Sifu - From Student To Master

A guide for those starting out on their journey, covering gameplay basics and fundamentals, systems, mechanics, attack properties, and more.

Does not contain information about enemies/bosses and their attacks. May be added later, if I feel like it.

Introduction & Ingame Tutorial

Hello! If you're reading this, then you're likely interested in getting better at Sifu. We've all been there, myself included, and I'm happy to share everything that I've learned since the game's initial release in 2022.

Sifu is a difficult game, full of tough encounters and mechanics that sometimes aren't explained in thorough detail for players to realise their full potential. And sometimes just straight up not explained at all.

Before we begin, though, I strongly advise you to visit the game's tutorial. And no, I'm not talking about the prologue.


If you interact with the training dummy in the Wuguan, or press "Training" under "Arenas", you'll be dropped into the tutorial menu. The tutorials will explain basic gameplay mechanics, and ways to approach certain situations. Don't skip out on these, they'll help you in the long run.



Most importantly, though
YOU CAN PRACTICE AGAINST ENEMIES AND BOSSES IN TRAINING MODE!
Seriously, do not skip out on this. Using "FREE TRAINING", as long as you've killed an enemy type or a boss at least once, they'll be available for you to learn their moves and patterns.

Difficulty Levels: Student/Disciple/Master

Student/Disciple/Master can be pretty much described as Easy/Medium/Hard. Aside from a couple in-game challenges (available post-completion), no content or achievements are locked behind them. You're not missing out on anything if you choose one over the other (aside from the challenge itself, which can arguably be the crux of the game).

Student

• The easy mode, for when you just want to smack people without a care in the world.
  
• The death counter doesn't scale. With each death, you'll always age by 1.
  
• One of the shrine bonuses allows you to make yourself younger by 5 years.
  
• Huge HP & Structure bars for the player.
  
• Smaller HP & Structure bars for the enemies.
  
• Enemies are overall less aggressive.

Disciple

• The difficulty that the game originally shipped with, and for a time it was the only one. The default, and the intended experience.
  
• Default pendant behaviour - your age scales with accumulated deaths.
  
• One of the shrine bonuses instead allows you to set the death counter (not your age!) back to 0.
  
• Moderately-sized HP & Structure bars for the player and the enemies.
  
• Enemies are decently aggressive.

On the whole, though, one could say that Student and Disciple aren't incredibly different. The same, however, cannot be said for...

Master

• Intended for those who have mastered Disciple and want a harder challenge.
  
• Small HP & Structure bars for the player.
  
• Big HP & Structure bars for the enemies.
  
• Enemies are very aggressive and hit hard.
  
• More complicated enemy movesets - low/high mixups, longer combo strings, new moves. This is especially noticeable on bosses.

Glossary & Gameplay Loop

So what do you even do in Sifu? You hit enemies and don't let them hit you. Truly earth-shattering complexity.

On the offensive, you have standard combos and unlockable special attacks. On the defensive, you can block, deflect, parry, avoid, and dodge. Before we move on, I feel it's important to establish the terminology to make navigating the guide, and by extension the game itself, easier.

Avoid

By far the most important defensive move the player has in their moveset. Avoids are done by holding the block button and doing directional inputs. Left/Right/Down avoid mid and overhead attacks, Up avoids low attacks. There are only two Avoid directions, no more no less. Side avoids aren't a thing.



While they obviously prevent you from getting hit, Avoids have additional useful effects. Firstly, they restore your Structure, which will allow you to block more attacks. Secondly, when compatible, avoiding an attack will slow down time, and open up a window to punish the opponent for whiffing their attacks. This is usually the most common method of counterattacking.

Always remember - do avoids, don't dodge.

Dodge

An option with a deceptive name, even though it's technically not false. Dodging is done by pressing the Sprint (or "Rush") button once. This moves you in a direction you're currently holding (backdash if no direction is given), and gives you some invincibility frames. This move is incredibly useful for repositioning and controlling the spacing of the fight.



What dodging is not useful for, though, is... dodging. This move will not allow you to counterattack an enemy, it won't open up any punish windows, it won't restore any Structure for you (in fact, it'll stall the process). The above gif is a perfect demonstration of how not to use dodging, even if you benefit from its i-frames.

Use it as a way to get away from an enemy or cancel animations, but you shouldn't (and can't, really) use it for counterattacking.

Block

Done by simply holding the block button. Builds a lot of Structure for you, doesn't affect the enemy at all, can suffer from chip damage against certain attacks. If your Structure is at its maximum value, the next block will cause it to break.

