Is it me or is old Isshin way more difficult than Sword Saint Isshin?

[primalforlorn]

I feel like that old Isshin is basically telling you to forget what you learn in the game and play passively, like how Demon of Hatred tells you to fight him like a dark soul boss.

First of all, old isshin dodges, quite unpredictably so. For all the hours I spend playing this game, the way you deal with enemies is to dance with them. Basically you counter their combo and then you attack until they deflect you attack. You instinctly remember the sword clangs so that you can complete the dance of death. old Isshin take this dancing thing to the next level, when he dodge your attack, your brain can't register what is happening and you are probably in the middle of your next attack that it is too late to block/ deflect.

Secondly, that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grab attack. Seriously who is in charge of hitbox in this game. my character is visibly out of range of the grab animation and somehow I still get pull in by whatever teleportation magic they have. And half of the time the grab happens when you are attacking, meaning that your body block Isshin and most likely don't see it coming.

Lastly, what I love the most is that you can't really tell what the perilous attack is. When Sword Saint Isshin sheath his sword, he is either going to do a sweep attack or dragon flash. When Old Isshin sheath however, you are gonna regret it when you see his hands reaching to your leg as you try to stomp him.

I beat the demon of hatred on my third try and Sword Saint Isshin on the fifth try. Old Isshin however, on NG+2 i have died to him seven times already (including Emma and her ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grab). I thought I git gud after beating Genichiro, how wrong I was.

[Phibbus]

I found Emma/Isshin more difficult than Genichiro/Isshin, as well. I thought his standstill dodge was a glitch at first since it looks way more like your attack is just going through him. Just remember that he's going to do it every time you attack him while he's not moving, and you always have to deflect immediately afterward.

Both of their grabs are a pain, but as long as you're in their faces, you can double-jump both of them to get in some posture damage.

[Kensei]

I felt like that too, but that was because my first ever attempt at Shura ending was on NG+3(4th playthrough) so you can imagine how ridiculous his posture and vitality dmg was, this goes for both Emma and Isshin. That resulted in me getting one/two-shoted, for one mistake.
On top of that Emma was a new boss, so I had yet to get familiar with her moveset and Isshin feels like a different boss altogether as well, with timing of his attacks scattered all around, compared to Sword Saint.

If however I did Shura ending first I think I would find Sword Saint harder on next playthroughs.

[Leoscar]

Yeah he is quite tough but becomes very predictable when you know his gimmicks. And 2nd phase can be cheesed with the firecrackers.

[Kensei]

Originally posted by Leoscar:

Yeah he is quite tough but becomes very predictable when you know his gimmicks. And 2nd phase can be cheesed with the firecrackers.

You shouldn't rate difficulty of a boss, based on how easy he is to cheese.

[MightyCaco]

I went for the Shura ending at NG+1. Personally I didn't find him that bad. I still died to him a few times, but I thought the learning curve wasn't as intense as SS Isshin. At the end of the day, Emma/Isshin just has a different fighting pattern, and it just takes a little time for the brain to adapt to this different pattern. Especially coming from SS Isshin. Some of the difficulty comes from your playstyle as well, as I'm sure different people have different ways of dealing with certain bosses.

[Leoscar]

Originally posted by Kensei:

Originally posted by Leoscar:

Yeah he is quite tough but becomes very predictable when you know his gimmicks. And 2nd phase can be cheesed with the firecrackers.

You shouldn't rate difficulty of a boss, based on how easy he is to cheese.

You mean how I'm using the tools the game is giving me to counter the slow, difficult to deal with attacks? Wouldn't call it cheese.

[Phibbus]

Originally posted by Kensei:

Originally posted by Leoscar:

Yeah he is quite tough but becomes very predictable when you know his gimmicks. And 2nd phase can be cheesed with the firecrackers.

You shouldn't rate difficulty of a boss, based on how easy he is to cheese.

I'm not sure if that's actually a cheese since it seems like a legitimately-intended use of the firecrackers. Maybe they should have made him less susceptible.

[Kensei]

Originally posted by Leoscar:

Originally posted by Kensei:

You shouldn't rate difficulty of a boss, based on how easy he is to cheese.

You mean how I'm using the tools the game is giving me to counter the slow, difficult to deal with attacks? Wouldn't call it cheese.

You called it a cheese yourself...
Yes you should use tools in the game, but skipping the entire phase of a fight through chain stunning a boss is definitely not intended way of fighting him.

[Leoscar]

Originally posted by Kensei:

Originally posted by Leoscar:

You mean how I'm using the tools the game is giving me to counter the slow, difficult to deal with attacks? Wouldn't call it cheese.

You called it a cheese yourself...
Yes you should use tools in the game, but skipping the entire phase of a fight through chain stunning a boss is definitely not intended way of fighting him.

I use the word cheese because it's a habit, and a bad one unfortunatly :|

And I don't skip the phase. I just interrupt the big, obvious fire attacks. I don't think I have enough ammo to propery stunlock him on my savefile.

[Ritterkreuz]

It actually depends. I used to find old isshin is way harder than sword saint. But now i find old Isshin to be relatively easier than SSI. His first phase is just deflecting and building up his posture bar while his 2nd phase is even easier since his fire moves and one mind can be easily outmaneuvered and countered either by jumping away, rotating around him and firecrackers.

[𝕊𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕒]

Originally posted by primalforlorn:

I feel like that old Isshin is basically telling you to forget what you learn in the game and play passively, like how Demon of Hatred tells you to fight him like a dark soul boss.

