Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (topic now 200% easier to find)

I figured it out it’s Mikiri. He opens with it usually and then does it from time to time.

The other thing I get, but half the time it just doesn’t work, which just feels like ass.

Well, I managed to get a few more bosses down and started feeling pretty good. Ha! Now I’ve gotten into my head on Lady Butterfly. I actually was doing pretty well, got to phase 2 once. Now, I get killed in 10 seconds every time and I have no idea what I started doing different…

I’d try the other path, but the bull results in similarly short fights.

I wish the trainer had some more intense training. I think I really need to work on deflecting, but the deflect training and free fights are just too easy. Working on it with the bosses is just painful when you only last a few seconds.

I suppose I could go grind skill points to get out of my head for a bit…

I’m pretty sure the most reliable approach for the lightning attacks is to jump straight up, wait a moment to make sure you absorb the lightning, and only then press the attack button. If you attack too early it doesn’t work. Maybe you already know this but it seemed reliable once I focused on the timing.

@Effidian Use the trainer to practice defense only. You don’t even need to attack him. If you can read his attacks perfectly 50 times in a row then move on to one of the swordsmen by the gate stairway idol.

You’ll absorb a lot of parry timing that way. However, the two bosses you’re on will require different strategies than understanding basic combat.

Well the problem I was having was between:
A) it just not working. Like I did everything right and it didn’t matter. Fairly rare, but it only has to happen once.
B) He has a jump attack, they both start the same so if you’re ready for one and he’s doing the other one, you’re toast. You can’t really dodge and have time to jump that I saw, so if you thought he was doing the regular attack and dodged it or jumped into his attack… you were dead.

That said, I did finally kill the fucker. It’s funny how his first stage could still just kill me though. I literally burned him to stage 2 in under a minute one time. Next attempt he killed me in 30 seconds by just throwing out his usual moves and using all his weirdest and rarest ones back to back.

Then I went back to Seven Spears and destroyed his face because I’ve been honed into a killing machine apparently. Wish I had one more freaking bead though, some health would be great.
I even went and killed Headless but he doesn’t drop a bead. That SOB.

Damn what was your strat? I’ve been ignoring that guy.

Congrats BTW. That was a major gate.

I had a couple rounds of beating the crap it if Genchiro, but then he started housing me in seconds… time to take a break.

Thanks @TimJames. I had been doing the only defend thing on the trainer, but I (for some reason) hadn’t thought about using the swordsman. Got out of my head, and put the lady down. I definitely used deflect/parry a lot there, not sure what other tricks I should have used, but once I figured it out, deflect helped me a ton.

Is there some indication on when I should cure dragonrot? I have no idea if it is hampering me, and pretty much every NPC has it. I probably shouldn’t do it before I get this next boss down, because that’s likely to take another 300 deaths…

This is a video which is a spoiler unless you have already been to the top of Ashina Castle.

Here’s my experience with the same video as above

Just as a counterpoint – and I really enjoyed Jm’s stream tonight …but … he died a lot. And by a lot I don’t mean a little lot. But I will say this : He worked it pretty hard. And on some bosses, as he was getting killed, I thought : “totally unfair”.

But gosh he died a lot.

I just walked up and made him my bitch.

I beat on his ass mercilessly, he tried to stab me, Mikiri his ass, beat him some more, a few blocks a couple jumps and next thing I know he’s getting stabbed in the head.

I did pop a damage sugar before the fight, but I don’t think it did much.

I sure as hell hope so. I never stopped hating that fucking bow though.

From what I gather it stops all NPC story progression, so… probably after a boss you’ve been having issues with? The items to cure it aren’t super rare so far, but the vendors with it might also not show up/get it if they’re Dragonrotted for all I know.

Wait that’s your strat for Headless? I should’ve been more clear, hah.

THIS GAME IS SO DAMN LONG

There’s also a lot of crazy shit happening where I’m not sure if I’m missing cool things. It’s probably going to take multiple playthroughs.

Mostly just pop my Confetti and swing like a crazy person. When he vanishes immediately swing behind you since he’ll be there.

Basically hit hard and fast and then run away while he slowly winds up his attacks seemed to work. I didn’t try to parry much since Terror was an issue and the timing is so strange anyway.

Now I’m in some place and ran into monkeys or something so I decided I didn’t have time for whatever nonsense that’s sure to be, so I took a break.
Plus those jumping dudes with the spinning weapons are hot garbage.

this is good I suppose? I found all the souls games to be pretty long games (which is good)

This makes me very happy.

I have climbed the tower and faced down what was waiting for me there, and I feel unstoppable at the moment. If Butterfly was the midterm, then this fight was the final exam (of the first semester!). It tested you on everything, and if you weren’t relentless in your attacks you weren’t going to make it through.

As for phase 2 as much as I wanted to throw that lightning back at him, I didn’t mess with the counter, whenever I saw it coming, I just step dodged furiously until I was behind him, and then continued my onslaught. He only managed to throw lightning like three times. If you’re aggressive enough, and this applies to phase 1 as well, you can land a hit right before he jumps in the air, and that’ll prevent him from doing the stomp etc.

Game feels so open now, and after so many boss fights, I’m going to take my time and explore.

I decided to play a bit before work and I reached the final boss. This is going to take some time. The challenge awaits this evening!

What’s your time played? Wondering how much I have left.

37 hours

I decided to look up whether I’ve missed any optional bosses. (I had partially spoiled a couple other ones.) I have one left in a very obscure location. You can access it before the final boss.

For those anxious how the endgame works, not really a spoiler

After the final boss you can choose to go straight to NG+ or do it later from a bonfire. Hurray, that means this is a good FromSoft game because it doesn’t dump you straight to NG+ after the final boss!

If you decide to wait, you can wander around and kill the optional stuff you missed. I don’t think there’s anything cut off at that point, but I can’t be sure and Google is no help.

Despite this I think I’ll do some optional stuff now and save the final boss for later. Did I mention the game is too damn long? Hah!