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Immune to Flinching

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Unfazed, your opponent attacks you anyway!

In the genre of Fighting Games, this is the ability of characters to endure damage without suffering the "flinch", the recoil/stun animations that are associated with the hit. In some games this is known as having "Super Armor" (not to be confused with armor that actually is super-powered) or "Hyper Armor."

Believe it or not, those little flinching animations that accompany damage are actually an important tactical concern in these genres: Interrupting the player's control over their character means the opponent has a chance to land a Combo for massive damage. Without it, a fight would merely break down into two characters walking up and bashing each other as fast as they can until somebody's HP hits zero (not unlike your average turn-based RPG).

This works both ways (usually), but it can become a problem for Competitive Balance. Take, for example, a Mighty Glacier fighting a Fragile Speedster: no matter how strong the Glacier is, he won't be able to actually land any hits if he's constantly getting his attacks interrupted by the Speedster's Death of a Thousand Cuts. Having some protection against flinching evens the playing field by giving him a chance to endure the Speedster's hits and land a counterattack. On the other hand, if the Glacier has too much protection, it's the Speedster who won't stand a chance because the Glacier no longer has to worry about his enemy's moves and can simply Attack! Attack! Attack!, while the Speedster can do nothing to stop his powerful hits from connecting.

Thus, this property is a double-edged sword, and many games provide rules on when a character is (and is not) immune to the flinch:

  • Sometimes it only works on a limited number of hits at a time — a character may be able to take a single hit without flinching, but a continuous stream of incoming strikes (such as a Combo) will "break through" and knock them aside just the same as a character without the protection. In Fighting Games, this is often just called "armor" as opposed to the aforementioned "super armor".
  • It may be part of a character's Super Mode or Limit Break, giving those modes an extra tactical advantage, balanced by the limited periods in which they actually have access to it.
  • Sometimes it is dependent on the exact action being performed, and/or may require precise timing to execute — there may be a hidden Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors relationship in play, where certain actions (e.g. Limit Breaks) will interrupt other actions (like basic attacks) even if the attacker receives damage. Some special moves may even have this as their defining feature, allowing an attacker can punch through (say) an opponent's rain of projectiles with careful timing. But be wary: Certain moves may also have other, more noticeable drawbacks to discourage a player from merely spamming these moves over and over throughout the match.
  • If the character is exclusively a Boss intended to be fought in a single-player (or multiplayer co-op) campaign instead of player-versus-player matches, they may have this as their default state. This becomes part of the battle's challenge, as it forces the player to time their attacks carefully so they don't get caught off-guard by one of the boss's own attacks.

Other games (usually Platformers) can also incorporate this trope. Player characters may be pushed back when they are hit, so being Immune to Flinching in this case would refer to not getting pushed back when you otherwise would. This makes armor invariably useful when Ledge Bats are present to mess up your jumps.

Compare Feel No Pain and No-Sell, which are non-gameplay versions of this trope; Knockback Evasion, which requires you to actively parry to avoid knockback; and Invulnerable Attack, which is invincible to everything. Related to Kung Fu-Proof Mook.

Not to be confused with Powered Armor, although these tropes may overlap.


Examples from Fighting Games:

  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Garland's EX Mode gives him super armor to anything that isn't armor piercing (or an HP attack).
  • In the Gundam Battle Assault titles, boss mechs have this as their default state, sometimes at the expense of being able to guard/block against attacks.
  • In the Marvel vs. Capcom titles, larger characters like Colossus, Juggernaut and Sentinel have various amounts of Super Armor — there is also "Hyper Armor" status which temporarily renders a character completely immune to flinching and knockback. Boss characters (like Galactus) have this as their default state.
    • Juggernaut in X-Men: Children of the Atom is probably the Trope Codifier, having debuted the Super Armor attribute when he was a boss character.
    • Gold War Machine, in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, has permanent Super Armor while still keeping all the moves from regular War Machine. In exchange, he cannot block.
    • Marvel vs. Capcom 3 gives two notable examples (aside from Galactus mentioned above):
      • Nemesis is in a constant No-Sell state. He simply has no animation to indicate his reaction to pain, true to his juggernaut status from Resident Evil 3. His ability to keep walking through most attacks is balanced by his exceptionally slow movement speed, large size, and inability to dash.
      • Hsien-Ko has a level 3 Hyper that removes her Power Limiter and places her in a Hyper Armor state, meaning that NOTHING can stop her for the duration of the hyper and her attacks are strengthened as well. This allows for players to activate Hyper Armor status, then switch her out with another character and use her assist attacks to back them up- while she's still in Hyper Armor status. Any damage she takes while on screen will regenerate back to what it was, and her hyper armor will not wear off until she is switched back in.
  • Street Fighter:
    • Street Fighter IV gives every character a focus attack, which allows them to endure one hit without flinching while it is charging; they will also recover the damage taken during the charge if they don't receive another. Every character has a move that breaks this armor, but two fast Light attacks will also work. Some Ex attacks also grant this armor while in use.
    • Ultra SFIV introduces the Red Focus attack, which gives the character performing it INFINITE Super Armor, allowing them to absorb as many attacks as their health bar allows.
    • In Street Fighter V, some moves have this property, indicated with a purple hitspark and a grey chunk taken off the life gauge. Most such moves can tank one hit, but some of them (the EX versions, generally) have armor on more hits.
    • Street Fighter 6 has a similar mechanic to IV's focus attacks in Drive Impact, which can absorb as many as two hits while executing. Newcomer Marisa also has armor on many of her attacks to compensate for her ponderous speed.
  • The Chinese brawler game Naruto Mobile has a spell that allows any character to ignore flinching for a few seconds. This is incredibly potent alongside characters such as Dosu who have low range but great damage. Some characters, like Utakata, Han, and the Fourth Raikage, can give themselves this ability through their skills as well. Certain moves, such as Izumo's blade combo and Aoba's stone needle, can cause flinching even with this Super Armor active; Ibiki Morino's entire skillset is built around countering people who use it.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • Many of the slow, hard-hitting characters (Bowser, Ganondorf, etc.) have attacks that cannot be interrupted by an opponent's move, although they will still flinch from attacks in their default state. Certain special attacks (like Ike's "Aether" strike) also have short moments in which the character is not interrupted or knocked back by any attacks, even ones which would otherwise KO them.
      • Bowser's Giga Bowser mode doesn't flinch at all, and is essentially immune to being directly KO'd as a result. note  In the fourth game, Bowser himself won't flinch from weaker attacks (such as many rapid jabs).
      • Little Mac in the fourth game has this as one of his main features: most of his ground attacks give him Super Armor. Not his air attacks though...
      • In order to make up for the fact that he has only two jumps and (in 64 and Melee) no recovery move (his up special recovers a bit of altitude in later installments, but it's not much), Yoshi gets a limited form of Super Armor when double-jumping. He will resist all knockback below a large threshold while double-jumping, and any move that is powerful enough to get past the threshold will see its knockback seriously reduced.
      • Inverted with Fox's blaster (starting with Melee) where it's very fast and does decent damage, but doesn't flinch or knock back the opponent at all. Trying to stand your ground with it results in the opponent doing an Unflinching Run right through it to beat you down. On the other hand, you can use this trait to get some free damage on enemies in the middle of a slow attack (because it won't cancel them) or recovering from off the edge (because it won't give them an extra jump like most attacks would).
      • Sephiroth by default doesn’t have Super Armour, however once his percentage reaches a certain point he will activate his Winged Form will activate, giving all of his smash attacks the aforementioned super armour.
    • The larger and stronger enemies in 3DS/Wii U's Smash Run mode, such as Bulborbs, Darknuts and Boom Stompers, do not receive knockback from attacks, and just wade through barrages that would send players and other foes flying.
  • Soul Series: The hardest challenge in Soul Calibur III's "Chronicles of the Sword" mode grants this ability to your opponents. One opponent combines this ability with zero traction on the arena floor, making the fight a special kind of hell even with the A.I. Breaker moves.
  • Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: The giant characters Gold Lightan and PTX-40A are Mighty Glaciers; extremely slow and unwieldy compared to the rest of the cast, but in exchange they are nearly impossible to flinch, and can stomp through even the strongest special moves from other characters easily. As a handicap, hitting them too many times in succession does end up dizzying them, leaving them open for an extended beating, while other characters can't be dizzied outside of Alex's Stun Gun Headbutt super. Most special throws also work on them just as well as normal characters despite their size (which they lampshade in some of their victory quotes) and some characters have moves that bypass their armor completely and put them in hitstun just like anyone else.
  • The final boss of Skullgirls, Bloody Marie, initially wouldn't stop attacking if you hit her. This was changed in a patch to allow her to flinch after a certain amount of attacks.
    • Cerebella has two moves that have a certain number of hits of armor: her Lock 'n' Load special and her Tumbling Run. She can even perform another move during her Tumbling Run that allows her to have two more hits of armor. Her Level 3 Blockbuster has unlimited armor during startup, similar to the Hyper Armor above.
    • Almost all of Painwheel's normal attacks gain armor when you charge them, and the number of hits her armor can take depend of the strength of the attack used. In addition, any damage she takes during the charge-up period will be added to the damage she'd normally give, so it acts as a sort of Counter-Attack.
