Elden Ring Starting Classes

Welcome to the Elden Ring Starting class guide. This is an important decision because you can't change your class later, and it significantly impacts your early game experience. Some classes like Samurai and Hero have an easier time with the early game, whereas the Wretch makes it significantly more difficult. Just like in Dungeons and Dragons, stats in Elden Ring start at 10, so any stat below "10" is a dump stat. Classes with stats below 10 re-allocate those points elsewhere, providing more focused power. For example, the Vagabond starts with 5 extra stat points due to having 3 dump stats, Intelligence (9), Faith (9) and Arcane (7).

To give you an idea of what to expect in the endgame, this guide includes recommended build paths for each class but this is not an exhaustive list. Regardless of your starting class, always feel free to experiment, put on a new weapon and see how you like it. You can always respec your character later if you want to change your build archetype.

Vagabond

The Vagabond is an enticing choice for beginners because you start with 15 Vigor which leads to higher starting health. Your Strength and Dexterity is high enough to build into either archetype while trying a variety of weapons. A Vagabond's dump stats are Intelligence, Faith and Arcane so pick this class when you plan to start a martial character, not a caster.

You begin with a Longsword, Halberd and a Heater Shield and heavy armor. This is a good kit for either two-handing or going sword and board. Your Heater Shield blocks 100% of Physical damage, protecting you as you execute lethal guard counters in retaliation. The Vagabond's heavy armor, which puts you at a significant disadvantage when trying to roll away from foes. When you are "heavy" your dodge roll is slower giving enemies a larger window of opportunity to attack you between your iframes. To fix this, unequip your helmet then swap out some of your starting armor for other pieces you find. Alternatively, put a few points into endurance to increase your total carry capacity.

Vagabond Build Path

Vagabond builds focus on Strength. You gain a significant Strength bonus by two-handing your weapon, so especially early on most Strength builds do this. Remember to balance your defensive stats with your offensive ones and keep investing into Vigor as you level up. A good rule of thumb is that your Vigor should be equal to half your level, until you reach level 100 IE: 50 Vig at level 100.

Most people play a Strength build to wield giant weapons and luckily Elden Ring has you covered with a variety of oversized destructive implements. Greatsword is a fan favorite, pairing the cool Dragon Slayer inspired aesthetic with a beefy damage stat. Another great early game weapon is the Grafted Greatsword whose Oath of Vengeance increases your attributes. Later on you find a variety of weapons including the Giant-Crusher and Great Stars.

Warrior

The Warrior is a Dexterity class who starts with two Scimitars. Dual Wielding is not exclusive to the Warrior, but this is the only class who starts with an identical pair of weapons. A Warrior's dump stats are Faith and Arcane and their overall stat spread is worse than Samurai or Vanguard. So you pick Warrior to play as a dual wielding dervish rather than for the starting gear or high base stats.

Warriors begin with two Scimitars, a Riveted Wooden Shield and medium armor. The Scimitar is a decent weapon, and using two is more damage than two-handing a single Scimitar. But using two main weapons doubles your upgrade costs. It takes 12 Smithing Stones to upgrade your main weapon to +3 or 24 Smithing Stones to upgrade both Scimitars to +3. You can't block while dual wielding so ensure your carry weight is medium or lower to dodge enemy attacks. Dual Scimitars are great at overwhelming enemies under a flurry of blows but struggle against Slash resistant foes.

Warrior Build Path

Many Warrior builds focus on Dexterity. So focus on hitting 60 Dexterity for the first soft cap. Then, build into a secondary damage stat such as Arcane, Strength or Intelligence. Remember to balance your defensive stats with your offensive ones and keep investing into Vigor as you level up. A good rule of thumb is that your Vigor should be equal to half your level, until you reach level 100 IE: 50 Vig at level 100.

