The answer for DS2 Deprived run would be the Vanquisher seal. Obtained by giving Awestones to the Champion covernant. There is a trick to farm those, There is a inviter who respawns at the place where the small rat boss is. The ring gives you the ability to duel wield your fists and gives you +200atk

Me coming out of my hole after kyle uploads his bi-yearly upload

10:43 Happy to see that made it into the video 😁 And my return 26:27 XD

13:49 is MAX STYLE. *Parries *Tosses sword to other hand behind back *Stabs in chest I wouldn't even be mad if did this to me in PVP

For the cleric, I think something that myself and others screw up with is focusing completely on faith at first so we can throw lightning instead of being a good melee character who can shoot lightning.

I mean, I guess it doesnt have to be said, but this ruleset really did the Sorcerer dirty. He really isnt meant to work with just his starting equipment, unlike martial classes which can utilize any weapons to their max effect

personally I feel these rules are a bit unfair toward sorcerer. spells aren't really equipment, they are more like, arrows to your bow. and specially considering that in DS1 you can't upgrade catalysts, I'd arguee than more than that, getting better spells for your catalist is like getting upgrades for your weapon will admit is a bit of a subjective point though, since different spells can do actually different stuff, as oposed to regular upgrading from a weapon where all it does is increase damage, is hard to reach a balance

I think that being able to level up weapons all the way but not allowing better spells/pyromancies/Miracles kind of artificially makes those classes worse. I think if your not gonna get better spells you should also stop weapon reinforcements at +5

Kyle, if you plan to do DS2, don't forget about the vanquisher's seal, it absolutely melts bosses when using only fists, you could say its the only way to beat the game with Deprived

This would have been a lot more interesting at starting level for all classes, and all items required to be used. With levels and unequipping it largely comes down to which class has the best weapon, rather than which one has the best overall loadout.

I would disagree with the ascended pyromancy flame, here. Simply because it's not really an item change more of an item level up depicting the increased power that Qualana, can give you as one of the first pyromancers.

That cut at 32:53 was just perfect.

25:26 "this thing never ceases to disappoint" I believe that ain't it, chief 🤣

One thing you may not know, is the spider shield gives very high poison resistance. It's possible to block multiple toxic darts in Blighttown and not become toxic

8:20 Bofuri Vibes. Eating an Undead Dragon. Poison for Seasoning. Somehow I'm not making that up.

The knight has special place in my heart sense it's the class i started with in my first playthrough and it kinda carried me through some bosses and places like the capra demon and the sewers. Great video btw and ithink the most dropped mask is the mother this thing huntes me to this day

I wonder if an interesting stipulation to help keep the class' identities rather than have all of them turn into str/dex/quality builds would be to have them all preserve the initial order of highest to lowest stats e.g. the dark souls 2 knight would have to have Vigor be its highest stat, followed by strength, then adaptability, dexterity, etc. In the case of stats that start tied, you get to choose what order you put those tied stats in, since it's not super feasible to always level up all of such stats at once (cough, deprived, endcough). If you did things this way, I feel like it's fair to let classes add new spells as well as new rings, since otherwise classes like sorcerer are left with a choice between shitty split scaling on top of a shitty low damage weapon, or an uninfused dagger when they can't just pump dex and all their points in int are wasted, on top of the fact that it would let spellcaster classes actually do something with the attunement they're forced to level. Of course, for Dark Souls 2 this matters less as infusions are at their best, and I'm not necessarily suggesting you change the nature of these runs part way through the series, it's more just that this is an idea inspired by your video.

Just finishing the intro, based on the rules laid out, I'm going to predict that the sorcerer ended up as the most challenging class due to the limited number of spells that it can use, and being locked into only having the basic Soul Arrow. 28:20 Huh, the AOE2 music actually fits really well for this. 28:50 and it looks like my prediction was right. Wasn't expecting the Thief to be here too though.

