Knockdown results in a creature or person being knocked to the ground and temporarily vulnerable. A knocked down person may fall on their back, whilst a knocked down Dragons or Chimera may end on its side. Some enemies, like Golem or Cyclops fall in different positions depending on the body part the knock down damage was applied to.
It can be caused by physical attacks, spells, or explosions. Once downed, a creature cannot attack for a short period, may be more susceptible to damage, and will often leave weak spots such as the head exposed.
Ability and resistance to being knocked down is measured by the stats Knockdown Power and Knockdown Resistance.
Overview
A character or creature's Knockdown Threshold is an innate value that, when reached, results in being knocked down. Attacking will inflict Knockdown damage. This Knockdown Damage is derived from the Knockdown Power of the creature or weapon used. Each time knockdown damage is inflicted it is tallied up into a total. Continued, cumulative attacks will eventually inflict enough knockdown damage to reach the threshold. Once an enemy's knockdown threshold is reached, they will fall down, aborting any action they were attempting.
Knockdown has different effects on different creatures, but usually results in the target being knocked off their legs. A knocked down human will end prostrate, whilst a knock-downed Chimera rolls on the ground.
Knocked down foes do not necessarily take more damage (for example Cyclopes, Hobgoblins, Golems), but when they do, damage is often doubled (for example Chimeras, Dragon's hearts); either way they are left unable to attack for a time - smaller creatures, once knocked down, can be grappled which does greatly increase damage.
Knockdown Power
Pawn with Gryphic Victory. The Knockdown Power values show in the Status menu are those of the longsword (291) for the primary weapon, and unarmed (100) for the secondary.
The Knockdown Power of a weapon indicates the core amount of knockdown inherent to a primary or secondary weapon. Knockdown power can be increased further by equipping certain armor, jewelry and particular Augments.
For an Unarmed human the knockdown power is 100 - whilst with a weapon the core knockdown power comes directly from that weapon.
The knockdown damage inflicted with an attack uses the weapon's knockdown power and modifies it by the skills used - and some skills have much greater knockdown power than others. Some spells, such as High Comestion or Stone Forest, have higher knockdown modifications e.g., have very high knockdown damage outputs.
Enemy Knockdown Resistance
A creature or enemies Knockdown Resistance is it's Knockdown Threshold. When this is reached it results in the foe being knocked down. Knockdown damage can be inflicted with any attack. Continued, cumulative attacks will eventually inflict enough knockdown damage to reach the threshold.
Enemy Knockdown Resistance for Large Enemies, is doubled at the start of every engagement. Inflicting Knockdown will reduce its knockdown resistance to its true value for the rest of the engagement. Knockdown resistance of small and medium enemies is unchanged.
Knockdown damage inflicted on an enemy, unlike that of the party, decays very slowly to a point that it makes little, if any, practical effect on combat.
Enemy body parts also have different knockdown vulnerabilities, e.g., a Drake's heart, when compared to other portions of its torso. That is to say, knockdown damage is further modified by the body part being struck, striking a Drakes heart will inflict more knockdown damage than striking its wings.
The amount of knockdown damage an attack will deal to an enemy is also modified by the enemy's stance. Unaware foes have a huge modifier to knockdown damage, often easily knocked down on a first strike. Other stances, such as when an Eliminator charges, also provide a lesser but significant bonus modifier. Some stances will only apply a bonus modifier to knockdown damage to specific body parts. For example, when a Drake attempts to possess a pawn, striking the arm with which it holds the pawn provides a bonus that other body parts do not.
Party Knockdown Resistance
Knockdown Resistance (a percentage) is the only stat that governs how much knockdown damage you can take before being knocked down. It works identically to Elemental Resistances. in that it represents the literal percentage of Knockdown damage from enemy attacks you resist. Accumulated knockdown damage will decay over a short period of time.
Equipment and augments
| Item | Knockdown Power |
|---|---|
| Tormentor's Mask | +50 |
| Persecutor's Mask | +50 |
| Barbed Nails | +100 |
| Virtuoso Ring | +11 to +20 |
| Preceptor Ring | +21 to +30 |
| Master Ring | +31 to +40 |
The majority of a character's knockdown power comes from their weapon, and/or from the skill or spells used. Weapon knockdown can reach over 500 for the larger heavier weapons such as Warhammers and Shields when Dragonforged. Knockdown power can also be increased by wearing certain armor and rings.
