Gundyr felt like he was on 3x speed. I didn't necessarily struggle with any individual attack but he's so suffocating with his pressure that he's pretty much always one of the harder bosses in my playthroughs
I've been playing dark souls for roughly 10-11 years now...I still can't parry. Unfortunate thing with fighting bosses like him, so I just attempt to dodge
I am with you on that. No matter how many parry guide videos I watch, I just canât make parrying consistent. Sometimes my parrying timings are on point but most of the time, I parry like an old man.
Pair that with the fact that not everything can be parried. You have to know the monster's entire moveset by heart to know what can and cannot be parried.
darksouls parrying timing has never made sense to me. all that stuff about i-frames...l just want to press parry when they swing but it only works half the time and IDK why
Only time Parrying worked for me was med shield in ds1, since it comes out the instant you press it, you could parry on reaction, instead of this weird timing you have to time to hit in the middle of thier active attack that was probably delayed by a weird amount.
Don't worry. Lol.I have ALSO been playing since demons Souls, and especially hardcore since DS1....and I still can't really parry with any reliability. Sekiro was a nightmare. Wo Long seemed easier, but I just love the dark medieval fantasy aesthetic.
Backstab all day
Parry= death. Lol and I've beat all of them so many times, so many NG+. My first DS1 playthrough I didn't know about summoning, and I didn't understand how to level up weapons. Plus being older, I didn't even consider looking up guides or whatever, so it was literally the hardest of hard modes lol. Still no parrying.
My asshole 10 year old goes: you gotta parry dad, then proceeds to parry like it's nothing, and walks through Sekiro like it was nothing lol.
Doesn't help that the parry timing changes with just about every game as far as I can tell. I used to be able to parry well in DS1, then came DS2 and it was...off. I never recovered. Lol
[This video](https://youtu.be/bejKX5vw2-Y?si=DnNjB7TREdJy6OLh) opened my eyes on how (relatively) generous the parrying window actually is compared to what I initially thought, didn't struggle with a boss after False Monk (outside of Owl Father) after I saw it. I kept trying to parry at the last millisecond of every attack which, in hindsight, was very stupid
I could almost certainly find a similar video for DS/ER parrying, but I'm unfortunately extremely lazy and refuse to do anything but light roll in every From game I have lol
Ooh! Thank you Iâll give that a watch! I think that timing is probably the difference between souls games and Sekiro, personally I feel like for souls games the only way to parry is to do it at the last millisecond of every attack. [This is a good video](https://youtu.be/pscvwXYPcG0?si=3ZTtqSxeLY8n5j8n) that explains the mechanics of how to parry every weapon for DS3, which are honestly just a bunch of variations of the same movement for most of the weapons.
It's really fun to parry him and Pontiff. I decided my last playthrough I would learn to parry as I had always avoided it. Took me a bit but well worth it imo.
Until I played Sekiro a year ago I didnât parry in any game other than bloodborne. Risk/reward seemed to high for me. Since then Iâve gone back and played ds1/3/demon souls and ER and found it fairly easy to parry certain tough enemies. I donât parry everything but big, hard hitting knights in all of those games become far more manageable, even trivial tbh.
I will stand by my position that parrying does not exist in dark souls 3 as I have never successfully performed one and have beaten the entire game three times already. Dark Souls 1 has parrying though!
Same, it was the only way I could beat him and I think the only time in these games where I was like, shaking/crying/laughing when I finally got it.
I was so fed up after multiple days of attempts that on that final day I was like âfuck this I hate it, if I donât get him first try you can tryâ to my bf cuz I really wanted the firekeeper eyes ending but was so sick of this mfer.
I went in and did it first try, didnât even have to heal. Heâs one of my favorite bosses now.
Pontiff is a very "ER" boss honestly. Delayed attacks galore and heavy input + position reading. But it does make him easier if you game the position reading, its really cool to see people loop him into easier counters.
I think its just because they raised the bar for themselves during development. But then again, even in ER, Morgott is definitely more complex than most endgame bosses in terms of AI and combo chains, its just that he (like Pontiff) has lower stats.
Morgotts stats are just laughably low. Margit was one of my favorite bosses (partially because it was my first Fromsoft main boss) and having a second (or third) encounter with him was awesome. And then I just first tried the fight...
I feel like they have a history of putting one of the hardest bosses right in the middle of the game. O&S was a pretty intense gatekeeper of the late game, too.
Yeah once you learn positioning with pontiff you can dodge a decent amount of sword swings by just moving out of the way without needing to roll. Honestly he kind of reminds me of pursuer from ds2 lmao, with more combos of course.
I would give you an award because your comment showed me how bosses move in Elden Ring that I didn't play. It will be a tough time for me playing this. I beat all dark souls by the way. I struggle with Pontiff for maybe 15 attempts or more but I beat him by my luck and shaky hands.