      • When using Hatred Install, she can survive Cerebella's Level 3 Super, the strongest single attack in the game, and do an insane amount of damage with the combo after it. Take a look.
    • Big Band also has super armor in three of his moves, namely Brass Knuckle, Take the "A" Train and his Level 1 Blockbuster Super Sonic Jazz. All three moves have two hits of armor, but performing his taunt changes the amount of armor hits on Super Sonic Jazz to 15.
    • Eliza's Solar Barge move has unlimited armor against projectiles, and transforming into Sehkmet gives her permanent armor while constantly draining her super meter.
  • The Typhoon weather effect in Touhou Hisouten ~ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody gives both players Super Armor but also makes it impossible to block until the weather ends.
  • The Final Boss form of System U-D in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny has this as long as her Mana Shield is up. Einhart's Unchain Knuckle move temporarily grants her a more limited version that prevents her from flinching against long ranged attacks.
  • Arcana Heart
    • The effects of Ohtsuchi (the Earth arcana) tend to involve this. Passively, Earth gives homing guard cancels and charged attacks points of super armor. When activated, the character receives hyper armor for the extent of the activation, but at the cost of being unable to block.
    • Fiona's Karetov special attack grants one point of super armor in its animation, while its super equivalent Excalibur grants two.
  • The Great Apes (And later other "Giant" characters) in the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi games are all immune to flinching from smaller characters' basic attack strings, and are also immune to rush specials and grabs. True to form, Broly doesn't flinch from normals that much, either.
  • Dragon Ball Xenoverse: The tougher enemies and more powerful opponents (particularly Saga bosses and final fights in Parallel Quests) of the pack exclusive Z-Souls that give them this kind of super armor, at least until you decrease their health enough that it turns off. It's technically surmountable in certain circumstances, but they don't give you the chance. Great Apes also get it again, but their battle mechanics invoke this by having to drain their stamina to leave them wide open for actual attack. In an inversion, however, the player can earn one of Broly's Z-Souls that essentially gives them the exact same immunity as bosses do - except, of course, the player's health is usually nowhere near as large as that of bosses to make the same use of it. It can also be used through two skills, Pose K and Pose F, the first of which grants the usual super armor, where the second works more like how Great Apes and Ultimate attacks do, making the user take damage to stamina instead of health, as well as making them immune to grabs.
  • Mortal Kombat
    • Certain characters can gain armor properties on their moves in Mortal Kombat 9. However, the bosses have quite a few moves that can do this and it makes them hard to deal with up close. Shao Kahn in particular turns into an SNK Boss whenever he decides to just activate free super-armor for several seconds, which is often.
    • In Mortal Kombat X, Jason Voorhees can grant himself temporary Super Armor with certain variations, with the catch being that he cannot jump for the duration and after a while he is left in a vulnerable state.
  • In Oni, one of the two possible final bosses (Muro in his "daodan" form) is entirely immune to being knocked back or knocked over while he has his shield active. Several other minor opponents (mostly robots) are also immune to knockback and the stun effect from the VDG Gun, which otherwise disables human opponents for several seconds. Partially justified in that robots would not flinch due to feeling pain, but it gets ridiculous when you can hit a robot in the Atmospheric Processor level with a Superball Gun (a pocket howitzer) at point-blank range and it still comes at you undeterred (although it still takes damage) - even you will have been flung across half the room and possibly heavily wounded as a result of your own weapon blast. There is a cheat to grant players the same immunity to knockback/knockover/stun.
  • The final boss of Sonic the Fighters, Metal Sonic, has a variation: where most of the characters flinch particularly hard when their "shields" are broken, his reaction is so much smaller that he can recover, reach forward, and smash you into the floor or something.
  • Some characters in the BlazBlue games gain immunity to projectiles (as well as Carl and Relius' puppets) when performing certain moves, such as Tager's magnetism charge. They can still be hit by normal attacks, which knock them out of the attack, however.
  • In Jojos Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle, Josuke has a special counterattack where the oponent insults his hair, which gets him royally pissed off. This grants him temporary immunity to flinching and increased attack, with the drawback being that he constantly walks towards the oponent.
    • This is the gimmick of the "Resolve Mode" skill: if you're at low health and you launch an attack, you can "tank" one enemy counterattack. This means that you take vastly reduced damage, you won't flinch, your attack won't be interrupted, and you cannot be KOed.
  • Tekken Revolution has certain moves that are invincible to strikes (these attacks emit a red aura when used). This concept has evolved into Tekken 7's "Power Crush" attacks, which work similarly to the aforementioned Focus Attacks from Street Fighter IV (as the attack is winding up, your character cannot be hit out of the attack and the animation will play even if your opponent is attacking). The unplayable Shin Akuma has Super Armor, which is only part of what pushes him into SNK Boss territory.
  • In Virtua Fighter the wrestler character Wolf has a move called "Repel Wall" where he lunges forward slightly and will No-Sell lighter punches & kicks, taking damage but not flinching. This gives him an opening to slap or grab his opponent.
  • Rising Thunder: Dauntless's Cold Rush and Talos's Meteor Drop, Titan Wreck, and forward heavy attack all let the user take a single hit without flinching. A glowing blue outline around the character indicates when the armor starts and ends.
  • Marvel: Contest of Champions gives this to characters with the "Unstoppable" ability, including Juggernaut and Unstoppable Colossus.
  • In ARMS, large characters like Master Mummy and Mechanica have this trait, and hitting them does not disrupt their current punches or grabs.
  • In For Honor, most of the Heavy-class heroes and a few others, like the Kensei and Lawbringer, have the Uninterruptible property on many of their attacks, which allows them to carry through with the attack even if they are hit by their opponent, making them extremely effective at trading hits if they can bait out an opponent's attack. In earlier seasons, the Shugoki had this ability up at all times, only briefly losing it when he took a hit and thus letting him be devastating against newer players, since most of his moveset was built around letting the enemy hit him so he could inflict massive damage in retaliation.