"Wow, this sucks compared to every other option," you might say. "What's the point?"
Blocking is very useful when you can't react fast enough, or aren't fully familiar with an enemy's moveset. Simply holding block will allow you to block the enemy's first attack, instead of letting them get a drop on you. You can then use this to analyse the enemy's moves and act accordingly.

For example, Disciples have a combo consisting of two strikes followed by a push. You can block the two hits, realise that they're going for a push, and then parry/avoid the push.

Important Note: You build less structure if you block while holding a weapon. Chip damage is negated while holding a weapon. A weapon will never break if you only block/deflect with it.

Deflect

Press the block button to time it perfectly with an attack. Builds a little bit of Structure for you, builds a lot of Structure for enemies (especially with the Parry Impact shrine bonus). Even if your Structure is completely maxed out, it will never break if you keep deflecting.

Every single attack in the game (aside from grabs) can be deflected. Doesn't matter if it's a weapon or bare hands/legs, doesn't matter if it's a low or a high attack.

You can also deflect/parry (more on that later) in the middle of your own attack, making it the ultimate offensive defensive option.

Important Note: Much like with blocking, deflecting with a weapon in hand will build even less structure for you. Doesn't affect the enemies, though.

Parry

Same principle as deflects, you need to time your block button presses. However, certain parts of certain attacks can be interrupted, allowing you to counter. This interruption is called a Parry.

Dizzy and Superdizzy

Not to be confused with breaking an enemy's structure, Dizzy and Superdizzy are stuns that are applied to enemies once a certain threshold is reached.

Regular dizzy is applied on every counterhit/punish. If you've avoided an attack and then hit an enemy, they're in dizzy. This is a short stun that allows for a fittingly short combo.

Superdizzy is a separate state that is built up by counterattacking, punishing, and just generally dealing damage to the enemy, although some moves (like Duck Strike) build up more dizzy than others. Once in superdizzy, enemies can be combo'd for way longer.

There are both visual and audio tells for dizzy states. Visually, the game briefly freezes time, with a short freeze and a long freeze corresponding to dizzy and superdizzy respectively. As for audio, they both have very distinct audio cues that you can't confuse with anything else.

Good Habits & Crowd Control

• Remember - do avoids, don't dodge. Unless you're repositioning and creating some space between you and the enemy.
  
• When starting out, one of the more common mistakes players make is mashing attack all the time. While not a bad way to deal damage in and of itself, when done for too long, this will get countered very quickly. Enemies enter a blocking state after a certain amount of hits, and if you keep attacking while they're blocking, your next attack will get parried, and you will get hit hard.
  
  
  When you see an enemy blocking — disengage. Focus on someone else, or if it's a 1v1 fight - simply dash away and allow them to approach you. Then, counter their attack and start your offensive again. You could also try a sweep, or hit 'em with an ol' reliable focus attack.
  (Side note: While yes, you could eventually learn to counter the enemy's parry, it is inadvisable on a beginner level)
  
• Mashing normal attacks is all well and good - but seriously, get in the habit of using special attacks as often as possible, as early as possible. They'll be a great boon in handling a lot of situations. Same goes for Directional Throw.
  
• When faced with an ambiguous attack pattern, like a low/high mixup, remember that either of the possible options have the same deflect timings. Sometimes it's better/easier to deflect than to avoid.

When engaging in group fights, try to turn them into 1v1 fights as often as possible.

• Reposition by sprinting/dashing away, so that all of the enemies are coming from a single direction.
  
• Stick to tight corridors, and spaces with bottlenecks like small doorways.
  
• If possible, stick close to ledges and other environmental hazards, throw people off of them one by one.

If you still get surrounded, though, here's what you can do:

• Be (mostly) on the defensive: deflect/parry and avoid, instead of trying to attack. Exceptions include Crotch Punch, Duck Strike, and Reverse Sweep, as they allow you to avoid high attacks and punish an attacking enemy, countering and dizzying them.
  
• Keep in mind that you can only be simultaneously attacked by 2 enemies at any given moment. The rest of the group is forced to passively stare at you, doing nothing.
  
• Throw and push enemies around! Use Palm Strike and Directional Throw to your advantage. Enemies that get hit by a thrown enemy will also get briefly stunned, and get a little bit of dizzy built up in their dizzy gauge.
  
