The Best 'First Playthrough Build' for Elden Ring

tl;dr: "Quality builds" scale strength and dexterity to use as many weapons as possible on your first playthrough.
Cheat sheet:
- Pick Hero, Vagabond, or Samurai as your starting class.
- Get minimum stats to wield the weapon you like.
- Get to 27 Vigor to hit the softcap for life.
- Get to at least 20 Endurance for Equip load and Stamina.
- Get to 27 Strength and 40 Dexterity for an effective 40/40 in each stat as two handed multiplies your strength by 1.5.

This basically ensures you can use as many thing as possible you discover in your first playthrough.

[maxil]

Pro tip for souls beginners: Always point down emote after every single PVP kill, no matter the circumstances

[DepressedSkorpion]

Strength isn't a build, it's a way of life.

[HavokYT]

Thanks Scott 🙏

Was alot of fun watching your DS3 stream yesterday, brought back alot of nostalgia, lookin forward to your Elden Ring content and guides

[jobraket]

After having more than a year break from souls games, this feels like coming home so much. I love that Elden Ring is so easily graspable to veterans and I was going to go for a quality build anyway, so Scott describing it to new players just feels so right and almost nostalgic for me. I wish you all a very fun first playthrough of this glorious game.

[TheKingsPride]

Step 1: level nothing but STR

Step 2: find the most comically large sword available

Step 3: COME ON AND SLAM! AND WELCOME TO THE JAM!

[CZProductions]

Dump all points into strength and grab the biggest sword you can find. This is the way.

[bjwal]

This was by far the most useful guide - my first fromsoft game and I was SWEATING on getting the initial build/class choice right. This has calmed me, thank you.

[saturn]

Greatshields are hugely underrated for first playthroughs. Greatly improves survivability, which also makes it far easier to learn enemy attack patterns. Only downside is the extra weight, which is likely why they tend to be overlooked.

[jacobl]

Always go naked first run. It has most options, greatest flexibility, and helps you to not be tempted to stick with your starting armor/equipment because it looks cool.

[Tilyaf]

The thing about running a magic/faith build on your first playthrough is that not knowing what or where the good spells are makes getting them that much sweeter.

[MaximusAutismus]

I cant wait for the weapon videos. They are gonna be so much fun!

[xxxae_]

awesome vid bro I’ve gotten so overwhelmed watching too many videos on different builds and what not but I’ve decided to just go with the wretch and truly get the full experience for my first time I like the thought of starting from nothing, being able to put my points where I want not feeling confined to a certain build or archetype and every piece of loot I get I can truly appreciate it and see what I like I’m naturally going down the str/dex route just so I can try as many weapons as humanly possible lol

[HaloMillennium]

I'm actually choosing the Wretch class because I was convinced it'd be more immersive and engaging as a first playthrough to start with nothing (kinda like Botw) and find all your weapons and gear naturally, because everything will automatically be better than what you start with. I couldn't care less about PvP as well, so this is definitely gonna be my starting class; maybe next playthrough I'll start with something else like what was mentioned here.

[samparret]

Spoiler free tips on how to make a good starter build. The game is so overwhelming I constantly want to restart because I feel like I screwed my stats haha. Good baseline what to go for now, thx a lot 🙏

[Benboostedguy]

Im calling it rn, its gonna be game of the year

[KozyGamer]

Always start as a strength/faith build! Best pve build for tanking and easy heals!

[SpeakerTerenus]

Pick Wretch and create your own build as you go along, depending on what you find. You can only do that on a first playthrough when you don't know where items are.

Don't steal such an experience from yourself.

[noah_drizzel]

Finally a good Video for beginners that teaches you basics... been searching for hours, thanks dude... didnt know what i wanna skill first all the time

[fritothedemon]

Really glad to see the myth of "spells are easy mode" being tackled here. Shit hasn't been true since they nerfed hexes in ds2. After that they were terrible and in dark souls 3 you barely get any decent ones until endgame anyway. The real east mode is coop, not a set of spells that can be hard to find and require a lot of levels and upgrade materials to even be competitive with melee

[CorwinTheOneAndOnly]

Video is outdated now, hope for a new one soon.

Vigor Softcap: 40
Vigor Hardcap: 60

Str/Dex/Int/Fai Softcap: 50
Str/Dex/Int/Fai Hardcap: 80

Endurance Softcap: 25
Endurance Hardcap: who cares lmao you only need like 15 Endurance for stamina anyways