AKAYUKI Poise System: Attack Costs, Clashes and Recovery
Understand how poise works in AKAYUKI: Steel Blossoms Red, including Iai draw costs, blade-contact damage, kill recovery and Dual wield’s blood flick.
Poise is a katana-combat resource used by draw attacks and affected by blade clashes. With Iai, a draw-cut costs 40 poise and a kill restores 40% poise. With Dual wield, pressing R performs a blood flick that fully restores poise. These recovery effects belong to their respective draw styles.
The exact Iai figures below are the values introduced in patch 1.3.11.
| Draw style and action | Poise effect |
|---|---|
| Iai: perform a draw-cut | Spend 40 poise. |
| Iai: defeat an opponent | Restore 40% poise. |
| Iai: your blade contacts another blade | Take 5% less poise damage and deal 10 more poise damage to the other blade. |
| Dual wield: draw attacks | Draws cost more poise, according to the style description. |
| Dual wield: press R for a blood flick | Fully restore poise. |
Iai: spending poise and recovering it on kills
Iai is a draw-cuts-only style, so its draw cost is central to understanding its combat resource use. Patch 1.3.11 reduced that cost from 57.5 to 40 poise and increased its recovery on a kill from 35% to 40%. The changes make each draw less expensive and increase the recovery awarded when you defeat an opponent.
Keep the two units separate: an attack costs a flat amount of poise, while the kill reward is expressed as a percentage. Read the recovery as 40% poise, rather than assuming it means a flat 40-point refund. The recovery condition also matters: it is awarded on a kill, so landing a hit and defeating the opponent are different events for this mechanic.
Iai’s style description presents it as high risk, high reward. Its draw-cuts can cut through blades, but a miss can be parried. Increased dash length, increased draw speed and a faster sheathe accompany that attack-and-recovery setup. Those features describe how the style handles; the specific poise return still depends on securing a kill. See the Iai guide for the broader style explanation.
Blade clashes affect poise on contact
An Iai draw’s initial cost and its blade-contact effects are separate parts of an exchange. Performing the draw spends poise; when the blade hits another blade, the clash also involves poise damage.
For Iai, patch 1.3.11 specifies two adjustments at that contact: the user takes 5% less poise damage, while dealing 10 more poise damage to the other blade. The incoming adjustment is a percentage, and the outgoing adjustment is an additional amount. Neither figure is the complete poise cost of every clash.
The condition is specifically blade hitting blade. These numbers describe that interaction, rather than every hit against an opponent’s body. For more on the exchange itself, see blade clashes.
Dual wield: higher draw costs and a full recovery action
Dual wield has its own poise tradeoff. Its style description says that its hits take less poise while its draws cost more. Its recovery action is the R blood flick, which fully restores poise.
That gives the two styles distinct recovery conditions: Iai receives its stated recovery when it kills an opponent, while Dual wield has a named action for restoring poise. Use the rule for the style you are playing when interpreting changes to the resource.
During combat, Staggered can appear above the health bar. It is a visible status label to recognize, but the label alone does not establish an exact poise value or a guaranteed zero-poise trigger.