I really don't agree with the "no new spells" rule. You're not really experiencing the class.

I recently finished the game with only Hunter´s equipment it was a breeze. I think you are underestimating the bow´s power at +15. You can just lure most enemies, cheese Manus, cheese Sif... Cheese ingward, kill the hydras easy mode... using a bow makes dark souls so, so easy.

there's this guy out there called TrevTheDev that has been doing videos about mathematically optimized damage in Dark Souls and, in a lot of the run he done with the mathematically optimized damaged he used the Hand Axe from the Pyromancer and I was surprised on how good that weapon is, it's definitely a slept on weapon that can do a lot of damage, it's nearly like some secret curved sword. anyways, as someone that always picks the Wanderer as my starting class (since I always build DEX and maybe INT sometimes, which is basically almost DEX in this game if you wanna have good casting speed) excellent video! I think the same concept would be interesting in Elden Ring (predicting the Thief and the Knife will still suck lol)

I’m sorry but why isn’t the Transition at 32:55 getting more love?

Another really solid point of the bandit, battle axe has both vertical and horizontal attacks (and good move sets overall, not garbage ones). Might sound like nothing, but there are some scenarios where having both makes your life so much easier compared to being stuck with one or the other.

I kinda have a problem with disallowing the sorcerer to upgrade the soul arrow spell. The game clearly intends you to go from regular to great soul arrows. Limiting that kinda feels like forbidding upgrading your weapon to +15.

Can we appreciate the cut from parrying Gwyn on, cleric to wander at 32:51

NEW KYLE UPLOAD 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 (it will take 7 years before a new one)

Small correction here: The Leather Shield from the wanderer has the 2nd best defenses of any small shield, only surpased by the Effigy Shiled, which has the highest lightning resistance in the game but weighs 3 units. The Leather Shield, when upgraded through the normal path up to +14, has a stability on par with a +5 Heater or Grass Crest Shield or an unupgraded one at +5, which is pretty solid for a shield with fast parry and low weight if you ask me. PS: There is also a very fun and rarely talked about pair of spells in DS1 called Magic Shield and Strong Magic Shield which not only reduce the stamina cost for blocking but also increase the shields stats and have a very low INT requirement at 15. If you use the strong version found in the Duke's Archives it raises all the shields resistances to %100 and cuts the stamina cost of blocking by more than half, esentially turning any Small Shield into a Great Shield with a fraction of the weight and stat requirements for the duration of the buff while retaining the ability to parry. Pretty neat if you ask me.

I like the idea, but aren't fully lore accurated, at least for how i see it. The thing is that each class has died in the dark souls maps already, to understand this is that every set of armor can be found in the game, for example the bandit armor can be found in the bridge in the valley of drakes. So according that, the wanderer can use the Falchion since all his set can be found within that sword in blighttown there and the thief can use the mail breaker since it's found in the Lower Undead Burg.

favorite stream series i've seen so far and i'm glad i was able to make it to a few of these

Man these were so much fun to catch live! Hope I get to catch the other class streams

Great video! And thank you for keeping the video under an hour 😅 I look forward to checking out the streams some day.

I think your rules (copies of the starting class items allowed) would have allowed you a second, off-hand, scimitar for the wanderer. So you could do the parry + riposte without menuing. And roleplay Drizzt 😎

Spells are more of an ammo alternative than an actual main weapon. The way this challenge is set up it ends up almost completely ignoring spell usage outside of just cheesing enemies which is a shame. If you plan to do a similar challenge for the other games in the series (please do, these are super entertaining) maybe look into some basic spells to allow.

Who’s here from the backlogs

32:48 Damn that transition is smooth

I'm so glad the wanderer did that well. by far one of my favorite classes for the fashion souls alone. replace the hood and gloves with elite knight armor and it looks insane.

23:24 I mean, with enough patience deprived could get Vanquishers seal. (Might take a bit tho) but the defences.. yikes.

