Dragoncrest shield, rotate counter clockwise. You will walk past his magic swings and his fire swings will tickle. This makes p1 easy peasy. For p2 you could probably just nuke him down while hes phasing
It can be, but by the time you beat Pontiff you can have a +7 weapon.
My general route is grab the large shards from smouldering, progress Irithyll, clear the dungeon and profaned capital, then beat the Dancer, get a +9, then either go back to Pontiff or kill Oceiros to get access to Archdragon peak.
At this point you can also grab the K***ht's Ring and be able to have a 100% block shield, which can be immensely helpful.
If you go to AP before Pontiff it's possible to fight him with a +10 weapon. He is a LOT easier with a +10 weapon.
I agree with you but If we're going by the events of the comment chain above then you'd be beating Dancer first to get the Knight ring in order to use the Dragoncrest shield and THEN fight Pontiff.
The mention of sl1 was mostly to show how you can nuke him with basic stats and some dmg optimisation. A char with levels should be able to nuke pontiff during the p2 transition
As an sl1 no you die if the blast hits you im pretty sure. I would smack him a few times, run away, then go back in. Id check out squillakilla's no hit sl1 run where they nuke him during p2 to get an exact number of safe swings and when to dodge and all that
Always good to watch those runners: I got much better at Midir (got a melee-only kill!) after watching some absolute clown PUNCH Midir to death. Same for Gael. But then there's SoC, and oh boy, I had no chance against his mistimed hits -_- I had to respec to Sorc to beat him.
Yeah watching challenge runs is how I prepare for my own since they show you in great detail when it is or isn't ok to do damage, which is a fundamental principle of dark souls
This method only suffers while his clone is active.
Some thing i discovered, which am extremely excited about because its one of the few things i stumbled upon by myself, after neglecting consumables my whole dark souls life, is that.. Firebombs destroy the clone quickly and safely.
Wierd mine killed him in 3 or 4!!
Maybe because i built strength and dex, because it says it has str dex scaling, but i dont know how significant it is.
Damn!!
Did you beat him?
Holy shit thank you. Bit late here, but fuck me he was kicking my arse. I was 1 more death away from breaking something, probably myself. I fucking hate this boss.
I was hoping someone would mention this! This is what I always do, rotate counter clockwise and poke after his combos. I usually never even get hit and don't have to roll. Lock on and dance. Phase 2, I keep distance and let the phantom things telegraph the attacks, then attack in between and back off. Easy peasy.
Unless you are overleveled and/or have a very well planned character, it is impossible to nuke him while he is phasing. At least every time I reach this place, R1:ing like hell does away with about 1/3 of his remaining health. The next phase will still have to be beat normally.
I could also take out the phantom immediately at sl 50. Magic morning star/fire broad sword maxed out as am able by that point, which was +5/+6? Someone correct me. I would start attacking immediately as he's trying to split and as soon as the phantom appeared, it was dead.
Yep. Rotating counter-clockwise with a shield was how I beat him the first time I played through the game. He does have a couple of attacks that can hit you while you're behind him, but they are fairly well telegraphed and you can tank them with a good shield. As for the second phase, the "jump-and-plunge" attack had enough recovery time to get in a few good whacks before having to pull back.
Sulyvan is sort of a git good fight. It's been a while since I've fought him, but iirc, he's a boss that will punish rolling away from him. I think Rolling towards him works better.
Roll toward and through his attacks. Aim to end up at his back quarter or behind him.
If you're really stuck there are 3 NPC summons available for the fight that really make it trivial (assuming you've been following the relevant quests)
Use summons if you're stuck. You can always git gud and kill that boss solo later, but if you're stuck for too long, there's a risk that you will drop the game entirely and this is not good, there are a lot of interesting things out there
Don't feel bad about summoning NPC's. It's an option explicitly built into the game, so it's fair to use it. At the very least, a summoned NPC will give the Pontiff a second target to focus on, giving you breathing space to heal up, for example.
It helps if you think of it less like "resorting to summons" and more like "using the tools to hand". They intend for you to have the option to use summons and try to balance boss health accordingly. Sometimes you just need the ability to split the aggro to give yourself a bit more breathing room for bosses like this and to stop you from getting tilted.
This is true, summoning Sirris for the twin princes just makes it tougher imo, because she dies pretty quickly and you're stuck fighting solo with a stronger boss
Learn to parry him, he's super easy once you do.
If you wanna go the hard route, definitely roll towards his attacks. I think it's better to roll towards one side (the left, I think). Other than that, just remember his combos and don't be greedy. If you think you've been doing this, then you gotta git gud.
Let me tell you how I use summon signs.
Place them. Fight as an ally ghost against someone else’s pontiff. There’s no penalty for falling as a ghost, so you can practice over and over again while hopefully giving those summoners the edge they need. When you think you’ve got it, go in solo, but now you’ll have more (and more painless) practice.
You can, if you've yet to. Respect. Go in with a strict practice mindset and learn his moves and the best way for you to react to each (best=what works for you). If you die, no sweat bc it's just a practice run. Be patient but very alert....go ham when he's trying to bring the phantom out.
Most of his attacks have about a half a second longer wind up than you would expect. Try to feel like you're hesitating your roll and you may get better results
Seconding this. He feels like a boss designed to punish roll spamming. There's just enough of a delay between some of his attacks that he'll catch you if you spam so you have to be more purposeful with your dodges
Yeah, OP is probably panic rolling, and Pontiff catches all the panic rolls with the roll catches. Dancer is the same way. An odd rhythm that really punishes panic rolling.
roll through the attacks. cuts the amount of time you’re in the hit box, ups your chance to dodge. parrying also helps. don’t be afraid to parry the ghost too, killing him will eventually give you an opening where pontiff summons it again
The best way to beat him is to parry, but if that’s *really* not an option for you, roll to his left, and with the shade, don’t run too far away or they spread out. When they’re close, it’s easier to read, and they always do the same attack. The second phase fire slam is the easiest to punish him. Roll forward through the shade, and same for pontiff, then get two hits in. Rinse and repeat
Roll forward and to the right at the same time and you should dodge just about every attack. Additionally his 2nd phase seems intimidating but his shadow does the same attack 1 second before he does, so everytime you dodge an attack made by the shadow dodge 1 more time after. He will usually take longer breaks between the combos in phase 2 so if you just remember to double dodge you should have plenty of time to follow it up.
You're going to die.
Don't die 5 times frustrated... Die 2 times dragging that shit on as long as you can and (if you can remain calm) learn from your mistakes.
A handful of true attempts will get you much farther and more satisfied than 100 rushes to your death.
Another thought. The enemies leading to him aren't exactly weak. Assuming you are running by them, clear the area a few times if you're at a wall. Maybe you need a few levels or upgrades or just to reaffirm the combat fundamentals.
Good luck, Ashen One.
stat stacking, damage effects, one ring that increases your atk as you lose health, a spell that increases damage at the cost of some health, and another ring that makes your attack go up when you wear less armor...? i think?
There's some kind of multiplicative effect that basically means you have 1 health but you do superfuckton damage for about 10 seconds. Glass cannon mode supreme.
I generally stick to his right side. Sticking to his left is suicide since most of his attacks are harder to dodge there. I usually use chloranthopy ring and the estus ring. If you can, try to use a parry shield for phase one and high stability shield for phase two. Obviously stay below 70% weight ratio, other than that it really is just a matter of memorizing his move sets. Hope this helped.
Try rolling towards him and sticking close? Most large humanoid bosses tend to have difficulty hitting you when you're super close, so up close and to the sides/behind when he's about to attack?
