I'd recommend those playing to rely more on melee and the parry mechanic of the shield, not only is there a boss in the late game that requires mastery of those skills, but a lot of enemies are vulnerable to those tactics. Additionally the resurrection shards can be held on to to cash in for blood metals or to increase health, so in the early game if you can resist check-pointing it can really help you later on as the game gets more difficult.
mikeissogroovy's comments