Examples from other genres:

  • Afterimage: Pious Blessing not only hastens Renee's self-healing magic with Primeval Glyphs, it also prevents the healing process from being interrupted by enemy attacks.
  • In the Mega Man series starting with Mega Man 7 Robot Masters (or Mavericks) can typically endure blaster fire without flinching, although they often do recoil when hit with their particular weakness; Wily and Sigma bosses, as well as Ride Armors, are immune to flinching and knockback.
  • Mega Man Battle Network provides Super Armor as an ability of certain Navis; MegaMan couldn't achieve it himself until Battle Network 2 introduced the Style Change system (it was native to the Guts Style); Battle Network 3 introduced the Navi Customizer, which allowed Mega to install Super Armor almost whenever he wanted. This is useful for getting a high battle rank, as flinching will reduce it.
    • The Powers as Programs concept carried over into sequel series Mega Man Star Force, bringing Super Armor with it. However, since this is a game based on high speed and quick reflexes, unless you have a Super Mode that provides it, Super Armor is normally available only late in the game and at a prohibitively high cost. Sometimes you can achieve it through a member of your Brother Band.
  • In Dragon Age II, Aveline's unique "Indomitable" ability makes her immune to knockback and stun. This leads to a humorous moment against the Final Boss: the boss stuns everything in the area, then starts monologuing. Aveline keeps attacking the whole time.
  • In the original Doom games, each monster has what is called a 'pain chance', which is the probability that they will go into a pain state after being hit with an attack, which temporarily prevents them from retaliating. No monsters have a 0% pain chance but, in general, the stronger the monster, the lower the chance will be. The pinky demon is a special case: normally, it has a fairly typical pain chance and can therefore be stunlocked pretty reasonably, but on Nightmare difficulty, the pinky's speed is doubled. It remains as easy as ever to flinch, but the flinch duration is so short as to be meaningless, to the point that even shoving a chainsaw in its face isn't going to slow it down much.
  • Enemies in Odin Sphere may or may not flinch when struck by the player's attacks, and bosses are immune to flinching as their default state. The player can receive this status only through use of the "Painkiller" potion (which also reduces damage by half); the "Fire Spirits" and "Ice Spirits" potions also allow the player to absorb three hits without damage or flinching.
  • Komato Annihilators of Iji don't even flinch from direct MPFB hits. Also downplayed with the "damage teching" ability of Berserkers and Iji herself - getting explosives to their faces does send them flying but they land firmly on their feet instead of tumbling to the floor.
  • Maplestory has this as an ability for many of the classes (officially named Stance after the name of the first skill to give it). Each of the adventurer warriors, Aran, Battlemage, Dual Blade, and Evan has a 90% chance of not flinching due to a class skill. All adventurer magicians, Wild Hunters, and Cannonshooters have similar skills (mount in the case of Wild Hunters), but which have a lower probability of triggering. Some classes like Mechanic and Demon Slayer can receive 100% protection from flinching at earlier levels.
  • Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer mode has a particularly insidious version of this with the Geth Hunters. While you can indeed knock virtually any enemy in the game back to buy yourself precious seconds, the hunters can still shoot you even in the middle of their stun animation.
    • The N7 Destroyer in Multiplayer gets this ability while in Devastator Mode.
  • MMORPGs and Action MMOs often give each character class at least one move with this property so they can break stunlocks in PVP. How balanced they are is often debated among players.
    • The Dwarves of Warhammer Online have a tactic that is a partial example of this. The tactic is called "Stoutness of Stone" and it allows them to recover from being knocked down or stunned in half the time they normally would.
    • Guild Wars has a few stances, enchantments, and a ward that does this.
    • Grand Chase has Super Armor and Hyper Armor. Super Armor prevents flinching from attacks, but the player can still be knocked down from various attacks. Hyper Armor prevents being knocked down from nearly any attack, with the side effect of making the player impossible to kill until it wears off, as the player cannot die until they actually get knocked down, even at 0 HP.
  • In the Dark Crusade campaign, some heroes can use wargear that reduces the effects of knockback.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, most enemies are pushed back and their attacks interrupted. But Ganon isn't. In fact, hit him and you will be pushed back. And considering that after a certain point there are Bottomless Pits in this fight...
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Iron Knuckles can take damage from the sword and bombs, but cannot flinch and will retaliate, so you have to be defensive. That's until their armor gets broken, which allows you to make them flinch, although they become dangerous in other ways.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games, there's a ring that can be found that considerably reduces the distance you get pushed back. Can be quite useful when most powerful enemies knock you back when you hit them.
