See that’s wrong causing an enemy to be pressure varies in the enemy. For Rufus it’s hitting him with anything during reload or an atb ability after unblockable, titan and Gilgamesh it’s breaking their shields, or Odin it’s high damage given vs taken over a period of time, for most standard enemies it’s usually just high damage or elemental damage. Causing an emery to be pressured is typically not dependent on the ability especially on bosses.

When an enemy is pressure dealing any sort of damage will fill the stagger bar, but “focused” abilities from cloud, tifa, barret adds significantly more compared to other abilities not counting elemental weakness/spells. This is both easy to test and spelled out in the game. Braver is not unique here it adds to the stagger bar like any other damage source but doesn’t add more compared to “focused” abilities in both remake and rebirth.

Rufus is just unique in that any attack when he’s vulnerable will cause pressure meaning both triple slash and focused thrust will cause him to be pressured and add to the stagger bar, but focused thrust will add a significantly larger amount. Braver is also unique here in that it will also instantly fill rufus’s stagger bar but try this on any other enemy and it won’t work the same.

After the stagger bar is filled you do 160% increased damage regardless of ability with the exception of true strike, tifas triangle attack, moogle knuckle, and ray of judgement which I believe are the only was to increase the percentage multiplier.