How Poise, Super Armor and Stance Breaking works in Elden Ring

Elden Ring has a typical FromSoftware combat system where the apparent simplicity of sword-swinging and rolling are just the tip of the iceberg. Players will need to get to grips with combat elements like Poise, Super Armor, and Stance Breaking if they really want to take advantage of their weapons.

What is Poise in Elden Ring?

Poise is your ability to resist interruption by enemies. When they hit you they have less of a chance to interrupt your animations. Your poise is diminished as you take successive strikes from enemies in combat and can be completely removed, resulting in your character being stunned.

Posie is an attribute of your equipment and can be viewed in the Equipment and Status sections of the main menu. The higher your Poise stat, the more you can afford to trade back and forth with enemies as you will have a low chance of being stun locked.

What is Super Armor?

Super Armor is similar to Poise but covers one very specific part of combat in Elden Ring, critical hits. Super Armor cannot be altered, regardless of equipment, and there is no way for players to see how much Super Armor they have.

Enemies also have Super Armor, and like Poise, it can be stripped via successive blows that will then open the enemy up for a critical hit. This is highly advantageous as critical hits deal far more damage. Players who are worried about the possibility of a critical strike can make some space, stop taking hits, and it will recover. After Super Armor has been broken, you will hear a loud bang, and the enemy will slump down with a glowing area somewhere on their body. Getting to this area and hitting it will cause a high damage strike to play out.