Stagger is one of the most important combat mechanics of Elden Ring. This is how you interrupt and enemy’s spells and attacks and do massive damage in that phase. It is directly related to Poise, a base stat in Elden Ring. This determines how much damage an enemy must take to be staggered.
Once the Poise meter is full, you will break the enemy’s stance and they will be staggered. The same goes for your character, so make sure to not have your stance broken in the game.
How stagger works in Elden Ring?
The stagger mechanic can only be triggered if you break the enemy stance first in Elden Ring. Since both you and your enemy have a poise meter, you need to keep yours from getting filled up, as this will trigger the stagger effect on you, leaving you vulnerable to enemy attacks.
In Elden Ring, you can stagger your enemies by using the following attacks:
- Heavy attacks
- Jumping heavy attacks
- Shield Parries
- Special attacks
Remember that light attacks will prevent the enemy’s posture from restoring fully but you will need to deploy jumping attacks, charged attacks, or strong charged spells on them. This is vital if you want to consistently break the posture of your foes, leaving them staggered in Elden Ring.
So in short, you can keep your foe’s posture bar from fully recovering by continuously hitting them with light attacks to stagger them in Elden Ring.
Moreover, you can use shield parries and certain special attacks from Ashes of Wars, including skills like Flame of the Redmanes, to stagger your opponents in Elden Ring.
Similarly, using heavy or colossal weapons can also work to your benefit in terms of staggering enemies with shields. These will include the best weapons like Dragon Greatclaw, which has a Poise damage of 11, or the Grafted Blade Greatsword, which carries a Poise damage of 14, etc.
Can you stagger bosses in Elden Ring?
You can stagger bosses in Elden Ring, however, it is not as easy as staggering other, normal enemies in the game.
Nearly all the bosses you face in Elden Ring have these hidden Poise bars (below) for you to discover. The only way to know how much damage you need to do to break the boss’ stance is by either countering their attacks or evading them immediately.
You can also experiment with different attacks on bosses in Elden Ring to figure out the right combination of attacks to stagger them.
Sometimes, it will take multiple tries just to figure out the right attack combinations to stagger that particular boss. For example, Bols, the Carian Knight can be staggered with one charged attack and two jumping attacks in Elden Ring.
However, remember that magic does not entirely work on Poise in Elden Ring, but there are some cases where incantations can trigger the stagger effect on enemies.
Using the rock sling spell, you can stagger the “Glenstone Dragon, which can become more powerful if you use the meteorite staff.”
Best stagger attacks and weapons to break an enemy’s poise
We have listed all the Poise damage that can be done to stagger your opponents regarding weapons class and attacks in Elden Ring.
- Thrust: 5 PD
- Dagger: 3 PD
- Straight sword: 4 PD
- Greatsword: 8 PD
- Grafted Blade Greatsword: 14 PD
- Colossal sword: 11 PD
- Colossal weapon: 12 PD
- Dragon Greatclaw: 11 PD
- Greatbow: 5 PD
- Icerind Hatchet(+9): 46 PD
- Light attack: 8 PD
- Jumping Light attack: 7 PD
- Charged heavy attack: 24 PD
- Jumping heavy attack: 16 PD
- Powerstance (R1): 7 PD
- Powerstance (L1): 8 PD
- Powerstance Jumping (L1): 13.5 PD
- Flame of Redmanes: 29 PD
- Flame of Redmanes (with tear): 38 PD
- Square off (heavy): 29 PD
- Heavy attack: 19 PD
- Guard counter: 20 PD
Similarly, in terms of Talisman, you can use the following to break enemy poise in Elden Ring:
- Shard of Alexander: 13 PD
- Carian Filigreed Crest: 13 PD
- Ritual Sword Talisman: 13 PD
- Dagger Talisman: 13 PD
