I can’t seem to do enough damage, my timing is horrible, all my money goes repairs, I’m constantly running out of food. I having massive buyers regret. And my researsh to advance has yield little to no help.
Hey DieHard,
Can I ask you first at what difficulty you play?
Would it help if I invite someone to talk to you? 
Silas
maybe you could try an easier difficulty at first, to get known to the game mechanics and get used to it? you can always change it on already created server
also different weapons require different approach, and while you could think that its cool to bang with a two-hander its actually quite tactical and animation dependent. maybe you should try another weapon that is fast and let you position more quickly (bow, double-daggers or fists i.e.) ?
maybe you should try sword&shield build as it an option to avoid damage with block and parries
as well i would recommend to approach the enemies not in rush, observe them, learn how they do the attacks and react to opening windows. “the tactics” at the beginning do the thing for sure! enemies is not forgivable in this game, but it is a big reward in learning how to win here
i do remember my first ever game 2 years ago and i was smashed to the ground but hammer & shield did the thing for me.
now i am happy player having 100+ hours and dominating the engame.
keep it calm, do not rush and i am sure you will find your way to enjoy the game. it really worth it.
gl hf man
edited: oh and it is often good just to go and farm in starting/low level locations to get better equip or upgrade your current setup. also keep an eye on plagued items ‘plagued’ affixes. they may mess you up very well if you are not sure what are you doing!
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Game is listed as “souls like” with a difficult combat. Even if it have “easy mode” - it’s still methodical combat system which is clearly described in game describtion.
-Change difficulty to easy
-Try to find 2h weapon and plate armour. Even with heavy load you will waste much less food on easy mode plate armour is very safe to play for players with bad reaction time. When i can’t recommend it on the standard or high - on easy it’s pretty good. It’s slow and you will get hit along but on easy you take barely no damage so plate armour reducing it further and you can over-hit enemies and kill them easier. So it’s easier than Disorder mentioning on easy due to further and higher scaling than on normal. But only with plate armour.
If it feels to hard for you - take spear which have good reach.
if any DEV SEE IT:
at this i think No rest can use system from Nioh 2 - which is also mix of “looting” and souls like while you can pick your starter weapon. And describe spear as a good weapon for begginers as it have good range and is safer to play than most of other weapons.
Thanks everyone for your replies. For a little context, I am playingon the lowest difficulty. I have 20 pts health and stamina. I’m on the Servant of God quest. I’m equipped with an axe, shield, and whatever armor the game has given me. I do feel slow with the axe. And shield seems to have very little impact. I’m hungup on this tall creature in a soldier’s garb, wielding and spear. His hits and range are devastating me. I broke away from the quest to go farm and ran into an enemy who keeps drinking his away to health. No matter where I turn….. I’m going to try and find a 2H sword/spear and some plated armor. Thanks again! I really want to enjoy this game. I like this fresh take on isometric pseudo ARPG.
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i can just tell you dont worry about it too much. i had the exact same thing when i bought it when it came out. just takes a little gettin used to. the timings will come and you will have more food than you need. just try to go back to some earlier areas, clear some enemies, you still get viable xp, plus you can farm all the mats there.
you get lots of it pretty fast. no need to rush through the story as fast as you can.
i think when i first played the game i died like 10-20 times to the first boss and had zero food and i was devastated i couldnt get it going 
i just kept farming the dudes in the fortress/glades/shallows and got all the mats for food.
make sure to always pick up and sell the stuff you dont need, it should get you enough amount of money to buy food from the cook and also buy the food ingredients from grinnich.
upgrading weapons and armor helps a lot with survivability and damage, so as soon as you can always go for that as well.
other than that, if you want we can try some coop and i can help a little if u want.
i love starting this game over and over, cause i just like going through the story, i rly like the way it unfolds.
other than that, the timings will come. the more you face all the different enemies the better you will learn to dodge more precise and in the end maybe even parry.
shield block actually helps a lot, idk why it doesnt feel like that for you, but my recent char has a small shield plus mace and when i block, i feel like i get close to zero dmg from the smaller enemies, even in the beginning it mitigates a lot imo. bigger shields do even more obv but i personally dont like the slower speed of the big shields.
you can also try out some wands or staffs with the stamina runes to try and do some dmg from a safer distance while u get the focus for a bigger attack. or just use it to get focus for ur melee weapon when u wanna switch between them. but yes its a lot about timing, but trust, this will come =)
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