Dark Souls 2 Statistics, Softcaps and Basics


Dark Souls 2 Statistics, Softcaps and Basics

Here is a Dark Souls 2 stats, softcaps andd basics guide.

General Summary of the primary stats with some notes:

Vigor

  • Raises your HP by 30 per point, (0-20), 20 per point (21-50), 5 hp per point (51-99)
  • Raises your petrify resistance (PR) by 0.25 PR per count (0-25), 0.65 per point(26-99)
  • The class with the lowest Vigor (4) is the Swordsman, and the class with the highest (12) is the Knight.
  • When you die, your maximum HP will reduce by 10% all the way down to 50% of your hp.
  • Getting cursed will reduce your maximum HP by 10% as well, and you can be cursed multiple times. Unlike in Dark Souls 1, you cannot die from getting cursed.
  • If your max HP is lowered from death or curse, you can restore it using a Human Effigy.
  • You can restore your humanity and max HP% after being summoned and fulfilling your duty (with the white soapstone or small white soapstone)


Endurance
  • Raises your stamina by 2 stamina per point (0-20), +1 stamina per point (21-99)
  • Raises your physical defense, poise and agility.
  • Increases your HP for each point (+2 HP (0-20), +1HP (21-50), and +0HP at (51-99)
  • The stamina required to roll and perform other actions is dependent on our burden.
Vitality
  • Vitality raises equipment load by 1.5 equipment load per point for levels 0-29, 1 equip load point for (30-49), 0.5 equip load per point for (50-70), and 0.5 equip load per two points at (71-99)
  • Raises physical defense and raises your poison resistance.
  • Also slightly increases your HP for each point +2 HP (0-20), +1 HP (21-50, and +0 HP at (51-99)
  • To roll fast, your equipment load must be 70% or less of your Equipment Load.
  • You can increase your maximum equipment load by equipping Dragon Rings, the Royal Soldier's Ring, Sinner's Mask or the Aurous Set.
Adaptability
  • This attribute governs your defense and agility. It also boosts poison and bleed resist.
  • Raises your poison bonus.
  • Raises poison, petrify, curse and bleed resistance.
  • Raises agility and poise. (
  • Increases HP for each point invested at +2 hp for levels 0-20, +1 hp for levels 21-50 and +0 HP for 51-99.
  • Adaptability also lets you use your healing items faster. (Items include Lifegems, Estus Flasks, and Divine Blessings)
  • Your shield raising speed increases with each point into adaptability.
  • A higher adaptability means you are able to dodge attacks easier since it raises the number of invincibility frames during rolls. (The animation remains unchanged.)
  • It also helps with parrying, as raising adaptability will increase the amount of frames that will result in a successful parry in the parry animation. (But the animation remains unchanged.)

Intelligence
  • This attribute is required for sorceries and other spells. It boasts your proficiency in magic and dark ATK and DEF and boosts casting speed.
  • It raises magic bonus.
  • Raises your fire and dark bonus.
  • Raises your fire, dark, and magic defense.
  • Increases HP for each point with +2 HP for levels 0-20, +1 HP for levels 21-50, and +0 HP for levels 51-99.
  • Sorceries and Hexes require a certain amount of intelligence to cast. 
  • A few special weapons also have an intelligence requirement.
  • Intelligence affects the number of Affinity (40 INT = 3 Orbs, 50 INT = 4 Orbs and 60 INT = 5 Orbs)
  • Intelligence affects the number of Homing Soul Mas and Homing Crystal Soul Mass. (15 INT = 2 Orbs, 24 INT = 3 Orbs, and 40 INT = 5 Orbs)
Strength
  • Strength is required to wield more powerful weapons and boosts your weapon attack. It also boosts the ability to guard break your opponents.
  • Raises attack for weapons that scale with strength.
  • Raises your physical defense by 1-4 for every 4 combined points spent in strength.
  • It increases your HP by +2 for levels 0-20, +1 for 21-50 and +0 HP at 51-99.
  • Most heavy armors and weapons require a certain ammount of strength in order to wield them properly. Armor now has a scaling factor that adds additional physical defense based on your base physical def. This is the physical defense you have without any equipment plus the total physical defense acquired from leveling up your STR, DEX, END and VIT.
  • When you two-hand a weapon, your strength is doubled.
Dexterity
  • Dexterity is required to wield certain weapons requiring finesse. (Weapons have a min DEX which must be met before being able to wield them properly.) It also boosts poison and bleed effects.
  • Raises attack for weapons that scale with dexterity and poison / bleed bonus as well.
  • It raises your physical defense slightly.
  • Increases your HP by +2 HP (0-20), +1 hp (21-50) and +0 HP for levels 51-99.
  • The softcap for dexterity bonuses is 40.
Faith
  • Required for miracles and other spells. It boosts your proficiency in fire and lightning ATK and DEF. 
  • Raises your casting speed.
  • Raises your fire, lightning, dark and bleed bonuses and resistances.
  • Increases HP for each point invested: +2 HP for levels 0-20, +1 hp for levels 21-50, +0 hp for levels 51-99.
  • Miracles and hexes require a certain amount of faith level to cast.
  • A few special weapons have their own faith requirement.
Attunement
  • Increase your maximum attunement slots. Max is 75.
  • It raises the maximum amount of stored casts. Max is 94.
  • Raises casting speed, curse resistance and agility
  • Increases HP at +2 HP for 0-20, +1 hp at 21-50 and +0 hp at 51-99

Descriptions of the stats:
  • Vigor, Endurance, and Vitality reach peak efficiency at 20, and begin giving diminishing returns past that point. Vigor stays stable from 20 to 50 then really dives. Endurance is steady past 20. Vitality has multiple caps, where 20 to 30 is still okay. Past that it really dives.
  • Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Faith as damage stats(comes from scaling on weapons or spellcasting tools) also have diminishing returns but peak at 40 before they dive.
  • Adaptability as a stat is hard to understand, as it affects many things in a subtle manner. It mostly relates to movement and defense. For basic characters increasing this to 15 or so should make your character feel a lot more capable in general. It also interacts with Endurance to add innate Poise to your character. Basically you get innate Poise up to the value of whichever stat is lower between Endurance and Adaptability. Thus keeping them equal, say at 20 each, maximizes your return.
  • Attunement is seriously buffed. Aside from granting new spell slots, it increases casting speed and grants additional charges for all of your equipped spells as you level it up. The generally important soft caps occur at 20 and 40.
Have any other statistics or softcaps tips for Dark Souls 2? If so, please post them in the comments below. Thanks for your contributions and for visiting the site.