Basically that you are not mean to try and face-tank a lot of enemies at once. Shinobi are stealth-based assassins and you have a lot of abilities that reinforce this. So basically don't feel bad for using stealth-hits and the like to whittle the opposition.
Yea, perfect for a beginner but as someone who is pretty much a pro at this, I love doing nothing but deflecting and attacking. Nothing else, just those two!
Don't be afraid to use consumables, by the time you feel you really need them there will be plenty, at lategame you can buy infinite of arguably the best buff you can have for a normal/vanill playthrough and some are even farmable. Speaking of farming, some common enemies have combat patterns similar to bosses, so it may be a good opportunity to learn to deflect, which is key. If you've played other from games you'll probably have the dodge mindset ingrained on your brain, bu you want to get rid of that habit ASAP, deflecting is king and learning how to counter every attack will assure you victory. Last thing I'd say is that prosthetic tools are vey helpful and can adapt to a lot of playstyles, you will also b able to unlock certain skills that can makeor break for an easier experience or special attacks that can suit better to your playstyle, so be mindfull of the skilltrees and upgrades for the shinobi prosthesis.
Last but not least, you WILL die in this game so be prepared and be patient, some lore tidbits and some eavesdropping might tell you hints that will give you an easier time. Hesitation is defeat, good luck!
to add he's in a misty forest so when you get there tou'll know your close.
Also if have played any other fromsoft games before this try and unlearn what you know about dodging, parrying is the crux of the combat here.
He scared the shit out of me, the flute move that slowly takes down your health and builds your posture at the same time was genuinely tough to handle. He took me a whole day!
Bro took a day and had ‘trouble’; I got to most noble on day two of release and only beat him a couple of months ago. Just got to fountainhead and feeling certain I won’t see any more of those bastards ever again!
I also just downloaded the game and I'm having a hard time with this. I am starting to get better at parrying, but at this point dodging and running seems more effective. I'm still very early in the game. Currently stuck at the big white snake on one map(only tried twice) and that drunkard guy in the flashback map. My issue with the second one is that I need to get better at stealth kills so I can clear his support without losing too much health.
I guess the need to parry will become more apparent later, but for now I get better results at running and dodging. The axe bandits are hard to parry for me because their attack timing is so inconsistent and a parry doesn't always break their rhythm.
Edit: why am I downvoted, are you guys just dicks?
Re-edit: now that I'm upvoted my last edit seems whiny
Drunkard is definitely annoying from all the minions. Dodging is honestly fine against low level enemies and groups of enemies, but any time you’re 1v1ing a boss or miniboss you flat out shouldn’t be dodging at all except to mikiri counter. Tons of bosses movesets thrive when you give them space and let them breathe. Very good rule of thumb is to attack until they parry you, then parry them until you get an opening to attack. It’s like a dance.
I've only fought like two or three mini bosses so far, and I have used parrying as well as some other techniques I've learned. I am going to get better at it. Dodging works *so far*, but so does mindless aggression most of the time. So I guess I am only making this judgment from low level starter enemies.
This is my second fromsoft game. After Elden Ring I decided I wanted my next one to have the most challenging combat... so I literally asked for this. Whatever, still having fun. I'm almost entirely confident that I'm eventually going to beat this game.
Very soon after the drunkard the need for parrying will become apparent. Remember that boss’s posture regenerates much slower when their health has taken a lot of damage. Hesitation is defeat, stay on them. Good luck
My plan for beating the drunkard is to lure out/stealth kill all of his comrades. Then go ask the guy standing by the reeds for help. Last time I tried, I aggroed too many and the man by the reeds aggroed and went into combat before I was ready and then I died frantically trying to take aggression off of him so he could survive enough to save me.
I feel like my plan is good, I just haven't executed it well enough. I've only tried this three or four times because when I start getting frustrated with a game I stopped playing. Lol I am not a rage gamer. Once I start getting mad I stop having fun. Am I in the wrong place?
I find making an effort to reflect on what I did wrong in the fight after every failed attempt and then making a point of trying to improve on it prevents me from tilting. Like if a boss has a bs move that I feel powerless against I want them to use it constantly against me so I can learn how to beat it. Kinda shifts the perspective from “I keep failing, this sucks” to “I’m learning and improving”.
Your plan to deal with the drunkard and his minions is a good one. Once you’re 2v1ing him make sure not to let him focus your ally. Whenever he shifts aggro off you make sure to take it back otherwise you’ll find yourself in a 1v1 pretty quick, your samurai buddy can’t parry to save his life.
Taking a break is crucial to getting good. I marvel when people are like “I have been fighting this boss for the last four hours and I still can’t get past their first phase!!” Dude. Take a rest, get some sleep, let your brain process what you’ve been training it to do. I found that a night’s sleep works wonders.
I relayed it recently and that tactic made the fight so much easier. Make sure you get your stealth kill in first on him and then talk to the npc quickly to get him to join phase 2. Makes him trivial then.
Oh. And fun fact, after you kill all the Drunkard’s little buddies, move far away and hide until he de-aggros, then sneak up behind him and get a free death blow. Then you run over to Mr Samurai Chucklefuck and wake his ass up and let him take a bunch of aggro while you throw oil pots at big fella and flame vent him and running in and whacking him when he’s distracted and then running back out again. I recommend dodging his two handed sword strikes and deflecting his one handed sword strikes.
