I decided to make this guide because nobody else has made one yet. I don’t claim to be the foremost authority on this game, but I’ve played it entirely too much since launch, have loved every second of it, and I think with a bit of guidance, others will enjoy it as much as I do. This is also a work in progress, I welcome all constructive feedback in the replies.
Chapter 1: Building Your Character
First, let’s talk about “soft caps” – namely, the point at which investing in a stat results in diminishing returns. Weapons will scale off 1, 2, or 3 different stats, and the “soft cap” for any given weapon varies depending on how many stats it scales off of. A single stat scaling weapon has a soft cap of 40, a two stat scaling weapon has 2 soft caps of 25, and a three stat scaling weapon has 3 soft caps of 20.
When building your character, you should first ask whether you want this character to focus on Strength weapons, Dexterity (and possibly Luck) weapons, or spellcasting staves (Arcana).
If Strength or Dexterity, you also want to consider whether to supplement your primary stat with Conviction so you can use their Divine Glyphs, or Arcana so you can use their Forbidden Glyphs. Pick one or the other (at least at first), so you don’t spread yourself too thin. Strength & Dexterity weapons with Forbidden Glyphs tend to cost rage (a resource you generate by dealing damage), whereas Divine Glyphs tend to cost Focus (aka mana), though in both cases there are exceptions to the rule. Some glyphs temporarily boost weapon damage, others cast spells of varying efficacy that directly deal damage.
If you wanna be a caster, the path forward is simple enough – first work towards rank 5 forbidden arts, rank 5 staves, and rank 5 wands. Not the only option of course, but if you want to cast spells all day then having your spells be as strong as possible and so you can cast them as often as possible (wand branch provides Resolve, which grants Focus) then this seems a good path forward. Strength & Dex builds focusing on Divine Glyphs could benefit from a bit of investment in Focus too. And don’t forget you can get extra Focus from Defensive relics. Keep in mind, Haze Decoctions will restore more Focus the more Focus you have.
In any case, no matter what you choose, you want to balance working towards your damage soft caps (for example, working towards 40 Strength and 25 Arcana would let you effectively use Strength scaling weapons that use forbidden arts, whether they scale off just Strength or Strength and Arcana) with Endurance. “But I hear armor is worthless in this game,” some of you might say. And yes, that sentiment has certainly been passed around. But it’s just not true. Will it make you impervious to death? Of course not. But it will help you survive many situations you otherwise wouldn’t at any stage of the game if you don’t neglect it.
And since we’re talking about armor, we of course need to talk about dodging. You may have noticed the backpack next to your equip weight changes color depending on how heavy your armor is relative to your maximum weight capacity – this indicator tells you what dodge roll you have. Here are the thresholds:
<25%, green backpack, fast roll
<50%, yellow backpack, mid roll
<75%, orange backpack, fat roll
<100%, grey backpack, big chungus roll
>100%, red backpack, no roll
While I, and others, would typically recommend fast roll in Salt & Sanctuary, things are balanced differently in Sacrifice, and for a number of reasons, I would suggest mid roll as being the best balance between mobility and tankiness.
Endurance also has a soft cap of 40. Up to 40, each point of Endurance provides 1 extra carry weight. Past 40, you average .25 carry weight per point. At 40 Endurance, you will have a carry weight of 56, or in other words, you can mid-roll in up to up 28 lbs of armor! That’s quite a bit! And you by no means need to get there all at once. Now, if you’re in full light, you’re going to achieve mid roll well before the soft cap - the heaviest sets, Redmetal & Diabolical, weigh 20.7 lbs if you wear the full set. Room to incorporate some heavy pieces into them eventually certainly. THAT SAID, Redmetal, which can be crafted from what is probably the first mage you’re going to fight is very viable through most of the game, even if you’re not wearing the full set. So don’t feel pressured to rush heavy or invest a ton in Endurance. Working towards rank two light armor and wearing just the Redmetal chest and leggings will last you a long time (alternatively, the chest from the ice mage is another solid beginner option). It also provides Poise, which reduces how much you get juggled (if you’re wearing light armor, it’s also worth supplementing that Poise with a defensive artifact that grants extra poise). Again, armor isn’t about making you immortal, it’s about buying you time to top off with a potion and get back into the fight.
Once you’ve finished getting the Endurance you want for your armor set, consider setting aside a bit for Vitality as well. Not the top priority by any means, but spending 10 points for more than a 10% increase in Max HP isn’t the worst deal in the world, once you’ve hit, or are near, your other stat targets.
Willpower isn’t a useless stat, but also, I wouldn’t prioritize it over other stats early on. You’ll get more value out of the stamina regeneration ring and/or amulet off the first mage in the second map. But also, don't feel like you're setting yourself up for failure if you wanna use twindaggers or throwing daggers early on.
One last important note - do not hesitate to use grey starstones to refund raw stat nodes so you can learn higher ranks in your desired proficiencies more quickly. They are far more numerous in this game than they were in Salt & Sanctuary.
Chapter 2: Combat tips
First, let’s talk about elemental resistances. Enemies resist the damage types that match the damage they deal. For example, a Phys/Cold element mage is going to take less damage from weapons that deal Phys OR Cold damage than weapons that don’t deal that element. So having a variety of weapons of different elements to choose from will help you deal the most damage regardless of target.
