Welcome to Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin! This is a guide that will hopefully shed some light on a few aspects of the early game, so that you will have an easier time getting into it. I would like to mention that this is not a walkthrough, just a guide to some parts of the gameplay with four sections - first two aimed primarily at new arrivals, whereas the third and fourth can be of use to more experienced players as well. Feel free to leave a comment below if you believe there is something I should expand upon or include.

If you have somehow managed to get your mostly decomposed behind, up the trail to the witches' hut without dying yet then I congratulate you for restraining your urge to explore off the beaten path so far. We will get back to you dying later on however.

As you walk into this hut, a few cutscenes will play out inbetween which you will first have to decide your character's name and then you get to decide your starting class, gift and the appearance you would like.

Dark Souls 2 characters will never refer to your character by the name you have given him/her, so it is mostly for your own sense of connection as well as for multiplayer - co-operative play or PvP. I will discuss both of these later on as well.

Actually deciding how your character will look is a bit more important, unfortunately the Dark Souls 2 character creation menu can be a frustrating experience. The easy parts are determing hair/eye/eyebrow color as well as hairstyle, tattoo and beard (note: beard is only for male characters). The difficult part is manoeuvering the prevalent slider system that the game uses, this includes basically everything else not mentioned as being "easy" and let us just say that there is a lot left to do (if so desired, I should add)

Now you will want to determine what class you want you character to be; warrior, knight, swordsman, sorcerer, cleric, explorer or deprived. The first three are variations on the traditional melee approach to combat, warrior is rather balanced, knight starts out with great defensive stats and the swordsman offensively built. Sorcerer and cleric start out with spellcasting, former with high intelligence and thus focused on the classic magic (Sorceries) of the game whereas the cleric starts out with more faith and starts out being able to use miracles - which are for the most part support spells, healing, elemental defensive effects etc.

The explorer and deprived are a bit more special however. The explorer does not start out with any stat-investment that is noteworthy, but does get a lot of items that can be used for healing, removing poison and even a ring that increases defense against magic when worn. Whereas the deprived starts out with absolutely nothing, no specific armor/weapon, no spells and no items. What the deprived does get however is a very good stat-investment, with a 6 in everything at level 1. We will talk more in-depth about levels and stats later on.

The final thing we have to decide before our character is ready to venture out into Drangleic is our starting gift. Unlike in the previous game in the series, in Dark Souls 2 or the Scholar version, there is no Master Key that can be chosen that will unlock half the world's doors from the get-go. Now the gift is what it was meant to be, a nice thing to have when you are just starting a new character. For a newer player I would recommend starting with Healing Wares.

With your character's creation finalized (found just under the Class and Gift options) you are ready to tackle the game's tutorial area. Even for an experienced player this can be a worthy time-investment, since there are a few useful items to be found in this area like lifegems and even a dagger. There are some small signs that look kind of similar to gravestones that you should probably read as a new player along the way (one right outside the hut by the first bonfire), containing some tips and tricks as well as what buttons you will want to be pushing for a given situation.

One part of the tutorial area is blocked off with a statue in Scholar version, which you will have to come back for later if you want to have a lie in the amazing genderswap-coffin. That leaves two areas open for exploration. The first area is home to a few slower hollows or zombies if you would prefer that term, they do not hit particularly hard and generally die after a few strikes with your weapon. At the very end of this part, you will find yourself on a plateau overlooking the other two. Here you will also find an odd bird's nest with two invisible, but chatty, figures who you can trade Smooth Silky Stones and Petrified Somethings with in order to obtain useful crafting items, weapons and even a ring.

You can explore the second hollowed-out tree as well if you wish, there are a few goodies to be had there including a Cracked Red Eye Orb which I will talk more about in the Multiplayer section. When you feel ready to leave Things Betwixt however, follow the narrow path into a cave and to Majula.

Majula is the central part of the game in more ways than one. From here, you will take all the different paths to reach the areas you need to go to. Furthermore, many of the characters you see out in Drangleic will for the most part come back here if you go through all their dialogue. The one in the picture is called the Emerald Herald and she functions as your guide, as well as offering services in the form of letting you spend souls to level up or upgrade your estus flask. You can also see the options "Level up", "Upgrade Estus Flask" and "Talk".