If you want to continue down the dual wield path you need to ensure both weapons are from the same class. When you mix and match you only attack with one weapon, not both. With the addition of Shadow of the Erdtree there are several weapons which dual wield instead of being two-handed. These include the Backhand Blades, Rellana's Twinblade, and Beast Claws. Another popular Dexterity build path is Curved Greatswords as their sweeping strikes makes it easy to land blows on bosses. There's a wide variety of other Dexterity weapons ranging from small claws to massive scythes each of which offers a unique playstyle, so when you find a new weapon equip it for a bit and experiment.

Hero

The Hero is a Strength class with a great stat distribution. You begin with high Strength, perfect for two-handing a large weapon. Then some Vigor and Endurance round out the build. The Hero starts at level 7, which is lower than many of the starting classes. This makes your first few levels more difficult but gives you more room to customize your stats. A Hero's dump stats include Intelligence and Faith.

Heroes begin with a Battle Axe, Large Leather Shield and light armor. The Battle Axe is slower than most other starting weapons but excels at breaking enemy Poise. Dodge around enemy attacks then strike them, or use jump attacks to shatter their Poise. Strength weapons do significantly more damage when two-handed, so the Hero hits hard even while starting at a lower level than other classes. In comparison to Shields, weapons don't block much damage so focus on dodging over blocking when two-handing your main weapon.

Hero Build Path

Hero builds focus on Strength. You gain a significant Strength bonus by two-handing your weapon, so especially early on most Strength builds do this. Remember to balance your defensive stats with your offensive ones and keep investing into Vigor as you level up. A good rule of thumb is that your Vigor should be equal to half your level, until you reach level 100 IE: 50 Vig at level 100.

Most people play a strength build to wield giant weapons and luckily Elden Ring has you covered with a variety of oversized destructive implements. Greatsword is a fan favorite, pairing the cool Dragon Slayer inspired aesthetic with a beefy damage stat. Another great early game weapon is the Grafted Greatsword whose Oath of Vengeance increases your attributes. Later on you find a variety of weapons including the Giant-Crusher and Great Stars.

Bandit

The Bandit is a Dexterity class built to inflict Blood Loss. You begin with high Dexterity and Arcane which is perfect for Dexterity weapons which inflict a Status. However, the Bandit starts at level 5 and lacks defensive stats making for a tough early game experience. Put early levels into Vigor to increase your Health then continue to build out damage through Dexterity and Arcane. Overall the Bandit's stat spread is weaker than the Samurai.

Bandits begin with a Great Knife, Short Bow, a Buckler and medium armor. The Great Knife is lightning fast but doesn't hit very hard. On tough foes, most of your damage comes from triggering Blood Loss by striking repeatedly. The Buckler is a strong Parry Shield, but as a beginner Parrying is difficult so use it with caution. Try to get behind enemies to inflict critical damage through Backstabs and take off a large chunk of their health. The Bandit is particularly vulnerable to being surrounded and overwhelmed by a group of enemies. Use your Bow to pull a single foe from range, finish them off then move on to the next.

Bandit Build Path

Many Bandits focus on Dexterity. Because most Dexterity weapons inflict a Status Effect on enemies, your secondary damage stat is Arcane. So focus on hitting 30 Dexterity for early game damage first. Then, obtain an Arcane scaling weapon and put points into Arcane. Remember to balance your defensive stats with your offensive ones and keep investing into Vigor as you level up. A good rule of thumb is that your Vigor should be equal to half your level, until you reach level 100 IE: 50 Vig at level 100.

Misericorde with the Bloody Slash Ash of War is a great early game weapon but later on you replace this with Rivers of Blood, Reduvia or Eleonora's Poleblade. There's a wide variety of other Dexterity weapons ranging from small claws to massive scythes each of which offers a unique playstyle, so when you find a new weapon equip it for a bit and experiment. There's a lot of flexibility here to dual wield or go with the classic sword and board as a situation requires.

Astrologer

The Astrologer is a starting class which focuses on Intelligence and Mind. You begin at level 6 which is lower level than most other caster classes and Vigor is a dump stat making the Astrologer exceptionally squishy. Focus early stat allocations into Vigor to compensate for a poor initial stat distribution. The Astrologer uses FP to cast Glintstone Pebble and Glintstone Arc dealing damage from a safe distance.

