About dodging and evading techniques

[RPGamer1984]

Hi,
I'm in a love/ hate relationship with this game. it's beautiful, very challenging (totally agree that it's harder than dark souls).
But I'm having a hard time understanding the evading timings, or when I suppose to dodge or jump and to which side..

In dark souls it was easy, you just needed to figure the right timing for the roll and you got juicy I-frames. You didn't even needed to roll right of left most of the times, you could just roll right into the enemy.
Here it is different, most of the times dodge don't do anything for me, and even when I try to jump the big enemies still hit me. Dodging the little enemies is manageable (but not always) but the mini bosses almost always hit me.

So what I do is I keep a lot of distance from them and just waiting for the right time for a Mikiri counter, once every now and than I can hit them one or two times and than back the hell away from them. But it feels too cheesy.. this is not right! I won't allow myself to play this game like this.
I want to be able to control the mechanics and be aggressive and not getting hit.

Can you please share some wisdom?

[diseasedCow]

So it took me at least 10 hours to "comprehend" the timing with perfect parrying. Im not talking about first boss fight easy street. Im talking about facing Genichiro and perfect parrying most of his attacks and properly using the Mikiri counter. It took me at least New Game+ to truly perfect my knowledge of parrying and understand what skills are worth my time. Dont feel discouraged because you will eventually reach a point where it'll click in your head. Practice makes perfect. Also, dodging has i-frames when you initially press the button but it super situational like when The Ogre charges. For Genichiro, whenever he would jump in the air and throw a shuriken would be the time I dodge. Its possible to dodge your way through the game on regular difficulty. It will be an impossibility with the Demon Bell or once you reach New Game+.

[EF_Neo1st]

I did it up to defeating the True Monk at Fountainhead Palace without upgrading Attack, Vitality, Skills and without using Prostetics or deflect, just dash around/through and attack.

It is possible at any difficulty, you just need to dont get hit

[RPGamer1984]

EF_Neo1st eredeti hozzászólása:

I did it up to defeating the True Monk at Fountainhead Palace without upgrading Attack, Vitality, Skills and without using Prostetics or deflect, just dash around/through and attack.

It is possible at any difficulty, you just need to dont get hit :crashthumbsup:

so you're saying that with the right timing you can dodge out of anything?

[EF_Neo1st]

a_patishi eredeti hozzászólása:

EF_Neo1st eredeti hozzászólása:

I did it up to defeating the True Monk at Fountainhead Palace without upgrading Attack, Vitality, Skills and without using Prostetics or deflect, just dash around/through and attack.

It is possible at any difficulty, you just need to dont get hit

so you're saying that with the right timing you can dodge out of anything?

Basically, yes.
If you dont mind spoilers, watch the video (it is the final boss):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FoUPIgrVEc

[RPGamer1984]

ok thx! This is actually encouraging me a lot, I guess I will take dashing more seriously from now on. I thought they are useless in this game (also from other people's comments).

[EF_Neo1st]

a_patishi eredeti hozzászólása:

ok thx! This is actually encouraging me a lot, I guess I will take dashing more seriously from now on. I thought they are useless in this game (also from other people's comments).

Try without target lock, it help a lot to dodge around and through attacks but you have to manage your camera angle.

[Don Lobo]

Dodging is viable throughout most of the game, specially so for fairly strong attacks with long charging times, and just like EF says, it's specially useful without the lock-on but you'll have to manually adjust the camera, as well as the direction of your attacks and blocks/deflects.

Which brings me to the next point. Unlike Souls, deflecting is your bread and butter. As I said, dodging is viable, but is not meant to be your main avoidance technique. That's what deflecting is there for. Once you master the basics, Sekiro becomes a back and forth of aggressive attacking and deflecting, with the occasional use of dodging, jumping, mikiri and obviously the tools, items and combat arts. So, if you want to use dodging throughout the whole thing you're welcome to try, but you'll likely have a harder time.

