Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jopax]

You can actually switch input prompts/tutorials to your keyboard bindings, can't remember where they hid it in the options but it's there.

Also beat the well ninja, firecracker interrupts have proven to be super useful, if hard to use due to the delay/aoe placemant. For some reason it feels like I took a wrong turn somewhere with this route since there's another miniboss right after?

Think it's finally time I face a proper boss tho, since so far I've been avoiding the Hirata lady and pushing out everywhere else. That or try one of the ghosties, tho I'm kinda scared of wasting the few confetti I have and then needing them later on when there doesn't seem to be any way to buy more and so far I've found like 4 total.

Spoiler: On dragonrot (click to show/hide)

Is it just me or is it kind of a joke once you beat the horse dude at Ashina gates? Since every time I've gotten it to spread onto someone else, the vendor near the tengu just had another drop for sale and they're always relatively cheap. So what's the deal with it if it's so easy to deal with, does it get worse later on or something?

[nenjin]

Yeah, I hear you on the music. And the SFX in general. The deathblow sound, while I enjoy it, happens so frequently I feel like they should have made it a little less obtrusive since you'll be hearing it every 30 seconds for the entire game.

Also if you're lagging in Ashina Castle there's something wrong. Are you meeting spec? I can say I've had zero performance issues with the game to-date.

[MCreeper]

Not quite, so lags were expected. Just not so selective. 

You can actually switch input prompts/tutorials to your keyboard bindings, can't remember where they hid it in the options but it's there.

Well, will check options more carefully.

[Jopax]

Has anyone found a use for the Mist raven prosthetic? I've played around with it and the immortal dude at the temple and it seems like a clunkier dodge tbh (might be smoother with a controller tho, I'm not sure) since it relies on you anticipating a hit and hitting the pose at the right time before being able to dodge, which is straight up worse from just dodging whenever you feel like it, plus it wouldn't eat your spirit thingies.

[Draignean]

Has anyone found a use for the Mist raven prosthetic? I've played around with it and the immortal dude at the temple and it seems like a clunkier dodge tbh (might be smoother with a controller tho, I'm not sure) since it relies on you anticipating a hit and hitting the pose at the right time before being able to dodge, which is straight up worse from just dodging whenever you feel like it, plus it wouldn't eat your spirit thingies.

The base form is pretty meh, but it has its uses (get to that in a second), the enhanced version kicks ass. I'm not sure how far you're in, but it's basically a combo breaker that can save you from a LOT of trouble against certain enemies.

Most guys that aren't slobs with Katanas cannot be posture broken with the Mikiri counter. You can counter the attack but it just leaves you standing next to each other, with no followup. Shinobi Hunter, the Samurai in Castle Ashina, the spear guys, maybe even generals? They don't care about the Mikiri counter. Frankly, even though the timing on the Mikiri counter is wwwaaaaayyy more forgiving than a Deflect, a Deflect or dodge is the better option for those guys.

But maybe the Mikiri counter upgrade makes it work against tougher opponents.

The Mikiri counter isn't a 1 hit break except versus chumps, and against the tougher enemies (Samurai generals, etc) it's generally a two-step process. For example, against the first of the Seven Spears of Ashina, there's a good chance that if you pull off a Mikiri counter, he'll try and hit you with a nasty followup that takes a whopping great chunk of your health off. However, if you deflect that then you get the longest free attack opening in the man's entire pattern. Because it lets you get close, it's also great for chaining with two later game prosthetics.

Mikiri is love and life, it has i-frames, it one-shots chumps, it lets you bait lunging attacks, it's fantastic. When chained with the carp abilities, it's a monstrous finisher against samurai that try and switch to a lunge after you deflect standard strikes.

[nenjin]

Guess I'll have to faff around with it more.

Spoiler: How I beat Guardian Ape (click to show/hide)

This fight was more frustrating than I thought it was going to be. I hate two stage fights. Beating From Soft games requires exposure to the movesets, so having to master one moveset just to get a glimpse of the second really gets my ire going after a while.

Anyways, this is the first fight in the game where I've just had to hold down the sprint button the entire time.

It's also what I feel like is closer to a traditional Dark Souls fight, in that the way I beat it was just to wait for "safe" moments in between his moves to deal all my damage.

So I basically just sprinted circles around him, keeping about x2 his body length between us. Too close, you're gonna get hit. Too far away, you can't close the distance to deal any damage before he winds up again.

