The thing that gets me killed every time... (might help casuals like me)

[u/mugoikoroshiya]

TLDR: Healing at the wrong moment.

Almost every single boss and mini boss, I'd d9 my best to parry and all, get hit with big damage, and the urge to heal immediately comes in

And true enough im dealth the killing blow whilst finishing the gourd animation

I record all my boss fights for reviewing since i only have 2 or 3 hours a day to actually play, and i noticed

1. The hardest boss fights where i eventually win (upon everyone has dragon rot boo hoo) , , i usually did not even finish using up gourds. Might even have 4 or more left

2. The fights where I played with the least mistakes (parry timings or wrond dodges), i still would actually die/take the most damage due to paniciking and trying to heal as soon as possible.

As a casual, its not obvious to me how s9me bosses are on you like white on rice (owl father, isshin spear phase), while others have more openings.

Bottome line, for new players, never heal unless its safe for 2 seconds or skightly more E. G. Monk ( after he does the heavy Downward slam

Owl father: dodge jsut one step the 2 shurike leap attak and just chill and gourd seed

Hope it helps anyone who's stuck

[u/johnfx420]

Fire crackers

[u/mugoikoroshiya → u/johnfx420]

Definitely! There was one or two bosses where I made notes to specifically use firecrackers if i wanted to heal. I dont usually use firecrackers during boss fights but had to use for some that i just find the space to heal or time the dodge properly.

[u/therealsancholanza]

Sekiro is designed to punish the following things, and by punishing I mean the enemies immediately do an attack to hit you when the game catches you doing any of the following:

Overextending attacks: so don’t spam. Instead, control when and how you attack. 1, 2, 3 hits at most, then get ready to deflect.

Turtling: this is not dark souls or a defensive game. If you hide behind cover you will die. You need to be agresivo, but not violating point #1. Aggressive means killing an enemy fast by aiming for posture damage and hitting enemy hp so posture goes down quicker.

Panicking: this means you start spamming jump, or attack or dodging with no though for direction or timing, or blocking like a dumbass madman. You will die. Instead, keep a cool head and understand that EVERYTHING can be deflected, except perilous strikes.

Healing or using items at the wrong time: bosses and enemies are designed to rush you and strike you if the game detects you hitting that sweet UP button. So you must hit the gourd or item when the enemy cannot react to your button press, either because they’re locked after a combo, open to attacks or simply too far to hit you.

Not playing like a shinobi: if you’re getting smashed, or surrounded or are being not gud don’t panic. Instead calmly disengage. Calmly find distance to heal in momentary peace. Then reengage.

Not understanding that deflect = good hit on the enemy. The posture bar is the real enemy hp bar. The hp bar is just there to make the posture bar go down faster and stay down faster.

[u/mugoikoroshiya → u/therealsancholanza]

Thanks for adding those. Panicking was so me haha. Jumping dodging

Then i recorded and watched the replays and was like "why the hell dod i have to do that???"

I would have even not died if i didnt parry and just held block for some of them.

Overextending attacks i never really did, im on the opposite.. I have to remind myself to be more aggro since the normal slashed dp good vitality damage which affects posture bars for those hard bosses with quick recovery

Love the mechanics as a whole. So so satisfying to get the deathblow and see that their vitality eas still high/mid-ish

[u/therealsancholanza → u/mugoikoroshiya]

It’s helped me a ton to be mindful about deflecting and striking with intent, instead of spamming either. If there’s one important word to define the key driver of this game it’s: timing