Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-96.51.75.19-20150421234045/@comment-25950924-20150425212144

Another thing adaptability affects (or maybe indirectly by raising agility?) is how fast you drink your estus and how fast your recover from being staggered. Those can make a difference in life and death sometimes.

I watched a video and it was hard to tell if you actually drink that much faster, but it sort of feels like it does. Hopefully not placebo. Stagger recovery is also important for avoiding stunlocking.

On a side note, I did realize the downside to high poise though. The turtle guy would normally knock you to the ground with their attacks (some attacks still do even with relatively high poise), but with high poise you just get staggered so they can stunlock you rather than having iframes when knocked to the ground.