As you use your weapon or as your shield absorbs blows; you’ll find that its life expectancy will begin to diminish. Now, if you look closely at your screen (under the icon showing what’s in each hand); you’ll see a thin red bar.

This bar will continue to go down until you receive a warning that your weapon is about to break. Once it’s broken you’ll need to return to a Blacksmith to get it repaired (and that isn’t free).

So to keep your weapons, armor and shields in top-top shape you need to repair them by either:

• Resting at a bonfire.
• Using Repair Powder.
• Using Repair Magic.
  Melee weapons tend to degrade the fastest (due to hitting walls or solid objects taking a bigger toll on your weapons health). But even magic Chimes, Staffs etc need repairing eventually.

There’s a ring-type that slows down the rate at which your items break, so they’re especially helpful for melee-type characters.