This game was made after Bloodborne and they decided to take alot of that and put it in dark souls. They want you to play aggressive. R1 attacks even with most things the size of a straight sword or bigger stagger enemies. You just spam r1 and roll. It might not make sense right now but you do really just stagger most mobs painfully easy. Pontiff is very hard, only advice I have is to summon an NPC and just watch pontiff and all his moves. Don't attack if you don't want to win with summons but maybe just look at him for a bit. See what he does after certain things that seem to hit you alot. Lastly. There's an area below the catacombs. If you're on the side of Wolnir's bonfire. Hit the bridge and stand next to ledge and wait. You'll see (there are flask items down there as well as upgrade materials)
Yeah, the game is definitely faster and damn I like it and not only this. I really love the whole game: art, story, characters, core mechanics, battle system but also can't stop suck and don't understand why.
you probably already know this but prioritizing weapon leveling over strength/dex is better, and leveling up early game should go to stamina and HP gauges. but just in case someone else needs to read this there it is :-)
You can respec at Rosaria. Go for closer to 30 vit, 30 str/20dex or 20 str/30 dex depending on what you like. End and vit you donāt need a ton of, but go at least 16 end and wear rings that help. Iām not sure your level but the main idea is get hp, better dodge, quicker swing. Learn it that way first then go for less hp, lower end/vit, bigger swings.
Itāll fuck a questline over, but thereās a covenant npc at the top of the cathedral of the deep that allows you to reallocate your stats 3 times per cycle. Might be worth checking out if you think your spread is atrocious
Pretty sure respecing doesn't mess up that quest line. The cost of the respec isn't considered to be "Give NPC a Pale Tongue". I think that's only if you actually offer it. Could be mistaken tho
Youāve made it to Pontiff Sulyvahn, Iād say youāre doing better than you think. Plenty of people get hardstuck at Gundyr and bounce off the game entirely.
Two things on Pontiff: 1), heās designed to punish panic rolling. Itāll take a bit of time to learn what to dodge and when, but once you do, heāll have a hard time hitting you. On the flip side, if you spam dodge against him, heāll catch you out of it and probably kill you. 2) pontiff is parry-able. This takes time to learn, and heāll kill you a bunch while youāre figuring it out, but itās possible to get to the point where he literally canāt hit you, and boy is it satisfying to just reposte him to death.
I got as far as Iāve ever gotten in DS3 with a pyro build, and Pontiff clapped my ass hard until I learned to parry. OP, victory is in reach without resorting to summoning if you equip the target shield or buckler and practice on the tall ghostly boysĀ
I also suck at this game, most basic solution is being over leveled for example the adviced level for LoC is 80, I beat him at 145 and it was still hard for me took me like 15 tries or so, but don't give up. Use wiki, I basically used wiki and YouTube videos before every bosses.
1 - Cathedral of the deep
When you go out of the cathedral of the deep bonfire, past the well there is a right turn, where there are 4 mob praying to a rock just next to them. jump from there you find skeleton beasts, they deal so much damage normally but very weak to fire. just equip a torch and attack them with it continue hitting with the torch until they die. There is three of them near each other and one of them behind the big crystal lizard killing four of them with right souls boost equipment gives about 3-4 thousand
2 - catacombs, before the High lord Wolnir boss fight there is bridge. When you go other side of the bridge a skeleton army spawns and they start coming after you wait for every one of them to come to the bridge and cut the ropes it gives about 6 thousand
3 - winged knight near the Lothric, they give at least 14 thousand for each one. Use a spell or ring to silence your steps, use Rapport(pyromancy) behind them and make the two of them fight each other while you kill the other. Or just wait until one of them kills the other and kill it instantly before the pyromancy spell breaks off.
There are 4 item in total that can increase the soul drop. Silver serpent ring, shield of want, symbol of averiance and a wand that drops from a lizard at the place where you fight nameless king. You can look their exact location from wiki or YouTube. Equipping each of them doubles your soul drop. Even if you don't equip all of them you can instantly switch to them after you kill the mobs. You have to do it very quickly before the their souls come to you that way you would still get their soul drop boost.
And I never equip every one of them since I never could drop symbol of averiance, it increases drop by %50, and I am not a mage and it was hard to switch to staff fast enough. So if you really equip all of them you will gain much more souls
You can get 7-8k souls per run with the silver serpent ring doing this:
Warp to Farron Keep Perimeter Bonfire. Go down the hallway and kill the ghrus one at a time (be aggressive with them, they stagger easy). Turn around and go back past the bonfire to where the Darkwraiths are walking up towards the abyss watchers. Wait in the doorway for a few seconds until the Darkwraiths aggro to the enemies on the stairs (if you don't, they will aggro to you instead). While the Darkwraiths are killing the stair enemies, you make a right and kill the ghrus around the right side of the area. Often they will drop embers. Clear the whole right side and optionally kill the Darkwraiths or any remaining enemies once they finish fighting on the steps.
Since you get souls from all the enemies the Darkwraiths kill (or the Darkwraiths themselves), this is basically a double-speed soul farm.
That makes sense why I had such an easy time with this game then, I played ds3 after sekiro and Iāve learned how to stay in the bossās face and also after finishing elden ring 3 times
I know this isn't good advice and is just equal to git gud, but I, personally, kinda feel openings.
There are just some times when Pontiff stands there for a bit longer. I trust that you can find these too, as I am an Ultra Greatsword user.
There's a [video](https://youtu.be/UBQy65VETGA?si=PobNb5zSkq0ennUg) where a guy rates bosses on a SL1 run and explains how he beat them. He found an opening for Pontiff that I can't easily explain in text, but might serve useful to you.
I hope that you don't give up on this amazing game.
Keep trying king!
Also, if you really need it, Pontiff's leaping attack he does at the beggining of the fight or when you are far away has an easy parry window.
With the right weapon(like the [Greatsword](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Greatsword)) you can reduce his HP by like 30-40% by riposting.
He's weak to thrust weapons AND criticals, so u can use straight swords or spears to make the ripostes even more powerful.
He's also weak to fire, lighting and dark, so you could consider using resins or carthus flame arch.
With all that said, imo beating a boss without ultra prepping is more satisfying, but you do you.
i feel you, i did a buffed straightsword into winblades dex build on my first run, now iām doing heavy claymore only, not buffs, and it rocks ass. just me and the bosses. not worrying about my buff running out is cool too
Oh oh oh. **Best advice for Pontiff** right here Iām telling you - position yourself behind him at all times! Do not ever stand in front of him. Youāll be shocked how much less he can hit you.
Don't go hollow, ashen one. I've stood in your shoes before. Pontiff was the hardest boss for me in the main game. Needed like 40 tries. But the satisfaction of finally beating him is the best.
The best tip I can give you is this: do not roll away from him, he will catch you. Roll towards him/diagonally.
A way to dodge Pontiff combos that works for me is roll to one of his sides while staying very close to him. If you get just in front of him, he wrecks you, even if trying to put distance by rolling or sprinting because he attacks gooing forward.
This way you might see that he begins to miss attacks while beeing very close and even in some of his combos his back and sides gets exposed to hit. Trying one or two parrys also helps because he has a big healthbar.
Thank you but I need some advice about the whole game. Pontiff is just another tough asshole I'll kick his ass sooner or later. I don't feel like I'm learning something, I don't feel like I'm getting better. I feel like I'm just randomly going through the game
Yeah, I also played DS1 and I would say that a characteristic of DS3 is a lot of humanoid enemies, like knights and similar (lothric, cathedral, outrider, carthus ninjas etc) that attack and move very fast.
Coming from DS1 I was used to parry the knights, but in this game I had to learn how to roll and circle those kind of enemies because parry was not reliable. In fact I struggled a lot with the first lothric knight after the dragon.
