Dark Souls 2 – Best Starting Class

This guide is about classes, their pros, cons and features.

Which Class is the Best to Start 

All credit goes to PinkJbm!

Class Selection

There’s a total of 8 starting classes featured in Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin:

• Knight.
• Deprived.
• Warrior.
• Sorcerer.
• Cleric.
• SwordsMan.
• Bandit.
• Explorer.

Knight

Features high starting HP and defence.

Equipment

• Broad sword. – At +10 has decent attack rating.
• Falconer set.

• Could be viewed as the tank character class.
• You can still adapt his style to your liking between strength or dexterity.
• Doesn’t start out with a shield.
• With the increase in health and defence he loses the ability to cast spells near the start of the game.

Pro / Con Knight

Pro

• Starts with high HP.
• Less likely to get hit with a one shot.
• Best starting weapon.
• Decent armour.
• Faith stat isn’t too low if you want that route.
• High strength.

Con

• No sorcery at start.
• No shield.
• Isn’t fully dexterity based.
• No helmet.
• Duel hand is a must.
• No miracles at the start.

Deprived

Note: Is for pros / advanced players of the series.

• Is well rounded with nearly every stat with 10 points.
• Starts off with no armour at all.
• Can be turned into any build you possibly could want if placed in right points.

Pro / Con Deprived

Pro

• Total stat freedom.
• Pretty balanced start.

Con

• Hard start.
• No armour.
• No weapon.
• First weapon is the dagger.
• Low strength and dex.

Warrior

• Warrior starts out with high strength and dexterity.
• The weapon you start out with is the broken straight sword which is garbage so you must find a new weapon.
• Low intelligence and faith so no magic or miracles near the start.
• Can use most weapons pretty early on.
• Starts out with a shield and leather set.

Pro / Con Warrior

Pro

• High strength and dexterity.
• Decent armour.
• Can use nearly all early game weapons.
• Has a shield.

Con

• Starts out with a broken sword.
• Low intelligence.
• Low faith.
• Average health and endurance.

Sorcerer

• Starts with high intelligence and attunement.
• Starts out with soul arrow spell.
• Great range.
• Basically a dex build.
• Terrible vitality.
• Low faith.
• Starts out with a dagger and robes plus the staff.
• One of the harder starting classes by far.

Pro / Con Sorcerer

Pro

• High attunement.
• High Intelligence.
• Has a staff.
• Comes with a soul arrow.
• Average dex.

Con

• Low faith.
• Terrible vitality.
• Terrible strength.
• Armour is meh.
• Dagger is meh.
• Purely ranged.

Cleric

• Cleric starts off with High faith and the use of miracles.
• They come with a decent mace and chime.
• Starts with three healing miracles which is great.
• Can’t use a shield and the mace at same time until strength is up.

Pro / Con Cleric

Pro

• Use of miracles.
• Faith is high.
• Great healing spell.
• Great mace.
• Decent robe.
• Decent strength.
• Can duel wield maces.

Con

• Terrible endurance.
• Terrible adpt.
• Terrible intelligence.
• Can only two hand mace until strength is up.
• No shield.

SwordsMan

• Starts out duel wielding an Scimitar and a shortsword.
• Really high dexterity.
• Terrible vigor so gotta dodge.

Pro / Con SwordsMan

Pro

• Duel wielding.
• Two swords.
• Decent armour.
• High dex.

Con

• Terrible vigor.
• Very un tanky.
• No shield.
• No miracles.
• No sorceries.

Bandit

• High dexterity and starts out with a bow.
• Has an axe.
• Lowest intelligence out of all classes.
• Decent faith.
• Low attunement.
• Great anti magic class.

Pro / Con Bandit

Pro

• Starts with Bow.
• Cool axe.
• Has armour set.
• High dex.
• Decent faith.
• Great anti magic class.

Cons

• Lowest attunement.
• Lowest intelligence.
• Bow only starts with 25 shots.
• Adpt is so low.
• Would be classed as abit harder class.

Explorer

• Starts out with a dagger.
• Has arrows.
• Cool armour set.
• Starts out with lots of items to use.
• Weakest class in damage.
• Pretty balanced stats.

Pro / Con Explorer

Pro

• Starts with alot of items.
• Decent armour.
• Balanced stats.

Cons

• Pretty weak in offense.
• No shield.
• Only starts with dagger.
• Doesn’t excel in anything.
• More towards a dex build.
• Can’t use magic or miracles until later.

Verdict

What ever class you did choose doesn’t affect how you level them up. So the starting classes are only for the start as it implies.

What Would You Recommend?

Knight class is always the best pick for new comers with it’s high HP and great weapon and armour.