This article analyses the impact, poise, and hyper armour systems in Dark Souls, explaining how they determine enemy stagger, knockdown, and resistance. It covers the 11 impact levels, three types of hyper armour (no-stagger, no-interrupt, threshold), and the relationship between poise-breaking and impact. Practical strategies for impact-based crowd control against humanoid enemies are discussed, along with how special animations (e.g., knockback, launch) override normal stagger. The piece also explains the logic flow of poise → hyper armour → impact → animation outcome, and touches on boss-specific exceptions like the Abyss Watchers and Sister Friede.