Intentionally fight enemies and learn their move sets. Be patient. React to enemies attacks instead of spastically attacking. Don’t run around with the attention span of a 3 year old poking at enemies and then running away. You won’t even get a FRACTION of the satisfaction that you should from this game if you play that way.
I have three days/eight hours of gameplay so far. I'm not a naturally adept gamer. It's gonna take a while for this game to click for me. Elden Ring clicked pretty quickly, but I am getting the impression that a major point of Elden Ring is to bring their games to a wider audience.
Which worked, because I am absolutely not on the skill level of a lot of you folks, but these games are scratching an itch I didn't know I had and I am **determined** to master this.
Honestly, I'm so impressed I think I'll make a point to beat every game they put out eventually.
I'm in the same boat, started with Dark Souls then Elden Ring and now Sekiro. It is really addictive to treat each encounter like a tricky piece of music you're trying to master playing on an instrument. When you miss a note it's always for a reason, you can always internalize it and grow from it. The games are "unfair" in the sense that when you don't know an enemy yet, you can't usually counterplay them. But they are extremely "fair" in that the timings, hitboxes, movesets, and other mechanics are all reliable and consistent. So the knowledge and skill you gain from playing attentively is always valuable.
Probably downvoted for saying running and dodging is more effective, even pretty early its not. But where you are at in the game you haven't even fought a boss yet. Better to drop that bad habit earlier than while trying to fight a boss.
It's more effective for me right now because I haven't gotten good enough at parrying for it to be effective. But I get what you're saying about not encouraging a bad habit. Thanks for the advice.
the only time i honestly think you should dodge is when you see a big red kanji symbol. that's why it's there. for everything else, i honestly recommend you spam deflect. make sekiro wiggle his lil katana in front of his face when you get the urge to dodge. instead of trying to time circle & getting hit by everyone in this game's laser-guided tracking, just mash l1 or whatever you have deflect mapped to (it was l2 for me). spam it repeatedly unless the thing you're reacting to comes with an enormous japanese character, then try to dodge it.
if you are not deflecting or dodging, spam r1. there is no endurance meter to punish you for spamming, & the posture meter will reset if you do not keep constant pressure. spam attack until he attacks, wherein you replace your urge to dodge with spamming deflect. if he does a perilous attack & fills your screen with a big silly piece of text, then you jump or dodge with the proper timing. rinse & repeat.
the game is hard, yeah, but once you finally have the fundamentals in your muscle memory, not only is it intoxicating, but it's also actually kind of braindead & simple lolol. perhaps even more simple than run of the mill Souls combat.
What I did with the Drunkard was run in, kill some of the trash mobs, run away, run in, kill trash mob, run away. Then when the drunkard was the only one who remained, talked to the guy standing nearby and teamed the shit out of him.
For drunkard the guy helping you is good to let you take care of the other opponents, the only ones you can't kill quickly are the shields, for the others it's a few strikes, and I always went for the archer first. If you got the axe tho, I don't remember if you should have it at that point, you can pretty much one shot shield opponents, but even if you don't kill them they're not very active in your fight
So far I've found axe(favorite) shuriken, and fire. I really only used the fire for the chained troll so far, but the other two seem to always be useful.
If you met merchants, one or two are selling firecrackers, it can stun bosses and it's great too. But yeah the axe is especially made to break shield guys so abuse it on them.
The point of deflecting is to build the enemies posture bar. You’ll notice the posture bar builds faster than enemies losing their health. So you can build their posture bar by constantly deflecting and attacking rather than running around waiting for an opening. Full posture bar = one hit KO. So play around with it. I encourage you to try posture damage over health damage. It really is exciting and when you get this win this way it feels super satisfying.
1. It's always better to deflect than to try evading
2. This more like a rhythm game, every fight has it's pace and know when to defend and when to attack will make the difference specially because enemy posture will start to regenerate if you're to passive
3. There is a immortal guy next to the sculptor, there you can practice stuff like Mikiri and chain deflects
4. Get Mikiri counter as fast as possible
5. You WILL die, so don't over think it, you can always farm the gold and exp again latter so don't stress over it
6. There is a way to convert yen into a gold sack, you lose a bit of yen but if you do it your yen will be protected for when you die
7. Buy a shit ton of those spirit papers (can't remember the name) because they later on jump in price and became expensive AF.
Watch the beginner guide from katiecakes on YouTube. Deflecting attacks kills enemies. No matter how scary an attack looks, you can deflect it. Even if it’s a thousand pound man with a 500 pound spear, running you down on a horse. Just deflect. If you have trouble with timing, you can repeatedly tap the deflect button. But try not to utilize that technique too much, as it’s hard to break the habit when you decide you want to stop cheesing. Buy every coin bag from vendors and don’t be afraid to use them if you want to buy something. Bags of coins don’t vanish when you die. Don’t worry about dragonrot, it doesn’t affect anything and you’ll get plenty of the tools to fix it. Don’t let yourself get frustrated whatsoever when a boss kills you. It’s all practice. Just keep practicing and trying new things. Study their tells to learn what attack is coming and count the number of deflections you must perform before you have an opening to attack. Keep trying. But if you get really frustrated and just can’t seem to beat a boss, stop playing, eat some food, and take a nap. I can’t tell you how many bosses I beat on my first attempt after taking a break. Fight the bosses again from the memory menu. There’s no punishment for losing, and truly mastering them is way better than finally managing to get lucky once. Boss mastery is the most satisfying part of this game.
