Kuro's Charm is definitely not for everyone, WOW

[Vycer]

Beat the game, after 50+ hours, with all bosses, all itens and all upgrades that i could have, and finally got to the NG+, to make all others endings of the game.

Well, I spoken to Kuro and I saw that I could give him his charm to make the "real game" begin, and play the game without the help of Kuro, what is surprisingly great! All that time I have been protected by Kuro's blessing and now I got to face all threats by myself. Nice!

The difficult of the game was not that hard and the chip damage of blocking was not too hard to deal, principally because now I am a trained shinobi on the professional art of deflecting. That was smooth. :D

Until I made all way to Great Shinobi Owl and got stuck, more than 5 hours of repeatedly facing him, diyng on his first phase and getting back to him uncountable times, I pefect learned all his attack patterns and, even with that, I couldn't kill him, no matter what.

Up a time I was so tired that I couldn't do it anymore, so I picked the charm back.

Well, now with Kuro's power I killed the boss on the first try (with charm) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

I really don't know why that fight was so hard without that charm and don't have any ideia of what happened that I could easily kill him, with no fear of defeat.

Well, I just realized that somehow Kuro's Charm run is not for everyone, and now I am really sad about it (cause I am trash).

Thats it, I'm just complaining about myself.

And You that can beat this game without Kuro's Charm, you are a GOD beyond humanity.

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

Practise makes perfect, I'm currently grinding out my no-death run (without kuro's charm) and it's tricky enough, but after going for a no death-run without kuro's charm will most likely be one of the hardest challenges for me.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

I love charmless. If you practise enough, you can get it, I promise. One thing you can try is starting a brand new game (not NG+) and trying that charmless. I didn't go charmless till like NG+5, and it was a major jump in difficulty because of how much damage some blocked (not deflected) boss attacks could do. I've heard it's much more lenient on NG. After NG charmless you can work your way up to harder charmless runs if you want.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Vycer:

And You that can beat this game without Kuro's Charm, you are a GOD beyond humanity.

Nah, it's just practice. Most soulslikes are just practice more than talent.

I've killed most bosses without Kuro's charm without taking damage and I'm pretty ♥♥♥♥ at games that require quick and precise input.

[Vycer]

Originally posted by Luna ☾:

Practise makes perfect, I'm currently grinding out my no-death run (without kuro's charm) and it's tricky enough, but after going for a no death-run without kuro's charm will most likely be one of the hardest challenges for me.

Wow, good luck tho! You're awesome

Originally posted by E.P.D. Gaffney:

One thing you can try is starting a brand new game (not NG+) and trying that charmless.

Oh, thanks, I'll try it later on

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

Nah, it's just practice. Most soulslikes are just practice more than talent.

Yeah, i know that, but it is still very very hard, cause, depending on the boss, literally any mistake makes you die.
And the fights agains't the most powerfull ones (owl, ishin...) tends to be very longs (lots of minutes), cause the boss posture regen is mega buffed and you got to drain their health with pacience and pace.

The only exception to the fight be smooth is when you miss no one deflect, but that is god tier.

My exemple is the gap between Owl and Genichiro, Genechiro took me some time, but it's a pretty decent fight, almost the same as the charm fight. But Owl is way harder than his normal (charm on) fight, cause his attacks when blockeds do expressive damage to health and posture, so any mistake in a combo cause you to lose posture and get one hit (and two hits non healed up means death).

It's pratice on deflect, yes, but it is very hard indeed.

[Alexoferith]

Yo, Vycer, don't talk yourself down. I got all the achievements and all endings and everything back in summer 2020. I went on to play other games. Over a year later, I decided to play this game again. Played the normal game and got all endings, as a warm up. Then I played the game without Kuro's charm. Jee, I was killed so many times by the lowly minions because I thought I could deflect. How wrong I was!!! I now know that I have been mistiming the deflect but I held the button which was actually a block. I died after "deflecting" 3 hits from the general (the one right after the Ogre) because my posture and health were so badly damaged. Over the week, I learnt to delay to press the deflect button and always looked for that "clinking" sound, not "clanking", remember that. If I hear clanking sound, I will back up and heal or recover my posture. I find it a bit easier using the sound to learn rather than looking at the attack animation of the enemies. To sum up, perfect deflect or parry will give a sharper sound. Mistiming the deflect will give a duller sound.
You know the toughest one, O'rin. I had to give up after 6 or 7 hrs. I tried combinations of confetti and either red or yellow or blue sugar. I couldn't last. The next day, I defeated her on 2nd attempts. I remembered one thing though, I never looked at her health bar or posture bar deliberately. Just concentrated on deflect, looking for that sharp tone. It was very satisfying to say the least. After that, the ghostly corrupted monk was nothing.
To cut a long story short, I finished the no Kuro's charm playthrough. Now I am playing without Kuro's charm and equipped with the Demon Bell. I tell you though. Apart from O'rin, the other toughest opponent is the white monkey with two swords. I ran out of healing potion because of mistiming the deflect, especially it has TWO swords. I subconciously held the deflect button longer when I saw it swing both swords together. This of course resulted in a block and hence I suffered from health damage. The worst thing was this damn monkey is so quick and jump far to reach you. This time, I spent all my ceremonial tanto and shurikens to kill it, i.e. I cheesed it from far away. And now, I am going to face O'rin without Kuro's charm and with the Demon Bell. This is an amazing game. So, yeah, give it a 2nd try, without the Kuro's charm. :)

