u/ca_waves

And that's Sekiro main bosses + 3x Inner reflections done. Have been posting fights here but also put all fights in this playlist.

Very fun run. No skills/prosthetics/consumables makes the fights harder, but basically means you don't need to worry about anything that isn't fighting the bosses. No farming, no grabbing material, no managing resources, just get in the mix and deflect and attack.

I've done ER WL0/no aux, LoP EL10, and Khazan base level. I would put this run at about the same difficulty as ER WL0/no aux, and fight times were similar to my base game WL0/no aux fights (ER DLC fights are longer though). Generally speaking I'd say a minute of combat in Sekiro feels harder than a minute in Elden Ring (need to make more player decisions in the same amount of time) but your experience may vary.

My approach for all bosses was to try and attack relentlessly to limit their movesets to them reacting to my attacks. I think that's the way to go vs standing in the center of the arena and letting the boss initiate.

If you just go charmless/demon bell you can cut most of these fight times in half or even more. Yahariku sugar + divine confetti is very strong and will last about a minute, which is an entire phase of combat so you can reapply.

You will miss prosthetic a lot. Firecracker for Gyoubu, Shuriken for Butterfly, spear for ape, firecracker for duo ape, malcontent + flame umbrella for Demon of Hatred. FWIW I do think you owe it yourself to try and do Ape Duo without cheesing the brown ape because the paired AI they have is very unique (arena is a bit too snug though).

I didn't miss skills very much. After you train yourself that don't have mikiri you don't really miss it and it does allow bosses to do some follow up attacks you basically never normally see. Generally speaking it does punish you for being on the edges of arenas more because typically your next best move other than mikiri is dodging over deflect.

Worst part of the run was Gyoubu and then the Juzou the Drunk fight. Gyoubu, for me at least, is pretty hard to no hit. Juzou isn't hard but you just need like 20 minutes fighting him without ads to learn his moveset and killing the ads is very annoying. If I was doing it again I would have killed Genichiro first and then come back and done Butterfly.

Re: Inner Bosses. Isshin isn't too bad (just don't R1 when he's in neutral in phase 1) and Genichiro is basically the same. I fought Father a lot more difficult because of the mist raven spam.

If you're considering a run, good luck! I really enjoyed this one.

I think you have two options fighting this guy - try and stay on top of him and manage the reaction checks on mist raven or try and stay in the middle of the arena and let him come to you.

Not sure staying in the middle is as good if not using prosthetic - most fights I saw where people do that they use shuriken to bait him back over to them because he can idle on the edges for quite a while. Without mikiri you don't get a good punish on his thrust either.

Fun fight

Fight is a lot of fun unless he's on the wall or backed into a corner, and he loves to get stuck into the corner...

Few notes specific to Inner Isshin:

1. If you do a light attack when he is in neutral he can do that ultra fast shove back he does when you're near him when his sword is sheathed. If you always do charge attack when he's in neutral he doesn't do it (which is why I always initiate with charged attack)
2. He gets some mix-ups around unsheathe. He can cancel and do a somewhat delayed sword swipe. I have no way of proving this but I swear he can delay the input slightly on his shove when his sword is sheathed? I dunno
3. The perilous attack at 2:26 is tough if you don't have any skills unlocked because you don't get mid air deflect. It's pretty easy to just run away though. If you stand in place and deflect the thrust then sometimes you get a few more delayed halberd sweeps, sometimes he just shoots you. Not sure if his choice there is based on positioning or if it's a mix up

Fun boss

the old man isshin matrix dodge when you attack him in neutral is cool

rare From multiphase fight where first phase is harder than second phase

*Consecutive- back to back delects without attacking, jumping or dodging

You can no deflect all the bosses - this is done with what I would describe a standard, aggressive playstyle where you're constantly attacking as much as possible to force the boss to react to you.

Longest combo in the game I had to deflect was Ape's two swipe into sit into double punch.

Relatively low number of consecutive deflects for most bosses was biggest surprise to me when replaying the game - it really is an attacking game and then you occasionally dodge/deflect so you can keep attacking.

Been posting fights as I do them, full playlist is here Gyoubu Oniwa- no hit (base vit, charmless, demon bell, no skills/prosthetic/consumables)

And that's the main story bosses no hit, charmless, demon bell, sword only, no skills, prosthetic, consumables.