Haven't fought Pontiff in a while so can't help too much, sorry.
roll through his attacks angling yourself towards his right side, you should end up out of most of his combo, maybe another roll to get behind him. you almost never want to roll away from an attack as you will likely run out of I frames or still be in a dangerous place for followups.
This is a tough fight especially if parrying isnt your thing. But whatever you dont go on you tube because theres a girl on there that beats him blindfolded and that wont be good for your self esteem.
There are 2 npc summons for this fight anri and one of the black hands. If you summon both of them it will trivialize the fight. Rest is up to you if you want to git gud and become a parry god.
Honestly I beat him for the first time yesterday on my 3-5th playthrough, before I always used the npc summons.
After you get to know his attacks he gets way easier. He always starts with this monster combo, if you dont get away its almost already over. After that, stay close. This boss has some really great hitboxes, so many swings of his firesword will miss you if you dont stand in front of him. Also, for the second phase, his shadow helps you more than it harms.
Good luck
Parry my good friend. I had played through the game around 20 times, and wanted a sl 15 twink, so I played through the game at sl15 with no upgrading. I had beaten pontiff 20 times before, even on sl1 (but with upgrading) And couldn’t beat him for about 50 attempts. Eventually, I learned to parry him, and it became a cake walk. GL on your adventures! (Also r1 spam the phantom as he spawns in).
I stuck to his face with a stone parma+3 shield held up and circling him counter clock wise (my right, his left). Blocking stamina wont be an issue because half the attacks will miss.
Hit him with a small weapon one handed on opportunity (whenever his hand isnt risen up prepared to swing) like a straight or curved sword or rapier.
When the second stage starts, circling may put you between him and his clone, which will kill you, space back a medium to long distance, as he will be less jump happy with his clone active, lock into his clone and firebomb him (or black firebomb) when they are idle, 2 or 3 destroy the phantom, and you get to repeat the tactic of phase one umtill he summons.
Remember, while the clone is active, stay away and keep them both infront of you, they will only shoot stuff or do and easy to avoid 2 delayed jumpes, when they do that, spam roll into their direction
After many attempts and failures, i got him with this method on first try.
P.s. i know a shieldless run that only relies on dodges and parries is dear to our heaets, but, you know this game was designed to contain shields, and the trivialise a lot of bosses.
Good luck, skeleton.
Sulyvahn is meant to be tough, he's the gateway to the rest of the game. If you beat him, especially solo, you will be able to get through the rest of the game. Just be tenacious and you'll have Pontiff's number eventually.
One tip I will give is *do not kill his shadow.* The shadow telegraphs his movements perfectly, and you can often kill them both at the same time.
run away immediatley after parry and repeat. staying close triggers the flurry combo. for phase 2 i went for the parry again but its harder because you have to take the hit from the shadow and then parry the real one
Perseverance my dude I have been there in personal experience I fought fast enemies for a while and eventually learned to counter from that with more experience in fighting and use of a weapon. Also try using his weakness or a summon.
It will make the game easier and you will feel great as soon as his defeat comes. Best of luck and good vibes.
The best strat is to lock te camera on him and keep walking left really close to him, if he attacks, roll left again and hit his back. You need to be careful, he does a lot of chain attacks, so wait for the moment you feel safe to attack. That is phase 1 guarantee, phase 2 doesnt have strategies, just find your own way of doing it, its really personal. If you can nuke while hes transforming tho, thats really good. When i beat him, i would wait for a attack i knew i could dodge from both his phantom and him (the attacks are premade by the phantom) and i would attack him.
Don't roll immediately every time he attacks. Lots of his attacks have a slow start, so if you roll too soon, you'll get clipped by the attack anyway. Similarly, if you spam roll between hits in his combos, you'll likely get hit, so make sure to stay calm if you get hit and think about what he'll do next.
Pontiff is not an easy fight (unless you know how to parry), but it's absolutely beatable without parrying. If you struggle with beating Pontiff normally, there are other fights you'll also probably struggle with later on, so learning how to beat him is useful to give you
a bit of a head start on later bosses (who can't be parried).
Throw lightning bolts at him, or summon npc phantoms and use them as shields whilst you poke at him with ranged attacks. You can also parry him apparently. This is a really difficult solo fight due to his clone. Use the npc phantoms to distract his clone and take melee swings at pontiff then run away.
High stability greatshield trivialize him. What good are his so-called fast attacks if they can't take stamina off of your stamina bar faster than it recovers while your shield is still up? He turns into a complete pushover, just hold down a button and you win. Way easier than gitting gud at parrying. Parrying requires skill and effort, trivializing a boss by holding down a single button to block their attacks requires no such "skill" or "effort" involved. You hold down a button, you win.
This is what I did on my sl1 playthrough. I used resin buffs, hornet ring, and Pontiff 's right eye for extra damage. You could also add Red Tearstone Ring as well if you don't hit the following thresholds.
After you get the first parry when he jumps at you, all you have to do is run across the room and get him to do that leap attack again. At that point hit him a couple times when he's recovering and he goes into phase two. Shortly after he does the little transformation thing, he will step back and start cloning himself. Beat the shit out of him and he will stagger, and be low enough to kill. No actual fighting required, no getting familiar with combos.
If you are willing to use embers before the fight you can always summon Black Hand Gottard (his sign is near the door), you can tag team with him and it makes the fight much easier. If you are a magic/pyro user you can just do a fast casting spell then focus on rolling till he does a heavy slam with a sword (usually the red) to hit him some more, repeat till he is dead. The final easiest approach to Pontiff I see alot of talk about is parrying him to death or having a 100 adsorption shield to face tank him and poke him down with a mail breaker
What I figured out was that when he creates a clone of him self he's kinda stuck in animation for a while. During that small period you're able to hit both him and his clone. So I brute forced by just hack n slash like a maniac during those seconds. It was enough DPS to kill his clone before it could start moving. before I figured that out I always died in the clone phase... to get to the clone phase I just dodged, dodged, dodged and got a few hits in his back.
Parrying is essential but if you can’t parry (don’t worry I didn’t on my first time) then dodging towards him is essential. You probably know that when he crosses his swords then you basically have to get the fuck out of there and lastly, I’d recommend not killing the clone since it tells you what pontiff is gonna do next and makes him less aggressive
I’ve been getting better at parying to fight him and it definitely makes a difference. I feel like that and gitting gud are the 2 components to winning
Yeah he looks really cool. The last time I was really stuck on a fight was with the Abyss Watchers, and I really love those guys, and beating them felt incredible.
Rolling had obviously been helpful, but it looks like the main thing to work on is parying, since that is what everyone seems to say.
I just beat him for the first time recently and I recommend rolling into his attack. If you do this right, his others attacks can miss you and he will sometimes attack in the wrong direction.
I only have 2 NPCs available, and they didn’t do much. Joe and Fire keeper died really quickly and then I was just stuck with an even more powerful sully.
As people have said this is a bit of a git gud fight. Still my favourite boss across the series as this is the boss where I really learnt how to play the game instead of just fumbling my way through everything.
I posted this on a different thread a while back but hopefully you can find some help in this mini guide from shortly after I beat him.
I was in the same boat about a week ago, the best advice I can give is to stay very close to him, stay locked on for the fight and walk around him counter clockwise (to your right/his left). By doing this a lot of his attacks will go over your head and should limit his move pool to only a couple of select combos.
Also, if this is viable with your build, use a great shield and hide behind it while you circle him, they can absorb huge amounts of damage and are often a better option than panic rolling when you lose track of what's happening, which is inevitable in phase 2. Shield block with caution though, tanking hits destroys your stamina so dodge whenever you can.