    • Hyrule Warriors: Enemies surrounded by a red aura cannot be flinched by regular attacks, and often deal considerable damage to you. This makes approaching them to deal any damage a risky proposition, as it is easy to start a combo attack and just get interrupted and watch your thirty-heart HP bar suddenly drop to a quarter of one heart left. They can only be knocked back if attacked with a special attack or Weak Point Smash, however because they don't flinch it isn't possible for the player to juggle their weak-point gauge like a normal enemy, and the player will often have to go through multiple rounds of dodging the attack. In most Legend Mode and Adventure Mode missions, you are intended to avoid unflinching enemies, but certain Gold Skulltula challenges and Rewards Map missions require you to fight them, and it is possible for a particularly powerful character to destroy them with a good strategy or special attack spam. Even if you decide not to immediately deal with them, your partners are dumb and should a red-aura enemy infiltrate your main base or attack the special Commander unit that is not allowed to be defeated, expect them to just curb-stomp everyone and force you to immediately fail the mission.
  • Like a Dragon: Present in varying capacities -
    • Part of what makes Taiga Saejima a Game-Breaker in Yakuza 5. Thanks to an ability called Herculean Spirit, as long as his Heat gauge is full, he basically turns into a walking brick wall that shits out damage like nobody's business. It certainly makes his fight in the final chapter against the dreaded Dragon of Dojima a lot easier since he's one of the lucky few that can No-Sell Kiryu's Tiger Drop (and harder if you're playing Kiryu instead).
    • Kiryu's Beast style in 0 and Kiwami also has this in spades. Moreso in the former where random encounters devolved into grabbing the nearest two-handed object and just swinging away at any mook dumb enough to come close. Not as effective against Bosses, however.
    • The Mr. Shakedowns in Yakuza 0 all have this trait, which is part of what makes them so dangerous, as lengthy but normally incredibly effective attacks like Majima's bat nunchaku combo are extremely risky. Certain attacks from the player (like the aforementioned bat nunchaku combo) also can't be interrupted by normal attacks.
    • Masaharu Kaito makes his playable debut in his self-titled DLC for Lost Judgment, The Kaito Files. He inherits the Brawler and Beast (as Bruiser and Tank, respectively) styles from Kiryu in the aforementioned game and with it, the latter's armor. He also has an ability in his Bruiser style that counters an enemy's attack as he's being hit, something that Kiryu would also inherit for his Yakuza style in Like a Dragon: Gaiden.
  • Pokémon:
    • Some of the titular creatures (Cradily for example) have the Ingrain move that allows them to root themselves into the ground to prevent being removed from battle. There's also the "Suction Cups" ability, which innately prevents a forced switch (Lileep/Cradily and Octillery).
    • There is also the ability Inner Focus, which, well, prevents the Pokémon from flinching (flinching causes a Pokémon to lose its turn).
    • The ability Shield Dust also prevents flinching since all moves that induce flinching are attacking moves and therefore the flinching is the secondary effect, which is negated by Shield Dust. Same with the items King's Rock and Razor Fang and the ability Stench; the flinch chance only happens with each attack.
    • Another ability, Steadfast, raises the user's speed stat when it flinches, but does not prevent it.
    • All Pokémon are immune to flinching during the three turns they are Dynamaxed.
  • In Terraria, knockback can be bothersome in battle as well as exploring (such as being hit into a tall chasm, taking fall damage). The player can equip the Cobalt Shield or its upgrade, the Obsidian Shield, which both completely prevent knockback.
    • It's not uncommon to latch onto the ground with one of several grappling hooks when fighting a boss that does dangerous amounts of knockback.
  • Sometimes referred to as "Penetrate" (Iron Will in the English translations) in some of the Tales Series games. It's the ability for some bosses to take a certain (Sometimes visible) amount of hits or damage without flinching, after which they can be caught in a proper combo, but they'll regain their flinch resistance once the combo ends. Also shows up in a more traditional fashion with the bosses frequently being immune or highly resistant to flinching while attacking even without this and the party being able to utilize it with skills, buffs or by activating the game's Super Mode. Of particular note is Rowen from Tales of Xillia, who can become an outright Game-Breaker through skills that make him Immune to Flinching during a spell's cast time.
  • Devil May Cry 2 Dante's most powerful Devil Trigger, Majin Form, is a walking fortress. It is the only Devil Trigger in the series so far to grant Dante true invulnerability—he can't possibly be hurt or knocked down in this form. Be it a Mook or the True Final Boss, he is untouchable.
  • Demon's Souls grants hyperarmor properties on certain heavy weapons, particularly greataxes and greathammers. Knockback is unaffected by your armor, which means wearing heavier armor isn't usually a good choice.
  • The Poise stats in Dark Souls granted by heavier armor to compensate for its weight makes you more capable of taking damage without having your actions interrupted or getting stunned. All characters, including enemies, have Poise. Being hit drains Poise, which regenerates after some time without being hit, much like a hidden stamina bar. When Poise is completely drained, the character becomes stunned. Having one more point of Poise than is being dealt will prevent the character from being stunned by that hit. This proved to be rather difficult to balance, and was reworked rather heavily from game to game.
