Dark Souls 3 can have a very frustrating start of the game. Especially, if you have no prior Dark Soul experience or skills. The hardest part is beating Ludex Gundyr, the first boss. I have attempted to start with a lot of different class sets. I am going to show you which is the best starting class in Dark Soul 3.f
If you’re new to Dark Souls you might think that choosing a starting class is very important. Not really, think again. Once you get through the initial first few areas, you’ll be customizing your character exactly how you want it to be.
Plus later on in the game, you’ll actually be able to build your stats. There are still a few things to keep in mind when you’re selecting go starting class.
Testing All DS3 Starting Class
I wanted to start the game all over and test every starting class on Ludex Gundyr.
What I did was to make 10 characters for the 10 different classes. I played with all of them up until the first boss. Which class would be best for a beginner?
These are the top three classes for beginners are either the Knight, Herald, or Warrior.
Knight & Warrior Build
The knight and warrior are pretty simple. They’re just both great for tanking damage.
The knight has the most poise out of any class at 21 and it has a shield with the second highest ability at 48. If you’re wondering which class has the highest ability, it’s the cleric at 50.
The knight also has the highest starting vitality at 15.
Vitality is the attribute that lets you wear heavier gear. This stats also improves your defense and your poison resistance.
I think you can see how this build will be fairly forgiving to a newcomer. The build is packing with a lot of defense and also it also starts with a longsword. This is a great quality weapon that has a really functional move set. This could be perfect for any situation.
Knight Class Stat Efficiency
The Knight might be a very overpower class at the beginning. However, there other reasons that make this class so good.
I would use it for stats efficiency. Once you know exactly what final build, you want to make especially for PvP fighting against other players. Then you can work out which starting class will give you the least wasted stats.
This is basically how people who are very experienced at Dark Souls games choose their starting class.
The DS3 OP Warrior
The warrior; this class is just a strength-based character. The class character starts with 16 strengths. Also, the class has the most powerful starting weapon, a battle axe.
The class has the highest health at 14 vigor. In fact, the knight, warrior, and herald start with some of the highest health out of all the classes. This is obviously a big reason as to why they’re at the top three for beginners.
With the warrior, you’re just going to be blazing through enemies because you do so much damage early game. If you end up using the battle ax then you must do the warcry ability for the extra damage buff.
It’s unlikely that you’ll die before your opponent does. Let’s just put it that way.
I killed Ludex Gundyr the quickest with this class. This isn’t really surprising given those overpower stats. This build really packs damage output.
Herald Class
The Herald class would be classified as a hybrid starting class. In fact, I put the Herald and assassin starting classes under the same sort of bracket class category.
What I mean by this is they’re both kinds of their own thing but they have complementary castings as a backup.
The herald starts with a kite shield and a spear. The class also has a heal spell with a talisman to cast it. But it’s not a cleric, that’s a different class.
This is why I’m saying is kind of more of a hybrid. Plus the shield is a hundred percent block shield. As I said you have a healing miracle which is important because early game you only have what three Estus flasks.
The DS3 Sneaky Assassin Class
The assassin is similar in that it starts with Dex weapon but also a sorcery called spook with the staff that cast it. Again, it’s not a sorcerer, it just has sorcery smoke which is pretty cool. By the way, it makes it harder for enemies to detect you. One of the most important abilities it nullifies fall damage.
I tested it a couple of times and it really seems to completely nullify none lethal for damage. I might have to test it more just to be sure but if so that’s really good.
The DS3 Cleric Class Healing is Amazing!
The cleric, on the other hand, starts with a better healing miracle. the class can heal almost all its health in one casting. While the Herald only heals a bit of health at a time, but that’s a side note obviously you’d expect.
The Cleric would be better at using miracles anyway. If you’re a beginner, the herald would work great especially if you’re looking to try out spell casting. If not try the knight or the warrior. Whatever you do just don’t pick the thief.
Avoid the DS3 Thief Class if you’re a NOOB!
I would definitely say that the Thief is the hardest class to use. All you have is a dagger or a ballot knife which obviously does very low damage. Unless you’re great with parry and backstab timings.
If you’re a beginner, most likely you’re probably not very skilled at that. Although, it does have a bow and it’s the only class to start with the bow.
Also, the only class that can quick step or dash using the bandits’ knife weapon. It’s such a cool move and it is so good for positioning yourself behind enemies for a backstab. Again, that’s a move that takes a bit more skill to use.
I found the Thief class the hardest use against Ludex Gundyr. He defeated me a fair few times and there something else to consider in the thief’s favor. The class that starts with the highest luck stat at 14.
If you think about it, the early game is the point at which you want to be getting the best drops possible from enemies.
All the good armor and weapons drops could be yours if you have a high luck stat. You will have the best chance of getting those drops. Then once you get to the mid or late game, you can just replace once that option becomes available to you.
You can swap the points in your luck stat for something else more useful since you all have already gotten the gear you need.
