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[Vawn]

Spoilers in this thread as it's the final boss in the game. That's the warning.

Sorry for new thread, but too many concurrent conversations in OT and too many spoilers talking in depth about the final boss.

I've been at this for a few hours and I honestly can't see myself beating him. I feel like I'm just really bad at this or am going about it the completely wrong way.

The fight is 4 phases. I'm honestly not even getting to the second phase consistently and I've only seen the third phase twice, I who knows how many attempts.

I'll take any advice anyone has. Not finishing the game will drive me nuts. At the same time, I'm not having fun. I almost never stop before finishing a game, but I'm tempted to.

So any advice from those who have completed the game. I've already tried "Git Gud". Its not activating.

 

[trikster40]

Wish I could help you. I died like 30 times on the first mini-boss, still exploring and taking my time through it. It’s rough. Maybe this will help?

 

[Vawn]

Wish I could help you. I died like 30 times on the first mini-boss, still exploring and taking my time through it. It’s rough. Maybe this will help?

I wish.

 

[TheDuskwalker]

You really need to get parries and the mikiri counter down if you haven't already, then he's definitely a study battle. Have to stay aggressive since this is a battle about defeating through posture. I personally used inchimoji a lot.

This is clip of my first time beating him, if it helps at all.

 

[General Lee]

There's no magic trick to it, other than learning his movesets and going ham until posture break. You can beat the first two stages quite fast if you can keep up the tempo of counters, mikiri and stomps against unblockables to break posture. The same really goes for the last two stages, there's just more things to deal with it. It's better to be aggressive and not let him flail around too much especially in the last stages.

 

[RedVIper]

His third stage is the hardest, you're just going to have to practice the first two until you can get trough consistently with most of your estus remaining.

A few tips, when you start the batlee run in and hit him, dodge behind him and keep hitting him then dodge again.

Make sure you have miriki counter upgraded, and use it.

On his second phase he does this whirlwind attack, simply jump on top of him and get some posture damage.

If you're aggressive you can keep the first two phases kinda locked in a loop, but you need to be able to react to counter attacks.

On his second phase he does an attack with a warning side that can be interrupted, simply hit him once and he'll stager out of the animation.

His third phase is harder because he becomes way more aggressive, has more range and a lot of his attacks have hyper armor. I don't have any tips, just got to git gud.

On his fourth phase he starts using lightning, this makes the phase kind of a joke, it's the same as before but now you get to counter his attack and get a massive opening. You need to counter it though.

Good luck.

 

[Vawn]

I'm unbelievably bad at this. I think it's been about 5 hours so far. I'm going to try grinding another attack level and maybe farming some attack candy. I really don't know if it will help though.

 

[Shifty]

I'm unbelievably bad at this. I think it's been about 5 hours so far. I'm going to try grinding another attack level and maybe farming some attack candy. I really don't know if it will help though.

Don't rely on the buffs. It's quite unlikely that they'll tip the balance given how short their duration is. The attack buff in particular seems quite weedy against bosses.
If anything you should be rolling with Ungo's rather than Ako's, more defense = more survivability = more learning opportunity.

Have you fought any Headless or Shichimen Warrior minibosses? They drop reusable buffs and a health > spirit emblem converter which are both dead handy for avoiding farming, and since you're at endgame they should be fairly trivial if you take them on with divine confetti and the mottled purple gourd / anti-terror consumables.

Have you got nine prayer necklaces? You might want to take a break and hoover up the remaining beads if you haven't yet (though two of them are exclusive to a specific hidden story route, so you likely won't be able to get all 40 this playthrough.)

Also the attack upgrade from the Demon of Hatred is super handy if you don't have that yet, though he's almost as intimidating as Genisshinro.

If you're having trouble with Genichiro, you should probably skip using resurrection on Isshin and refight phase 1 over and over until you have him figured out to a decent level. Getting a lucky run while you're not ready will only cause you to freak out and drop the ball.

