mohg is a genuine late-game fight, so most players reach him around level 100 or later.

Inside, the expansion does not scale to your level. Instead, you collect Scadutree Fragments across the map that raise a separate Scadutree Blessing level, which increases your damage and defence only inside the Land of Shadow. That means exploration is mandatory, and a level 200 character who rushes to a boss with no fragments is punished. Most players enter around level 120 to 150 with a fully upgraded weapon and 50 or more Vigor, and that is the right window. Entering at level 90 with 30 Vigor is a wall, not a challenge.

The sensible order for a new player is:

1. Base game main path to Godrick, Rennala, Radahn and then the capital.
2. Optional areas as you like: Caelid, Nokron, Volcano Manor, the Haligtree if you want the hardest base-game boss.
3. Mohg, then the expansion at level 120 or later, before the final base-game boss. The base game's ending does not lock you out, but the expansion's weapons and levels make the final fights easier if you go in first.
4. New Game Plus, where the whole world resets at higher difficulty and you keep your character.

Two other products have similar names and confuse newcomers. The Tarnished Pack, released on 28 August 2026, is a small add-on with the Heavy Knight and Idus Knight classes, their equipment, three Torrent skins and two NPC invasion events; it is bundled into the Switch 2 edition and sold separately elsewhere. It does not add levels or areas and it is not needed for anything. Elden Ring Nightreign, released in May 2025, is a separate standalone co-op game with three-player runs and its own characters; it is not an expansion, it does not connect to your Elden Ring save, and it is not where a beginner should start.

If you are buying the game today, the Shadow of the Erdtree Edition, which includes the base game and the expansion, is the right purchase on every platform, and the Tarnished Edition on Switch 2 already contains everything.

Frequently asked questions#

How long does Elden Ring take? The main path to the credits takes most players 50 to 70 hours the first time. Seeing most of the map and the optional bosses takes 100 hours or more. Shadow of the Erdtree adds around 30 to 40 hours on its own.

Is there an easy mode? No, and there is no difficulty option anywhere in the settings. The equivalents are Spirit Ashes, NPC and player summons, levelling Vigor, upgrading your weapon, and going somewhere else when a fight is too hard.

Which class is best for beginners? Vagabond. Highest starting health, heaviest armour, a sword and a shield. Samurai if you would rather attack than block, Astrologer if you want to fight from a distance and accept being fragile.

Can I change my class or stats later? Not the class, but the class only decides your starting numbers. After defeating Rennala, the boss of the Academy of Raya Lucaria, you can redistribute every attribute point using a Larval Tear, and there are enough tears in the world to respec several times.

Do I need to play Dark Souls first? No. The story is self-contained and the mechanics are explained in the tutorial cave. Familiarity with Dark Souls or Bloodborne shortens the learning curve, but plenty of players started with Elden Ring.

What level should I be for Margit and Godrick? Margit is fair at level 20 to 25 with a +3 weapon; Godrick at 25 to 35 with a +5. Both are much easier with Spirit Ashes and the NPC summons outside their doors.

Can I play with friends from the start? Yes, once you have Varré's Tarnished's Furled Finger and a Furlcalling Finger Remedy, which is possible within the first ten minutes. Set a shared password to bypass the level limits. Co-op is per area and per boss, not a persistent shared world.

Should I buy Shadow of the Erdtree right away? Buy the edition that includes it if the price is right, but do not expect to play it for a long time. It unlocks after Radahn and Mohg and is balanced for characters around level 120 to 150.

Where do I go after Godrick? The guidance of grace points north to Liurnia of the Lakes and the Academy of Raya Lucaria. Before that, activate Godrick's Great Rune at the Divine Tower of Limgrave, and consider the Weeping Peninsula and Caelid's western edge if you want more levels first.

Is Elden Ring good on Switch 2? It is the complete game with the expansion and the Tarnished Pack included, and it holds a 30 fps target most reliably in handheld mode. If you have a PS5, Series X or a capable PC, those versions are smoother. If the Switch 2 is your only option, the port is fully playable.