Combat | Basics Dark Souls II Guide

It takes some effort to defeat these giants

Fighting is the most important feature of Dark Souls 2. Almost every creature in the game is aggressive towards our hero and we will often have to fight it more the once. Therefore, it is good to learn the basics of the combat system.

• Stamina - Displayed as a green bar, below the health bar. Every action, like for example attack, roll, running, block or spell cast, requires a certain amount of stamina. The pace of regeneration of stamina depends on the weight of our equipment. The lesser the weight, the faster the regeneration.
• Lock-On - Basic function, which makes a lot of fights easier. We can lock the camera on the nearest enemy by pressing the right stick of a controller or middle mouse button. It's however not always useful to lock the camera. When fighting large groups of enemies and some bosses as well, it is better to fight the normal way. What's more, the character will move slower when in Lock-On mode.
• Blocking - An action during which the player uses shield to block an attack and thus to reduce or totally remove damage. To successfully block a given attack, the hero has to have an adequate amount of endurance. If the player doesn't have the required amount of stamina to perform a block, the attack will break through the shield, throw the hero off balance and deal lower damage. It should be remembered that there are various kinds of damage and every shield has different stats. A given shield can block 100% of physical damage, but only 40% of magic damage. It means that when the player blocks a spell with this shield, he will still take damage, but reduced by 40%.
• Parry and Riposte - To parry an attack means to knock away enemy's blows using a shield or offhand weapon. Riposte follows a successful parry, when the enemy is off balance. In such situation, a normal blow becomes a riposte and deals critical damage.
• Backstab - A normal attack, but performed from behind the enemy. It starts a special animation, which is different for various types of weapons. An enemy that has been backstabbed gets critical damage and falls on the ground.
• Dodging/Rolling - The best way to dodge an attack is to perform a roll. It costs you a certain amount of stamina, but there are no restrictions to the time after which you can perform another roll. You have to pay attention to the direction of rolling, because it cannot be altered during the action.
• Dual Wielding - Using two weapons simultaneously. You can perform light and strong attacks with your right and left hand, which brings a certain flexibility, because you can use two different types of weapon. What's more, if the hero has minimum 150% of the required amount of attribute for each weapon (e.g. it requires 10 strength, and the player has minimum 15), he can enter the "Power Stance" mode, which enables him to perform special, very strong attacks with both weapons at once.