    • Dark Souls: Poise can get so high and regenerates so fast (it all comes back after three seconds without being hit) as to make numerous enemies in PvE and weapons in PvP completely incapable of stun lock, which makes them nearly harmless. The "poise race"—getting just enough Poise to withstand one enemy attack—became a large part of the metagame. Specific characters with these kind of builds include Havel the Rock and Black Iron Tarkus; the former is a Beef Gate meant to keep low-level players out of Darkroot Basin, the latter is an NPC who can solo the boss he's summoned for.
    • Dark Souls II: Poise regenerates so slowly that it might as well not at all, weapons do much more Poise damage, many attacks ignore Poise to automatically stun (unless you're in the middle of an attack that cuts Poise damage in half), and even if you Poise through an attack, it will still slow down a run or roll (which is meant to counter people using heavy armor to roll through attacks into position for a backstab). Despite this, some late game bosses have this as an ability. The Fume Knight from the DLC can take half of his health bar in damage before flinching, if the player stays on the offensive long enough. Otherwise, he might go the whole fight without staggering.
    • Dark Souls III: Poise is drastically less useful than it was even in II. It only does anything for certain attacks, generally slow ones with large weapons, and even then it just reduces stagger taken by 1% per point (i.e. interrupting the same attack with armor will take twice the stagger power against an opponent with 50 Poise as it would if they had no Poise). Attacking someone who's already staggered resets them to normal, preventing an indefinite stunlock even with no Poise at all. However, for non-humanoid enemies, Poise works essentially the same as in the first game.
  • In Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning there is an ability on the warrior skill tree with this as an ability. When on the Fateless One (you) treats hits like gentle shoves.
  • In Warriors Orochi, Power characters don't flinch when hit by normal attacks and harder to stagger compared to other characters (charge attacks will still stagger them, however).
  • Darksiders has the Stone Armor ability.
  • Rook in Yomi has Rock Armor as his character ability, which he can activate by discarding cards to land an attack despite being hit by a faster attack.
  • The "Stonewall" perk available in several Fallout games made being knocked down by anything less likely in 2 and Tactics while in New Vegas it provides some extra damage threshold and completely prevents knockdown from melee weapons specifically. The perk is slightly more valuable in 2 and Tactics as it makes it more likely you won't have to waste action points on getting back up.
  • For the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, this is the innate racial ability of the Dwarves. A few powers and prestige classes also grant this ability.
  • In Kid Icarus: Uprising, one of the powers, called "Super Armor," raises defense and prevents knockback. There's also "Brief Invincibility," which makes the uses invincible for a short time, and "Aries Armor," which reduces damage received, and prevents status effects and knockback.
  • In Borderlands 2, Krieg was made to be heavier than the other characters so that he suffered less knockback and can go toe-to-toe with enemies for his melee-centric gameplay style. However, this also makes it so that he's incapable of grenade jumping or completing certain challenges that involve springing characters up to a certain point.
  • Warframe:
    • Some Warframes have abilities that make them unable to be knocked down or stunned, such as Rhino's Iron Skin and Valkyr's Hysteria. Atlas is passively immune to knockdown, but only as long as his feet are touching the ground.
    • Some mods make you more resistant to knockdown. The strongest such mod is Primed Sure Footed, which makes you completely immune to knockdowns and staggers at max rank. This includes the self-stagger from your own explosive weapons.
  • In Sengoku Basara the heavier characters flinch less easily than the lighter ones, to make up for their slower attacks that take longer to charge. Honda Tadakatsu and Tachibana Muneshige are all but immune to it. Oda Nobunaga, in addition to being much more resistant to it than his weight class would indicate, also has access to a Super Mode that makes him immune to flinching in the third game.
  • PlanetSide 2's soldiers are vulnerable to "flinch" which causes weapon accuracy to drop when the player is damaged or near an explosion. One of the implants significantly reduces the flinch, making reaction fire more accurate. A separate implant makes soldiers immune to the effects of Concussion grenades, which cripples movement and aiming speed in addition to copious Interface Screw.
  • Team Fortress 2:
    • Each class has a different mass that the impulse of an attack is divided by, making heavier classes affected less by attacks with the same amount of knockback.
    • Soldiers wearing Mantreads ignore 75% of the knockback caused by enemies. Thankfully, knockback from one's own Rocket Launcher is not affected.
    • The Sniper's Cozy Camper prevents the crosshair jerking around when you take damage, and decreases knockback by 20%.