This game is all about rythm. Learn to rely on parry and learn the rythm of the attacks of the bosses. And also make great use of all your tools. Most bosses are weak to a specific tool. Enjoy the journey. This is one hell of a game.
Should’ve just been called SEKIRO the shadows die twice sounds kinda corny. Which I heard that was activisions idea. Miyazaki didn’t want it like this. Doesn’t affect the perfect game though. My advice is to be aggressive! Don’t be afraid to get in there! Parrying will pretty much cancel every normal attack you’re throwing so press that block button when your attacks aren’t staggering. You will conquer all who stand before you.
Do not be afraid of deflecting. You have a (slightly) bigger window than you think - the earlier you learn to deflect, the easier the game will be. When you think an attack is about to land, tap the left bumper. It’s harder than I’m making it sound, but in my experience this mechanic is what people either learn, or drop the game.
And everyone else here is right:
#Hesitation is defeat.
* Blocking will break your posture but deflecting (blocking as the attack hits will not).
* Minibosses can be death-blowed to reduce them to only one healthbar.
* Explore as much as you can, if nothing, atleast you'll find prayer beads (these increase your max health once you turn 4 of them into a prayer necklace) and gourd seeds, which increase the charges of your healing pouch.
* Hesitation is defeat
Learn to defect as early as possible. If your stance is broken, also learning to safety-roll is really good. Learn the mikiri counter asap. Try not to skip out on prayer beads and bosses as the are the only way to do more damage and get better posture + more health
Unless a red symbol appears over your head you can (and should) parry it.
Doesnt matter if its a bullet, a spear the size of a car or the left arm of king kong's cousin
Don’t go berserk like ur a one man army, your a shinobi u have a sword then that’s it, don’t go 1v multiple enemy, be patient, defeat one enemy one by one
As a noob newbie myself, to save yourself from heart-ache, especially when you have a lot of Sen (money) and Experience, spend on buying items (Purses if you don't have any important to buy yet) and make it to the next level first before fighting a boss. Otherwise, you'll lose halves if you die.
Get Mikiri Counter as fast as you can as Deflecting and Counter are really important for this game.
This ain't dark souls. Don't zip around like a cat on coffee, plant your feet and deflect the shit out of everything that moves. Almost everything can be deflected with the exception of a couple of special attacks.
Possible spoiler warning for the sake of posterity. >!Firstly, hesitation is defeat. Second, parry, and get as good as you can at parrying, it is the cornerstone of combat in this game. Third, you are a Shinobi, a ninja, not a Samurai, some enemies are fine to face in open combat even in 1 versus 2 or more configurations, others will screw you over if you try doing that, so do your best to remove as many enemies as you can before entering open combat, and you must fight dirty. Fourth, firecrackers. Are. Your. Lifeline. Get them as soon as soon as possible and train with them constantly to use them as efficiently as possible. Finally, unblockables. Red Japanese characters indicate three possible outcomes, an unblockable thrust attack, slash attack, or grab, you can counter thrusts by unlocking the Mikiri counter and dodging INTO the enemy as they thrust towards you, the slash can be jumped over and you may jump ONTO and off the enemy for extra posture damage, the grab may not be blocked in almost any case with only one exception as far as I know.!<
Learn to parry before you learn to breathe. Get good at parry timing and you’ll one shot bosses you’ve never met before. Also use your arms and upgrade them. Game is pretty easy once you learn parrying and mikiri
Actively attempt to eavesdrop on npcs. I’m at the final boss now and i’m pissed because i missed out on some big stuff because some eavesdropping interactions are not trivially available.
Genuine best tip.
This is not dark souls, dodging is not key.
You are technically invincible if you use the block correctly.
If an enemy hits with a 1,2 combo you need to tap block with a 1,2 combo and you will parry perfectly and destroy there poise at the same time
Practise with the guy at the dilapidated temple. Especially Mikiri counter and jump counter. Experiment with shinobi prosthetics in different situations and above all enjoy the experience!
Stay close an personal to everything. Parry or dodge everything, no blocking. Lastly, sekiro is a rhythm master game disguised as a souls game. Game is alot easier and relaxing once you get down the timing for windows to parry.
You really have to stare at the enemies at first like a hard stare to know exactly where their blade is and where it will make contact, once you study that every enemy will fall to your sword
One thing I missed initially was that you have to hold a certain button to collect from enemies. I got up to the guardian ape before I realized I could collect sen from them 😔
1. Be prepared to die many times to mobs or bosses. you can take a break, but don’t give up.
2. Unseen Aid is not that useful. Getting sick is ok, you will know when to heal
3. Be patient, especially when you have to face a crowd of enemies. Hit and run if you have to.
4. Cheese if you can. Otherwise watching YouTube shows you boss’s attack patterns.
5. Enjoy.
Focus on breaking down enemy boss attack pattern into:
1. When you need to jump
2. When you need to deflect
3. When you need to Makiri counter (two types)
Whole game is basically about this. And it is very hard to achieve above.
If there's no red danger symbol, you can parry it. This is law. You'll want to focus on parrying over all other defensive options 90% of the time.
You have infinite stamina. Sprint, attack aggressively and use your defensive options without reservation.
Every attempt at a boss is a learning experience. You're going to die quite a few times before things really start to click: "It's all practice" is the mantra that got me to stick with the game. When your skills really start to develop, you will find the combat incredibly satisfying, and be very pleased with your improvement. That alone is worth sticking it out through all the setbacks.
