Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Hey, Wolf himself goes down pretty quickly when poked a few times, so I don't see that particular weakness taking much away from the killer ladies in the game.

Though seriously, can we refrain from gendered insults, please? Especially since it doesn't make sense to use a slang word for the vagina to mean "weakness," since (as a comedian once pointed out) it can withstand having a person pop out through it.

No big deal to me, but yeah, I'd appreciate it the same, if only for other folks here.

Call him a pushover if you want, but yes, let’s avoid gendered insults please; it’s just demeaning.

Anyway, patch 1.03 has gone live, with the most significant changes being adjustments to Spirit Emblem costs to the Axe series, as well as all of the Combat Arts that cost Emblems. Another significant change is an adjustment to Senpou Kicks/420 Monk, reducing the initial posture damage to sweeps while increasing the posture damage of the follow up attacks.

The Blazing Bull, as well, has been nerfed slightly to make the fight less tedious.

Woops,yeah, sorry about that, should have thought this through. That's indeed really dumb. Really don't know why I went with that word instead of pushover. That's my bad.

Fun fact, I actually started doing the demon of hatred with the bell demon on before taking it off because I was expecting to get my ass kicked to oblivion. Didn't really saw the difference between before and after. What does the bell demon actually adds, in terms of difficulty?

Edited by Yumil on Apr 23rd 2019 at 9:25:34 PM

It increases enemy health and damage to that of the next NG+ level, kind of like the Bonfire Ascetic in Dark Souls 2.

As for myself, I'm making progress with the Demon. I can now get through the first phase without having to heal for the most part, but the second phase keeps fucking me up. So far I'm having the biggest problems with his fireballs and fire wave, I cannot for the life of me figure out how you're supposed to consistently dodge either.

To avoid the homing fireballs, run sideways and towards him, gradually closing the distance between you, and running around him in a circle once you've reached him. If your angle is right, you should be able to cover the distance without getting hit once.

As for the fire wave, your best bet is to run to the side, and jump in the same direction the moment his hand slams down. If you time it right, you should be able to avoid it, as well as grapple up to him.

Or just use the fire umbrella and tank the wave entirely for no damage. It even allows you to follow-up with a combo if you wait for the knock back wave to dissipate. Dunno if you have it though. But globally, use the umbrella as a panic button for fire attacks. It won't disappoint you.

Edited by Yumil on Apr 23rd 2019 at 12:12:02 PM

That's what I've been doing every time he throws out a fire attack. I'm trying to rely on it less so I can conserve my emblems for the Malcontent stun.

Seeing as you only need to save 12 Emblems for Malcontent (it only works on him thrice before he becomes immune to the effects, much like the Mibu Monk with Snap Seeds), you should feel free to use the remaining 8 (13, if you're brave enough to use the tanto) strategically.

I'd also like to poison him with Sabimaru during the Phase 2 transition, so the way I'm looking at it I should just use it as a last resort if I can't dodge out of the way.

I'd never considered using Sabimaru on him. Is he especially vulnerable to poison?

Not from what I've seen, but I've read comments saying that if you spam it on him during his transition to phase 2, it can poison him for a good 15-25% of his health. I believe it takes about 7 emblems worth of hits before he actually gets poisoned though. Seems worth a try.

Edited by SinNanna on Apr 23rd 2019 at 7:02:44 AM

Alright, redid the first half or so of the game, got the mortal blade once again. Woah, the game is getting stomped. I'm definitely doing the final playthrough, and maybe even the one before without Kuro's charm. I'm gonna get bored otherwise.

GOT HIS ASS. Honestly, he was easier than I thought he would be. Granted, he killed me 23 times (including resurrections) and made me use all but one of my Healing Gourds on my last attempt, but a victory is a victory. I think all my experience with Bloodborne paid off big time in this fight, because he feels just like one of the harder Chalice Dungeon bosses and my dodging instincts from that game just naturally kicked in. Best part is I didn't even need to use Malcontent in his last phase. He's no Orphan of Kos, that's for sure.

