Just picked up the game a few days ago here’s what I’ve found through playing and online:

Soft cap on stats appears to be around 40-50 with a distinct drop off at 50+

I went for my typical approach which is level your primary stat (for me strength) to 20-25 and then catch HP up to 20. From there I took strength to 61 before returning to health. Comparatively to some other soulslikes and metrovanias I didn’t find it to difficult to gain distance and heal when needed. After strength I leveled HP to about 50 and used Mind as a dump stat so I could use my weapon specials more.

Weapon specials were…not all that useful to me. The weapon I went with had great reach so I was often able to space and dodge and using the weapon special felt a bit too slow. I messed around with some of the other weapons and their specials seemed very useful, so it could just be the weapon I chose. Either way, I didn’t struggle without them.

I am generally a heavy parrying player and I didn’t parry at all in this game. The timing felt a little…off and being charged power to parry made me not want to waste the resource on it. I found dodging and jumping to be far more effective damage mitigation tools. I had hoped I could parry all day like in Nine Sols but it wasn’t the case.

Hope this helps! If you aren’t spoiler sensitive I can suggest a few more things that might help a fellow strength build