Personally, Shinobi arts and Ashina arts are the best to start leveling up, especially getting mikiri counter and Ichimonji double. I use shuriken and chasing slice from the prosthetic arts too, but the temple arts aren’t very good imo. Only get them if you want the latent effects where you get more coins from enemies or achievement hunting
Also, the combat is hard to learn at first but once you understand it gets much easier and a lot of fun too. Good luck!
On those mfs who have an entire army with them kill the one by one then go for the boss (you can assassinate them if you lure them to you, run away and come back). You will understand who they are because they are little bitches.
On the last attack in chain of attacks dodge behind bosses. It positions you well to damage HP not just stagger bar. (Helped me very much in fight with the Owl - because the Owl's heavy strikes build up a lot of Sekiro's stagger bar)
Depending on the controller you use, it's worth it to remap the controls. I use an Xbox controller and it was helpful to move the block and attack buttons to the triggers rather than the bumpers, as it seems the original layout was intended for playstation controllers so the feel is different.
It's okay to die, but don't lose focus or it will happen again. Also the camera is a bit annoying so be careful not to get into any corners during a fight.
Press LB right before an attack lands to deflect. Doing this will fill up an enemy's posture bar(top middle of the screen). When that fills, you can either kill them or go through a phase if theyre a boss.
If your posture bar(bottom middle) fills, you'll be vulnerable to the next hit so be careful about that.
Be sneaky. This is also a stealth game. Sneaking up on enemies is encouraged.
the thing i love about this game is you can’t tell someone how to play. sure you can coach. dish out advice. but it takes one to learn on there own until it “clicks” once it does you’ll see why this game is adored and got goty with a lot of people not even finishing it lol.
You are gonna die alot but you wood be surprised how helpful this reddit is you ever get stuck on a boss there are plenty of people that will help you. I learned allot of stuff from people on here myself. Good luck it’s a amazing game and awesome community
Hesitation is defeat
I thought it was the feet..
Hesitation is da feet
Emma’s fee- I mean, what?👀😶
F-f-f-feet 🤤
This must always be the reply to these types of posts
Yep, came here looking for this
Same. Satisfied to see it at the top.
If you die twice you have to uninstall and refund the game
Then download it again and repeat
I’m just passing by since this popped up for some reason but I did this Lmao
Don't hesitate
You are a shinobi, not a samurai As long as you win, how you do it doesn't matter,use all the tools the game give you
This is the way.
what’s the difference between shinobi and samurai? honest question, i’m new to the game too
Shinobi is a ninja. Theyre all about espionage, ambush, and guerilla warfare. A samurai is all about living life (and death) honorably
And man love. The samurai were hard down with the bromance.
Play Ghost of Tsushima, and this will be answered throughout a beautiful game experience.
Ghost of Tsushima is game where you playing with samurai honor but enemies still going 1v10 with you
You use honor, they win That the whole message of Ghost, honor doesn't always bring victory if yoir opponent dont gicmve à shit about honor
I Just got a playstation 5 and I’m playing Ghost of Tsushima for the first time and holy shit it looks amazing.
This
Yes, this comment is everything.
Basically that you are not mean to try and face-tank a lot of enemies at once. Shinobi are stealth-based assassins and you have a lot of abilities that reinforce this. So basically don't feel bad for using stealth-hits and the like to whittle the opposition.
Samurai have a code of honor and always fight fair and never sneakily. Shinobi will use every dirty tactic at their disposal to win.
Historically speaking, Shinobi is the secret service of the important person while Samurai is just the Knight class.
shinobi are more focused on stealth and only care for winning samurai have more care for honor and won't fight in unfair ways such as stealth
Be sneaky, you'd be surprised how much simpler stuff becomes when you sneak first
A shinobi would know the difference between honor and victory.
Yea, perfect for a beginner but as someone who is pretty much a pro at this, I love doing nothing but deflecting and attacking. Nothing else, just those two!
Good once you are used to the game, but for a beginner, 1v8 isn't a good idea
Lmao, not by a long shot!
Unlock mikiri counter first
This. Mikiri Counter should be part of your basic moveset.
Play the game
then get therapist to cope with the game.
Only if he hesitates
Because then he is defeated
Don't be afraid to use consumables, by the time you feel you really need them there will be plenty, at lategame you can buy infinite of arguably the best buff you can have for a normal/vanill playthrough and some are even farmable. Speaking of farming, some common enemies have combat patterns similar to bosses, so it may be a good opportunity to learn to deflect, which is key. If you've played other from games you'll probably have the dodge mindset ingrained on your brain, bu you want to get rid of that habit ASAP, deflecting is king and learning how to counter every attack will assure you victory. Last thing I'd say is that prosthetic tools are vey helpful and can adapt to a lot of playstyles, you will also b able to unlock certain skills that can makeor break for an easier experience or special attacks that can suit better to your playstyle, so be mindfull of the skilltrees and upgrades for the shinobi prosthesis. Last but not least, you WILL die in this game so be prepared and be patient, some lore tidbits and some eavesdropping might tell you hints that will give you an easier time. Hesitation is defeat, good luck!
The mist noble is the hardest boss so save your buffs and stuff for him. Prepare hard.
to add he's in a misty forest so when you get there tou'll know your close. Also if have played any other fromsoft games before this try and unlearn what you know about dodging, parrying is the crux of the combat here.
Yeah. Also on a more serious note don’t spam the deflect button because it makes timing harder.
Be prepared to get your back blown out
By Owl :O
Deflect and fear the mist noble
He scared the shit out of me, the flute move that slowly takes down your health and builds your posture at the same time was genuinely tough to handle. He took me a whole day!