In general, the 'heavier' the armor the better the knockdown resistance - with Very Heavy Armor Sets, and Heavy Armor Sets having the best resistances, and the Hellfire Armor Set the best of all. A gold rarified Set of Duke's Clothing has 96% knockdown resistance.
- For weapons knockdown power increases with enhancing.
- For armor and clothing knockdown resistance increases with enhancing only for leg armor.
- For weapons, armor and clothing, knockdown resistance or power is generally very similar to the same item's stagger resistance or power.
- Clothing and cloak resistances are generally small or zero.
- The Ogre Bone earring increases knockdown resistance by 16%.
- The Stonewall Earring increases knockdown resistance by 15% if encumbrance is heavy or above.
A number of Augments improve knockdown resistance or ability.
| Augment | Description | Unlocked by Vocation |
|---|---|---|
| Impact | Improves your ability to knock down opponents | Warrior |
| Emphasis | Augments the power of magick attacks designed to knock foes down | Sorcerer |
| Audacity | Makes you harder to knock off your feet while charging an attack | Warrior |
| Gravitas | Makes it difficult for foes to knock you off your feet whilst you intone spells | Sorcerer |
| Stability | Prevents the staggering or knockback effect of wind buffets such as from enemy wings, or from Explosive Barrels. | Ranger |
Skills
Some specific types of attack, both magickal and physical are designed to knockback, or knockdown - because knockdown damage is cumulative, it is worth following up blows if the first strike seemed to have no effect.
Dark magick critical attacks also seem to have a high knockdown effect. An object or spell with an Explosives effect will have good knockdown - such as Blast Arrow, Explosive Barrel, the impact from Bolide, or the blast from Explosive Rivet. The Lightning based debilitation thundershock often results in knockdown on those it chains to.
Jumping heavy attacks oft have good knockdown - be it Sorcerer's Magick Billow or a Melee user's attack. Perfect Blocks (with Reflect or Deflect core skills) also produce a shockwave that in addition to any other effects, has good knockdown.
| Vocations | Skill or Spell | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Savage Lash / Indomitable Lash | Smaller foes directly struck are likely to be blown into the air by the force of the strike. | |||
| Arc of Might / Arc of Deliverance | An area of effect shockwave with high stagger - creatures directly hit are likely to be knocked down as well. | ||||
| Escape Slash / Exodus Slash | Good knockback or stagger effect on the second follow up blow. | ||||
| Spark Slash / Corona Slash | Thought to be intended to knockdown foes - the effect is relatively weak on all but the smaller foes. | ||||
| Savage Lunge / Indomitable Lunge | The finisher of this lunge has good knockback, but not the lunge itself. | ||||
| Upward Strike / Whirlwind Slash | Foes to the front are knocked up, and with Whirlwind Slash foes to the rear are knocked down by the follow up. | ||||
| Core Skills | The third strike of the chain of Hack; or the first strike of an aerial Hack; the third strike of Devastate; and the multiple hits of a jumping heavy attack (un-named) can all knockdown. | ||||
|
Hindsight Slash / Hindsight Sweep | The return blow has good knockdown in a front arc if the evade is successfully performed. | |||
| Legion's Bite / Dragon's Maw | High knockdown power. | ||||
| Flesh Skewer / Soul Skewer / Fate Skewer | The finishing move knocks back violently. | ||||
|
Tusk Toss / Antler Toss | Lifts smaller enemies into the air. | |||
| Downthrust / Downcrack | A powerful damaging attack which often knocks down human sized enemies. No particularly powerful effect. | ||||
| Blink Strike / Burst Strike | Finishes with lighter foes knocked back. | ||||
| Dire Onslaught | Second hit in the chain is effective at knocking creatures to the ground; the fifth (final) hit can knockback. | ||||
|
Powder Charge / Powder Blast | Explosive in effect. | |||
| Spiderbite / Snakebite | Good knockdown power following the attack. | ||||
| Clarity / Clairvoyance | Very good knockdown if perfectly timed. | ||||
|
Toss and Trigger / Advanced Trigger | Effective against smaller foes. | |||
|
Ensnare / Implicate | Effective knockdown against multiple smaller and medium sized foes. | |||