[Sirpnie]

Like others have said, dodging can be used, but you want to deflect attacks. Parry if you prefer. If you're having trouble with the timing for parrying, it's most likely because you're holding block or pressed it too many times to parry, the more times you block or the longer you hold block, the less frames you get. Normally you have half a second of parry frames. 30 frames at 60fps. If you use the umbrella tool, you get a whole second and it also parries multiple hits. If you hold block or press it without landing a parry, you'll quickly go down to 7 frames to land a parry. I personally think 7 frames is a lot harder than 30. But if that doesn't work for you, use the umbrella and dodging. A whole second of deflection and also resist to specific damage types depending on what shield you use.

Just to make it clear and easy to understand:
First parry - 30frames
failed parries quickly go to 7 frames.
blocking also brings it down to 7 frames.
wait a little or land a successful parry. That resets it to 30 frames. half a second.

Dodging works, but deflecting/parrying, is generally the best choice as that is how you really keep the pressure on an enemy. It does posture damage, dodging doesn't. So just deflect that hit and keep going at them when you're done deflecting the hits. Don't press more than you need to, the game saves an input and that can cause you to get hit.

Also fistful of ash is extremely useful. You can stagger some bosses with it. 10 times in a row if you wanted. Certain tools are a counter to a few bosses or enemies. If you eavesdrop or other tips, you can figure it out generally pretty easy and do a lot of damage to a boss or enemy, or look it up if you prefer that.

[HIGHGRADESMOKER87]

ng is easy mode for parry very very forgiving in ng+ and beyond you need to time it or get guard broken alot

[𝕊𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕒]

Learn to party boom problem solved lmao

[Sirpnie]

🎮Sans🎮 eredeti hozzászólása:

Learn to party boom problem solved lmao

Yeah, just screw the game, go party. Games suck anyways. I know you mean parry. just a joke, don't edit your thing so I dont have to delete mine.

[EF_Neo1st]

Don Lobo eredeti hozzászólása:

Dodging is viable throughout most of the game, specially so for fairly strong attacks with long charging times, and just like EF says, it's specially useful without the lock-on but you'll have to manually adjust the camera, as well as the direction of your attacks and blocks/deflects.

Which brings me to the next point. Unlike Souls, deflecting is your bread and butter. As I said, dodging is viable, but is not meant to be your main avoidance technique. That's what deflecting is there for. Once you master the basics, Sekiro becomes a back and forth of aggressive attacking and deflecting, with the occasional use of dodging, jumping, mikiri and obviously the tools, items and combat arts. So, if you want to use dodging throughout the whole thing you're welcome to try, but you'll likely have a harder time.

I would only dont agree with the back and forth when using deflect, mikiri and jump.

Using every tool in the game that is literally no reason to step back other than healling or using some item as you literally have tools to be the boss being 100% aggressive all the time (where with dodge, for dash through and around, there are attacks the player may chose to dash away instead of into or around if the player does not have confidence with it or did not recognize the enemy stance).
At Sekiro, with all tools, you are the boss and the enemies are desperately trying to survive and kill you.

[HIGHGRADESMOKER87]

from my experience ng sets a bad example of parry timing as it lets you get away with semi deflects its pretty simple really just watch what your enemy does get their move set down then perfect deflects should become second nature deflect as they attack spamming l1 will get you killed

[RPGamer1984]

Do you usually dodge to the sides or right into the enemy?
Also..it will be difficult for me to not lock on. Do you suggest as a common practice to getting used to play without lock on?

[EF_Neo1st]

a_patishi eredeti hozzászólása:

Do you usually dodge to the sides or right into the enemy?
Also..it will be difficult for me to not lock on. Do you suggest as a common practice to getting used to play without lock on?

To dodge around is "usually" easier, butt depending on what you dodge around (like a sweeep) it is he same as a dodge through.
If you lock on you will dodge either into (and it usually end up in Mikiri if it is a thrust) or 90° from target (meaning you will get away a bit instead of dodging around as you should) so if you want to go dodging you have to go the DS PvP way and dont use lock on target.