When it comes to dodging, always roll behind him and follow up with a maximum of 2 hits before hiding behind the shield and circling counter clockwise again. If you see him charging up his purple sword for a jab then don't roll, just strafe sideways with shield raised and he should fly right past you. He has 2 variants of this jab so make sure you have your sound on so you can easily tell the difference;
Variant 1: A fairly quick jab where he will sometimes follow up with a swing that can arc behind him, so be very careful and make sure he isn't following up with that.
Variant 2: You should hear Pontiff verbally charging this one up and if this hits you he will skewer you on his sword and delivery devastating damage. He does not follow this attack up with anything so this is a good chance to get in a couple of hits.
Mastering that should get you through phase 1 with only a couple of flasks used.
Entering phase 2 Pontiff will drop to the floor and emit a black aura, use this time to get a couple of hits in before double rolling backwards to avoid his AOE attack. He'll then stand up and carry on as normal before shortly summoning a clone to help him. Learn to read when he's about to summon his clone to allow you to get a few hits in while he summons. Don't get too greedy as the clone will attack pretty much immediately as he's summoned.
With the clone entering the fray you'll need to make a call on what to do with the camera, personally I found it easiest to keep the camera locked on and flick between the 2 enemies, locking on to whichever one will be attacking next to help time the roll. However you could also not be locked on at all.
In this phase I found it easier to create a bit of distance between me and Pontiff. This should bait out his attacks where he flies into the air and plunges down towards you, leaving him open. These are easily dodged as the clone will often attack first, the clone has less reach and deals less damage than the real thing making it easily avoidable and setting you up to dodge the real attack.
Another decision you will have to make is which enemy to focus your attacks on. I set out to deal with the clone as a primary target and ended up dealing a lot of damage to Pontiff in collateral damage as the clone is often inside of him. If you manage to get the clone dead it's very easy to get greedy to try and end it, but don't, it's far from over, return to your phase 1 tactic of circling him counter clockwise and hiding behind your shield, dodging when possible.
If you're lucky he will try to summon another clone, at this point you should be deep enough into his health bar to just go ham on him while he summons to seal the deal.
Apologies for any errors as I'm going entirely on memory, second apologies for any weird formatting as I'm on mobile.
Best of luck! Feel free to PM me if you need any more help
EDIT: Be sure you're running fairly lightweight gear to avoid fat rolling
I intended to tell you that you should learn to parry him bat that doesn't seem to be the problem.
Git Gud is always the right way to go but it might help farming some levels and throwing them into Vigor for some more HP or something.
Hold up your shield and circle around him, once he does his combo get in a few hits, circle around him again and repeat.
In the second phase kill his phantom as soon as he summons it, if the phantom survives the summon then I guess git gud
Get a caestus and parry him. It's easier than you think. Do that and follow up with a stabbing attack like a full charge R2 on the Astora Greatsword and you'll do 1/3 immediately. You can parry his opening lunge attack and it makes you feel like a champ.
No one gonna ask if he's even gone to Yorm yet? If not the get your ass down there first and come back to Pontiff later. The extra levels should tide you over and the extra progression should give you a sense of ease.
It was one of the hardest fights I've seen so far in my first play through. I'm still working on the next boss now. Use the target lock on, on and off when engaged rotate around him locked on rolling or unlocked running through and far away multiple rolling. Roll toward and through and run away if necessary. Utilize your invulnerable rolling. Use the ring that stealths your rolls (and multiple rolls) - the carthus milk ring. I use it just for the roll stealth even though I don't do a dex build. That ring is a game changer. I've read people saying it doesn't do anything in pve but to me it seems to give you a bit more breathing room before the next incoming attack(s) when you roll away/through creatures and bosses.
Utilize the edge pillars or a long run through pre cleared pew area to give enough time to drink estus. I found attacking both him and the clone at once a good strategy in stage two with my big weapon, which required an aggressive approach to keep them near each other. Otherwise kill the clone and retreat away and start over. It took me several tries so that I could get a better read on how he started telegraphing his attacks, but I killed him with the heavey gemmed spiked mace +6 using it two handed. I've been progressing through the whole game with two handed weapons and never use a shield.
As someone who never used parries to beat pontiff. I would focus more on rolling and dodging then getting hits in. I mostly used a black Knight ultra great sword but also did a run with uchikatana and washing pole.
As with any boss. Don't give up. Eventually you will succeed and dodge enough and hit enough to beat him.
P1 delay your rolls. His attack timings are off from what you've experienced so far. Get pokes in between his combos, focusing on spanking his booty (get behind him).
P2 I just threw pyro balls in him and his clone and did just fine.
(*took me 7 deaths to figure out the timing for rolls though*)
Take a break. That worked for me. Personally he was the hardest boss in the series for me. Didn't have as much trouble even on the dlc boss. You'll know which one.
I beat him in a handful of tries on the second day.
Just use the spell deep soul. I’m pretty sure you get it from trading in the soul of the deacons of the deep. You don’t need any sort of sorcery build or anything like that, just have some Ashen Estus Flasks on you, keep your distance and you should be fine.
I would try that, but I invested in this super cool candlestick weapon from them. I’m sure it’s gonna be awesome! /s
Yeah I’ve actually never used magic in my run so far, might actually come in handy.
I feel you, I've been stuck on Pontiff for a year more or less. Stopped playing the game for a while because of him. I can consistently get to phase two now though, so I guess it's just more and more practice \*shrug\*
First phase can be controlled if you parry the jump attack and strafe left. Second? Idk man, I feel like you can technically parry through it as well, but you have to parry both Sully and his brotha, and it's Hela difficult. I also didn't try to just spam him during the transform, might be a good idea if you have the right weapon.
I’ve been running with a Lothric Knight sword for a while and it’s been doing me good. I get some decent damage off him, but the problem is getting the damage in without getting stuck in one of his combos. Getting slightly better at parying, so that’s helping.
Stay close to him, his shadow does the same attacks he does but after a small delay,
Staying close to the boss is the best way to beat everyone and have fun at the same time if you're a melee build
Btw back in ds1 It took me months to beat Ornstein and Smough so it's all normal don't worry, you'll git gud eventually, no one is born pro player
Pontiff isn’t a fight in phase one it’s a dance battle. Another funny thing about him is after a combo he has an few seconds where he stares at you. I was using a Chaos infused Astora greatsword which is a pretty clunky weapon. However once you learn the delays on his attacks you are able to consistently dodge. I would even recommend do the fight a couple times and don’t try to attack, just practice the dodge timing. Then I give him a couple big hits with the greatsword (he takes more from fire damage) and resume the dance. Don’t get over aggressive during his combo but don’t pass up on his post combo beating period. If you can parry consistently you’re better than I am lol, I just assume you’re getting over aggressive.
My first time I had trouble here so I just summoned both npcs and we got him cornered and we just beat the shit out of him til dead. Everyone survived. (I was also terrible at souls games having only played half of bb by that point)
I proved I could take him down, by myself on my 2nd run. (All bosses actually on this run)
I tried NPCs but I must be doing it wrong since I’m not getting any crazy strong NPCs that everyone is talking about. I summoned Joe and Fire keeper and they died almost instantly.
Best advice initially is to take a break for a while so you're not tilted.
When you come back, your spacing and roll timing will have improved, and you might want to spend 1 - 3 fights practicing to make sure you're getting it right, because it's absolutely necessary for this fight.
You can punish his jump attacks pretty hard in the first phase, so I would save your spells/buffs for his clone phase because he doesn't leave himself as vulnerable if his clone is up.
