Hiku said:
Well, changing stance lets you recover more Ki after a Ki-pulse (once you learn that skill) so it can be useful for that. But I only do that when I feel confident I have enough time to do it.
Moreover, each stance has access to different abilities. Mid stance for example is the only stance that can do the blocking parry (block at the moment the opponent attacks) which is the superior parry, as you can just focus on doing it it early and the worst that can happen is you block the attack. The other parries run the risk of having you get hit if you do it too early, which can easily happen for me as I haven't memorized every attack animation the enemies have, and some can be deceptively slow.
High stance is usually too slow for me to use as my default stance. Especially when you fight more than one enemy at once, which leaves me open for counter attacks from the enemy I'm not hitting. The attack also tends to slice rather vertically which makes it more difficult to hit more than one enemy.
There's a bigger risk of using High stance though, which is the amount of Ki it uses and the recovery time before you can block after using it. Enemies can some times absorb your hits without getting staggered, which can result in you getting hit before you get a chance to block.
As for the Ki usage, that's not a perfect way to mitigate the Ki loss from a High stance attack, because in order to gain back a decent amount of Ki from a Ki pulse, you have to wait a bit and let the pulse charge up. If you do it too quick, you can recover as little as just 1 Ki.
Basically, you'll more quickly be able to recover a higher percentage of your lost Ki with a pulse, the lower your stance is. And since you some times have to block immediately after an attack if you chose your attack timing poorly, the stance you use can make the difference of having time to block or not.
In the video I posted earlier, you can see me making use of Ki pulses early on in the fight, but even after mid stance attacks and rather quick pulses, I still manage to get hit a few times before I can block, so I stopped using Ki pulse for the most part in that battle as that particular enemy had a tendency to counter attack rather fast after I hit it.
Also, High stance makes it much more difficult to perform a Ki pulse purification (that cleanses a yokai realm), as the only way to do it is to perform a maximum Ki pulse. (Wait until the bar fills up completely.) This is most easily and safely done in Low stance.
Low stance is good against the monsters who crawl on the floor. But I use this stance rarely. It has the best evasive manouvers though, so I intend to learn this stance better.
One good thing about High stance though is that it gives you a Ki pulse from a roll.
I tend to use High stance when I snerak up on an enemy, or if I end up behind a strong enemies and have time for a hard hit and a decent Ki pulse.
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