First of all, old isshin dodges, quite unpredictably so. For all the hours I spend playing this game, the way you deal with enemies is to dance with them. Basically you counter their combo and then you attack until they deflect you attack. You instinctly remember the sword clangs so that you can complete the dance of death. old Isshin take this dancing thing to the next level, when he dodge your attack, your brain can't register what is happening and you are probably in the middle of your next attack that it is too late to block/ deflect.

Secondly, that ♥♥♥♥ing grab attack. Seriously who is in charge of hitbox in this game. my character is visibly out of range of the grab animation and somehow I still get pull in by whatever teleportation magic they have. And half of the time the grab happens when you are attacking, meaning that your body block Isshin and most likely don't see it coming.

Lastly, what I love the most is that you can't really tell what the perilous attack is. When Sword Saint Isshin sheath his sword, he is either going to do a sweep attack or dragon flash. When Old Isshin sheath however, you are gonna regret it when you see his hands reaching to your leg as you try to stomp him.

I beat the demon of hatred on my third try and Sword Saint Isshin on the fifth try. Old Isshin however, on NG+2 i have died to him seven times already (including Emma and her ♥♥♥♥ing grab). I thought I git gud after beating Genichiro, how wrong I was.

its you git gud lol

[OCTDUMPUS]

I agree on Emma being way harder then Geni, but as a glass cannon, it doesnt take that long to master her.

Fire Isshin on the other hand, is a cakewalk compare to SS Isshin imo, especially if you fought the latter before. Both of his phases are more or less the same, the dodge is just to prevent overaggression, which he almost always performs in his neutral state, so its pretty easy to read and follow up with a delayed deflect.

Second phase is actually pretty forgiving as the 2 fire attack strings he uses the most are very punishable, just dodge for easy vitality dmg. Hell, you can deflect the one mind for extra posture dmg and style points.

P.s. I can testify you can simply press shift at the right time to step dodge both Emma and Isshin's grabs, the timing is tight but its 100% doable

[primalforlorn]

Originally posted by voice:

Originally posted by primalforlorn:

I feel like that old Isshin is basically telling you to forget what you learn in the game and play passively, like how Demon of Hatred tells you to fight him like a dark soul boss.

First of all, old isshin dodges, quite unpredictably so. For all the hours I spend playing this game, the way you deal with enemies is to dance with them. Basically you counter their combo and then you attack until they deflect you attack. You instinctly remember the sword clangs so that you can complete the dance of death. old Isshin take this dancing thing to the next level, when he dodge your attack, your brain can't register what is happening and you are probably in the middle of your next attack that it is too late to block/ deflect.

Secondly, that ♥♥♥♥ing grab attack. Seriously who is in charge of hitbox in this game. my character is visibly out of range of the grab animation and somehow I still get pull in by whatever teleportation magic they have. And half of the time the grab happens when you are attacking, meaning that your body block Isshin and most likely don't see it coming.

Lastly, what I love the most is that you can't really tell what the perilous attack is. When Sword Saint Isshin sheath his sword, he is either going to do a sweep attack or dragon flash. When Old Isshin sheath however, you are gonna regret it when you see his hands reaching to your leg as you try to stomp him.

I beat the demon of hatred on my third try and Sword Saint Isshin on the fifth try. Old Isshin however, on NG+2 i have died to him seven times already (including Emma and her ♥♥♥♥ing grab). I thought I git gud after beating Genichiro, how wrong I was.

its you git gud lol

This is exactly what I do. Git gud today after beating them on second try, with the first try being a test run and to wake my brain up. I figure that I did not have enough blood sugar yesterday when fighting emma and isshin, you know, playing 8 hours nonstop in a focus intensive game and trying to rush all endings. After the first death I can see the boss pattern easily. And I realise I did not even try to use firecrackers and umbrella. The boss is indeed easier when you ignore the anime stuff and dodge the grab sideway or jump back on every perilous attack that involve Isshin sheathing his blade.

[Evilsod]

Emma/Isshin Ashina are far easier than Genichiro/Sword Saint Isshin.

Emma is a 100% warmup for Isshin. The vast majority of her moves are exactly the same since she uses his style. You get in and pressure her non-stop, you can end the fight very quickly, all you have to do is make sure to react properly when she uses the grab and backaway for some free damage.
Isshin is exactly the same with some more free openings, like when he uses Ichimonji. His grapple also comes out a little faster so you can't get caught swinging, which his dodge also teaches you not to do. If you get caught attacking constantly, he will very easily punish you.

The only thing I find very annoying is his second phase where he has so many attacks that make him briefly immune to stumble effects with no rhyme or reason. That does turn into a hit n run passive fest. Could be I just never figured out how to take the fight to him properly, who knows. It's not actually hard, just frustrating and easy to make mistakes in.

Genichiro you've already had opportunities to practice against so by now you've probably got a good idea how to batter him.
Sword Saint phase one has an extremely familiar moveset to Isshin Ashina. I was actually quite surprised when I went back to him. (I did the Shura ending after a year off, with a different save file on the final bosses after).
Sword Saint phase two is where all hell breaks loose and he gets attacks with a massive range that can be difficult to predict (especially in the field) and a pistol for range. This phase is so much harder than Isshin Ashina. Phase three is basically the same but with free damage from Lightning Reversal.

[Ballensmurf]

Genichiro/Isshin took me dozens of tries, but old Isshin i beat in no time. I think he's much more predictable.

I thought his sidestep dodge was hilarious, did not see that coming the first few times.

But maybe I think of it this way because I fought old Isshin much later and had gotten quite a bit better at the game by that point.