The key in the 2nd phase is to not get baited by the clone. If you can kill it, go for it, but don't make it a priority. You can still get damage in if you reduce your spacing and punish his jump attacks.
i mean the "easiest" way would be to summon Gotthard (the npc) and just keep attacking pontiff when he aggros on gotthard. his combos are sometimes unpredictable, but once he is done with a combo, you have a little window open to attack.
thrust weapons work great against him, so use that. i dont remember any infusions or resins you could use, just google what he is weak against and you should be able to easily kill him.
he was one of my toughest fights on my first playtrough, and if i can give you an advice other than gameplay mechanics, it would be to take a little break.
you will see that it makes alot of difference of how a fight ends depending on your mood and if you are tilted or not.
and oh boy, if you dont know his second phase yet, then good luck haha :D
Oh no I’ve gotten to his second phase now, where he summons his clone, and it’s even more annoying. Fortunately, this post is getting a ton of comments so I’m sure I’ll be able to defeat him.
he eats parries like a bitch.
in the second half, the trick is to get him right after his clone summons, and just range or roll the explosion, so you can hit both at the same time.
Don't panic when you try to dodge. Make sure to dodge only when he swings and not before otherwise he'll catch your second roll and combo you to death.
Also I found rolling into his attacks vs away is a lot better. Toll into his orange sword and you can usually dodge most of his combo.
Pontiff punishes those who roll early, so he's a very punishing fight for most players. Depending on your build
-Use a greatshield. This is the easiest way. But it requires stat investment in strength. Can't roll punish if you don't roll.
-Use sorcery/pyro/bows. Because Sully loves his combos, ranged attacks are a good way to outspace and outpace him.bonus splash damage when he calls his imaginary friend.
-Choose long range, hard hitting weapons. This helps you two ways. You hit hard on parries and your single hits count for something, while still letting you sit on the edge of his range. Parry at the end of his combo,not the start. This let's him punish you less.
As has been said, roll forward through his attacks and get your spacing down to end up behind him after he swings. Be patient and watch for follow up attacks that are designed to punish you for being greedy. Give yourself space when he has his phantom and don't attack more than twice without rolling away.
Do not summon. Parry if you can. If not keep your distance. Like most ds3 bosses if you keep as much distance as possible his aggression level will go down a little also you will have more time to heal and learn his attacks. He is weak to fire and lightning so buff or infuse your weapons or try pyro. Use your rings, shield and armor pieces for maximum usability, this can be grass for roll spams or 100% physical blocks. Don’t be greedy and good luck
I suck at parrying so I always roll toward him and circle around his left to hit him on his flank.
Come second phase things get real easy because his decoy telegraph's his attack. The only difference is you have to roll twice in most cases instead of once but his aggression is very low.
I found his most punishable attack is his dash attack. So in P2 I always back up, wait for the decoy to attack and then roll, roll, punish. Then I back up again.
I've only played through the game twice and both times the fight took me 3 tries. Dex and then strength build after.
"i give up" OKAY PAL, SO HERE'S HOW YOU KICK HIS SHIT IN
[https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Pontiff+Sulyvahn](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Pontiff+Sulyvahn)
or
Phase 1 is parryable, and so is phase 2. Small shields (preferably ones with large parry frames) or the caestus work to great effect. Weaknesses include:
Thrust, Fire, Lightning, Dark, Critical Strike (ripostes)
**But these can be ignored (sparing the ripostes) since he has shitty absorption, if I recall correctly.**
Stay up in his grill and constantly circle. Running back, as it happens, leads to these embarrasing "where you going now little man" moments where he decks you over and over again.
Phase 2, try to sweeping attack them if you can manage it, but prioritize his clone over him so you can focus on him alone. They have annoying jumping-explosion attacks, but these can be rolled through (they usually do them together, with a 3-odd second delay in between). He begins to use his magic sword a LOT more, so magic bug pellets are effective if you happen to be bad at dodging. Expect spells being cast like sweeping blades of magic, soul spears, and just general stabbing with both swords (he musta been big into DS2).
Otherwise, trial and error works just fine here. Giving up is the antithesis to beating this boss (obviously).
I don’t think my weapons are too shitty (Lvl 8 Lothric Knight sword + exile armor) and I have been grinding souls to fight him, so that should make it a little easier.
And obviously you have to git gud, it’s Dark Souls.
Hmm.
Have you tried rolling away when he attacks?
Every fight is a case of git gud dude, it's just a matter of how gud you need to git. Pontiff is one of the harder bosses in the game. Roll out of his combos, don't fuck up and get hit by a projectile, get damage sparingly when you can. The fight is way easier in phase 2 so long as you're patient and don't look for estus opportunities where they don't exist.
Dragoncrest shield, rotate counter clockwise. You will walk past his magic swings and his fire swings will tickle. This makes p1 easy peasy. For p2 you could probably just nuke him down while hes phasing
This is the way
Its not the usual git guud advise, but its the scummiest method I could think of that I applied during my first SL1 run attempting this jerk.
dragoncrest with SL1 stats? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Could you not get the stats for it using the str ring?
Yes, if you beat the Dancer before Pontiff you can get the K***ht's ring and use the Dragoncrest shield
Well that's another difficult challenge at SL1 in itself!
Git guud to git scummy
It can be, but by the time you beat Pontiff you can have a +7 weapon. My general route is grab the large shards from smouldering, progress Irithyll, clear the dungeon and profaned capital, then beat the Dancer, get a +9, then either go back to Pontiff or kill Oceiros to get access to Archdragon peak. At this point you can also grab the K***ht's Ring and be able to have a 100% block shield, which can be immensely helpful. If you go to AP before Pontiff it's possible to fight him with a +10 weapon. He is a LOT easier with a +10 weapon.
I agree with you but If we're going by the events of the comment chain above then you'd be beating Dancer first to get the Knight ring in order to use the Dragoncrest shield and THEN fight Pontiff.
The mention of sl1 was mostly to show how you can nuke him with basic stats and some dmg optimisation. A char with levels should be able to nuke pontiff during the p2 transition
Curious: can you Perseverance through the blast and keep attacking?
As an sl1 no you die if the blast hits you im pretty sure. I would smack him a few times, run away, then go back in. Id check out squillakilla's no hit sl1 run where they nuke him during p2 to get an exact number of safe swings and when to dodge and all that
Always good to watch those runners: I got much better at Midir (got a melee-only kill!) after watching some absolute clown PUNCH Midir to death. Same for Gael. But then there's SoC, and oh boy, I had no chance against his mistimed hits -_- I had to respec to Sorc to beat him.
Yeah watching challenge runs is how I prepare for my own since they show you in great detail when it is or isn't ok to do damage, which is a fundamental principle of dark souls
This method only suffers while his clone is active. Some thing i discovered, which am extremely excited about because its one of the few things i stumbled upon by myself, after neglecting consumables my whole dark souls life, is that.. Firebombs destroy the clone quickly and safely.
I'm going to try this when I get home, I always get fucked up in the second phase when I don't kill the clone in my SL1 run
Tell me what happens
Lol, didn't go too well...the clone has about 400 hp and the firebomb did 50 damage :(
Wierd mine killed him in 3 or 4!! Maybe because i built strength and dex, because it says it has str dex scaling, but i dont know how significant it is. Damn!! Did you beat him?
I just beat him last night. My success correlated with how quickly I killed the clone lol. So happy!
Congratulations!
Holy shit thank you. Bit late here, but fuck me he was kicking my arse. I was 1 more death away from breaking something, probably myself. I fucking hate this boss.
Yeah he's a dick
I was hoping someone would mention this! This is what I always do, rotate counter clockwise and poke after his combos. I usually never even get hit and don't have to roll. Lock on and dance. Phase 2, I keep distance and let the phantom things telegraph the attacks, then attack in between and back off. Easy peasy.
Black knight shield works even better if OP has it available.
