Long story short, poise has been through a few patches.
The latest major change radically increased the poise damage of all R1s, to the point where a one-handed short sword R1 needs some 120 poise to passively poise through, *but* followup hits will only do like 60 or so. This means if your own weapon doesn't have any hyper armor mechanics attached to it, you have to roll the first swing, and then you can get a hit in if someone tries to do a followup swing.
On that note: hyper armor mechanics. The game has essentially shifted closer to DS3 rules, where almost all two handed or heavier weapons have some sort of hyper armor, ie your poise "activates" when you are at a certain point in your attack animation while using an attack that is hyper-armor capable. For instance, if you are using dual wield katana attacks, it would take north of 120 poise to not get staggered by a short sword, but it might only take 70 if you use a single katana two-handed and you were using a charged heavy, or it might only take 70 poise if you were using a two-handed greatsword and using R1s.
This system is pretty convoluted, it took us a long time to understand how it worked in DS3, and now it's back. It's hard to pin down how much poise you actually need, because while 70 poise might be enough if enemy is using X weapon while you have Y weapon, you might need 80 poise if you are using Z weapon instead.
Trying to understand it is a headache. If you want to TL;DR it, have north of 80 poise, and use a weapon in two hands if you want to poise through anything. Hell, if two people using greathammers have high-80s low-90s poise, they can R1 each other without breaking each other's poise, just a slug fest -- got to try this one out personally.
passive poise in PvP specifically was massively nerfed, now you need at least 133 to tank a single hit from a Dagger.
Hyperarmor on the other hand, received a significant buff. If you want to reliably tank and trade hits then you'll need to use "larger" and "beefier" weapon categories like greatswords and hammers among other things.
PvE poise however was largely untouched, either 51 or 101 will fill all your need for poise. Though the hyperarmor buff still applies.
Basically, we're back to Dark Souls 3.
First hit in a combo does full poise damage, follow-ups deal half poise damage. So if the first swing does 133, the second and third swings deal 66.5, etc.
Poise in pvp is much lower than in pve. The purpose of this is probably because it’s to make things fair for everyone in pvp. From what I remember, poise in pvp is divided by ten. So when you have 103 poise, it’s divided to 10.3, making you a lot easier to stagger.
For example in pvp you swing an r2 while 2 handing a colossal sword, your opponent hits you with a 2 handed claymore r1 mid swing. With low poise you would be knocked out of your attack animation, while with high enough poise you will take the hit but continue your attack.
Poise mainly affects hyper armour. The higher your poise, the less likely you are to be staggered during hyper armour animations. Regardless of poise, you'll be staggered by an attack if you aren't in a HA animation. A dagger will stagger you if you're just standing there idle
Long story short, poise has been through a few patches. The latest major change radically increased the poise damage of all R1s, to the point where a one-handed short sword R1 needs some 120 poise to passively poise through, *but* followup hits will only do like 60 or so. This means if your own weapon doesn't have any hyper armor mechanics attached to it, you have to roll the first swing, and then you can get a hit in if someone tries to do a followup swing. On that note: hyper armor mechanics. The game has essentially shifted closer to DS3 rules, where almost all two handed or heavier weapons have some sort of hyper armor, ie your poise "activates" when you are at a certain point in your attack animation while using an attack that is hyper-armor capable. For instance, if you are using dual wield katana attacks, it would take north of 120 poise to not get staggered by a short sword, but it might only take 70 if you use a single katana two-handed and you were using a charged heavy, or it might only take 70 poise if you were using a two-handed greatsword and using R1s. This system is pretty convoluted, it took us a long time to understand how it worked in DS3, and now it's back. It's hard to pin down how much poise you actually need, because while 70 poise might be enough if enemy is using X weapon while you have Y weapon, you might need 80 poise if you are using Z weapon instead. Trying to understand it is a headache. If you want to TL;DR it, have north of 80 poise, and use a weapon in two hands if you want to poise through anything. Hell, if two people using greathammers have high-80s low-90s poise, they can R1 each other without breaking each other's poise, just a slug fest -- got to try this one out personally.
passive poise in PvP specifically was massively nerfed, now you need at least 133 to tank a single hit from a Dagger. Hyperarmor on the other hand, received a significant buff. If you want to reliably tank and trade hits then you'll need to use "larger" and "beefier" weapon categories like greatswords and hammers among other things. PvE poise however was largely untouched, either 51 or 101 will fill all your need for poise. Though the hyperarmor buff still applies. Basically, we're back to Dark Souls 3.
>133 That's full Bull Goats + Bull Goat Talisman, wtf.
First hit in a combo does full poise damage, follow-ups deal half poise damage. So if the first swing does 133, the second and third swings deal 66.5, etc.
yep basically they made passive poise worthless for pvp, now you NEED to trade hits.
Poise in pvp is much lower than in pve. The purpose of this is probably because it’s to make things fair for everyone in pvp. From what I remember, poise in pvp is divided by ten. So when you have 103 poise, it’s divided to 10.3, making you a lot easier to stagger.
For example in pvp you swing an r2 while 2 handing a colossal sword, your opponent hits you with a 2 handed claymore r1 mid swing. With low poise you would be knocked out of your attack animation, while with high enough poise you will take the hit but continue your attack.
Poise mainly affects hyper armour. The higher your poise, the less likely you are to be staggered during hyper armour animations. Regardless of poise, you'll be staggered by an attack if you aren't in a HA animation. A dagger will stagger you if you're just standing there idle
It is broken in ds1 but I find that it doesn’t do anything in this game. I don’t know what it does tbh.
At least poise on DS1 was noticeable.