Staggering in combat

[Migromul]

Since the old thread was closed because of so-called "Necro" although with patch 3.0 at least, there IS a stagger-abiltiy, now I open a new one with exact the same title!

Stagger in combat... It seems, this wasn't realy possible. Hm. My experience is something else, to be honest. You HAVE a Kick, and maces DO stagger. What you CAN'T, however, is stunlock the enmy, because your own stagger-attacks are relative slow. And a kick normally only staggers, and does not knock down. (The AI have more options like this. At least, that is, what my experience is.)

BUT: if you corrupt your strength 5 or 10 points (I'm not realy sure, but I believe 5 is enough. 10 is maximum, if not 5...) you can knock down the enemy with your kick. It none the less depends on the mass of your foe: You probably can't knock down a croco or Tiger or even Rhino. But you CAN knock down those two-feeted birds. I didn'T try that, yet, though. But at least I suppose, that you can.

[Pablo Croft]

In my experiences, the enemies with skulls on their health bars (1 or 3) are generally all immune to staggering. The regular, but larger foes like elephants also seem to be immune to staggering.

In that case, I just do a single light attack and then sidestep, roll, or run away depending on how large a foe they are. Sometimes, they're so large that their attacks cover a large area -to large to roll out of. Or, they use a horizontal attack you can't just side step.

I haven't tested the corrupt version of a kick stagger-resistant enemies, so I can't help you there, sorry. I'm sure others have, and will be able to give you some useful information there. :)

[Migromul]

Originally posted by Pablo Croft:

In my experiences, the enemies with skulls on their health bars (1 or 3) are generally all immune to staggering. The regular, but larger foes like elephants also seem to be immune to staggering.

In that case, I just do a single light attack and then sidestep, roll, or run away depending on how large a foe they are. Sometimes, they're so large that their attacks cover a large area -to large to roll out of. Or, they use a horizontal attack you can't just side step.

I haven't tested the corrupt version of a kick stagger-resistant enemies, so I can't help you there, sorry. I'm sure others have, and will be able to give you some useful information there. :)

Hehe, no they aren't. I fighted a 3-skull-opponent. (the judge on Sipta) Sadly I lost... again, but if you succesfully used the heavy chain of the 1-hand-axe, he will get knocked down with the finisher. DOING this, however is another topic.
he has a damn range with his pike. I HATE such foes!
BTW: I opended the thread for common discussion. I don't realy need help. Although, I sppreciate sharing several experiences. The knock-down-kick is available with 10 points strength-corruption. It works on humans. I didn't try it successfully on other opponents. (Mostly, they just die too fast.)

[Pablo Croft]

Originally posted by Migromul:

Originally posted by Pablo Croft:

In my experiences, the enemies with skulls on their health bars (1 or 3) are generally all immune to staggering. The regular, but larger foes like elephants also seem to be immune to staggering.

In that case, I just do a single light attack and then sidestep, roll, or run away depending on how large a foe they are. Sometimes, they're so large that their attacks cover a large area -to large to roll out of. Or, they use a horizontal attack you can't just side step.

I haven't tested the corrupt version of a kick stagger-resistant enemies, so I can't help you there, sorry. I'm sure others have, and will be able to give you some useful information there. :)

Hehe, no they aren't. I fighted a 3-skull-opponent. (the judge on Sipta) Sadly I lost... again, but if you succesfully used the heavy chain of the 1-hand-axe, he will get knocked down with the finisher. DOING this, however is another topic.
he has a damn range with his pike. I HATE such foes!
BTW: I opended the thread for common discussion. I don't realy need help. Although, I sppreciate sharing several experiences. The knock-down-kick is available with 10 points strength-corruption. It works on humans. I didn't try it successfully on other opponents. (Mostly, they just die too fast.)

I'm making a dedicated sorcerer, so if I find some helpful interesting tales to tell, I will return to share them. :)

[Migromul]

One of the normal perks of strenth. lets you stagger longer. I didn't play CE for a long time, so I don't realy know, how it was last before 3.0. And I don't have strength maxed anymore (distributed 10 points to agility insteadt...) And since this is a level 20-perk, I can't test it at the moment.