• Use sweeps to take enemies out of the fight - regular sweeps can work on dizzied enemies, and if you use the Strong Sweep focus attack, any target (even bosses!) will be incapacitated for 10 whole seconds, giving you a lot of breathing space and allowing you to focus on someone else.
  
• With the above in mind, Chasing Trip Kick is the best tool for the job - it acts like a throw (anyone in the way gets stunned), deals a huge chunk of damage, and sweeps your target.

Throws

There is so little information about throws ingame, despite being one of, if not the most important tools in the game, that they warrant their own section.

First up, there are (at least) three conditions that allow you to perform throws:

• Post-parry, as the game teaches you in the prologue.
  
• After avoiding and hitting the enemy (hit them once and you're good, doesn't matter if it's a Light or Heavy).
  
• Anytime the enemy is in dizzy. Did you toss a weapon at them, and they're now stunned? Throwable. Did you perform a Focus attack that put them into dizzy? Also throwable.

Furthermore, the game takes your surroundings and your directional inputs into account when you press the throw button. Let's overview some of the more common scenarios:

• Regular throw - simple as. Can be performed in the direction of another enemy, stunning that enemy for a little bit. When thrown towards a wall (with enough proximity), the target will receive some HP & structure damage. When thrown over a ledge/drop, the target will fall, and typically either take a lot of damage, or straight up die.
  
• Directional throw right next to a wall/waist-high object - the main character slams the target into said environmental object, with the latter also knocking the target onto the ground.
  
• Directional throw next to a railing - the main character throws the target over the railing, instakilling them. Situational and depends on the level/room, but incredibly effective. Cannot be done on Juggernauts.

Directional Influence & Reverse Attacks

At any time, the game's targeting system prioritises two things - the distance between the player and the enemy, and the direction the player is holding. The latter usually takes priority, which is critical in group fights.

If you want to target someone specific during a group fight, all you have to do is flick the stick or press the directional key towards to that enemy, and the player character will do what you ask. If the enemy to your left is closer, but you want to attack the enemy to your right, just hold right and you're good to go.

This is especially critical when it comes to special attacks.

Let's demonstrate. We all know our good 'ol buddy Regular Sweep, done with Back Forward Heavy.

However, what if we were to do... Forward Back Heavy?



What we just got here is a Reverse Sweep, which is an entirely separate attack with unique properties. You can use this to sweep anyone who's... well, behind you. It's slightly stronger, and avoids any high attacks, which makes it great in group fights.

The same goes for most of the special attacks. You can do a Reverse: Sweep, Crotch Punch, Duck Strike, Charged Backfist, Palm Strike, and probably others that I'm forgetting. Reverse attacks are overall stronger than their standard counterparts, dealing more damage and/or having unique properties, and it is advised to go for Reverse variants whenever you can. Charged Backfist is an exception, both of its variants have the exact same properties.

Actually, let's just list all of the benefits real quick:

• Reverse Sweep: High avoid, wider area of effect.
  
• Reverse Crotch Punch: Stronger interrupt
  
• Reverse Duck Strike: Higher damage, stronger interrupt, armored.
  
• Reverse Palm Strike: Farther range (leg kick), stronger interrupt.
  
• Reverse Charged Backfist: No special properties.

As long as your back is turned towards the enemy, and you do the directional inputs relative to that enemy, you'll get the desired attack. Want to push an enemy behind you? Do Forward Back Light. Crotch Punch someone to your left? Left Left Light.

And yes, you could just turn your camera towards whoever you want to hit, but that doesn't look nearly as cool, and you'd be missing out on Reverse properties.

Takedowns & Frenzy/Second Wind

There are a lot of reasons why you'd want to do takedowns:

• Health regen (this actually happens on regular kills too, doesn't have to be a takedown!)
  
• Passive Structure regeneration while the takedown animation is playing.
  
• All enemy attack animations are interrupted, and the surrounding enemies are pushed away, giving the player much needed breathing space.
  
• They look cool, duh.

The reason not to do takedowns, though, is Second Wind.



Second Wind, or Frenzy, is a state that enemies have a chance to enter when you attempt to perform a takedown on them. They get all of their HP restored, gain massive HP & Structure bars, deal more damage, and have a more complicated moveset. We, of course, don't want to deal with that, and lucky for us, there are ways to avoid ever triggering Second Wind.

Naturally, you could just... never do takedowns. After all, regular kills also restore health, and the other benefits can be substituted. But that's no fun.

