Are there three-move combinations in Elden Ring?

Question

I never played the Dark Souls games, but I am trying Elden Ring. Supposedly the game features combinations of moves that result in a special bonus or effect, kind of like Special Moves in Mortal Kombat.

However, so far I have only found two combinations: Riposte (Parry + Light Attack) and Guard Counter (Block + Heavy Attack). Are there any three-move combinations, or even any other two-move combinations than this?

Answer 1

As BlueTrin has pointed out, the weapons all have "movesets". This can change based on what you are weilding. Shields and spears, swords, maces, even dual wielding.

Yes, there are combat mechanics that vary your combat, such as parrying, riposteing, backstabbing, as well as spells and such. But there is no real button combos to manage. The main four are:

• Light attack (R1/RB)
• Heavy attack (R2/RT - hold for Charged attack)
• Dual weild light attack (L1/LB)
• Weapon skill (L2/LT)

Any "combinations" this game has are generally restricted to parry & riposte, or Light and Heavy attacks (I.e. Heavy, heavy, heavy; or Light, light, light, etc). There are some mechanics including dodging that can affect your attack patterns as well. Jump attacks, dodge/roll attacks also provide different "attacks", but again, this is restricted to a 2-button combination. All of these "attack patterns" are generally followed up by a recovery phase.

Elden Ring (as well as the rest of the Soulsborne series) use a stamina and "i'frame" system which dictates how combat works. A quick summary of this is:

• Each animation has a number of frames. Attacks, dodges, parries, ripostes, backstabs. Depending on the type of action you are taking, these may be granted a number of "i-frames" in order to avoid being hit/taking damage.
  • blocking may block all damage, depending on the type of shield you use. Dodging will avoid all damage, provided you time it properly.
• Everything costs stamina. When you run out of stamina, you need to recover some in order to carry out any more actions. Some actions require more stamina than others. A heavy attack may require twice as much as a light attack for example.
  • actions can take you past "0" stamina. If you have 10 stamina, and an action requires 20 stamina, you will be unable to do anything until you recover 11 stamina; bringing you back to 1 stamina. If an action only takes 10 stamina, you will only need to recover 1 stamina. Stamina management plays a major part in combat.

This makes combat primarily focussed on timing - looking for openings and opportunities to attack, dodge, riposte etc. That's why you'll see players pulling off ridiculous builds like "lvl 1 torch only".

Making comparisons to games like Mortal Kombat in regards to "combos" such as "left, down, left, square, square, triangle" is really just unrealistic.

Answer 2

They are a bit specific to weapons.

For example:

• Halberd: Jump Heavy into Light attack
• Many weapons + thrusting weapon in offhand: crouching poke attack into thrusting weapon. This will prevent you from using a power stance.
• Bloodhound Fang has a funny one, if you use the special you can RT (heavy attack) to make a follow up where you teleport and do a heavy attack, it works quite well in PvP with people who aren't aware of it and it is generally good in PvE because you teleport away after the special

You will have to experiment a bit.