On keyboard, the defult key is space to roll. Press space and look where you want to roll, and you shall roll. But this is the tip.
YOU CAN ROLL WITH ANY AMOUNT OF STAMINA, REGARDLESS IF ITS FULL OR 1% TO THE SAME EFFECT. So you should roll, a lot.
There is a few stages of rolling. If you have less then 10%, 50%, or 70% of your total avalibe equip load, you will roll as follows
0%-Really damn far
25%-Pretty good
50%-Decent, but not amazing
75%-What you will be doing a lot. It works
over 70%-Far roll. Dont do this. Or you will die. A lot.
120%-Really.How do you have this much weight. You can't do anything but walk.
Most enemys have easy to spot attacks, mostly the bigger ones, so when you see them winding up their attack, roll, they will do the attack, when they finish, roll into them to get one or 2 hits on them, then roll back because they will be winding up their attack. Rinse and repeat, and you will murder everything

Fashon Souls ish best souls.
Don't bother with armor early on. If you load yourself down in full heavy armor, you will fat roll, which is bad. The difference between someone in full knights armor, the best heavy armor early game,

And someone who is naked is 1-2 hits. But if your naked, you can roll outta the way of the attacks, ultimatly making you live longer
Keep in mind that if your going into the forest,an early game area, its smart to wear something. A lot of the places are very inclosed, not giving you a ton of room to role. But make it light armor, that looks cool, not heavy tanking armor.Keep in mind that wearing heavy armor from time to time IS usefull for bosses. Certian armors allow you to have an increased resistance to certian elemets,like flame or dark. This is usefull because it can render some bosses 1-hit-KO attacks near useless. BUT ALWAYS BE BELOW 70%
RINGS
-Ring of Binding:when hollowed stops HP reduction at 80% of max instead of 50%;Cathedral of Blue treasure (in a chest just before the mist of the boss,old dragonslayer)-Keep in mind-this is one of the most usefull items in the game. If you ever die, you NEED this
-Ring of Restoration: Regenerates 2 HP per second ; Forest of Fallen Giants treasure (after defeating the giant, open the door on the other side of the ladder above the salamander pit)

Ok, classes. Simple. Pick knight. For scrubs, this is the typical semi tanking build. You start off with a broadsword that will kick total ass for the forest enemies, a cool set of armor, and increased health, which is a must in DS2.

Weapons. Ok, each set of enemies has their own weakness towards a certian type of attack. For instance, the giant knights that you will have to kill are weak to smashing attacks. The scrubs in the forest are weak to slashing. Lucky for you, the starting area is littered with weapons of every sort to start you on your way. In Majula, the hub place, there is a morning star, along with some Binocs, hidden away on a drop of point that you can fall to without dying, which will help you with Dragon Riders friendos. In the forest of giants, there is 2 long swords that you can get, one with a fire enchant that you can get by running into a cave(You gotta kill a few forest scrubby enemies to get it) and a sword with lightning enchant that you can get by taking out a gray knight, who is easy if you use the broadsword that you should have started with. There is more, but just look up a tutorial for that.

Use powerstancing. This is when you will hit with the 2 identical weapons at the same time. Keep in mind that this will take more stamina, and it will require 50% the weapons requirments to use it. But it will inflict double the damage. Ex-if a weapon reqs 10 strength, 10 dex, you will need 15 dex and 15 strength

Ok, first, leveling up. To level up, you need to get a ton of souls, then talk to a girl that looks like little red riding hood by the fire in Majula. You'll know when you see her. As you level up, it will cost you more souls to do so. *Grind the old knights by dragon rider with the moring star in Maj to get a ton of souls, they give 400 each, and there is like 15 of them, so if you grind them to despawn, you should get tons of lvl ups*.
But what should you spend your points on?Well, as a dude that specs in sword and shield, I put mine into the following. A ton into the health one, the first one that you will see in the lvling up menu. Then, I put a fair amount into the stamina one, the second one down, this gives you health and stamina, which will let you hit moar. And strength, this will make your hits do more damage, and it will allow you to weild heavier weapons and shields.

Now souls. Ok, in case you didnt know already, you drop all your souls when you die, and you have one chance to get the before they are gone for ever and ever and ever.Don't rush to your souls when you die though, or you may die again and loose them forever.
Don't buy anything from the stores in maj, either. I bought a greatshield, which you should, as good shields are hard to come by. But don't buy new weapons, as your foes will drop them for free. Spend most of your souls on leveling up.But do use some to buy tanite shards from the blacksmith, so that you can upgrade your favorite weapon. You may want to buy some human effiges from the old hag in the forest(These allow you to revert back to human,but see more about that latter) and some lifegems. But like i said, spend most of your souls on leveling up!
Ok, to condradict my point above-Spent 10k souls at the hag in the forest. Then talk to her and get a ring that gives you more souls from each enemy.

1-Don't use human effiges too often. These things revert you back to human, restoring you to full health and give you the ability to sumon a freindo to help. But these are in limited supply, so dont use them. Use them before a boss so that you can summon someone else to help, but otherwise, dont.The game is made so that you can beat it in full hollow form
2-Don't use lifegems. These restore some of your health, but are rather expensive. Find estus shards, and then use your estus to help. Dont use the lifegems unless you are in a boss battle and you ran outta estus flask.
3-Don't kill npcs. They drop decent crap, but not until NG+, so just dont bother
4-Always summon a friendo to help you with a boss battle. Trust me, it will make it easier
5-If you have acess to an area, you can beat it.
6-DONT GIVE UP!
7-Git gud. No, really, you will eventually
8-The community will help
9-USE THE BLOODY WIKI!WIKI IS LOVE, WIKI IS LIFE!
10-Don't play while your mad, or not in the mood, or you will die. A lot.
11-Listen to epic music, trust me, it helps
12-Getting summoned to a boss fight by another player will revert you back to human form IF you beat the boss. You can find items to leave your summon sign.Also keep in mind that 2 people taking on a boss is quite easy
13-If you estus when you are being hit by an enemy, you will still take damage,but it will be taken away from your estus/healing charge. Use that if you think your #Pro

Think I should add anything?Post it here. Like and all that stuff, too. I spend an hour making this.
Some thanks to
Temporary Doctor Zedman
{Hot} Major Evans
fishguts
storm
Scatty Daddy
Keeper of the Lag
Jkie
for pointing out a few things