While there may not be an option as straight-up busted as the master key from Dark Souls 1, DS3 still has a nice selection of helpful tools to pick from! But like all things Dark Souls, not all options are equal. So we’re going to rank each of the burial gifts, right now!
9. Cracked Red Eye Orb
Invasion is particularly rampant in the early-game, so you’d think these would be higher up. Thing is, invasion isn’t possible until the high wall, and that just so happens to be where you can get the red eye orb itself – not the cracked one, the infinite-use version. This is done via Leonhardt’s questline, who can be found in Firelink after getting the second bonfire on the high wall. After just 3 steps of his questline, you can nab the red eye orb for yourself, and invade to your heart’s content! That does render this burial gift useless, but hey – there’s plenty of other options.
8. Hidden Blessing
If you’ve seen our top consumables listing, you’ll know I’m not a fan of the blessings. And the worst of them – the hidden blessing – just doesn’t cut it. If you manage your ashen estus even slightly, you’ll never need this item. It’s single-use, extremely niche, and honestly pretty worthless. Even if you’re doing a spell-only run chances are you won’t need a hidden blessing – that’s how weak it is.
7. Divine Blessing
Let’s just get them both out of the way. Divine blessings are the HP version of hidden blessings – they fully heal you and cure status ailments. Whilst not quite as bad as a hidden blessing, you still only get one. That’s one full heal. It can be a life-saver in a pinch, but it’s so situational and limited that you’ll either forget you have it, pop it when you don’t need it, or think it too good to use. And in the rare situation it saves your life – cool! But it’s gone now…
6. Sovereignless Soul
The soul is another pop-it-and-forget-it situation, except this one will actually have lasting effects! The soul, as you might imagine, gives you souls – 2000 of them! Which is quite a few early-game. You can use this to buy some early gear or consumables or even get a couple of extra levels, which can help you establish your build early! However, you could always just take a few minutes to farm up some extra souls if you want. They’re literally the easiest-to-acquire thing in the game.
5. Life Ring
The life ring is a nice choice for players who are honest with themselves, and anticipate taking an extra hit here and there. Equipping it grants +7% max HP, which in many situations could be the difference between life and death! The vigor it grants also means you might not have to level HP quite so early, allowing you to invest your stats elsewhere! And with how limited rings are early-game, you’ll probably be wearing this for a long time, so you’ll get plenty of bang for your burial gift buck. It may not be the most flashy or interesting, but it’s reliable!
4. Black Firebombs
Black firebombs are one of those things that you’ll probably never buy, but are happy to have. They’re really useful to have against a ton of enemies, but are especially effective at shutting down teleporting dogs and the early-game instant-kill kings pus of man. Using them on the pus will net you a handful of early titanite shards too! Which will help power up your weapons that little bit earlier. Additionally, these firebombs chunk Gundyr during his second phase, which is great for the newer players out there. And it’s not just early-game – trading a black firebomb with the crow atop Firelink will get you a titanite chunk!
3. Gold Coin
Gold coins are incredibly powerful and very limited, and are perfect for the player who wants to build their run around a specific rare drop. Consuming one grants a massive 100 item discovery for 60 seconds, which will make getting that piece of gear a breeze. And the cherry on top? You get 7 of them. That’s more than all of the gold coins that exist in the entire game – DLC included!
2. Young White Branch
The white branch is really more of a quality-of-life choice, but an incredible one, nonetheless. On paper, a single-use chameleon might not seem useful, but this branch is not for using! Instead, it’s an automatic peace offering with the giant in the undead settlement, meaning he’ll never target you with his massive arrows! Sure, you could go talk to him before going to the curse rotted greatwood, but this item saves you the trip and streamlines the early-game so much.
1. Fire Gem
And now, our number 1 pick: the fire gem. Looking back at our top infusions list, raw infusions are the best for early-game, as leveling your meager physical stats will barely affect your weapons damage at all! The fire gem circumvents this by removing all scaling from your weapon, instead giving you a nice chunk of fire damage. This frees up your early-game levels for much more useful stats such as vigor or endurance. And what’s more, fire damage (similar to the firebombs) completely shuts down pus of man and dogs, which can be the most frustrating enemies for low levels!