Let us talk about leveling up but to do that we need to talk about souls first. Souls are the currency you use in the game for as mentioned leveling up, but also for buying items/services and some spells even use them up for added power. There are also souls that you find as consumables which predictably increase the amount you have available for usage, when consumed. These are found in varying degrees of value, predominantly white, but noteworthy are the souls that bosses drop when defeated - which can also be consumed, or used to craft unique weapons or spells. You lose these souls if you die but can be retrieved, unless you die again on the way back to where you died.

In the picture above you see the level-up menu, which offers a truckload of information about your character. You can see what level you currently are, the amount of souls you need to spend for a level-up and all your different statistics. The ones to the far left are the ones you increase, 1 stat point = 1 level, meaning that if I were to put 4 points in strength, I would be level 5 and have 10 strength in total. This would increase my damage with weapons that scale with Strength, give me some added resistances and increase my physical defense.

Your amount of Strength and/or Dexterity determine which weapons/shields you can use and the damage they do (with some exceptions) and in some cases there is an Intelligence and/or Faith factor as well, but the latter two are primarily used in a similar way to determine what spells you can use and their effectiveness.

Vigor increases how much health (red bar) you have, Endurance determines your amount of stamina (green bar) and Vitality determines how much you can have equipped on your character. Attunement is a stat that spellcasters will be interested in, since it increases the amount of slots you have available for attuning spells that you can then use in combat. ADP stands for Adaptability, this increases some of your resistances but most importantly increases your Agility stat - which decides the effectiveness of your dodge-roll and how fast you can use items like the Estus or Lifegems.

Moving on to those items I mentioned, you can access these by going into your inventory much like you can with consumable souls - but you will in most cases be wanting fast access to lifegems and your Estus Flask, so I recommend you head into the equipment menu and make sure to have those items equipped to the belt slot.

Let us wrap up this section by talking more about the characters you will encounter in the world. As mentioned earlier you can bring some of these to Majula for easier access, but already there are a few around. Near the Emerald Herald there are two noteworthy.

Up on the hill by the monument you will find Saulden the Crestfallen - an undead like yourself but content to give you some advice and access to the Blue Covenant, rather than fighting. Covenants are a way to gain special items and spells, with several spread out through the world for you to discover and perhaps even help. I will talk more about covenants in the multiplayer section.


Going back down the hill to the tiny (locked) hut, you find a man sitting outside of it. This is Lenigrast and he is a blacksmith, he can help you improve your equipment with the correct materials and can sell you some other tidbits. Until you find the key to his hut and unlock it, however, he will remain useless.

In the other end of the area you will find three houses, one of which is also regrettably locked. In the other two you will find some additional characters, Shalquoir and Maughlin. Shalquoir is a quirky cat who sells you some useful items and rings, can tell you more about covenants and help you leave one.

In the remaining house sits a shy man called Maughlin, who sells you some armor and a few shields - as you spend money in his shop and advance through the game, he will offer more exciting armor sets and go through a bit of a personality change.

Something you will undoubtedly spend a lot of time doing is thinking of what you are going to equip your character with and hunting down the necessary items such as boss souls or titanite. I call this chapter "crafting", inspite of the fact it is mostly just about finding a weapon in Drangelic and improving it, because there is as previously mentioned boss soul weapons and shields - as well as something I have not mentioned yet, which is called "infusion".

We will talk about the boss soul stuff first. In the game there are bosses that you encounter as you advance through the game, these bosses drop their particular souls which can be used to make a weapon or shield the boss itself uses or simply inspired by them. Some of these can also be made into spells. But where do you trade them in?

There are two characters you will want to track down; Ornifex the Weaponsmith and Straid, who both have different offers for you when you unlock their services. Do note that when traded in, you lose the boss soul.

Ornifex is a tall bird-lady who is trapped in the Shaded Ruins, you will have to free her before she returns to her house in Brightstone Cove and offer her services. The first boss soul you trade in with her will be free of charge, future turn-ins will cost souls so keep that in mind. She can also reinforce your equipment and sell some other goodies.

Straid however is found in the upper Lost Bastille, petrified and like the statue in Things Betwixt you will need a "Fragrant Branch of Yore" to turn him back to normal. After this, he will offer to turn boss souls into weapons but unlike Ornifex he also offers to turn certain souls into unique spells. Spend enough souls on his services and talk with him to be given his set, which is great for spellcasters.

