Oh yeah the Drake Sword is a great weapon early game, the way damage scales in Dark Souls it will outdamage pretty much anything else for awhile, as upgrading weapons is prohibitively expensive early on. Eventually it will get left behind by upgraded weapons though, and will cease to be as good as you reach harder areas. The Halberd I (and I assume Amph as well) am talking about isn't the Gargoyle one, it's the normal one just called Halberd. You should already have it if you've been thorough with looting all corpses. It's on a corpse to the left before you enter the Cathedral on the other side of the gate the Hollows try to close on you when you have to fight that iron Boar enemy. Until you can upgrade it significantly though the Drake Sword will outdamage it, so if you feel comfortable with it perhaps stick with it for the time being. Learning to use the Halberd and weapons with a long reach well is pretty useful though.
Humanity is pretty valuable and is genuinely more annoying to lose than souls as you move forward in the game, souls become easier to accumulate (easier to lose as well perhaps) as the enemies give out more. However, humanity never becomes easier to get your hands on, the best method (failing multiplayer) is killing rats in the Depths actually. I personally never saw any reason not to use any humanity I got as I got it, leaving just 4-5 in reserve for emergencies. More humanity increases your item find up to about 10, and it increases your damage (minimally, but an increase is an increase) right the way up to 99. Some people might suggest only using it to reverse your hollowing and kindling strategic bonfires though, forgetting item find and damage bonuses. Tbh on a first playthrough that's probably good advice. Me personally I never had issue with long farming sessions on the rats in the depths, once you open the shortcut it's genuinely not too bad, but that's just the kind of player I am. Farming is not everyone's cup of tea. At any rate if you're hollow I would highly suggest using one to reverse that, and to kindle the bonfire in the Depths when you reach it. Even if you continue to hoard the rest.
Btw if you get to the room in the Depths with the Giant Undead Rat (might have already been there?) there is a water slide type thing in the room, if you go too the far left and slide down you reach another area, from there you can unlock a shortcut and reach the area boss without ever fighting a single frog. I would suggest searching the rest of the area above first though. But yeah you can totally avoid the curse frogs. They are guarding the Ring of the Evil Eye, which heals you for 30 HP each time you kill any enemy, I never found it that useful frankly. If you're human and still haven't killed the area boss then you can be invaded around the area you reach if you slide down on the right or mddle, you only have to kill one frog to reach the place he invades, and it's cool to see everything in game but not completely necessary unless you're trying to get all the trophies/achievements.
EDIT: Stupid me I forgot, each accumulated point of humanity onscreen, increases your curse resistance. Which is useful information all things considered. It also increaes all defenses, I think the attack increase I mentioned is limited to certain weapon types as well, it's been ages since I played this game, keep remembering stuff. Kinda wanna play again now as well lol
This post has been edited by WinterPhoenix: 23 February 2017 - 07:29 AM