Very good anti-boss weapon for quality builds due to the fast moveset, reach, and low stamina cost, but the lack of sweeps makes it hard for crowd control. I just swap this with the dragon CGS back and forth

Two tips if you re thinking about using this ugs:

1. It's a quality weapon. Scales mostly of strength, but dex also boost it's damage by a respectable amount. And that counter damage is insane for an ugs.

2: it's own description decipts the ugs as "the mightiest of the straight swords". It's moveset and relatively low stamina usage suggests it was truly meant to be used as a straight sword, so treat it like that and swing it however you please.

3. It's moveset is vertical-based, but it's first strong attacks are horizontal, both 1h and 2h. Use that r2 if you're against crowds, it's a huge sword after all.

The "mightiest of the straight swords" indeed.

For some reason this weapon just decides to randomly swing behind me while im pressing the backwards input whilst locked on???

everyone out here talking about "how is this called a straight sword with that size" while forgetting the fact the Pursuer himself used it as a Straight Sword, switching up thrusting attacks and diagonal or horizontal slashes with even some slams
sure, it might still be big while he uses it. but as it doesn't consume that much stamina you'll be swinging away all you want
Praise the PUGS and carry on, Bearers of the curse

Currently playing the game again, I'm using the PUGS in the right hand powerstanced with the Bastard sword in the left hand.
At 50 strength and 27 dex with the Ring of Blades and this beauty upgraded to +5 I'm at 567 AR.
If you powerstance it with a greatsword like I'm doing you'll make up for the lack of horizontal swipes thanks to the L1, otherwise use the second 1HR1 for crowd control.
This weapon looks great, can be obtained incredibly early, has great 1H and 2H moveset, has pretty good STR and DEX scaling, consumes relatively little stamina compared to other ultras and it's a solid choice if you're tired of the overused Greatsword, I'm sure you'll not regret bringing it up to +5.
Even in late game areas and against late game bosses it still holds up well, is extremely fun to powerstance with any greatsword or ultras: I tried to powerstance it with the Lost Sinner's and I was not disappointed.
If you're planning to do a Quality build and you've never tried this weapon, trust me you'll have a lot of fun.
Needed values to powerstance:
STR:45 DEX:27

Tested and weirdly this does more damage than greatsword. Both maxed 390 A C vs 400 S D. I guess it has on the upper end A and/or C range scaling or maybe the greatsword has low range on S D. It also consumes less stamina. Didn't chech range or frames since this is way too time consuming but they seem the same.

Pursuer has 140 counter strenght. It is the only ultra greatsword with 140. Usually the pattern is sword 110, greatsword 120, ultra greatsword 130. There are some exceptions of course claymore for example has 110 instead of 120 that is why bastard sword can outdamage it with 120 counter strength and slightly worse stats when counter strenghth is involved.
I put 60 on all stats involved and tested primary hits. Dark pursuer does literally same damage as fire black knight ultra greatsword when counter strength is involved slightly more or less (like less than 10 damage involved), without counter strenght I was doing 7% less than fire black knight u gr.
Black knight greatsword is more versatile. Has same moveset like zweihander which involve slash hits on primary hand both 1h and 2h. The pursuer one slams instead. I found pursuer very good vs glass knight since slash hits can end up hitting shield and pursuer sword lacks these. If you can get used to the weird camera ultra greatswords use this is one of the best ultra greatswords for main game and acquired very early in game.

Should have had at least a horizontal moveset for the R1, this sword loses both in damage and reach to the greatsword. The only reason to chose this would be for the look of it

Sadly in a world where the Greatsword UGS exists, this weapon is kinda pointless unless you use it purely for fashion's sake which i respect, Its moveset is pretty much the same but worse, because the 1 handed moveset consists of mostly just vertical swings with the only horizantal swing other than the two-handed heavy being the second 1-handed r1 swing making it much worse at crowd-control, It's requirements are far more demanding, having a decently higher strength requirement and a much higher dex requirement, it has inferior AR and worse scaling with strength despite the fairly high strength requirements alongside a pretty high dex requirement for a mainly-strength scaling weapon, and it's far shorter than the Greatsword which is especially bad with how punishing it is for missing a swing, and you can get the Greatsword sooner if you know where to go for it only having to beat the Dragonrider to get it, sure its counter damage stat is higher, but its damage is still significantly lower most of the time, and it's not enough of an upside to compensate for the fact that it's worse in every other way besides weight, being around 2 points lighter but still very heavy, the only reason to use this i feel is if you're a quality build and you don't mind the significant loss in crowd control, reach and overall damage and you can't wield the Greatsword without fat-rolling while wearing armor, It looks cool, but woefully mediocre if you don't choose to simply ignore the downsides for the sake of Fashion