What is the strategy for the Headless fights?

[a quality meme]

Obviously you need to use certain items to actually deal damage and for the fight to be "possible" but that's not what I'm stuck on. When I do get those items for another attempt at this mini-boss, it doesn't help because of the lack of ability to dodge or effectively block. The most annoying part about this is even if you just decide "I'll just rely on the umbrella to block hits" because he has quick charge attacks that happen right after your hits that you physically don't have the time to pull out the umbrella for, so your options are either to soak up the terror with normal blocks or die.

I really don't understand how the ♥♥♥♥ to fight these guys when every mechanic they introduce is just annoying and I can't just trial and error the fight due to the item requirements I need for each and every attempt. Literally all this fight would need to be fun in any way is to not outright disable the dodge mechanic but nooooooooooooo. We gotta give you yet another dumb gimmick boss. Yaaaaaaaaaaay.

[spy]

practice and konfeti. easy in end of game. watch hitless guide on internet.

[Squirel_squire]

purple umbrela + project force

[VisciousFishes]

What both people above said. Plus:

Purple Gourd and pacifying powder will reduce terror build up. Early game there is one place where you can farm divine confetti in Ashina Castle. It's a low rate drop but it can be repeatedly run easily.

Mid to late game is when you will find the purple gourd but pacifying powder can be found early, in the Abandoned dungeon. The purple umbrella is a later game item.

All bosses have their gimmicks. Learning their gimmicks and how they use them will help you beat them. Learning the gimmicks will help later in the game for higher level mobs and bosses. Generally the gimmick is actually a teaching moment.

[a quality meme]

Originally posted by VisciousFishes:

What both people above said. Plus:

Purple Gourd and pacifying powder will reduce terror build up. Early game there is one place where you can farm divine confetti in Ashina Castle. It's a low rate drop but it can be repeatedly run easily.

Mid to late game is when you will find the purple gourd but pacifying powder can be found early, in the Abandoned dungeon. The purple umbrella is a later game item.

All bosses have their gimmicks. Learning their gimmicks and how they use them will help you beat them. Learning the gimmicks will help later in the game for higher level mobs and bosses. Generally the gimmick is actually a teaching moment.

There is a difference between gimmicks that are a genuine treat to learn and work around and gimmicks like this that ruin the fight by limiting you to a single, unreliable method to settle it. The gimmick of apparitions where I need an item to physically hit them? Fine. But having that on top of different bosses that *also* have deadly unfair bs like "what if we made the players' literal only way to move be jumping? oh and remove the dodge too, ha ha" just turns what ordinarily is a fun extra layer of difficulty into a softlock.

In this case I need to, on top of grinding for barely reprehensible items for 30 minutes every time I want another attempt at the boss, rely on the umbrella for ALL of his attacks a fraction of a second after any which one of my attacks land, assuming I'm not already in an animation when he decides to do his .3 second judo chop and I then physically don't have time to block. Even then, what happens when I run out of spirit emblems? Do I just die?

But sure, I'll just practice like that will regain my ability to dodge, or anything else that will make this less painful. That sure solves my problem.

[VisciousFishes]

Originally posted by a quality meme:

There is a difference between gimmicks that are a genuine treat to learn and work around and gimmicks like this that ruin the fight by limiting you to a single, unreliable method to settle it. The gimmick of apparitions where I need an item to physically hit them? Fine. But having that on top of different bosses that *also* have deadly unfair bs like "what if we made the players' literal only way to move be jumping? oh and remove the dodge too, ha ha" just turns what ordinarily is a fun extra layer of difficulty into a softlock.

In this case I need to, on top of grinding for barely reprehensible items for 30 minutes every time I want another attempt at the boss, rely on the umbrella for ALL of his attacks a fraction of a second after any which one of my attacks land, assuming I'm not already in an animation when he decides to do his .3 second judo chop and I then physically don't have time to block. Even then, what happens when I run out of spirit emblems? Do I just die?

