Topic: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4)

@Rudy_Manchego @JohnnyShoulder Thing is you can pretty much spam tap L1 to raise/lower defence quickly as you're in front and it'll usually work to parry or at least block a quick succession of attacks. I was dodging too much initially so I've trained myself to parry a lot and now I'm struggling to go back to dodging lol.

@kyleforrester87 Yeah you should never over rely on any one thing in this game. I mean I find it easier to dodge than to deflect, but can do the latter just takes more effort. The only thing with spamming L1 is that you risk not blocking some attacks or by blocking you increase your posture meter. Plus you then lose the control of being able to cancel your moves. Deflecting attacks increases the enemies posture bar, so is more beneficial.

@JohnnyShoulder @kyleforrester87 Yeah - it is weird, I got his posture almost right down through parrying first time and now I can't get it. By spamming I can not get hurt then but it does very little posture damage and increases mine. Might try dodge/parry combo.

@kyleforrester87 I beat that boss last night on my first go (after the previous 29 attempts). I found getting in his face, deflecting as much as I could and getting the odd hit in got me through the first two stages surprisingly quickly. If I tried to dodge I'd end up getting whacked all too easily.

For the 3rd stage it sounds like you've got the right idea

@Mergatro1d Nice, thanks. Yeah I am trying to blitz the first 2 sections, it is working occasionally but I'm getting killed more than it works. The alternative is to do it slowly but I am struggling to be patient lol

@kyleforrester87 I was doing the same and getting nowhere fast. Obviously do whatever works for you, but I found nailing my deflections was the key (not that I'm an expert in any way!)

@Mergatro1d I think you're right, you can Mikiri counter on the first phase and then jump his swipe on the second phase which destroys his parry quickly, he sometimes gets super aggressive with his bow. I'll keep trying, maybe it's better to get his health down a bit on each phase first since his parry increases so quickly at higher health.

@kyleforrester87 Just block his arrows, it is quite tricky to deflect them. That will build up your posture level though and sometimes they will stagger you. I might have got lucky when I beat him as he hardly did his lightning attacks and he just mainly did his sword attacks, which I deflected, which quickly built up his posture level. Whenever he did his lunge attack I used the mikri counter.
I really enjoyed that fight it had a nice feel to it once you got into the flow of it.

@Rudy_Manchego Sounds like you are blocking his attacks and not deflecting them. You do need to get the timing spot on. The flame vent works really well on him too.

@JohnnyShoulder Oh yeah, I just suck at deflecting!

@Rudy_Manchego Best get dodging then!

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah I think the problem is my posture gets a bit low from being up close and personal then he does that mad 4x arrow attack and I can't block all of them without running out of posture.

@kyleforrester87 I beat that boss yesterday, after banging my head against a wall the day before. I'd spent 2 solid hours on him the day before without getting far into the 3rd stage.

My advice for the first 2 bits is to be aggressive and spam L1 a lot. When he takes a break, fire one or two slashes in but don't get greedy.

As for the 3rd phase, don't worry about trying to heal as just jumps in with an attack straight after and it's too risky. The lightning I just dodged, once you stop being scared of it the actual timing window for the dodge is a lot longer than I first thought.

I think that's the key to all these games really. They're very good at frightening the player into being timid or reckless. Once you get over that initial fear, the game becomes so much easier. Bloodborne was exactly the same for me.

@roe thanks, I assume you just need to return the lightening 2-3 times to break his posture? Or do you need to do regular attacks/deflections too

@kyleforrester87 You can do either/both depending on what your strengths are. I struggled countering the lightning so I dodged to the side and got a few hits when he landed. He normal sword attacks can be deflected and his lunge attack can be mikri countered.

For his arrows when your posture is low, you will need to dodge the arrows and then put your guard up for a bit as this will decrease your posture. It is important not to keep your guard up and block the whole time he attacks and either deflect or dodge them otherwise you will have no posture left.

It took me like a solid hour an half doing it to git gud, plus dipping in every now and again. Good luck!

@kyleforrester87 yeah I didn't bother with returning the lightning. I tried a couple times but I couldn't get the hang of it. Just fight the rest of it the same as the first bit albeit it at a slightly faster pace.

Another tip that I learned playing Bloodborne is maybe turn the volume down a bit as well. It's a classic FromSoftware trick is to get you sucked in with tense music and that can actually be more distracting and off-putting in the heat of a boss fight.

@roe good tip, it’s really not that hard it’s just putting all three phases together lol. I nearly had him a moment ago but buggered it up. Does he do a mixture of lunges and swipes in the third phase? First is lunge then swipes on the second..

Just beaten Guardian Ape. Absoulety brilliant boss fight and totally bonkers. I did not expect that to happen and two very different styles to contend with.

Ok so beat the fat dude on second attempt last night because I was being a plonker. Turns out you can stealth one health bar by using the environment and then just use the other samurai bloke to help mop him up. Did it with only one health gourd.

Then I took on the old Butterfly Gimmer and got her down to a quarter health on my first go. This means I am either lucky, a god at Sekiro or she has another phase which is going to scupper me. I suspect options 1 and 3 are more likely.

@Rudy_Manchego She's got a couple of phases, second phase she throws a bunch of phantoms at you, just run away from them and they'll eventually turn into balls of light, then hide behind one of the pillars and they'll all smash into it