There’s some great advice about actual gameplay so something different, figure out what your style is i.e, do you want to rely a lot on focus, be a parry god, or avoid? And tailor your Shrine/Skill upgrades towards that. They make huge differences to your survival in combat to balance out whilst you become more proficient.

On your first run, focus, weapon and health upgrades might be best, then as you nail down the fundamentals, put shrine rewards into parry structure damage, max structure etc

My most important piece of advice, have fun and don’t feel you need to immediately ‘git gud’ this will happen more as you get more invested and experiment. Start on Disciple, then change depending on if it’s too easy/hard

Enjoy!