FromSoftware finally published the final stat sheets for the two classes arriving with the Tarnished Pack, and the numbers tell a different story than the marketing does. One of them isn’t the class everyone thinks it is.
What Actually Dropped
On July 23, FromSoftware posted the finished stat spreads for the Heavy Knight and the Idus Knight – the two new starting origins bundled into the Tarnished Pack. The pack lands on August 28, 2026 across PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC, the same day Tarnished Edition arrives on Switch 2, and it runs €4.99 on your platform’s store or through Bandai Namco directly. Alongside the two classes you get three Torrent skins and four new armor sets.
No new region, no new questline. Two new ways to open a save file, and a fresh coat of paint for your horse.
Sounds minor. Then you read the stat sheets.
The Numbers
Idus Knight – Level 7 Vigor 10 · Mind 12 · Endurance 11 · Strength 13 · Dexterity 15 · Intelligence 8 · Faith 11 · Arcane 6
Heavy Knight – Level 10 Vigor 14 · Mind 8 · Endurance 17 · Strength 15 · Dexterity 11 · Intelligence 7 · Faith 8 · Arcane 9
Look at that Endurance figure again. Seventeen.
Nobody’s Getting Free Points Here
Before anyone starts sharpening the pitchforks about paid classes being stronger, let’s kill that one early. Every origin in Elden Ring converges on the same total: by level 10, all of them are sitting on 89 attribute points. Heavy Knight hits 89 at level 10. Idus lands on 86 at level 7, which puts it on exactly the same curve.
So the new classes aren’t handing you extra stats. What they’re handing you is a different arrangement of the same stats, and fewer points wasted on attributes your build will never touch. In a game that charges exponentially more per level as you climb, that arrangement is the whole ballgame.
Nothing about these two is pay-to-win. They’re pay-to-start-slightly-more-conveniently, which is a much less exciting headline and also the truth.
Heavy Knight is Not a Strength Class
Here’s the bit I haven’t seen anyone say out loud.
Look at the Hero. Level 7, Strength 16. Now look at the Heavy Knight. Level 10, Strength 15.
The Hero has more Strength, at a level that’s three cheaper. If you’re building a straightforward Strength bruiser – colossal weapon, heavy armor, big numbers on the screen – the Hero is still the better opening. It has been for four years and this doesn’t change that.
What Heavy Knight actually sells you is that 17 Endurance. For context, the previous record holder among the base ten was the Samurai at 13. Hero sits at 12, and then there’s a whole cluster of classes at 11. Seventeen doesn’t nudge that record, it clears it by four points.
Endurance isn’t damage. It’s equip load and stamina. Which means Heavy Knight isn’t a Strength origin wearing heavy plate – it’s an equip load origin that happens to come with a big sword. You get the budget to wear seriously heavy armor from the first Site of Grace without dumping half your early levels into carrying capacity, plus enough stamina to swing a slow weapon more than twice before you’re gasping.
That’s a real and specific advantage. It’s just not the one on the tin.
The flip side is Mind 8, the lowest of any origin. FromSoftware is telling you, quietly but clearly, not to plan a build around spamming Ashes of War. You get a huge stamina bar and a tiny FP bar. Swing the sword; don’t press the skill button every three seconds.
Idus Knight and the Samurai problem
The Idus Knight lines up almost perfectly against the Samurai, which has been the default pick for Dexterity players since launch.
Both sit at Dexterity 15. Idus adds a point of Strength and three points of Faith, and starts two levels lower. Samurai keeps two more Vigor and two more Endurance, plus the Longbow and the Uchigatana – which, let’s be honest, is still one of the best starting weapons in the game.
So it’s a trade, not an upgrade. You’re giving up early survivability and a chunk of stamina in exchange for a Faith stat that most Dexterity origins actively dump, and a cheaper starting level.
Whether that trade is good depends entirely on whether you use the Faith.
The Faith 11 is the Actual Story
Every other Dexterity-leaning origin treats Faith as landfill. Samurai runs 8. Warrior runs 8. Bandit runs 8. Idus Knight shows up with 11, and once you check what that buys you, the rest of the class makes a lot more sense.
At 11 Faith you already qualify for a decent utility shelf before spending a single rune. Urgent Heal opens at 8 – a cheap, fast top-up for when you’ve eaten one hit too many and don’t want to burn a flask. At 10 you’ve got Cure Poison, Poison Armament, and the whole elemental fortification family, which grant 35% negation against their damage type for 90 seconds. Walking into a fight you know is all fire or all lightning with a fortification already running is a huge swing, and most players never think about it because their class never handed them the option.
Then there’s 12 Faith, which is where the real payoff sits – and from 11, that is one level.
