I've been having a lot of trouble deciding between strength or skill. I really like the Threaded Cane, but the Kirkhammer just seems so cool. What stats have you been focusing on?

I started with strength. But I've been upgrading everything now. So I can start to mess with what ever.

I currently have 23 VIT and END, 30 STR, 14 SKL, 10 BLD and 13 ARC.

Trying to get my SKL, BLD and ARC all to 15. Then probably take VIT and END to 25. Then probably stop leveling up entirely. I think with those stats I should be able to use any of the weapons. Maybe.

If you haven't already made a character yet you could go with the Military Veteran background which gives you 15 str and 13 skill. All you would need to do is put one more point into str to use the Kirkhammer. This will also all you to use both weapons and see which one you like more and you can spec in that weapon's direction.

I've committed myself to a Skill run so I'm focusing on Skill with Endurance as the secondary. I may not hit hard, but I can hit more often and faster, and enemies get stunlocked easily, with some exceptions of course. On a second game I might go with strength or try out a Bloodtinge or Arcane build just 'cuz, but I'm really liking Skill especially since I never really did a Dex run in other Souls games. I went with Professional and haven't looked back.

Thanks for the advice. I'm thinking I'll go along the lines of what DonChipolte (great name) said. Commit to skill and for a while and see how it goes. Anyone know where NG+ caps? I thought that in Dark Souls 2 it was 7 or so.

If you're just starting out, I wouldn't worry too much about where you're putting your points just yet. Having a few points in every stat will be useful down the road and unlike previous Souls games, there's a much heavier emphasis on NG+. With that in mind, you have plenty of time to experiment, and then go down a specific path once the time comes for you to make a decision. Ontop of that, there are many weapons that scale of multiple stats. For instance, one weapon scales of bloodtinge, skill and arcana, where-as another scales off strength, skill and arcana. My point being, unless you really don't like the specfic weapon moveset, they've made it very viable to utilize any stat combination you might think of.

Early on, however, I'd recommend putting points into strength and vitality, and a couple in skill to meet the base requirement for most weaponry in the game. Strength and skill will allow you to use weapons like the Kirkhammer or the Ludwig's Holy Sword very early. On the other hand, you could also buy the 3 k pistol from the vendor and put points into bloodtinge if you feel like going for a ranged build, the damage is kinda' ridiculous, and you'll be able to use a cursed katana later on. As I said, there's no real "wrong" option in this game, it'll just impact your choice of weapon and playstyle.

I did my first run using skill focused weapons and started a second run recently trying strength. While going skill is extremely boring as far as weapon variety goes (there's basically only four skill weapons available during your first playthrough), my experience with strength weapons has been pretty disappointing. It's been nice to actually have to experiment and figure out which weapon I like the best, and there's still several strength weapons I haven't gotten to try yet, but to me the game just doesn't mesh well with the slow big hits kinda playstyle.

I didn't know what to do so I just leveled both of them, lol. Got both at 35 ATM, worked fine. Dunno if it's gonna turn out to be a problem deeper into NG+ or something though...

With soft-caps at 25, I basically made a qualify build with the rest in Vitality and Endurance

So wouldn't it be fairly easy to get everything to the soft cap in NG? Then what would you level in NG+? If you're not leveling what do you do with your echoes?

@figurehead00: Yes, you can absolutely get everything to the soft cap, it's not even necessarily a bad idea as all of the stats are useful this time around. Arcane is fantastic once you get deeper into the game and unlock "magic", bloodtinge lets you do stupid amounts of damage with your guns and scales really well with some melee weapons, and I don't have to extol the virtues of strength, skill, vitality and endurance given that they're all pretty self-explanatory. The thing is, compared to earlier souls games, the soft-cap is less of a cut-off point and more of a mild case of diminishing returns. You still get a LOT of benefits from continuing to leveling your skills past it. It does however seem that the hard-cap is a real cut-off to the point where there is next to no reason to even bother with it.

As for NG +, you'll be spending a lot of blood echoes on healing items. And I do mean a lot. There's also some pretty expensive weapons and armour sets.

Interesting, thanks for the information!

@figurehead00: I've been upgrading each of my lowest stats one at a time dunno if this is a bad idea or not

I would go for both until you know exactly what weapon you want, i found a weapon similar to kirkhammer but better and scales in str, skill AND arcane

You'll find out soon enough that there isn't much to character building in this game. You can effectively wield every weapon... well... effectively, unlike in previous games. I am a great example of this, as I invested in Skill and ended up using a Strength based weapon and still did tons of damage with it, since everything scales with everything. Just a little less so. There's a big chance that when the credits roll for the first time, you've already seen and used all of what Bloodborne has to offer except one weapon.

I prefer the Skill weapons, especially Blades of Mercy, more than the slow weapons. I tended to prefer the slow, staggering weapons in Souls games because those games are slower paces, and for that exact same reason I like the faster weapons in Bloodborne, they really make the combat shine. The Blades of Mercy are just a fantastically fun weapon to use with incredible speed and moveset. I also really like the Saw Spear, and don't let its basic nature fool you, it's really effective. The R1>L1>L1 transforming combo is very effective at stunlocking almost everything and the second hit does a lot of damage. It's one of the fastest transforming combos I've discovered, too. If you want to know how to get the Blades of Mercy: Eileen the Crow. Follow her quest line, or kill her.

Ludwig sword. Makes the game rather simple. Quick sword easily stun locks most enemies, and the 2 handed version transformation stun locks bigger enemies.

R1 attack on both forms does horizontal slash so very good for groups considering how wide the arc is. R2 with the big sword has massive distance, and most enemies will just walk right into it and also has a second R2 follow up attack that does as much as the charge R2 attack. The R2 attack will almost guarantee stun, even on bosses you land an extremely powerful long distance 2 hit combo with little consequences.

Also if you dash to the left or right away from the enemy and R1 attack with either form you will literally dash back towards the enemy with a follow up counter attack slash before the enemy can react.

What else, oh I think it has the highest damage in the game. I had it at +10 and nothing seemed to match it. And since it isn't enchanted you can put fire paper or whatever on it and get it higher. Ludwig is beyond good.

Edit: I forgot to add the Forward+R2 move with 2nd form allows you to literally jump at your enemy bashing them into the ground, letting you get in follow up attacks if they even survive that.

Haven't found a good variety of Skill weapons. Cane and Blade of Mercy, but I'm not of weapons with short reach. Been using Lugwig's for several hours now and have it up to +9. Scales well with Strength, Skill and Arcana (whatever that's for).