I started DS3 when it came out, and kind of bounced off about a 1/4 of the way through the main game. I've always done sword/shield or pure strength builds in previous souls games. Do any of you duders have any suggestions for a new way to build my character?

I've always liked pyromancers, but some people consider them to be kind of easy mode. Were you not enjoying sword and board this time through? Theres a lot of weapon variety for str builds, but also some really great early game dex weapons like the Uchigatana.

Dex builds are fun although i couldnt get through 3 with one.(game crashes when i change settings on pc). I did the uchigatana in 2 and half way through 3, no shield. I want to try magic but i hate how it feels in souls games.

Luck. Just the once for a specific weapon.

Whatever build you end up going for, I'd start by just getting the Longsword or the Lothric Knight Sword and infusing it with Raw. Straight swords are agreed upon to be the best weapon class in the entire game for both PvE and PvP, so rolling with that to get your bearings is a great idea, at least in the beginning. From there you can sort of decide what you wanna do. Pyromancy is fun, but it's more of a mid/late game thing. Faith builds have a lot of cool spells to use.

Don't think of one straight path, just play it like you want to. Just go with it.

Try going for dual-wield weapons. It's the most original playstyle for DS3, and once you get the claws you won't regret it.

Luck build with a bleed Bandit Knife is extremely fun. Add a parry shield and Anri's Straight Sword for enemies that don't bleed and you have a very good build.

My favorite weapon in the game is the Old Wolf Curved Sword. It’s a curved greatsword you get through the Wolves of Farron. If you don’t want to do PvP you can just farm the materials from certain enemies.

It’s a criminally underrated weapon. It definitely doesn’t out-damage the major hitters, but it makes up for it with its fashion and weapon art. I’ve never run into anyone else who uses it in PvP so no one ever expects the weapon art to be so deadly. If you can do a regular R1 and then do the full weapon art combo, it can one-shot people.

Basically just build quality (40 dex/40 str) for max damage. I think they even buffed its base damage when the last DLC came out so I found myself one-shotting people even more when I picked up the game again recently.

I think Dex builds are really fun in 3. Most of the bosses require a lot of rolling already, blocking/poise strats are not nearly as strong on a lot of them. I played my first playthrough mostly wearing light armor and the twinblades (dex ones, wanderer?), later switching for chaos blade (katana) and it felt great.

One thing you need to know though. There's a flat defense bonus you get for every equipped slot of armor. So you always want to have a helmet on, even if its just a light bandana or something. Because the difference between not having anything and having something light is huge.

The last time I played through that game I played as Solaire, which turned out to be a pretty good build. I hadn't used a shield in a DS game since my first time playing the first game, so I was terrible a countering, but it was still a ton of fun. Five of his six pieces are traded for at the crows, his sword is at Lothric castle, and an extra piece I decided to add was a certain talisman I found in the swamp. I'll list everything below in greater detail:

• Iron Bracers: Trade a Homeward Bone with the crows at Firelink Shrine; can be done immediately upon reaching the shrine.
• Armor of the Sun: Trade a Siegbrau with the crows at Firelink Shrine; the earliest Siegbrau can be obtained from Siegward in the Undead Settlement after killing the Demon together and ensuring his survival during the fight.
• Iron Helm: Trade a Lightning Urn with the crows at Firelink Shrine; the earliest LU you can obtain is from Grierat in Firelink Shrine after he pillages the Undead Settlement, I believe.
• Iron Leggings: Trade a Seed of a Giant Tree with the crows at Firelink Shrine; the seeds have a chance of falling from the dead giant in Firelink after you've been invaded by either a PC or NPC, so check back after each encounter.
• Sunlight Shield: Trade a Mendicant's Staff with the crows at Firelink Shrine; the staff can only be obtained as a drop from the summoners at Archdragon Peak, so you won't have that one for a while. With GCS ring and SoA on it took me only a few minutes of farming the summoner near the second bonfire in AP(the room after you kill the first boss).
• Sunlight Straight Sword: Dropped by a Mimic in Lothric Castle. Near the Dragonslayer Armour's bossroom, there is a hole in the wall where you can drop down onto one of the wyvern/dragon corpses. Do so, and the mimic is in the room you drop next to.
• Sunlight Talisman (extra): In the Farron's Keep swamp. Can be found as an item on the ground near the cauldron filled with Estus soup, which is next to the ladder leading to the Old Wolf of Farron.

Faith is his primary stat, as the Sunlight Straight Sword has B Faith scaling, and D Strength and Dexterity scaling. By the time I had beaten the DLCs and was heading to the final boss, I had 40 of each of those three stats, and the sword had about 430 AR. Even one-handed, it's doing pretty solid damage. I takes a while to complete this build, but I had a great time with it. Oh, and obviously you have to be a Warrior of Sunlight.

There's a lot of fun to be had with Faith if you're OK with (imo) a much much slower start than a Dex or Strength build.

I'm running strength/faith in pretty equal measure and it's been working out fine for me.

The only Dark Souls worth playing is Fashion Souls.

I went to the souls wiki, they have a ton of builds, i think i picked one named 'easy peasy knight' or something like that, full lothric set, you can wreck stuff pretty good. I just grinded the knights outside the first boss for an hour or two.

The first build I went with on release was the most fun I had with the game. It was based around the Carthus Curved Sword and Pyromancy. I'm not sure how good it is now but it was stupid broken in PVP when the game came out. Here it is recreated in the character planner:

https://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls3/291811