Easily one of the most popular action-adventure game franchises of all time, Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 are also renowned for being incredibly difficult to beat.
The challenges that these games pose have prompted fans to come up with unconventional ways to level the playing field by utilizing specific builds or techniques that are so effective they basically break the game altogether. While the difficulty inherent to playing Dark Souls games is a big part of the appeal for most people, hitting a wall against a boss does lose its charm after a while, too.
10 Dark Souls 1: Pure Intelligence Build
While totally beloved by fans, the first Dark Souls title is also somewhat notorious for being the least balanced game in the franchise in many respects. One fairly obvious example of this is the way sorcery and the Intelligence attribute work in the title; many would claim that sorcery is almost totally overpowered in PvE compared to builds more reliant on melee attacks and weapons.
In fact, builds that focus primarily on leveling their Intelligence can pretty much one-shot almost any boss by the time they reach the endgame, so players who want the Dark Souls experience without too much of a challenge should put as many of their Souls as possible towards this stat before any other.
9 Dark Souls 3: Breaking Enemy Poise With Dexterity Or Strength Weapons
Dark Souls 3 brought poise back to the franchise in a big way, though it is arguably not quite as much of a make-or-break as it is in the original Dark Souls game.
Nevertheless, players can easily exploit enemy poise to stunlock almost any adversary they come up against in PvE. The easiest way to do so is by using a Strength weapon with especially high damage output or a Dexterity weapon with decent speed. Deal any enemy enough damage, and their poise will be broken, stunlocking them and turning them into a sitting duck for players to wail on at will.
8 Dark Souls 1: Capra Demon Dung Pie Cheese
The Capra Demon is probably one of the most frustrating enemy encounters in all of Dark Souls combined, and for a game notorious for frustrating boss battles, that's definitely saying something. Flanked by two extremely annoying dogs, Capra does a tonne of damage and can easily trap, stunlock, and squash players in the tiny arena they fight him in.
Once Dark Souls was released, players quickly noticed that Capra Demon's arena lacks a ceiling and is basically open to the air. If players get stuck on the boss, they can actually cheese him by throwing carefully-aimed Dung Pies into his arena - if enough of these hit him, they will start to deal Toxic damage to Capra, and he will eventually die from the effects of this without the player needing to fight him at all.
7 Dark Souls 2: Using Rapiers
Something that not all players know about Dark Souls 2 is how completely overpowered rapiers in the game are. Not only do their movesets generally feel like a pretty safe way to keep enemies at bay, but they also deal insane counter damage, which makes them a great way to take down bosses in Dark Souls 2, in particular, without too much difficulty.
What's more, many of Dark Souls 2's rapiers are so effective and have high enough base damage that they are pretty much viable to use throughout the entirety of the campaign, provided that they're upgraded when possible.
6 Dark Souls 1: Giant Dad Build
The meme, the myth, the legend. While it started off as a joke, the Giant Dad build is probably one of the most overpowered builds in the entirety of Dark Souls 1, especially for PvP. Based on using high base Strength and Stamina, players need a character at Soul Level 99 to start using the Giant Dad build, and will also need to equip the Mask Of The Father, Giant Armor Set, Ring Of Favor And Protection, Havel's Ring, the Giant Shield, and the Chaos Zweihander.
While using this build does take some getting used to, players will be unstoppable once they've gotten the hang of it.
5 Dark Souls 2: Using An Ultra Greatsword
Another massively overpowered weapon class in Dark Souls 2 is the Ultra Greatsword family. Ultra Greatswords are very slow, making them tricky to get used to wielding, but their damage output is so massive that they are almost guaranteed to break enemy poise anytime they connect with their target.
Also, Ultra Greatswords, when wielded with two hands, cannot be parried. Combine this with the fact that some of their R2 attacks will knock enemies off their feet, and players have a class of weapons that, in addition to dealing huge amounts of damage, can also be strategically used to stall and control mobs with ease.
4 Dark Souls 1: Parrying
While all of the Dark Souls games feature parrying and backstabbing, both of these techniques are so effective in the original Dark Souls that they're arguably game-breaking.
Combat in the original Dark Souls is far slower than it is in Dark Souls 2 and 3. This makes timing parries far easier. Most humanoid enemies in Dark Souls 1 can also be parried, which makes the technique something that can take players maining melee-based builds through almost the entire game without too much difficulty once they've really gotten the timing needed to nail parries down.
3 Dark Souls 3: Using The Great Chaos Fire Orb With Pyromancer Build
The Great Chaos Fire Orb is easily one of the most powerful pyromancy-based spells in all of Dark Souls 3. It deals a massive amount of AOE damage that lasts for a few seconds, making it a great choice for taking on mobs, as well as dealing with slower enemies with substantial amounts of health.
Not only this, but Great Chaos Fire Orb actually requires 0 Intelligence or Faith to cast. It does use 32 FP and takes up two slots, but this is a small price to pay for such powerful sorcery.
2 Dark Souls 1: Backstabbing
Backstabs are another way to cruise through PvE and PvP alike in Dark Souls 1. Perhaps even easier to time in many cases than parries, many of the enemies in Dark Souls are so slow that players can simply strafe or circle behind them and hit a perfect backstab, which will, in many cases, also down the enemy for a period of time.
While they can't generally be used on the bosses found in Dark Souls, backstabs are consistently easy to pull off and make Dark Souls' PvE in particular a breeze once players become competent at landing them.
1 Dark Souls 3: Using Hidden Body With Spook
Struggling with all of the mobs in Dark Souls 3? One technique that players can use to make clearing mobs practically a walk in the park is the use of the Hidden Body sorcery in tandem with Spook.
Hidden Body can be purchased off Orbeck of Vinheim for 3,000 souls and works to camouflage the player. Spook will muffle players' footsteps and, when used by the player at the same time as Hidden Body, renders the player almost completely undetectable to enemies. Naturally, this makes dealing with mob encounters, in particular, feel almost effortless.