Strangely when I first heard of the Pontiff, I thought of a fat aristocrat, not a sith pope.
Only DS3 boss you should ever get help for is Yhorm, because Siegward. For everyone else you're gimping your own experience by cheesing it imo.
I'm summoning NPCs for story reasons, besides it's part of the game so why not using it? And it doesn't necessarily make the fights easier, the bosses have twice (or thrice) as much health and they can still wipe the floor with you if you're not careful: it happened with me with O&S from the first game and the Blood-Starved Beast from Bloodborne, so I ended up fighting them solo. Even the Pontiff killed me first try with summons because I got greedy.
Strangely when I first heard of the Pontiff, I thought of a fat aristocrat, not a sith pope.
Only DS3 boss you should ever get help for is Yhorm, because Siegward. For everyone else you're gimping your own experience by cheesing it imo.
It's only cheesing IF you are breaking the AI to earn your victory. Pontiff will still kick your arse whether you have co-op partner or not if you have absolutely no clue what his movesets are or how to dodge/parry his swings and/or lunge attack. In some boss fights having a co-op partner actually makes things harder because the boss becomes more unpredictable. One good example is Raime the Fume Knight from Dark Souls 2.
I'm summoning NPCs for story reasons, besides it's part of the game so why not using it? And it doesn't necessarily make the fights easier, the bosses have twice (or thrice) as much health and they can still wipe the floor with you if you're not careful: it happened with me with O&S from the first game and the Blood-Starved Beast from Bloodborne, so I ended up fighting them solo. Even the Pontiff killed me first try with summons because I got greedy.
I don't think III has any NPC summons needed for questline advancement--not counting the times when you are being summoned.
I don't think III has any NPC summons needed for questline advancement--not counting the times when you are being summoned.
That much is true, for the most part. You don't advance storylines with that, but NPCs can be summoned at specific places for a reason - other than helping you out there. They're there because they have a connection with the place or connection with their quests. Like Anri's quest to find Aldrich or the Darkmoon Tomb if you're going hollow. And there's a roleplay aspect, at least for me (in my first playthrough at least).