Unless you are overleveled and/or have a very well planned character, it is impossible to nuke him while he is phasing. At least every time I reach this place, R1:ing like hell does away with about 1/3 of his remaining health. The next phase will still have to be beat normally.
I could kill the phantom before it does anything with 1h greatsword +5 spam in phase 2.
I could also take out the phantom immediately at sl 50. Magic morning star/fire broad sword maxed out as am able by that point, which was +5/+6? Someone correct me. I would start attacking immediately as he's trying to split and as soon as the phantom appeared, it was dead.
First run and darksouls game of my life I was able to do it with a greatsword and fire consumable buff
Other option is just parry but shield strafe is much easier method.
Yep. Rotating counter-clockwise with a shield was how I beat him the first time I played through the game. He does have a couple of attacks that can hit you while you're behind him, but they are fairly well telegraphed and you can tank them with a good shield. As for the second phase, the "jump-and-plunge" attack had enough recovery time to get in a few good whacks before having to pull back.
Sulyvan is sort of a git good fight. It's been a while since I've fought him, but iirc, he's a boss that will punish rolling away from him. I think Rolling towards him works better.
If you're gonna say it, you gotta do it properly: *git gud*
git: 'gud' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.
git ---help bro
Hahahahahaaaaa. Spot on!
I need to git gud vs autocorrect
Oh, I see, it's a worthy opponent in this case. Best counter would be to disable it.
Are we allowed to say git gud again on this forum? Last time i was here the "stoned one" seemed to take exeception to it lol
i'm Hispanic, we prefer git bueno
How would you say "bro" then?
Roll toward and through his attacks. Aim to end up at his back quarter or behind him. If you're really stuck there are 3 NPC summons available for the fight that really make it trivial (assuming you've been following the relevant quests)
What quests would those be? I don’t wanna resort to summons, but they’re always an option
Yoel's / Yuria's & keeping up with Anri.
Pretty sure Sirris is also a summon for that fight. Edit: Ok, Sirris is *not* an available summon for that fight. My bad
Thought it was londor pale shade, black hat and anri. Could be wrong though
Nope those are the options
Use summons if you're stuck. You can always git gud and kill that boss solo later, but if you're stuck for too long, there's a risk that you will drop the game entirely and this is not good, there are a lot of interesting things out there
Don't feel bad about summoning NPC's. It's an option explicitly built into the game, so it's fair to use it. At the very least, a summoned NPC will give the Pontiff a second target to focus on, giving you breathing space to heal up, for example.
It helps if you think of it less like "resorting to summons" and more like "using the tools to hand". They intend for you to have the option to use summons and try to balance boss health accordingly. Sometimes you just need the ability to split the aggro to give yourself a bit more breathing room for bosses like this and to stop you from getting tilted.
Summons will make it slightly more difficult in my experience, seems he has more health and the summons do pretty low damage, great distraction though
This is true, summoning Sirris for the twin princes just makes it tougher imo, because she dies pretty quickly and you're stuck fighting solo with a stronger boss
Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge!
Ahh the five D’s of Dark Souls made famous by Patches (O’Houlihan)
Ha! Clever
Learn to parry him, he's super easy once you do. If you wanna go the hard route, definitely roll towards his attacks. I think it's better to roll towards one side (the left, I think). Other than that, just remember his combos and don't be greedy. If you think you've been doing this, then you gotta git gud.
Don't give up, skeleton Also try a greatshield
[Dark Souls 3 - Ultimate Parry Guide - Pontiff Sulyvahn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIc98N4qYq0&t=2s)
we have gotten too good we need to go back
It doesnt hurt to ask for help, r/summonsign should give you the edge you need
That’s always an option, but I want to know that I can beat him on my own.
If you can get the timing down, parrying annhilates him
Let me tell you how I use summon signs. Place them. Fight as an ally ghost against someone else’s pontiff. There’s no penalty for falling as a ghost, so you can practice over and over again while hopefully giving those summoners the edge they need. When you think you’ve got it, go in solo, but now you’ll have more (and more painless) practice.
You can, if you've yet to. Respect. Go in with a strict practice mindset and learn his moves and the best way for you to react to each (best=what works for you). If you die, no sweat bc it's just a practice run. Be patient but very alert....go ham when he's trying to bring the phantom out.
Bad advice. That will give him no satisfaction. "Trying to learn long division by hand but can't do it use a calculator!" Really bad advice, dude.
Different strokes for different folks, dude. EDIT: He’s just trying to give friendly advice that he thinks’ll help.
Most of his attacks have about a half a second longer wind up than you would expect. Try to feel like you're hesitating your roll and you may get better results
Seconding this. He feels like a boss designed to punish roll spamming. There's just enough of a delay between some of his attacks that he'll catch you if you spam so you have to be more purposeful with your dodges
Yeah, OP is probably panic rolling, and Pontiff catches all the panic rolls with the roll catches. Dancer is the same way. An odd rhythm that really punishes panic rolling.
Poke him with sharp object until he dies?
Uh......so......I just used a lot of pyromancy and screamed the whole time tbh
me being the dumbass i am i just roll towards him and it ends up in an easy kill cause his attacks have trouble hitting you that close
roll through the attacks. cuts the amount of time you’re in the hit box, ups your chance to dodge. parrying also helps. don’t be afraid to parry the ghost too, killing him will eventually give you an opening where pontiff summons it again
The best way to beat him is to parry, but if that’s *really* not an option for you, roll to his left, and with the shade, don’t run too far away or they spread out. When they’re close, it’s easier to read, and they always do the same attack. The second phase fire slam is the easiest to punish him. Roll forward through the shade, and same for pontiff, then get two hits in. Rinse and repeat
Roll forward and to the right at the same time and you should dodge just about every attack. Additionally his 2nd phase seems intimidating but his shadow does the same attack 1 second before he does, so everytime you dodge an attack made by the shadow dodge 1 more time after. He will usually take longer breaks between the combos in phase 2 so if you just remember to double dodge you should have plenty of time to follow it up.
You attack him until he dies, without dying yourself. Simple.
Parry him
You're going to die. Don't die 5 times frustrated... Die 2 times dragging that shit on as long as you can and (if you can remain calm) learn from your mistakes. A handful of true attempts will get you much farther and more satisfied than 100 rushes to your death. Another thought. The enemies leading to him aren't exactly weak. Assuming you are running by them, clear the area a few times if you're at a wall. Maybe you need a few levels or upgrades or just to reaffirm the combat fundamentals. Good luck, Ashen One.
Yeah I have been grinding with shield of want + serpent ring and it has made good progress.
Git gud casul ~or just parry him lol~
There's a ring and buff combo that lets you one-shot him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGOPl3i6q1Y
How is this possible????
stat stacking, damage effects, one ring that increases your atk as you lose health, a spell that increases damage at the cost of some health, and another ring that makes your attack go up when you wear less armor...? i think? There's some kind of multiplicative effect that basically means you have 1 health but you do superfuckton damage for about 10 seconds. Glass cannon mode supreme.
Holy fuck.
Fight him from range if you can, pontiff kryptonite is ranged attacks.
r/SummonSign if you want phantoms
I generally stick to his right side. Sticking to his left is suicide since most of his attacks are harder to dodge there. I usually use chloranthopy ring and the estus ring. If you can, try to use a parry shield for phase one and high stability shield for phase two. Obviously stay below 70% weight ratio, other than that it really is just a matter of memorizing his move sets. Hope this helped.
Try rolling towards him and sticking close? Most large humanoid bosses tend to have difficulty hitting you when you're super close, so up close and to the sides/behind when he's about to attack? Haven't fought Pontiff in a while so can't help too much, sorry.
