Dark Souls Remastered: Why the Deprived is the best class for new players

 Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to Sean's Workshop!

Once again, I know I'm late to the party, but I've been really into Dark Souls Remastered, and since there are people like me who are still picking up the game even now, I'm going to give my two cents on this. 

The Deprived is the best class for new players, in spite of what experienced players say. And there are a ton of good reasons for why this is true.  In fact, some of those reasons are why other players say this class is a "challenge for experienced players".

You cannot rely on armor.  Armor in Dark Souls Remastered is different than armor in the two games that come after. Yes, you gain defenses to physical, elemental and magical damage, but you're still going to take a lot of damage from anybody. The biggest thing about armor is poise, a stat that makes it less likely you're going to get staggered from enemy attacks. But on a first character, during the first 2-8 hours of the game (depending on how much you're dying), you don't want to rely on poise. You want to know how to block and roll, and the deprived offers opportunities to learn how to do both, since you have to do both.

Shields are important, but not all shields are created equal. The Deprived starts with the plank shield, a small shield. It has pretty good resistances to physical, ranged, elemental and magic damage, but it doesn't have 100% physical damage resistance, meaning you're going to take chip damage from oncoming melee hits from enemies. And even though you get a better shield in the Undead Burg early, you learn all you need to know about shields in a relatively safe environment, where you have abundant bonfires and estus available.

Weapons have wind up. The club is a good starting weapon; it has the third highest damage output for a starter weapon, with only the mace and battle ax doing more. And while it is relatively quick in attack, the club has start up lag that you need to account for. There are weapons faster than the club and there are weapons that are slower than the club, but the club give you what you need to make the decision of what kind of weapons you want in the future.

Keep on rolling. The Deprived is a class where you have to roll to survive, at least until you bet a better shield and some armor. Luckily, since its equip load is so low, the Deprived has the fastest roll in the game. This will get you through the Undead Asylum and part way through the Undead Burg until get your hands on the Hollow armor pieces. And if you return to the Undead Merchant (male) in the early areas of the Burg, you can buy some chain mail armor, both of which drop you down to a mid roll, which is the roll the game is built around. And if you're getting a fat roll, you need to either buff your endurance or take off heavy bits of armor, because a fat roll can get you killed.

Stats are for upgrades. And the biggest thing I like about the Deprived is that you are lacking in nothing. With 11s in all your stats at the start, you have access to 1 attunement slot and the intelligence and faith to use basic sorceries and miracles. You also have some good stats to start out with for strength, dexterity or quality builds, and a good amount of stamina and health to build upon. And resistances, the one stat nobody builds on, starts at a good level too. 

So yeah, the game starts out tougher for the Deprived, but before long, that difficult start doesn't matter for anything. My Deprived character, Rain, is about to head into Blight Town after finishing off the Depths, and I've built her into a low level quality/sorcery build. She's using a claymore, a long bow, and some weapon buffing sorceries as I build up her intelligence for higher tier stuff.

Rain the Deprived

Now, obviously I'm not an expert. But thanks to both walkthroughs and the lessons I've learned from playing Rain, I've gotten farther as the Deprived class than I've gotten with any other.

But for now, stay beautiful freaks, and don't you dare go Hollow!