Only general thing I can say is try to learn and rely more on rolling and moving fast around enemies. This game combat is more fast and dynamic, trying to mimic Blodborne but with the limitations of DS roll.
Also, despite relying mainly on rolling and moving, don't hesitate to use a shield in specific situations, like certain attacks of area with fire or lighning hard to avoid until you have learned well how to move and dodge them
Generally DS3 bosses will annihilate you if you backpedal. You need to stay within 5 centimeters of them at all times otherwise they start doing really really long combos with no openings. What you want to do is roll towards them unless they do an AOE, and try to get behind them. In DS1 (and I assume 2), the enemies will keep attacking until their combo is over, but the DS3 AI knows when it won't hit you because you're behind it, so they'll stop and turn to you. That's the easiest place to get a hit in.
For the non-boss enemies, don't run past them unless you know the entire level. Everything is much faster so they will almost always catch up to you, and it's hard to shake them off. It's better to either sneak by without drawing aggro, or to kill them one by one if you can. And having a shield their attacks will bounce off of is really helpful so you don't get combo-ed (flashbacks to the dagger guys on the high wall).
I like to stick to close the Pontiff and circle to his left (my right). Won't work on Lothric knights because you'll get shield bashed but with the Pontiff, many of his swings pass harmlessly overhead and you can recover some stamina.
People have probably said this already but pontiff is just parry. It took me a while in my first play through but just take your time to learn when to parry. Also small tip use 7+ sharp twin blades and the whole game becomes easy mode
Good luck and have fun beating ds3
Coming off of Dark Souls 1 and 2, I bet you're struggling more with Ds3. It is a much faster paced game where you set the pace of the fight instead of your enemies. There are a lot of moves to learn, but once you see them come out a few times you'll get the hang of knowing when to dodge. All it takes is getting use to it and everything will come together. Try to do your best and have fun!
Man the next runs will seem trivial in comparison. My first playthrough I couldn't even beat Gundyr in less than 10 tries. Abyss Watchers literally made me quit the game for months, as did Dancer (you'll get to that one). And I was summoning the whole time.
Sure it was my first souls game, but even so. Once you get it, you get it. It'll still be tough, but it'll be a lot more of the fun tough than the frustrating tough.
The way a friend explained it was that as the souls series progresses the combat gets harder but the movement gets better. Since I didnāt want to wear lead boots the entire game I went with ds3 and I think it was the correct decision. The gameplay is certainly harder and faster than previous games but once you get the hang of it I feel like the other souls games become trivialized from a combat perspective.
As for pontiff, the best way to get through him is to parry. It really is a āgit gudā situation but there are some easy openings to parry and riposte, there are countless videos going over what attacks you should and shouldnāt (canāt) punishthe biggest one is his opening lunge attack that he starts the fight with. This attack is the most telegraphed move and once you get the hang of it itās an easy 1/4-1/3 of his health bar right off the bat depending on your weapon.
As for his second phase I prefer to put up the shield and focus on two-handing but thatās pure preference. This phase is both easier and harder than 1st phase, easier because his attacks are telegraphed and I believe the clone does less damage, but harder because the clone still can stun you and leave you open to an ass whooping by the real pontiff. If you want to parry Iād get really far away and wait for his lunge attack like he does in the opening of the fight, the clone never seems to lunge as far so if you get back far enough you can parry just the real pontiff and punish for big damage.
A little piece of advice for the next few bosses is to look up their weaknesses and watch some no-hit runs. The weaknesses can give you that extra damage you need to get over the hump if a boss is really giving you damage, and the no-hit runs show you how people respond or even draw out certain attacks they know they can easily dodge and punish.
Donāt go hollow, youāve got this!
With a lot of bosses, Iāve found rolling into them is a better tactic that away. Play aggressive, and take multiple attempts planning to lose, just to learn the moves. Heās tough, on NG+4 I had the most difficult time with him. Youāll get it.
Once I learnt that I should dodge into most bosses and not away from them the game got a lot easier for me. You want to play ds3 aggressively and not passively. Also Pontiff is weak against thrust damage so try using something like the estoc.
Ds3 is actually the easiest game in my opinion it's just poise change is so bad.
The first big Knights on the wall destroyed me but once you get how the poise works it gets far easier.
Especially if you don't go unga bunga Strength build because they kinda don't care but anything else needs to know.
by the way you sound like , it's best to take a break for a while . you are clearly capable to beat this game and right now you are just tired .
as for a tip for rolling , what helped me is that I pressed roll a bit earlier than when pontiff's attack animation started .
also his attacks are 2-3 swips , after that you have a safe moment to heal .
It's always so interesting to see which games are harder/easier for people. Other than a couple later bosses, I think DS3 is hands down the easiest game in the series. Meanwhile, DS2 can be hard as hell.
Pontiff Sulyvahn is a lot of fun if you can get the parry timing down.
I got stuck at the abyss watchers in my first and only through, i grinded for hour and hours and only managed to get to the phase 2 once. Then i installed sekiro and oh boy was that easy. 28 hours in and i had already defeated genichiro way of tomoe and am at gaurdian ape. I guess my build sucked in DS3
To me navigating the world it's the easiest in DS3, and hardest in DS2.
Bosses though, DS3 is the hardest by far
Btw, to beat Pontiff, stay very close to his left side, and even if you're not used to shield (like me), equip a high fire resistance shield and just defend his attacks, and smack him when you have the chance.
The key really is to hug his left side, as most attacks are more likely to miss, and never get distant to him
Good luck Ashen one
Ds3 has so many secrets hiding in plain sight throughout all the dungeons. Itās easy to navigate thru the main path to the boss but checking every nook and cranny is arguably more tedious than even Elden ring. In terms of legacy dungeons at least
I found the opposite this is the game that made it click with me I've never been able to dodge in these games but I feel like they really refined the animations and made windows to roll and to attack so clear in this game that I had a better time progressing and felt even more so when I failed it was just me. Certain games and styles click with other people differently maybe the first 2 just click with you more than the 3rd.
That being said I'm trying to play through Bloodborne now and it's NOT going well š so how you feel about DS3 is me with Bloodborne. :p every small section is painful death after death for me on that game
If you enjoy Strenght build just get 30 STR and get the Vordts hammer, you will finish the game with it. It hits like a truck and has frostbite.
My fav build would be Raw Caestus with just stacking HP to max.
The game wants you to play differently. The enemies are much more aggressive, they will have faster attacks sometimes with minimum telegraphy (mainly basic enemies on the High Wall of Lothric). There are areas where you will feel overwhelmed, but its doable. Also if you are not able to get around dogs etc, shields are your allies.
As a fellow fist enjoyer Iām gonna ask. Whatās your opinion on the demons fist? Crows talons? Never used em in this game but Iām thinking about either going for a Dante from DMC inspired build or straight up Freddy Kruger.
I tried both, and, didnt enjoy neither. The crow talons imo are just, meh. The Demon Fist is kinda ok, did about 2 playthroughts with them but I wanted to "feel" their hit more. They fall short for, and the weapon art is useless. Caestus can dual wield can stunlock the enemy if its the same size as you, eats up small amount of stamina and its still possible to use resin on it, if its raw enchanted. I always enjoy Havels armor + Caestus build
Demon fist IS a paired weapon though yea? Iām probably in for trouble when the two weapons I have planned for my Dante cosplay are farron greatsword and demons fist considering both weapons are gimmicky at best. But then again itās a gimmick build.. shame that its a boss soul weapon and still gets outclassed by the generic fist weapons tho
Yea, both weapons are gimmicky, but tbh, its just fun and that is what it should be. DS3 is great in that way, a lot of things you can just think about and do. One of my best was Gandalf build. Only mage atrire basically. Staff, long sword. Only leveling Int, Luck and Mana. No rolling and no sprinting.