Can we all respect how much dedication these challenges take it's insane!

I was fortunate to catch a few streams here and there while I was at work! Thank you for the great content, GW.

This was really cool! I’ve never used a magic class in Dark Souls 1 but that’s what I want to try next.

I love starting a new game in the soulsbourne game and experimenting with the classes. Please make a series out of this🙏🏻

I bet on the Mask of the Mother... damn, no bragging rights for me

I love doing this type of run. Started doing them back several years ago and come back to do them again every now and then. My personal restriction is to only use the same class of equipment throughout and loosely following the class' initial stat spread proportions.

I knew sorcerer was gonna be trash while you were explaining the challenge

I am pretty sure the scimitar can parry while being two handed as well, negating the need for weapon swapping. I am sure you have put that together, but something something engagement, so I guess I will comment anyway.

Great Job Kyle, well done on this video after all those streams!

ghost blade drop reminding me of how every time i decide to play something that can't use a rare weapon drop, it drops fast. (most vivid memory i have rn is the elden ring magma dagger/shortsword dropping on the first magma lizard i had to kill when i was doing a str/int run)

'Let's set the rules which degrade all magic builds to a melee builds with wasted stats' - good start

My sleepy brain really thought you had said "scented pyromancy flame" and I thought maybe I had missed something in my gazillion playthroughs XD love the channel, love your work, thank you for a great bedtime story ❤❤❤

Realistically, if I were doing these runs (which I'm not going to, so take my comments with a grain of salt) - I think limiting yourself to the starting gear only kind of misses the point. The game is an RPG - the classes are roles. They don't "matter" because you can choose whatever role you want your character to take in the game, so I'd imagine playing as the starting classes as simply sticking to the thematic of that original role. A sorcerer that doesn't level attunement to cast a million spells doesn't feel like a proper sorcerer. A pyromancer who can't discover the ancient chaos techniques doesn't feel like a proper pyromancer (and not being able to ascend the flame, despite it in game having the same name, feels unfair when you're allowed to use the large and very large ember). A Bandit that can't use all of the axes at his disposal doesn't really how I envision them. The Cleric has one of the worst starting spells in the game, specifically because the Cleric is expected to expand their spell arsenal the soonest, with the only vendor available at the start of Firelink Shrine. The Deprived is meant to make you feel like you're starting from nothing and winning through sheer willpower. A Knight that switches from the broadsword to another regular sword is unequivocally still the knight. Similarly, limiting yourself to the wolf ring gave greater advantages to the classes with more melees focus than magic focus. That's like saying "who would win in a gunfight, a sniper, or a boxer who's never held a firearm before?". If nothing else, classes should have been allowed to use the ring that benefits their specialization. That - or rings should have been banned so the playing field remains equal. Good video all around, and this is just a nitpick. But I feel like if the goal ISN'T, to quote yourself, to make a challenge run, but instead test the effectiveness of the class archetypes, you shot all of them in the foot - some unfairly worse than others. I can see potentially not wanting to dilute the theming of the characters by making them too similar to a boss or NPC copycat build - so banning boss weapons and enemy drops, only allowing weapons and spells from vendors and items on the ground, would be a interesting middle ground to me.

The answer for the cloranthy dilemma is... DUN DUN DUN a green blossom, just eat the consumable and enjoy the benefits of the ring/shield without them.

i've seen runs like this before and honestly it always sells the spellcasting classes so short. I think a big thing you should look at is what the base int/faith/attunement is allowed to equip out the box: one of the advantages of Sorcerer is its base 15 int grants access to the following spells: all variants of Soul Arrow [except Great Heavy], magic and great magic weapon, magic and great magic shield, and a bunch of utility spells. faith gets a lot worse since at 14 faith all you get is heal and force. you have to invest much more into faith to get a lot of the good spells, and getting Rhea out of the catacombs is a lot harder than freeing Grigs or Logan. and then pyro... well with pyro 2 attunement slots is all you need, as SL1 runners have proven time and again. ==== overall, great runs, this was a fun video, these are just silly nitpicks i have that don't really matter.

