Dark Souls is a game that exemplifies the difficulty in almost every aspect and never holds your hand for one second. After spending hundreds of hours combing through Dark Souls Remastered, I have a clear knowledge of how leveling up works and what effects the player will experience for picking one stat to bolster over another.
You can level up Vitality and Endurance in Dark Souls Remastered for all playstyles as it increases your HP and Stamina, respectively. As for STR, DEX, INT, and Faith, it all boils down to what kind of build/playstyle you prefer. The other stats can be considered miscellaneous, so level them up as you see fit.
The objective of this guide is to educate the player on each of the categories available for leveling up. Additionally, I will give a template for what Soul Level you should be at certain points in the game.
Dark Souls Remastered Stats Breakdown
When you level up in Dark Souls, you can increase the number of the following statistics: Soul Level, Vitality, Attunement, Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Resistance, Intelligence, Faith, and Humanity.
Allow me to summarize what each of these stats does and what kinds of builds that increase them can benefit the most.
Soul Level
Soul Level will increase your overall Soul Level whenever you rest at a bonfire and use your soul to level up. It serves more as a way to tell what strength you are in the game in a very general manner.
It does come with a very small increase to each of your elemental and physical defenses that soft caps at Soul Levels 10, 100, and 200.
Vitality
Vitality is equal to health in Dark Souls. Needless to say, having more health is a great thing in a game that loves you to deprive you of it, but for some players emphasizing Vitality might not be as necessary.
If you are a player who heavily relies on shields to get the win or you are a player who is confident in your dodging abilities, then Vitality is merely a backup plan and not a need to succeed.
Vitality soft caps at level 30 and again at level 30. Leveling Vitality past this point is not advised unless there is nothing else left that you want to upgrade, as the increases in health are very minimal.
Attunement
Attunement is a stat for players who wish to incorporate spells into their build. Leveling Attunement will cause the player to slowly increase the number of slots available for magic (Intelligence) or Faith spells.
More powerful late-game spells will require more than one slot to use, so the more slots you have available, the more options you will have for spell setups.
Attunement hard caps at level 50, meaning that you can still put points into the category, but it will not add any more Attunement slots. This is not advised, but you do you.
Endurance
Endurance increases the stamina, equipment burden level, and bleed resistance of your character.
- It increases the amount of stamina, allowing you to dodge, run, and cast spells more before having to stop and let it refill.
- It increases your equipment’s burden level, allowing you to carry heavier armor and weapons without slowing your movement.
- Lastly, it increases your bleed resistance, which helps protect you from this lethal status effect.
Endurance hard caps stamina at level 40 but only soft caps equipment burden and bleed resistance. With that being said, it is only advised that you level Endurance past 40 if you are heading towards a tank build.
Strength
Strength correlates to your character’s ability to be able to wield heavy weapons, in addition to how well you wield them is directly tied to your Strength.
Certain weapons have stat requirements to wield them. Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Faith are all stats that must be leveled to carry weapons of their type.
For instance, say a heavy weapon such as a Greataxe has a level 25 Strength requirement; this would mean that your Strength level must also be set to twenty-five before you can even use it effectively.
Strength also adds damage to Strength-based weapons. This means that leveling up beyond the requirements for your weapon of choice is often something worth considering to elevate your damage output. Strength soft caps at level 20 and again at level 40.
Dexterity
Dexterity is set up almost exactly like Strength, except instead of Strength-based weapons that strike slowly but deal more damage, Dexterity enhances Dex weapons that strike quickly but deal less damage.
Many Dexterity and Strength weapons also require some points to be put into the opposite trait, so be sure to check all the requirements of that weapon before you decide to work towards wielding it. A little bit of double-checking in your planning can go a long way towards having an easier time.
Dexterity also slightly increases the speed of all magic spells that the player can cast. This can make it key for using magic against bosses who leave little time to heal, let alone attack.
Dexterity soft caps at levels 20 and 40, just like Strength, but the speed increase for magic attacks hard caps at level 45.
Resistance
Resistance will increase your resistance to Poison and buff your Physical and Fire Defense. That sure sounds great and all, but when you consider the ability to add or remove certain pieces or armor that will have the same effect, it makes putting souls into this category seem pretty useless to start.
Once you have reached the final soft cap or hard cap in each of the categories you need for your build, go ahead and start throwing your souls here. Just my opinion, though.
Resistance soft caps at 15 and again at 30, reducing the rate of each increase.
Intelligence
The more levels in the Intelligence stat, the more advanced sorceries you can cast. It also boosts the damage output of sorceries.
Intelligence also adds damage to all weapons with intelligence scaling, so be sure to put more points beyond the weapons requirement to get the most out of it. Intelligence soft caps at levels 40 and 50.
Faith
Faith is one of the most underrated stat categories in the game because many players do not bother with it due to its confusing nature.
You need to have a talisman equipped in the correct weapon slot and then cast a spell on either another weapon of choice or yourself, depending on the type of spell. The results can often make you unstoppable in certain situations.
Faith works just like Intelligence in how it meets weapon requirements and increases Faith damage to weapons and the effectiveness of Faith spells. Faith soft caps at level 50.
Humanity
Here are the four things that happen when you level up Humanity in Dark Souls Remastered:
- Raise your ability to find better items and weapons in the game.
- Raises all of your defenses slightly but not as much as Resistance increases Poison, Fire, and Physical.
- Raises your Curse defense.
- Increases damage to Humanity-scaled weapons.
See what I mean? It is kind of a catch-all category or miscellaneous one. Depending on your build, some or all of these things may be enticing to you, but I personally never put much stock into it.
Humanity hard caps item discovery at level 10, and it also hard caps curse resistance at level 30. Soft caps for all other increases are set to those same levels.
These are all the different stats you can level up in Dark Souls Remastered. Having a build that masters a particular attribute will benefit you more rather than one that is spread out thin and being a jack of all trades. It’s a lot to take in for new players, I know. If you are a beginner, then you should definitely check out our Beginner’s Guide for Dark Souls Remastered as well.