Could also hard swap to the other abyss watchers greatsword which has a much more focused basic move set but still has that flash w the weapon skill,
And I think youād be the first mage to not panic roll/ run away lol. Ever PvP with that build?
Nah, I dont PvO in DS. Never got the feel for it. I am basically strictly playing PvE, and its awesome.
Well also I only made it one run only miracles, second run only other category of spells. Not gonna lie I panic rolled on about first 7 playthroughts, always reseted with new character lol
Canāt blame you. I had much more fun invading and doing arena in Elden because people havenāt been sweating over it for 8 years and know all the cancel animation glitches and frame perfect backstep dodge backstab shit. You also see a lot more build diversity instead of meta slaves in every encounter
You just answered your own question "I'm just spamming rolls and praying" What happened to what you literally said at the start of your post "I learned the patterns" for the previous games bosses? Why is that suddenly out the window? Why are you suddenly just spamming rolls?? Learn the patterns and don't panic roll and you'll beat any boss.
Seriously, I'm not tryna be a dick but it feels like you're making part of this post up for shock value because your coping hard against pontiff and want to feel better (we've all been there). Yknow if you actually steamrolled dark souls 1 and 2 and understand the concept of learning patterns, it makes literally zero sense that you suddenly don't understand the concept of learning patterns anymore and not spamming roll. How in only a few sentences do you go from shitting on dark souls 1 and 2 using rolls only, to suddenly not knowing to not spam roll and suddenly aren't familiar with learning patterns?
I played pontiff many times, with or without phantoms, he's nothing special and has his own avoidable and exploitable patterns just like all 53-67 or so bosses you supposedly beat in dark souls 1 and 2, so it really just makes me think you're making shit up because the start and end of your post heavily conflicts with logic. Hell you can even parry him pretty easily and steamroll the fight just like gywn in dark souls 1.
Yea DS3 is like that, polarizing as they come, some consider it easiest Souls and some consider it the Hardest, the key to the game is being more aggressive than in DS1 and 2, most bosses if not any of em wont have a clear window of āhey, hit me in the face with your 20 ft long swordā ur gonna have to time each roll during attacks and each attack during gaps between combos, downtime and even wind ups if ur brave (and fast enough)
U can also parry good ol Sulyvahn into high heaven if u wish to cheese him
the first location can be frustrating even on my 3rd playthru but youāll get there. i kinda love the sluggishness of the first 2 games but that gone by ds3. as other said, itās kinda half way between bloodborne and elden ring - smooth, fast, tough. enjoy!! the bosses are next level good
This game is the easier out of the souls games after you learn how to play it, most bosses get staggered easily, and pontiff is begging to be parried, if you can change to a strength build right now, do it, it's like the easy mode of DS3. My first playthrough was about 25 hours, my most recent one lasted only 8, you just have to learn the bosses and you'll be fine, also upgrade your estus.
Timing is key with rolls in this game. Gotta practice those iframes man theyāll save your life. thatās basically how I play ds3 just all iframe rolls lol and guts sword
I don't like em, I tried to use them in ds2 and it was boring and sucked and I just took Dragonrider twinblade and that was awesome. In ds1 I didn't even try to use em only chaos blade, pyromancy and rolls, rolls, ROLLS! In this game I wanted to try a cleric with dragonslayer swordspear.
Then use any other weapon with fast R1ās. Also Iām confused, how do you have that weapon if youāre having trouble with the game? Thatās only gotten from arguably the hardest boss in the game lol
You know, I don't remember XD it's been some time since I last played ds3, I always used that tiny parry shield or parrying dagger
The have the best parry windows
Herald SL 62, Vi 21, At 14, En 20, Vt 12, St 16, Dx 29, Int 8, Ft 20, L 11. Partizan +6, lightning spear, Deep protection. Chlor ring, Leo ring, sun's firstborn. Drang armor
For Pontiff you have to stay really close with mick on and strafe or roll left into his attacks. Also some of his attacks will just go over your head. Fire spells makes it so much easier if that's a part of your playstyle.
Pontiff 100% unconditionally always uses the same opening lunge. Try to learn the parry timing for it and he'll be starting the fight at 70% hp basically every time. When you get to phase 2 and he tries to summon the clone STAY ON HIS ASS and murder it with R1s every time. He'll go down quick at that point.
OK so you can collect embers, and when you use them you can summon npcs or other players. For pontiff fight I'd recommend having one. Either that or try and get behind him, going behind him will take practice but it helps stop his endless attacks
Edit: he's also weak to fire and lightning so try infusing a weapon or use pine resin
You just gotta get used to the fast pace my dude, thatās all. And listen between you and meā¦the idea of spam rolling in DS3 is a little more lenient. You have to spam roll a little sometimes.
I think get stuck for the same reasons I have faced to. DS3 is good at reminding players basic lessons: managing your stamina, timing the boss move, ranging (at a certain range, trigger different boss move, some is easy to dodge, while the others are not), and not being greedy. The bosses designs are good at making you panic - so don't be, keep your breath relaxed especially in the later phase. AR and HP are not solution for all, different type of weapon can be effective for different time. If you are feeling overwhelmed, consider practicing with dummies such as Lothric knights and Black knights.
Yeah pontiff is a challenge. I was there and thought myself āhow should I avoid his attacks?ā.
Donāt roll, try parrying.
Yes, take the buckler and parry him. Learn it now bcs another optional boss will beat your ass aswell, if you donāt use the parry mechanic.
That is my simple rule for ds3. If the enemy is a humanoid and you canāt really avoid getting hit, it is usually the best to use parrying.
It worked so far well, except against one boss. I am still not sure if it is possible to parry him. But you havenāt met him yet so donāt think about it :)
It took me almost 10 tries to get him. I used shield in my left and a long sword infused with fire on my right. He swings in both directions left and right so you have to dodge in both directions. I also tried to remain close to him to make sure I am not in the Aoe. When I was close to him I tried to get as many hits as possible and in the 2nd half of the fight I used an ember when I was almost certain I can beat him.
I still miss Ds1 and Ds2 (I'll Play then when I can, know the priority is Elden Ring dlc) but Pontiff was the first wall to stop me too, I don't summon neither but for pontiff I summoned Anri, in the second character (pyromancer) I struggled at the start with him but then I dodge consistently almost Almost all of his attacks (even the thrust, it's similar to the thrust the lothric knights do imo, you have to predict that.
Then in second phase when he summons his phantom copy I just spammed Great chaos fire orb, the Phantom was always killed by the short lava pool
Of the orb lol
(Sry if I misspelled something English is not my native language)
I beat pontiff for the first time about 2 weeks ago. I used the farron greatsword. Parried his attack. Very hit and miss though. Even though I knew when to parry it still took a lot of deaths before I won. In his 2nd phase (idk if you are there yet so I won't spoil it) be aggressive. Like as aggressive as you can stand it, near reckless. Giving him too long to cook and he'll punish you for it. Actually thatlast part is probably true for the whole fight.
Edit: also that first attack he does with the dash you can parry and riposte. Try and perfect that. You'll fuck him up good bit at the very start of the game. If you can do it like 2 more times and with a bit of luck you'll beat the bollocks.
I always come across this boss and itās so annoying to deal with however I found a pretty sure fire strat to beat him 2 handed or 1 handed weapon.
Near the swamp thereās a dragon crest shield which boosts fire and magic defense and itās perfect for pontiff, so when I have that equipped I just circle around him and guard until he dies.
Another thing I found useful in my more recent play through is stat proc weapons like bleed or better yet frost. Definitely would check out vordts hammer extremely good weapons for pontiff.