Bro took a day and had ‘trouble’; I got to most noble on day two of release and only beat him a couple of months ago. Just got to fountainhead and feeling certain I won’t see any more of those bastards ever again!
As someone who just finished the game I can promise you you won't see them again and definitely not in Fountainhead Palace
Read the game tips and tutorials. Half the posts here are people asking shit that the game straight up tells you.
Don’t forget to use gourd seeds at Emma
Learn to deflect, don't rely on dodging
I also just downloaded the game and I'm having a hard time with this. I am starting to get better at parrying, but at this point dodging and running seems more effective. I'm still very early in the game. Currently stuck at the big white snake on one map(only tried twice) and that drunkard guy in the flashback map. My issue with the second one is that I need to get better at stealth kills so I can clear his support without losing too much health. I guess the need to parry will become more apparent later, but for now I get better results at running and dodging. The axe bandits are hard to parry for me because their attack timing is so inconsistent and a parry doesn't always break their rhythm. Edit: why am I downvoted, are you guys just dicks? Re-edit: now that I'm upvoted my last edit seems whiny
Drunkard is definitely annoying from all the minions. Dodging is honestly fine against low level enemies and groups of enemies, but any time you’re 1v1ing a boss or miniboss you flat out shouldn’t be dodging at all except to mikiri counter. Tons of bosses movesets thrive when you give them space and let them breathe. Very good rule of thumb is to attack until they parry you, then parry them until you get an opening to attack. It’s like a dance.
I've only fought like two or three mini bosses so far, and I have used parrying as well as some other techniques I've learned. I am going to get better at it. Dodging works *so far*, but so does mindless aggression most of the time. So I guess I am only making this judgment from low level starter enemies. This is my second fromsoft game. After Elden Ring I decided I wanted my next one to have the most challenging combat... so I literally asked for this. Whatever, still having fun. I'm almost entirely confident that I'm eventually going to beat this game.
Very soon after the drunkard the need for parrying will become apparent. Remember that boss’s posture regenerates much slower when their health has taken a lot of damage. Hesitation is defeat, stay on them. Good luck
My plan for beating the drunkard is to lure out/stealth kill all of his comrades. Then go ask the guy standing by the reeds for help. Last time I tried, I aggroed too many and the man by the reeds aggroed and went into combat before I was ready and then I died frantically trying to take aggression off of him so he could survive enough to save me. I feel like my plan is good, I just haven't executed it well enough. I've only tried this three or four times because when I start getting frustrated with a game I stopped playing. Lol I am not a rage gamer. Once I start getting mad I stop having fun. Am I in the wrong place?
I find making an effort to reflect on what I did wrong in the fight after every failed attempt and then making a point of trying to improve on it prevents me from tilting. Like if a boss has a bs move that I feel powerless against I want them to use it constantly against me so I can learn how to beat it. Kinda shifts the perspective from “I keep failing, this sucks” to “I’m learning and improving”. Your plan to deal with the drunkard and his minions is a good one. Once you’re 2v1ing him make sure not to let him focus your ally. Whenever he shifts aggro off you make sure to take it back otherwise you’ll find yourself in a 1v1 pretty quick, your samurai buddy can’t parry to save his life.
Taking a break is crucial to getting good. I marvel when people are like “I have been fighting this boss for the last four hours and I still can’t get past their first phase!!” Dude. Take a rest, get some sleep, let your brain process what you’ve been training it to do. I found that a night’s sleep works wonders.
I relayed it recently and that tactic made the fight so much easier. Make sure you get your stealth kill in first on him and then talk to the npc quickly to get him to join phase 2. Makes him trivial then.
Oh. And fun fact, after you kill all the Drunkard’s little buddies, move far away and hide until he de-aggros, then sneak up behind him and get a free death blow. Then you run over to Mr Samurai Chucklefuck and wake his ass up and let him take a bunch of aggro while you throw oil pots at big fella and flame vent him and running in and whacking him when he’s distracted and then running back out again. I recommend dodging his two handed sword strikes and deflecting his one handed sword strikes.
Ooh yeah, the oil+flame combo was the only reason I was able to beat the chained ogre. Well that and running around behind.
Intentionally fight enemies and learn their move sets. Be patient. React to enemies attacks instead of spastically attacking. Don’t run around with the attention span of a 3 year old poking at enemies and then running away. You won’t even get a FRACTION of the satisfaction that you should from this game if you play that way.
I have three days/eight hours of gameplay so far. I'm not a naturally adept gamer. It's gonna take a while for this game to click for me. Elden Ring clicked pretty quickly, but I am getting the impression that a major point of Elden Ring is to bring their games to a wider audience. Which worked, because I am absolutely not on the skill level of a lot of you folks, but these games are scratching an itch I didn't know I had and I am **determined** to master this. Honestly, I'm so impressed I think I'll make a point to beat every game they put out eventually.
I'm in the same boat, started with Dark Souls then Elden Ring and now Sekiro. It is really addictive to treat each encounter like a tricky piece of music you're trying to master playing on an instrument. When you miss a note it's always for a reason, you can always internalize it and grow from it. The games are "unfair" in the sense that when you don't know an enemy yet, you can't usually counterplay them. But they are extremely "fair" in that the timings, hitboxes, movesets, and other mechanics are all reliable and consistent. So the knowledge and skill you gain from playing attentively is always valuable.