Would be cool to see a more extreme version of this where you can only level up the equipment and not the character stats, also you can't take off your armor (so you're stuck with the fat roll in some classes) but you can use any magic, pyro, etc, as long as the starting stats allow it

I heard "Salutations exiles" and got excited, not what I expected but pretty fun video to watch. Thanks!

It's a bit unfair to not allow a mage his magic. I guess if I would do this it would be more theme centric to the class, meaning I would be able to use what I think fits for the class. Like sorcerers would use magic. Pyromancers use pyromancy Bandits would be allowed to use great axes and hammers Hunter would be allowed the bows. Also I'll probably give restrictions for each class, like knights aren't allowed rolling for combat purposes. Mages aren't allowed to use heavy armor. Things like those.

I guessed Mask of Father because legend never dies. Lucky me.

Lmao that wanderer swapparry on final boss :D Mask of the father, maybe?

Is Press becoming "He who shall not be named"? Hahaha

for monk, i always rush 25 faith then go 50 strength for sanctus and paladin leeroys hammer

My first playthrough was a Wanderer, with a halberd, bow, and enough faith for lightning spear. Dex/Faith for the win! It's been the basis for every other blind playthrough that I've done.

if you do do the DS2 starting class run, for the Deprived, you could probably farm Awestones for that ring you get from the Covenant of Champions to increase your punching power. That'd be allowed if you're going by the same ruleset as this game.

Yeah that wolf ring is crazy amazing. Just completed a melee only run and it just stayed on.

I did the opposite and guessed the mask that would drop the least. AND I WAS EXACT ON THE MONEY. When you hear the Yoshikage Kira theme, ALWAYS expect hijinks.

If you do this challenge for the other games, make it so classes can use the upgraded forms of the spells. (Soul Arrow could be evolved through all it's forms then maybe you could make it evolve to soul spear too. Heal could evolve to great heal.) In the case of Elden Ring, maybe just have the classes that start with some spell gradually evolve within that spell type too (Glintstone Pebble evolving into Comet, Heal evolving into Erdtree heal) Prisoner's may not have an evolution but it is already strong enough by default and they start with an estoc so they'll be fine.

Note that AR is misleading for 2-handing your weapon - even after the 50% strength, your attack gets extra damage (can be seen on the Moonlight Greatsword since it has no strength scaling)

It's the little things in life. Happy to see your content mate.

I actually started this challenge myself a couple weeks ago, its very difficult, but a lot of fun!

This was highly enjoyable, something slightly different to the normal challenge runs, but not too far it's unfamiliar. Looking forward to if you're continuing the series. DS2 will be wild I think

I cant describe it, but hearing the main town theme from The Last Story made my jaw drop. I havent thought about that game in years and it was so good

You can actually use the Cloranthy ring for four kings AND still have the Favor&Protection ring afterwards, you just need to trade the Xanthous crown to Snuggly/Hawk girl

Iron dagger is by far my favorite. Crystal weapon goes crazy with it

Damn the Transition at 32:55 was smooth!

This was a wonderful video. Can't wait to see the streams and videos to follow. Also bonus kitty footage was much appreciated.

I CANT WAIT FOR THE OTHER SOULS CLASS VIDEOS, I LOVED THIS

This was a fun video and it would be neat to see you do this with the other Souls games too! Although personally, I would have allowed additional spells on sorcerer, cleric, and pyromancer. Sort of feels like kneecapping their whole gimmick, you're already locked to the worst casting tools anyway, and your other rule prevents upgrading to ascended pyro flame too. It would be like saying the hunter can only use the arrows they start with and you can't buy more. Also I wonder if thief would have ranked higher if you banned starting gifts. Having exclusive access to the master key would have likely jumped it a few places I'd reckon for its unique routing capabilities.

