A hopefully simple effective guide to beating Zhang liang

[Master]

Wo long is not a typical soulslike game like nioh or fromsoft games. It even has some differences from Sekiro which it took inspiration from. Some people claiming to be nioh, dark souls veterans even have difficulties with the 1st boss Zhang Liang and gotten stuck.
It is best to approach game with open mind and learn what the game has to teach you. Now that i have completed NG and is 1/2 way into NG+, i went back to start a brand new character to see if i can use what i learnt and try to create simple and effective strategy to fight him.

I wiped the floor with him with below guidelines:

1) Learn to deflect. Not learning how to deflect is basically handicapping yourself. How to deflect. Don't be fooled by enemies assuming certain stance or posture and press deflect as soon as you see them doing it. Always look at their weapon. Press deflect just before it reaches you. if you're using the pommel sword, you can deflect 0.1 sec before it reaches you. For podao users, need to press 0.2 sec earlier as it is slower. Even when enemy uses red aura attacks, dont be fooled and focus at the weapon.

2)This is assuming you are proficient with deflect. Next is managing the spirit bar (the left orange and right blue bar). Think of the full orange bar as -100 value and full blue bar as +100 value. Dodging,deflect, guarding hits and taking damage damages the spirit bar and causes it to go to the left and fill the orange bar. successful deflect and melee attacks heals the bar and causes it to go to the right. with that in mind you will always want to avoid filling the orange bar and strive to fill the blue bar.

3)This is assuming you are now proficient at managing the spirit bar and can manage to fill the blue bar in fights. using a full blue bar for spirit attacks causes the attack to deal more damage and reduce enemy's spirit bar. The bar becomes shorter (a white bar fills up the enemy spirit bar). The spirit damage (orange bar) required to fill the spirit bar to stun enemy is lesser this way.

4)This is assuming you understand the above 3 points to arrive at this stage. Fatal strike can be performed on the enemy if his spirit bar is depleted (all orange). Enemy will be stunned or wheezing or catching their breath. The spirit bar will turn white and start to drain itself. Going near them will indicate an orange/red dot. press spirit attack while near them will execute a fatal attack which does massive damage and reset their spirit bar.

Now that you understand the above 4 points, you're ready to fight zhang liang. No need for wizardry spells or fancy martial arts to fight him. We keep things simple. Having too many options for attack can affect split second decision making and lose focus.

Zhang Liang 1st form:
Normal attacks - deflect. After he stumble over, get in a few hits to build up spirit bar. Then wait and see what he does. If normal attack, rinse and repeat.

red aura attacks - if he performs the jumping attack, deflect as normal. If he performs the delayed uppercut version, he charges at you with his mace on the ground slightly behind him. Once he stops charging and starts to move his mace very slighty forward, this is the time to deflect.

When your spirit bar is fully blue - wait for the next deflect and immediately use spirit attack once he stumbles over to reduce his spirit bar and deal alot of spirit damage. depending on his actions and your skill, you can do a fatal strike on him 2 times. 3 if lucky.

Zhang Liang 2nd form:
He has hyper armor (meaning he doesnt flinch when he gets attacked like in 1st form.) This time round we attack less and focus more on deflect. try to keep 2 sec worth of distance from him at all times. Only attack with 1 hit when he does an attack with long recovery time. or use spirit attack if bar is fully blue.

If he uses his left demon hand to do spinning attack, take note the 2nd spin is about 1 sec slower before he hits you.
If he stabs his mace to cast rock spike towards you. press forward + deflect as it reach you to deflect.
If he charges at you with the mace in front, press forward + deflect as it reaches you.
If he jumps sky high, press deflect as his feet touches the bottom edge of your screen. Or you can just block if you're not confident.
Red aura attack 1 - if he pulls back his demon hand, he is going to extend it to grab you. forward + deflect into his hand as it reaches you. if he kneels, attack him or unleash spirit attack. get away once he gets up.
Red aura attack 2 - he swings his mace diagonally left and right and charges towards you. remember earlier i said to keep 2 sec worth of distance. When he does his 1st swing it shouldn't hit you. wait for 2nd or 3rd swing and forward + deflect.
Ideally you should be able to fatal strike him 2 times before he reaches 50% hp. Once he reach 50% hp, look for out a notifcation asking you to press triangle and square. press them both at same time to end the fight.