Now about that infusion I mentioned earlier, there is another craftsman you will want to see; a weird old man called McDuff, found in the lower section of the Lost Bastille. Infusion allows you to, as the name suggests, infuse your weapon or shield with an effect. In the picture above you can see a little bit of how it looks. You can only infuse your weapon/shield with one effect, which changes how the weapon deals damage or in the case of shields - how effective the block for that particular damage type is. Infusing a weapon or shield requires 2000 souls and a specific stone, depending on what kind you would like.

Infusion can be a bit of a mire to navigate your way through, because it works in wonky ways on certain weapons and sometimes the game straight up doesn't tell you what happens for example to the stat scaling of an infused weapon. If you want to know how a certain weapon would work with an infusion, I would seriously recommend googling it because there are a LOT of weapons and shields to keep track of and they all have a unique relationship with infusion. Or you could have some fun trying everything out yourself!

As a general rule of thumb however, with some exceptions - if the weapon has got for instance, pre-existing fire damage, then infusing it with fire is a good idea whereas infusing it with lightning is be a bad idea. To remove an infusion, you make use of a palestone and 1000 souls.

Finally we arrive at the last part of this short guide and it is time to talk about multiplayer in Dark Souls 2. One can engage in both cooperative play and PvP (player versus player) with covenants or factions dedicated to either kind, some both.



Cooperative play is engaged in by use of the White Sign Soapstone, either by you planting your mark at a location where someone is likely to see it and be summoned - or you interacting with another player's mark and summoning them to your own world. This is a great way to tackle enemies or situations you are having trouble with, but remember that all enemies gain an percentage increase to their health points for every summon present. When a phantom has finished his/her task, they are rewarded with a Token of Fidelity by default - this is used to gain access to the Blue Sentinels covenant and its arena, but can also be consumed to heal a struggling host you are helping out. If the helping phantom is in the Heirs of Sunlight covenant, they and the host are both awarded with a Sunlight Medal at the completion of their task.

Be advised there are different kinds of summon marks. Gold-coloured ones belong to the Heirs of Sunlight; good guys. The red kind belongs to people wanting to engage in PvP action, most commonly belonging to the Brotherhood of Blood. A grey and smoking dragon's eye is also the sign of someone wanting to PvP and they are part of the Dragon Covenant. If you want an idea of what to expect from a player before summoning him/her, interact with the summon mark without starting the summoning process.

In addition to this there are Cracked Red Eye Orbs that can be used to invade another player's world who are also in the area that you used the item in, these can be used by anyone and bring some spice to the Dark Souls experience both for the host and the invader. Be advised that killing a player controlled character (or specific NPCs) is a "Sin" and will, eventually, make you open to the invasion of a Blue Sentinel by use of the Cracked Blue Eye Orb - a covenant that is based around killing sinners and helping out another player as a friendly phantom. You are however very unlikely to be running into many Blue Sentinels or Arbiter Spirits, as they are also called, before NG+ even if you are a Sinner.



If you do not want to play with someone anymore, you can go into your inventory and use the Black Separation Crystal. This will break the connection to a friendly player either sending them back to their world, or you to your own. While it is unusable in most PvP scenarios; you can however use it as a means of escape if you have been summoned to the world of someone belonging to the Rat King covenant.

Soul Memory, your total amount of souls collected on the character decides who you will be matched up with for both PvP and co-op purposes. This includes souls you have spent and/or lost as a result of dying. You can find out your Soul Memory value by going into the "player status" menu and looking in the top-right corner of the window, the number next to the swirly icon is your total Soul Memory. For co-op, this is largely pointless to keep track of but for PvP however, you will likely want to manage your souls very carefully - souls spent unwisely or lost will put you at a disadvantage. Straid in the Lost Bastille will sell you the Agape Ring for 5000 souls, which prevents you from gaining souls while it is equipped.

Also note that there are cheaters in this game and some will undoubtedly cross your path if you play online, you can report these by going into the Steam overlay and clicking on "view players" - players show up with their Steam names, however, so use the time stamp for when you last played with them to narrow down your suspect(s); you do not want to report someone innocent after all.