When you start up Elden Ring for the first time and pick your class, there’s a good chance you select the Vagabond. It’s the quintessential Dark Souls choice, with heavy armor, a shield, and a longsword, but with that defensive protection comes a heavy equipment load that affects how quickly you can roll. Should your equipment load hit a certain threshold, you’ll “fat roll,” and have a very difficult time avoiding attacks, but it’s actually very easy to get rid of this right away.
You see, you don’t just start with the sword and shield like most knight-type classes do in Elden Ring. You also have a halberd–one you probably aren’t using–equipped in the second weapon slot, and this contributes massively to your equipment load. In order to get the medium-roll ability without changing your armor at all, simply go into the equipment menu and remove the halberd.
You should see an equipment load and total capacity number on the right side of this screen, with “medium” replacing where it said “heavy.” Should you feel your roll has slowed in the future, just check this again–you can even make the roll faster by changing for lighter armor, though that defeats the purpose of picking the Vagabond.
And that’s that! Try fighting an enemy you were struggling to defense against and you should find it much easier to avoid their attacks in time. For more on Elden Ring, check out which class is best for you and read our Elden Ring review in progress. And use our beginner’s guide if you’re not sure how to start your journey into the Lands Between.
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