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Vycer:

Yeah, i know that, but it is still very very hard, cause, depending on the boss, literally any mistake makes you die.

Nah, even the hardest ones have plenty of attacks that you can get hit by and survive. Sure, there are some one-shots, or combos that if you get hit guaranteed kill you (such as Demon of Hatred's fireballs or Inner Father's Mist Raven counter if your posture is above ~30%), and getting hit is far more punishing, but you can make mistakes. I've had fights against Inner Father where I've killed him after using all of my healing gourds.

[Sokurah]

First time charmless is very hard for most people but once you have it, never go back.
At least i never did :D

[(ง︡'-'︠)ง Hor Hay J]

I bet you would of won without the charm. Has happened a lot to me far back as DS1, can't beat a boss take a break and win first try back. Sometimes you just need a break.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Originally posted by Jase shoelace:

I bet you would of won without the charm. Has happened a lot to me far back as DS1, can't beat a boss take a break and win first try back. Sometimes you just need a break.

This is more true than people realise. Breaks can be incredibly important for your brain. This is why you shouldn't cram for exams. And how I can tell when my piano students didn't practise till the day I was going to see them.

[Dfeeds]

I just beat Owl a couple hours ago, charmless on a NG. It was harder than NG+ charmless, that's for sure. There's two ways I was able to beat him. The first, and less reliable, is to get him stuck in a corner. You can get free damage whenever he jumps back and, if you're fast enough, you can interrupt a lot of his moves. I blew through his first phase really fast doing this but, again, I wasn't able to do so consistently.

The second is to focus more on chipping away at his HP. So I deflect all of his attacks except for his attack where he jumps in the air (side step then attack) and his slow sword swings. I would dash behind him and get a couple free hits. This lets his posture bar actually start to fill up.

In either case, you have to keep the intensity up otherwise the fight takes a really long time and it's hard (at least for me) to keep perfect parrying in longer fights. I mentally just go poop.

[Doctor Teo]

I feel similarly.

I like it when a fight is difficult, but I do not care much for length. The whole chip damage thing, I'm actually somewhat cool with - a light punish for an imperfect deflect, adds some extra pressure for slipping up. However, the fact that the fights drag on due to lower health damage and better posture recovery, I'm less sold on. It's like running a race, then being asked to run the same race again - didn't I just prove I could do it already?

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Yeah, I do overall prefer charmless, but some of the bosses and even some standard enemies start to feel a bit spongy. I love the damage through guard, but some of the value adjustments are I think a bit much, at least from NG+7 and beyond. But I tried playing again with the charm and I just can't do it, so it is what it is.

[Sokurah]

Originally posted by E.P.D. Gaffney:

Yeah, I do overall prefer charmless, but some of the bosses and even some standard enemies start to feel a bit spongy. I love the damage through guard, but some of the value adjustments are I think a bit much, at least from NG+7 and beyond. But I tried playing again with the charm and I just can't do it, so it is what it is.

You should not complain when you play in such high ng+ saves🤣

I usually use my ng+4 where i stopped and the balance feels fine.

Not too easy not too hard.

With bell on and without using any attack power upgrades from my last run gives it a little more challange but its still fine.

I tried a no upgrade run once and it was awful after genichiro. You just deal no damage and even mini bosses take forever.

It really needs to be still fun not a slog.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

I'm not really complaining. I'm saying what's on my mind when I get an alert for a thread I've posted in. I don't have a NG+4 save and it's not really that big a deal to me. i'm on NG+12 or something and whenever I replay the game it will probably just be more charmless + Bell Demon in NG+ cycles beyond NG+7 because that's what I'm used to and what's convenient to load up.

[LightLance]

You (op) apparently haven't tried yet Reflections of Strength charmless with DB. This is the last difficulty level where core combat is still viable and fun.