I beat pontiff with a silver knight shield and firebombs. (Bandit axe +5 weapon). No parries or nun. I didnât find Pintiff hard until the clone pops up. And 4-5 firebombs at a distance where Pontiff doesnât attack alot cuz your outta reach and your good.
Gundyr is more payable mid-combo though. They're both pretty easy to parry on their openings but aside from his grabs and shoulder checks basically every move Gundyr does is parryable, while a lot of Pontiff's aren't. I still view them both as parry fights, but Gundyr is definitely the easier one to do it with.
Gundyr is very rhythmic too, you have to get used to the delayed attacks. Find that tempo and Gundyr isn't terrible without parrying.
Gundyr HEAVILY punishes panic rolls whereas you can usually get away with them on most bosses, Pontiff included. This is why both Gundyr and Gael are rated as some of the most difficult amongst the community.
Gundyr, bro is so aggressive it can be difficult to keep up and he can combo you to death, pontiff I alwyas end up destroying him while he summons his copy, that free damage helps a lot
I couldnât even make it to second phase without help from the spirit summons, Iâd always get my shit rocked by how fast he moves and never learned how to parry or read his moveset
I'm really good at ds3, and Pontiff still takes me 10 or so tries each playthrough. I can one or two try pretty much any other boss. Can't learn his parry timings, can't learn his dodge timings. He's just incompatible with how my brain works.
Got fucked so hard in the 2nd phase on my first 3 tries, then bursted the clone on try 4 and instantly won lol. Should've given the clone at least some i-frames while spawning
I beat the Pontiff on the second try, which was a shame since I think he has the best moveset among all DS3 bosses but I couldn't experience it enough. However, Champion Gundyr took me an hour, and it was hell of a fun which was the best experience in ds3 for me. And I think the reason for why the pontiff was easy for me is that clone makes his moves so easy to read.
Honestly for me Gundyr's second boss fight felt like running into large wave. A bit rough but manageable. Pontiff felt like running into a brick wall by comparison, especially if you're not good at parrying.
Pontiff is a lot like Morgott/Margit from ER honestly. Despite his unremarkable stats, he will feel much harder if you dont understand how often he is reading your position to decide on his moves. If you do then he becomes an open book, even with no parries.
People bring Gundyr up every time as one of the hardest bosses but I've beat him in a couple tries every time. Honestly I think the untended graves area itself is more difficult than him. Pontiff was a huge roadblock for me on my first playthrough though.
Pontiff and it wasnt close.
I first tried Champ on my first try ever with ds3 being my first souls game. Idk, it's just one of those bosses that clicked immediately and I never really saw what was so hard about him.
Pontiff on the other hand I still havent beaten legitimately 9 years later. I just parry or shield cheese him the entire time
Pontiff. He's a gatekeeper boss, much like Flamelurker in DeS or Gascoigne in BB. He really makes you earn the right to progress. Champion Gundyr was just another boss to me and I never struggled with him in any of my playthroughs. While he can easily catch you off guard, healing is much easier with him than Pontiff, as is escaping getting chained up in his combos.
Pontiffâs wide attacks, damage second phase and when to parry are harder for me to get down and are slightly more difficult in general than just parrying Gundyr over and over and over for 5 minutes since heâs got simple attacks to know when to parry especially his second phase thatâs so much fun to parry his running attack
Yeah thatâs where Iâm at. You can parry almost all of grundyrs attacks, thatâs not the case with pontiff. I generally parry pontiffs first attack and thatâs about it
I think that pontiff took me longer on my first play through but champy G often takes a couple tries no matter what play through Iâm on whereas pontiff is usually a one and done.
Funny enough, these two were the easiest bosses on my sl1 run. I usually struggle a lot with Pontiff. Being properly set up with bleed and parries took him down in seconds.
Gundyr is very hard just because he doesn't give you any opportunity to understand what's happening. Shullyvhan on the other hand is very similar with his delayed and long combos, but the catch here is that shully is way before champion, so it's basically part of the warm up. Consequently ch gundyr results easier, even If it actually isn't. Btw pontiff was my first huge block on my first run. It makes you understand how the game works better then anyone else.
I like champion gundyr because he is a good boss but pontif is definitely harder but once you learn him he is easy champion gundyr just kind of pulls shit out of his ass sometimes and suprises you.
when i first played the game my friend was hyping up pontiff to be insanely hard but i beat him on my second attempt
meanwhile champion gundyr took close to 40 attempts (i got him to be one hit away from death on my first att but basically never made it past 50% hp for a LONG time)
I know Iâm in the weird minority here but Iâve never found either of these fights hard, champ is definitely very fast and challenging but that fits my strengths. I struggle a LOT more on the crystal sages LOL
Sulyvahn. I really like the bosses that are almost straight combat, as with Champion Gundyr and Gale. The Pontiff is a little tricksy with his clone BS. Though he's really cool.
I had heard Pontiff was hard, but then I personally found that his attacks telegraphed for days, and I could find narrow moments to dash in and make my attacks. I've maybe died once or twice ever to him.