He's fairly susceptible to rushdown since some of his parry followups result in a hop or run, which leaves him open.
Also you can run behind him for some free damage whenever he starts charging up the huge slashes- dodge to his back and continue if he does the first and follows up with a second.

For what it's worth that particular part of the fight was never consistent for me. I'd utterly ruin him one run only to spend half my resources on him the next.

And finally, don't feel like you have to beat him in one day. Your brain will process all the subconscious muscle memory git guddening overnight and come back stronger if you let it rest and come back tomorrow.

 

[Vawn]

Have you got nine prayer necklaces? You might want to take a break and hoover up the remaining beads if you haven't yet (though two of them are exclusive to a specific hidden story route, so you likely won't be able to get all 40 this playthrough.)

I have 7 (and 0 prayer beads) and thought I had killed every mini-boss. I guess I missed a bunch somehow? I did skip the under water headless, but those don't drop beads anyway, right?

 

[nkarafo]

4 phases wtf?

I really hate those kind of marathons where you have to be perfect for a long time of period.

 

[EviLore]

I have 7 (and 0 prayer beads) and thought I had killed every mini-boss. I guess I missed a bunch somehow? I did skip the under water headless, but those don't drop beads anyway, right?

Did you recheck Ashina Castle after the incident?

 

[nkarafo]

I heard there is an item in this game where you can farm XP and turn it to Attack Power instead of skill points.

Does that mean virtually as much AP as you can farm or there is a cap?

Also, can a few extra AP points make this fight shorter? I don't think i can survive a hard boss for 10 minutes. 3 phase bosses are near my limit.

 

[Vawn]

Did you recheck Ashina Castle after the incident?

Perhaps not enough. The shrines all deactivated two seperate times from story events. I may need to run through again.

I heard there is an item in this game where you can farm XP and turn it to Attack Power instead of skill points.

Does that mean virtually as much AP as you can farm or there is a cap?

Also, can a few extra AP points make this fight shorter? I don't think i can survive a hard boss for 10 minutes. 3 phase bosses are near my limit.

There is, but the attack boost apparently gets much less significant after the first few levels. It can go all the way to 98, but the amount of xp you would need for that isn't realistic in NG.

 

[Shifty]

I have 7 (and 0 prayer beads) and thought I had killed every mini-boss. I guess I missed a bunch somehow? I did skip the under water headless, but those don't drop beads anyway, right?

You should be able to find another 10 beads in your current playthrough, and then 2 more in the extra hidden story route. I managed to miss a miniboss and a few that were squirreled away as pick-up items, ended up using a guide to hunt down the missing ones.

And no, the underwater headless(es) don't drop beads. They do drop handy reusable buffs though!

I heard there is an item in this game where you can farm XP and turn it to Attack Power instead of skill points.

Does that mean virtually as much AP as you can farm or there is a cap?

Also, can a few extra AP points make this fight shorter? I don't think i can survive a hard boss for 10 minutes. 3 phase bosses are near my limit.

There is indeed. You assemble it from pieces you find throughout the game. Never used it though, because the skill point EXP requirement scaling means you aren't going to fill out that tree until the end of NG+ at the very least.

I don't know whether there's a cap, but you can definitely keep stacking. I've gotten 20+ total attack from the boss memories in NG+

My advice: Don't convince yourself that you can Dark Souls your way through this game, because you can't. Not on any level.
Having a wider range of options from skills is way more important than a small attack buff.

 

[NorthernSword]

You can also beat the last 3 phases safely by chipping away at the health. Just run away and his attacks will whiff and then get a couple slashes and repeat. Takes awhile but works pretty easily. 1st phases of the second boss, you can bait his dashing cross attack and his vertical shock wave type attack to punish and for the 2 phases with the staff you can just run from his jumping spear and the slashing follow ups and punish. Just run around a bit and you'll get a feel for it. Not a glamours victory but does the job.

 

[nkarafo]

My advice: Don't convince yourself that you can Dark Souls your way through this game, because you can't. Not on any level.
Having a wider range of options from skills is way more important than a small attack buff.

