Dark Souls 3 Buffs: Sacred Oath vs. Deep Protection

Dark Souls 3 has a wide array of Miracles, with spells that can heal you, shoot lightning and buff your weapon.

In this library of Miracles are two spells that will buff your character themselves: Deep Protection and Sacred Oath.

• Deep Protection buffs your attack and defense by 5% each
• Sacred Oath buffs your attack and defense by 10%, but is much harder to obtain

Both Sacred Oath and Deep Protection are great spells, but which is right for you? Let’s have a look at what they offer.

Deep Protection

• Effect: raises attack and defense by 5%, increases stamina regeneration rate
• Focus cost: 25
• Faith requirement: 20
• Duration: 60 seconds

Deep Protection is the perfect choice for someone who wants to buff their character without pouring a ton of levels into their Faith stat.

With a relatively low Faith requirement and Focus cost, you can easily cast Deep Protection as a melee-focused character.

This also makes it ideal for PvP play, where a character must be at the ‘meta Soul Level’ of around 120 to find matches.

This ease of use comes at a cost, though, with Deep Protection giving a weaker buff to your attack and defenses than Sacred Oath.

This is made up for somewhat by its ease of use, as well as its plethora of secondary bonuses.

As well as buffing attack and defense, Deep Protection also buffs your stamina regeneration speed by just over 6%.

While this might seem small, when combined with the mainstay Chloranthy Ring, you’ll have a bonus of 25%.

25% is a huge increase, and can be the difference between life and death in a difficult PvP battle.

Deep Protection also increases your resistances to status effects such as Curse, which can be vital in surviving fights in the Cathedral of The Deep and the Demon Ruins.

How To Get Deep Protection:

• Free Irina from her cell in the Undead Settlement Sewers
• Kill the Mimic in the Cathedral of the Deep to receive the Deep Braille Divine Tome
• Give the Tome to Irina in Firelink Shrine
• Irina will now sell Deep Protection for 4000 Souls

Sacred Oath

• Effect: raises attack and defense by 10%, affects nearby allies
• Focus cost: 65
• Faith requirement: 28
• Duration: 60 seconds

If you’ve invested enough points in Faith to use it, I wholeheartedly recommend Sacred Oath as the buff for you.

Assuming you’re okay with some farming, Sacred Oath will reward you with a 10% boost to attack and defense.

On brand with the Warriors of Sunlight who grant you the spell, Sacred Oath also affects friendly online players, boosting their attack and defense for 60 seconds as well.

This makes it perfect for taking down bosses with a friend or for buffing friendly phantoms in an Anor Londo fight club.

The obvious downside of Sacred Oath is its requirement for you to go all in on Faith.

A 28 point requirement is huge in a game where level 120 is the online meta, and leveling up in PvE costs a fortune of Souls.

My recommendation is to find the Priestess Ring in the Untended Graves, sold by the Handmaiden in the extinguished shrine.

The other drawback of Sacred Oath is its lack of secondary effects.

It has no bearing on stamina regeneration or your resistances, which could make it a weaker choice if you’re looking for a buff that will give you a bit of everything.

How To Get Sacred Oath

• Join the Warriors of Sunlight by finding the Pledge in the Undead Settlement.
• Collect 10 Sunlight Medals through farming or online co-op
• Offer them to the Altar of Sunlight in Lothric Castle to get Sacred Oath as a reward

While this may seem simple, the emptiness of Dark Souls 3’s servers in 2022 makes farming for Medals a near-necessity, and the process of getting Sacred Oath a chore as a result.

For a full breakdown on joining the Warriors of Sunlight and farming Sunlight Medals as fast as possible, check out our Sunlight Medals guide.