Raven Tengu Tips

[Jojo]

Really enjoying my first pc playthrough. Currently in third region and so far I have struggled very little. I am using Katana and Odachi as weapons and wearing Kingo Set. I am having very little trouble accept for Raven Tengus which have recently started to appear in my game. These things are fast and hit like trucks. Unlike most enemies they don't seem to have a weak spot. I am stuck on the one in Mount Hiei twilight stage. I want to learn an effective way of fighting these things before moving on because I know they become MUCH more frequent as the game progresses.
Any tips or strategies to make these things easier to handle?
Thanks

[似暮マリン]

I personally felt those were easier to learn than the tongue monks. He is very vulnerable when he does the kick. Sometimes he does a staff swing after that but you will be able to get around 3 swings off before that once you get used to the recovery time. If you go behind him he oftens tries to get you with the kick as well so you can try strafing to his back when he does an attack.

[Zamus]

Get close to them, to bait a swipe into kick attack, with your katana you can outspace this and charge an iai strike, after they are done dodge behing them, most of the time, they will do a kick, dodge behind them again and hit them twice, then they will kick again, you can repeat this until they die, if the loop drops, stay close until you bait the swipe into kick attack again.

[Drybonz]

As with all enemies in this game, when you are learning how to beat them, Sloth and Weakness. Once you get the hang of it, you won't need those any more.

[wooimbouttamakeanameformyselfere]

Tengu - wait for it to perform it's spin kick as it's most easiest to dodge, or block his plunging staff attack, then do one skill move. On Katana, use flowing shadow for example, on Odachi, do heavy high stance attack, then back off. Rinse and repeat

[Jojo]

Thanks for advice. The strategy I've started to go with is to dance around them like a gnat and swat them with low stance attacks. My WoTW sword gets them all wet so they take more damage. I still end up getting brained by that damned staff a couple times which hurts ALOT and I end up using at least 2 elixirs but I'm actually surviving encounters with them now so there is progress.

[Percopius]

If you have Odachi, you should really perfect using Devastating Rush. Massive one hit damage, super fast, long range dash with a fully extended thrust. Just evade after backward and stay back and repeat or evade-attack (hit attack right after evade) with a flip and overhead smash or evade foward to end up behind the target.

[Goilveig]

Yeah, tengu are pretty tough. If you can keep in fairly close range, their swipe/spin attacks are really easy to dodge and get a few hits after, but you need to be very mindful of the times where they immediately follow the spin attack with a staff swipe, because the staff has a ton of range and if you are stuck in an attack animation you're in trouble. So keep a close eye on whether or not they raise that staff for a follow-up attack. The staff is really the troublesome attack, everything else should be fairly easy.

Try to keep your Ki up even at the cost of not taking attack opportunities because getting brained by the staff will demolish your Ki, and can leave you open to staggering.

Low stance is good if you need more reaction speed, but I like mid stance (with tonfas) to up my damage while still having some decent mobility. Low stance just takes a long time to win.