Pontiff Knight | Dark Souls 3 Wiki

fromsoft took a lot of inspiration from this particular enemy for 90% of the enemies in elden ring

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You first meet them right after a bonfire. If you can't parry them, now would be the perfect time to practise.

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whoever starts their spam first, wins.

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Why not mention you can parry them?
The downward slash from the 4 hits combo and the 180° turn slash are the best opportunities.
Then other attacks are simply insane.

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Do these guys actually have an infinite combo? I just had one do a 720 double-circle around me with about 7 slashes. "Ah, there's no way he'll do an eighth one..."

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The true owners of grass crest shield and chloranthy ring+9999

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If they start a combo dont Block you gonna die after youre poise is brocken and He starts another combo.better roll or hit it first with a fast weapon

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whoever put those two in front of Pontiffs arena, I hope you stub your toe and then hit your elbow and THEN fall face first onto a lego death star.

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**** these guys

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I have a fire +4 uchi and i parried tf outta the sword ones (immediate heavy + light combo afterwards) or kick the shields then free riposte. The scythes i haven't encountered since the flaming knights are my current roadblock

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these are the most annoying mf enemies in this game

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these guys were a major roadblock to me the first time i played. but theyre very easy to get behind and backstab. always roll in, never away. also one kick to the shield ones will break their guard and open up a riposte

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least aggressive dark souls enemy

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for the sword ones just straight sword L1 and parry, sometimes you take a little dmg but always parry because their brains have been corroded by explicit among us images so they always hit back.

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Parry them. I suck at parrying pretty hard and I parried them to death.

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Irithyll of the Stamina Valley

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a.k.a. satisfying footstep knights.

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Pontiff knights, also known as the three musketeers of bullshit at the beggining of Irythyll that I always skeep

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they're okay, I find the scythe ones a little easier because their attacks have a clear rhythm to them. At the very least not as busted as those ridiculous sickle sceletons

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The most powerful enemies gaming history! They’re the reason why no one has ever made it past Pontiff. The pkcs they wield is simply too powerful. The only way to get past them is to wield a pkcs yourself and get on your knees and beg for mercy. Very rare for them to spare you though. Usually they will just throw a dung pie on you and proceed to one shot and point down on your filthy casul corpse. Be warned.

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This is actually the final bosd

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Me: Hi, I'm a lvl 50 Faith build, just got to the Valley for the first time! What are you guys all about-
*Get's lawnmowered to death*

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I found that they are incredibly easy to parry, its not even funny.

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what's the point of an enemy that never stops attacking it isn't even fun to play

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They use the PKCS but don't point down?
This must be a design oversight by FromSoftware.
It is literally its Weapon Art.

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PKCS guy IRL

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these asshats attack WAY too fast, i can excuses it being they seem limber and thin with basically large scimitars, but they can get 3 attacks in before knight class can swing a dagger, how do they expect us to combat that?

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Pkcs troll guy's waifu

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Fire one more vape missile at me and I'm gonna shove my halberd's WA where you won't like it!

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PRAISE THE BEARERS OF THE ALLMIGHTY PKCS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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for the scythe lads you should try spacing, at just the right distance all their swings will miss and the only other reliable way to dodge their hyperspeed slash i've found is to roll almost exactly when an attack animation ends

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For the love of Gwyn stop puking out the magic bullsh*t

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I don't get why people hate this enemy so much, R1 stunlocking them with ANY weapon before they can even attack usually works for me since they have no poise. And for the shield variations just use kick and riposte.

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Fighting w them is basically a battle between 2 pvp casuls,if u don't know how to parry,then the battle depends on who spams r1 more than the other as both of u have literally 0 poise so just spam r1 before them

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R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1 R1

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They can be super easy and super hard all depends on the rng god.

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If you are using a physical fighter, i recommend using black knight greatsword. It drops by the one black knight in road of sacrifices.
Does lots of poise dmg, so the 2-handed weak attack at min requirements can already stop the pontiff knights and fire witches in place and even break their blocking stance in 1 hit.
It also does extra dmg against all demons, being extremely useful at this point of the game no matter if you decide to go from carthus catacombs up to irythil of the boreal valley or down to smouldering lake.

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A glaring example of why DS3 is the inferior game to DS1, despite it's "superior" combat. Reason is most mobs exist in a different universe from the player when it comes to combat. Infinite combos, stamina, and POISE (you have it, they don't). It never feels fair, which was the staple of Souls games, specially DS1.

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I just ran through this area and I got invaded. I wanted to light the church bonfire so I sprint as fast as possible to it. Running passed waves of enemies in Ng+ then one of these ****ers 7-9 hit combos me off screen in the back. I was ready to heal but the ******* invader just followed me and was able to last shot. In short fuuuuuuuuck pontiff knights.