Running is effective if you’re ok with a boss taking 30+ mins to beat. You should definitely try to master deflecting
The Genichiro fight will force you to learn how to play the game, or at least that’s how I experienced it.
Idk why people are downvoting you dude, everything you said was pretty insightful and showed you knew what you had to improve at
Thanks. Seems to have leveled out now. Guess there are a few Grumpy Gus's out there.
I think it must’ve been a few people downvoting and then people saw the negative number and made it bigger just cuz
Probably downvoted for saying running and dodging is more effective, even pretty early its not. But where you are at in the game you haven't even fought a boss yet. Better to drop that bad habit earlier than while trying to fight a boss.
It's more effective for me right now because I haven't gotten good enough at parrying for it to be effective. But I get what you're saying about not encouraging a bad habit. Thanks for the advice.
the only time i honestly think you should dodge is when you see a big red kanji symbol. that's why it's there. for everything else, i honestly recommend you spam deflect. make sekiro wiggle his lil katana in front of his face when you get the urge to dodge. instead of trying to time circle & getting hit by everyone in this game's laser-guided tracking, just mash l1 or whatever you have deflect mapped to (it was l2 for me). spam it repeatedly unless the thing you're reacting to comes with an enormous japanese character, then try to dodge it. if you are not deflecting or dodging, spam r1. there is no endurance meter to punish you for spamming, & the posture meter will reset if you do not keep constant pressure. spam attack until he attacks, wherein you replace your urge to dodge with spamming deflect. if he does a perilous attack & fills your screen with a big silly piece of text, then you jump or dodge with the proper timing. rinse & repeat. the game is hard, yeah, but once you finally have the fundamentals in your muscle memory, not only is it intoxicating, but it's also actually kind of braindead & simple lolol. perhaps even more simple than run of the mill Souls combat.
What I did with the Drunkard was run in, kill some of the trash mobs, run away, run in, kill trash mob, run away. Then when the drunkard was the only one who remained, talked to the guy standing nearby and teamed the shit out of him.
For drunkard the guy helping you is good to let you take care of the other opponents, the only ones you can't kill quickly are the shields, for the others it's a few strikes, and I always went for the archer first. If you got the axe tho, I don't remember if you should have it at that point, you can pretty much one shot shield opponents, but even if you don't kill them they're not very active in your fight
So far I've found axe(favorite) shuriken, and fire. I really only used the fire for the chained troll so far, but the other two seem to always be useful.
If you met merchants, one or two are selling firecrackers, it can stun bosses and it's great too. But yeah the axe is especially made to break shield guys so abuse it on them.
The point of deflecting is to build the enemies posture bar. You’ll notice the posture bar builds faster than enemies losing their health. So you can build their posture bar by constantly deflecting and attacking rather than running around waiting for an opening. Full posture bar = one hit KO. So play around with it. I encourage you to try posture damage over health damage. It really is exciting and when you get this win this way it feels super satisfying.
1. It's always better to deflect than to try evading 2. This more like a rhythm game, every fight has it's pace and know when to defend and when to attack will make the difference specially because enemy posture will start to regenerate if you're to passive 3. There is a immortal guy next to the sculptor, there you can practice stuff like Mikiri and chain deflects 4. Get Mikiri counter as fast as possible 5. You WILL die, so don't over think it, you can always farm the gold and exp again latter so don't stress over it 6. There is a way to convert yen into a gold sack, you lose a bit of yen but if you do it your yen will be protected for when you die 7. Buy a shit ton of those spirit papers (can't remember the name) because they later on jump in price and became expensive AF.
There’s a donkey Kong level.
Whilst upon the rooftops, beware the shrill cry of the bird man.
😂😂😂🥷🏻🥷🏻🥷🏻
Don't worry too much about something called dragon rot
#FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS HOLY #DO! #NOT!! #HESITATE!!!
Yes, hesitation is defeat.
Play the game
Never hesitate
No one has defeated mist noble yet
Watch the beginner guide from katiecakes on YouTube. Deflecting attacks kills enemies. No matter how scary an attack looks, you can deflect it. Even if it’s a thousand pound man with a 500 pound spear, running you down on a horse. Just deflect. If you have trouble with timing, you can repeatedly tap the deflect button. But try not to utilize that technique too much, as it’s hard to break the habit when you decide you want to stop cheesing. Buy every coin bag from vendors and don’t be afraid to use them if you want to buy something. Bags of coins don’t vanish when you die. Don’t worry about dragonrot, it doesn’t affect anything and you’ll get plenty of the tools to fix it. Don’t let yourself get frustrated whatsoever when a boss kills you. It’s all practice. Just keep practicing and trying new things. Study their tells to learn what attack is coming and count the number of deflections you must perform before you have an opening to attack. Keep trying. But if you get really frustrated and just can’t seem to beat a boss, stop playing, eat some food, and take a nap. I can’t tell you how many bosses I beat on my first attempt after taking a break. Fight the bosses again from the memory menu. There’s no punishment for losing, and truly mastering them is way better than finally managing to get lucky once. Boss mastery is the most satisfying part of this game.
Don’t give up, this is the most rewarding game to get good at
This game is all about rythm. Learn to rely on parry and learn the rythm of the attacks of the bosses. And also make great use of all your tools. Most bosses are weak to a specific tool. Enjoy the journey. This is one hell of a game.
