Lords of the Fallen: How To Perform Critical Attacks

Lords of the Fallen follows all Soulsborne formula so closely, genre veterans like us were searching for backstabs and criticals right away. But Lords of the Fallen changes things up and removes some of the mystery, making Critical Attacks one of the most important features of the game. If you want to defeat the massive bosses, you’ll need to learn how to unleash Critical Attacks. In this game, they’re called Grievous Strikes and deft play can help you absolutely demolish bosses.

Grievous Strikes are tied into the Posture system. Posture is similar to systems from Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Eldin Ring and more. By laying on enough damage, you can cause an enemy to stagger. While they’re vulnerable, you’ll be able to perform a powerful special attack — usually by plunging your weapon directly into the enemy’s chest. Learn how this feature works below.

More Lords of the Fallen guides:

Beginner’s Guide | How To Reach Skyrest Bridge | Mineowner’s Ring Location | Seedling Vestige Farm | Blacksmith Location | Boss Weapon Unlock | Early Vigor Farm | Pieta, She of Blessed Renewal Boss Guide

How To Perform Critical Attacks

Critical Attacks or Grievous Strikes as they’re called in Lords of the Fallen, are special powerful attacks that you can perform on enemies after breaking their posture. Posture is a meter that appears over every enemy — whether you’re fighting lowly undead or powerful bosses, Posture is an important factor. After damaging Posture, a small circle icon will appear over your target’s head.

• Dealing Posture Damage:
• You can deal Posture damage a number of ways. By performing heavy attacks or kicks, you’ll deal a small amount of Posture damage. If you fully charge your heavy attack, you’ll deal more posture damage depending on how long you charge — and performing a charged heavy attack on an unaware enemy’s back will deal extreme posture damage.
• The essential way to deal Posture damage is through the Parry feature. By performing a block right before an enemy’s attack lands, you’ll deal Posture damage. You’ll know you’ve performed a perfect block because your shield (or weapon) will shine blue.

-Parries are incredibly important. If you parry an attack, your enemy will deal only a small amount of Wither damage. Wither damage is Chip Damage — it can only be recovered by attacking your opponent. Otherwise, you’ll lose it all if you’re hit. That’s the risk of attempting parries. If you block, you’ll take chip damage. If you miss entirely, you’ll take high damage.

By parrying, you’ll rapidly drain the enemy’s Posture. But draining Posture isn’t enough to break an enemy and leave them vulnerable. Once the meter is depleted, you’ll need to stagger.

• Performing Grievous Strikes:
• When Posture is depleted on an enemy, you’ll need to break them. There are three ways to break enemies — with a Charged Heavy Attack, Kick or Parry.
• After breaking, enemies will only briefly be vulnerable. Quickly use a light attack to lock into an animation, dealing high damage when plunging your sword into the weakened enemy.

Grievous Strikes are one of the strategies you can use to absolutely demolish some bosses. Many of the human-sized opponents you’ll face are extremely parry-heavy. Learn enemy patterns and unleash the power of Grievous Strike to demolish tough bosses.