As is customary in RPGs from FromSoftware, Elden Ring also features a class system. However, those who have never played a game from the developers might initially think of classic specializations like those in MMORPGs. MeinMMO shows you why this is different.
With the release just around the corner, the hype around Elden Ring is growing. Recently, some content from Elden Ring was even leaked by Twitch streamers.
On this occasion, we want to take a closer look at the classes, as they might be different for newcomers than what they are used to from games like MMORPGs.
Here’s how the classes in Elden Ring work: Each of the 10 different classes has different starting equipment and a different distribution of points across the attributes.
These attributes determine your character’s properties, such as how high their health points are, how much mana they have, which weapons they carry, and how much equipment they can carry without becoming slower and more cumbersome.
This initially sounds like the choice of class plays a crucial role in gameplay. However, this is misleading because those familiar with Dark Souls and Bloodborne know that classes play a secondary role.
The choice of your class in Elden Ring is not deciding
Your class only has a larger influence on your playstyle at the beginning. A better armor or a spell can indeed be useful and facilitate progress in certain situations.
However, the progression system in FromSoftware games works “longer-term” and allows you to grow into your role.
Here’s how it works: You spend runes for level-ups. Each level-up is a skill point that allows you to increase one of the 10 attributes:
- Strength: Determines health points, increases fire resistance and immunity
- Spirit: Determines your FP (Mana) and focus (spell slots)
- Endurance: Determines stamina and how heavy your endurance can be before you slow down.
- Power: Increases the damage of weapons that have power scaling. Also increases physical defense.
- Agility: Increases the damage of weapons that have agility scaling. Your spell casting time is reduced, and your fall damage is reduced. You are also more stable in the saddle of your ghost horse.
- Wisdom: This is the attribute for spells, thus it strengthens all spells with wisdom scaling. Additionally, your magic resistance is increased.
- Faith: This is the attribute for invocations, thus it strengthens all spells with faith scaling.
- Arcane: Through arcane energy, the passive value “Discovery” is improved, which affects your loot chances. Additionally, your resistance against holy damage, spells, and invocations is increased.
Here’s the catch: Each level-up only increases an attribute by a few points. A single level-up has only a minor impact on your entire character build.
Above all, the additionally usable equipment will have a significant impact. Thus, at the beginning, your choice of class provides certain playstyles as guidelines, but you can practically start with any class and build in any direction.
Looking at the Beggar class, it becomes clear how little influence the choice of class has. The Beggar is a completely balanced class in their attributes, starting without armor, with a shield and a small club.
At first glance, a poor choice, but the class has existed since the days of Demon’s Souls and is popular among veterans. It may save you unnecessary distributed points that you can then use for your desired target attributes.
You cannot avoid practice
Ultimately, you should keep in mind: Without mastering the basic mechanics and your weapons, even the best distribution of your attributes won’t help you. It doesn’t matter what equipment you use and it doesn’t matter what spells you have – there is no free pass.
Study the movements of your enemies, try different strategies, and remain resilient to frustration. Because although Elden Ring is said to be the most accessible game from FromSoftware, it remains a very challenging game.
On February 25th, you can find out for yourself which playstyle suits you best. Elden Ring will be released via Steam for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One.
Xbox players can already download Elden Ring, while PC and PlayStation players still need to be patient. Here’s an overview of Elden Ring: All info on start times, preload, and download sizes on PS5 and Xbox