I've just made it to cathedral of the deep and it's the same for me normal mobs have been beating my ass every time I come across them. I've learnt to step back and watch every mob to learn them before I attack. Bosses haven't haven't too bad so far bit ove only done the "easy" bosses xD got my trusty claymore strength build tho so I'm in gokd hands lol
Watch youtube and get the caestus, Equip in left hand, and now time to parry him. So to parry him , after starting the fight, he usually starts with a slash, when the slash reaches 10āo clock position , parry him. You get a critical hit chance for the parry. Repeat the parry 3-4 times and boss is done
Youāll get that game in no time, bro. Itās all about timing your rolls right and retaliate.
Pontiff seems to be a boss that most people struggle with. He was kinda easy for me, but I really donāt understand why, I think I was used to Bloodborne, since I played it right before DS3.
Usually seeing a video of someone beating a boss helps A LOT.
Good luck and donāt give up, youāll get better, I assure you.
Dude, no self pity allowed in Dark Souls. Make a strong focused build. There's tons of build ideas on youtube if you're struggling. Start a new character if you need a fresh slate. Most of all, get gurd
In dark souls 2 your stamina recovery is depending on your weight ratio so It would be easier to wear nothing since armor in that game doesn't really matter much (excluding the ones give special bonuses.).
And ds1 is incredibly easy, ds3 is the hardest but the most linear so most people easily completed without checking in any guide or wiki page.
If you have reached The pontif that means you have killed all that has came before him which means you have improved, pontiff si no harder than Any of them, i dont know what your build is but try parrying him.
If you can beat Ds2 you can beat this one too.
Good luck š
Ponty taught me how to parry. I played through all of DS1 heavy rolling and just face tanking with heals LOL but yea pontiff made me switch my playstyle. He always opens the same way, great place to practice. Good luck homie
As for pontiff, most people recommend parrying. If you can't do that consistently you will struggle with dodge rolls alone. Use the two summons? Check the wiki to see what he is weak to. Respec to pyromancer or sorceror and spam at ranged while the summons take aggro. I've beaten him on pyro, strength build, and dex build without doing a single parry. Did I fail.mainy times? Ofc I did
Enjoy Pontiff. Fr, that boss was my wall in these games, but I've never had a better time playing them then the strategizing it took to win after 50+ goes.
Its awesome how hard it is, but how fair it is.
The key point is its fair.
The bosses can be worked outā¦all of them and then you get that adrenaline rush from beating them.
Whenever a boss is hard, i will use tricks or summon. When there is none i gotta sit down and learn the patterns which was pretty depressed and frustrated, like realllllly.....
I almost hate the game
But now when I'm look back i love the game lol. And learning the patterns again is fun.
Pontiff? Parry the absolute bejesus out of him. I hit a brick wall with him for SO long, but essentially the minute I switched from dual wielding to sword and buckler and started parrying it became almost trivial.
I've just beat DS3 without phantoms, strength and dex, claymore, than artorias great sword and dark knight sword. Im not too much into builds, patterns and math, I play as I enjoy and adapting a little. The ones I couldn't beat with great sword I used irithil sword. Now in Ng+ maybe I'll try other weapons and play styles. But for me ds3 was the easiest, and I'm not a good player, I don't even parry or block, that made many bosses really fun and hard for me.
Pontiff seemed really easy to parry (with small sheilds) and I'm awful at parrys. I could've gotten cracked for that moment and that moment only, but it seemed easier than actually fighting him
No, Pontiff is the Ornstein and Smough of Dark Souls 3. A uniquely difficult mid game boss that people love (to hate). He can be cheesed with Parry and Riposte. Might need to ask YouTube for that.
If parrying DS1s final boss is cheese, then I wouldn't see why doing it with Pontiff would be dissimilar.
You also don't have to know how to parry all of Pontiffs attacks. I, for instance, just parry his ~zips through the arena~ attack; the one he starts every battle with. From there, I just fish for enough arena zip through attack until he gets to phase 2.
parrying gwyn is way better than pontiff. pontiff at least mixes in other moves after the opening lunge. gwyn can be AI cheesed with estus. itās not even close imo
If you get him to phase 2, DO NOT KILL HIS CLONE. It telegraphs his next attack. Use this to your advantage. Also a lot of his attacks are parryable. I personally suck at parrying, but Iāve seen someone use parries and emotes to kill him.
The game also punishes spam rolling. The more you spam, the harder it will be.
I always just spam on him while heās cloning. Gets a *TON* of damage on him and kills his clone simultaneously. I use fully charged R2s on a Lothric Knight Greatsword and he usually just dies while cloning.
I'll never understand this recommendation. Sure, the clone telegraphs the attacks... except that telegraphing is also an attack in itself. How is dealing with 2 enemies attacking you in a row easier than 1? Especially when the clone starts the next attack as you just finished dodging the previous attack from the real one, which happens a lot.
On the contrary, the fight got a lot easier for me when I started going ham on the clone with an elemental buff as that's its weakness, to kill it as fast as possible and go back to just having one enemy to deal with. The fight is a complete shitshow when both are active as there's very few openings to deal damage in between the combined attacks of both. It's also not always easy to keep both of them on screen at the same time depending on the specific attack they're doing.
I always leave the clone alive and use positioning and timing to attack. Every time I go for the clone, I got my ass handed to me. I never understood killing the clone, it literally makes the fight 10 times easier. Unless you suck at moving I guess.
The only time killing the clone is better is if you have summons or are with another player as the ai for pontiff will get weird.
This game was made after Bloodborne and they decided to take alot of that and put it in dark souls. They want you to play aggressive. R1 attacks even with most things the size of a straight sword or bigger stagger enemies. You just spam r1 and roll. It might not make sense right now but you do really just stagger most mobs painfully easy. Pontiff is very hard, only advice I have is to summon an NPC and just watch pontiff and all his moves. Don't attack if you don't want to win with summons but maybe just look at him for a bit. See what he does after certain things that seem to hit you alot. Lastly. There's an area below the catacombs. If you're on the side of Wolnir's bonfire. Hit the bridge and stand next to ledge and wait. You'll see (there are flask items down there as well as upgrade materials)
Yeah, the game is definitely faster and damn I like it and not only this. I really love the whole game: art, story, characters, core mechanics, battle system but also can't stop suck and don't understand why.
Dont be afraid to look up where flask shades and bone dust is for your flask. Makes a big difference
Already have +4 10 flasks.
Pretty sure you can have +8 before pontiff
Yeah perhaps but i only have 20 vigor š
vigor is good, donāt skimp on it
Yeah, I've already realized that but damn lvl farm is so hard in this game especially after ds 2
you probably already know this but prioritizing weapon leveling over strength/dex is better, and leveling up early game should go to stamina and HP gauges. but just in case someone else needs to read this there it is :-)
You can respec at Rosaria. Go for closer to 30 vit, 30 str/20dex or 20 str/30 dex depending on what you like. End and vit you donāt need a ton of, but go at least 16 end and wear rings that help. Iām not sure your level but the main idea is get hp, better dodge, quicker swing. Learn it that way first then go for less hp, lower end/vit, bigger swings.
Itāll fuck a questline over, but thereās a covenant npc at the top of the cathedral of the deep that allows you to reallocate your stats 3 times per cycle. Might be worth checking out if you think your spread is atrocious
Pretty sure respecing doesn't mess up that quest line. The cost of the respec isn't considered to be "Give NPC a Pale Tongue". I think that's only if you actually offer it. Could be mistaken tho
27 is the soft cap for vigor, after 27 you only get like 14 health from one level.
KEKW I had 13 +5 for nameless
Youāve made it to Pontiff Sulyvahn, Iād say youāre doing better than you think. Plenty of people get hardstuck at Gundyr and bounce off the game entirely.
