Best Starting Classes, and Why

[Call Sign: Raven]

1. Warrior: excellent starting equipment, great stats for melee builds as he can equip almost anything early on.

2. Bandit: Best starting class for vitality/strength builds, strongest starter weapon.

3 .Deprived: He's got a good spread. (I wonder if anyone will get that reference?)

4. Thief: Master Key, bandit knife, can choose extra gift, great choice for speedruns/dex fags.

5. Pyromancer: best starting catalyst, best for twinking, best for cheesing the game.

[Rapax/希狐]

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

1. Warrior: excellent starting equipment, great stats for melee builds as he can equip almost anything early on.

2. Bandit: Best starting class for vitality/strength builds, strongest starter weapon.

3 .Deprived: He's got a good spread. (I wonder if anyone will get that reference?)

4. Thief: Master Key, bandit knife, can choose extra gift, great choice for speedruns/dex fags.

5. Pyromancer: best starting catalyst, best for twinking, best for cheesing the game.

Deprived is crap. Has poor investments for anyone not planning to do a mid/high int+faith build, which is very rare. I can understand 10 int or 10 faith, because these are breakpoints for plenty of useful things, but a build benefitting from 11 in both is very, very rare.

[JamuThatsWho]

Bandit, Wanderer, Pyro and Cleric are the best starting classes for Str, Dex, Int and Fth respectively.
Deprived and Thief have too many wasted points.

[Rapax/希狐]

Also note that Wanderer and Pyromancer have an extra point of Resistance that comes at no cost.

I mean... it's one point of resistance... but hey it's free.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Only for munchkin-min/maxing!

[giant woman]

Pyro/Bandit are usually the best for physical builds. Wanderer/Sorcerer are often good for builds with attunement and/or intellect. Cleric if you need faith.

This is based on the "best class finder" calculator.

https://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/finder

I've never seen an optimal build start with something other than those 5. I think I've seen Warrior tie with the others once for something. Knight, Thief, and Deprived are probably the most consistently worst but you might be able to find builds that they're optimal for.

I've never looked into speedrunning builds but that's outside the ordinary realm of gameplay.