I notice that runes Evasive Pierce and Thrust (maybe more), which are very useful to knock down enemies, at the same time do not produce any stagger damage. This is clearly visible if you display the poise bar of the enemies and try to fight bosses.
I do not know, maybe it is some kind of balance requirement, but it feels wrong.
files:
Not a bug, I’d wager, but a balance requirement as you suspect. Enemies are immune to poise damage in a knockdown state to prevent stagger locks, and runes that do guaranteed knockdowns seem to follow this.
Perhaps the bug would be better phrased thus: Knockdown runes do no poise damage to enemies immune to knockdowns.
(I think it’s mostly bosses – and even some of them can be knocked around. The Twins are made trivial with the shove, which has the same forced-knockdown property as the runes you mention. The runes seem to do poise damage to shielded enemies, as I receive the poise-broken sound when killing them with one.)
Hm, I think Konrad is right but I agree it’s a bit vague.
Leaving this open for a while to re-evaluate later.
Silas