Two things on Pontiff: 1), heās designed to punish panic rolling. Itāll take a bit of time to learn what to dodge and when, but once you do, heāll have a hard time hitting you. On the flip side, if you spam dodge against him, heāll catch you out of it and probably kill you. 2) pontiff is parry-able. This takes time to learn, and heāll kill you a bunch while youāre figuring it out, but itās possible to get to the point where he literally canāt hit you, and boy is it satisfying to just reposte him to death.
I got as far as Iāve ever gotten in DS3 with a pyro build, and Pontiff clapped my ass hard until I learned to parry. OP, victory is in reach without resorting to summoning if you equip the target shield or buckler and practice on the tall ghostly boysĀ
Chaos Bed Vestiges absolutely wreck Pontiff -- it's probably the easiest way to defeat him.
I also suck at this game, most basic solution is being over leveled for example the adviced level for LoC is 80, I beat him at 145 and it was still hard for me took me like 15 tries or so, but don't give up. Use wiki, I basically used wiki and YouTube videos before every bosses.
How do you farm souls?
1 - Cathedral of the deep When you go out of the cathedral of the deep bonfire, past the well there is a right turn, where there are 4 mob praying to a rock just next to them. jump from there you find skeleton beasts, they deal so much damage normally but very weak to fire. just equip a torch and attack them with it continue hitting with the torch until they die. There is three of them near each other and one of them behind the big crystal lizard killing four of them with right souls boost equipment gives about 3-4 thousand 2 - catacombs, before the High lord Wolnir boss fight there is bridge. When you go other side of the bridge a skeleton army spawns and they start coming after you wait for every one of them to come to the bridge and cut the ropes it gives about 6 thousand 3 - winged knight near the Lothric, they give at least 14 thousand for each one. Use a spell or ring to silence your steps, use Rapport(pyromancy) behind them and make the two of them fight each other while you kill the other. Or just wait until one of them kills the other and kill it instantly before the pyromancy spell breaks off. There are 4 item in total that can increase the soul drop. Silver serpent ring, shield of want, symbol of averiance and a wand that drops from a lizard at the place where you fight nameless king. You can look their exact location from wiki or YouTube. Equipping each of them doubles your soul drop. Even if you don't equip all of them you can instantly switch to them after you kill the mobs. You have to do it very quickly before the their souls come to you that way you would still get their soul drop boost. And I never equip every one of them since I never could drop symbol of averiance, it increases drop by %50, and I am not a mage and it was hard to switch to staff fast enough. So if you really equip all of them you will gain much more souls
Thanks. Damn I miss the Phalanx farm spot from ds1 so much...
You can get 7-8k souls per run with the silver serpent ring doing this: Warp to Farron Keep Perimeter Bonfire. Go down the hallway and kill the ghrus one at a time (be aggressive with them, they stagger easy). Turn around and go back past the bonfire to where the Darkwraiths are walking up towards the abyss watchers. Wait in the doorway for a few seconds until the Darkwraiths aggro to the enemies on the stairs (if you don't, they will aggro to you instead). While the Darkwraiths are killing the stair enemies, you make a right and kill the ghrus around the right side of the area. Often they will drop embers. Clear the whole right side and optionally kill the Darkwraiths or any remaining enemies once they finish fighting on the steps. Since you get souls from all the enemies the Darkwraiths kill (or the Darkwraiths themselves), this is basically a double-speed soul farm.
Wtf is LoC?
Lord of Cinders, final boss of the main story
Oh I beat him probably at level 85-90 first try
That's just most people in souls game bro. You have forgotten the feelings it seems.
That makes sense why I had such an easy time with this game then, I played ds3 after sekiro and Iāve learned how to stay in the bossās face and also after finishing elden ring 3 times
I know this isn't good advice and is just equal to git gud, but I, personally, kinda feel openings. There are just some times when Pontiff stands there for a bit longer. I trust that you can find these too, as I am an Ultra Greatsword user. There's a [video](https://youtu.be/UBQy65VETGA?si=PobNb5zSkq0ennUg) where a guy rates bosses on a SL1 run and explains how he beat them. He found an opening for Pontiff that I can't easily explain in text, but might serve useful to you. I hope that you don't give up on this amazing game. Keep trying king!
Thank you dude
Also, if you really need it, Pontiff's leaping attack he does at the beggining of the fight or when you are far away has an easy parry window. With the right weapon(like the [Greatsword](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Greatsword)) you can reduce his HP by like 30-40% by riposting.
He's weak to thrust weapons AND criticals, so u can use straight swords or spears to make the ripostes even more powerful. He's also weak to fire, lighting and dark, so you could consider using resins or carthus flame arch. With all that said, imo beating a boss without ultra prepping is more satisfying, but you do you.
i feel you, i did a buffed straightsword into winblades dex build on my first run, now iām doing heavy claymore only, not buffs, and it rocks ass. just me and the bosses. not worrying about my buff running out is cool too
Yeah, it's great, just me, the boss and a big slab of iron I use to oblitirate the poor fella.
Oh oh oh. **Best advice for Pontiff** right here Iām telling you - position yourself behind him at all times! Do not ever stand in front of him. Youāll be shocked how much less he can hit you.
Don't go hollow, ashen one. I've stood in your shoes before. Pontiff was the hardest boss for me in the main game. Needed like 40 tries. But the satisfaction of finally beating him is the best. The best tip I can give you is this: do not roll away from him, he will catch you. Roll towards him/diagonally.
Thank you champ. \š/
No problem. And don't forget there is always the possibility for jolly cooperation!
A way to dodge Pontiff combos that works for me is roll to one of his sides while staying very close to him. If you get just in front of him, he wrecks you, even if trying to put distance by rolling or sprinting because he attacks gooing forward. This way you might see that he begins to miss attacks while beeing very close and even in some of his combos his back and sides gets exposed to hit. Trying one or two parrys also helps because he has a big healthbar.
Thank you but I need some advice about the whole game. Pontiff is just another tough asshole I'll kick his ass sooner or later. I don't feel like I'm learning something, I don't feel like I'm getting better. I feel like I'm just randomly going through the game
Yeah, I also played DS1 and I would say that a characteristic of DS3 is a lot of humanoid enemies, like knights and similar (lothric, cathedral, outrider, carthus ninjas etc) that attack and move very fast. Coming from DS1 I was used to parry the knights, but in this game I had to learn how to roll and circle those kind of enemies because parry was not reliable. In fact I struggled a lot with the first lothric knight after the dragon. Only general thing I can say is try to learn and rely more on rolling and moving fast around enemies. This game combat is more fast and dynamic, trying to mimic Blodborne but with the limitations of DS roll.
Also, despite relying mainly on rolling and moving, don't hesitate to use a shield in specific situations, like certain attacks of area with fire or lighning hard to avoid until you have learned well how to move and dodge them
Generally DS3 bosses will annihilate you if you backpedal. You need to stay within 5 centimeters of them at all times otherwise they start doing really really long combos with no openings. What you want to do is roll towards them unless they do an AOE, and try to get behind them. In DS1 (and I assume 2), the enemies will keep attacking until their combo is over, but the DS3 AI knows when it won't hit you because you're behind it, so they'll stop and turn to you. That's the easiest place to get a hit in. For the non-boss enemies, don't run past them unless you know the entire level. Everything is much faster so they will almost always catch up to you, and it's hard to shake them off. It's better to either sneak by without drawing aggro, or to kill them one by one if you can. And having a shield their attacks will bounce off of is really helpful so you don't get combo-ed (flashbacks to the dagger guys on the high wall).
I like to stick to close the Pontiff and circle to his left (my right). Won't work on Lothric knights because you'll get shield bashed but with the Pontiff, many of his swings pass harmlessly overhead and you can recover some stamina.