If you play FULL sorcerer without mods, I assume, you will max the 3 sorcerer-attributes? (strength, vitality and authority). The last corrupted perk of the first two are... interesting. but will nearly force you to use thrals you already have, if you want to break more, since it will be much more difficult to knock out...

[Jaq]

You can definitely stagger and just about stunlock the Arena Champion. And pretty much have to in order to survive.

[Migromul]

Originally posted by Jaq:

You can definitely stagger and just about stunlock the Arena Champion. And pretty much have to in order to survive.

Dosen't your stamina-limit "make a line through the bill" (as we in German say: "Ein Strich durch die Rechnung machen" Google translates it with "throwing a spanner through the works")

BTW: who's the arena-champion? that undead dragon there? I have faced much more dangerous enemies, to be honest. (But I must admit, I didn't completley explore, what I believe is the arena you're refering to, according to the youtube-videos I watched. I ceased playing the exiled land-map for the moment, as Isle of Sipta is more fun for me, to be honest.)

[Antineutron]

the arena champion is a human enemy using a mace at end of klael stronghold dungeon that instant kills you with any single attack no matter your armor or hp and destroys any thrall within seconds

oh and if you do die you have to fight all the bosses before to unlock 2 doors (because on restart they auto lock and all enemies respawn) before you are allowed to get your stuff back (pro tip, farm more keys and store them outside the dungeon for this specific situation before going too far)

[Migromul]

Originally posted by Antineutron:

the arena champion is a human enemy using a mace at end of klael stronghold dungeon that instant kills you with any single attack no matter your armor or hp and destroys any thrall within seconds

oh and if you do die you have to fight all the bosses before to unlock 2 doors (because on restart they auto lock and all enemies respawn) before you are allowed to get your stuff back (pro tip, farm more keys and store them outside the dungeon for this specific situation before going too far)

Ookay. So I probably will never face him... But as sorcerer, your stuff shouldn't be a problem any more, should it? ^^ But the arena IS that dungeon with that undead drageon? (and a giant snake before, with a lot of skelletons and normal snakes.) isn't it? According to the videos that sinkhole in the middle of the map, near the dafari-capital is the arena. But the entrance is at another position, south of it.

[Antineutron]

no that's just arena, this one is called klael's stronghold and it is between sepermeru and shattered springs

[grab these bandages]

Originally posted by Antineutron:

the arena champion is a human enemy using a mace at end of klael stronghold dungeon that instant kills you with any single attack no matter your armor or hp and destroys any thrall within seconds

oh and if you do die you have to fight all the bosses before to unlock 2 doors (because on restart they auto lock and all enemies respawn) before you are allowed to get your stuff back (pro tip, farm more keys and store them outside the dungeon for this specific situation before going too far)

May be he was nerfed? When i try to farm arena, swings from his charge deal around 150-200 damage in light armor

[Xevyr]

Okay so clarification here...
The Judge... is the Siptah equivalent of the Arena Champion on EL. They have exactly the same stats, the arena champion uses a one-handed mace and quite proficiently.
She can be killed without stunlocking though just takes time.. simply walk infront of her in a semi-circle.. don't even have to sprint... she'll do her leaping mace opener at some point.. shoot right past you since it's linear... do a followup attack and then stops in that pose for about 5-6 seconds... You can just exploit that time and damage her.. then roll back and keep walking infront of her till she does it again... time-consuming but that works every time.
Note that she has almost 19k armor thou... so if you have a Blade of Seven Winds, that's going to be your best weapon against her plus some poison, short of that a one-handed mace with as much armor penetration as you can have (don't rely on Sunder, it's useless against her so don't risk dying just to refresh it - it's the equivalent of 2.47% armor pen on her lol). But you can just use poison on the mace too and do the 2 light + 2 heavy combo to interrupt her fast and also knock her down at the end then back up and wait for stamina ticks and repeat.