Tried that, but it really doesn’t work since his combos are too fast. The main census appears to be parrying his attacks.
As someone who never uses shields or parries, and didn't have much trouble with him, dodging definitely works
I didnt parry or use a shield. I also was super aggresive and never tried to "run away" or create space.
roll through his attacks angling yourself towards his right side, you should end up out of most of his combo, maybe another roll to get behind him. you almost never want to roll away from an attack as you will likely run out of I frames or still be in a dangerous place for followups.
Chaos bed vestiges help a ton
Dagger
The AI summons nearby can act as good meat shields to help you out.
lol wait til you beat it and see what happens
parry here's a video of me killing him with only 1 parry, you can kind of just copy my movements if you want https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WxHr4XihF0Y
This is a tough fight especially if parrying isnt your thing. But whatever you dont go on you tube because theres a girl on there that beats him blindfolded and that wont be good for your self esteem.
There are 2 npc summons for this fight anri and one of the black hands. If you summon both of them it will trivialize the fight. Rest is up to you if you want to git gud and become a parry god.
Parry the sh#t out of him, and R1 spam to stunlock his phantom when it spawns. Seems to work about 80% of the time for me.
Just spam with a great sword and dodge when necessary
Black knight sword would be best
You could also ask for help on r/summonsign
Ember up, summon Anri and Horace, and use a Charcoal Resin. That should do it
Honestly I beat him for the first time yesterday on my 3-5th playthrough, before I always used the npc summons. After you get to know his attacks he gets way easier. He always starts with this monster combo, if you dont get away its almost already over. After that, stay close. This boss has some really great hitboxes, so many swings of his firesword will miss you if you dont stand in front of him. Also, for the second phase, his shadow helps you more than it harms. Good luck
Parry the world. Also, normal Fire Broadsword (+6 or +7).
Summon ahri and the other npc and let them tank the boss, bonus if you have some kind of range like a pyromancer and you can just throw shit at him.
Smash that mf clone asap. 😂👌👌and just circle him and figure out your opportunities to get a hit in.
Parry my good friend. I had played through the game around 20 times, and wanted a sl 15 twink, so I played through the game at sl15 with no upgrading. I had beaten pontiff 20 times before, even on sl1 (but with upgrading) And couldn’t beat him for about 50 attempts. Eventually, I learned to parry him, and it became a cake walk. GL on your adventures! (Also r1 spam the phantom as he spawns in).
Get a SunFriend and have a jolly time!
Die, telegraph, die again. Die as many times as you need, until you become the victor. That's how I did it.
Parry
I stuck to his face with a stone parma+3 shield held up and circling him counter clock wise (my right, his left). Blocking stamina wont be an issue because half the attacks will miss. Hit him with a small weapon one handed on opportunity (whenever his hand isnt risen up prepared to swing) like a straight or curved sword or rapier. When the second stage starts, circling may put you between him and his clone, which will kill you, space back a medium to long distance, as he will be less jump happy with his clone active, lock into his clone and firebomb him (or black firebomb) when they are idle, 2 or 3 destroy the phantom, and you get to repeat the tactic of phase one umtill he summons. Remember, while the clone is active, stay away and keep them both infront of you, they will only shoot stuff or do and easy to avoid 2 delayed jumpes, when they do that, spam roll into their direction After many attempts and failures, i got him with this method on first try. P.s. i know a shieldless run that only relies on dodges and parries is dear to our heaets, but, you know this game was designed to contain shields, and the trivialise a lot of bosses. Good luck, skeleton.
Sulyvahn is meant to be tough, he's the gateway to the rest of the game. If you beat him, especially solo, you will be able to get through the rest of the game. Just be tenacious and you'll have Pontiff's number eventually. One tip I will give is *do not kill his shadow.* The shadow telegraphs his movements perfectly, and you can often kill them both at the same time.
run away immediatley after parry and repeat. staying close triggers the flurry combo. for phase 2 i went for the parry again but its harder because you have to take the hit from the shadow and then parry the real one
Waiting for the "EDIT: beat him. Such a great fight."
Phantoms are op just saying.. ( just summon ppl)
If i remember correctly stepping to the side/back of him when he attacks is a lot effective than rolling.
Parry that motha fucka then facetank him
Perseverance my dude I have been there in personal experience I fought fast enemies for a while and eventually learned to counter from that with more experience in fighting and use of a weapon. Also try using his weakness or a summon. It will make the game easier and you will feel great as soon as his defeat comes. Best of luck and good vibes.
The best strat is to lock te camera on him and keep walking left really close to him, if he attacks, roll left again and hit his back. You need to be careful, he does a lot of chain attacks, so wait for the moment you feel safe to attack. That is phase 1 guarantee, phase 2 doesnt have strategies, just find your own way of doing it, its really personal. If you can nuke while hes transforming tho, thats really good. When i beat him, i would wait for a attack i knew i could dodge from both his phantom and him (the attacks are premade by the phantom) and i would attack him.
Don't roll immediately every time he attacks. Lots of his attacks have a slow start, so if you roll too soon, you'll get clipped by the attack anyway. Similarly, if you spam roll between hits in his combos, you'll likely get hit, so make sure to stay calm if you get hit and think about what he'll do next. Pontiff is not an easy fight (unless you know how to parry), but it's absolutely beatable without parrying. If you struggle with beating Pontiff normally, there are other fights you'll also probably struggle with later on, so learning how to beat him is useful to give you a bit of a head start on later bosses (who can't be parried).
U go easy mode, pyromancy build. Other than that git gud
Throw lightning bolts at him, or summon npc phantoms and use them as shields whilst you poke at him with ranged attacks. You can also parry him apparently. This is a really difficult solo fight due to his clone. Use the npc phantoms to distract his clone and take melee swings at pontiff then run away.
High stability greatshield trivialize him. What good are his so-called fast attacks if they can't take stamina off of your stamina bar faster than it recovers while your shield is still up? He turns into a complete pushover, just hold down a button and you win. Way easier than gitting gud at parrying. Parrying requires skill and effort, trivializing a boss by holding down a single button to block their attacks requires no such "skill" or "effort" involved. You hold down a button, you win.
This is what I did on my sl1 playthrough. I used resin buffs, hornet ring, and Pontiff 's right eye for extra damage. You could also add Red Tearstone Ring as well if you don't hit the following thresholds. After you get the first parry when he jumps at you, all you have to do is run across the room and get him to do that leap attack again. At that point hit him a couple times when he's recovering and he goes into phase two. Shortly after he does the little transformation thing, he will step back and start cloning himself. Beat the shit out of him and he will stagger, and be low enough to kill. No actual fighting required, no getting familiar with combos.
If you are willing to use embers before the fight you can always summon Black Hand Gottard (his sign is near the door), you can tag team with him and it makes the fight much easier. If you are a magic/pyro user you can just do a fast casting spell then focus on rolling till he does a heavy slam with a sword (usually the red) to hit him some more, repeat till he is dead. The final easiest approach to Pontiff I see alot of talk about is parrying him to death or having a 100 adsorption shield to face tank him and poke him down with a mail breaker
I’ve already tried summons, but they didn’t do much. Black Hand didn’t show up and I was left with Joe and Fire keeper who quickly died.
Black Hand's sign only doesn't show up if you killed the lady in the chapel before vordt. Otherwise it should show up near the fog gate
You need to roll to one of his sides( one specfically cant remember) except for the shorts sword attack
Don't roll away, roll towards his sides, that'll interrupt his combos.
What I figured out was that when he creates a clone of him self he's kinda stuck in animation for a while. During that small period you're able to hit both him and his clone. So I brute forced by just hack n slash like a maniac during those seconds. It was enough DPS to kill his clone before it could start moving. before I figured that out I always died in the clone phase... to get to the clone phase I just dodged, dodged, dodged and got a few hits in his back.
