Power Within Rush | Dark Souls Wiki

Power Within Rush

This is a player-created Build for Dark Souls. If you want help making your own build, you can consult this useful page on how to make a build by Blaine.

• Build Name: Power Within Rush
• Build Level:
• Build Focus: PvE
• Build Main Stats:
• Link to Dark Souls Calculator: Add link here.

Build Equipment

• Right Hand 1: The strongest weapon you can wield. Depending on your stats and soul level you need to ensure that you can handle most random mobs with 2 blows. 
  
  
• Right Hand 2: Ascended Pyromancy Flame +5 
  
  
• Left Hand 1: I prefer the Grass Crest Shield here for the stamina recovery. More stamina = better shield block, more attacks, more dodge 
  
  
• Left Hand 2: Basic Pyromancy Flame. Use this only to cast Power Within before you enter the fog gate to bosses 
  
  
• Ring 1: Havel's Ring. You'll likely need this to get below 50% equip load for decent run speed and dodge while having at least some clothes on ^^. 
  
  
• Ring 2: Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring. 
  
  
• Spells: Power Within, Greater Fireball, Greater Combustion ... additional spell slots possible for NG+ if you gain additional copies of the named pyromancies you may need because of the higher HP of the bosses. 
  
  
• Head: Crown of Dusk
  
  
• Rest: Up to you and your build 

Build Strategy

This concept was developed to quickly overpower any of the bosses in the game with insane damage output. The special clue about this particular build is that it works on ANY soul level. This enabled me to push into NG++ with a Lv 7 Character (together with a bro playing the same build). 

Something should be clear: Characters in Dark Soul don't draw their power from soul levels but from equipment. You should only invest into soul levels to "unlock" new equipment (mainly weapons; more about that later). This guide will teach you the cornerstones to deal 900+ damage per blow. 

Starting Class

Basically it doesn't really matter with which build you start because this guide won't lead you to a defined corset of equipment. You'll be allowed to combine the concept with melee playstyles, magic or pyromancy. However, magic builds will require higher soul levels to take advantage of Greater Magic Weapon (melee style) or Soul Spears (ranged style). If you are not planning to push your soul levels into the 50's and up nor decided to play with magic, I strongly recommend the pyromancer. The pyromancer is known as THE class to go unless you go for magic or miracles, because of the lowest starting level, the resulting flexibility and the Pyromancy Flame as "starting gift". 

Starting Gift

Choose the master key. In theory it doesn't matter because all starting gifts can be aquired though a playthrough. Running with the key gives you several early game advantages: You can tackle Havel the Rock in the basement of the tower which leads to the Taurus demon and get Havel's Ring which is an absolute must-have for nearly any class/build in the game. Second you gain an early, easy access to the Valley of Drakes and Blighttown. There you can perform a few suicide runs to grab the Crimson Armor, a Firekeeper Soul, the Tin Catalyst, the Astora Sword, the Dragon Shield and other goodies in about 15 minutes. Here's a video, which shows the locations in Blighttown. 

The Beginning

If you followed my advice to this point, you should be well prepared for the next hours. If you are insanely good in this game, you can try to obtain the pyromancy Power Within already at this point of the game with our shortcut to Blighttown. For my personal taste, I feel you should try to obtain the spell once you can handle a weapon which can relyable kill the enemies here in 2 strokes. if you picked a sorcerer or cleric as starting classes you might be fine with the Astora Sword or the Tin Catalyst, for all other classes I suggest the Lightning Spear you'll find in Sen's Fortress. The Lightning Spear is, without a doubt, THE BEST weapon for low level characters. I still run with a Lightning Spear +5 in NG++. In my opinion it's a solid option for all the random monsters on your way through the game. With this knowledge you should make it through the Undead Burg, the Undead Parish and to Blighttown via the opened shortcut and fast feet ;D 

The power is yours

With the help of the other guides available on this site you should have made it to Sen's Fortress, gain the Lightning Spear and be able to tackle our "damage trifecta": 

1. Power Within. Located in Blighttown. This will increse your damage and endurance recovery by 50% for quite some time but will drain life for the time being. Here is a little cheesy trick with that spell: the spell's life drain is affected by the power of the pryomancy flame you use. The higher the level of your flame, the higher the damage you take. This means that you have to carry a very basic pyromancy flame with you for that purpose! In addition you will need to aquire a Ascended Pyromancy Flame +5 for your damaging pyromancy. Luckily you can obtain 2(!) Pyromancy Flames per playthrough. Laurentius and Eingyi both will hand over a flame if you exhaust their coversations and join the Chaos Covenant. 

2. Crown of Dusk. Enter the Darkroot Basin through the Darkroot Garden. After you defeated the Hydra and the Golden Golemn there, Dusk appears. Kill her to make a chest appear in which you can find the crown and the antiquated set. The crown boosts your pyromancy, miracles and magic damage by 20%. This also affects Greater Magic Weapon. 

3. Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring. For this Ring you have to rescue Griggs from the Lower Undead Burg. Afterwards he appears at the Firelink shrine where you can buy the ring. With patch 1.06 this ring also affects pyromancies and boosts your damage even more. 

These 3 effects stack for an insane damage boost especially with a Ascended Pyromancy Flame +5 using Greater Combustion and Great Fireball. Make sure to aquire 3-4 spell slots with your character 

Playstyle

Cast Power Within before you enter the boss battle with your basic Flame, then switch to Grass Crest Shield and your Ascended Flame +5 and blow the bosses away with your pyromancy. Depending on your enemy you should do 900+ damage per spell which is insane with the fast casting speed of Greater Combustion. 2x Greater Combustion and 1x Greater Fireball for example is enough to melt both Ornstein and Smugg on NG+. 

Bonus Section: Weapon Guide 
The recommended upgrade path: 
Lightning Spear (11 STR / 10 DEX / 400 Damage on +5) -> Lightning Claymore (16 STR / 10 DEX / 517 Damage on +5) -> Lightning Zweihander (24 STR / 10 DEX / 650 Damage on +5). 
I suggest going for the Claymore asap, because Patch 1.6 drastically increased the stamina use of Piercing Weapons while defending with a shield, making the Lightning Spear a less attractive option compared to the Claymore which will one-hit most of the regular enemies up to NG+. As an additional benefit the 16 STR required to wield the Claymore single-handed are enough to carry the Zweihander two-handed which is insane against slow and or fire resistant bosses like the Gaping Dragon, Quelaag etc. A R2 attack with a two-handed Lightning Zweihander +5 feat. Power within deals an insane 1013 damage to the Gaping dragon per swing.