How do you use spontaneous guard?

[Pete]

Started my second playthrough and decided to try the spontaneous guard and reflecting hardtear since it sounded like fun. But I honestly dont know how to use it. It sounded like it would be like Sekiro mode but Rellana is just cutting through me like butter

[Lynfinity]

Press the "Guard" button just a few moments before an enemy attack connects.

If successful, the guard will cost you no HP even if your weapon's Phys defense is less than 100, and will consume less stamina than usual.

A Guard Counter done after a successful perfect block also deals more damage than usual.

[Sonnenbank]

Its actually as simple as it sounds.

press guard "spontanous" just before teh enemy attack hits you
this means you will not take damage from that hit.

Every time you do this successful you get +20% damage for your next guard counter up to +80% maxium
howevever between each guard counter cant be more than 5 seconds for this to work.

you know you did it correctly when you dont take damage from the hit.

=== Now here comes the big catch and the difference to sekiro ===
even if you perfectly counter -> the bosses still do full poise damage to you

this means longer combos will break you even if you perfectly guard counter each attack.

If you think you can just guard counter a 4 combo attack prefectly i have bad news for you....
poise will break and you will get overwhelmed

you need to very carefully select your guard counters
it does not work like in sekiro where you are fine even for 1h if you just deflect perfectly.

99% of the time in Elden Ring you need to mix dodge roll with deflects.
Like : roll, roll , deflect , deflect -> guard counter