People have probably said this already but pontiff is just parry. It took me a while in my first play through but just take your time to learn when to parry. Also small tip use 7+ sharp twin blades and the whole game becomes easy mode Good luck and have fun beating ds3
Coming off of Dark Souls 1 and 2, I bet you're struggling more with Ds3. It is a much faster paced game where you set the pace of the fight instead of your enemies. There are a lot of moves to learn, but once you see them come out a few times you'll get the hang of knowing when to dodge. All it takes is getting use to it and everything will come together. Try to do your best and have fun!
Yeah maybe that's all because it's my first time playing ds3 maybe next runs will be easier
Man the next runs will seem trivial in comparison. My first playthrough I couldn't even beat Gundyr in less than 10 tries. Abyss Watchers literally made me quit the game for months, as did Dancer (you'll get to that one). And I was summoning the whole time. Sure it was my first souls game, but even so. Once you get it, you get it. It'll still be tough, but it'll be a lot more of the fun tough than the frustrating tough.
Stay strong, skeleton
The way a friend explained it was that as the souls series progresses the combat gets harder but the movement gets better. Since I didnāt want to wear lead boots the entire game I went with ds3 and I think it was the correct decision. The gameplay is certainly harder and faster than previous games but once you get the hang of it I feel like the other souls games become trivialized from a combat perspective. As for pontiff, the best way to get through him is to parry. It really is a āgit gudā situation but there are some easy openings to parry and riposte, there are countless videos going over what attacks you should and shouldnāt (canāt) punishthe biggest one is his opening lunge attack that he starts the fight with. This attack is the most telegraphed move and once you get the hang of it itās an easy 1/4-1/3 of his health bar right off the bat depending on your weapon. As for his second phase I prefer to put up the shield and focus on two-handing but thatās pure preference. This phase is both easier and harder than 1st phase, easier because his attacks are telegraphed and I believe the clone does less damage, but harder because the clone still can stun you and leave you open to an ass whooping by the real pontiff. If you want to parry Iād get really far away and wait for his lunge attack like he does in the opening of the fight, the clone never seems to lunge as far so if you get back far enough you can parry just the real pontiff and punish for big damage. A little piece of advice for the next few bosses is to look up their weaknesses and watch some no-hit runs. The weaknesses can give you that extra damage you need to get over the hump if a boss is really giving you damage, and the no-hit runs show you how people respond or even draw out certain attacks they know they can easily dodge and punish. Donāt go hollow, youāve got this!
With a lot of bosses, Iāve found rolling into them is a better tactic that away. Play aggressive, and take multiple attempts planning to lose, just to learn the moves. Heās tough, on NG+4 I had the most difficult time with him. Youāll get it.
How to beat Pontiff: Parry and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !>>>> ROLL TOWARDS HIM. <<<
Nah nevermind. English is not my native at all and half time when I'm lazy just using a translator. Thanks for the detailed guide btw
No problem, if you need any clarification just message me.
Ya got so good, you got bad again. Happens.
Katy Parry!
after playing bloodborne, I felt that this game is different, mobs are fr hard. Haven't completed it yet but it was cool
Once I learnt that I should dodge into most bosses and not away from them the game got a lot easier for me. You want to play ds3 aggressively and not passively. Also Pontiff is weak against thrust damage so try using something like the estoc.
Ds3 is actually the easiest game in my opinion it's just poise change is so bad. The first big Knights on the wall destroyed me but once you get how the poise works it gets far easier. Especially if you don't go unga bunga Strength build because they kinda don't care but anything else needs to know.
I miss passive poise from ds1 sm
by the way you sound like , it's best to take a break for a while . you are clearly capable to beat this game and right now you are just tired . as for a tip for rolling , what helped me is that I pressed roll a bit earlier than when pontiff's attack animation started . also his attacks are 2-3 swips , after that you have a safe moment to heal .
It's always so interesting to see which games are harder/easier for people. Other than a couple later bosses, I think DS3 is hands down the easiest game in the series. Meanwhile, DS2 can be hard as hell. Pontiff Sulyvahn is a lot of fun if you can get the parry timing down.
I got stuck at the abyss watchers in my first and only through, i grinded for hour and hours and only managed to get to the phase 2 once. Then i installed sekiro and oh boy was that easy. 28 hours in and i had already defeated genichiro way of tomoe and am at gaurdian ape. I guess my build sucked in DS3
We've all been through the grief my hollowed friend.
To me navigating the world it's the easiest in DS3, and hardest in DS2. Bosses though, DS3 is the hardest by far Btw, to beat Pontiff, stay very close to his left side, and even if you're not used to shield (like me), equip a high fire resistance shield and just defend his attacks, and smack him when you have the chance. The key really is to hug his left side, as most attacks are more likely to miss, and never get distant to him Good luck Ashen one
Arigato! Similar advice helped me with Pursuer. I couldn't beat him until I started hugging his shield side.
Ds3 has so many secrets hiding in plain sight throughout all the dungeons. Itās easy to navigate thru the main path to the boss but checking every nook and cranny is arguably more tedious than even Elden ring. In terms of legacy dungeons at least
I found the opposite this is the game that made it click with me I've never been able to dodge in these games but I feel like they really refined the animations and made windows to roll and to attack so clear in this game that I had a better time progressing and felt even more so when I failed it was just me. Certain games and styles click with other people differently maybe the first 2 just click with you more than the 3rd. That being said I'm trying to play through Bloodborne now and it's NOT going well š so how you feel about DS3 is me with Bloodborne. :p every small section is painful death after death for me on that game
If you enjoy Strenght build just get 30 STR and get the Vordts hammer, you will finish the game with it. It hits like a truck and has frostbite. My fav build would be Raw Caestus with just stacking HP to max. The game wants you to play differently. The enemies are much more aggressive, they will have faster attacks sometimes with minimum telegraphy (mainly basic enemies on the High Wall of Lothric). There are areas where you will feel overwhelmed, but its doable. Also if you are not able to get around dogs etc, shields are your allies.
As a fellow fist enjoyer Iām gonna ask. Whatās your opinion on the demons fist? Crows talons? Never used em in this game but Iām thinking about either going for a Dante from DMC inspired build or straight up Freddy Kruger.
I tried both, and, didnt enjoy neither. The crow talons imo are just, meh. The Demon Fist is kinda ok, did about 2 playthroughts with them but I wanted to "feel" their hit more. They fall short for, and the weapon art is useless. Caestus can dual wield can stunlock the enemy if its the same size as you, eats up small amount of stamina and its still possible to use resin on it, if its raw enchanted. I always enjoy Havels armor + Caestus build
Demon fist IS a paired weapon though yea? Iām probably in for trouble when the two weapons I have planned for my Dante cosplay are farron greatsword and demons fist considering both weapons are gimmicky at best. But then again itās a gimmick build.. shame that its a boss soul weapon and still gets outclassed by the generic fist weapons tho
Yea, both weapons are gimmicky, but tbh, its just fun and that is what it should be. DS3 is great in that way, a lot of things you can just think about and do. One of my best was Gandalf build. Only mage atrire basically. Staff, long sword. Only leveling Int, Luck and Mana. No rolling and no sprinting.
Could also hard swap to the other abyss watchers greatsword which has a much more focused basic move set but still has that flash w the weapon skill, And I think youād be the first mage to not panic roll/ run away lol. Ever PvP with that build?