| Soaring Stone | Lifts up and then knocks down the foe. The lower tier skills Leaping Stone and Stepping Stone do not do this. | ||||
| Sprint / Mad Dash | The optional sliding tackle at the end of the run has good knockdown against human sized foes. | ||||
|
Full Bend / Mighty Bend | Knocks back horizontally a single target. | |||
|
Dire Arrow / Deathly Arrow | Needs to be correctly timed - foes are knocked back a long way. | |||
| Flying Din / Fearful Din | The sonic blast can blow a direcly hit smaller foe high into the air with excellent knockdown, though the primary effect of these skills is flinching. | ||||
| Gamble Draw / Great Gamble | If not killed outright, foes struck are likely to be knocked back. | ||||
|
Comestion and higher variants | Smaller enemies may be blown into the air. | |||
| Frigor | Any small or medium foe struck by Frigor's spire of ice will be lifted off their feet into the air. Larger foes can also be knocked down. | ||||
| Levin and higer variants | Directly struck foes will tend to be either knocked down, or if large, stunned. | ||||
| Ingle based spells | A direct hit may knockback. | ||||
|
Seism and higher versions | A powerful holy spell with damage and knockdown in a wide radius. | |||
| Maelstrom and higher versions | Lifts up and so knocks down any drawn into its vortex. | ||||
| Necromancy and higher versions | In addition to the knockdown from any dark critical, the ghostly skulls may attach to and lift up and rop lighter foes such as bandits. | ||||
|
Magickal Flare / Magickal Gleam | High knockdown against undead | |||
| Explosive Bolt and higher versions | The explosion of the arrows when struck has high knockdown. | ||||
| Other spells | Sixfold Bolt, Scension, and Sunflare based spells also may finish with the foe being knocked down. | ||||
|
Sky Dance / Sky Rapture | Medium knockdown, smaller foes are lifted into the air by the initial strike | |||
| Stone Grove / Stone Forest | A fire based spell with some physical damage - good knockdown - similar to Seism but a smaller area, faster to cast, and a different element. | ||||
| Perilous Sigil / Ruinous Sigil | Smaller foes are blown into the air by the magick blast. |
Unstoppability
A few skills and spells can be used to temporarily bestow the "unstoppable" bonus. There appears to be two types. The First increases Knockdown Resistance to 100%. The following skills, fall into this category:
- Magick Archer's Bracer Arrow and Great Bracer Arrow.
- Mage's Spellscreen and High Spellscreen.
- Jewel of Antilight. A tool that can be used by any vocation to cast High Spellscreen.
The second variant of this bonus, again increases Knockdown Resistance to 100%. But also bestows invulnerability to wind buffets (akin to Stability) and ground shock waves. The following grant this bonus:
- Fighter's Stone Will and Steel Will.
- Warrior's innate bonus. Whenever a warrior is in the middle of an attack, he receives this bonus.
Note that Strider's Instant Reset can be used to quickly recover from a knockdown. In addition, Sword and Longsword wielder's Controlled Fall can also quickly recover from 'knockback' type knockdowns.
Video
Dragon's Dogma - Gorecyclops Hunting the Great White
@ 9min21sec "Let's talk about stagger/knockdown"
Notes
- All forms of Fall Damage results in a knockdown, and some attacks that knockdown by lifting the foe into the air may also cause fall damage.
- If an attack, either magickal or physical, is not powerful to damage a foe at all, it will not be possible to knock them down with the same attack either.
- The same rings true for enemy attacks on party members.
- Almost all creatures can be knocked down, with the exception of Ghosts.
- Hydras have a special knockdown state that can only be achieved by cutting off all four heads at once.
- Flying creatures, large and small, can be knocked down when in flight. Ranged attacks and ground-based explosions can be particularly useful in doing so.
- Stagger is a more common effect than knockdown, on small and medium foes.
- Knock down usually follows Stagger on large foes if enough knockdown damage has been applied.
- Enemy Knockdown Resistance is tripled in Hard Mode.
- Absolute or numerical values for the knockdown power modifiers of spells or skills are not given in game.