I'm new to this game and never played Demon Souls either. I'm on my third character, a knight. First guy (Wanderer) was a disaster. Second (Bandit) seemed limited with the huge heavy axe. Now I'm a knight which seems pretty balanced and gets the heater shield. I've been pumping strength, Vitality, a little endurance. Finally I got to Undead Burgh and wanted the bow, so my Dex is now 15 (minimum for the bow). I also grabbed a spear from the grave yard (suicide run). I have upgraded the sword to +1 (got a lucky titanium shard drop) from the guy at the base of Firelink Shrine (behind the bars).

It doesn't seem like pumping strength does any good, nor make any difference one way or another. My character still has to hit the zombies as much as before, doesn't seem to do more damage. The +1 on the sword doesn't seem like much either... MAYBE --maybe the sword does a little more damage, but it seems negligible.

I'm trying the Taurus demon. I've died several times, twice because I jumped too far off the tower and fell off into the abyss (dumb mistake).

Anyway, should I start over and pump Dex more at the beginning? It seems (and I'm inexperienced admittedly) that armor doesn't do much, and strength doesn't seem to affect anything. Being able to run around the Taurus demon seems like it would be more beneficial, not getting caught in his legs (that's happened to me a few times). Is a Dex based build easier early in the game? Can you run FASTER with higher Dex?

Or do I just suck at Dark Souls?

Help please. Thanks.

For all I know, my "advice" could be completely wrong, but I'd say you're still VERY early. Just stick it out with one character and put points where you think you want them. I hear people say your first run will have a lot of things done wrong, but to embrace that and learn from it so your second run is awesome.

@CrazyBagMan:

I just re-read what I typed and actually, my character is a warrior... I typed that with hands still shaking from dying from the last Taurus fight.

I may need to give this game up. It is great, but I just don't know if I have the ability to commit enough time to play it correctly. I'll be killing the same zombies six months from now, sltill trying to get Taurus.

Any other advice anybody?

Im a beginner myself and If you want to take out Taurus but you are having a tough time get about 10 or more Firebombs and just spam them on him while blocking and dogding his attacks. Thats how I eventually did it

Tips for the taurus:

Take out the skeleton archers in the tower before you pull him

Make sure you use at least one plunging attack from where the skeletons were

Don't stay on the tower too long though, as he will jump up and kill you

Firebombs are very helpful so stock up.

I hope this helps and I hope you enjoy the game.

I'm playing a Knight, and all I did was put 12 Dex so I could use bows, put a couple into Strength and Vitality after that. Taurus Demon? I triggered him, ran toward the tower I came from after killing the crossbow dudes there and did a lunge attack on him from above. Takes a lot of health off of him, but its hard to repeat that sometimes. After that, it's time to play the dodge game. Learn his attacks, they're all pretty simple.

A load more help can be found here in the stickied thread.

I killed the Taurus Demon by climbing up the tower, leaping off and putting my axe in his head the same way I did the Asylum Demon. I found this way the easiest because the hits from above take off a massive amount of it's health.

@Ovenall: Strenght doesn't do much to enhance spears I believe, I'll make a slighty edited repost of what I posted in another thread.

In the Inventory screen press the "Toogle Diplay" button to bring up a weapons stat screen, look at the part called "ParamBonus" (Parameter Bonus) and it shows you a ranking from E to S (as in E, D, C, B, A and S as the highest ranking, cause Japan). The higher that ranking is the more attack you gain for each point put in that attribute. A normal Hand axe, for example, has a C in Strength and a D in Dexterity, this means that the weapon will get a little more of an attack bonus from points put into Strenght than from points put into Dexterity (and NO attack bonus from points put into Intelligence and Faith).

In your case, Bows and Spears get more of an attack bonus from points put into Dexterity so you should focus on that. I've also tried Wanderer, Theif and Knight with the most success as a Knight, though I'm using a ring so that I can keep equip burden under 50% as well as the Drake Sword, you should get that sword btw.

You can see the number of extra points you get as a bonus by looking at the weapons ATK section at the same screen. The first number is the base stats of the weapon, the second number after the + sign is the bonus.

It took me a long time before I realized this while playing Demon's Souls so I hope that helps out.

Switch your primary weapon to the spear, it's much easier to use and defend with. And start pumping Dexterity. You're doing great so far, at this point I only put points into endurance and vitality, and the strength you've already put in will serve a purpose later on down the line for equip requirements.

EDIT: Also, don't give up, the more you work at it the more rewarding it will be. Also I believe the beginning is definitely the hardest part of the game. You will just naturally get into good habits as you progress. My most important tip here is to learn your dodge roll. Know when it will completely avoid an attack, and when it's better to sideroll or just backroll out of the situation.

Thanks for the advice all. I was indeed using the "fall attack" from the tower after killing the archers. I managed to hit Taurus twice with this, but always screwed up around the third attempt. I will try fire bombs later (or tomorrow).

My main problems with this battle are:

• Getting caught in his legs. It looks like you can run/roll through, but you can't always. Then he hits me which causes a stun, then another hit and I'm dead. Again, armor doesn't seem like it does ANYTHING.

• Running past him, back to the ladder he starts catching up to me and blocks the camera with his huge hairy back. I'm pressing B to run, so it's near impossible to adjust the camera stick at the same time. Annoying.

Another question: Will un-equipping pieces of armor make me run faster? What about adding DE? Does this make you any faster? Just being a little faster in this fight would make a difference. Thanks again.

@Ovenall: Yes, unequiping your gear will make you run faster. You should be able to make it up the ladder before he can even block your camera, so I'm guessing it's your gear slowing you down. Or you're not running as soon as he starts to jump onto the battlefield. Try to roll around him instead of through his legs. Like you said it doesn't always work. If you time it at the right time though you'll still be able to dodge the attack even though you didn't get past him.

Also, if you're going to pump any of your stats I would pump endurance. Endurance helps you run longer, roll more often, block heavier hits, and wear heavier gear. A point in endurance in a melee build is never a bad one (at least until you hit a certain amount). Pumping dex will boost your damage, but that won't help at all if you can't do three of the things that endurance helps with. Plus from the way some of the talk around the internet is going, lightning weapons might be better than scaling weapons anyway. So mass amounts in dex or str won't help you as much as you'd think, at least until you really really get up there in soul level. Take that with a grain of salt until more testing is done and more people prove it, but keep that possibility in mind.

@MentalDisruption:

See, I did not even know endurance allows you to block better. I know people claim the game is "hardcore" by not explaining things, but I think they were just being cheap with printing the manual, and had a hard time with complex Japanese/English translations. Stupid that I need to search web forums just to learn stuff like this.

I'll start pumping endurance. Really makes me want to start over. I need like 1500 souls at this point to level, and that takes a long time in the area I'm in. Maybe I'll just grind some more...

@Ovenall: Well the taurus demon is actually still really early, so it shouldn't take more than an hour or so to get back to him. I've restarted 4 times, and trust me it goes a lot faster the more you do it :D. I believe it tells you what each stat does on the leveling screen if you hit select, but they probably should've made that more clear to players.

Oh I completely forgot to mention, when it comes to blocking hits the shield your using has an effect too. Different shields block different amounts of damage. Usually it's pretty easy to tell when a shield blocks 100% of damage (as long as you have the endurance), so those will be what you should go with. There's a few exceptions if you take into account special effects on shields, but don't worry about that yet.

I did this by accident but maybe it'll help. If you lure the Taurus demon to the part of the walkway with a hole on the side and you're strafing or rolling around him. At one point he might try to jump back and fall off into oblivion.