Elden Ring - Confessor Class Guide - How To Build A Paladin (beginner Guide)
Elden ring beginner paladin guide
In the seldom-ring article. I'm going to talk about how to make a beginner paladin build, what class you should choose, and how to get off to the start in order to create a sort of paladin archetype.
Paladin character creation
Now there are a few classes you can choose from when making this build. I'd like to go with the confessor class.
I feel like it has a pretty good kit, pretty good stat-wise and equipment-wise. It has a 100-block shield, although that will be replaced rather early on. It has a couple of miracles and a talisman. And it's just a good all-around starting class, and it has, you know, some sort of inquisitor-looking.
The attire, which I really like the look of, although you'll probably want to replace that for better armor later on. You can also go profit for this build if you want even more faith, but the outfit that you start with is kind of ah, it's not so good and it doesn't really have a paladin feel to it.
It's more of a faith caster's setup, or you could go vagabond, which is even more tanky than the confessor. It doesn't really have that faith that you want, so I feel like confessor is the best choice here. During character creation, I like to pick the golden seed. This gives you an extra flask to either heal or get mana.
It's a huge advantage when you're a new player in this game, and it can make all the difference in some boss fights where you just needed one more flask and you would have won. It helps you get off to a better start. Obviously, you can choose any keepsake you want at the beginning, but that's my recommendation.
Paladin equipment
Okay, now that you're done with character creation, or let's say you're already playing, the first thing you're going to want to do is get the brass shield. This shield is farmable at the waypoint ruins.
You know, not very far from the very beginning of the game, you're going to farm the enemies there with the shield. You'll have to wait for them to have it equipped in order for them to drop it. You'll notice who they are. Farm these guys for about 10-15 minutes. You should get this shield unless you get lucky and it drops earlier.
This is another 100 physical block mitigation shield, but it has a higher guard. Boost The guard boost reduces the stamina you consume when you block, and that's exactly what you need for this build because you need to be able to absorb attacks with that shield and then counter with your own attacks.
This shield has a 16 strength requirement, and you only start the game with 12 as a confessor. So you'll need to pump those four points up rather quickly as quickly as you can. If it took you about 10-15 minutes to farm these enemies in order to get the shield, then you probably have about that many enemies in your levels anyway, so that should work out just about right.
Make sure that when you're in the waypoint ruins there you grab the item that's in the stairs. There's like a little staircase going down in the ruins. Make sure you grab the item in the chest there. This will allow you to slot the ashes of war onto your weapon, and you're going to need that right away.
Once you grab it while you're there, once you have the shield, and once you have that item, you're going to hop on your horse and head up the hill to Storm Hill, where there is a low knight wandering around up there, kind of on the edge of a cliff, and you're going to kill this guy. He's going to give you an ash of war that's going to allow you to put holy damage on your weapon, make it scale with faith a bit, so you're going to get more improved damage out of that weapon, and it's also going to give you an ability that you can use that buffs the defense and attack of all those around you that are friendly, so if you like, summon wolves, or summon a pack of whatever spirits, or a spirit, it will actually buff them too, which is fantastic.
It kind of falls into that Paladin theme. I have not tested it in multiplayer, but theoretically, it should buff people in your group as well, so if you wanted to be that buffer tank character like paladins typically are, then this is fantastic. For that, now that you have that, you're going to want to slot that onto your weapon at the nearest sacred grace site, and then you're going to head south down the road to the weeping peninsula.
And just past a bridge there and through a little cavern area, there's going to be a bonfire next to a merchant, or not a bonfire of sacred grace. I'm sorry, and you're going to rest there and wait till nightfall. This is a knight's cavalry that spawns there. You're going to want to defeat this guy, and he's going to give you an ashes of war barricade for your shield.
This ability is absolutely fantastic. It's a game changer.
Barricade shield power
This ash of war buffs your shield or so when you use it for about 10 seconds or so. That allows you to absorb tax with your shield even more effectively, to the point that enemy attacks will just be rebuffed off of it, giving you an opening to counter and allowing you to save that stamina in order to attack.
I cannot stress how valuable this is. You can literally go toe-to-toe with bosses and just block their attacks and swing back at them. It is absolutely devastating, and you're going to want to use this against pretty much any tough enemy. So now that you have the equipment that's needed for a paladin, or for the most part, you could probably swap out some of your armor pieces for some heavier armor or something that looks a little more paladin as you find more armor, but that's generally the setup we're going to use for the early portions of the game.
Remember, this is a beginner's build. You can obviously swap things out later on in the game, but this will get you started playing that paladin style at the beginning of the game.
Paladin stats and attributes
So let's talk about stats. The paladin needs several stats. It is a very stat-hungry build. It needs strength to use better shields and also to increase their damage; it needs endurance to use heavier armor and have more stamina for blocking; it needs faith to increase damage and improve the healing of its miracles or incantations; and it also needs vigor because this confessor does not start with a lot of health, and any time you're playing a melee character, you need help.
You will get hit. It just happens. Nobody's perfect, so you're going to need a lot of health as well, once you have that 16 strength for the shield requirement. I recommend pumping vigor for a while. You start at 10, and I would like to get that up to 15 or 20 as quickly as you can because you'll notice you die rather easily.