I'm up to 241 total deaths. Now, on to Isshin the Sword Saint.

Edited by SinNanna on Apr 24th 2019 at 5:24:48 AM

OK, so uh... I just killed Isshin first try. He killed me twice and made me use all my healing items, but I beat him. Now, this is probably down to me grinding my Attack Power up to 15 prior to facing him, because the main reason I won is that I was doing monster posture damage to him and broke his guard before he could kill me. I assumed I would need the attack power boost because I heard Isshin was a brutal fight, but I didn't know it would go up that much. Now I feel kind of like I cheated myself out of an amazing battle. Definitely not going that route next playthrough.

Edited by SinNanna on Apr 24th 2019 at 7:26:24 AM

I heard that after your Attack reaches a certain level, additional gains become less and less. Don't really remember what the threshold was; I mostly just increased attack whenever I got a Memory and didn't really pay attention to how much damage I was doing to future bosses.

Still, congratulations on beating him. I still take a walloping every time I fight him, but that's mostly because I'm not very good at the game (even if I managed to beat him in one try on my last playthrough).

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Apr 24th 2019 at 1:11:24 AM

A shinobi would know the difference between honor and victory, I suppose.

Anyway, final tally for my first run: 62 hours, 19 minutes, and 8 seconds, with 243 deaths (resurrections included). Not bad compared to some of the streamers I've been watching. Definitely gonna start another playthrough soon, because I missed a lot of stuff in this run, most notably Father Owl. I hope the DLC gets announced soon, because I can't get enough of this game.

Edited by SinNanna on Apr 24th 2019 at 2:00:47 PM

I really hope that, if From Software ever do DLC, they flesh out the Infestation. I love how the centipedes pop out of the infested, and I'd like to see more of it.

Aight, shura ending cleared. That was unpleasant. Now only one more playthough and I'm thoroughly done with this game until dlc comes out.

Having first seen this ending as a friend was doing it and as both our first ending, a lot of things makes a lot more sense after seeing the rest of the game, such as why the fuck is there fire in the arena suddenly.

Kinda wonder what happens to the sculptor in that ending, but I'd guess he Doesn't become the demon of hatred, since we just stole that trademark for ourselves.

Edited by Yumil on Apr 28th 2019 at 3:37:34 PM

Maybe they both become Demons of Hatred and have a kaiju battle offscreen.

Edited by SinNanna on Apr 29th 2019 at 12:26:06 PM

Finally got around to continuing with the game, fought and defeated the dragon in one try. Cool idea for a fight, but... not well executed, I think. First, there's the fact that I did beat it on the first attempt, but mostly I derived no satisfaction from doing so. As has been discussed, the joy of this game is learning a boss battle and eventually overcoming it through skill, and, for me at least, usually the victory ends up being a fairly elegant battle where I perform near-perfectly, but that wasn't the case with the dragon. I just kinda muddled through, and it didn't feel good.

That whole last area felt quite half-arsed overall.

On the subject of overcoming challenges being the point of a game like this though, sure, but as Jim Sterling put it in a video about all that, a game that expects you to "git gud" in order to enjoy it properly only works if you find the process of gitting gud to be fun in and of itself.

Thats at least why i dont see it as a bad idea to have difficulty modes, its not like an easier mode for people who either dont enjoy gitting gud or dont find a partucular game's learmning curve compelling has to necessarily water down the harder modes for those who want a challenge.

Cool detail I just noticed in the opening cutscene; it seems that General Tamura's spear is the same one Isshin fights you with at the end, implying he took it as a Battle Trophy after killing him.

Speaking of which, I reached Sword Saint Isshin. Only got one attempt in before I had to stop, but still, I'm there. Progress is slow mainly because I caved in and got Surviving Mars.

I still feel like the endgame areas have somewhat rushed design.

Best area was the Fountainhead Palace and its Okami Warriors. Everything else was pretty standard.

Edited by TerminusEst on May 4th 2019 at 4:25:47 AM