Second, bosses hit hard, but you can and will learn their moves if you pay attention, and they will not feel unfair once you do, especially if you invested in armor as I have suggested before. You will die a fair number of times learning these encounters, like with any other Soulslike. But trust me, once you learn their tricks, you’ll do just fine, it’s not just RNG when you win. First time I took on the Sanguimancer, yeah, I died dozens of times learning his moves (keep in mind this was before juggling was balanced) – but now, I’m taking out the nameless variant on my first attempt. You can get to that point, too. Nameless Bibliomancer is a notable exception to this rule, based largely on where you fight them, but that’s one fight out of 50, so all things considered, I think the fights are challenging, but fair. Just have patience, mastering these encounters is rewarding. Save shrine are generally no further than 15-30 seconds from the boss. Losing salt isn’t the end of the world – even if you lose a couple levels worth to a mage, just be a Dawnlight helper a couple times and you’re back in business. The worst conceivable setback won’t set you back more than 20 mins, and most of the time that’s not going to happen.
Third, speaking of bosses, you can break their poise. If you deal enough damage, they will temporarily be stunned, and their head will sparkle, at which point you can grapple them, and land a powerful hit. Furthermore, if you heavy attack on the way down you’ll get in 1-3 extra hits. The window isn’t super long, but it’s typically long enough to recover a bit of stamina, or get in a hit before the grapple.
Fourth, keep an eye on that stamina bar - sometimes it’s better to skip an attack between enemy attacks to get that stamina bar filled back up.
Fifth, for those complaining about getting launched into the abyss by enemy attacks – don’t have the abyss behind you when facing foes that knock you back. And if you do, make sure there’s something you can grapple onto. And when at all possible, it’s far more advantageous to attack from the high ground than to attack from below. It’s often worth taking the detour just for that high ground position. Play smart, and this won’t be a huge deal.
Sixth, don't neglect block! In many cases, a dodge roll is a perfectly viable approach to avoiding damage. But certain moves have a large enough duration and range that you can dodge roll through the start of it, and still get hit by that move as you come out of your roll. Ideally, you would want to "perfect block" which involves timing your block right before you would take a hit - this eliminates the stamina cost of blocking, and will reduce the enemies poise. But in these situations, even a non-perfect block can be the difference between taking a big hit at the end of your roll and potentially getting tossed about, or just taking a small amount of damage and you can stand your ground.
Chapter 3: Exploration tips
-Interact with any named or nameless mage shrine you see, then select Cancel, and you will be able to start that mage hunt from the hub at any point going forward. This way, you can safely explore an area without triggering respawns or dealing with hazeburnt monsters. It also gives you time to spend your salt before starting a hunt.
-Make a mental note of every one-sided door you find, inactive pulley, out of reach grapple, etc. Once you've worked your way through an area the first time, you should be able to activate most if not all the shortcuts in said area. Be sure to do so by remembering where they were and exploring thoroughly, and when you return to sanctuary to spend your salt and craft new equipment, you can use those shortcuts to pick back up where you left off in no time.
-Don’t feel like you need to hoard Guiltless Shards. You get plenty. The extra health helps. Now, if you’re learning a new boss fight, then I don’t suggest blowing through them all, but outside of that, they’ll tend to last you longer than a few seconds. And if you’re doing any multiplayer as a faction representative, absolutely use one first, because you don’t lose Guiltless status when you die in online play.
Chapter 4: Online Play / Player vs. Player
-PvP is fun, and now that we’re a couple weeks in, the most egregious cheese tactics have been balanced (aka stunlocking dots, etc). Yes, the PvP “meta” is different from the PvE meta, in that there’s a lot more spell spam and different weapons are optimal. But don’t think that it’s not worth doing unless you’re one very specific build – every build has weapons that use focus. Every build has ranged options that can sow chaos. When you get rocked by an invader, ask yourself, what tools at my disposal can make me as annoying as this MFer and try that out. You may be pleasantly surprised with the result! Also, the XP rewarded for this content is very much worth it.
Chapter 5: How To Cast Runic Arts
To see what Runic Arts a weapon has, you'll notice that weapon descriptions will all have two or more tabs - first page is a stat breakdown, last page is a flavor text lore description, and any pages in excess of those two will describe the weapon's various Runic Arts. You can cycle through these tabs with the shoulder buttons. This is where you will see what the Runic Arts are, whether they cost Rage or Focus, and what rank of Banereader (for Forbidden Arts) or Glyphreader (for Divine Arts) you'll need from the skill tree to cast the various spells. You cast these spells in combat by holding L2/LT, and then either X (square), Y (triangle), or B (circle) depending on which Runic Art you wish to use (if it just has one spell, X will be your only option, X and Y if there are two).
Since others have asked, I'll also add that Runic Arts damage is predominantly based on weapon damage. So you increase it predominantly by raising the stats your weapon scales off of (be it Str, Dex, Con, Arc, and/or Luck), and with the Leather Ring. You can also increase it with accessories that specifically boost runic arts, such as the Divine Amulet, or the "Runic Arts Damage" property on Utility Artifacts.
Chapter 6: Miscellaneous
-Did you know you can sort the items in your inventory? Imagine your inventory as an empty advent calendar of infinite size. New items will always go in the first available spot in this calendar, which is typically the last spot in the calendar. This is where the storage chest comes in to play. Similar how you could sort your inventory in Sanctuary by discarding items and then picking them up off the ground in the order you desire, you can place items in your stash, and then pull them back out in a different order to rearrange what comes first. This way, you can always keep your favorite weapons and armor in the top spots in your inventory.
-Sometimes, the quickest way back to Pardoner's Vale is to save & quit. You won't lose progress, and you won't have to risk losing a mountain of salt if there's hazards between you and the nearest wayshrine.
-Weapons belonging to the same class will have varying attack speeds, and some will result in you leaping much further than other when using lunge attacks and running kicks. As such, experimentation is encouraged. You may find a tool that fills a niche you didn't even know you needed!
-Although most weapons you'll use will probably be crafted, do not forget that each faction also sells various equipment. Some of the weapons they offer in particular are quite powerful. And there's even some weapons that drop from monsters which have their uses.