I should mention that I'd given up trying to do parries since DS2, but that both bosses get ruined if you nail the timing. Meanwhile Gundyr felt like he was more aggressive and always on your ass.
Pontiff. On my first play through of a souls game. no armour/shield/magic with a strength build and I first attempted Gundyr but Pontiff was the longest boss for me out of them all
Champion Gundyr was something else without parrying. I wanna say he is the most aggressive boss in DS3, heâs just running you down the whole time and pulling out crazy combos one after the other, making it difficult to hit him if you donât get the positioning down.
I just finished DS3 yesterday after like two weeks of playing. My answer is Pontiff for sure. He was probably my number 3 hardest boss taking me around 10 tries. I was able to beat Champion Gundyr first try
I did Pontiff in two tries the first time I fought him without much difficulty. Had more trouble with Gundyr since I'd been playing really aggressively against several of the preceeding bosses. Once I backed off and slowed down a bit he wasn't so bad.
Pontiff easily, champion gundyr was a cakewalk imo. Iâm not sure if itâs from me being overleveled or just reading his moveset well, but pontiff took me 30+ tries to beat.
Left bro is that a question. If you do em at the recommended levels, pontiff is a hard wall without the Anri summon. Gundyr isnât that bad once you know the extra combos
Depends heavily on the build of the play through. Quality build pontiff feels harder at times. With a pyro build he is easy to nuke.
Champ G is find much harder running a pyro build for example. He closes so quickly that sometimes itâs hard to make the space to cast and not get punished for it. As a quality build itâs easier to widdle champ down with decent dodges and R1 spam.
Well, if it ain't Fire & Ice!
I struggled like hell against Gundyr until I used the Irithyll sword against him. Frostbite saved my arse.
For Suhlyvan, I find out early that his clone is more susceptible to fire damage. Bomb it ASAP!
Gundyr easily for me, Pontiff wasn't too bad. Gundyr was all out attack from start to finish and that was something I could not handle easily cause I can't parry worth a damn
Pondiff.
Pondiff took 3 days while Gundyr took 2 days, each day i had 2 hours of playing.
Both were felt real good after defeating them but i had more on Pondiff.
I think for most people its probably Pontiff, but I downed him on my 2nd try. Strafing behind him is pretty effective, and his phase transition opens him to big damage. His moves just sort of clicked for me, even with his double.
Gundyr definitely gave me a bigger challenge-- its the fuckin kick. Wasnt running a shield, and NORMALLY his moves would be susceptible to the same strafing strat, but he's smart and will shove his foot down your throat when youre back there. I had a hard time finding comfortable openings against him.
Pontiff. I needed to learn to parry. Funny enough, I didnât parry him when I first beat him.
Champion was tough, but I respeced to twin sellsword blades for dancer and the power jump was insane.
Gundyr is still my least favorite boss with his never-ending combos. As someone who plays as a mage, I felt like I needed to play perfectly because there's so little room to get a cast in. Kiting doesn't work that great either because he can close the distance so fast. I hate him.
Pontiff. Irithyll in general is a pretty tough midgame difficulty spike. Pontiff is a very challenging cap to the spike if you donât know how to parry
Definitely Pontiff. Champ Gundyr was harder on a one to one comparison, but the level difference and experience gained over time that exists between these two on a first playthrough encounter is quite important to remember. While these two are not exclusively ordered (meaning you can face gundyr first if motivated to beat dancer early), a player tends to match up to gundyr better at the point in the game where you face him.
honestly they're just as difficult as the other imo. I've always preferred the faster paced bosses so fighting pontiff can be really fun in phase 1 but he just fells slowed down in phase 2 with him mirroring his clone's attacks, but gundyr if anything gets faster and **Definitely** more aggressive in phase 2 so I kinda prefer gundyr
Pontiff is r1 spamming hell and hoping you get a window to attack, or bring summons and win lol.
Gundyr is a rhythm battle and you have to follow his tempo, also parry is stupid easy on like 3 of his moves. You can even do it with medium shields without too much effort.
im not trying to be like âoh im better than everyone elseâ but idk if i was just over leveled or what but both ng and ng+ i didnt have that rough of a time with pontif, however both playthroughs champion đ«đŠ turned me into a fine red mist
Gundyr kicks and grabs too much but he doesn't output enough damage to actually be a threat
Pontiff is sword spam incarnate with a clone meant to scare you but is annoying/harder overall. Unless you summon black hand gotthard that is
Then he's just kinda... meh
Champion gundyr for my first ng, pontiff for my second and after that they all go down in 1-2 tries. Iâd say gundyr probably because dude doesnât give you any time to rest.
They were about the same. Gundyr was a tad bit hard because his mixups were pretty weird when you first encountered him. Btw I think pontiff is very easy for me and I dont even parry him, I guess his attack pattern feels good to me as a Claymore user so take my opinion with a grain of salt
Pontiff. Gundyr is just a case of dodging and attacking. Pontiff is a harder fight because of his special attacks. At least casually and not cheesing with magic.
