I am pants at this. Have died about twenty times to "chained ogre". I need to set aside a solid few consecutive hours to really get into it.

I'm slowly, but surely improving. It's been a long time since I learned how to play Demon's Souls, and no Souls game since, nor Bloodborne has had such a long learning period as Sekiro has for me.

Precise timing and quick reactions are not my strong suit, so the other night I spent an hour or so in freeplay training with Hanbei. It took right until the end of that hour before I managed to correctly counter 10 successive attacks, and I was still messing up frequently, so I honestly didn't think the training was going to pay off. It did.

Since then, I've beaten two mini-bosses that were giving me trouble. I've felt much more able to deflect with some consistency, which obviously is a massive deal. I doubt I'll ever feel as comfortable with Sekiro's combat as I do Dark Souls or Bloodborne's, but if nothing else Sekiro has steeled my resolve to properly practice when it comes to technical combat systems (I'm looking at you MK11!)

I'm also improving but at a slower rate. I finally found the area where the horseman was and died a couple times but could honestly easily see how to beat him whilst being challenged at the same time.

I really enjoy the core mechanics here, more so than the Souls game and I'm hoping my improvement continues to grow

Finally beat that ogre f***er! If you lure him out, you can stealth him for a whole health bar.

Nice one. Is that the chained one? I didn't think you could stealth him up. Interesting!

I must be a good 60% through by now and that's been true of every MB so far.

Most mini-bosses that I've encountered have 2 deathblows. I've tried to cheese a couple of them into resetting their alert status but it never works. Has anyone been able to do that with a mini-boss?

That's 100% my experience. You can cheesecake them into calming down for the first deathblow (sic) but then they're permanently aggro and if you bugger off and hope they'll calm down, they'll have reset which I guess is exactly because they don't want you to do that.

Went back to the bull last night who promptly destroyed me. I need to stop giving him room to charge.

Easier said than done.

Bit of a "proper boss" roadblock at the end of two paths for me. Lady Butterfly and Gyubou (?) The Demon. (Horseback dude)
I'm gradually chipping away at Butterfly, but it's very protracted because I can usually only get one hit in after I dodge one of her combo finishers. If I slip up then she pastes me.
Gyubou just destroyed me in roughly ten seconds, but I haven't spent as long on him yet.

On a side note: this feels very different to Dark Souls. For me, Bloodborne wasn't that different to Souls in terms of game mechanics. This feels markedly different. I wouldn't put it in the same "genre" as the Soulsborne games - which is good, because it spares us from having to call them "soulsbornekiro" games.
The combat is so intense. Even fighting a basic footsoldier has me on edge.

Sekiro is brilliant, it's clear to see, but I'm throwing in the towel.

I've been stuck on the Flaming Bull for a whole week now. This is still very early into the game, and if I'm having this much trouble so early on then I've not much hope for the rest of the game.

I'm not enjoying constantly getting killed by it, and I just can't be arsed to keep trying the same section over and over again, it's far from fun.

I think I'm going to spend my gaming time finally giving Witcher 3 a go and ploughing on with Division 2.

Don't stop sprinting but stay close/behind. Hit once/twice when it turns around at a wall. It requires a pretty weird strategy.

That's probably my main issue with the game. It teaches you various fundamental approaches to combat but then subverts them very often, arguably too often, and asks you to learn something new which you won't apply anywhere else.

I might be overstating that but it's how I feel at this point.

Thanks for the tips.

I've watched plenty of video tutorials for the boss, and can see how they did it, but for some reason I just can't put the techniques into practice.

Maybe I'll come back to it down the line, but I can't bare the sight of that bull anymore

I'm close to giving up now as well. I'm still on Butterfly. Can beat the first stage consistently, but get flustered in second stage with all the mooks and magic.
Will probably beat it tonight.....but I've already spent 3 or 4 hours on this one boss. That's crazy. I don't have that much free time.
Maybe my middle aged reflexes and manual dexterity just aren't up to the task?

I'd say that LB and BB are the point where you start to get the old Dark Souls levelling up vibe. Do them and the game massively opens up.

For LB, ignore the mobs and just leg it round til they disappear. I'd also say that you can block almost everything so don't worry about dodging or even parrying. Chip her health and watch the posture crumble. When you get a bit more confident, you can play aggressively and twat her. I must have tried fifty times but when I eventually did her, I did both phases barely taking any damage. There's a knack and rhythm and for me it involved unlearning all of my Souls habits. Dodge is death, in short.

I spent another hour failing to beat LB then went back for a shot of Gyubou. He was a piece of piss compared to LB. Once I realised I could parry all his attacks, he went down like a punk.

ThirdMan wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2019, 8:55 pmI've read that you can only stealth them for the first health bar as they won't settle back down after being struck. The same article also said that if you wait around for too long after that first blow then their entire health regenerates! So the strategy seems to be stealth them and then go hell for leather.

Yeah I eventually discovered that shortly after posting

Still very much enjoying this game. If I have one complaint, it's that I miss the insane visual boss design of the Souls + BB games. I've fought pretty much only humanoid bosses, which, has still been very fun, but, man, first time I fought Ludwig, I was terrified by his design, and, I haven't really run into anything like that in Sekiro.

Where are you up to, Sean? Maybe just use the initials. I'm up to GA2-2. I agree with you for the most part. The setting is restrictive in that respect.

Beat the Blazing Bull last night to much elation. The game then decided to throw 3 different paths to choose from so i had a little explore. Rather thsn trying to force myself through the game I'm very much enjoying thw laid back approach to gaming lately. Just little and often with my time and I'm enjoying it