In phase 1 most of his attacks you just have to see to know which ones to stay away from, and which ones to rush in. His leaping poop attack is a great time to get damage in if you know it's coming. If you've got the distance right you just run straight at him while he's jumping, ignore the poop because it's going to miss and lay in to him when he lands.

Whirlwind slash is very useful here for quick damage that you know when to stop dealing. Just do one most of the time, then back out.

Firecrackers also stun him for quite a long time.

Additionally if you can land at least 6 hits on him or so, or maybe a certain amount of damage, he stumbles. And if you keep piling on the attacks, he will get knocked on his back and then reset.

Maybe if you're really on the ball you can stay close, but he has so many attacks where he spins around that it just seemed more prudent in the end to wait him out.

Phase 2....ugh.

It's the same story with a few new twists. You have to keep sprinting all the time. He doesn't pressure you quite as hard as phase 1, but nap for just a second and he will make you pay for it. I struggled with this phase a lot. If phase 1 was hit and run for the most part, phase 2 is all hit and run. Eventually I learned that rather than staying in front and hoping to deflect all his silly, weirdly timed attacks with crazy hit boxes, it was safer to keep circling to his flank when he started to attack and do a Whirlwind slash, then bug the fuck out because he twists like a snake to strike behind him. If he doesn't do that, he's guaranteed to do the blood scream so you can't deal more than a couple hits before you have to move.

Don't try to back step or jump out of the blood scream. When you hear that goopy organic sound, you turn and you run. You keep running until you're outside the AOE, and run along the edge until it ends and then go in for a running attack.

If you get in front of him when he starts comboing....good luck. I could deflect a couple but then he'd change up the timing with a variety of different options. So I just started sprinting away from his front and try to get back at his flanks.

Firecrackers are useless in Phase 2, but Oil and the Flame Cannon do a nice chunk of damage if you've got it upgraded.

His sweep attack and leap up in the air attack will get you for sure, and you just have to learn to jump over the sweep and out from under him when he goes straight up.

This is a fight where dodges are almost completely useless. You might iframe dodge an attack or two, but the range of his attacks, the duration of them, the length of the sweeps.....just usually means that even if you dodge one attack, you will get caught by the follow up, especially in Phase 2.

Fuck that Ape.

Mist Raven seems like more trouble than it's worth until it's upgraded. It seems like the kind of thing that'd be great if this game were PVP. Against AI though, not as useful. Although breaking out of a nasty combo seems nice....but I figure the better strategy is not to get caught in the first place.

[Cthulhu]

Ape was really easy

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

just firecracker the first stage and run around to avoid his attacks, he has a few big openings like after he rolls around on the floor.

second stage is even easier, you can parry almost all of his attacks.  you're mainly waiting for him to rise all the way up with his sword in the air and swing downward, if you deflect that attack he collapses in front of you and you can do huge damage.  just be ready to run because he screams after he gets up

I think I'm on the final boss.  No spoilers but fuckin a man.  I feel good when I get one or two hits in.  I can tell this is gonna be one of those exhausting bullshit fights, lots of stupid-ass hitboxes and mixups that are impossible to reflex.

[Vibe]

As for Ape:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found Ape second phase easy, you just gotta learn to parry the 2-3 sword attack patterns he does and to run away when he raises his other hand with the head. After that the fight is smooth sailing, parry until he does the big sword attack at which point you can get 6(!!!) attacks in.

So I advise against using hit and dodge/run tactics. Takes longer to do it with running and is considerably more boring.

As for Mikiri counter:
I found this to be one of the more enjoyable counters to land. Not only does it do decent posture damage, on a lot of fights it allows you to get 2 attacks in for free after doing so.

[nenjin]

I've gotten out of the habit of using tools during boss fights. Part of that is my own crippling need to hoard resources. But also burning all your ammo then dying repeatedly eventually leaves you in the same place: no ammo. And to me, I'd rather beat a fight by knowing the moves than spamming a tool over and over again. But I accept that this makes a lot of fights more difficult than they probably need to be.

Ape was really easy

[Jopax]

Question on Senpou temple thing:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Am I the only one who sent the fat idiot to the dungeon to get operated on? Mob vendor said I'd regret that shit later on, now I'm kinda scared of what exactly I fucked up :V
But beyond that, any other way to do that particular request? Also does the fatso have anything more to him other than being a test subject?

Somewhat related, does the multi-colored rice gourd have any actual function? Or is it essentially a really expensive way to get prism stones?

Edit:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And I just found the white one, fml

[Egan_BW]

I don't see much issue with using spirit emblems. I have about 200 of them because buying them before a boss fight is better than buying nothing and losing a bunch of sen. And they're mega cheap. Especially in the early game, you can end up with a lot of money and nothing better to spend it on.