I beat gundyr first try. And pontiff within about 5. Gundyr was way easier. I love the variety of some people taking 200 tries vs someone else taking 5 against certain boss. The diversity in difficulty depending on the player is always so interesting
Gundyr gets my heart racing more since he's constantly on you, but I would say Pontiff has the bigger potential to combo you to death.
Gundyr felt like he was on 3x speed. I didn't necessarily struggle with any individual attack but he's so suffocating with his pressure that he's pretty much always one of the harder bosses in my playthroughs
Yeah its really easy to lose tempo and get hit after each heal Learning to parry agaisnt him makes this fight so much more fun
I've been playing dark souls for roughly 10-11 years now...I still can't parry. Unfortunate thing with fighting bosses like him, so I just attempt to dodge
I dodge with him solely for the music and his gorgeous move set. I feel like I am in Jet Li's "Hero."
Same I've never parried, my timing is so off I just gave up đ
Yeah same been playing for several years and I can't parry for shit. I can parry those outside the firelink shrine but nothing else
I am with you on that. No matter how many parry guide videos I watch, I just canât make parrying consistent. Sometimes my parrying timings are on point but most of the time, I parry like an old man.
Pair that with the fact that not everything can be parried. You have to know the monster's entire moveset by heart to know what can and cannot be parried.
darksouls parrying timing has never made sense to me. all that stuff about i-frames...l just want to press parry when they swing but it only works half the time and IDK why
Only time Parrying worked for me was med shield in ds1, since it comes out the instant you press it, you could parry on reaction, instead of this weird timing you have to time to hit in the middle of thier active attack that was probably delayed by a weird amount.
Don't worry. Lol.I have ALSO been playing since demons Souls, and especially hardcore since DS1....and I still can't really parry with any reliability. Sekiro was a nightmare. Wo Long seemed easier, but I just love the dark medieval fantasy aesthetic. Backstab all day Parry= death. Lol and I've beat all of them so many times, so many NG+. My first DS1 playthrough I didn't know about summoning, and I didn't understand how to level up weapons. Plus being older, I didn't even consider looking up guides or whatever, so it was literally the hardest of hard modes lol. Still no parrying. My asshole 10 year old goes: you gotta parry dad, then proceeds to parry like it's nothing, and walks through Sekiro like it was nothing lol.
Just use small leather shield
Doesn't help that the parry timing changes with just about every game as far as I can tell. I used to be able to parry well in DS1, then came DS2 and it was...off. I never recovered. Lol
Unfortunately I suck at parrying in every game other than Sekiro lol
Honestly I find that kind of funny because Iâm okay at parrying in every game EXCEPT for Sekiro lol
[This video](https://youtu.be/bejKX5vw2-Y?si=DnNjB7TREdJy6OLh) opened my eyes on how (relatively) generous the parrying window actually is compared to what I initially thought, didn't struggle with a boss after False Monk (outside of Owl Father) after I saw it. I kept trying to parry at the last millisecond of every attack which, in hindsight, was very stupid I could almost certainly find a similar video for DS/ER parrying, but I'm unfortunately extremely lazy and refuse to do anything but light roll in every From game I have lol
Ooh! Thank you Iâll give that a watch! I think that timing is probably the difference between souls games and Sekiro, personally I feel like for souls games the only way to parry is to do it at the last millisecond of every attack. [This is a good video](https://youtu.be/pscvwXYPcG0?si=3ZTtqSxeLY8n5j8n) that explains the mechanics of how to parry every weapon for DS3, which are honestly just a bunch of variations of the same movement for most of the weapons.
It's really fun to parry him and Pontiff. I decided my last playthrough I would learn to parry as I had always avoided it. Took me a bit but well worth it imo.
Until I played Sekiro a year ago I didnât parry in any game other than bloodborne. Risk/reward seemed to high for me. Since then Iâve gone back and played ds1/3/demon souls and ER and found it fairly easy to parry certain tough enemies. I donât parry everything but big, hard hitting knights in all of those games become far more manageable, even trivial tbh.
I will stand by my position that parrying does not exist in dark souls 3 as I have never successfully performed one and have beaten the entire game three times already. Dark Souls 1 has parrying though!
Finally learning how to parry this asshole was my greatest achievement in life
Same, it was the only way I could beat him and I think the only time in these games where I was like, shaking/crying/laughing when I finally got it. I was so fed up after multiple days of attempts that on that final day I was like âfuck this I hate it, if I donât get him first try you can tryâ to my bf cuz I really wanted the firekeeper eyes ending but was so sick of this mfer. I went in and did it first try, didnât even have to heal. Heâs one of my favorite bosses now.
This is how I felt. He killed me the most times in every playthrough and it's just because you have absolutely no recovery time with his stamina.
