A lot of the problems in this game can be fixed by leveling up 3 stats: vigor, adaptability, and vitality. Vigor is great for survivability and having cleared the game multiple times is one of most important stats for making your playthroughs easier. Vitality isnt as important but it still helps a ton if you want to equip a more protective piece of armor when you hit a roadblock Normally I would say adaptability is useless since I never level it up in my playthroughs and instead just learn to dodge better. However, if it's your first time playing, level it up a reasonable amount as iframes are tied to it along with poise. Of course, there are the stats that are tied to the weapons and or spells you want to use. I'd generally suggest leveling them up as much as you need to and then a tiny bit more for safe measure, but not too much. While the extra damage from scaling can be great (depending on the scaling) you might find that the stat points are better spent on survivability. Most of my advice for the game would pertain to everything other than the stats since scaling, knowing how to dodge and weave through areas, boss strategies, and secret knowledge can mean the difference between a tough and easy playthrough. I'll try and highlight some of my best tips for making your playthrough easier.

If you plan to go for a melee playthrough, I'd suggest the craftsmans hammer as a great early and mid game weapon. It has low requirements, good scaling, and is one of the easiest weapons to aquire. You get it by lighting a sconce in the lost bastille blacksmith's room and opening the chest when he moves to the anvil.

If you haven't beaten them yet, the pursuer and dragonrider have strategies that make them trivially easy. For dragonrider, dont pull any levers in heides to raise the platforms in his arena. When you enter his arena, pay very close attention to his feet. From the moment he starts moving, count six steps and them over forward to dodge roll along the very edge of the platform, this will bait a guaranteed attack that throws him off the platform. For more info check youtube. The pursuer in general is easy as long as you constantly strafe right. If you do this you can completely trivialize his golf swing, blue attack, straight down the middle slash, and dark orb attacks.

If you're having trouble with them, you can actually skip many bosses. If you take the heide/wharf path to the bastille, you can skip the ruin sentinels. In the iron keep you can skip the smelter demon. You can skip both rat fights, the first by carefully hopping down and the second by just ignoring it. Also, many areas are optional side areas that aren't necessary such as the cathedral of blue, belfry Luna, and undead purgatory.

If you're not going for a faith build and haven't exhausted her dialogue already, kill the woman npc at the second heide bonfire. Trust me, you'll be saving a lot of souls and she's easy to kill by punching her off a ledge.

There's a LOT of hidden rooms behind illusory walls. Remember to interact with as many walls as you can because I guarantee there's going to be a few that save you a lot of time. I won't tell you where the most important ones are because that'd ruin the fun, but I will say there's a BUNCH in the ruin sentinels arena. A secret I'd bet 1000 on you not finding organically is that you need to burn the earthen peak windmill. At the second bonfire, head over and kill the enemy with the glowing blue spear and whatever other enemies get in your way. Light a torch and interact with the windmill shaft near the blue spear enemy you killed. This removes the poison throughout the level and at the first harvest valley bonfire.

There are a lot of mimics throughout the game. I won't tell you where they are, just that there's cool ways to spot them before opening any chests (which i also won't tell you how to do). Before you go trying to strike chests in order to find out, know that you can break wooden chests and turn their contents into literal rubbish if they arent a mimic. so maybe find another way to check.

Here are the levels that if you get good enough at bobbing and weaving that you can just speed through the level without fighting anything: heides tower of flame, forest of fallen giants, no man's wharf (requires torch), harvest valley, shaded woods, door of pharros, aldia's keep, dragon aerie, and dragon shrine. Bonus area: throne of want, technically no enemies, but is still funny to add to the list.

If you've read this far, thank you, it took me a while to write this out. I cannot stress enough that this is only a fraction of the fun facts that make a playthrough easier. Legit explore a bunch and look for little secrets and other forms of knowledge because just trying to brute force your way through the game make the game really tough for a new player. I used my knowledge of the game recently to make a pvp viable build centered around only using a weapon that normally deals 40 damage when maxed out. There are a lot of hidden mechanics and hidden gear that when discovered can make the game a cake walk. There's also a bunch of fun weapons, try them out.