FromSoftware’s Elden Ring is an upcoming action RPG made in collaboration with the creator of Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin which releases on 25th February. The story follows the destruction of the titular Elden Ring which caused the shards, ‘the Great Runes’ to be scattered all over the realm of the Lands Between. The role of the player is to recover all the Great Runes in order to fix the Elden Ring, and be instated as the Elden Lord. To do so they need to encounter NPCs and enemies and learn combat and magic abilities to defeat the game bosses. Calculated and close-ranged melee-based combat is important in the game, and players need to know how to use their skills. This guide will take you through the process of performing critical strikes in Elden Ring.
Using Critical Strikes in Elden Ring
Critical strikes are key components in combat in Elden Ring and are used to deplete a large amount of health from the enemies of the player.
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Before you perform a critical strike, it might be useful for you to learn how to parry, which is essentially staggering an opponent to leave them vulnerable to a critical hit. After a successful parry, you can get a free critical strike. This can be done with boss enemies as well.
In order to break an enemy’s stance, you will have to deplete their stance bar which is an invisible bar that depletes whenever you land successful attacks, especially consecutive ones, strong charged hits or aggressive jump attacks. You will know that their stance is broken when the enemy is down and unable to attack for a few seconds.
You can easily take down a staggered or downed opponent by walking up to them and attacking. If there is a glowing spot on the enemy you can aim for it. Make sure you are close enough to the enemy. This will trigger a critical strike animation and result in immense damage.
Hitting fallen enemies can result in a critical strike as well. This is also true for sleeping enemies as they will take more damage when they are unaware.
You can sneak up behind an enemy to deal a critical hit.
The buttons you should press for the critical strike are R1 / RB on Playstation or Xbox, and left mouse click for PC.
What about if you are using keyboard and mouse?
It’s the left mouse button. Thank you for your question, the article’s been updated!