The Best Elden Ring Classes to Play

The Elden Ring classes delivers the game’s first unforgiving big decision. You may find yourself stuck looking at the initial 10 classes and wondering what to do.

Choosing the best class is important enough to support your adventure. The good news is that early classes don’t force you to play in a certain way.

You’re still free to build your character in various ways and distribute points into whatever stats you want.

The early classes will only give you some gear and stat boosts which might be useful if you want to focus on a certain style of play.

The Best Class in the Elden Ring

This guide covers the basics of each of the Elden Ring starting classes. And assumes you have a general knowledge of the eight core stats. If not, we will also help you.

1. Hero

Hero is a class that focuses on melee. He starts the game with high Strength, Endurance, and Vigor stats along with a one-handed axe and a medium-sized shield to protect in a pinch.

This no-frills class should make melee fans of Dark Souls feel right at home.

As a Hero, your main stats will likely continue to be Strength and Vigor. Strength will ensure you can use a large, special-scale weapon with that stat.

A high level of health with an increase in Vigor stats will help you last longer in close-range encounters.

2. Bandits

Bandit doesn’t bring much to the table for the more commonly desired stats, but it does offer a lot of points in Arcane.

Some high Dexterity helps too, though all other stats start at a fairly low level.

Having said that, Bandit starts the game with a dagger and a bow and arrow, making it the perfect stealth-based starting class if that’s what you’re after.

The Arcane stat helps find more items on defeated enemies and has several uses in certain sorcery and spells.

But it’s best suited for custom builds and won’t be optimal for more general playstyles. Bandits are not one of the better starting classes for most players looking to maximize their stats late in the game.

3. Vagabond

Vagabond is a tried-and-true knight. It comes with heavy armor, a straight sword, and a sturdy shield in preparation for close combat.

The high starting vigor makes it the best beginner starting class. The nearly even separation between Strength and Dexterity makes it perfect for Quality builds.

It brought both stats to at least 40 to specialize evenly across all types of melee weapons.

Vagabond’s low Intelligence, Faith, and Mind stats don’t do much to put her in the lane to use sorcery or spells.

But they’re not so low that you can’t pump a few points in them to use spells as a backup option. But if magic is something you want to use more often, you’re much better off using a class that specializes in it. 

4. Astrologer (one of the best Elden Ring classes to play)

Astrologer is a class that is perfect for newcomers who want to choose melee and sorcery options in battle.

This sorcery-based class is equipped with a wand for casting magic and a short sword for close combat.

It offers huge bonuses for Intelligence and Mind which ensures that you hit hard and have as many players as you want for long range combat.

Utilizing Astrologer would mean spending most of the points in Intelligence to keep the damage sorcery high.

Unless you rely heavily on melee weapons as a backup option, you need to increase your Mind stat.

It will increase the number of spells that can be used. As long as you can keep a little distance from the enemy, this class gives you a lot of advantages. 

5. Warrior

Warrior is a dual-wielding powerhouse for fans of fast-paced melee combat. It starts with a high Dexterity stat and two scimitars, so you can do a lot of damage at the expense of limited defensive options.

This class is great if you’re open to getting the most out of the smaller guns and making good use of them.

However, your vigor is quite low. You’ll need to dump a large amount of runes into your Strength stats if you plan on wearing heavier armor.

In other words, make sure you’re comfortable with things that are light and mobile if you sign up for this fast, low-defense option. 

6. Prisoner

The first thing to notice about the Prisoner class is its unusual iron mask. It may seem odd, but Prisoner is a solid choice if you want to create a nimble melee/casting hybrid character.

It started with high Vigor and Endurance stats, and his starting gear was estoc and a staff to cast magic.

You’ll need to be good at rolling or laying a lot of ground in Vigor and Endurance to make this class a little more viable for long-range melee combat.

It was because he started with low HP and stamina. Nevertheless, it remains one of the best starting classes if you want to focus evenly on magic and swordplay. 

7. Confessor (one of the most balanced Elden Ring classes)

Confessor is a balanced Faith class built to use spells found throughout the game. It provides you with the best starter shield in the game with the highest guard boost possible.

If you want to use fire and use healing spells and restorative effects, then Confessor is the class you can choose at the beginning of the game.

8. Samurai

Samurai is a very powerful starter class in Elden Ring. With the highest Dexterity, compared to other classes, it is a great choice for someone who wants to start by building the best character possible.

It equips you with Uchigatana which already provides you with the best starting weapon, a shield and last but not least a bow which gives you range support to produce extra range damage.

9. Prophet

Perfect for players who want to specialize in faith spells only, this class has the highest attribute points on Faith and some points on Dexterity.

Prophet is really risky for a new player who isn’t familiar with FromSoftware games in the past due to it only gives you with Spear as main weapon but same as Confessor, it provides you with healing spells just in case you run out of healing flask.

10. Wretch (one of the most challenging Elden Ring classes for beginners)

Wretch is an Elden Ring class that has almost nothing. Starting with no outfit, wielding only a Club as main weapon, and stats that are balanced across all attributes, you should only choose this one if you want a real challenge.