Should I keep Dark Sigils?

My recommendation for both new and experienced Dark Souls 3 players is to keep the Dark Sigils you obtain from Yoel. The benefits they provide far outweigh the minor downsides. I‘ll explain in detail below.

What Are Dark Sigils?

Dark Sigils are key items granted by NPC Yoel of Londor at Firelink Shrine. When drawn from him through the "Draw Out True Strength" option, you gain 1 free level up each time, up to 5 sigils.

Each Dark Sigil causes you to accumulate "hollowing" points with every death. At 15+ hollowing while wielding a Hollow-infused weapon, a major 110+ luck boost kicks in.

So in a nutshell, Dark Sigils let you power up faster and hit harder with critical hits against bosses. Keep reading to fully understand their pros and cons.

The Benefits of Keeping Dark Sigils

Here are the major advantages you get by retaining Dark Sigils in your inventory:

Hollow Luck Boost for More Bleed/Poison

At 15+ hollowing you unlock a 110+ point boost to your luck stat when wielding Hollow-infused weapons and shields.

This substantially increases your bleed and poison build-up with weapons like katanas, spears, and claws. Making crit-focused builds extremely powerful against bosses.

For example, a hollow-infused Bandit‘s Knife +10 can shred bosses in seconds by quickly inflicting bleed status. The luck boost from high hollowing pushes this even further for insane damage.

Enables NPC Questlines For Gear and Alternate Endings

Yoel and his sister Yuria have extensive questlines tied to your accumulation of dark sigils and hollowing.

Completing their quests allows you to unlock the following:

• Powerful Spells Like Dark Blade
• Unique Armor Sets
• Rare Ring Boosts
• Ability To Summon NPC Londor Pale Shades
• Different Ending Cutscenes

Without the dark sigils, you won‘t meet the requirements to access this content.

Minimal Actual Downsides

Many new players hear the words "dark sigil" and "hollowing" and assume major negative effects. But in reality, the downsides are minor:

• Applying a Purging Stone or using Velka‘s Statue instantly reverses any cosmetic zombie-like features while retaining the sigils themselves. So you can look human most of the time.
• The extra "free levels" from Yoel are simply borrowing strength you already have. So no real consequences exist from taking 5 levels via sigils early on.
• Dark Sigils do not carry over into New Game Plus cycles. So you can play without them on repeat runs if desired.

Overall the downsides are almost entirely cosmetic. And those can be managed through the methods above.

Should You Heal Dark Sigils?

You can pay the Fire Keeper to "heal" your dark sigils once acquired. But this is not generally recommended. Here‘s why:

Extremely Expensive Level Drain

Healing a dark sigil removes it completely but reduces your level by 1 point per sigil healed.

So if you had 5 sigils, healing them would cost 5 full level ups worth of souls! Below shows an example of costs:

As you can see, the soul investment is astronomical. And it strips out those free levels from Yoel, wasting them.

Locks You Out of Questlines & Endings

Without any dark sigils in your inventory, you fail the requirements for Yuria and Londor related content. So healing sigils restricts your access severely.

You‘d miss out on rare gear, spells, summons and even entire ending cutscenes that are considered the "canon" or true ending by many fans.

So unless you plan perfectly, healing later on could ruin an established end-game build.

My Verdict: Keep Your Dark Sigils

Based on the evidence above, pursuing Yoel‘s gift of the dark sigils offers tremendous benefits for little cost.

The min-max boost to critical damage and access to special content far outweighs temporary hollowing aesthetics or overblown sinisterness around "darkness."

The risks associated with healing sigils is also needlessly extreme. So ignore the cost and embrace the power they offer.

As a Dark Souls expert and avid fan, I stand by my recommendation to keep your dark sigils and utilize their advantages instead of the traditional cure/heal approach.

Let me know if this overview changes your perspective at all! I‘m happy to offer more detailed tips on properly leveraging dark sigils in your playthrough.