Dark Soul Sorcerer Class for Long Range
The classes are still fairly balanced. You know there’s pros and cons to everything. The other build I thought was pretty difficult to use were the Sorcerer. It’s deprived of stats to an extent for the sorcerer you really rely on your magic attacks.
Which is fine if you’re good with your spacing and timing. The class basically start with the main breaker as its weapon. This is a just very bad weapon to start.
The main breaker is the least damage output weapon out of every all starting weapon. To be fair, all these means is you really just need to hand your staff and go to town with magic the weapon. The buff for the staff is called steady chant and it increases the strength of your sorceresses by quite a significant amount.
I tested it a bit and there is a difference between the damage when it’s buffed and when it’s not buff. Definitely, something to keep in mind if you’re about to fight a boss or a powerful enemy with castings make sure to buff your staff before you start the fight.
Another thing I tested was whether the damage from the staff increased during melee attacks and it seems to hit an enemy without the buff active.
The weapon damage output did 19 damage here’s again enemy with the buff big 24 damage. I know that’s really low damage anyway but honestly, that’s the same damage the mail breaker does.
Difference between Cleric and Pyromancer
If you pick this build just go pure sorcery. The other two primary casting builds are the Cleric and Pyromancer. Something I didn’t realize until very recently is that the Cleric’s sacred chime and the Pyromancers flame each have weapon skills.
The sacred chime has a gentle prayer which makes you recover health slowly over a period of time. As opposed to its main use which is the quick normal heal spell.
So this means, even when you have no healing spells equipped like maybe you just have a load of lightning faith attack spells, as long as you have the chime on you you’ll always have an extra healing option.
Even if it’s not back in the cleric’s normal heal like the actual heal spell, it has equipped uses more focus points obviously but of course, it’s a lot better.
The pyro flame has combustion. Its actual weapon skill, so every Pyromancer will be able to use combustion at any time. The range of combustion does seem to be kind of not useful.
This time around though but even so combustion plus the ability to chuck high damage fireballs around in the early game. This makes the Pyromancer pretty solid and the Cleric is a fairly safe bet as well.
Just because of all the extra healing potential although what the heck is that thing on his back the Mercenary has probably the most stylish looking weapon of them all.
The Deprived Build is an Interesting
While the final build the Deprived class has the opposite of all classes but has the most balanced stats of all classes. Primal is the basic setup you could ask for.
You start with no armor and just a club and shield. this shield actually has a very primal look. The club has some of the most interesting attack all of the other weapons.
Meanwhile, the weapon has an insane weapon skill. You would use warcry to boosts attack and it also allows you to perform a new consecutive strong attack.
The move looks crazy other than that though the move sets aren’t too great because a lot of the attacks are slow jumping attacks which aren’t ideal. You’ll mostly be using the plain old R1 until you pick up something else.
The Mercenary Class
The mercenary has legions scimitars which are pretty unique in that when you press triangle to hand the weapon. It actually pulls out a duplicate scimitar in the other hand but you still only actually have one scimitar.
If that makes sense there are some very fancy moves in combos you can do with them with this class. I found myself just putting away my shield for good and just slicing up enemies with my dual blades.
What is the Most DS3 Deficient Class?
Let’s say you’re a more experienced player, maybe you’ve heard about the soul level matter and about fully optimizing your build. Perhaps you hear and wondering what the most efficient starting class.
Firstly, what you need to understand is that your goal should be to build a class optimized for PvP. Aiming at a soul level of around 120, I obviously don’t know what the agreed level for PvP will be. It is too early to say, but let’s just use 120 as an example. To make an optimized build you need to have the least amount of wasted stats possible.
It’s that simple. This is for more advanced players, by the way, it’s so essentially you work out exactly what stats you want your final build. You need to pick whichever starting class minimizes the stats you don’t want.
I mean like a really basic example if you wanted to make a pure strength build obviously you don’t want to have 16 points in dexterity because that’s just wasted points. That could be put to better use elsewhere. Now if this is sounding complicated don’t worry because people have already worked out what the most efficient starting class is in most cases.
Anyway, let’s go ahead and take a look at this calculator (link to the build calculator). Let’s say we want to make a hypothetical quality build for PvP.
That means roughly equal stats in strength and dexterity. So we put 14 both and fill out the rest of us that’s how we want them all while keeping within our soul level limit of 120.
Obviously, you pick what stats you want based on what spells weapons and armor you want to use. What their requirements are of course now look which sizing class is the most efficient.
The best starting class in Dark Soul 3 if you a total beginner is the Warrior or Knight. There is no other way that you can fail with these two classes. I know that Ludex Gundyr could be a pain and very tough to beat.
These two classes will give the best chances to beat him.
Now, if you have some or fair level of experience, then I would recommend the Sorcerer, Pyromancer or Cleric.
They all have interesting and unique abilities but unless you’re skilled it would be very hard to start with.
If you have any other class set that would make the best starting class in Dark Soul 3, then leave a comment below. More game tricks and tips here.