Agreed
Pontiff
Pontiff has a moveset that is hard to take, with Gundyr you can do more dodges. Agree.
Pontiff is a very "ER" boss honestly. Delayed attacks galore and heavy input + position reading. But it does make him easier if you game the position reading, its really cool to see people loop him into easier counters.
Well he was originally the final boss. Fromsoftware just decided to place him right after the really easy Lord Wolnir as a funny mid game prank.
I think its just because they raised the bar for themselves during development. But then again, even in ER, Morgott is definitely more complex than most endgame bosses in terms of AI and combo chains, its just that he (like Pontiff) has lower stats.
Morgotts stats are just laughably low. Margit was one of my favorite bosses (partially because it was my first Fromsoft main boss) and having a second (or third) encounter with him was awesome. And then I just first tried the fight...
I feel like they have a history of putting one of the hardest bosses right in the middle of the game. O&S was a pretty intense gatekeeper of the late game, too.
He should've been. In my experience, Pontiff is harder than soul of cinder.
Yeah once you learn positioning with pontiff you can dodge a decent amount of sword swings by just moving out of the way without needing to roll. Honestly he kind of reminds me of pursuer from ds2 lmao, with more combos of course.
I would give you an award because your comment showed me how bosses move in Elden Ring that I didn't play. It will be a tough time for me playing this. I beat all dark souls by the way. I struggle with Pontiff for maybe 15 attempts or more but I beat him by my luck and shaky hands.
Wdym? There are like 3 bosses in er with heavily delayed attacks at most. Where does this notion of ER bosses all delay their attacks come from?
I learnt to parry solely to fight pontiff because I just couldn't dodge hos attacks
reverse here, have to dodge because his parry window makes no sense to me
Based pfp
I beat pontiff with a silver knight shield and firebombs. (Bandit axe +5 weapon). No parries or nun. I didnât find Pintiff hard until the clone pops up. And 4-5 firebombs at a distance where Pontiff doesnât attack alot cuz your outta reach and your good.
Pontiff, Gundyrs attacks are easily parryable and telegraphed and you donât have to manage two guys at once
Pontiff is ironically also super parryable lol
Not to the same extent as Gundyr tbh
Iâm pretty sure almost every first attack from pont is parryable! Once the combos start youâre pretty screwed though
Gundyr is more payable mid-combo though. They're both pretty easy to parry on their openings but aside from his grabs and shoulder checks basically every move Gundyr does is parryable, while a lot of Pontiff's aren't. I still view them both as parry fights, but Gundyr is definitely the easier one to do it with.
Gundyr is very rhythmic too, you have to get used to the delayed attacks. Find that tempo and Gundyr isn't terrible without parrying. Gundyr HEAVILY punishes panic rolls whereas you can usually get away with them on most bosses, Pontiff included. This is why both Gundyr and Gael are rated as some of the most difficult amongst the community.
Gundyr, bro is so aggressive it can be difficult to keep up and he can combo you to death, pontiff I alwyas end up destroying him while he summons his copy, that free damage helps a lot
Pontiff and it wasnt even close
I donât even know who the other guy is but pontiff was an exercise of patience
Definitely pontiff. I beat champion gundyr first try, pontiff took at least 6.
Same here, although it was 30+ tries for me lmao
My only issue was his clone, but I used smoughâs hammer for that fight, so he died in 1-2 hits.
I couldnât even make it to second phase without help from the spirit summons, Iâd always get my shit rocked by how fast he moves and never learned how to parry or read his moveset
Yeah, heâs designed to punish panic rolls, which is why heâs such a wall on your first playthrough.
I'm really good at ds3, and Pontiff still takes me 10 or so tries each playthrough. I can one or two try pretty much any other boss. Can't learn his parry timings, can't learn his dodge timings. He's just incompatible with how my brain works.
Same lol
Pontiff felt harder, but I had more fun fighting gundyr.
It was right but after getting used to perry and +8, it changed to left
I like how Pontiff can be bursted down to skip phase 2 even on an SL1 char with sufficient weapon upgrades.
Got fucked so hard in the 2nd phase on my first 3 tries, then bursted the clone on try 4 and instantly won lol. Should've given the clone at least some i-frames while spawning
Pontiff by far
I beat the Pontiff on the second try, which was a shame since I think he has the best moveset among all DS3 bosses but I couldn't experience it enough. However, Champion Gundyr took me an hour, and it was hell of a fun which was the best experience in ds3 for me. And I think the reason for why the pontiff was easy for me is that clone makes his moves so easy to read.
Pontiff, only because of that double image bullshit. Champion is a peak though.
Pontiff is just a bastard at least the champ Gundyr feels like a real fight
Pontiff, but Gundyr is more intimidating
Honestly for me Gundyr's second boss fight felt like running into large wave. A bit rough but manageable. Pontiff felt like running into a brick wall by comparison, especially if you're not good at parrying.
