Lies of P

Took me quite a few goes to beat the archbishop. The first phase would be ok, but I was generally going into the second with 2 or 3 heals left (I have 5 total, not sure if I should have more by now - I assume the P-organ upgrades are the only way to get more?) making one or two bad moves and quickly burning through those. Of course, when I eventually did win the fight, I think I only used 1 or 2 heals in total. Biggest repeated issue I had was the camera going nuts when he would jump up and I would end up being stuck underneath him. That was pretty frustrating.

Eventually did it though. The next area seems to have some horrible big things to fight. The big bear thing I just seem to do no damage to and quickly decided to ignore. There is some other big guy I seem to need to beat, but some of his attacks leave me exposed to lots of follow up attacks.

Feels like there has been quite a big difficulty spike suddenly. Up to the archbishop fight, I've been finding it fairly easy compared to other Soulsborne games. Might be it is suddenly expecting me to actually use the parry mechanic, which I've been ignoring up to now and just relied on dodging.

Cheesed him with throwables in the end, went down like a sack of spuds.

Maybe I should battle the bear again then. Only fought him once and quickly decided to fuck that noise. I did open up a shortcut just before that other big thing that smashes through a wall. I assume he opens up the path I should be taking. Pretty much did beat him, but definitely felt like he was a step up on the previous elite enemies I had fought, who I found all to be quite straightforward. Hadn't really died outside of boss fights, so suddenly encountering things that actually might kill me was a shock.

Good to know I don't need to worry about parrying yet. Should get in the habit though. It was only really during the archbishop fight that I realised blocking is surprisingly powerful.

As already said, the clown is a jerk, you may write him off as an anomaly. Parries are indeed valuable against bosses, but thankfully not essential - at least they weren't for me (final boss notwithstanding)...

On the Black Rabbit Brotherhood now. Gave it a few goes and fairly consistently getting to the final gang member joining in. Think I should be able to get through it without too much difficulty when I go back to it.

Edit: and I did do it without much difficulty. First attempt tonight, even though it was looking unlikely in the first half of the fight. Just beat Mad Clown Puppet, who would have been a pain if I hadn't dashed past him and activated the stargazer just the otherside of him. Fighting him alone in the courtyard instead of in the street with all the other enemies was much more manageable.

Definitely not been finding it a breeze, at least not the boss fights. I took down the King of Puppets last night, but took me about an hour and half of banging my head against it. After an hour, I eventually caved and summoned for it, which definitely dropped the difficulty significantly (it always does - summons are basically the easy mode that people always ask for when Soulsborne games come up). Still took me 3 or 4 attempts though.

Outside of bosses I've not really had any significant issues, but then I don't generally with these games.

It's definitely nothing to do with my skill. I've been summoning for every boss, I generally always do in Souls games, I've got no real interest in mastering bosses. Sekiro forced me into doing that and I absolutely loved it, but I'm just too lazy/time poor to bother unless I have to. As such I've beaten every boss first or second try. I've also invested heavily in strength and vitality and am upgrading one of the boss weapons which does a ton of damage, I even use the cubes to make the summons more powerful/tanky. So I'm doing everything in my power to make the game as easy as possible!

I tried to do it without summons but I just can't stand two phases bosses so I just summoned and battered them senseless usually on the first go. Its the reason Remnant 2 remains unfinished, the last boss is just tedious.

Blight Town I mean Barren Swamp is kicking my ass. Love it though.

I beat the green swamp last night. Right bastard of a fight. It was another one where I ended up having to summon. The first phase was pretty horrific, but the second featured a while bunch of bullshit. Both had attacks that if you weren't in the right position they were guaranteed to hit you, with the second phase having attacks that could wipe you right out (the fucking charge attack!)

Some of the boss fights have been really good (I really liked the Black Rabbit fight and Victor was fun), but this was a particular low point I felt. I hear that the two phase fights keep on coming too, which is definitely going to be a mark against the game. I think it does a good job of being a Soulsborn-like, by sticking to the formula quite tightly, but I would say a couple of the bosses so far have brought it down and I worry that other later bosses will continue that trend.

I have switched to the green monster's ergo weapon now, which seems tasty as a dex build. It isn't quite as much damage as my curved sword, but not far off and I think it might be a bit faster.

Yes, it’s a tough boss and the weapon you get from its ergo is very strong. It has an inbuilt parry window, I think it’s the strong attack that generates a 3/4 swing that will automatically parry an enemy attack. It can be extremely useful.

If you’re careful of spoilers, there’s a player on YT called Ongbal who uses that sword for no damage on all the bosses- just perfect parry after perfect parry and uses the weapon to its maximum. It’s quite the sight….

Same here with the parries, and they’re not essential, perhaps with the exception of the final final boss, where you might well need the odd one, so you don’t suck up too much block damage.

That sword has some fairly unique parry timings with a more forgiving window with the swish animation. Give it a go 👍

I’d say it’s a long tap, which sounds like bollocks, but you just hold it a wee bit longer than Souls type games but not so long that you’re blocking. 

Just to check, when people are talking about parrying are you talking about the ability of a weapon handle that normally costs a fable charge (don't know if all weapons have it) that lets you counter an attack or are we talking about perfect guards? I've been meaning the fable arts, hence why mentioning the resource cost. Looking up on tips for doing those, I see a lot of people referring to perfect guards as parrys.

If the final boss is going to require perfect use of fable art abilities then that is going to be a problem for me! Should be good if it is just perfect guards though.