Thank you for the great time. Watch all the videos and seen 3 live. Always a great time, and I didn’t see anything with Pinwheel.

OML I NEED THESE TYPE OF VIDEO FOR ALL OF THE SOULSBORN GAMES!!!

If you plan on doing this with DS2, don't worry about Deprived not having any weapons as the damage scaling to fists is actually really good and covenant of champions gives a ring that increases the damage of your fists.

I ALWAYS get Mask of the Child, so I guessed that. You got really good luck there lol

I feel like I’m watching a “How it’s made” episode when I watch these

Great vid, cant wait for the other starting class runs.

I knew Wanderer would be high, but I'm surprised to see Cleric there too

I've wanted to do this for like years. Glad to see someone did. Great job. Although i don't know about allowing rings and consumables outside of starting gift and estus and well as copies of starting equipment. I would probably make that stricter for myself. Excluding required pickups such as abyss ring.

I think an extremely important mention for the AR discussion is motion values. Its what makes the op weapons op

nice video, but i think it would have been more interesting, if you had taken the classes a bit more liberal. Using equipment that stays in the spirit of the starting class, but lets you use more in teresting armor and weapons. Obviusly that would make the Sorcerer go from bottom to top, but leting you use more powerful spells and stafs makes the sorcerer a real sorcerer for example.

So, a series of sl1 runs? Interesting. Your contributions to the knowledge pool is appreciated. Edit: whoops got the premise wrong. Still interesting! Deprived gang let's gooo (jk wanderer forever my beloved) Final edit: I think I'm going to try the deprived run. I've done the wanderer before, hence beloved. Makes sense it's Father mask majority, a father supports and provides. Excited to see the other games! Mostly because of how you would get around DS2's deprived's whole issue.

Against the spirit of the idea to not use upgraded sorcereries and co. That doesn't make any sense since its class

iirc, you can get a second fap ring every playthrough by trading Jeremiah's headgear to Snuggly. So if you wanted you could break one on 4 Kings in favor (hah) of Chloranthy and replace it immediately afterward. I actually tried the thief version of this myself and got bored after a 10 minute Gaping Dragon kill. If it don't bleed, bring snacks because goddamn... I love the thief start but yeah. I'll also add to the voices saying Sorc really gets wrecked by these rules. Could've at least given them the Soul Arrow line of spells since that's really how they scale. But that's a nitpick and gets a bit muddy/arbitrary so the hell with it, really cool video and thanks for all the content!

I'd be really interested to know how you'd change these rankings if you allowed upgrades that made sense. So still no boss weapons, for example, but upgrading to any weapon in the same weapon type, for example, might make the thief way more viable. It's been ages since I played Dark Souls, so I barely remember most of the options you'd even have, but allowing specific weapon upgrades because they make sense for a class would be a fun change, especially since I wasn't sure at the start if you were doing this as a no-level up challenge.

I’m a simple man. I hear Musashi samurai legend music, and I like the video.

fun fact the hand axe is ds1 is actually one of the highest dps weapons the game! its essentially a curved sword with much higher base stats and is capable of pushing the high hundreds in AR optimized completely.

I subbed to ya because of this video. Never knew cleric was such a demon of melee

no ascended pyromancy flame kinda contradicts with the purpose of pyromancer, no?

i love the scimitar and the wanderer class

Called the Father. May your runs all be blessed by Papa

What a fantastic content creator is Kyle ❤

The only starting class I actually have beaten the game with was the warrior class from earlier this year and because i have never practised Manus, he was the only boss i could not beat. But apart from that it wasn't the worst experience I've had finsihing the game at level 83. Not even reaching 40/40 (though the ninja flips were fun). Although I have beaten the game with a dagger and the havel set made that run way easier than it should had been.

23:05 You NEED to do this challenge in DS2 😁

Awesome Runs and Summary, well done :)

That was my idea too before attempting sl1 runs