Tyler

Tystaro7

I keep finding myself in pvp against a fellow stagger styler but it can get really annoying especially when I find out it’s just a lower level player that decided to join the school and since stagger is so spam inducing it doesn’t take much for new players to absolute destroy me At other times I find myself up against an a clear extremely high pvp player (based on gear) and just find my self in a corner waiting for my stamina to run out and I know I can’t blame all my loses on the style I’m not exactly the best player myself but still it’s a little aggravating another thing I find happening is that I can spam stagger and all of a sudden get cut off but my question is when I get spammed no matter how I pace myself with attacking I can’t break their combo somebody plz help me

Axciss

So I'm a pretty experienced stagger main, here's what I've found. Stagger style's strength is the punish game, Stay inside shield for a bit, wait for their slower moves or learn their patterns of attack, utilize your stagger abilities and evasive attacks to interrupt their chains, you can actually gold link off of your stagger ability to punish repetitive behavior. Use the forward stumble more against players who are catching you with low sweep spam or shield breaking attacks. I find a lot of people use thrusting attacks in the spam category, so look for the moves which parry or evade thrust.

Against smarter players you want to try to balance your offensive strategy against their shield and your stamina conservation strategy to preserve your own. Something I use to get the edge in higher skill fights is dropping down into a back stance when my enemies have gone into shield at high stamina. I do this not because my back stance has better shield pressure, I do it because I can poke from back stance, get some pressure in and then suddenly stop and walk backwards in back stance. This gives you a little extra speed on the retreat, and most enemies are so focused on shielding they wont have the presence of mind to go in for an attack. If they do, it will usually be a thrusting attack to make up for lost ground, which you can punish as I mentioned before.

Another advantage of Stagger is the little bit of damage your stagger abilities do. When enemies pop their heal buff you want to shut down the regen as quickly as possible. You can do this by either waiting for them to engage or go on the offensive yourself. Whats great about stagger in this sense is that your forward stumble is great to punish the heal and close a short gap. On the defensive, opponents are just as worried about their heal buff as you are and will likely try to combo to get as much health a possible. If you're patient, all of your stagger style 'defensive attacks' allow you to rob your opponent of their heal buff pretty quick. If you play with heal, play defensively after popping your own heal buff, wait for an opening or create an opening of your own.

All of this being said, sometimes there are opponents that you just can't beat. Some decks are better at countering others, some players are better at mindgames and mixups, and sometimes they just spam a moveset that you can't seem to counter. The key in all of these types of games is to win and lose with dignity, learn from your mistakes, and experiment with your strategy constantly. Try to keep a clear head because tilt will beat you more times than your opponent will.

I'm by no means a master, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I have a few dozen hours in the game, I'm level 89 in combat trials, and I've acquired all the non-sword moves. I hope this helps