As for the staggering of NPCs.. each attack you do has a certain amount of stagger damage associated with it depending on the weapon, animation etc. and each NPC has an amount of stagger resistance so it varies how much you can stagger and with what weapon. NPCs also have a time window after which they'll start ignoring your staggers and fight back to prevent constant stunlocking from normal attacks.. if you keep knocking them down ofc and there's delays between those then that resets as well so you can stagger them again
Hope that helps :P

[Migromul]

Originally posted by Xevyr:

Okay so clarification here...
The Judge... is the Siptah equivalent of the Arena Champion on EL. They have exactly the same stats, the arena champion uses a one-handed mace and quite proficiently.
She can be killed without stunlocking though just takes time.. simply walk infront of her in a semi-circle.. don't even have to sprint... she'll do her leaping mace opener at some point.. shoot right past you since it's linear... do a followup attack and then stops in that pose for about 5-6 seconds... You can just exploit that time and damage her.. then roll back and keep walking infront of her till she does it again... time-consuming but that works every time.
Note that she has almost 19k armor thou... so if you have a Blade of Seven Winds, that's going to be your best weapon against her plus some poison, short of that a one-handed mace with as much armor penetration as you can have (don't rely on Sunder, it's useless against her so don't risk dying just to refresh it - it's the equivalent of 2.47% armor pen on her lol). But you can just use poison on the mace too and do the 2 light + 2 heavy combo to interrupt her fast and also knock her down at the end then back up and wait for stamina ticks and repeat.

As for the staggering of NPCs.. each attack you do has a certain amount of stagger damage associated with it depending on the weapon, animation etc. and each NPC has an amount of stagger resistance so it varies how much you can stagger and with what weapon. NPCs also have a time window after which they'll start ignoring your staggers and fight back to prevent constant stunlocking from normal attacks.. if you keep knocking them down ofc and there's delays between those then that resets as well so you can stagger them again
Hope that helps :P

Hm. if the arena-champion has the same stats as the judge. she (according to your post it's a "she"?) is much less frightening, than I thought. The judge is difficult and has a damn reach. But if you're careful, he (more an "it" sind it is headless...) is beatable. Although heavy armor and a good legendary or Star metal-weapon is recomended. But it defintily DOESJN'T one-hit you! (it took at least 5-8 hits - and I had 50% corruption - until it defeated me... I had vitality maxed, I must admit, however.) I think the adds (at least 4 sekelttons) and the respawn of them, is more dangerous, than the judge itself.

[Xevyr]

Originally posted by Migromul:

Hm. if the arena-champion has the same stats as the judge. she (according to your post it's a "she"?) is much less frightening, than I thought. The judge is difficult and has a damn reach. But if you're careful, he (more an "it" sind it is headless...) is beatable. Although heavy armor and a good legendary or Star metal-weapon is recomended. But it defintily DOESJN'T one-hit you! (it took at least 5-8 hits - and I had 50% corruption - until it defeated me... I had vitality maxed, I must admit, however.) I think the adds (at least 4 sekelttons) and the respawn of them, is more dangerous, than the judge itself.

Except she has a mace :P and armor penetration as such.. and NPCs are way more proficient at using maces than anything else, so that's the part that makes her scary as she can combo 3-4 hits when even one is near deadly. She hits like 300+ on ~900 amor based on the last time I fought her.

[c3rro]

...

[Ellorien]

Arena Champion is a lady in a white armor. The armor is craftable and called Champion’s Armor. I crafted one for Dalinsia.
Champion is the worst. If you make a single mistake and let her get close and hit you, you are dead alright. Judge is much easier to defeat. Nothing special, really. I used to regularly farm those ruins on Siptah and it was a cakewalk compared to soloing the Champion. If you decide to let your thrall handle these bosses instead, the Champion would quickly kill any thrall who has less than 9,000HP while the Judge would not even make a dent. So, if you have a problem with the Judge, bring a good thrall and enjoy the show. But you need to fight the Champ yourself.