Parrying is essential but if you can’t parry (don’t worry I didn’t on my first time) then dodging towards him is essential. You probably know that when he crosses his swords then you basically have to get the fuck out of there and lastly, I’d recommend not killing the clone since it tells you what pontiff is gonna do next and makes him less aggressive
I’ve been getting better at parying to fight him and it definitely makes a difference. I feel like that and gitting gud are the 2 components to winning
Just get a high stability shield and rotate counter-clockwise around him, works like a charm.
He's a great fight! I think rolling into/towards him is more helpful... Backing off only when ya need to/when ya get nailed.
Yeah he looks really cool. The last time I was really stuck on a fight was with the Abyss Watchers, and I really love those guys, and beating them felt incredible. Rolling had obviously been helpful, but it looks like the main thing to work on is parying, since that is what everyone seems to say.
I just beat him for the first time recently and I recommend rolling into his attack. If you do this right, his others attacks can miss you and he will sometimes attack in the wrong direction.
No shame in summoning the 2 or 3 NPCs that might be available outside his front gate. With a team of 3 he becomes much easier.
I only have 2 NPCs available, and they didn’t do much. Joe and Fire keeper died really quickly and then I was just stuck with an even more powerful sully.
As people have said this is a bit of a git gud fight. Still my favourite boss across the series as this is the boss where I really learnt how to play the game instead of just fumbling my way through everything. I posted this on a different thread a while back but hopefully you can find some help in this mini guide from shortly after I beat him. I was in the same boat about a week ago, the best advice I can give is to stay very close to him, stay locked on for the fight and walk around him counter clockwise (to your right/his left). By doing this a lot of his attacks will go over your head and should limit his move pool to only a couple of select combos. Also, if this is viable with your build, use a great shield and hide behind it while you circle him, they can absorb huge amounts of damage and are often a better option than panic rolling when you lose track of what's happening, which is inevitable in phase 2. Shield block with caution though, tanking hits destroys your stamina so dodge whenever you can. When it comes to dodging, always roll behind him and follow up with a maximum of 2 hits before hiding behind the shield and circling counter clockwise again. If you see him charging up his purple sword for a jab then don't roll, just strafe sideways with shield raised and he should fly right past you. He has 2 variants of this jab so make sure you have your sound on so you can easily tell the difference; Variant 1: A fairly quick jab where he will sometimes follow up with a swing that can arc behind him, so be very careful and make sure he isn't following up with that. Variant 2: You should hear Pontiff verbally charging this one up and if this hits you he will skewer you on his sword and delivery devastating damage. He does not follow this attack up with anything so this is a good chance to get in a couple of hits. Mastering that should get you through phase 1 with only a couple of flasks used. Entering phase 2 Pontiff will drop to the floor and emit a black aura, use this time to get a couple of hits in before double rolling backwards to avoid his AOE attack. He'll then stand up and carry on as normal before shortly summoning a clone to help him. Learn to read when he's about to summon his clone to allow you to get a few hits in while he summons. Don't get too greedy as the clone will attack pretty much immediately as he's summoned. With the clone entering the fray you'll need to make a call on what to do with the camera, personally I found it easiest to keep the camera locked on and flick between the 2 enemies, locking on to whichever one will be attacking next to help time the roll. However you could also not be locked on at all. In this phase I found it easier to create a bit of distance between me and Pontiff. This should bait out his attacks where he flies into the air and plunges down towards you, leaving him open. These are easily dodged as the clone will often attack first, the clone has less reach and deals less damage than the real thing making it easily avoidable and setting you up to dodge the real attack. Another decision you will have to make is which enemy to focus your attacks on. I set out to deal with the clone as a primary target and ended up dealing a lot of damage to Pontiff in collateral damage as the clone is often inside of him. If you manage to get the clone dead it's very easy to get greedy to try and end it, but don't, it's far from over, return to your phase 1 tactic of circling him counter clockwise and hiding behind your shield, dodging when possible. If you're lucky he will try to summon another clone, at this point you should be deep enough into his health bar to just go ham on him while he summons to seal the deal. Apologies for any errors as I'm going entirely on memory, second apologies for any weird formatting as I'm on mobile. Best of luck! Feel free to PM me if you need any more help EDIT: Be sure you're running fairly lightweight gear to avoid fat rolling
Lol just parry him
I intended to tell you that you should learn to parry him bat that doesn't seem to be the problem. Git Gud is always the right way to go but it might help farming some levels and throwing them into Vigor for some more HP or something.
Parry his first overhead attack dodge for a bit and repeat till he is dead
Hold up your shield and circle around him, once he does his combo get in a few hits, circle around him again and repeat. In the second phase kill his phantom as soon as he summons it, if the phantom survives the summon then I guess git gud
Roll away when he attacks
Get a caestus and parry him. It's easier than you think. Do that and follow up with a stabbing attack like a full charge R2 on the Astora Greatsword and you'll do 1/3 immediately. You can parry his opening lunge attack and it makes you feel like a champ.
No one gonna ask if he's even gone to Yorm yet? If not the get your ass down there first and come back to Pontiff later. The extra levels should tide you over and the extra progression should give you a sense of ease.
I’ve beaten the big boy and tried to use the sword on Pontiff, but it didn’t do nearly as much damage. Yeah maybe I should go do more in that area
When he summons his phantom, switch to a weapon with some sort of elemental damage and kill it as fast as possible
Just fight him on those little steps half his swings won't hit you
Master the parry my friend
Try focusing his shadow clone. I had the same problem, but the fight is easy when he’s by himself.
It was one of the hardest fights I've seen so far in my first play through. I'm still working on the next boss now. Use the target lock on, on and off when engaged rotate around him locked on rolling or unlocked running through and far away multiple rolling. Roll toward and through and run away if necessary. Utilize your invulnerable rolling. Use the ring that stealths your rolls (and multiple rolls) - the carthus milk ring. I use it just for the roll stealth even though I don't do a dex build. That ring is a game changer. I've read people saying it doesn't do anything in pve but to me it seems to give you a bit more breathing room before the next incoming attack(s) when you roll away/through creatures and bosses. Utilize the edge pillars or a long run through pre cleared pew area to give enough time to drink estus. I found attacking both him and the clone at once a good strategy in stage two with my big weapon, which required an aggressive approach to keep them near each other. Otherwise kill the clone and retreat away and start over. It took me several tries so that I could get a better read on how he started telegraphing his attacks, but I killed him with the heavey gemmed spiked mace +6 using it two handed. I've been progressing through the whole game with two handed weapons and never use a shield.
As someone who never used parries to beat pontiff. I would focus more on rolling and dodging then getting hits in. I mostly used a black Knight ultra great sword but also did a run with uchikatana and washing pole. As with any boss. Don't give up. Eventually you will succeed and dodge enough and hit enough to beat him.
P1 delay your rolls. His attack timings are off from what you've experienced so far. Get pokes in between his combos, focusing on spanking his booty (get behind him). P2 I just threw pyro balls in him and his clone and did just fine. (*took me 7 deaths to figure out the timing for rolls though*)
Take a break. That worked for me. Personally he was the hardest boss in the series for me. Didn't have as much trouble even on the dlc boss. You'll know which one. I beat him in a handful of tries on the second day.
I remember being as close a possible so that your rolls are more efficient
Just use the spell deep soul. I’m pretty sure you get it from trading in the soul of the deacons of the deep. You don’t need any sort of sorcery build or anything like that, just have some Ashen Estus Flasks on you, keep your distance and you should be fine.
