The Best Burial Gift in Dark Souls 3 – Complete Breakdown

When creating your character in Dark Souls 3, you‘re presented with a choice of one "burial gift" to start your journey with. From rare consumables to permanent upgrades, these freebies can provide small but meaningful advantages over the perilous road ahead.

But with 9 options available, how do you discern the best burial gift to compliment your build and playstyle?

As a passionate Dark Souls 3 player with hundreds of hours across 12 playthroughs, I‘ve tested every gift extensively using a wide variety of builds. In this definitive guide, we‘ll be inspecting the pros and cons of each one to help determine the greatest long-term value.

Let‘s kick things off with a rundown of all potential gifts:

Overview of Burial Gift Options

• Life Ring – Ring providing 7-8% bonus HP when equipped
• Divine Blessing – Fully restores health and cures statuses when used
• Hidden Blessing – Fully restores FP (mana) when used
• Black Firebombs x5 – Throwable explosives dealing high fire damage
• Fire Gem – Allows infusing a weapon with fire damage
• Sovereignless Soul – Yields 2,000 souls when consumed
• Rusted Gold Coins x7 – Briefly boosts item discovery when used
• Cracked Red Eye Orbs x5 – Allows invasion of another player‘s world
• Young White Branch – Transforms user into a harmless object

At first glance, Black Firebombs and Life Ring jump out as early contenders for the best choices. But let‘s take a closer look at each gift‘s unique strengths and shortcomings.

Why Life Ring Stands Above the Rest

Throughout all of my Dark Souls 3 playtesting, one burial gift continously proved its unmatched early-game advantages:

The Life Ring

This unassuming little ring provides a constant HP boost ranging from 7-8% depending on your Vigor stat. That may not seem like much, but escaping lethal blows with single digit health constantly reminds you of its power.

Unlike the many temporary consumable gifts, Life Ring provides reliable benefits that never expire, including:

• Increased life expectancy against early punishing bosses
• Ability to endure devastating enemy combos
• More raw HP restored from each Estus Flask charge
• Synergy with more potent Life Rings found later on

And perhaps most importantly – its practical advantages remain relevant all the way through end-game. Many gifts lose their luster after the first few areas once better gear is obtained. But extra health is always useful in Dark Souls.

These sustained protections make Life Ring well worth starting every build with. Keep it equipped at all times and watch your survivability soar.

Alternative Top Choices for Specific Builds

However, depending on your chosen playstyle, a few other situationally useful gifts can provide better short-term advantages:

Black Firebombs for New Players

While their long-term value is low, Black Firebombs truly shine against the very first true boss you face:

Iudex Gundyr

This lumbering behemoth serves as the game‘s skill check, annihilating many new players with his aggressive moveset. But using those 5 precious Black Firebombs to pepper his health bar down pre-fight helps tremendously.

When the battle starts, keep distance and chuck bombs while evading Gundyr‘s charges. If done properly, you can shave off nearly half his HP before pulling out your melee weapon. This trivializes the first phase, letting you save Estus for later.

So for players who want to dampen that initial major hurdle, Black Firebombs are a fine choice. Just don‘t expect them to retain value for very long afterwards.

Hidden Blessing for Pure Sorcerers

Magic and skill-focused builds revolve around FP (mana), the resource fueling spells, weapon arts, and skills. Which is why Hidden Blessing can provide a major advantage:

Rather than splitting your Estus between HP and FP recovery, Hidden Blessing serves as your emergency mana potion. Pop it after emptying your FP bar and immediately replenish back to full.

This effectively gives you limitless casts to unleash on enemies. Rather than struggling with spell quotas, focus on dodging and tactical ability usage instead.

Now, as a single use item, its long-term advantages shrink quickly. But early on in areas like High Wall of Lothric, unlimited FP sustains you nicely before better Ashen Estus upgrades come along.

Why Other Gifts Disappoint

We‘ve covered the creme of the crop. As for the remaining burial gifts, their highly situational uses or brief effects make them hard to recommend over Life Ring, Black Firebombs, or Hidden Blessing:

• Divine Blessing – Like Hidden Blessing but restores HP instead. Fine emergency item but lacks longevity.
• Fire Gem – Decent for an early Raw weapon infusion but outclassed soon after by better gems.
• Sovereignless Soul – The 2,000 free souls provide quick level ups, but soul grinding achieves similar results.
• Rusted Gold Coins – Negligible item discovery increase. Better obtained organically through luck.
• Cracked Red Eye Orbs – Invading other players this early with limited gear tends to end poorly.
• Young White Branch – Very limited deception utility. More of a novelty than proper tool.

While these consumable and niche gifts can provide transient advantages, their constrained applications fail to match permanently beneficial effects of Life Ring.

Takeaways largely boil down to sustainability – temporary boosts diminish, but the health amplification of Life Ring persists eternally. And in Dark Souls, longevity equals victory.

Final Verdict – Life Ring Reigns Supreme

Weighing all evidence from my extensive testing across varying builds and strategies, Life Ring stands clearly as Dark Soul 3‘s best burial gift.

However, players struggling against Iudex Gundyr may benefit more initially from Black Firebombs to counter that punishing first boss. Similarly, spellcasting builds rely heavily on Hidden Blessing‘s emergency FP restoration for early sustainability.

But in all other cases, Life Ring‘s permanent health bonus provides advantages that no other gift compares with. Those extra few digits of HP relieve frustration throughout the entire brutal journey.

Hopefully this breakdown gives you confidence choosing your own ideal starter gift in Dark Souls 3. Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions!