Is it worth it to kill Headless?

[Nonomori]

These seem impossibly strong, he inflicts a TON of terror on top of the already massive amount of damage he deals, so now you not only need to slowly slog your way away from him to heal, but you also have to occasionally pop terror heals to make the already painfully slow fight even slower, and you're managing 2 health bars now. And I had five confettis when I encountered first one in Ashina Outskirts, used them all on him in five tries without luck, only managed to deplete his first health bar once. And now I don't even have confetti to try him again.

So, is it really worth it to kill them? Do they give any meaningful loot that I'll need later? Or I can just skip them.

[paulaus333]

they are hardly worth it IMO :D

you will have a much better chance of beating the headless & shichimen warriors mid-to-late-game. since you can then get mostly unlimited divine confetti, sugars and pacifying agent from merchants, as well as some of the later prosthetic upgrades

the lilac umbrella prosthetic upgrade is especially useful to deflect their attacks and then reflect their power back at them (with the projected force skill). as is the malcontent / whistle prosthetic - which can stun them for a long time. other than that, you need to learn their movements a little. they are not that bad, late-game

their rewards are unlimited sugars (gachiin's, ungo's, gokan's, ako's, yashariku's etc) which provide temporary buffs for the price of spirit emblems. with the exception of yashariku's - which i never used - i just relied on actual sugars i had bought. sugars are really useful in ng+, maybe more in later game cycles

[shotgun suicide]

Let's say it doesn't matter for the narrative, you can complete the story without seeing them.

[Naked Snake]

They are good to kill after NG so you can have unlimited sugars and save your sen for other things

[Jaylol]

you have the mortal blade right?

[Alexoferith]

There are in total 5 headless in the game. Killing them will reward you the substitute equivalent to each sugars. And some XP, not a lot. And they have absolutely no connection to the progress of the story. So, you don't need to fight them apart from the sugar substitutes, and of course, satisfaction of defeating them.
Confetti is required so that you will not suffer terror damage when parrying and/or blocking its attacks. However, if you can perfect parry all its attacks, your terror bar will still go up but you will never die when the terror bar is full up. But this is more difficult than it sounds. So, best to use a confetti before starting a fight against any Headless.
One tactics to fight a Headless is NOT to lock on to it and keep on "sprinting" round it. So, when you first engage it, just sprint to its back and start hitting it. But keep on running in order to keep at its back. It will try to move around to face you but if you keep on sprinting, it will just be catching up. However, you have to keep close attention to the situation. I have never managed to maintain behind its back all the time. So, I still have to retreat.
When it does that disappearing act, it will always reappear at your back. So, when it disappears, move 2 steps forward to where you are facing. This will put you in a safe distance away from it. Now turn around then jump 2 steps and execute a thrust by holding the attack button. Then either retreat or start doing the running to its back tactics and carry on the attack.
If you are proficient in these tactics then you only need max of 3 confetti to defeat a Headless. But if you are the panicking type, of course you will need more than 3.
The only effective prosthetic tool against Headless is the Malcontent. It is a fully upgraded version of prosthetic tool from the finger whistle you got after defeating the Guardian Ape. You can use Malcontent a max of 3 times against a Headless. Each time it will stun the Headless, giving you enough time to put in max of 5 hits depending on how close and how quick you are to the Headless when using the Malcontent.
Hope this help. Good luck and have fun :)

[Crypto Gamer]

Get malcontent which can stun them 3 times get the terror umbrella shield.

Likely 3 malcontent+half life+dmg sugar+2 divine confety will kill headless with low risk on NG.

On low NG you can likely even kill them just using terror umbrella counter attack with again almost zero risk.Make sure you have the skill unlocked.

So I recommend to kill them once you have the 2 above tools and also the sacrfisical knife so you can have more emblems.

Some also sells a terror resistance items which refreshes at resting and can be used underwater nice to get that too.

[Anderson]

In short, no. These fights are mediocre at best, and the rewards hardly matter. Sugar at the cost of spirit emblems might sound good, but it isn't. You can buy unlimited Ako sugar, which is the only one that is useful (outside of the Stealth one), and you can spend those emblems on other things (like jumping Mortal Draws).

Underwater headless at least are a different kind of fight, and a lot less bulls***, though the one in Fountainhead is a pain in the ass. At least do the one in Ashina lake.

If you DO want to fight them, and they are being annoying, Malcontent completely trivializes them. Activate Divine Conffetti, pop a Yashariku sugar, and just whistle in it's face. You can basically take off an entire health bar before it recovers, if you have enough attack power.

[Apekatt]

Publicado originalmente por Anderson:

Underwater headless at least are a different kind of fight, and a lot less bulls***, though the one in Fountainhead is a pain in the ass.

Pop gachiin sugar, divine confetti, purple gourd and you're good!