You begin with the Astrologer's Staff, a Short Sword, Scripture Wooden Shield and light armor. Glintstone Pebble deals damage to a single target whereas Glintstone Arc deals damage to anything caught within its path. Both of these Sorceries are easy to obtain in the early game should you choose to start a different class. The most important thing to learn when starting a caster is learning to manage your FP correctly. This includes redistributing charges from your Flask of Crimson Tears to Flask of Cerulean Tears when you rest at a Site of Grace. Glintstone Arc does a lot of damage and interrupts enemies but costs a significant amount of FP. But against weaker foes it's better to use your Short Sword to dispatch them.

Astrologer Build Path

Many Intelligence builds go glass cannon, pushing for the damage hard cap of 80 intelligence as early as possible. This results in enough damage to burst down most foes before you run out of FP. Your secondary damage stat is Mind as it increases your available FP. For most builds, we advise 50 Vigor by level 100. But for Intelligence builds you can get away with around 30, keep in mind this does mean you're more vulnerable to being combed. When fighting bosses you need to play cautiously and abuse the ability to strike at range with your Sorceries. Once you obtain Terra Magicka, your ability to burst bosses down massively improves.

The Meteorite Staff makes for an excellent early game weapon. It starts with S-tier intelligence scaling, but cannot be upgraded. Much of your build progression is finding new Sorceries with ever higher intelligence requirements. For example, Rock Sling, Glintstone Pebble and Carian Slicer are great in the early game. Later on spells like Adula's Moonblade, Gavel of Haima, Night Comet, Cannon of Haima and Comet Azure provide you a variety of ways to annihilate your enemies. Whenever you get a new Intelligence weapon or Sorcery be sure to experiment with it!

Prophet

The Prophet has a good initial stat distribution but is ultimately held back by poor starting equipment. With 16 Faith you can use a variety of Incantations and 14 Mind gives you plenty of FP to cast them. Having Endurance as a dump stat slightly limits how much armor you can equip but you won't miss Intelligence as you have no need to mix Sorceries and Incantations. The Prophet uses FP to cast Heal and Catch Flame.

You begin with a Short Spear, Finger Seal, Rickety Shield and light armor. Heal is an expensive Incantation but it provides significant health restoration. Catch Flame deals damage by creating a burst of fire, but has an extremely short effective range. Both of these Incantations are easy to obtain in the early game should you choose to start a different class. The most important thing to learn when starting a caster is learning to manage your FP correctly. This includes redistributing charges from your Flask of Crimson Tears to Flask of Cerulean Tears when you rest at a Site of Grace. As a Prophet a lot of your early game is running around stabbing enemies with your Short Spear, which is why many Faith builds start on Confessor instead.

Prophet Build Path

Prophet builds focus on Faith. Some Faith builds focus on weapon scaling while using Incantations to buff themselves, whereas others channel their belief into damaging Incantations. Because of this, there's a wide range of soft cap options, check out the Faith section of our Attributes guide for more information. Remember to balance your defensive stats with your offensive ones and keep investing into Vigor as you level up. A good rule of thumb is that your Vigor should be equal to half your level, until you reach level 100 IE: 50 Vig at level 100.

One of the most frequently used buff Incantations is Flame, Grant Me Strength, which raises your Physical and Fire damage. Another Golden Vow which raises both attack and defense. Many non-Faith builds invest in the 15/25 Faith required to use these buffs. Another Faith archetype is becoming an offensive caster using Incantations like Black Flame and Rot Breath. To maximize your damage between spell casts, use the Blasphemous Blade, Winged Scythe, or enchant your current weapon with Black Blade.

Samurai

Considered by many to be the strongest starting class, the Samurai beings with an excellent stat spread. Your Strength and Dexterity ensure proficiency in a wide variety of early game weapons. Then the Vigor provides much needed survivability in the early game and Endurance rounds things out, offering more flexibility in what armor you equip. A Samurai's dump stats are Intelligence, Faith and Arcane so pick this class when you plan to start a martial character, not a caster.