At 12 you unlock Heal, the standard area version, which does something most people don’t know: cast it near Royal Revenants and it instantly breaks their stance while dealing heavy Holy damage. You also get Bestial Vitality, a cheap regeneration buff running 120 seconds that saves you an enormous number of flasks while you’re exploring. And Flame, Cleanse Me!, which wipes both poison and Scarlet Rot along with their buildup – the difference between Caelid being a nightmare and Caelid being an errand. Assassin’s Approach silences your footsteps and softens fall damage. Rejection shoves enemies off ledges, which is either a tactic or a hobby depending on your temperament.
That’s the entire package, for one level.
Compare that to the Samurai at 8 Faith, needing four levels to reach the same shelf. Or the Warrior, same story. On any other Dexterity origin, this stuff reads as a detour you’ll get around to eventually and then never do. On Idus, it’s a single point on the way to somewhere else.
If you want to keep pushing, 15 Faith gets you Flame, Grant Me Strength – 20% more Physical and Fire damage for 30 seconds, and one of the best pre-boss buttons in the game. From 11, that’s four levels. Not free, but a very reasonable ask by the time you’re clearing Stormveil.
One thing to skip: Bloodflame Blade also sits at 12 Faith, but it needs 10 Arcane as well, and Idus starts at 6. That’s four levels in a stat this build has no other use for. It’s a great buff on the right character. This may not be the right character.
That Faith stat, more than the sword, is why I’d pick this class.
About That Nerf
Small thing, but worth logging for anyone who tracks this stuff.
The Heavy Knight leaked out of a playtest last year at level 8. It shipped at level 10, with those two extra points landing in Mind and Faith. PC Gamer noted that buildcrafters had gotten fairly worked up over how aggressively min-maxed the leaked spread was, and the final version is a touch less so.
For a normal playthrough this is completely irrelevant. Two levels at the bottom of the curve cost you a rounding error in runes. For anyone doing a level-capped build, PvP at meta, or a challenge run, it’s two points of dead weight you can’t remove. File it accordingly.
And Where I’d Start, Once it’s Live
Idus Knight, and the first rune I spend goes into Faith to hit 12. One level for regeneration, a heal, and rot cleansing is the best rate of return you will ever get in this game, and everything after that can go into Vigor with a clear conscience.
If you’re new to the Lands Between and reading this trying to pick, though? Heavy Knight. That equip load budget means you can wear armor that actually stops things while you learn the fights, and slow weapons forgive a lot of mistakes that fast ones don’t.
What we still don’t know
Here’s where I stop and admit the limits, because there’s a fair bit of confident-sounding nonsense floating around about these two.
The starting gear isn’t confirmed. Every wiki still lists both loadouts as pending. We know the broad strokes – Heavy Knight gets a curved greatsword and heavy plate, both new; Idus Knight gets a lighter armor set, a light greatsword and a matching shield. Names and stats, we don’t have.
The Idus Knight’s sword is an open question. Most of the press coverage says the class starts with the Milady, the light greatsword from Shadow of the Erdtree. That reading came from the reveal art and it might well be right. But there’s a competing account, traced to that same playtest, saying it’s actually a brand-new light greatsword with lower stat requirements.
There’s one piece of evidence worth weighing here. The Milady requires 12 Strength and 17 Dexterity to wield. The Idus Knight starts with 13 and 15. Two points short of its own signature weapon.
That’s cheap to fix on your end – two levels at the bottom of the curve is nothing. But it does mean only two things can be true. Either the Idus Knight starts with a different, new light greatsword built around its stat line, or it really is the Milady and FromSoftware has lowered its requirements to fit the class.
I lean toward the first. Shipping a class that can’t equip the sword it’s holding in the promo art would be a strange call, and the “new weapon” account has the more specific detail behind it. But leaning isn’t knowing, and neither reading is confirmed. August 28 settles it, and I’d rather tell you it’s open than guess and be wrong in a guide people are following.
The Short Version
Heavy Knight is an Endurance class in a Strength class’s coat – take it for equip load and poise, not damage, and don’t build around Ashes of War with that Mind stat. Idus Knight trades a bit of survivability for a Faith stat that sits exactly one level below the game’s best utility tier, which makes it the most efficient Dexterity opening available.
Neither one breaks the game. Both are worth five bucks if you were going to start a new run anyway.
Once the pack is live and I’ve got hands on both, I’ll follow this up with proper build guides – starting with that Faith hybrid, because I’ve been wanting an excuse to run one for months. And before anyone points it out in the comments: the two Bandit’s Curved Swords don’t count. That was a proper Faith build. A hybrid is a different sickness entirely.
Which one are you starting with? Drop it in the comments – I’m taking requests for which build guide to write first.
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