Very fun run! I've done Lies of P and Khazan base level, I think I liked this more. No clue why I waited so long.

You really don't miss the prosthetic that much except for the two ape fights + the demon of hatred fight. Not having skills isn't really that bad either. It would make the Genichiro fights go faster, but he's not that bad.

For what it's worth I don't feel like I ever really got good. Any fight you can do someone has done something similar but cleaner, or with a harder restriction.

Good luck to you all on your runs.

Just a fun fight. Monk is great.

Stepped in a tiny bit of bonfire near the end there, but following the Team Hitless rules which says that is not a hit.

Not really my favorite fight. He has too much HP. Some of that is a result of my restrictions (i've seen kills under three minutes with the malcontent, buffs, the umbrella, and mortal draw) vs the 7:20 or so here, but there just isn't a lot going on with his moveset. Run around him to the right, chase him down, repeat.

Arena is VERY janky. Once he gets on the wall he can stay stuck on the wall for a while. Hard to steer or reposition him, especially bc if you get far away the shotgun fireball thing he does is a death sentence.

Run is nearly over! Been a lot of fun.

The problem with his charge is it takes him away from you so it doesn't hurt you. But what if he charges and stays in the same place? Can't lose.

Feels like a boss from a similar but worse game.... can't really think of other bosses where they hold the attack for a sec then blammo it comes out at warp speed. I'm sure you could name a move here and there but it's this dude's entire arsenal.

Arena is like bottom five of all time bad.

Anyways, only Demon of Hatred and Isshin left to no hit (and, uh, I gotta redo folding screen monkeys)

If you stay right on top of him he's got nothing. This fight ended up being easier for me than Shinobi Owl but I ended up grinding on the shinobi fight for quite a bit of time

Fun fight, one of the best in the game.

I don't see them compared much but I'd say with these restrictions it's about comparable in difficulty to a Promised Consort Radahn parry kill. Monk is probably harder if you aren't skipping phase 2 like I did (like a coward). Fight times are going to be somewhat similar (PCR much faster if using scadu).

PCR has a few reaction time checks in there, but so does Monk, and with PCR you only have to parry one attack at a time vs reacting to strings of attacks. PCR does get the phase 2 clones, but if you're using raptor you can mostly prevent a lot of them. Monk on the other hand gets the phase 3 puke.

In phase 1 you get most of the big punishes when you let monk get away from you and then do her jumps, but rather than try and bait that out I wanted to do more deflects.

There's a terrible bug in phase 2 where if she's pinned against the wall the phantom kunai she does sometimes when she tries to reposition backwards will spawn directly on top of her and its unreactable: https://www.reddit.com/r/onebros/s/EzK0pkUBOV

So if you ever see a phase 2 fight where she's pinned against the wall the entire time the person just got lucky.

2nd half of first visit to Hirata is my least favorite part of the game. There's no reason for there to be all the mobs around Juzou- the game gives you some good tools later on for dealing with them, you just don't have them yet. The area isn't particularly great stealth either because its so wide open. Playing the game the first time you start to hate the combat (because it isn't great against groups when you don't have any tools/skills yet) and you don't appreciate the stealth (because when one dude is alerted they all are).

They should probably just give you the bell after you fight Genichero and move the two tools you get here somewhere else.

Rant over

Lady Butterfly's supposed to jump backwards and generate the phantom kunai, but if she's stuck on a wall they just insta-spawn.

It'd be one thing if relentlessly attacking her was some kind of cheese strat or whatever but as far as I can tell it's the intended way to fight her (and if you don't maintain the aggression she summons the ghosts and her posture fully regenerates the fight drags on forever).

TLDR just go for deflect only lady butterfly like a boss

Arena feels just a bit too small for this one.

Going on Team Hitless definition of no hit Sekiro - Team Hitless where anti-heal bomb is not a hit (does not stagger or do health damage) but the smoke grenade is a hit (stuns you).

Bad guy but touching in his last moments (in both fights) he refers to Wolf as his son.

I hate every ape I see from chimpan-A to chimpan-ZEE.

Wasn't explicitly trying to kill brown ape first, headless just kept spamming scream so down she went

Just a great boss. Wish there were more fights like this in this game and others

I like Guardian Ape, fun fight

If you want to get good at Genichero then be really bad at Isshin, is my advice