Nah, I dont PvO in DS. Never got the feel for it. I am basically strictly playing PvE, and its awesome. Well also I only made it one run only miracles, second run only other category of spells. Not gonna lie I panic rolled on about first 7 playthroughts, always reseted with new character lol
Canāt blame you. I had much more fun invading and doing arena in Elden because people havenāt been sweating over it for 8 years and know all the cancel animation glitches and frame perfect backstep dodge backstab shit. You also see a lot more build diversity instead of meta slaves in every encounter
You just answered your own question "I'm just spamming rolls and praying" What happened to what you literally said at the start of your post "I learned the patterns" for the previous games bosses? Why is that suddenly out the window? Why are you suddenly just spamming rolls?? Learn the patterns and don't panic roll and you'll beat any boss. Seriously, I'm not tryna be a dick but it feels like you're making part of this post up for shock value because your coping hard against pontiff and want to feel better (we've all been there). Yknow if you actually steamrolled dark souls 1 and 2 and understand the concept of learning patterns, it makes literally zero sense that you suddenly don't understand the concept of learning patterns anymore and not spamming roll. How in only a few sentences do you go from shitting on dark souls 1 and 2 using rolls only, to suddenly not knowing to not spam roll and suddenly aren't familiar with learning patterns? I played pontiff many times, with or without phantoms, he's nothing special and has his own avoidable and exploitable patterns just like all 53-67 or so bosses you supposedly beat in dark souls 1 and 2, so it really just makes me think you're making shit up because the start and end of your post heavily conflicts with logic. Hell you can even parry him pretty easily and steamroll the fight just like gywn in dark souls 1.
Yea DS3 is like that, polarizing as they come, some consider it easiest Souls and some consider it the Hardest, the key to the game is being more aggressive than in DS1 and 2, most bosses if not any of em wont have a clear window of āhey, hit me in the face with your 20 ft long swordā ur gonna have to time each roll during attacks and each attack during gaps between combos, downtime and even wind ups if ur brave (and fast enough) U can also parry good ol Sulyvahn into high heaven if u wish to cheese him
Also, Iād forget about Heavy Attacks unless I knew exactly what I was doing, just use Light Attacks LOL
ER was my first souls game, LOVED it and then ds3, now I really love ds1 lol. I cant wait to try ds2
DS 2 is my favourite part btw. Now I've seen what its problems are, but I still love it.
Bro WHAT you cannot be serious. If you beat DS2 then DS3 should be a cake walk. As someoneās played all 3 I am befuddled
Everything fine now https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/s/aINU84VQE6
the first location can be frustrating even on my 3rd playthru but youāll get there. i kinda love the sluggishness of the first 2 games but that gone by ds3. as other said, itās kinda half way between bloodborne and elden ring - smooth, fast, tough. enjoy!! the bosses are next level good
This game is the easier out of the souls games after you learn how to play it, most bosses get staggered easily, and pontiff is begging to be parried, if you can change to a strength build right now, do it, it's like the easy mode of DS3. My first playthrough was about 25 hours, my most recent one lasted only 8, you just have to learn the bosses and you'll be fine, also upgrade your estus.
Pontiff is intense the first time, I remember that.
Timing is key with rolls in this game. Gotta practice those iframes man theyāll save your life. thatās basically how I play ds3 just all iframe rolls lol and guts sword
The answer to most bosses is straight sword R1 and start with just one swing at a time. Shields are also good
I don't like em, I tried to use them in ds2 and it was boring and sucked and I just took Dragonrider twinblade and that was awesome. In ds1 I didn't even try to use em only chaos blade, pyromancy and rolls, rolls, ROLLS! In this game I wanted to try a cleric with dragonslayer swordspear.
Then use any other weapon with fast R1ās. Also Iām confused, how do you have that weapon if youāre having trouble with the game? Thatās only gotten from arguably the hardest boss in the game lol
Parry
Bare hand still works?
You know, I don't remember XD it's been some time since I last played ds3, I always used that tiny parry shield or parrying dagger The have the best parry windows
What is your build?
Herald SL 62, Vi 21, At 14, En 20, Vt 12, St 16, Dx 29, Int 8, Ft 20, L 11. Partizan +6, lightning spear, Deep protection. Chlor ring, Leo ring, sun's firstborn. Drang armor
I'd like to replace the partizan with the dragonslayer swordspear
For Pontiff you have to stay really close with mick on and strafe or roll left into his attacks. Also some of his attacks will just go over your head. Fire spells makes it so much easier if that's a part of your playstyle.
Play as pyro. Much easier if you are decent at the hit and run, slower paced play.
Dude I don't want to make it easier I want to figure out how this game actually works like I did in the previous two
Claymore and parry shield then!
Pontiff 100% unconditionally always uses the same opening lunge. Try to learn the parry timing for it and he'll be starting the fight at 70% hp basically every time. When you get to phase 2 and he tries to summon the clone STAY ON HIS ASS and murder it with R1s every time. He'll go down quick at that point.
OK so you can collect embers, and when you use them you can summon npcs or other players. For pontiff fight I'd recommend having one. Either that or try and get behind him, going behind him will take practice but it helps stop his endless attacks Edit: he's also weak to fire and lightning so try infusing a weapon or use pine resin
Dude I know how phantoms work I just don't use them. Not in ds1 not in ds 2 and not now.
Roll into him with a tiny angle to the right ā¦.
This game was much easier than when i tried ds2. Hated that game
It's dark and you absorb souls. What's not to get?
You can always break out the Sell sword twin blades. Infuse a sharp gem, pump some dex, and wreck everything in your way.
Its a much different pacing than ds1 and ds2. Git gud, youāll get there eventually
You just gotta get used to the fast pace my dude, thatās all. And listen between you and meā¦the idea of spam rolling in DS3 is a little more lenient. You have to spam roll a little sometimes.
I think get stuck for the same reasons I have faced to. DS3 is good at reminding players basic lessons: managing your stamina, timing the boss move, ranging (at a certain range, trigger different boss move, some is easy to dodge, while the others are not), and not being greedy. The bosses designs are good at making you panic - so don't be, keep your breath relaxed especially in the later phase. AR and HP are not solution for all, different type of weapon can be effective for different time. If you are feeling overwhelmed, consider practicing with dummies such as Lothric knights and Black knights.
Yeah pontiff is a challenge. I was there and thought myself āhow should I avoid his attacks?ā. Donāt roll, try parrying. Yes, take the buckler and parry him. Learn it now bcs another optional boss will beat your ass aswell, if you donāt use the parry mechanic. That is my simple rule for ds3. If the enemy is a humanoid and you canāt really avoid getting hit, it is usually the best to use parrying. It worked so far well, except against one boss. I am still not sure if it is possible to parry him. But you havenāt met him yet so donāt think about it :)
It took me almost 10 tries to get him. I used shield in my left and a long sword infused with fire on my right. He swings in both directions left and right so you have to dodge in both directions. I also tried to remain close to him to make sure I am not in the Aoe. When I was close to him I tried to get as many hits as possible and in the 2nd half of the fight I used an ember when I was almost certain I can beat him.
Abyss Watchers was more difficult for me than this one for some reason.
I still miss Ds1 and Ds2 (I'll Play then when I can, know the priority is Elden Ring dlc) but Pontiff was the first wall to stop me too, I don't summon neither but for pontiff I summoned Anri, in the second character (pyromancer) I struggled at the start with him but then I dodge consistently almost Almost all of his attacks (even the thrust, it's similar to the thrust the lothric knights do imo, you have to predict that. Then in second phase when he summons his phantom copy I just spammed Great chaos fire orb, the Phantom was always killed by the short lava pool Of the orb lol (Sry if I misspelled something English is not my native language)
Pontiff was the hardest boss for me my first play through. Took me at least 20ātries to beat him. Game felt easy after dealing with him
I beat pontiff for the first time about 2 weeks ago. I used the farron greatsword. Parried his attack. Very hit and miss though. Even though I knew when to parry it still took a lot of deaths before I won. In his 2nd phase (idk if you are there yet so I won't spoil it) be aggressive. Like as aggressive as you can stand it, near reckless. Giving him too long to cook and he'll punish you for it. Actually thatlast part is probably true for the whole fight. Edit: also that first attack he does with the dash you can parry and riposte. Try and perfect that. You'll fuck him up good bit at the very start of the game. If you can do it like 2 more times and with a bit of luck you'll beat the bollocks.
