Dark Damage is a Damage Type in Dark Souls 3. It is one of eight damage types presented in the original game and one of the four Elemental-type damages.

Weapons, Items & Spells that cause Dark Damage

Items & Spells that increase Dark resistance

Items & Spells that increase Dark damage

Dark Sources

Enemies susceptible to Dark

Enemies resistant to Dark

Enemies immune to Dark

None.

Notes

  • Dark Damage seems to be effective against "ancient" foes like Black Knight and enemies, that were deformed without an influence of the Abyss.
  • Dark Damage seems to be ineffective against enemies corrupted by Abyss, giants, undead and most enemies using dark magic.
  • The only dark damage weapon available before Vordt of the Boreal Valley boss fight is the Deep Battle Axe
  • Top 3 armor sets for Dark resistance are Havel's set (30.7), Karla's set (30.2), and Winged Knight set (33.7).



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    • Anonymous

      my +10 dark battle axe was doing 400+ damage to nameless king with one-handed light attacks with a 32/32 split in int/fth + deep protection, karla would be proud of me

      • Anonymous

        Something pretty interesting: Pyromancies, Sorceries, and Miracles can all do Dark Damage with atleast one spell in their category. I find it very clever both for gameplay but more importantly that it eludes to the fact that dark is corrupting the world, and we can see it now in the way we play.

        • Anonymous

          So basically the most common enemies you encounter are resistant to it? Guess if you're a Pyromancer you'll have a chaos infused weapon as well, though that's more baggage and that also comes with it's own mixture of resistances. I tried and restarted this game at least 50 times and got as far as beating Twin Princes, but never once did I ever feel like my character was complete. They always felt lacking in damage on some front, especially as any type of caster, hybrid or not.

          • Anonymous

            What I like about dark damage is that it seems effective against tough enemies: Black knights, demons, ringed knight, lycanthropes... However I think it is still a bit underused.
            Nevertheless, better than holy damage in Elden ring, the fourth type of damage truly is useless

            • Anonymous

              Kinda weird seeing the Ringed Knights are weak against Dark. Aren't they hollow too? They are the first humans and they are in am area that got corrupted by the abyss.

              • Anonymous

                You dark infuse anything with good scaling (exile, astora, etc.) And it will do better than any normal infusion on most people even at high levels. A dark harold sword can 2 or 3 shot most people at sl 200+

                • Anonymous

                  Dark is a damage type that does not inflict any type of status ailment. Blood infusion inflicts the bleed status while keeping whatever damage type is inherent to the weapon. Enemies have weaknesses, changing damage types is for targeting weaknesses and making use of your stats.

                  • Anonymous

                    hi, question about dark item, is there any effect if you get hit by dark weapon? i mean like bleed weapon, if bleeding bar reach at certain level there will be a true damage thing.

                    • what the heck
                      enemies weak to dark:
                      something else
                      winged knight
                      armor resisting dark:
                      winged knight armor

                      but the winged knights wear winged knight armor right?!

                      • Anonymous

                        This page says Yhorm is resistant to Dark. Which is not true. Yhorm is weak to dark as the Yhorm's page claims.

                        • Anonymous

                          Why does it say dark sorceries/miracles/pyromancies only next to the ring names? That's super misleading and makes it seem like those rings only increase the damage of dark spells which isn't true. I don't even see the point of having that specification, we know you're talking about dark spells.

                          • Anonymous

                            What the heck is even dark damage, all I got is it's a element that stacks with faith and brains, what effect is it?!
                            It doesn't zap like lightning or burn like fire, then what the heck does dark even do?!¡!!

                            • Anonymous

                              a lot of questions here ask if it scales with int/faith... i have a better question to ask...which if these 2 grant the best scaling even if only 1% better? is melee dark spells more faith oriented while peojectiles more int? or all of these are perfectly equal in any way?...because fire damage scales slightly better with inteligence and fire is kind of the opposite of dark ( if you get what i mean )

                              • Anonymous

                                Then an easy way to known if a mob is weak to dark is:

                                - If they are so called knights;
                                - If they are demons;
                                - If they are lords.

                                In this game the elemental weakness & resistances of mobs doesn't make much sense to me unlike most games, in which you know that:

                                - If metallic, obsviously is weak to lightning;
                                - If aquatic, obsviously is weak to lightning;
                                - If undead, obsviously is weak to fire;
                                - If plant-like, obsviously is weak to fire;
                                - If it's taking fire or hot, obsviously is weak to cold/water;
                                - If flywing, obsviously is weak to wind;
                                - If demon-like, obsviously is weak to holy and strong vs dark;

                                In DS3 there's lots of metalic armored mobs that are resistant to lightning, all demons are weak to dark, fire creatures that are resistant to frost..

                                • Anonymous

                                  Based on what is cannon in the series and how the nature of the Dark Soul and so the branding on humans, I wonder if hollowing has any effect on Dark Damage output vs. Not being hollowed. Can anyone confirm, or disprove this? Would be cool to see it do more damage.

                                  • Anonymous

                                    Does all dark damage scale with Intelligence/Faith ? or does it depend on wether it's a miracle, sorcery or pyromancy ? am i just stupid for asking this ?

                                    • Anonymous

                                      So Dark damage is basically the old "Occult" damage from Dark Souls 1 with the exception of demons being weak to it, am I right?

                                      • Anonymous

                                        Gnaw and dorhys gnawing also deal dark dmg. Dark ring increases its dmg. And darkwraiths are resistant to them

                                        • Anonymous

                                          Hey, today I saw a message saying to use dark damage v gargoylesDark Fire orb seems to do about twice as much damage as great heavy soul arrow, and four times as much as chaos bed vestiges - please add them to vulnerable list

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