First off a picture of the stat menu in it's fullest.


Thats alot of stats eh? Well don't worry. We're gonna go at this in three sections, left to right. Just stick around to the end and you will know what all of them do!

Alright, so here is the first section. This one is located on the left section of your screen when in the stats menu. So without further delay, lets take it from the top!

Name
So at the top we have what is of course our character's name, Not very important, moving along.

Covenant
Directly below that is your covenant, or the group that your character works for. These can be swapped at any time in your inventory screen. The - symbol simply means that this character is not in a covenant.

Level
This is your characters current level. It is the combined total of how many points in your attributes you have. It is worth noting that no matter what starting class you chose that you will have a total of 99 points in your attributes at level 10, so every class gets the same amount of points at any given level, they may just not be in the attributes you want.

Souls
Next up is souls. This is simply a counter for how many souls your character is currently holding. You will never go to the stat screen with the intention of finding out how many souls you have as there is a counter in the bottom right corner of the screen showing you this at all times.

Souls Required
This is simply put the amount of souls you need for your next level up. This is useful for when considering going back to Firelink Shrine to cash in your souls or continuing.

Alright, here comes the juicy part! Starting it off with...

Vigor
This attribute determins your maximum health. This is a very good stat. The scaleing goes as follows
•1-27 gives 19-44 health per point.(different amount every level, would take too much space)
•28-49 gives 19 health per point
•50-99 gives 3 health per point.
After you reach 49 Vigor, it becomes so bad that it is not worth putting more points into.
PVP build note - In a build that is going to the community agreed level of 125 for player-versus-player (PVP for short) combat, most builds will want 40, if you are very good you could scrape by with 35.

Attunement
Attunement is the attribute that gives you focus points, and attunement slots. Focus points are used for your weapons "battle arts" and for spells, and attunement slots are used to select a spell that you want to use. Scaling is as follows.
•10 attunement gives you your first attunement slot and 93 focus.
•Every point after this will give you 5-10 focus. Varies to much, would take way too much space.
•After 10 points, you will get an attunement slot. Every 4 levels after this up to 18 will give you will get one more. The next one will be gotten after 6 levels, after that you get 1 more slot every ten levels, up to 80, where the last slot is gotten at 99
•Most PVP builds would have 24-30 attunement points

Endurance
Endurence is your stamina, how long you can sprint, how many times you can attack, block, and dodge without taking a moment to catch your breath. It also reduces how much damage you take from lightning, and makes it harder to be bled out.
•1-40 endurance will get you 1-2 stamina per point, and 1-2 Lightning defence per point.
•41-99 endurance will only get you 10 points total. It is not worth leveling past 40 under any circumstances.
•A good number to shoot for with a PVP build would be 30

Vitality
Vitality is a good stat for anyone looking to be a little tougher. It increases how much weight you can carry, your physical defence, and your poison defence.
•1-99 will give you 1 point of equip load per level, no diminishing returns!
•1-99 will increase your physical defence by 1.5 per level, no diminishing returns!
•1-30 gives you 1 Poison defence, but after 30 it seems to go to 3 poison defence per level, before dropping off to less then 1 poison defence per level at 40
•PVP builds, take just as much as you need to carry your gear while still medium dodging.

Strength
Strength is required to use heavy weapons, and increases the damage of weapons that scale with strength. Also increases fire defence
•1-40 is where the optimal scaling is.
•41-59 the scaling is reduced, and usually not worth it outside of a very specialized build.
•60-99 don't do this. There are better things to put your points into. The scaling at this point is almost non-existent.
•Going directly against what I just said, you may want to take this to 66. The reason for this is because when 2-handing your weapon, you get a bonus 50% strength, giving you the damage as if you had 99 strength. This is only something you should consider if going a pure strength build.
•1-30 gives you 1 fire defence, but after 30 it seems to go to 3 fire defence per level, before dropping off to less then 1 fire defence per level at 40
•For a PVP build that uses strength, you would want 40-66 strength. alternatively a "Quality" build would go for 40 Strenth and 40 Dexterity.

Dexterity
Dexterity is required to use more exotic weapons, and increases the damage of weapons that scale with dexterity. It also increases spell casting speed and reduces fall damage.
•1-40 is where the optimal scaling is.
•41-59 the scaling is reduced, and usually not worth it outside of a very specialized build.
•60-99 don't do this. There are better things to put your points into. The scaling at this point is almost non-existant.
•With the latest patch, dex got a huge buff. weapons that are infused with sharp now scale up with up to 70 Dex. After that is questionable however.
•You spell casting speed doesn't increase after 50 dexterity
•For a PVP build that uses dexterity, you would want 40-70 dexterity. alternatively a "Quality" build would go for 40 Strenth and 40 Dexterity.

Intelligence
Intelligence governs your ability to cast spells, dark magic, and pyromancies, aswell as magical weapons, and increases damage done with spells, magical weapons, dark weapons, and chaos weapons. Also increases Magical defence.
*1-50 offers decent scaling, but you want...
•50-60 offers very good scaling. A dedicated magic build wants 60 intelligence.
•61-99 is almost worthless. Not worth it. Level something else.
•1-30 gives you 1 magic defence, but after 30 it seems to go to 3 magic defence per level, before dropping off to less then 1 magic defence per level at 40
•It is worth noting that pyromancies, dark spells, and dark miracles scale of the combined total of your intelligence and faith, using the same scaling system as int and faith. So a pyromancer or dark mage would want 30-40 points in intelligence and faith.
•In a PVP mage build, you want around 60 intelligence.