    • The Ubercharge for the Quick-Fix makes both the patient and Medic immune to knockback and any other ability that impairs movement, like the Scout's Sandman or Natascha.
    • In Mann Vs. Machine, Demoman can upgrade any of his shields to get as much as 90% knockback resistance. This makes engaging in melee combat much easier as you don't have to fear getting pushed back when going for a kill or getting stopped in the middle of a charge.
  • Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter's bosses had Absolute Defense, where you had to deal a certain amount of damage in a single combo before they would actually take damage. The defense is rendered as a Beehive Barrier that finally shatters when you finally exceed it.
  • The later Dynasty Warriors games have a stat for this, called "combat resistance." Rage mode gives significant boosts to all of the characters' stats, combat resistance obviously included, and some fighters like Guan Yu and Xu Huang can boost theirs with Ex attacks. A few characters in the story missions also start out with boosted attack power and combat resistance, which you're usually encouraged to dispel by accomplishing a strategy that grants you the upper hand.
    • Lu Bu naturally is no stranger to flinch immunity. Sometimes, you can't make him flinch if your attack stat is too low either. Sometimes, like at Hulao Gate in 8, it's impossible to make him flinch no matter how strong you are. And that's not to mention he can invoke Hyper Armor at any time by using one of his Musou attacks in a certain way.
    • In earlier games, just having a high-enough defense stat on a low-enough difficulty mode made it so weaker enemies could never flinch you. Arrows were the only weapons that always flinched you regardless, but even then, there's an item specifically dedicated to eliminating arrow flinching.
  • Dynasty Warriors: Gundam also has flinch immunity. Mobile armors only flinch if being hit during certain animation frames (during which they get highlighted with arrows), or if hit by a smash attack while not in these animation frames (a smash attack that hits them during these frames knocks them down instead). Most regular mobile suits are always vulnerable to flinching while not defending - but in the second game, The O is immune to flinching while doing a melee combo, making it a very dangerous opponent.
    • Also in the second game, the "Fighting Instinct" skill makes the player's suit immune to flinching at all times, except against instant-knockdown attacks. Despite also making the player take more damage, this skill is Game-Breaker tier precisely because it turns the player into The Juggernaut who can stunlock and roll over their opponent with relative impunity.
    • And of course, all mobile suits are immune to flinching (and all damage as well) while doing an SP attack.
  • In a similar vein, Hyrule Warriors has Focus Spirit, which is pretty much Rage mode to a tee. Some of the characters' biggest, strongest and slowest attacks also give them temporary Super Armor and every character has an unlockable skill in their skill tree that allows them to take up to 3 hits in quick succession without being interrupted.
    • Hyper Armor is the last stage of buffs that can be granted to enemies by morale boosts, but Ganondorf is a fan of entering the battle already enveloped in it.
    • Much like Lu Bu, Cia has on-demand Super Armor that she can activate just by using her Strong Attack.
  • The Dwarves of Warhammer Online have a tactic that is a partial example of this. The tactic is called "Stoutness of Stone" and it allows them to recover from being knocked down or stunned in half the time they normally would.
  • Saints Row: The Third has an optional Upgrade of "No Ragdoll", which makes you no longer get knocked over by explosions.
  • Mutants & Masterminds has the ability to nullify Stun, which results in Knockback, as well as a host of other ways to manipulate your stats to reduce Knockback values or increase your chances of surviving the impact.
  • Champions has two ways to do this, Clinging and Knockback Resistance.
  • SD Gundam Capsule Fighter has its Mobile Armors with this ability automatically. There are also certain suits, such as the Astray Red Frame "Powered Red" and the GP-02 Physallis, who have this as an ability. Nine times out of ten, these two suits tend to be banned in matches because of it.
  • In the freeware re-release of MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries, the Advanced Gyroscope available to many of the games' Humongous Mecha makes them far more resistant to the effects of screen-shake and knockback from high-powered weapons like the Gauss Rifle, and makes them all but immune to being knocked on their ass from massed high-power weaponry. A significant part of the multiplayer is timing your weapon's reloads with the enemies' to blast them and throw off their aim just before they fire, so the Advanced Gyro is very useful device for brawlers.
  • This can be an issue for some proper characters programmed in M.U.G.E.N. Some boss characters, such as the Cyberbots R.A.D., Girantina, or Omega Zero, often flinch little-to-no times from attacks. Since the game is freeware as well, there are a number of characters Super Armor is given to and then they are given unbelievable amounts of attack damage.
  • Many Survival Horror games that emphasize action will have certain Implacable Man enemies that simply walk off all but the strongest firepower:
    • The Resident Evil series has given us quite a few. Mr. X, Nemesis, Jack Baker, and Lady Dimitrescu are the most well-known. The first three barely register hits from small arms but can all be temporarily downed if dealt enough damage. Lady Dimitrescu, on the other hand, will barely ever flinch, and that's only if she's hit with your most powerful ordnance. Otherwise, nothing you have will so much as break her stride.
    • Silent Hill 2 has the infamous Pyramid Head, whose eponymous helmet/face will absorb any bullets you send its way without registering any pain. If he retreats or you manage to defeat him, the game is unambiguous about showing that it's only because you were allowed to win.
    • The Evil Within has the Sadist. Only explosions will make him so much as flinch. He's not immune to damage from small arms, but he'll nevertheless power through shotgun blasts and magnum rounds as though they were raindrops. The same holds true for Laura, who has a weakness to fire for plot-related reasons, but otherwise barely reacts to any other kind of weapons.
  • In Urban Reign Super Armor's one of the rarer self-buff abilities, most commonly available to characters with the "Mighty" moveset.
  • In Freedom Force, the ability "Density Control" gives a character this.
  • Diablo II: The Barbarian's Concentration attack cannot be interrupted by enemy attacks, on top of boosting damage and defense.
  • The Primal Peashooter from Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time has a chance to knock back zombies it hits, including the mighty Gargantuar. Its Plant Food has a 100% chance of knocking back zombies. The only zombie immune to the knockback effect entirely is the Jurassic Bully, as it's "too stupid to observe typical physics".
  • Kingdom Hearts II:
    • Riku never gets stunned or reacts to taking damage during his Boss Fight in the Land of Dragons.
    • Many of the larger bosses, such as Cerberus, are either immune to being stunned or are just extremely difficult to stun.
  • Kingdom Hearts III: In Re:Mind's Optional Boss Data Organization battles, the boss takes dramatically reduced damage and will not flinch if you attack them during a phase in which they are not vulnerable.
  • In Path of Exile, chance to stun is determined by how much damage is done by a single hit relative to the target's maximum health. Bosses are mostly immune to stun by virtue of their large health pools, but a build optimized to reduce the stun threshold can reliably affect them. Characters can gain passive stun immunity Unwavering Stance keystone passive, which has the Necessary Drawback of being unable to evade enemy hits, but you can gain conditional stun immunity from Ascendancy passives or 100% stun avoidance chance through careful build planning.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake has various versions of this with its interrupt mechanic:
    • Having an interrupt defense higher than an attack's interrupt strength means that attack won't cause interruption. Some enemies innately have interrupt defense as high as 40 or 60, more than the player characters' 20, making it hard to interrupt them.
    • Interrupt defense can be temporarily boosted while using commands.
    • Barret's Steelskin command gives him a buff that increases interrupt defense to 40 and also gives Damage Reduction.
    • The Ribbon accessory makes its wearer harder to interrupt while casting spells.
    • Finally, attacks of any interrupt strength won't interrupt a blocking character, except for Unblockable Attacks.
  • Final Fantasy XIII has the Vigilance status, which prevents the affected party members abilities from being interrupted by enemy attacks. It's bestowed using the Synergist ability of the same name. Final Fantasy XIII-2 adds a party-wide version of the spell called Vigilaga.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has casters whose spells can be interrupted if they are hit hard enough. Surecast prevents spellcasting from being interrupted, but anything that causes a knockback won't protect the player from their spells being interrupted.
  • Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus introduces the Ram Shackles, which prevent Blazkowicz from getting knocked down by explosions while equipped.
  • Armour in 20XX prevents flinching while you have it, but damage reduces armour before health. You're also flinch-proof when using the Armatort's Shell core augment. Bosses almost never flinch, although some have a temporary pause programmed into their attack patterns (Rollster Beta, for example, delays for a couple of seconds before using his last ditch attack at half health where he bounces around crazily) and some pause for a second when hit with their vulnerability (a Boomerang Blade on Death Lotus causes a momentary stun).
  • In Streets of Rage 4, Nora can induce this in some of her mooks by whipping them, while also granting them extra health and making them hit harder.
  • The Tank in Left 4 Dead cannot be staggered by shoving nor can it be staggered by blasts from the grenade launcher and any weapon loaded with explosive ammo (weapon in the sequel). The Tank can be staggered if gets hit with an explosion from a propane or oxygen tank, though you have to be lucky to have one on hand since they spawn randomly. The Charger shares the same stagger mechanics as the Tank, though it can still be staggered with explosive ammo.
  • Persona 5 Strikers: In this game, Rakukaja and other defense buffing abilities also make it so affected characters cannot have their attacks interrupted. Ryuji also has an unlockable ability that applies to himself.
  • PAYDAY 3: Solid, found in the Enforcer tree, confers immunity to being staggered whilst both Edge and Grit are active.

Alternative Title(s): Super Armor

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