A brief, although accurate, account of the core PvP gameplay mechanics and skills used for successful play.
PvP Gameplay Mechanics
This guide essentially explains at the basic level of why certain strategies are effective and others are not and why the game’s meta and balance is asymmetrically skewed. It also, hopefully, provides a more concrete resource for players looking to improve their understanding of the mechanics and their skills.
This refers specifically to 1v1 PvP, although all of the outlined mechanics are applicable to every form of PvP.
Spacing
Avoiding an attack without rolling or blocking, but can also refer to attacking in a way that makes it harder for your opponent to space you.
Spacing is highly advantageous because avoiding an attack without needing to roll, block or perform any other committal action leaves you in the optimal position to punish your opponent, as you are not in recovery or in hitstun.
If an attack cannot be spaced, for any reason, the safest option is to roll or block it, depending on the context.
Because of client side hit detection, increasing latency will make attacks appear to have more range than they visibly do. In these scenarios, spacing in anticipation of an attack is required. On lower latencies, spacing can be performed on reaction to most attacks.
Timing
Timing refers to anything that must be appropriately timed to be successful, such as a reaction roll, whiff punish or a rollcatch.
Most attacks in Elden Ring are consistently reactable, with a very small minority of moves being genuinely unreactable or hard to react to. Reaction rolling is performing the roll input at the correct timing to avoid an attack.
Most players typically develop reaction rolling as a skill later than spacing because it requires a (very minor) conscious input whereas spacing is usually done mostly on autopilot.
When an opponent commits to an action, such as a roll or an attack, the animation has a set period of recovery frames until they can perform another action, such as a roll. This is the player’s window to attack the opponent before they can roll or attack you in turn. The ability of a player to whiff punish is typically determined by whether or not their weapon is fast enough to be able to punish a recovery. This can be determined by simply comparing the recovery of the opponent’s animation to the startup of your attack.
While rollcatching with the vast majority of weapons and attacks requires an opponent to be unable to reaction roll a reactable move, some attacks such as certain R2s can be released on reaction to a roll while charging them. Some neutral R1s and projectiles can also be timed on reaction to an opponent’s roll.
A backswing is a type of rollcatch that cannot be avoided regardless of reactions. This is when one attack recovers extremely quickly into a consecutive attack. The first attack forces a roll response from the opponent, and because it recovers fast enough into a consecutive move, this is guaranteed to hit the opponent during roll recovery. Backswings are most effective at close range, near walls and corners. Only certain weapons have the frame data to facilitate backswings, and the success rate of backswings is latency dependent.
Auxiliary Fundamentals
Backstabs
Backstabs are mostly a subsidiary of spacing, however understanding how they function mechanically will allow the player to counter and avoid them.
Behind the player’s back is a “cone”, where performing an R1 input will initiate a backstab grab attempt. After the backstab grab has been initiated, anything in range of the backstab grab, regardless of its orientation, will be pulled into a successful backstab.
All backstabs can be avoided through iframes.
Some attacks have long enough recovery to be rolled past and then backstabbed, however this is a minority. Most attacks have low enough recovery that attempting to roll past them is punishable.
Match-up Knowledge
Match-up knowledge refers to understanding the dynamic between your weapon and your opponent’s. Understanding the different properties of all of your opponent’s potential attacks is required to have an effective matchup knowledge.
Key points of matchups to be aware of are (in no particular order):
- Hitstun
- Tracking
- Range
Hyper armour startup, poise health, poise damage.
Recovery
Frame Advantage / Disadvantage
The difference in the time it takes for you to recover from your attack and the time it takes for your opponent to recover from hit stun or block stun is called frame advantage.
Frame advantage can be represented as a positive or negative number to indicate who recovers first after the move is executed, although this is typically not required in Elden Ring.
Due to Elden Rings linear hitstun system, understanding frame advantage is very simple.
If you and your opponent trade at the exact same time, the player hit by an attack with more hitstun will recover later and therefore likely be frame disadvantaged. If both players’ attacks dealt the same amount of hitstun, the player with a slower weapon will be frame disadvantaged.
In a scenario where you are frame disadvantaged, the safest course of action is to roll or block instead of attempting to attack.
Swapping
Entering the inventory to change equipment rapidly is a strategy used by players. The common form of equipment swapping is ring swapping, where players change rings depending on the matchup present or the stage in the fight. This allows players to reap various statistical benefits from rings during a fight, rather than only the statistical benefits they started with.
Ring swapping is not a required skill to be proficient, but is very advantageous and every player can benefit from it, regardless of playstyle.
Weapon swapping is a form of equipment swapping where players change weapons during a fight in order to surprise the opponent or gain access to situationally more advantageous attacks. For example, if using a weapon that doesn’t have hyper armour, a player may quickly swap to a weapon that has fast hyper armour startup and catch the opponent off guard with a trade.
Weapon swapping in this context is highly flawed as it mostly relies on the opponent’s inability to react and modify their approach to what you have swapped weapons to.
An exception to this is swapping weapons after a parry or guard break. In this situation, players can swap to a weapon that deals high critical damage, in order to maximise riposte damage output. This form of weapon swapping is used purely to gain a statistical damage increase. It is also highly safe as the opponent cannot punish it due to being in the riposte state.
Another effective application of weapon swapping is when the opponent is getting up from a backstab or riposte. Some weapons have attacks that are difficult to avoid on wakeup, such as backswings. In this context of weapon swapping, the user is maximising their chances of landing damage on wakeup, and is also safe to do so as the opponent is transferring from the wakeup animation into a roll.
Weapon swapping is also not a required skill to be proficient, but can have benefits when used situationally.
Other Skills
Prediction
Contrary to popular belief, prediction is not a fundamental skill in Elden Ring as it is not required for success or optimal play in all matchups.
However, some matchups will require players to rely upon prediction to win. Typically, weapons that can be consistently avoided on reaction or weapons that lack the capacity to punish recoveries on reaction must rely upon prediction to be successful.
Prediction is highly inconsistent as it relies on interpreting behavioural clues about your opponent’s patterns in order to inform your decision to perform an action or not. An inaccurate read is typically punishable.
The extent to which prediction is required for success in certain matchups is proportional to the amount of latency present.
Fundamental Design Flaws
Dark Souls 3’s weapon balance is essentially an asymmetrical pyramid, where the strength of a weapon is governed almost entirely by whether or not it can be avoided on reaction. The privileged minority of weapons that cannot be avoided on reaction are distinctly advantaged compared to everything else.
What differentiates good from bad is whether a weapon can be consistently avoided on reaction with a roll. Unreactable attacks or backswings cannot be consistently avoided on reaction, therefore making them viable when used offensively.
The vast majority of attacks in Elden Ring can be avoided on reaction with 100% consistency.
As a result, the only reliable way to land these attacks in 1v1 at the top level is either:
- For the opponent to commit to an action.
- For the opponent to have poor spacing.
These weapons or attacks are generally considered not viable at the top level of play, as they have no counterplay to an opponent simply playing defensively, due to relying on the opponent attacking or performing an action first in order to land damage.
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