You begin with an Uchigatana, a Longbow and medium armor. The Uchigatana is a powerful Dexterity weapon capable of inflicting Bleed buildup. Its weapon art Unsheathe deals high damage and efficiently breaks enemy Poise. The longbow provides much needed range support and the ability to pull enemies out of a group. Your starting armor the Land of Reeds set has solid defensive stats with a low weight making it easy to keep your carry weight at Medium for optimal rolling. Lastly the small round shield isn't the best defensively but has a good animation window for parrying.

Samurai Build Path

Many Samurai builds focus on Dexterity. Because most Dexterity weapons inflict a Status Effect on enemies, your secondary damage stat is Arcane. So focus on hitting 30 Dexterity for early game damage first. Then, obtain an Arcane scaling weapon and put points into Arcane. Remember to balance your defensive stats with your offensive ones and keep investing into Vigor as you level up. A good rule of thumb is that your Vigor should be equal to half your level, until you reach level 100 IE: 50 Vig at level 100.

Your starting weapon, the Uchigatana is highly effective for most of the game, only being outclassed later by Rivers of Blood or Eleonora's Poleblade. Add Arcane Scaling to your Uchigatana through the "Bloody" prefix to increase your damage and the frequency at which you inflict Blood Loss on enemies. There's a lot of flexibility here to dual wield or go with the classic sword and board as a situation requires. If you don't want to focus on Status damage, there's a wide variety of other Dexterity weapons ranging from small claws to massive scythes each of which offers a unique playstyle, so when you find a new weapon equip it for a bit and experiment. Samurai has great base stats and can be built into Dex/Str, Dex/Int or Dex/Faith.

Prisoner

The Prisoner is an Intelligence focused caster class with great starting gear. With 14 Intelligence and 12 Mind you have slightly less initial damage than the Astrologer. But this is made up for by a better overall stat distribution, mixing in some Vigor and using Faith as a dump stat. In addition to Intelligence, you have enough Dexterity to wield many of the Crystal weapons. Prisoners start with the powerful Magic Glintblade Sorcery.

You begin with an Estoc, Glintstone Staff, Rift Shield and light armor. Grab some early armor while you explore Limgrave as the Prisoner's clothing provides poor protection. Use your Glintstone Staff to cast Magic Glintblade from a safe distance then swap to the Rift Shield to block enemy attacks while using your Estoc. The most important thing to learn when starting a caster is learning to manage your FP correctly. This includes redistributing charges from your Flask of Crimson Tears to Flask of Cerulean Tears when you rest at a Site of Grace. You don't have the FP to just spam Magic Glintblade, but the Estoc is an effective weapon able to take down lesser foes with ease.

Prisoner Build Path

Many Intelligence builds go glass cannon, pushing for the damage hard cap of 80 intelligence as early as possible. This results in enough damage to burst down most foes before you run out of FP. Your secondary damage stat is Mind as it increases your available FP. For most builds, we advise 50 Vigor by level 100. But for Intelligence builds you can get away with around 30, keep in mind this does mean you're more vulnerable to being combed. When fighting bosses you need to play cautiously and abuse the ability to strike at range with your Sorceries. Once you obtain Terra Magicka, your ability to burst bosses down massively improves.

Your starting weapon, the Estoc makes for an excellent early and midgame option if you add Intelligence scaling with an Intelligence whetstone or the Hoarfrost Stomp Ash of War. The Meteorite Staff makes for another excellent early game weapon. It starts with S-tier intelligence scaling, but cannot be upgraded. Much of your build progression is finding new Sorceries with ever higher intelligence requirements. For example, Rock Sling, Glintstone Pebble and Carian Slicer are great in the early game. Later on spells like Adula's Moonblade, Gavel of Haima, Night Comet, Cannon of Haima and Comet Azure provide you a variety of ways to annihilate your enemies. Whenever you get a new Intelligence weapon or Sorcery be sure to experiment with it!

