You know what they say; chat shit, get hit. Or in this case, barely move an inch and get destroyed in one hit.
Yep, YouTuber neptunusequester certainly isn’t taking any nonsense from the bosses of Dark Souls 3. Pontiff Sulyvahn, the dual-wielding cleric with the irritating ability to duplicate himself is a foe that I’m sure most of us remember getting screwed by a fair few times.
So of course, to see our hero waltz in and destroy him with one blow is super impressive. How does he do it? Dark Souls isn’t a franchise that usually allows for such shows of strength after all, and the process is a fairly complicated one, as you might imagine.
Thankfully, Reditter HolidayForHire has pulled back the curtain on this masterful display and explained how you too, can smash old Pontiff right in the nads.
Step one: equip the Red Tear Stone Ring, which adds 20 per cent damage when your HP is low. See, early on in the video he gets hit – but that’s actually all part of the plan.
Secondly, use the Dragon Torso Stone, a magic item that turns you into a dragon (awesome), granting a 10 per cent damage boost for five seconds
Don’t forget to make use of the Sunlight Straight Sword, which offers an 11.5 per cent physical damage buff, along with the Deep Protection spell which grants you a five per cent boost to your damage output.
You’ll also need to equip Yhorm’s Great Machete. A bulky weapon with an effect that pushes enemies back. Notice that after parrying Sulyvahn, they switch back to the Morion Blade, which offers an additional 20 per cent damage output when your HP is under 20 per cent.
Lastly, equip the Hornet Ring, which boosts your critical attacks (i.e. parries) by 30 per cent. It seems like there are probably a few more buffs hiding in there somewhere, but combining all of the above obviously amounts to a shit ton of damage. Observe…
It should be pointed out that this build would only be possible in New Game Plus, as some of the tools needed can only be obtained in areas beyond that big bastard Pontiff.
So, if you’re currently stuck on the Pontiff in your first play through and were hoping that this article would solve that, you’re shit out of luck. Sorry.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.