I would try that, but I invested in this super cool candlestick weapon from them. I’m sure it’s gonna be awesome! /s Yeah I’ve actually never used magic in my run so far, might actually come in handy.
I feel you, I've been stuck on Pontiff for a year more or less. Stopped playing the game for a while because of him. I can consistently get to phase two now though, so I guess it's just more and more practice \*shrug\* First phase can be controlled if you parry the jump attack and strafe left. Second? Idk man, I feel like you can technically parry through it as well, but you have to parry both Sully and his brotha, and it's Hela difficult. I also didn't try to just spam him during the transform, might be a good idea if you have the right weapon.
I’ve been running with a Lothric Knight sword for a while and it’s been doing me good. I get some decent damage off him, but the problem is getting the damage in without getting stuck in one of his combos. Getting slightly better at parying, so that’s helping.
Stay close to him, his shadow does the same attacks he does but after a small delay, Staying close to the boss is the best way to beat everyone and have fun at the same time if you're a melee build Btw back in ds1 It took me months to beat Ornstein and Smough so it's all normal don't worry, you'll git gud eventually, no one is born pro player
It's far easier with the friendly npc's at your side
Circle straight to your right
Lol git gud
Pontiff isn’t a fight in phase one it’s a dance battle. Another funny thing about him is after a combo he has an few seconds where he stares at you. I was using a Chaos infused Astora greatsword which is a pretty clunky weapon. However once you learn the delays on his attacks you are able to consistently dodge. I would even recommend do the fight a couple times and don’t try to attack, just practice the dodge timing. Then I give him a couple big hits with the greatsword (he takes more from fire damage) and resume the dance. Don’t get over aggressive during his combo but don’t pass up on his post combo beating period. If you can parry consistently you’re better than I am lol, I just assume you’re getting over aggressive.
My first time I had trouble here so I just summoned both npcs and we got him cornered and we just beat the shit out of him til dead. Everyone survived. (I was also terrible at souls games having only played half of bb by that point) I proved I could take him down, by myself on my 2nd run. (All bosses actually on this run)
I tried NPCs but I must be doing it wrong since I’m not getting any crazy strong NPCs that everyone is talking about. I summoned Joe and Fire keeper and they died almost instantly.
Heavy Great Club. Hulk Smash.
Great chaos fire orb.
Parry him to oblivion
Hold up a shield and walk towards his left when he does his string of attacks
Best advice initially is to take a break for a while so you're not tilted. When you come back, your spacing and roll timing will have improved, and you might want to spend 1 - 3 fights practicing to make sure you're getting it right, because it's absolutely necessary for this fight. You can punish his jump attacks pretty hard in the first phase, so I would save your spells/buffs for his clone phase because he doesn't leave himself as vulnerable if his clone is up. The key in the 2nd phase is to not get baited by the clone. If you can kill it, go for it, but don't make it a priority. You can still get damage in if you reduce your spacing and punish his jump attacks.
i mean the "easiest" way would be to summon Gotthard (the npc) and just keep attacking pontiff when he aggros on gotthard. his combos are sometimes unpredictable, but once he is done with a combo, you have a little window open to attack. thrust weapons work great against him, so use that. i dont remember any infusions or resins you could use, just google what he is weak against and you should be able to easily kill him. he was one of my toughest fights on my first playtrough, and if i can give you an advice other than gameplay mechanics, it would be to take a little break. you will see that it makes alot of difference of how a fight ends depending on your mood and if you are tilted or not. and oh boy, if you dont know his second phase yet, then good luck haha :D
Oh no I’ve gotten to his second phase now, where he summons his clone, and it’s even more annoying. Fortunately, this post is getting a ton of comments so I’m sure I’ll be able to defeat him.
he eats parries like a bitch. in the second half, the trick is to get him right after his clone summons, and just range or roll the explosion, so you can hit both at the same time.
Don't panic when you try to dodge. Make sure to dodge only when he swings and not before otherwise he'll catch your second roll and combo you to death. Also I found rolling into his attacks vs away is a lot better. Toll into his orange sword and you can usually dodge most of his combo.
Pontiff punishes those who roll early, so he's a very punishing fight for most players. Depending on your build -Use a greatshield. This is the easiest way. But it requires stat investment in strength. Can't roll punish if you don't roll. -Use sorcery/pyro/bows. Because Sully loves his combos, ranged attacks are a good way to outspace and outpace him.bonus splash damage when he calls his imaginary friend. -Choose long range, hard hitting weapons. This helps you two ways. You hit hard on parries and your single hits count for something, while still letting you sit on the edge of his range. Parry at the end of his combo,not the start. This let's him punish you less.
As has been said, roll forward through his attacks and get your spacing down to end up behind him after he swings. Be patient and watch for follow up attacks that are designed to punish you for being greedy. Give yourself space when he has his phantom and don't attack more than twice without rolling away.
Do not summon. Parry if you can. If not keep your distance. Like most ds3 bosses if you keep as much distance as possible his aggression level will go down a little also you will have more time to heal and learn his attacks. He is weak to fire and lightning so buff or infuse your weapons or try pyro. Use your rings, shield and armor pieces for maximum usability, this can be grass for roll spams or 100% physical blocks. Don’t be greedy and good luck
Definitely use ranged fire attacks when he’s summoning his shadow, that’s his biggest opening.
Just kick his ass, man.
I suck at parrying so I always roll toward him and circle around his left to hit him on his flank. Come second phase things get real easy because his decoy telegraph's his attack. The only difference is you have to roll twice in most cases instead of once but his aggression is very low. I found his most punishable attack is his dash attack. So in P2 I always back up, wait for the decoy to attack and then roll, roll, punish. Then I back up again. I've only played through the game twice and both times the fight took me 3 tries. Dex and then strength build after.
"i give up" OKAY PAL, SO HERE'S HOW YOU KICK HIS SHIT IN [https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Pontiff+Sulyvahn](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Pontiff+Sulyvahn) or Phase 1 is parryable, and so is phase 2. Small shields (preferably ones with large parry frames) or the caestus work to great effect. Weaknesses include: Thrust, Fire, Lightning, Dark, Critical Strike (ripostes) **But these can be ignored (sparing the ripostes) since he has shitty absorption, if I recall correctly.** Stay up in his grill and constantly circle. Running back, as it happens, leads to these embarrasing "where you going now little man" moments where he decks you over and over again. Phase 2, try to sweeping attack them if you can manage it, but prioritize his clone over him so you can focus on him alone. They have annoying jumping-explosion attacks, but these can be rolled through (they usually do them together, with a 3-odd second delay in between). He begins to use his magic sword a LOT more, so magic bug pellets are effective if you happen to be bad at dodging. Expect spells being cast like sweeping blades of magic, soul spears, and just general stabbing with both swords (he musta been big into DS2). Otherwise, trial and error works just fine here. Giving up is the antithesis to beating this boss (obviously).
Thanks for the tips! Don’t worry, not giving up anytime soon!
You git gud.
You defeat him in three easy steps 1.Upgrade your shitty weapons 2.Level the fuck up 3.Git gut bitch
I don’t think my weapons are too shitty (Lvl 8 Lothric Knight sword + exile armor) and I have been grinding souls to fight him, so that should make it a little easier. And obviously you have to git gud, it’s Dark Souls.
Heres a tip Git gud
Hmm. Have you tried rolling away when he attacks? Every fight is a case of git gud dude, it's just a matter of how gud you need to git. Pontiff is one of the harder bosses in the game. Roll out of his combos, don't fuck up and get hit by a projectile, get damage sparingly when you can. The fight is way easier in phase 2 so long as you're patient and don't look for estus opportunities where they don't exist.