I'm not looking to tank my way while doing mistakes, i thought that if you can deal more damage the fights won't last as long. That's my issue with these multi-phase bosses, they go for too long.

 

[kevin_trinh]

His 2nd phase is the hardest, 3rd phase is easier if you know how to lightning reversal which will stun him for 3 or 4s if you manage it well. My advice is you need to be aggressive in the 2nd phase, force him to deflect, and deflect his counter atk after that, then immediately counter atk to interrupt his counter combo. If you need healing, wait for him to do his long combo then run away and heal. If you heal when he is doing nothing even from far away, u r fucked.

For the 3rd phase, just jump and spam R1 when u see him doing any lightning atk. Well below is my vid killing him, took me 3hr

 

[Shifty]

I'm not looking to tank my way while doing mistakes, i thought that if you can deal more damage the fights won't last as long. That's my issue with these multi-phase bosses, they go for too long.

I don't necessarily mean tanking or getting beefy enough to make mistakes, more approaching with a stat-based mindset like 'I want 25 STR before I tackle this boss'.

The scaling is such that it ends up being the Souls equivalent of cranking your damage stat past the soft cap instead of investing in being able to wield a better weapon. In retrospect it strikes me as weird that they didn't just hard cap it at 20, but I guess it's a concession toward the traditional From NG+ structure and keeping skill points relevant in the post-post-post-post-post-game.

 

[Blood Borne]

Faraaz Khan beat him with base vitality and posture. Dude is a freak of nature. Perfect parry throughout.

 

[plushyp]

Faraaz Khan beat him with base vitality and posture. Dude is a freak of nature. Perfect parry throughout.

I know next to nothing about Sekiro and even I can see how insane this is. Parrying perfectly like this requires some inhuman level of concentration and timing. Made the boss look like a chump.

 

[Griffon]

I have a trick for easy concentration and not getting aggravated: I lower the sound and put on a podcast during my attempts.

I ended up beating all of the difficult bosses without really realizing it. It helps to have something in the background not making you think too hard about it.

 

[Anasta]

my advice would be to drink some pre-workout before handling this guy, it'll give you tunnel vision and just the amount of concentration that you need. Worked for me. 4 effortless hours, and then I beat him on the third try (when on pre-workout) lol.

 

[Revolutionary]

Currently struggling with this on NG+ with the blocking debuff (take damage while blocking so parrying is much more ideal). So nerve-wracking but man is it exhilirating when you finally get through it. Best of luck!

 

[Jae Mara]

I got locked into the "bad" ending after being curious what the other decision led to, not knowing I couldn't undo the decision. Pretty pissed as its hard to know when you are locked out of decisions going blind into a game.... I have a feeling my end game bosses were a lot easier than this though. Currently blasting through second playthrough so we shall see.

 

[Vawn]

my advice would be to drink some pre-workout before handling this guy, it'll give you tunnel vision and just the amount of concentration that you need. Worked for me. 4 effortless hours, and then I beat him on the third try (when on pre-workout) lol.

I wasn't expecting this answer. I have my HyperShock Rage ready to go. Desperate times.


If that doesn't work, should I get some Meth?

 

[TacosNSalsa]

If that doesn't work, should I get some Meth?

 

[Vawn]

I still have not managed this.

I upgraded to two more bead necklaces which is max possible for me.

I can manage to get past the first two phases pretty often. I am attempting the "easy cheese method" for the third where you run around and get him to do the lunge attack, hit him and run away. Death by a thousand cuts.

But even this is not easy for me. I'll get him often, but quite often he still hits me with his lunge, or I get there a split second too late and he hits me with his follow up. Either way, his attacks do about 25x more damage than mine, which leaves very little room for error.

I still have not even seen phase 4.

 

[Shifty]

I can manage to get past the first two phases pretty often. I am attempting the "easy cheese method" for the third where you run around and get him to do the lunge attack, hit him and run away. Death by a thousand cuts.

