Elden Ring Classes Guide – Choose the Best Class for Your Playstyle

Elden Ring represents From Software’s magnum opus, delivering an unprecedented action RPG experience that exceeded years of built-up anticipation. The developers crafted a masterfully paced adventure featuring the most extensive enemy roster in Souls series history. Combined with an exceptionally flexible character progression system, players can craft virtually any combat style imaginable within the Lands Between.

Your initial class selection fundamentally shapes your early-game experience, providing crucial stat advantages and specialized starting equipment. While all ten available classes serve distinct purposes, understanding their core mechanics ensures you begin your journey with optimal strategic positioning.

Best Class for New Players

Samurai stands as the premier starting choice for Elden Ring newcomers, though veterans will also appreciate its versatility. This primarily melee-focused class emphasizes Dexterity, Strength, Vigor, and Endurance while uniquely including a longbow for tactical ranged engagements. This combination provides exceptional flexibility when confronting diverse enemy types and challenging bosses.

The Uchigatana katana serves as your signature weapon, delivering devastating bleed buildup through consecutive strikes. However, the Samurai’s limited magical aptitude requires careful stat allocation during leveling to avoid progression bottlenecks.

Best Balanced Hybrid Class

Confessor emerges as the most well-rounded option, featuring impressive starting values across Faith, Mind, Strength, Dexterity, Vigor, and Endurance. Equipped with solid early-game weaponry and healing incantations, this class delivers exceptional balance for players seeking both martial prowess and divine enhancements.

This Faith-oriented build surpasses the Prophet in melee combat effectiveness while maintaining powerful buff capabilities. For beginners wanting to experiment with both weapon techniques and incantation magic simultaneously, Confessor provides unmatched versatility from the outset.

Aggressive Dual-Wielding Specialist

The Warrior specializes in relentless offense, beginning with dual scimitars for immediate dual-wielding capabilities. This Dexterity and Strength-focused class delivers explosive early-game damage potential through rapid successive attacks.

Similar to Samurai, Warriors lack meaningful magical abilities and ranged weaponry beyond melee engagement distance. This build demands aggressive playstyles utilizing jump attacks and precise dodge-rolling to maintain offensive pressure while avoiding retaliation.

Defensive Tank Build

Vagabond caters to players preferring defensive strategies with high vitality and damage absorption capabilities.

This Strength-primary class emphasizes Vigor and Endurance secondary, starting with a longsword for substantial damage output. Pair this with a sturdy shield to create an impregnable fortress playstyle, trading evasion for calculated counter-attacks.

Heavy Armor Specialist

The Hero embodies the “turtle” archetype—encased in formidable armor while wielding colossal weapons that deliver catastrophic impact.

Designed for maximum Strength investment, Heroes can equip gear that would overwhelm other classes’ load capacity. The trade-off involves significantly reduced mobility and attack speed, requiring strategic positioning and timing to maximize effectiveness.

Incantation-Focused Build

Prophet specializes in Faith-based magic, utilizing incantations to enhance combat capabilities rather than replace them. With superior Faith and Mind attributes, this class unlocks extraordinary divine capabilities that complement its spear and shield foundation.

Starting equipment includes both healing incantations and offensive spells like ‘Catch Flame’ for ranged engagement options.

Pure Sorcery Specialist

Astrologer dominates as the premier intelligence-based class, offering comprehensive spellcasting capabilities alongside access to magical weaponry like the Moonveil Katana.

Built around Intelligence and Mind as core attributes, this class provides unparalleled magical versatility. Intelligence and Dexterity synergy enables some of Elden Ring’s most devastating builds, though demanding significant stat investment to unlock higher-tier sorceries.

Spellblade Hybrid

The Prisoner offers exceptional adaptability, blending swift melee combat with supplementary spellcasting. Light armor facilitates enhanced mobility while staff access enables magical support, creating a dynamic combat style ideal for reactive players.

Stealth and Critical Damage Specialist

Bandit excels in stealth operations and critical strikes, focusing on Dexterity and Arcane attributes. While physically weaker than strength-focused classes, daggers and knives enable rapid bleed accumulation and stealth takedowns.

High Arcane improves rare item discovery while the included shortbow facilitates silent ranged elimination.

This agile class demands substantial item support for mid-to-late game viability, requiring either extensive exploration or strategic resource acquisition.

Ultimate Challenge Run

For seasoned Souls veterans, Wretch presents the purest challenge—starting at base level with minimal equipment and no statistical advantages.

Beginning with only a basic club and no protective armor, this class offers complete build flexibility from the ground up, embodying the series’ signature demanding gameplay experience.

Remember that class selection primarily influences your early-game experience. As you progress through Elden Ring’s vast world, character development becomes increasingly customizable, allowing any starting class to evolve into your ideal combat specialist.

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