LogFAQs > #893016398

There's nothing set in stone about each stance. You should just look at it as two-handing a weapon vs. one-handing. It's the same concept. So when you switch from untransformed to transformed weapons in Bloodborne, that's like switching stances. When you two-hand a weapon in Dark Souls, switching stances. Nioh only differs in that there are 3 stances, instead of 2.

There's not really a rule for how each stance functions. It mostly just changes how your dodge works. If you're in high stance, you roll. If you're in mid stance, you do something more resembling a quickstep, but if you dodge again right after, then you roll. In low stance, it's just quicksteps.

In mid stance, you can block and move around without stopping your ki from regenerating; low/high stance will halt ki recovery when blocking and moving.

That's...pretty much it. Beyond that, it's just a matter of moveset.

Generally speaking though, high stance will do the most damage, be the slowest, and cost the most ki. Low stance will do the least damage, be the quickest, and cost the least ki, and mid will be in between.

Some people just stick with one stance they like, but most do that early on I think, and just slowly branch out and experiment as they get more comfortable.

Now, that skill you're talking about, is called Flux. What that does is, when you ki pulse, then switch stance right after, you get a boost of ki. You may not fully understand how a ki pulse works so I should clarify: as you are surely aware, after attacking, you can press R1 (or whatever it is for you) to ki pulse. If you time it right, you do a "perfect ki pulse" thus get back the max amount of ki you could. The ki you get back is a portion you spent on the attacks you did in a row. It can never be 100% of the ki you spent. Flux, in turn, appeals because it lets you get closer to 100% of the ki you spent. The timing window to stance switch after ki pulsing is fairly generous for flux, however, I don't think anyone really bothers to get comfortable fluxing this early in the game. You can basically just ignore that for now, it doesn't really matter.

BUT, one thing I do want to say and forgot to just now when explaining ki pulse: it does something else the game never mentions and you just have to notice on your own, or be told: it cancels recovery frames. Therefor, it is not always ideal or even wise to try to do a perfect ki pulse, because if you ki pulse immediately, you cancel the recovery of whatever attack you did. This can have a very significant impact on how nimble you feel. Ki pulsing immediately to cancel recovery can go a long way in making you more effective, but never doing it will lead to feeling sluggish, especially using something like axes/hammers.

There are also passive skills in every weapon tree (but it's the same skill, and once you buy it, regardless of what tree you bought it in, it just applies globally) that make you ki pulse when you dodge. These are very useful and should be obtained sooner rather than later as it effectively cuts down pretty significantly in your ki consumption overall. You have to buy that for each stance though, so there's 3.

If you want just some general advice about good axe skills to buy, though mind you I don't remember very well when these all unlock: Roar, a mid stance skill, Heaven & Earth, a high stance skill, Cloud Crush, a low stance skill, Tri-Spark, a mid stance skill. Roar blocks while charging forward and can knock human enemies over, though to make the max use of this takes some finesse as if you hit them as they're tumbling on the ground, they go into a floored state where if you hit them again, they stay down a long time, and can be stabbed while on the ground. Heaven & Earth is just a heavy damage combo finisher that makes high stance much stronger. Tri-Spark breaks guards easy and consumes little ki for how powerful it is. Cloud Crush is a high ki damage low stance combo finisher.
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