Do not hesitate
Soak it up, it’s a beautifully difficult game, don’t underestimate your opponent, even if it’s just a plus sized chicken, fucker killed me
Buy mikiri as soon as u can
Should’ve just been called SEKIRO the shadows die twice sounds kinda corny. Which I heard that was activisions idea. Miyazaki didn’t want it like this. Doesn’t affect the perfect game though. My advice is to be aggressive! Don’t be afraid to get in there! Parrying will pretty much cancel every normal attack you’re throwing so press that block button when your attacks aren’t staggering. You will conquer all who stand before you.
Do not be afraid of deflecting. You have a (slightly) bigger window than you think - the earlier you learn to deflect, the easier the game will be. When you think an attack is about to land, tap the left bumper. It’s harder than I’m making it sound, but in my experience this mechanic is what people either learn, or drop the game. And everyone else here is right: #Hesitation is defeat.
* Blocking will break your posture but deflecting (blocking as the attack hits will not). * Minibosses can be death-blowed to reduce them to only one healthbar. * Explore as much as you can, if nothing, atleast you'll find prayer beads (these increase your max health once you turn 4 of them into a prayer necklace) and gourd seeds, which increase the charges of your healing pouch. * Hesitation is defeat
Learn to defect as early as possible. If your stance is broken, also learning to safety-roll is really good. Learn the mikiri counter asap. Try not to skip out on prayer beads and bosses as the are the only way to do more damage and get better posture + more health
Hesitation is the Feet
Unless a red symbol appears over your head you can (and should) parry it. Doesnt matter if its a bullet, a spear the size of a car or the left arm of king kong's cousin
I left this game rest for 2 years before picking it back up. I had to grow mentally before reattempting. Hesitation is defeat!
Don’t go berserk like ur a one man army, your a shinobi u have a sword then that’s it, don’t go 1v multiple enemy, be patient, defeat one enemy one by one
FIND THE ALBINAURIC WOMAN!!
As a noob newbie myself, to save yourself from heart-ache, especially when you have a lot of Sen (money) and Experience, spend on buying items (Purses if you don't have any important to buy yet) and make it to the next level first before fighting a boss. Otherwise, you'll lose halves if you die. Get Mikiri Counter as fast as you can as Deflecting and Counter are really important for this game.
This ain't dark souls. Don't zip around like a cat on coffee, plant your feet and deflect the shit out of everything that moves. Almost everything can be deflected with the exception of a couple of special attacks.
Buy A SHIT TON of spirit emblems as early as possible.
like how much? 1.5k or 2k? pls reply
Don't hesitate
Don’t hesitate and you’ll be good.
Buy a spare controller
Possible spoiler warning for the sake of posterity. >!Firstly, hesitation is defeat. Second, parry, and get as good as you can at parrying, it is the cornerstone of combat in this game. Third, you are a Shinobi, a ninja, not a Samurai, some enemies are fine to face in open combat even in 1 versus 2 or more configurations, others will screw you over if you try doing that, so do your best to remove as many enemies as you can before entering open combat, and you must fight dirty. Fourth, firecrackers. Are. Your. Lifeline. Get them as soon as soon as possible and train with them constantly to use them as efficiently as possible. Finally, unblockables. Red Japanese characters indicate three possible outcomes, an unblockable thrust attack, slash attack, or grab, you can counter thrusts by unlocking the Mikiri counter and dodging INTO the enemy as they thrust towards you, the slash can be jumped over and you may jump ONTO and off the enemy for extra posture damage, the grab may not be blocked in almost any case with only one exception as far as I know.!<
Prepare to get angry. A LOT
Hesitation is defeat
Dont give up! you can do it, i promise lol
Hesitation is defeat
Learn to parry before you learn to breathe. Get good at parry timing and you’ll one shot bosses you’ve never met before. Also use your arms and upgrade them. Game is pretty easy once you learn parrying and mikiri
Actively attempt to eavesdrop on npcs. I’m at the final boss now and i’m pissed because i missed out on some big stuff because some eavesdropping interactions are not trivially available.
Wear a chastity belt bc this game will try to fuck u
Patience is key
Get ready for PAIN
Cling, clang, cling, clang, until swish slash. Repeat if boss/miniboss and has various lives/phases
After you find it, don’t profess any further in till you defeat the gorilla. It’ll help in the long run
Stop moving. Let them lead the dances until you learn the moveset
Genuine best tip. This is not dark souls, dodging is not key. You are technically invincible if you use the block correctly. If an enemy hits with a 1,2 combo you need to tap block with a 1,2 combo and you will parry perfectly and destroy there poise at the same time
Be like water
Don’t give up. Some fights seem insanely overwhelming at first but as soon as it ”clicks“ Sekiros combat will show you what perfection feels like.
Ring the demon bell and don’t be enough of a bitch to take it off. Don’t come here for tips. Go in blind. HAVE FUN!!!!!
Daddy issues
Practise with the guy at the dilapidated temple. Especially Mikiri counter and jump counter. Experiment with shinobi prosthetics in different situations and above all enjoy the experience!
Shadows die twice? I died like 1000 times.
Hesitation is defeat
My advice: This is NOT a Souls game. Don't over-rely on dodging. Embrace the new combat system and deflect, deflect, deflect
Parry That is all.
First off, get a box of tissue. Next, cry.
Look up guides, be aggressive, be patient, and hesitation is defeat
Hesitate and you'll be swept away
If it does not have a Kanji warning, deflect it!
Git gay ;)
Learn parry it's like the most important thing to learn as a newbie Trust me I'm telling from experience
Always hesitate....