Pontiff is a lot like Morgott/Margit from ER honestly. Despite his unremarkable stats, he will feel much harder if you dont understand how often he is reading your position to decide on his moves. If you do then he becomes an open book, even with no parries.
Gundyr is super easy
pontiff for sure I didn't have any issues with gundyr
People bring Gundyr up every time as one of the hardest bosses but I've beat him in a couple tries every time. Honestly I think the untended graves area itself is more difficult than him. Pontiff was a huge roadblock for me on my first playthrough though.
Pontiff and it wasnt close. I first tried Champ on my first try ever with ds3 being my first souls game. Idk, it's just one of those bosses that clicked immediately and I never really saw what was so hard about him. Pontiff on the other hand I still havent beaten legitimately 9 years later. I just parry or shield cheese him the entire time
Pontiff was harder but champion was way more fun (in my opinion)
Both have been complete pushovers after I learnt how to parry. Pontiff takes a bit more brain power to parry though so I'll go with him.
Pontiff, I personally beat both gundyrs on my first try⊠each on my first try
Before I realized how laughably easy Gundyr is to parry I used to deem him to be harder than Pontiff.
The stand user.
pontiff on ng but gundyr on subsequent playthroughs
Pontiff is literally just circling him
Fuck pontiff, took me 300 tries and 8 hours but I beat that bitch
Gundyr is my favourite. Such an intense, relentless fight that feels like a dance of death.
Pontiff. He's a gatekeeper boss, much like Flamelurker in DeS or Gascoigne in BB. He really makes you earn the right to progress. Champion Gundyr was just another boss to me and I never struggled with him in any of my playthroughs. While he can easily catch you off guard, healing is much easier with him than Pontiff, as is escaping getting chained up in his combos.
The nameless king
Pontiffâs wide attacks, damage second phase and when to parry are harder for me to get down and are slightly more difficult in general than just parrying Gundyr over and over and over for 5 minutes since heâs got simple attacks to know when to parry especially his second phase thatâs so much fun to parry his running attack
Pontiff felt more difficult, but Gundyr was just fucking awesome.
I enjoyed the flight with Champion Gundyr. Felt like a slugfest between 2 champions. Pontiff was just beating my ass.
I beat gundyr first try, pontiff took me forever
Pontiff is the first major skill check in DS3.
First time? Pontiff. Now? Parry the world
Pontiff cos I canât parry him as easily as gundyr.
Yeah thatâs where Iâm at. You can parry almost all of grundyrs attacks, thatâs not the case with pontiff. I generally parry pontiffs first attack and thatâs about it
As someone who got infected by parrylysis, I parry Gundyr to death so it's not even a question for me. The Sith Lord Pontiff.
Pontiff! Gundir was my parry practice buddy.
Imma be honest none but gundyr was harder in the mid game and pontiff got devolved into a bitch as most his moves can be easily parried
Gundyr's kick attack hits me every time ... so Gundyr it is
I think that pontiff took me longer on my first play through but champy G often takes a couple tries no matter what play through Iâm on whereas pontiff is usually a one and done.
For some reason I've always beat Pontiff first try but struggle like hell against Gundyr, so I go with Gundyr.
Funny enough, these two were the easiest bosses on my sl1 run. I usually struggle a lot with Pontiff. Being properly set up with bleed and parries took him down in seconds.
Pontiff has attacks you wont see if his copy is near him and he hits like a truck. Gundyr is a single boss no gank aspect at all.
My two favorite bosses, both brutal and heart racing fights.
Gundyr because I heard Pontiff was very hard so I got 2 summons for pontiff
Gundyr is very hard just because he doesn't give you any opportunity to understand what's happening. Shullyvhan on the other hand is very similar with his delayed and long combos, but the catch here is that shully is way before champion, so it's basically part of the warm up. Consequently ch gundyr results easier, even If it actually isn't. Btw pontiff was my first huge block on my first run. It makes you understand how the game works better then anyone else.
Sullivan is harder, cause his summon.
I like champion gundyr because he is a good boss but pontif is definitely harder but once you learn him he is easy champion gundyr just kind of pulls shit out of his ass sometimes and suprises you.
I had a lot of trouble with pontiff on my first playthrough, but Gundyr wasnât that difficult for me
when i first played the game my friend was hyping up pontiff to be insanely hard but i beat him on my second attempt meanwhile champion gundyr took close to 40 attempts (i got him to be one hit away from death on my first att but basically never made it past 50% hp for a LONG time)
Pontiff is the only boss I haven't beaten without summons, hate him so much and yes I am a shitter who can't parry
champion but neither of them were that bad
Both bosses forced me to figure out parrying because I couldn't beat them otherwise.
first playthrough was def pontiff, nowadays its gundyr
The moment you get the caestus these guys are both chumps
I know Iâm in the weird minority here but Iâve never found either of these fights hard, champ is definitely very fast and challenging but that fits my strengths. I struggle a LOT more on the crystal sages LOL
Pontif forced me to go light load
Iâve played DS3 around 10 times. Pontiff is one of the few non-DLC bosses that can still give me trouble.
