I thought I'd start a new thread for DS2 questions so I don't fill up news threads with them and incur the wrath of the potato.:lol:
Anyway I was wondering about poise.
Does it work differently than in DS1 or is it broken.
I've been playing for 10 hours and 37 levels and have yet to equip any armor. MY poise is 1.8, yet I rarely ever get staggered or knocked back and can pretty much block every attack even from giants and such.
I remember getting staggered (shield gets knocked back and i stagger) quite a bit in the first game as I ran a low poise character.
I do get stun locked alot does poise stop that and only guard break staggers now, or does it affect both?
Thanks for any info.
I don't have anything concrete - I don't think
anyone does. This is entirely speculation. I haven't done any "testing", this is just the impressions I've got playing at least 100 duels.
Firstly, blocking with shields doesn't use poise. The Stability value of a shield reduces the amount of stamina it costs to block and you'll only be staggered if you run out of stamina.
As for Poise, best I could work out is to imagine your poise value as its own invisible bar under your stamina that recharges as a % of its total value per tick after a small delay. Say you have 100 poise and the enemy is using a 25 poise damage weapon. If he was using it with 1 hand you'd be staggered on the 4th hit. If he was using it with 2 hands I guess it doubles the value, similar to the two-handed effect on your str, and you'd be staggered on the 2nd hit. If you were in the middle of an attack animation it will hit for even more. Perhaps moving also has an effect, such as moving forward into the blow. It could also be possible that, similar to how you can't sprint until full stamina if your stamina hits 0, you will keep being staggered until the poise bar gets back to full. Also, it might be that if you have 1 poise and get hit with a 35 poise weapon you are not staggered instantly, but your "poise bar" goes to 0 and you enter into the "every hit staggers me" phase until it gets back to full.
On x360 I was a 40str 40dex melee only build and for most the game I liked using the shortsword, but in PVP I found the guys with greatswords were staggering me just one or two hits sooner than I would them so I ended up going with the Claymore (35 poise damage, I think. So 70 with two hands) because its thrusting move is so fast. The zwei was too slow for my tastes and I had both at +10.
The small amount of poise the Giant rings add sort of looks like they have certain poise break points in mind and they're going to assist with being just one hit ahead of your opponent in the stagger race.
So, its definitely different to dks1 where battles would just turn into an R1 spamming competition where 76 poise was all you ever needed to never stagger again. It's still very useful for melee superiority, but its not the be-all and end-all overpowered stat it was in dks1.
I'd be interested to hear peoples findings on the subject because its all still largely unknown and you might accidentally fill in some blanks for me and it will all suddenly make sense!