Brink guard vs parry

[Wyrtt]

Can someone who finished the game tell me benefits of one vs another?

I fought blade phantom and found parrying to be rather dissapointing.

1. When you parry you are in danger of getting hit. Your reward is depleting enemy staminda guage faster. It takes 2 parries to stun Blade phantom.
But is it worth it? On its own execution deals VERY MINOR dmg. Its like 1\30 of boss hp.

2. At same time you can chain brink guards dealing both stamina and hp dmg while being relatively safe.
In sekiro if you spammed block your deflect frames were reduced. I can easily press guard 2-4 times during boss delayed attacks to get timing right and there is no visible punishment for it.

Sure parry stops enemy combo but so does brink guard if you stop first 3 moves.

[sgrey]

Both Brink Guard and Reflection are parries. When you level up, you get skills that make parry windows and time for Reflection a lot better.
As you said, Reflection interrupts the combo - that is it's first big advantage over Brink Guard. The second big advantage is that it's immediately breaks the stance of the boss, allowing you to stun lock him. And of course that massive stamina damage too.
In this game the best way to play is to break the posture and/or exhaust bosses, unloading on them, doing the brutal strike and then continuing again. Blade Phantom is still what you might call a tutorial boss. Wait until you get to the next one and you might see a better difference why Reflection is a good idea. In addition there will be bosses later in the game, who Reflection makes it so you are just bullying them while if you just Brink Guard, you will suffer. The second boss after Blade Phantom is much easier with Reflection, for example. For the final boss you might find Reflection to be quite useful as well.

[ZexxCrine]

parry is a mechanic pretty much exclusive to howling blade. you probably mean reflection.

reflection is better in every single possible circumstance you can accurately use it in than any other option. it doesn't just majorly reduce boss stamina. it refunds some of your stamina, and puts the boss into a true stagger state. in this stagger state you can do extremely long combos that will do upwards of a third of the boss's hp at the low end if you know what you are doing. most bosses tend to die in 3 deflects unless they have low stamina. ironically doing more stamina damage tends to lower your damage output as brutal attacks are combo enders unless they are a combo starter. most humanoid bosses can be combo'd like: Reflect>brutal strike>dash/dodge attack>more combo but doing reflect>small combo>brutal attack will just result in the boss jumping out.

reflect is the most rewarding it could possibly be and learning it will likely elevate you as a player to insane heights. however, its not mandatory to learn and you can do fine without it. I checked your profile and you are one boss away from me being able to post something as example. if you reach that point and still arn't convinced I could link it.

that said brink guard is also powerful. many bosses will have strings that if you brink guard the last hit they will go into that true stagger as well. some don't though and you can only get that kind of combo opening after a counterattack.

[Mescalite]

reflection is meant for challenge runs.
timing and window are too ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for a regular use in first playthrough
*for average human reaction time, i should add

[ViewtifulGene]

The main advantage to Reflection over Brink Guard is the stagger. It stops the boss from going into a longer combo.

The main downside is it requires infuriatingly specific timing, with no payoff if you miss. It's not like Brink Guarding, where a mistime only costs stamina.

[sgrey]

Originally posted by Mescalite:

reflection is meant for challenge runs.
timing and window are too ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for a regular use in first playthrough
*for average human reaction time, i should add

Even the first timing upgrade for reflection makes it fine and usable and with the second parry window upgrade, it's perfect. I don't know why they did it this way, but that skill is fine, you just need to buy the upgrades.

[TCSyd]

The timing for Reflection is a bit weird, but the reward is insane with a good stagger combo.