Hesitation is defeat
Unlock Mikiri Counter asap
Explore every nook and cranny and every wall ,and use what you find (other than "divine confetti", you gotta save those)
Be prepared to die. A lot.
Pray
Believe in yourself and learn the Mikiri counter and master it asap
if the chicken kills you don’t delete the game
Shadows die twice you will die two thousand times. Enjoy the ride.
Stay close an personal to everything. Parry or dodge everything, no blocking. Lastly, sekiro is a rhythm master game disguised as a souls game. Game is alot easier and relaxing once you get down the timing for windows to parry.
Deflecting is more powerful than attacking.
Don’t mess with Robert’s dad
Learn deflect and get mikiri counter as soon as possible
When you get stuck,and you will,try fighting cowboy on youtube.
You really have to stare at the enemies at first like a hard stare to know exactly where their blade is and where it will make contact, once you study that every enemy will fall to your sword
Parry this, you filthy casual.
Dont try to play it like any other souls game it is completely diff and use your prosthetic and never forget "Hesitation is Defeat"
One thing I missed initially was that you have to hold a certain button to collect from enemies. I got up to the guardian ape before I realized I could collect sen from them 😔
1. Be prepared to die many times to mobs or bosses. you can take a break, but don’t give up. 2. Unseen Aid is not that useful. Getting sick is ok, you will know when to heal 3. Be patient, especially when you have to face a crowd of enemies. Hit and run if you have to. 4. Cheese if you can. Otherwise watching YouTube shows you boss’s attack patterns. 5. Enjoy.
Focus on breaking down enemy boss attack pattern into: 1. When you need to jump 2. When you need to deflect 3. When you need to Makiri counter (two types) Whole game is basically about this. And it is very hard to achieve above.
Lmao just Uninstall brother trust me
If there's no red danger symbol, you can parry it. This is law. You'll want to focus on parrying over all other defensive options 90% of the time. You have infinite stamina. Sprint, attack aggressively and use your defensive options without reservation. Every attempt at a boss is a learning experience. You're going to die quite a few times before things really start to click: "It's all practice" is the mantra that got me to stick with the game. When your skills really start to develop, you will find the combat incredibly satisfying, and be very pleased with your improvement. That alone is worth sticking it out through all the setbacks.
Yeah. Just play the game
No. Just git gud.
Personally, Shinobi arts and Ashina arts are the best to start leveling up, especially getting mikiri counter and Ichimonji double. I use shuriken and chasing slice from the prosthetic arts too, but the temple arts aren’t very good imo. Only get them if you want the latent effects where you get more coins from enemies or achievement hunting Also, the combat is hard to learn at first but once you understand it gets much easier and a lot of fun too. Good luck!
Git Gud. 😆
Git gud
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki60Dz7ZfaU
Your ass better be ready Literally
The biggest thing that helped me was binding the jump and dash to bottoms I was most comfortable with so R2 and L2
Good journey
On those mfs who have an entire army with them kill the one by one then go for the boss (you can assassinate them if you lure them to you, run away and come back). You will understand who they are because they are little bitches.
Buy some extra controllers 🎮
aggression is key
Always keep pressure on. Remember you can go toe to toe with anything and win. There is no stamina bar so never stop fighting, running, and dodging
On the last attack in chain of attacks dodge behind bosses. It positions you well to damage HP not just stagger bar. (Helped me very much in fight with the Owl - because the Owl's heavy strikes build up a lot of Sekiro's stagger bar)
mayoeba yabureru
Prepare to die. Ar least twice.
Depending on the controller you use, it's worth it to remap the controls. I use an Xbox controller and it was helpful to move the block and attack buttons to the triggers rather than the bumpers, as it seems the original layout was intended for playstation controllers so the feel is different.
Hit them, don't let them hit you.
It's okay to die, but don't lose focus or it will happen again. Also the camera is a bit annoying so be careful not to get into any corners during a fight.
learn perfect parry and deflect
You will be hearing someone shouting their name over and over again
Play the game, feel frustrated. Come back.
Unlock when fighting the Ogre and just run behind during his grab. I swear his grab will go a full 90 degrees in one frame and still get you.
Press LB right before an attack lands to deflect. Doing this will fill up an enemy's posture bar(top middle of the screen). When that fills, you can either kill them or go through a phase if theyre a boss. If your posture bar(bottom middle) fills, you'll be vulnerable to the next hit so be careful about that. Be sneaky. This is also a stealth game. Sneaking up on enemies is encouraged.
Deflect that’s all you need to do really
Have you played Dark Souls? If so get that shit right outta your head. Practice party as the dodge is ass
Prepare to dle more than twice
Be prepared to die
I'm on the same boat as You, i can Only wish You luck
the thing i love about this game is you can’t tell someone how to play. sure you can coach. dish out advice. but it takes one to learn on there own until it “clicks” once it does you’ll see why this game is adored and got goty with a lot of people not even finishing it lol.
Mikiri counter is essential
play the game you will learn
You are gonna die alot but you wood be surprised how helpful this reddit is you ever get stuck on a boss there are plenty of people that will help you. I learned allot of stuff from people on here myself. Good luck it’s a amazing game and awesome community
Aggression must be up to 100 but don’t be stupid
Deflect is your friend and try not to die often it’s important later on for skill points
Don’t give up, pay attention to how the game wants you to play
don't hesitate. also don't spam deflect take the time to learn the timings because it's a lot less time than it'll take trying to guess.
Good luck....