Elden Ring Sprinting, Survival, and Is It Worth It? A Friendly Guide for New Players

Hi friend! If you‘ve been looking into playing Elden Ring, the insanely popular new game from the legendary developers at FromSoftware, you probably have a lot of questions. Is the difficulty as punishing as people say? What builds and tactics can help you survive this intimidating Action RPG? And most importantly, can you even sprint around in this giant open world?

As an avid Elden Ring player with over 200 hours invested, let me tell you – yes, you can definitely sprint! And so much more. While challenging at first, learning key tips from the Reddit community and through your own perseverance will make your journey through the Lands Between rewarding beyond belief.

Let‘s sprint through everything you should know starting out in Elden Ring:

Sprinting Allows Faster Exploration and Dodging

First of all, to sprint you just need to tap the B button on controllers or Shift on keyboard. This drains your stamina, shown by the green bar below your health. But letting stamina recover for a few seconds brings it right back.

Having the ability to sprint is game-changing. It lets you:

• Cover ground faster when exploring Elden Ring‘s massive open world
• Rush up close to enemies aggressively
• Quickly dodge attacks by sprinting left, right, or behind foes
• Flee from combat when you bite off more than you can chew

Later in the game you can acquire special items that make sprinting even more useful:

• Spirit Springs – Let you leap huge distances sprinting
• Stamina Flasks – Quickly refill stamina to keep on running
• Horse Torrent – Doubles your sprinting speed traversing the world
• Skills Like Bloodhound Step – Enable teleportation dodges for invincibility

But just sprinting isn‘t enough to conquer Elden Ring. Let‘s go over some key beginner tips covered extensively on Reddit and in the Elden Ring community.

Choosing a Starting Class – Vagabond is a Solid Pick

When first starting Elden Ring, you‘ll choose one of 10 starting classes that determine your beginning stats, gear, and playstyle. While any class can beat the game, some are more beginner-friendly.

Based on popularity on the Elden Ring subreddit, many players recommend the Vagabond to newbies.

As a knightly class, Vagabonds start with high Vigor for defense and Strength to wield heavy weapons. Their armor also grants solid damage absorption, allowing room for error.

No matter your class, Reddit strongly advises putting early level ups into Vigor. Having a big health bar enables you to survive devastating enemy blows. Get Vigor to 20-30 before damage stats.

Finding and Upgrading Weapons – Moonveil Katana is a Favorite

Your starting weapon will serve you well for a while. But you‘ll soon want to locate specialized armaments tucked away across the Lands Between.

Upgrading weapons at smithing tables found around the world boosts damage more than stats alone. Some weapons truly shine when fully strengthened.

The Elden Ring subreddit frequently discusses powerful weapons. A personal favorite of mine is the Moonveil Katana. This elegant samurai sword has:

• Excellent speed for quick strikes
• High damage from attribute scaling
• Ranged magic wave skill that hits hard from afar

Other top picks include Bloodhound‘s Fang, the Clawmark Seal, and the Sword of Night and Flame. Look for chests in remote locations and enemy drops for exciting new gear.

Summoning Spirits – Jellyfish Causes Major Poison Damage

In addition to weapons, you can equip spirit ashes to summon AI allies into boss fights. The Elden Ring subreddit has many discussions about top spirit choices for newcomers, like:

• Spirit Jellyfish – Available extremely early. Causes major poison buildup. One of my personal go-to‘s!
• Lhutel the Headless – Tanky fighter spirit that can resurrect when killed.
• Skeletal Militiamen – Gang of skeletons that keep reviving. Great for distraction.
• Fanged Imps – Three ranged imp spirits who pelt enemies with fireballs.

Look for tombstones on the ground to discover new spirits to summon. They really help ease tough boss fights when outnumbered.

Exploring Limgrave Tunnels and Mines for Runes

Rather than rushing straight through the main story, Reddit strongly encourages new players to fully explore the starting Limgrave and Weeping Peninsula regions.

This lets you gather runes from mining tunnels and catacomb mini-dungeons to level up. It also nets you new weapons, spells, flask upgrades, and crafting materials for a major early game advantage.

Some key places to explore include:

• Stormhill Evergaol – Contains a legendary armor set
• Church of Irith – Site of a katana treasure
• Third Church of Marika – Leads down to an Impaling Stone
• Limgrave Tunnels – Gives a Great Rune reward

Come back to early zones even late game. I still find new dungeons and mini-bosses when revisiting Limgrave 100 hours in!

Learning Attack Patterns and Staying Calm

Elden Ring‘s brutal combat can definitely be frustrating at first. But remember every enemy has patterns you can learn with practice. With time, no foe is truly unconquerable.

For example, the Crucible Knight in Stormhill Evergaol has long combos but clear tells. He rears back before thrusting with his spear – a perfect parry opening. Roll under his tail swipe. When he jumps, sprint right to dodge the ground slam.

Some key combat tips:

• Watch enemy movements and learn when it‘s safe to attack, block or dodge
• Remain patient – Don‘t get greedy chasing damage. Wait for safe openings.
• Lure enemies out 1 by 1 with ranged attacks when possible. Isolating them helps immensely.
• Try again – Each death makes you a little better equipped for the next attempt.

Elden Ring also offers help systems like spirit summons,NPC summons and multiplayer co-op. Don‘t be afraid to use them!

Is Elden Ring Worth It? An Absolute Must-Play!

Despite its infamous difficulty, almost all Redditors enthusiastically recommend Elden Ring, even for newcomers to Souls games.

In my opinion, it‘s an absolute masterpiece and my favorite game in years because of:

– Satisfying Combat – The feeling when you finally beat a boss that crushed you 10 times is pure adrenaline.

– Beautiful Open World – Exploring the exciting zones, vistas, and dungeons is a joy.

– Build Customization – Tons of weapons, spells, items to mix and match to your preferred playstyle. I love testing out new builds!

– Unique Online Integration – Messages, bloodstains, co-op and PvP seamlessly fit the world.

– Crafting Depth – Robust crafting system with hundreds of unique materials to seek out.

If you stick with it past the harsh learning curve, Elden Ring‘s sense of discovery and accomplishment is unmatched. I hope these tips help you undertake your epic quest, brave Tarnished! may we cross paths one day in the Lands Between.

Your friend,

Jason