Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s most ambitious title to date and it offers an open world that is both beautiful and exhilarating to explore. For this very purpose, it may be enticing for players new to the franchise to jump in Elden Ring as well. We have curated this Elden Ring Beginner’s Guide for players of all skill levels which has some tips and tricks that will be helpful for returning and new players for starting their adventure in Elden Ring.
Beginner’s Guide – Elden Ring
The following tips and tricks in this Elden Ring Beginner’s Guide will help players new and returning to start their journey in Elden Ring.
Pick the Right Class
Elden Ring offers a variety of classes to choose from and your very first decision is choosing your class. This is perhaps your most important decision here because this choice will determine the exact gameplay style that you will have for your journey in the game. In the beginning, you have 10 classes to choose from with each of them offering a unique gameplay style. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses, and you can check them out while picking your first class in the game.
Apart from the specific gameplay styles, each class will also determine which weapons and armor you will have when you start your game. Here, you must make the choice of choosing between classes that are melee-focused or classes that are ranged-focused. Some of the classes offer a balance of both with various other buffs and debuffs so you must choose here wisely because your class will remain the same for your entire adventure. For a detailed look at the classes, you can check out our Elden Ring Starting Class Guide.
Speak with Melina to Level Up
In Elden Ring, you must interact with Melina to level up your character. She, however, needs to be unlocked first in the game before you can actually start leveling up in the game. For unlocking Melina, all you need to do is rest at three different Sites of Grace. Sites of Grace are like Dark Souls’ Bornfires where you rest and level up. To quickly find and unlock three Sites of Grace here, all you need to do is simply follow the guiding light.
On your map, you will see rays of guiding light that sort of lead you towards the next critical point of the game’s story. Keep following it and you will eventually reach additional Sites of Grace. Rest on each one that comes in your way, and you will ultimately unlock Melina and start leveling up your character in the game. She also gives you access to the Spectral Seed Whistle which is used to summon your horse.
Use the Map
For the first time, Elden Ring brings an interactive map inside the game that you can use for your ease. While the map itself is not really helpful when it comes to marking things automatically, you can use the map and place on it tons of markers marking important items, locations, enemies, and dungeons that you want to explore later in the game. Using the map is really easy in the game and you can easily customize the markers according to your own will. The game offers different markers for easy placement.
Kale Sells Torches So Buy One Immediately
Some of the earlier areas of Elden Ring have no light so it is important that you have something to light up your path. For these areas, you will need a torch and you can buy one from Kale right after the starting area is complete. Keep one torch handy at all times because you never know when you might find yourself in total darkness. You will find Kale north of the Church of Elleh.
Craft New Items
There are tons of items that help you massively in Elden Ring however you must craft them first. The Lands Between offer a lot of crafting materials that you can find in specific areas however when you collect them once, they do not appear once again unless you rest at a Site of Grace. Just like enemies, all of the Crafting Materials will respawn in the game after you rest on a Site of Grace. Make sure you use this trick to farm crafting materials that you most need in order to craft new helpful items in the game. This requires a little bit of grinding but is possibly the easiest grinding that we’ve seen in an RPG in a long time.
Spend Runes While You Still Have Them
Elden Ring is a difficult game and so you will die a lot in the game. Similar to Sekiro and Dark Souls, when you die, you will leave all your collected Runes (souls equivalent of Elden Ring) at that very spot. To prevent this, it is sometimes wiser to go back to a Site of Grace and spend your Runes to level up before heading further into a boss fight or a rather dangerous area. Death is easy in Elden Ring, and you only get one chance of returning to that particular spot and recovering your lost Runes. If you die while heading to your death spot, you will lose all of your collected Runes. This is fine if you have a low number of Runes but if you managed to collect a lot of Runes, you must wait and go back to invest them before investing them in further areas.
Collect Runes from Glowing Skulls
As you are exploring The Lands Between, you will often come across glowing skulls here and there on the ground. Every time you see a glowing skull, destroy them and you will get an item that gives you Runes. These skulls are quite a lot, and you will find them often just lying there on the ground, filled with Runes. They are one of the easiest forms to get Runes in the game so make sure that you destroy every glowing skull that comes in your way.
Look After Your Horse
The Lands Between are really vast and the game gives you a horse for moving around the game areas quickly. Obviously, the horse cannot go everywhere but in various areas, you can easily use your trusty horse named Torrent. Torrent comes with its own health bar and with damage, it goes down. You can ensure that your horse is always in good shape by feeding it raisins. You can craft raisins from a variety of Rowa Fruits.
Torrent is a mythical beast so if it dies, you can respawn it from resting at any Site of Grace in the game. If you have your Flask of Crimson Tears, you can revive Torrent early as well by using its one charge.
For additional help with the game, check out the guides linked below:
This concludes our Elden Ring Beginner’s Guide. If you have some tips and tricks with us, feel free to use the comments section below.