Confessor

The Confessor is a great starting class for Faith builds. With 14 Faith you can use a variety of Incantations and 13 Mind gives you plenty of FP to cast them. Starting at level 10 means the Confessor has a lot of power in the early game. The Confessor uses FP to cast Urgent Heal and Assassin's Approach.

You begin with a Broadsword, Finger Seal, Blue Crest Heater Shield and medium armor. Swap to your Finger Seal and pop Urgent Heal to recover your health without using your Flask of Crimson Tears. This in combination with the 100% physical damage block on your Shield makes the Confessor a beginner friendly caster. Use Assassin's Step to mute your approach and stealthily take out enemies with critical backstabs. The most important thing to learn when starting a caster is learning to manage your FP correctly. This includes redistributing charges from your Flask of Crimson Tears to Flask of Cerulean Tears when you rest at a Site of Grace. A Confessor is built to effortlessly switch between Faith-based casting, and melee combat to deal with regular enemies and bosses alike.

Confessor Build Path

Confessor builds focus on Faith. Some Faith builds focus on weapon scaling while using Incantations to buff themselves, whereas others channel their belief into damaging Incantations. Because of this, there's a wide range of soft cap options, check out the Faith section of our Attributes guide for more information. Remember to balance your defensive stats with your offensive ones and keep investing into Vigor as you level up. A good rule of thumb is that your Vigor should be equal to half your level, until you reach level 100 IE: 50 Vig at level 100.

One of the most frequently used buff Incantations is Flame, Grant Me Strength, which raises your Physical and Fire damage. Another Golden Vow which raises both attack and defense. Many non-Faith builds invest in the 15/25 Faith required to use these buffs. Another Faith archetype is becoming an offensive caster using Incantations like Black Flame and Rot Breath. To maximize your damage between spell casts, use the Blasphemous Blade, Winged Scythe, or enchant your current weapon with Black Blade.

Wretch

Unlike the other starting classes, the Wretch begins at level 1 with no armor and a weak starting weapon. There is no secret strategy here, you play Wretch for the self-imposed challenge. Wretches have the lowest total stat distribution even when accounting for the lower starting level. This is due to the lack of any dump stats.

Starting Wretch transforms the early game into an even more brutally challenging experience. Your ability to stagger enemies or dispatch them quickly is severely limited on Wretch in comparison to other classes. Furthermore, your defenses are lower and you have less health! As a new player, picking Wretch is ill advised as you don't achieve power parity with the other classes until level 30-40.

The other 9 starting classes provide templates from which you build into an archetype be it a heavily armored Knight, a Greatsword wielding maniac, or a clever caster who blasts foes from afar. The Wretch has no predefined build path, all your stats begin at 10 so you can build in any direction you choose.

Summary

The Elden Ring starting class guide covers the gear and stats you begin with when choosing a character. After that take some time to experiment with different weapons and find the perfect endgame build for you!

• Vagabonds begin with heavy armor and excel in using Strength or Dexterity weapons.
• Warriors wear lighter armor and dual wield Dexterity weapons.
• Heroes carry a large axe which they use to deal massive damage to foes.
  • Because Strength weapons inherit a bonus when two-handed, the Hero is a great starting point for Strength builds.
• Bandits wear light armor and rely on agility to strike at foes with their Great Knife.
• Astrologers strike foes from afar with Sorceries and start with scant armor for protection.
• Prophets channel their faith into Incantations, healing their wounds and damaging foes.
• The Samurai begins with a powerful Uchigatana, great medium armor and well rounded stats.
  • For martial characters, Samurai is one of the best choices!
• Prisoners lack armor but begin with excellent starting items to craft a powerful Intelligence focused Sorcery build.
• Confessors start with medium armor and solid weapons along with great Faith-based Incantations.
  • This provides a great start to any Faith caster!
• Wretches start with nothing, this is a class for players opting into self-made hard mode.

Written by: Tenkiei

Contributions by: Blamefrost, Brozime

Reviewed by: Blamefrost, Brozime