How to Play the Bandit in Elden Ring – Best Strategies and Weapons

The Bandit is one of the ten starting classes for Elden Ring and has more evenly distributed stats than the other classes. Bandits start at level five and are geared more toward Dexterity and Arcanity, with average stats everywhere else. At the start of your journey, the Bandit is more of a jack of all trades than a master at nothing, and that’s due to their starting items. It’s also excellent for anyone who isn’t sure where to take their character.

The Bandit class starts with the Great Knife, a fast attack knife that can deal bleed damage, a short bow with bone arrows, and a buckler shield. Although starting with high arcanity, the bandit does not get any spells to learn.

The main question is how do you want to play the bandit class? The big knife has a quick dash move on L2 (LT on Xbox) that’s great for easily dodging attacks and doing follow-ups. Blood loss is also a great attribute of your weapon and can deal hundreds, even thousands, of additional damage.

With high dexterity, being a bow user is also a good option. Keeping distance between you and your enemy is always a good thing. Bows are much more handy in Elden Ring than in other Souls games, and arrows are easily crafted or purchased. The Starting Shortbow has a special Barrage ability that lets you shoot arrows in a row much faster, albeit with less damage.

A great early game weapon to grab for the Bandit class is the Reduvia Dagger, which gives you an insanely high blood build. You must fight Bloody Finger Nerijus, who is near the game’s starting area, to get the dagger. If you want to use this weapon for even more damage, ask a friend who has the weapon but doesn’t want them to drop it for you. The location for this weapon is below.

With so many options available to the bandit who gives their starting class, it’s relatively easy to customize your character the way you want as you progress through the game.