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
- Dark and Deep infused weapons.
- Weapon buffed with Human Pine Resin
- Weapon buffed with Dark Blade
- A bow with Dark Arrows
- Dark Hand
- Dead Again
- Dorhy's Gnawing
- Gnaw
- Lifehunt Scythe
- Onyx Blade
- Frayed Blade
- Murky Longstaff
- Murky Hand Scythe
- Crucifix of the Mad King
- Affinity
- Dark Edge
- Deep Soul
- Great Deep Soul
- Great Soul Dregs
- Black Flame
- Black Fire Orb
- Black Serpent
Items & Spells that increase Dark resistance
Items & Spells that increase Dark damage
- Blindfold Mask
- Dark Clutch Ring
- Morne's Ring (Dark Miracles only)
- Ring of the Sun's First Born (Dark Miracles only)
- Great Swamp Ring (Dark Pyromancies only)
- Witch's Ring (Dark Pyromancies only)
- Young Dragon Ring (Dark Sorceries only)
- Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (Dark Sorceries only)
- Sacred Oath
- Deep Protection
- Power Within
- Lothric War Banner (Lothric War Banner's Weapon Art)
- Oath of Sunlight (Sunlight Straight Sword's Weapon Art)
- Morion Blade (when health is under 20%)
- Red Tearstone Ring (when health is under 20%)
- Lloyd's Sword Ring (when health is 100%)
Dark Sources
- Skeleton grenades.
- Pontiff Knight
- Murkman
- Black Witch Zullie summoned by Judicator
- Londor Pale Shade
- Shira
- Halflight, Spear of the Church
- Blackflame Friede
- Deacons of the Deep (2nd phase)
- High Lord Wolnir
- Darkeater Midir (2nd phase)
- Pilgrim Butterflies during Dragonslayer Armour boss battle (2nd phase)
- Slave Knight Gael (without 1st phase)
Enemies susceptible to Dark
- Monstrosity of Sin
- Silver Knight
- Winged Knight
- Ascended Winged Knight
- Boreal Outrider Knight
- Ringed Knight
- Millwood Knight
- Millwood Chieftain
- Lycanthrope
- Black Knight
- Mimic
- Smoldering Rotten Flesh
- Fire Witch
- Pontiff Knight
- Judicator
- Gargoyle
- Demon
- Vordt of the Boreal Valley
- Dancer of the Boreal Valley
- Old Demon King
- Nameless King
- Soul of Cinder
- Father Ariandel & Sister Friede
- Demon in Pain & Demon from Below
Enemies resistant to Dark
- All skeleton-type enemies
- Pus of Man
- Darkwraith
- Harald Legion Knight
- Hollow
- Skeleton
- Giant Slave
- Rotten Slug
- Cathedral Knight
- Irithyllian Slave
- Deacon of the Deep
- Murkmen
- Locust Preacher
- Rock Lizard
- Iudex Gundyr
- Champion Gundyr
- Abyss Watchers
- Deacons of the Deep
- High Lord Wolnir
- Aldrich, Devourer of Gods
- Yhorm the Giant
- Dragonslayer Armour
- Lothric, Younger Prince
- Darkeater Midir
- Slave Knight Gael (without 1st phase)
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).
- 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
- 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.
- Anonymous
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
Since the frayed blade does dark damage does it scale with faith\int?
- Anonymous
Does it scale the same as fire, or is it ds2 style where it scales off of the lower stat?
- Anonymous
So blatantly obvious they saved the dank innate weapons for the DLC except for Dark Hand. Lame-o.
- 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
- Anonymous
Demon in Pain and Demon from Below are weak to dark, but Demon Prince is resistant
- 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
- 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
Sunlight straigthsword WA boost all damage, so dark damage are also increased by it
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Gnaw and dorhys gnawing also deal dark dmg. Dark ring increases its dmg. And darkwraiths are resistant to them
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- 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
I hope weapons of pure Darkness now have a dedicated to-punch list. :D
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.
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