The most important thing to know is that only two types of enemies can get Second Wind.
If we split Grunts into 4 tiers, from weakest to strongest, then only Tier 2 and Tier 3 can get Second Wind. They have decently long HP bars, and take a while to kill, so it's easy to tell who's who. Tier 1 (Servants) and Tier 4 (Miniboss), however, can never get Second Wind, so feel free to do takedowns on them. The same goes for any other archetype in the game - none of them, regardless of tier, can ever get Second Wind.

The game always keeps an internal counter of how many grunts you've killed without triggering Second Wind. After this counter reaches a certain number, the next grunt you perform a takedown on will Frenzy. Maybe you want to trigger it in an easier fight, or perhaps you're willing to risk triggering it later into the level? That's up to you.

Shrines

Shrines are these lil' dragon statues you can find scattered throughout a level.
In total, you can find 3 of these in each level, resulting in 15 shrines/bonuses towards the end of the game. This changes with shortcuts, though — if you take one, depending on the level, you may be limited to only 2 (Squats, Tower) or even just 1 (Museum, Sanctuary) shrine. That's the tradeoff — go through the level to get the most out of the shrine bonuses, or take a shortcut to get less in return.

• Every time you interact with a shrine, you get a full HP restore, even if you don't pick a bonus.
  
• Aside from the tree in Wuguan and the death screen, this is the only other place where you can buy skills.
  
• Shrines offer some pretty sweet passive bonuses that you don't want to miss out on.
  
• Age and Score merely act as thresholds, and don't get subtracted; XP acts as a currency and gets subtracted if you buy a shrine bonus from that category.

Shrine bonuses go as follows:

• Structure Reserve: Increases your structure, allowing you to block more hits before it breaks. Particularly useful if you haven't gotten accustomed to deflect timings yet, causing you to miss some of them.
  
• Health Gained on Takedowns: Increased HP regen. Mind the wording here — these have to be takedowns specifically (those mini-QTEs you do on enemies with broken structure), regular kills won't do.
  
• Weapon Durability: Allows you to attack with a weapon for longer before it breaks.
  
• Structure Regain: You recover structure at a faster rate when avoiding attacks.
  
• Focus Regain: You get more Focus for deflecting/parrying/avoiding. Admittedly, only really noticeable once you max out the bonus.
  
• Parry Impact: By far one of the most useful bonuses in the game, this greatly increases your structure damage when deflecting/parrying. Pretty much mandatory for Wude.
  
• Focus Reserve: Adds half of a focus bar to your total, requiring 4 unlocks to get all 3 bars.
  
• Weapon Proficiency: Increased weapon damage on both HP & Structure. Not much to say here.
  
• Death Counter/Rejuvenate: Resets the death counter to 0, and makes you younger by 5 years, respectively. If you play well, you won't ever need these, and they're also extreme XP sinks, which makes them not worth it ever.

Typically, an endgame-oriented build will end up something like this, with all shrine bonuses maxed out at 3:

• Structure Reserve
  
• Weapon Durability
  
• Structure Regain
  
• Parry Impact
  
• Weapon Proficiency

Scoring

The scoring system can be a bit of a doozy, so it's worth diving into.

Contrary to popular belief, style only marginally affects the scoring. You're not going to get better scores by doing long combos, bullying enemies, or any of that. While the game does reward doing as many hits as possible, particularly with multi-hit moves like post-parry heavy or Chasing Strikes, those gains can often be negligible.

Instead, you must focus on killing enemies as efficiently as possible. Find ways to instakill them (charged knife, throwing over a railing), or otherwise just keep their HP high when taking them out.

Here's what the score HUD looks like. Let's break it down:

• The colour of the score determines your "staleness". Yellow is the best, red is the worst. Keep your score coloured yellow by doing takedowns, deflects, counterattacks, and varying up your moveset. If you keep doing the same attack over and over (either the same special attack, or just spamming Light/Heavy), that score will turn red and you'll get less points, even if your multiplier is at 3x.
  
• The multiplier gauge determines for how long you can keep that multiplier. If you play too passively, running away from enemies and generally not attacking/defending, your multiplier will gradually drop. Be proactive and don't let that happen.
  
• Keep your multipler at 3x by avoiding, deflecting/parrying, taunting, and not getting hit. You can also use the Calbot focus move, which instantly brings up the multiplier up by 1 (from 1x to 2x, or from 2x to 3x).
  
• Prioritise structure damage and takedowns. When you do takedowns, the more health the enemy has when they're killed, the more points you get, so keep that health bar high.
  
• Don't forget about the Charged Backfist instakill when holding bladed weapons.
  
• Are you near a ledge, railing, or on a high vantage point? Throw enemies off of there, preferably when they're at full health and your score is coloured yellow. Dropping them brings the same amount of points as a takedown.
  
• Simply holding a weapon in your hand provides a points bonus. Attacks with a weapon also give you more points, but the score itself can get "stale" quickly due to the limited moveset.

Progress Carryover

People do be getting confused by this quite a bit.

Age

Your starting age on each level depends on how you completed the previous level, i.e. if you finish Squats at 22, you'll always start Club at 22. You can lower this by completing the preceding level at a younger age - complete Squats at 20, and you'll now always start Club at 20.

There are also two separate scenarios to consider:

• Chronological progression (Hideout 1 -> 2 -> 3): You carry over whichever age you had upon completing the preceding level, regardless of your actual youngest age.
  
• Non-chronological (Restarting the hideout/Choosing a hideout out of order): The game defaults to the youngest available age, whatever that may be.

Shrine Bonuses

The shrine bonuses carry over from your most recent completion of the previous level and don't depend on age. Let's demonstrate on a practical example.

• Starting age on Club: 22
  
• Shrine bonuses on Club: 3x Weapon Durability

Now, let's play through Squats again, but this time get 1x Weapon Durability, and 2x Parry Impact. Let's also consider that we've died a bit.

• Starting age on Club: 35
  
• Shrine bonuses on Club: 1x Weapon Durability, 2x Parry Impact

...and if we now click "Restart Hideout"...

• Starting age on Club: 22
  
• Shrine bonuses on Club: 1x Weapon Durability, 2x Parry Impact

As you can see, we've reverted back to our global youngest age, but retained the most recent shrine bonuses, until we play through Squats again and change them.

Skills

In order to Permanently Unlock a skill, you have to buy it five times in total. This doesn't have to be over a single playthrough, this doesn't even have to be consecutive. You can perma-unlock a skill over the course of multiple restarts and level transitions, and you'll be just fine. Every "initial" unlock also contributes to the permanent unlock counter.
Permanently Unlocked skills will, naturally, persist throughout the rest of the game, no matter what.

If a skill is not permanently unlocked:

• You will be able to use it as long as you play through the levels chronologically, without the need to permanently unlock it.
  
• As soon as you game over, restart the hideout, or change to a different hideout, you will lose the ability to use that skill, and you'll have to unlock it again if you want to use it. Your "permanent unlock" counter will still persist, and buying the skill again will also contribute to it.

Skill Tree: The Must-Haves

Sifu's skill tree has some pretty cool and genuinely useful stuff, although with 25 unlocks to consider, the choice can be a bit overwhelming. The following is a list of skills widely considered to be absolutely essential in any build, although this isn't necessarily a ranking or a list of priority. Pick whatever you feel you need in the moment.

Snap Kick

A snappy (heh) repositioning tool, instantly darting you in the direction of the closest enemy. Good offensive starter that can lead into combos, but is mostly used to close the distance. Avoids and punishes low-hitting attacks, which is especially useful versus Flashkicks, Disciples, and Kuroki.

Duck Strike/Crotch Punch

Effectively the same moves, depends on which you find easier to input.
Duck Strike is better for dizzy, Crotch Punch is better for damage.
Both avoid high attacks, and are very effective at counterhitting enemies, which makes them perfect openers for the majority of interactions in the game. Reverse variants are considerably stronger. Reverse Duck Strike has armor.

Chasing Strikes/Chasing Trip Kick

Follow-up moves after Palm Strike or Directional Throw. CS is a combo extender, CTK is a combo finisher that leaves the enemy lying on the ground. CTK is invaluable for crowd control. Depending on the enemy tier and the level of dizzy, multiple CS's can be chained together, with CTK as a finisher.

Charged Backfist

CB is split into 3 tiers depending on charge time, but the lowest can be accessed as early as 0.5 seconds into the charge (if not less, I honestly never actually measured), making it effectively instant. These tiers differ in health damage and dizzy levels.

Regardless of tier, on counterhit, CB interrupts the attack (assuming the enemy isn't doing a high avoid) and dizzies whoever is hit by it. Especially useful once you get a feel for when the enemies typically attack, since you can then hit them with CB as early as frame 1 of their startup animation.
Can be avoided by enemies if they're not attacking, cannot be avoided otherwise.
Regular and Reverse variants are functionally the same, as they share the same attack data and values. Reverse looks cooler, but that's it.