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I like these enemies but it's bad game design to give them nearly infinite stamina. too many enemies like this with broken mechanics that require specific load outs. It's not skill based. Dark souls is not supposed to be a loot game where you win fights by winning a gear check. It's supposed to be a long series of skill checks.

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I hate these *******s. They prance around like a bunch of Tolkein elves turned into white walkers, as seen through the lens of a K-pop boy band. And by God can they shred you to pieces.

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If you not good at parrying, dont bother putting your shield up, their attacks mostly deal magic damage. Just roll and use straight sword. They're squishy but can kill you with just 1 combo regardless your armor absorption. 2 swing from the Lothric SS or Sunlight SS more than enuff to put this *****es down.

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they seem to be much weaker to dark than fire

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So, those guys are either really painfull (and estus consuming) or really easy. Depends if you manage to stagger them or not, if you do they're gonna be dead in a second or two. If not, well, say good bye to your estus

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The Iron Flesh Spell works wonders here. Their attacks just bounce off witout causing stagger while reducing the damage at the same time. Has super low requirements too but only lasts for a single fight. Just have a couple ashen flasks to refill your FP every two knights and heal the little damage you receive in between fights with the priest chime. I'm a sword and board dex build and can beat them easily this way without cheese or having to practice my parry game.

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One of these dbags just dropped a claymore. Weird, yes?

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roll catch, roll catch, roll catch, DEAD, f*ck you ~fromsoft

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Caestus in the offhand is a lightweight and easy-to-use weapon that can offer parries, that you can switch to pretty easily. Just dodge the first hit in the combo and parry the second. Fairly reliable! But GOD these guys shred you if you make a single mistake.

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The pontiff sure gave skimpy clothing to his knights, I wonder why

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R1 Knight

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My favourite enemies are the ones that can stare at me winding up an attack and instantly hit me out of it before I finish

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Hollowslayer Greatsword destroys these guys. 1-hand R1s wreck the sword only knights and a weapon art R1 breaks defense of the shield bearers. Then strike down with more R1s.

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Parrying and then using a fire weapon to riposte seems to work for me. I use a +4 fire dagger, one shots for first time playing.

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Literally just stagger them. If you don't have a large PvE weapon for each character what are you doing?

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I used to absolutely hate these dudes on my heavy quality build character (greatsword, heavy armor, all that), but now that I'm going through Irithyll with my pyromancer, OH the day of vengeance is upon them. Super easy to dispatch with couple of great chaos fire orbs or some other pyromancies. They're very vulnerable to fire damage, as is expected from a frost spirit, I suppose.

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I like how I can beat most of the bosses in to two tries... but pontiff knights get me every *****ing time

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Sulyvahn must love making all of his enemies annoying.

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***** these ***** heads

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Farron's Break Dance Greatsword *****s them up

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bull*****design

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Use force miracle, black serpent, or chaos fireball. Best to least, they become very trivial

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Parry + Darkhand Riposte = gitgud

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These guys clearly take after Sulyvahn. They have attacks that never end until you die.

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Best enemies in the game. Especially how you fight 3 at once before you see them at all. Especially especially if you use a slow weapon. Truly fun.

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I was just thinking that Dark Souls III had an unusual amount of actual difficulty for a Soulsborne game and then I ran into these guys.

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***** these things!! Theyre bull*****know why? Infinite goddamn stamina, beyblade spin attack that doesn't *****in belong in a souls game, not easily staggered, and on top of the melee attacks...they were given a goddamn ranged spell. Did these *****ers learn those spins from the Carthus ninjas?? (Which are utter triceratops terds themselves).

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How I managed to get past them was by using a Black Knight Sword upgraded to +4. I had to respec since my Crystal Uchi +5 (pyro sorcerer build) wasn't doing jack $H1T and I just get stunlocked to death. Using sorcs isn't very viable since they could outrun Usain Bolt while shoving their long curved d1cks up your ass at the same time. You just have to STUNLOCK THEM FIRST, and also make sure you have enough stamina to do so.

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F*** these things!

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*Tries to Parry* *Misses Parry* Maybe I can roll out. *Pontiff Knight starts cartwheel spinning* Nevermind. I will just stand here and accept my fate at thy hands artificial difficulty...

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im really glad that the scythe one has an attack that comes out LITERALLY instantly. thanks miyazki ya fuckin dipshit

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One...
Two...
Three...
Four.
FIVE.
SIX.
SEVEN!
EIGHT!
NINE!
TEN!
ELEVEN!!!!!!!

