Definitely go East as far as you can gav thank me later

Go north. 

(Don’t. Go south instead. Southernmost point.)

Is it worthwhile spending smithing stones on the starter bow? Or just sack it and wait for a suitable blade for the left hand and go with that?

Aye, and a bow can come in real handy from time to time, even if you're not using it for DPS. For your left hand weapon, a second Uchi is not too far away, and a good shield with 100% physical damage resistance is well worth a try. Just remember to slot a "no skill" ash of war on it so you can use your weapon's ash. 

The various heater shields you'll find at merchants and around the world are decent to start with, and the brass shield that drops from the soldiers is brilliant but heavier.

I'll give you one item tip that's fucking brilliant

Coopers Green wrote:

I wouldn't bother reading up on anything at the moment. Just immerse yourself and figure out what you can. For the 2nd run, sure, dive into everything you can inhale for knowledge and pointers. At least, that's how I've done it.

Would second this, it's exactly what I did and I'm really glad I did. I could barely believe how much more there was to this game than I'd discovered in my 120+ hour first playthrough.

I will just keep exploring. It's just that nagging feeling I'll miss something vitally important, or put time/runes/effort into something completely useless. Worse problems to have, I suppose.

afgavinstan wrote:

I will just keep exploring. It's just that nagging feeling I'll miss something vitally important, or put time/runes/effort into something completely useless. Worse problems to have, I suppose.

i think just plow on and do what you fancy at the time. I have a billion unused items cos i was worried about wasting stuff early on, and there's always something fancy you'll have missed, but there's plenty of other fancy stuff you'll find.

Godrick is DOWN!

Gah. Didn't get on last night, completely fried from work.

Tonight, I ride.

I have far too many PS5 playthroughs on the go atm...

Got an early days pure strength build where I made dash for the Greatsword plus the red hot whetblade and Lion's Claw ash of war in Caelid, and it's pancaking everything. It's almost too simple, but it is stupidly effective. 

My quality build is finishing up Liurnia. Got a nice range of usable weapons but sticking with Bloodhound's Fang atm. Love that move-set. 

Of my three pure melee new game runs, dex is probably my favourite. It's currently mopping up Mt Gelmir and running a Guardian's Swordspear and Brass Shield combo for some sweet guard counter action. 

Then there's my two stop-and-start NG+ playthroughs. The first is my Blasphemous Blade faith build, and it's so stupidly overpowered at this point it's the save I've been loading up for casual play while chatting on Discord. L2 to win, no thought required. 

The other NG+ was originally my mage, but I got to Rennala last night and respecced hard into arcane as I wanted to try out Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear. My first ever playthrough on Steam was arcane/bleed, and while I played around with curved swords, Reduvia, Eleonora's, and Rivers of Blood, I never used this. What the hell took me so long to try it? 'Tis a joke of a weapon! With all the bleed synergies going the ash of war is a nuke. No skill needed or asked for, just lift your spear skywards and watch everything die. As long as they bleed, obvs. It's hilarious and addictive as hell. 

I'm also using the Dragon Communion seal with this build as it's arcane scaling and lets me use the Pest Threads incantation (low Faith requirement) for some solid ranged damage against any bosses immune to bleed. Shit, I might even start using a greatshield with Mohgwyn's spear for some guard and poke melee fun for when I don't just wanna nuke everything. Good times.

Yeah I get that, and I've seen friends struggle far more than they should for the same reasons. Honestly, I just treat it like any other RPG - from Skyrim to Divinity to pen and paper D&D - pick a playstyle or weapon type I wanna go with and level the appropriate stats. Talismans, certain armour pieces, and ashes of war can then be used to refine a build further as you get access to them, but stats are the first step. Level vigour plus a stat that affects the scaling of your weapon of choice and upgrade that weapon as much as you can, and you're off to the races. If you wanna use a greatsword you'll probably wanna level str, for a katana it'll be dex. 

Some stats won't get any love throughout your whole playthrough and that's absolutely fine. Spread your points too thin and you'll feel it. I mean, there's obviously more to it that that - you'll need some endurance to meet encumbrance limits, mind for summons/skills, maybe some faith for buffs - but it's a good starting point for a build.

Also, level up. I maintain Elden Ring is not a grindy game, if you're thoroughly exploring the world and beating all the bosses, doing all the caves, camps, and dungeons - you should always be at an appropriate level to take on whatever's next, and sometimes you'll be over-levelled. If your stats are well apportioned and you're upgrading your weapon but still getting fucked up by regular enemies and not doing much damage, you're probably under levelled for where you are. 

I'm always happy to help, either here, through DM's, or Discord - anyone wants to talk stats, builds, where to go and what to do, or stream their shenanigans/watch me fuck around - I'm down.

I know, lol. Friends with kids say the same. 

I should have said that these playthroughs are weeks and months old in most cases. I'll jump on one file for an hour one night, another for a couple of hours the next while chatting on Discord. It's also the only game I've played properly since last September. Not for lack of trying mind, but Elden Ring has kinda ruined me for other games. Everything else I try I end up bouncing off hard.

Good couple of days.

Fat fuck at volcano manor down. Jolly co-operation was needed.

Godfrey down next. Only used my shieldy skelly dudes for a bit of distraction. Pretty handy. Took 2 thirds of his damage with arrows while they tanked up and then finally realised in and roll left was the spot for the sword fight.

Gave next boss a look. Yeah... That's gonna take some work.

Slumbering stones (sis you mean somber smithing stones?) are for 'special' weapons.  They are the ones with unique skills that you can't change.  You must have some by now (like from Redmane Castle boss).  You take them to +10 max.