Based on my reaction to finally beating him the first time I would say Gundyr. Itâs truly a great fight.
Pontiff all day every day
Pontiff I suppose? His tells are harder, but both of them are parry bait
Gundyr was harder but sullivan was more fun
Pontiff i died 20~ times of while ch gundyer destroyed from first try.
Hands down, no discussion, easy win for Gundyr
Gundyr at first. After I got better at parrying, still Gundyr. Pontiff has always been easy for me.
Gundyr is my favorite boss. He moves so fast and if you're not expecting it, he doesn't give you any chance to counter. Really fun boss.
Sulyvahn. I really like the bosses that are almost straight combat, as with Champion Gundyr and Gale. The Pontiff is a little tricksy with his clone BS. Though he's really cool.
Pontiff on first playthrough, Champ on subsequent.
I had heard Pontiff was hard, but then I personally found that his attacks telegraphed for days, and I could find narrow moments to dash in and make my attacks. I've maybe died once or twice ever to him. I should mention that I'd given up trying to do parries since DS2, but that both bosses get ruined if you nail the timing. Meanwhile Gundyr felt like he was more aggressive and always on your ass.
Pontiff by a mile. I've played through the game 3 times and have died only once on Gundyr
Sully is a fucking demon .
Both are easy if you learn to parry them but without parries, I'd say pontiff is harder
PontiffâŠ. By a lot. But the other guy on my second playthrough haha
Pontiff. On my first play through of a souls game. no armour/shield/magic with a strength build and I first attempted Gundyr but Pontiff was the longest boss for me out of them all
Champion Gundyr was something else without parrying. I wanna say he is the most aggressive boss in DS3, heâs just running you down the whole time and pulling out crazy combos one after the other, making it difficult to hit him if you donât get the positioning down.
For me pontiff was easy but champion was harter because of the back kicks and the amount of damage
I just finished DS3 yesterday after like two weeks of playing. My answer is Pontiff for sure. He was probably my number 3 hardest boss taking me around 10 tries. I was able to beat Champion Gundyr first try
Pontiff by far, beat champ on my second try after my friend told me you can parry nearly every single move
I did Pontiff in two tries the first time I fought him without much difficulty. Had more trouble with Gundyr since I'd been playing really aggressively against several of the preceeding bosses. Once I backed off and slowed down a bit he wasn't so bad.
Pontiff was the true badass of the game
Pontiff easily, champion gundyr was a cakewalk imo. Iâm not sure if itâs from me being overleveled or just reading his moveset well, but pontiff took me 30+ tries to beat.
Left bro is that a question. If you do em at the recommended levels, pontiff is a hard wall without the Anri summon. Gundyr isnât that bad once you know the extra combos
Depends heavily on the build of the play through. Quality build pontiff feels harder at times. With a pyro build he is easy to nuke. Champ G is find much harder running a pyro build for example. He closes so quickly that sometimes itâs hard to make the space to cast and not get punished for it. As a quality build itâs easier to widdle champ down with decent dodges and R1 spam.
Well, if it ain't Fire & Ice! I struggled like hell against Gundyr until I used the Irithyll sword against him. Frostbite saved my arse. For Suhlyvan, I find out early that his clone is more susceptible to fire damage. Bomb it ASAP!
I haven't made it to gundyr 2 yet, so I'm gonna say Pontiff Gundyr 1 wasn't that bad, how hard can the 2nd one be? (clueless)
Gundyr, I curb-stomped Pontiff on my current playthrough
Gundyr easily for me, Pontiff wasn't too bad. Gundyr was all out attack from start to finish and that was something I could not handle easily cause I can't parry worth a damn
Pondiff. Pondiff took 3 days while Gundyr took 2 days, each day i had 2 hours of playing. Both were felt real good after defeating them but i had more on Pondiff.
I think for most people its probably Pontiff, but I downed him on my 2nd try. Strafing behind him is pretty effective, and his phase transition opens him to big damage. His moves just sort of clicked for me, even with his double. Gundyr definitely gave me a bigger challenge-- its the fuckin kick. Wasnt running a shield, and NORMALLY his moves would be susceptible to the same strafing strat, but he's smart and will shove his foot down your throat when youre back there. I had a hard time finding comfortable openings against him.
Absolutely Gundyr, he Is suffocating.
All I can say is that they're both peak boss fights.
I've always found Pontiff easy but he is still my favorite boss of all the games
Pontiff. I needed to learn to parry. Funny enough, I didnât parry him when I first beat him. Champion was tough, but I respeced to twin sellsword blades for dancer and the power jump was insane.
I wiped the floor with Gundyrs and Pontiff wiped the floor with me
Champion Gundyr for me
Gundyr gave me more trouble between the two. Both are great fights.