That probably isn't going to help you in the long run. As painful as the time investment is, not learning how to get in and stay in (as best you can) is going to make reaching phase 4 a challenge, let alone beating it.

On HP, the Genichiro / Isshin fights are posture fights. Depleting their HP will keep the bar up for longer, and you should be killing them at >=1/4 of their life bar with a posture break. It'll take forever to get it done with pokes alone.

 

[blackjon24]

If there's any bosses that deserve their own topic it's this bastard. Like others have said you just need to keep fighting him over and over and eventually you will just beat him. I personally don't like how at least 1/6 of my playtime was just fighting this guy alone.

I loved the game but really broke the pacing for me. But I'd be lying if it wasn't the most satisfying feeling a game could ever give me

 

[Vawn]

If there's any bosses that deserve their own topic it's this bastard. Like others have said you just need to keep fighting him over and over and eventually you will just beat him. I personally don't like how at least 1/6 of my playtime was just fighting this guy alone.

I loved the game but really broke the pacing for me. But I'd be lying if it wasn't the most satisfying feeling a game could ever give me

I feel a little better. This might be the most stress a game has ever caused. I keep thinking my brain is just broken or something. I just can't get this boss down.

 

[Danjin44]

To me this boss is perfect final exam for the entire game, it has everything that you learned through out the game its putting you in the test. I personally LOVED this fight.

 

[Fbh]

To me this boss is perfect final exam for the entire game, it has everything that you learned through out the game its putting you in the test. I personally LOVED this fight.

Just beat him and I fully agree.
Easily one of my favourite final boss fights ever. As you said, it felt like a final test of everything you've been learning and practicing throughout the entire game.... all while providing maybe the hardest challenge in the game and striking visuals, what else can you ask from a final boss?

 

[Shifty]

To me this boss is perfect final exam for the entire game, it has everything that you learned through out the game its putting you in the test. I personally LOVED this fight.

For sure. It felt great to nail him with three lightning reversals in my winning run.

 

[Vawn]

He's finally down. That was the toughest fight in a From game for me and I've platinumed all other Soulsborne games. The bottom chalice Bloodborne bosses gave me less trouble.

Funny thing is, now that I did it, it doesn't seem that bad, like I could do it again.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

im at this right now. still not done but i can tell the end is near. here is my strategy:

Genichiro - i start the fight doing a running charge slash and he always responds with his magic slice that you can dodge left to avoid and hit him again a few more times. my main strat for many fights nowadays is jumping at the enemy and slicing away to get chip damage. when he does his close up jump in the air attack is another opportunity to dodge left & get some hits in.

Isshi - 1st phase - here im jumping like a crazy rabbit, circling him, then jumping in for air attacks a la above. at first i was just constantly moving to the left, and jumping left when his sword flashed, but pretty soon he picked up my moves lol. still, the strat works. keep only a jump away so that whenever he misses an attack you can jump in and get one in.

2nd phase - this is where he gets his spear. for this phase i kept my distance and baited his spear attack, which is easy to avoid by dodging right, through it at the last minute, and leaves him open to crucial hits. i like whirlwind slash. as long as you keep track of where you are, and dont jump off the cliff accidentally, this is actually pretty easy to pull off.

3rd phase - lightning. you know what to do. it's just a matter of doing it lol

 

[Gamernyc78]

I have 7 (and 0 prayer beads) and thought I had killed every mini-boss. I guess I missed a bunch somehow? I did skip the under water headless, but those don't drop beads anyway, right?

No headless don't drop beads. A few beads are not acquired by bosses. I believe one is found, another is sold by an npc and what not.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Genichiro was super easy when I finally beat Isshin. Isshin's first phase is all about getting him to thrust and you can basically memorize his 3-4 moves. His last two phases are what drove me up a wall. If you deflect his gunshots, you can jump out of the way on the 2nd to last gunshot. That way he can't get close to you after that final shot.