Faith
Faith governs your ability to cast miracles, Dark magic, and pyromancies, aswell as holy weapons, and increases damage done with miracles, holy weapons, dark weapons, and chaos weapons. Also increases dark defence.
*1-50 offers decent scaling, but you want...
•50-60 offers very good scaling. A dedicated cleric build wants 60 faith.
•61-99 is almost worthless. Not worth it. Level something else.
•1-30 gives you 1 dark defence, but after 30 it seems to go to 3 dark defence per level, before dropping off to less then 1 dark defence per level at 40
•In a PVP cleric build, you want around 60 faith

Luck
Luck is a very niche attribute. It increases your item find, making you more likely to find items on dead enemies. It also increases the damage of hollow weapons, and makes it easier for you to bleed somone out or poison them.
•Exact breakpoints are unknown. However, when it comes to weapon damage from luck scaling, the formula is the same as it is for strength and dexterity. 40 is good, 40-60 is not very good, and anything past that is useless.
•item drop rates are increased by 1% for every point of luck you have, all the way to 99.

Still with me? Good. Because that last section was probably about twice as large as this one will be. Onward!
Health points
First up is Health points, shortened to "health" or HP. Damage reduces your health. Reach 0 health and you die. I'm sure you know the drill.
•The left number is how much health you currently have. The right number is your maximum health.

Focus points
Next is Focus points, shortened to "focus" or FP. This is used by your weapons battle arts, and your spells.

Stamina
As described in the Attributes section, Stamina is how much you can exert your character. Anything more then simply running will cause you to lose stamina, but it quickly comes back after a second of not doing anything that drains it.

Equip load
This is how much gear you can carry. Things that weigh you down are weapons, armor, and rings. Consumables do not weigh anything. Your item burden % determines what kind of dodge roll you have.
•0-30% is fast roll. You go quite far and do it fairly quickly.
•30.1-69.9% is medium roll. You go less far, and it is slightly slower. Most PVP builds medium roll.
•70-100% is called "fat roll". This isent so much of a roll as it is an attempt to roll, and failing. It is much slower, and gives you a shorter amount of invulnerability then the other two rolls, and you barely go anywhere.
•Never fat roll in a PVP build.
•as you go over 100% your movement becomes slower, you will be unable to sprint, and attempts to dodge roll or backstep will result in you loosing balance and getting staggered, and your stamina will regenerate more slowly. With enough weight you will also be unable to move faster then a slow walk.
•Never go over 100%. Under any circumstances.

Poise
This stat is useless. It was actually disabled in the game files before release. There is some speculation about some things it might do but nothing solid. Ignore it. Do not use the "wolf ring" *UPDATE* Poise now actually does something!. Poise is granted by armor, and the "Wolf Ring".
•Without spending 4 paragraphs explaining how it works, you have your poise, which is then modified based on the weapon type you are using. (lets say your 40 poise turns into 60 poise when using a greathammer) Your "poise health" determines how many hits you can simply tank without staggering and inturrupting your attacks. (Note. Poise is only active during your attack.) as an example (I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass) lets say you have 20 poise. You are swinging with an ultra-greatsword, giving you about 25-28 poise. This will stop you from getting inturrupted by a straight sword, but if you get smacked with a great hammer you are still going to get inturrupted.

Item discovery
Increased by luck, certain weapons/armor, and some consumables. Your base item find is 100, giving you normal item drop rates. Every point of item find increases this by 1%. So if I had 175% item find, my item drop rates from enemies would be 75% higher.

Attack Power
Also called "Attack Rating" or AR. This is the flat amount of damage that your equipment will deal. Note that this is never representative of the actual damage the weapon will deal due to this number being before an enemies defence and absorbtion being calculated.

Last part, almost done, lets get to it!
Defence
Defence is a flat number that lowers the amount of damage you take from the respective damage type, by the amount of defence you have. Defence is not a stat you get from armor, and it cannot be increased passed a certain amount based on your level, Allow me to elaborate.
•You gain defence in everything every time you level up.
•Remember that while leveling up anything will give you defence of all types, certain attributes will give a bonus to a certain defence. Note how this mage character with alot of intelligence has much more magic defence then other types.
•Here is where it gets weird. having a piece of armor on, either some chopped up rags, or a full plate chest piece, will increase your defence by the same amount, Having a piece of armor in every slot (Chest, legs, hands, and head) will give you a total of 50% more defence of every kind. So what you are wearing doesn't matter that much, so long as you are wearing somthing in every slot.

Absorbtion
Remember just a minute ago when I said there is no difference between some rags, and a plate chest? Well thats not quite true. So while it doesn't matter for defence, it does matter for absorbtion.
•Absorbtion is a % damage reduction.
•It stacks multiplicativity. So lets say I put on a helmet with 5% damage absorbtion. I'm now only taking 95% damage, so if I put on a chest piece that gives 10% damage absorbtion, it will give me 10% damage absorbtion of what I was recieveing without it. So instead of going up to 15% damage reduction, I would be getting a 14.5% damage reduction.

Resistances/Armour
Resistances are how much of a status effect you can take before getting affected by it. For example, my frost resistance in the picture is 299, so if a weapon applied 30 frost damage, it would take 10 hits for be to be affected by frostbite.
•Armor simply adds to the amount you can take. so my 299 frost resist, is being increased by 102 from my armor, giving me a total of 401

Attunement slots
And finaly we have your attunement slots. The number shows how many you have, and the icons below are showing what spells I have attuned, ready to cast. This is very straight forward and doesn't require more explanation.

Well, thats every stat in the stat screen. I hope you enjoyed this guide and found value in it's knowledge. Goodbye, and good luck out there!