ELEVEN FUCKING SWINGS, THANK YOU FROMSOFT

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straight sword R1 spam is the easiest way to victory against these guys it seems

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For the last few areas I've been feeling more and more like this game is just bull*****lazy enemy design, this area and these enemies are complete crap. Not fun to play against, the best strategy is HIT FIRST, such riveting gameplay indeed, well done From

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Casting Chaos Bed Vestiges on them is deeply, deeply satisfying. Highly recommended.

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One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Nine consecutive swings! Ha ha ha!

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I mean, one on one they are pretty easy to kill, just taunt one knight so she separates from the rest (I say she cuz I think they are female), dodge her first running attack then hit her till she dies, they get staggered after the first hit. Now, if they group up you're pretty much dead, you cannot out-stagger them, nor outrun them either.

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The drinking noise they make makes me literally insane. Its such an infuriating, sickening noise - it makes my stomach lurch every single time i hear it. One of them once spammed it repeatedly for every step it took and it was the first time i ever felt close to throwing my controller.

What is commendable on the other hand is that these are the first enemies that forced me to change my weapon and playstyle. Turns out they dodge-spam the dual scimitars easily, but i found out that my thorned whip, which just so happens to be my favourite anti-invader weapon, is also extremely, extremely strong against them. The range allows you to hit them even if they dodge, you are not staggered if striking their shield and they are staggered with each hit from it.

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Dark hand easy mode here xD

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The R1-spam master race

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Pontiff sucks at training his knights.

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They are an absolute joke quickstep first swing then hit them 4-5 times with the dagger and they die. Thyre easily stun locked. Why does no one use daggers? Still useing my bandits dagger and wrecking everything

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the swordsman are laughable easy to parry with the caestus. bait the shield knights by hitting their shield, then immediately parry their next attack. not one of the most reliable strategies, but it worked for me.

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This page is largely decent, but it contains an error. The shieldless curved sword variant only has one sword, not two. Their offhand is empty.

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Roll toward them and to their right (your left) to avoid most of their attacks.

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For some reason, the one that is located in the distant manor leading to the Irithyll Dungeon is much much more aggressive.

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immune to Rapport. Wondrously weak to Dark.

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Irityll of the valley has been a huge, never -ending boss battle for me up till now....grrrr

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If you are a pyromancer/knight use great combustion on your left hand and a weapon with a fire infusion or use a fire reinforced pyromancer spell to your weapon. Great combustion is a good spell to stun and guardbreak their shields, also I recommend using a bleed weapon like katanas or use straight swords just to kill them a little quicker.

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They are broken, if you can't initiate the fight and land the first hit then you have about one chance to parry (even I can pull it off most of the time, which is strange), after that you are pretty much dead. There are two openings if you can survive that long: their ranged attack takes forever, and they have a charge slash attack which also provides a window to stagger them. 99% of the time there is no fight just instant death for them or for you. The problem is that you have to fight about 4 to 6 of them between bonfires and you only have to **** up once.

During my first and second playthrough I tought they were easy, as a pyro I had range and they don't like fire, and before 1.06 there was the Estoc bestoc, but today I learned that the 1h longsword is less than an ideal.

And the Pontiff is the ultimate version. In the end I gave up and waited till the RNG smiles at me and the two NPC phantom kill him for me.

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What a *****ing joke. So these guy's movement speed, attack speed, attack range, and attack power are at least 3 times greater than ours, their endurance is pretty much endless, their ridiculously strong, super fast attacks are pretty much unblockable, and they stagger you after one hit. Even if you're lucky enough to roll away they stay stuck to you like glue. If you do manage to swing your weapon they roll twice as fast and twice as far as you can. Why not keep them just the way they are, but also give them invisibility and instant death eye lasers? At least then they would be challenging.

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Has 624 health.

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I was using a blessed mail breaker and I think they might be resistant to bless but I also tried the pyromancy black serpent and it seemed to be rather effective on them.

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Maybe these are irrelevant to gameplay but I think they are the only variety of female knights. We can clearly hear the sound of high heels when they are walking and their moveset and attack pattern highly resembles The Dancer. Hell, I think they are a lesser version of Dancer.

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They can get past the barrier.

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They do not bleed. Tested with grave warden twinblades plus carthus rouge.

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Have notice that in NG+ they seem to have a new art attack? Can´t be sure, as my first playtrough was way back, but recently been playing in NG+ and I cant recall seeing that art before.

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It's time to gut gud

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On ng+2 they drop 2971 Souls

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on NG+ they drop 2700 souls

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They have been the easiest kinds of enemy knights in the game. They stagger very easily and pyromancy also seems to do quite some damage.

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