But sure, I'll just practice like that will regain my ability to dodge, or anything else that will make this less painful. That sure solves my problem.

Go play something else. This game is not for you. You have no patience and a lack of humility to learn anything. Seriously, go play something else. Don't play Sifu though.

Go play anything else but this game. It is not for you. You have literally told me this after everything you have said on this thread. No need for the sarcasm because you're butt hurt that you have yet to master the skills to git gud. M'kay? Yeah?

[Mydlak]

run past them

[a quality meme]

Originally posted by VisciousFishes:

Originally posted by a quality meme:

There is a difference between gimmicks that are a genuine treat to learn and work around and gimmicks like this that ruin the fight by limiting you to a single, unreliable method to settle it. The gimmick of apparitions where I need an item to physically hit them? Fine. But having that on top of different bosses that *also* have deadly unfair bs like "what if we made the players' literal only way to move be jumping? oh and remove the dodge too, ha ha" just turns what ordinarily is a fun extra layer of difficulty into a softlock.

In this case I need to, on top of grinding for barely reprehensible items for 30 minutes every time I want another attempt at the boss, rely on the umbrella for ALL of his attacks a fraction of a second after any which one of my attacks land, assuming I'm not already in an animation when he decides to do his .3 second judo chop and I then physically don't have time to block. Even then, what happens when I run out of spirit emblems? Do I just die?

But sure, I'll just practice like that will regain my ability to dodge, or anything else that will make this less painful. That sure solves my problem.

Go play something else. This game is not for you. You have no patience and a lack of humility to learn anything. Seriously, go play something else. Don't play Sifu though.

Go play anything else but this game. It is not for you. You have literally told me this after everything you have said on this thread. No need for the sarcasm because you're butt hurt that you have yet to master the skills to git gud. M'kay? Yeah?

Bro, I'm having the time of my life trying again and again at General Ashina, learning his moves and difficulties, and am currently trying to get more prepared for the fight so I stand a better chance. Why? Because it's an actually fun fight that actually challenges the things you've learned to that point. He even has his own gimick that's done perfectly well, as while you can find an item to nullify it, they even add a brand new mechanic specifically to counter it if you don't have said item.

Instead with this fight, and several others, you can fully understand the gimmicks, practice exactly what you need to do extensively, and still get your ass handed to you over and over not because you're missing something, but because of a bad design choice you're allowed to call out. The Long-Arm Centipede Giraffe is a perfect example of this, and I killed him shortly before finding my first Headless. He's there to test your parrying abilities, which is fine, exactly what you mean by a teaching moment, and once you get a groove on it you can parry him fairly easily, but then they make the room about a foot wide so you can barely move, let alone have the time or distance to heal unless you just took out a life, and even that's only a couple seconds. God forbid you touch a wall in that fight too, because the boss will pin you to it with no hope of escape or ability to see his attacks, which is the sole reason it took me so long to beat him. That's not a fun experience and doesn't test skill, it's just luck at that point on if I can somehow manage to stay in the middle of the closet without being pushed into another wall and chained to continuous attacks til I die. When I finally beat him I didn't get hit once, but that should have been a result an hour before when I had first learned how to time my parries instead of dragged out by the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ room they placed the boss in. The thing about that though is you don't require a specific item to fight him, and you spawn right in front of him, so the game at least acknowledges you're meant to try again and again with him until you get the right outcome. I can't do that with this fight, I can't trial and error him until I figure out how it's even possible to avoid the Headless' attacks, so when I reach out for advice and the only result I get is "practice or come back with better items" as if that's new information, and calling that out to dig for specific, helpful advice, is just met with "stop playing then lol" my chances still remain null and void.

Should I just consider these fights gated off until I beat General Ashina and find better items then? Wait until I find someone who sells Divine Confetti? I guess that's my only option since even the basic ask of "what do I do when I run out of spirit emblems" can't be answered.

It's not an issue of patience, skill or humility, since you apparently can guess my character through a computer screen instead of telling me what I don't already know, it's a genuine lack of understanding on how to avoid taking damage when I run out of my umbrella in the first minute of the fight. But sure, blame it on the player. There are no flaws in the souls games, after all, just the person playing them. That's gospel.

[a quality meme]

I watched a short video getting to the point about the fight and it was so much more helpful. I knew that pacifying agent and confetti were required but if you had mentioned an actual tip like the mist being dispelled by continuing to hit him and deflecting his attacks you'll only have the strength to tank via agent, it would have made things so much easier. I thought you were just outright expected to do the whole fight slowed and unable to dodge, and instead of telling me this wasn't the case or that his terror is tied to this state, you decide to badger my character and deny my ability to even play when I'm disappointed with your item advice I already knew about.

It's on me though. I shoulda just looked it up on Youtube in the first place instead of assuming Steam could help. Oh well.

[Crypto Gamer]

ALL terror sub bosses are optional I think there are 3 shicimen warriors and 5 headless(3 on land and 2 inside water).Albeit the last water headless has a weaker illusory brother too.

You do not need to kill them early on while you lack stats,anti terror items,have low hp and attack power and very limited divine confetty.

On lower NG cycles and with good attack power you can just slowly purple(anti appiration) umbrella block and living force counter attack them down at basically almost zero threat and slowly kill them.

The purple flame (anti appiration) flamevent in "flamethrower mode" can also stun lock shicimen warriors not sure about headless so you can likely kill at least 1 health bar with almost zero risk.
Purple flame vent+living force attack gives divine confetty effect for 20 seconds.

The above needs ZERO divine confetty and can kill them.

But usually you want 2 divine confetty for each health bar.

Water headless do not have 90% dmg reduction(1/10 dmg) like land ones do but you should still use divine confetty before entering the water so you kill them easier.

Now"malcontent"stuns appirations up to 3 times per battle(12 spirit emblem cost)
With+dmg sugar and divine confetty you can likely kill 1.5 health bars with 3 uses at almost zero threat too you as they are stunned.
On NG you can likely both health bars..........

Terror cureables and resistances increases are obviously useful especially the gourd one as that can be used under water.

Shicimen warriors can also be air death blowed while in air if you are under divine confetty effects.
So you can purchase anti air death blow passive from assasin merchant.


In late game you unlock infinite divine confetty stock to every merchant cost 300 sen per piece.

If they are close to death and you lack every anti appriation stuff you can still kill them Shicimen warrior takes 33% dmg and on land headless 10% normal sword dmg.

Divine confetty inceases vit damage dealt by 25% eg.humans,and also has around 20% chip damage even if blocked.

Againts undead damage is more and againts appirations damage increase is even more.

There is also 1 spirit ghost lady sub boss who I think is immune to malcontent but has only 33% dmg reduction(of course divine confetty still very useful)and she is also weak to poison.

Almost every if not every sub boss has a weakness to something BUT you can still complete the game with just using jump,dodge,deflect,sword R1s.

[VisciousFishes]

Dude, I gave you spoiler free hints and you decided to reply with sarcasm and having a pop. Don't be surprised when I respond in kind.

I gave you tips but again, you replied with hostility so I told you to play something else. I gave you solid advice on where to farm divine confetti and what items would help your fight. Again, instead of not being a ♥♥♥♥, you decided to go full penis mode.

Having read you opening paragraph I should've known this is how it would play out.

[a quality meme]

Originally posted by VisciousFishes:

Dude, I gave you spoiler free hints and you decided to reply with sarcasm and having a pop. Don't be surprised when I respond in kind.

I gave you tips but again, you replied with hostility so I told you to play something else. I gave you solid advice on where to farm divine confetti and what items would help your fight. Again, instead of not being a ♥♥♥♥, you decided to go full penis mode.