[Malus]

This game's great. I never really got into Dark Souls/Bloodborne but I've been playing Sekiro alongside a friend who's really into those games, and it's interesting just how differently we've been approaching the bosses.

Spoiler: Snake Eyes (click to show/hide)

This miniboss gave me the most grief, until I realized you never actually get stunned/posture broken from deflects(?). So as long as you deflect all of her shots and get the hell out of dodge when she goes for her hook/"grab" attack, you can just chip away a bit of her vitality, deflect everything, and get a quick, easy posture deathblow without exposing yourself to any damage. Meanwhile my friend found one attack he could easily punish and just poked her for 5 minutes.

Spoiler: Monk (click to show/hide)

Similar story with the Monk, but I knew what I was getting into this time and didn't get spooked when her heavy attacks filled my posture meter up instantly even on deflects. Once you get the timing down you can just deflect all of her attacks, nail your mikiri counter/double-jump, and kill her in no time. The predictable moves like the spin are great; I really love the dynamic of chaining a bunch of perfect deflects and watching that posture meter skyrocket.

Spoiler: Ape (click to show/hide)

Snake Eyes felt like training for this guy. Easy fight, except for the grab he does when you get close. Then I realized you could jump it and it became a lot of fun. You can deflect the poop he throws at you, which is kind of amusing. The lesson, by this point of the game, seems to be, "Deflect absolutely everything, pretend you're playing Metal Gear Rising." Friend is still playing it like Dark Souls and trying to dodge roll through attacks and poke enemies for 10 minutes. He's died way less than me, and I think if I was trying to minimize deaths that might be a better strat than just burning the deflect timings of every enemy attack into my bones, but the mechanics seem to really discourage that way of playing. It feels awful letting the enemy's posture deplete.

Stuck on an optional boss now. I think I'm pretty close to the ending, but haven't been trying particularly hard to pursue it.

Spoiler: Demon of Hatred (click to show/hide)

This guy. This fucking guy. I should mention I rang the bell, which may be why all of his regular attacks do 90% of my HP (and some, like his dash/fireballs, will literally oneshot me from full health), but goddamn. Totally unlike almost any other boss in the game, because you can't actually deflect most of his attacks or you'll just burn to death. I got the flame umbrella shield, and it's pretty cool, but 16 charges is not enough to last me through a 3 deathblow boss. I've gotten him to the third stage a handful of times and I know victory is within my grasp, but this is one where I feel like I could hand the controller to my friend and he'd have it done in one try. I've barely used the dodge button at all up until this point, and now it (and sprinting) are your only defensive options. The greatest enemy for this fight is actually the camera; sometimes you'll just randomly lose lock-on and start running in the wrong direction and get hit by an attack which will almost certainly kill you. Or the boss will do a giant leaping attack which you need to run from, except the camera tracks him up into the sky, so you can't see any trees/walls/obstacles around your character when you desperately need to be fleeing. This one fight has me wishing for a camera more like Nier: Automata. I can only jam my character model so far into the enemy's crotch, completely blinding me to any of his animations while strafing in a circle, and operating purely off of my memorized knowledge of his patterns, for so long. The Monk fight had some similar camera trouble, but at least you could deflect her attacks, so you just had to learn her timing.

[Jopax]

Beat Lady Butterfly, took about a dozen attempts, mostly because of her second phase, and even there, it's not her moveset it's the illusions fucking with your camera as the auto-lock is dumb as fuck and will jump around wildly to whatever. I think the biggest tool against her is the shuriken, in this case the gouging upgrade since it can knock her off her wires even if she blocks it. Anytime she jumped up it was like a free punish that let you get in an attack or two.

After her I'm kinda stumped as to where I could go tho, can't deal with any of the apparitions since I'm outta confetti, the armored dude at the temple takes no damage, ditto for seven ashina spears but he takes no damage because he's all aggro all the goddamn time and even the upgraded mikiri doesn't do much to him. Might try for some more roof hopping now that I think about it, last time I didn't really have the resources to go too far but a straight run up there might work.

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler: forward options (click to show/hide)

Rooftops are where you should go for the most part.  Seven ashina spears is weak to firecrackers and armored warrior is a puzzle boss

[Draignean]

Seven ashina spears is also one you absolutely have to chain deflects after mikiri counters with, and generally use lunges instead of standard attacks unless you have a clear window.

I've honestly never used firecrackers for anything but beasts.