Sekiro Guide: Essential Tips To Help You Stop Dying So Much

Sekiro’s combat is all about breaking an enemy’s posture, which is the gauge below their health bar. You’re trying to max it out in order to dismantle their defense and inflict a death blow. While sword attacks help with the general effort, it’s ultimately your ability to deflect their attacks that does the most damage to posture.

A deflection is performed by timing a guard right at the moment an enemy’s attack makes contact. As you can imagine, this takes a bit of practice to master. Luckily, there’s a fella named Hanebi–an undead samurai who hangs out at the Dilapidated Temple–who you can practice deflection against without having to worry about dying. This is a nice way to practice the game’s combat mechanics, as well as get a feel for any new attacks or techniques you unlock from the many skill trees, such as the Whirlwind Slash or the Mikiri Counter.

However, the best way to train is to find an area near a Sculptor’s Idol filled with varying enemy types and just work from there. Hanebi is a decent foe to test your deflection skills against, but it’s in practical situations where you can gather the most valuable knowledge and insight about your strengths and weaknesses in not only deflection, but in a general fight. In addition, practicing deflection against varying groups of enemies and larger, more intimidating foes is essential as you’re often thrown into dire situations with them during the game’s more challenging areas.