Having read you opening paragraph I should've known this is how it would play out.

You told me about items I have yet to gain, and when I sarcastically said that didn't help and complained about what I thought was the only approach to take since no one had revealed another one, you proceeded to tell me I wasn't fit to play simply because I didn't understand what wasn't being told to me. You didn't provide anything insightful beyond what I had already found on the wiki, a farm location I had already tried and used all my item balloons on for a whopping ZERO confetti, and that all gimmicks are learning experiences, which I again already knew. Despite the problem being clearly identified from the beginning that I don't even know how to not get hit.

You re-reading my opening paragraph tells you exactly what I have already repeated: that my problem was not with needing items, but not wanting to waste them due to dying over and over to hits I knew no way to avoid, because I thought the "lack of ability to dodge and effectively block" were a permanent constant to the fight, not a state that you can remove. You essentially gave me advice I had already said I didn't need, so forgive me for being a bit frustrated and sarcastic about it. I hoped you'd catch the hint and tell me what I had asked for: a strategy. You instead took it as an insult, and here we are.

I could have been less salty about it, I admit that, but hostile? Please. I was genuinely criticizing that not all the gimmicks in the game are executed well, complained about the necessary grinding that didn't work out for me, asked what to do without spirit emblems since I thought the fight relied on them, and placed a sarcastic backhanded remark that wasn't even directed at you. That's it. If you want to take that as a personal attack instead of challenging any of what I said so something constructive could happen, that's on you mate.

[a quality meme]

Originally posted by Crypto Gamer:

ALL terror sub bosses are optional I think there are 3 shicimen warriors and 5 headless(3 on land and 2 inside water).Albeit the last water headless has a weaker illusory brother too.

You do not need to kill them early on while you lack stats,anti terror items,have low hp and attack power and very limited divine confetty.

On lower NG cycles and with good attack power you can just slowly purple(anti appiration) umbrella block and living force counter attack them down at basically almost zero threat and slowly kill them.

The purple flame (anti appiration) flamevent in "flamethrower mode" can also stun lock shicimen warriors not sure about headless so you can likely kill at least 1 health bar with almost zero risk.
Purple flame vent+living force attack gives divine confetty effect for 20 seconds.

The above needs ZERO divine confetty and can kill them.

But usually you want 2 divine confetty for each health bar.

Water headless do not have 90% dmg reduction(1/10 dmg) like land ones do but you should still use divine confetty before entering the water so you kill them easier.

Now"malcontent"stuns appirations up to 3 times per battle(12 spirit emblem cost)
With+dmg sugar and divine confetty you can likely kill 1.5 health bars with 3 uses at almost zero threat too you as they are stunned.
On NG you can likely both health bars..........

Terror cureables and resistances increases are obviously useful especially the gourd one as that can be used under water.

Shicimen warriors can also be air death blowed while in air if you are under divine confetty effects.
So you can purchase anti air death blow passive from assasin merchant.


In late game you unlock infinite divine confetty stock to every merchant cost 300 sen per piece.

If they are close to death and you lack every anti appriation stuff you can still kill them Shicimen warrior takes 33% dmg and on land headless 10% normal sword dmg.

Divine confetty inceases vit damage dealt by 25% eg.humans,and also has around 20% chip damage even if blocked.

Againts undead damage is more and againts appirations damage increase is even more.

There is also 1 spirit ghost lady sub boss who I think is immune to malcontent but has only 33% dmg reduction(of course divine confetty still very useful)and she is also weak to poison.

Almost every if not every sub boss has a weakness to something BUT you can still complete the game with just using jump,dodge,deflect,sword R1s.

I appreciate the in-depth stats. I already have anti-air which is how I killed the first Shicimen at the bottomless hole. My main problem is the Headless is the slow effect they use that disables dodge, but now that I know that's a state I can remove with damage it'll be much easier to fight. I also thought it was a specific merchant you'd need but I'm glad to be mistaken. Thanks.