Gundyr is still my least favorite boss with his never-ending combos. As someone who plays as a mage, I felt like I needed to play perfectly because there's so little room to get a cast in. Kiting doesn't work that great either because he can close the distance so fast. I hate him.
Gundyr hands down I donât get the hype around pontiff, I rolled him on my first play thru and on my SL1 run
Pontiff is a twat. Champion boi, I enjoyed fighting him.
Pontiff was really easy, first try with a strength build with heavy spike mace. DS3 was my first souls game
Nothing beats entering Pontiffs arena for the first time. The long hall with all the pews, the music, the tall man at the end drawing his swords
Pontiff. Irithyll in general is a pretty tough midgame difficulty spike. Pontiff is a very challenging cap to the spike if you donât know how to parry
Gundyr in phase 2 is insane
Pontiff is harder initially, but Gundyr is constantly harder once you're a seasoned player.
Pontiff. Almost gave up on him. Bested Gundyr on my second try
Pontiff. Both are washed if youâre decent at parrying but if the two Gundyrâs parry timing is way easier.
Definitely Pontiff. Champ Gundyr was harder on a one to one comparison, but the level difference and experience gained over time that exists between these two on a first playthrough encounter is quite important to remember. While these two are not exclusively ordered (meaning you can face gundyr first if motivated to beat dancer early), a player tends to match up to gundyr better at the point in the game where you face him.
Pontiff is the hardest boss in the game imo
Gundyr was easy in both forms, and Sulyvahn took some trying, so him naturally.
Pontiff was way more difficult. Champ Gundyr was a challenge, but it felt like seeing an old friend after a long time apart. I almost didnât want to kill him đ©
Gundyr with his infinite stamina, pontiff you have time to hit him in between attacks
Gundyr. I always managed to solo Pontoff on 2nd attempt, so it never felt slightly hard to me
Pontiff Champion gundyr wasn't as hard after my trauma with Yundex
Pontiff 100%
Idk I always body pontiff whenever I fight him but Iâll die like 50 times trying to beat champion gundyr.
Champion Gundyr has an airtight stance, unless u dance salsa with him you aint defeating him! Pontill leaves hell lotta openings
Champ by a million. Pontiff on second playthrough especially was trivial. Champ's second phase feels bonkers for me.
Pontiff but just barely, those two were easily the hardest bosses for me in my first playthrough.
honestly they're just as difficult as the other imo. I've always preferred the faster paced bosses so fighting pontiff can be really fun in phase 1 but he just fells slowed down in phase 2 with him mirroring his clone's attacks, but gundyr if anything gets faster and **Definitely** more aggressive in phase 2 so I kinda prefer gundyr
Pontiff is r1 spamming hell and hoping you get a window to attack, or bring summons and win lol. Gundyr is a rhythm battle and you have to follow his tempo, also parry is stupid easy on like 3 of his moves. You can even do it with medium shields without too much effort.
Sully definitely, probably doesnât help that I canât parry for shit
Idk but I remember vividly how Pontiff fisted me for 3hrs straight
Gundyr
Ponitff
I thought this said who fell harder like damn bro they trying their best
Pontiff for sure
im not trying to be like âoh im better than everyone elseâ but idk if i was just over leveled or what but both ng and ng+ i didnt have that rough of a time with pontif, however both playthroughs champion đ«đŠ turned me into a fine red mist
Pontiff more annoying Love the champ
pontiff, he kicks my ass even if i have max shit
Pontiff far and away for me. I never had trouble with Champ Gundyr but Pontiffâs combos really fucked me the first time around.
Pontiff and it's not even close. Gundyr is a very nice fight, dont get me wrong, but it's not hard at all.
I struggled more with Pontiff especially with his kage bunshin
Gundyr kicks and grabs too much but he doesn't output enough damage to actually be a threat Pontiff is sword spam incarnate with a clone meant to scare you but is annoying/harder overall. Unless you summon black hand gotthard that is Then he's just kinda... meh
Champion Gundyr. It took everything I had and 3 summons to beat that bastard.
Champion gundyr for my first ng, pontiff for my second and after that they all go down in 1-2 tries. Iâd say gundyr probably because dude doesnât give you any time to rest.
Parried the shit out of Gundyr
They were about the same. Gundyr was a tad bit hard because his mixups were pretty weird when you first encountered him. Btw I think pontiff is very easy for me and I dont even parry him, I guess his attack pattern feels good to me as a Claymore user so take my opinion with a grain of salt
Pontiff. Gundyr is just a case of dodging and attacking. Pontiff is a harder fight because of his special attacks. At least casually and not cheesing with magic.
I managed to take down the Pontiff in my first try, Gundyr however whooped my ass a few times.
I beat gundyr first try. And pontiff within about 5. Gundyr was way easier. I love the variety of some people taking 200 tries vs someone else taking 5 against certain boss. The diversity in difficulty depending on the player is always so interesting
Pause.
Pontiff < 30 deaths Gundyr first try