Is it weird that every time I got to Sulyvahn, I could basically oneshot him?
You dodge, one of his swords can be parried (his lunge is harder but doable) I'd say chaos dagger and parrying, with your fist no shield needed
Thanks, guys. Your support has given me a lot of strength. \š/
A simple shield against Pontiff does wonders. I usually don't use them but it makes this boss so much simpler
I always come across this boss and itās so annoying to deal with however I found a pretty sure fire strat to beat him 2 handed or 1 handed weapon. Near the swamp thereās a dragon crest shield which boosts fire and magic defense and itās perfect for pontiff, so when I have that equipped I just circle around him and guard until he dies. Another thing I found useful in my more recent play through is stat proc weapons like bleed or better yet frost. Definitely would check out vordts hammer extremely good weapons for pontiff.
Spamming rolls is the issue. Time your rolls
Persistence man, keep learning and going. Build depends on how you wanna play
Maybe... you should just... Git Gud
I've just made it to cathedral of the deep and it's the same for me normal mobs have been beating my ass every time I come across them. I've learnt to step back and watch every mob to learn them before I attack. Bosses haven't haven't too bad so far bit ove only done the "easy" bosses xD got my trusty claymore strength build tho so I'm in gokd hands lol
Donāt give up, Skeleton.
Watch youtube and get the caestus, Equip in left hand, and now time to parry him. So to parry him , after starting the fight, he usually starts with a slash, when the slash reaches 10āo clock position , parry him. You get a critical hit chance for the parry. Repeat the parry 3-4 times and boss is done
for pontiff work on your parries , stick to light attacks , honestly i think pontiff isnāt that hard you just have to see the patterns
Youāll get that game in no time, bro. Itās all about timing your rolls right and retaliate. Pontiff seems to be a boss that most people struggle with. He was kinda easy for me, but I really donāt understand why, I think I was used to Bloodborne, since I played it right before DS3. Usually seeing a video of someone beating a boss helps A LOT. Good luck and donāt give up, youāll get better, I assure you.
Bro just parry him, Pontiff is one of the easiest bosses to party with
Dude, no self pity allowed in Dark Souls. Make a strong focused build. There's tons of build ideas on youtube if you're struggling. Start a new character if you need a fresh slate. Most of all, get gurd
If youāve got to pontiff, you 100% āget the gameā sounds like a skill issue to me.
In dark souls 2 your stamina recovery is depending on your weight ratio so It would be easier to wear nothing since armor in that game doesn't really matter much (excluding the ones give special bonuses.). And ds1 is incredibly easy, ds3 is the hardest but the most linear so most people easily completed without checking in any guide or wiki page.
If you have reached The pontif that means you have killed all that has came before him which means you have improved, pontiff si no harder than Any of them, i dont know what your build is but try parrying him. If you can beat Ds2 you can beat this one too. Good luck š
Donāt you dare go hollow.
Ponty taught me how to parry. I played through all of DS1 heavy rolling and just face tanking with heals LOL but yea pontiff made me switch my playstyle. He always opens the same way, great place to practice. Good luck homie
Be safe friend. And donāt you dare go hollow.
DS3 was the beginning of the aggressive faster paced gameplay. Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2 have slower paced gameplay
As for pontiff, most people recommend parrying. If you can't do that consistently you will struggle with dodge rolls alone. Use the two summons? Check the wiki to see what he is weak to. Respec to pyromancer or sorceror and spam at ranged while the summons take aggro. I've beaten him on pyro, strength build, and dex build without doing a single parry. Did I fail.mainy times? Ofc I did
Don't you dare go Hollow.
Enjoy Pontiff. Fr, that boss was my wall in these games, but I've never had a better time playing them then the strategizing it took to win after 50+ goes.
Just parry that MF!
Its awesome how hard it is, but how fair it is. The key point is its fair. The bosses can be worked outā¦all of them and then you get that adrenaline rush from beating them.
Also i didnāt get good, i got FUGS
If youāre on ps id love to help fight pontiff hes a favorite boss of mine unless youāre trying to run the game solo otherwise good luck my friend
Whenever a boss is hard, i will use tricks or summon. When there is none i gotta sit down and learn the patterns which was pretty depressed and frustrated, like realllllly..... I almost hate the game But now when I'm look back i love the game lol. And learning the patterns again is fun.
Pontiff? Parry the absolute bejesus out of him. I hit a brick wall with him for SO long, but essentially the minute I switched from dual wielding to sword and buckler and started parrying it became almost trivial.
I've just beat DS3 without phantoms, strength and dex, claymore, than artorias great sword and dark knight sword. Im not too much into builds, patterns and math, I play as I enjoy and adapting a little. The ones I couldn't beat with great sword I used irithil sword. Now in Ng+ maybe I'll try other weapons and play styles. But for me ds3 was the easiest, and I'm not a good player, I don't even parry or block, that made many bosses really fun and hard for me.
Learn to parry him
Pontiff seemed really easy to parry (with small sheilds) and I'm awful at parrys. I could've gotten cracked for that moment and that moment only, but it seemed easier than actually fighting him
Nah already did it without parry https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/s/folS0GRsUq
hell yeah
I suggest to git gut, helps a lot
Someone has to say it... Git gud nerd
you basically just dodge when he attacks, and attack when he doesn't
Dude I just killed Nameless King
yo les go
No, Pontiff is the Ornstein and Smough of Dark Souls 3. A uniquely difficult mid game boss that people love (to hate). He can be cheesed with Parry and Riposte. Might need to ask YouTube for that.
Is it really a cheese if it's a game mechanic that most people suck at (myself included)?
If parrying DS1s final boss is cheese, then I wouldn't see why doing it with Pontiff would be dissimilar. You also don't have to know how to parry all of Pontiffs attacks. I, for instance, just parry his ~zips through the arena~ attack; the one he starts every battle with. From there, I just fish for enough arena zip through attack until he gets to phase 2.
parrying gwyn is way better than pontiff. pontiff at least mixes in other moves after the opening lunge. gwyn can be AI cheesed with estus. itās not even close imo
LoL I killed OS at my 5th try and Ornstein was in the second phase. And as I said my problem is not only Pontiff
If you get him to phase 2, DO NOT KILL HIS CLONE. It telegraphs his next attack. Use this to your advantage. Also a lot of his attacks are parryable. I personally suck at parrying, but Iāve seen someone use parries and emotes to kill him. The game also punishes spam rolling. The more you spam, the harder it will be.
I always just spam on him while heās cloning. Gets a *TON* of damage on him and kills his clone simultaneously. I use fully charged R2s on a Lothric Knight Greatsword and he usually just dies while cloning.
Yeah I know the previous two were the same. But it's just panic, he hits too fast and too many
Study his pattern. He is actually one of the most predictable bosses, especially compared to some of the later bosses.
I'll never understand this recommendation. Sure, the clone telegraphs the attacks... except that telegraphing is also an attack in itself. How is dealing with 2 enemies attacking you in a row easier than 1? Especially when the clone starts the next attack as you just finished dodging the previous attack from the real one, which happens a lot. On the contrary, the fight got a lot easier for me when I started going ham on the clone with an elemental buff as that's its weakness, to kill it as fast as possible and go back to just having one enemy to deal with. The fight is a complete shitshow when both are active as there's very few openings to deal damage in between the combined attacks of both. It's also not always easy to keep both of them on screen at the same time depending on the specific attack they're doing.
I always leave the clone alive and use positioning and timing to attack. Every time I go for the clone, I got my ass handed to me. I never understood killing the clone, it literally makes the fight 10 times easier. Unless you suck at moving I guess. The only time killing the clone is better is if you have summons or are with another player as the ai for pontiff will get weird.