I essentially waited for him to jump towards me and then dashed behind him. This takes time. When the fight was over, the entire clip was me baiting that one move.

Honestly, the fight took me 15 minutes. I wanted to be the player who took posture off this guy like a boss. I did it this way because it worked. It did the job.

 

[Virex]

Git gud at Mikiri counter and Ichimonji or Ichimonji double. And be aggressive

 

[Jack Videogames]

And here am I dying like a motherfucker against the Guardian Ape. Congrats!

 

[PerfectWarrior]

Without a doubt, The Sword Saint battle was one of the best moments in gaming history for me. A final boss as it should be. And once you got past the third phase, the 4th is a gift because of LIGHTNING.

And here am I dying like a motherfucker against the Guardian Ape. Congrats!

The Ape seems more chaotic in his movements than it really is. Firecracker do wonders in this battle (and the spear in the next). Once you beat it, subsequent fights in NG+ and beyond are not that hard.,

 

[Wink]

Ah what a fight. Nothing else but studying and persevering will do it. I had to come back over three seperate sessions and loved every second of it.
You have to focus on all the mikiri spots, if you get them down that's half the battle. Otherwise block a lot, you'll get used to the moves that way, find good deflect and counter opportunities. Just keep at it, put the game down when frustrated, come back for a few more tries another time.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The first phase is just a warm-up. The last one is not that hard because the counter-lightning window is huge. I agree that 2 and 3 are quite tough. I have been trying to cheese him using the rock but didn't find the way yet. I will report back when I managed to beat him in a dishonorable way.

 

[dalekjay]

after so much posts, I think someone already mentioned but: Ichimoji Double ad eternum
third Phase with loaded umbrella and the skill that absorbs and give back the damage

 

[Kamina]

The first phase is just a warm-up. The last one is not that hard because the counter-lightning window is huge. I agree that 2 and 3 are quite tough. I have been trying to cheese him using the rock but didn't find the way yet. I will report back when I managed to beat him in a dishonorable way.

3rd phase took like 15 secs for me. I ganged up on him right at the beginning and he was down faster than expected.
Quite awesome when taking into account how often i had died before during the 2nd phase.

 

[Jack Videogames]

Finally the Ape fell, good lord. I had to kite the hell out of it during second phase and only attack when he does the lunge - that way, I managed to do it unscratched, after a good +30 tries.

By the way - is there any way to fight

Spoiler

Owl Father

and get the

Spoiler

Return

ending? As in, meet the requisites for the ending but choose otherwise at the end?

 

[TheDuskwalker]

Finally the Ape fell, good lord. I had to kite the hell out of it during second phase and only attack when he does the lunge - that way, I managed to do it unscratched, after a good +30 tries.

By the way - is there any way to fight

Spoiler

Owl Father

and get the

Spoiler

Return

ending? As in, meet the requisites for the ending but choose otherwise at the end?

Yes, if you unlock multiple endings you get to choose which one right after you beat the final boss.

 

[diablos991]

It’s hard but completely doable.
I had to try at it for a couple hours and was fine.

Originally I wasted time trying to run around the arena and poke but found it easier just to learn his attack patterns and face him directly.

 

[Sentenza]

I actually loved this fight.
It was challenging, sure, but nothing that at any point felt overwhelming, unfair or not doable.
I'm far from a super-skilled player and it took me something like 10 attempt to nail it the first time.
Here's a video. As you can see it was far from a flawless kill, I made plenty of mistakes but also had the room to recover from them.



What confused me the most is the people complaining the battle "lasted for ages". I've seen plenty of youtubers going through all four phases in a matter of 4-5 minutes in total.
It took me seven minutes with plenty of fuck-ups slowing me down.

 

[Jack Videogames]

Yes, if you unlock multiple endings you get to choose which one right after you beat the final boss.

Good to hear, will definitely do that - I want to miss as few bosses as possible.

 

[PhilipDoesMatter]

One of the most memorable battles I've ever fought. I did die more than 20 times, but when I dominated him it was epic. Very very well done enemy.