Weapon Catch

Catch stuff by pressing the Block button at the right time, and throw it back at enemies. Includes bottles, bricks, Kuroki's kunai, whatever.

Ground Counter

An unblockable move that you can use whenever you get knocked down on the ground. Can affect multiple enemies if you're surrounded. Works on anyone, including bosses, which makes it very useful in a pinch.

Environmental Mastery

Throw bottles/weapons/small furniture without ever needing to pick it up. If you hold the Sprint/Rush button, the throw will get immediately cancelled, allowing you to either throw on the fly, or spam throws if there are multiple throwable objects around you.

Flowing Claw

While primarily used as a means to access Reverse variations of attacks (Crotch Punch and Palm Strike and what have you), FC in and of itself has additional offensive utility.

FC has invulnerability frames during its startup and active frames. However, those function as dodges rather than avoids, so you're not gonna open up any punish windows with it, or even affect the enemy attack patterns. With that said, you can still use FC to get past some attacks and follow up with moves of your own.

FOLLOW-UPS

1) Reverse special attacks.
2) Light (Triple Claw) - a triple hit with a wide area of effect (technically making it viable in group fights), although only applicable at close range. Most commonly used as a means to deal chip damage when pressuring an enemy.
Since it counts as a separate attack, it won't trigger the game's anti-spam mechanic, and so, instead of parrying, enemies will usually block it. This in and of itself isn't bad at all, since Flowing Claw deals a decent chunk of chip (HP) & structure damage through blocks. When frequently used, you'll find it being the one final straw needed to finally break an enemy's structure. Basically, just do it whenever an enemy starts blocking to get that extra bit of damage.
Most common use case - after doing a sweep/beatdown on a fallen enemy, chip away at them by doing Flowing Claw into Light, then backdash away to reset the situation back to neutral.
3) Heavy (Spin Hook Kick) - it's literally Spin Hook Kick. The same one that you get via the unlockable skill, or by doing Light Light Light Heavy. Isn't really worth that much, at best you'll get a knockdown against weak enemies like Grunts and Flashkicks, but I personally find it very niche and rarely use it, if ever.

Skill Tree: Subjectivity Incarnate

Sifu's skill tree also has some... not-so-universal skills, requiring either a very specific playstyle, or just being generally situational. While this doesn't make them by any means useless, this does lower their priority somewhat when choosing what skills one should invest into.

Invert Throw

Performed by dashing towards the enemy after a parry/hit.
Previously regarded as one of the worst skills in the game (especially since it's so easy to accidentally trigger it), as of patch 1.20 it has become somewhat contentious. At the time of writing, Invert Throw has invunerability frames for its entire duration, restores structure while active, and has pretty good follow-up attacks. Those qualities make it great for defence in crowded situations, but you have to get used to the input.

Spin Hook Kick

A rather situational high-hitting attack that knocks the target onto the ground. Can be hard to land due to positioning and timing required.
Can also be used without ever unlocking the skill via Flowing Claw -> Heavy, or Light Light Light Heavy.

Pushback Cancel

Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing skill. It can save you from falling off a ledge, or being pushed straight into a wall/crowd of enemies, and you'll find it almost mandatory when fighting Jinfeng.
However, as you improve at the game and start making fewer and fewer mistakes, Pushback Cancel simply becomes less relevant, eventually making it a low priority skill. Absolutely worth getting, just not as soon as possible, y'know.

Crooked Foot

Hold Heavy post-parry. Only really useful in 1v1 situations, doesn't have great damage output, typically gets outperformed by other post-parry options. Results in a guaranteed knockdown regardless of enemy type, if that's what you're looking for (even works on Yang). Enemies have a weird hitbox after knockdown that allows them to get hit by most mid-height attacks.

Hook Intercept

Armored move, meaning that the attack will go through even while you're getting hit, although you'll take damage while doing so. You can deflect/parry while performing it. Can get triggered accidentally if you're prone to mashing block and punishing with heavy.

Raining Strikes

Combo/damage fodder, typically used at the start of a punish , or as a combo ender. I honestly have nothing else.

Slide Kick

It's like Snap Kick, but knocks enemies down. Has a high avoid property, which technically makes it safer to approach with. Results in overall less damage due to knockdown, and can very rarely be pulled off in the middle of a fight.

Weapon Mastery

Get this if you use weapons a lot, but honestly the game showers you with them as is.

Skill Tree: Focus Attacks

Focus attacks are unblockable attacks that you can use to get out of a tough situation. They require a certain amount of your focus bar (bottom left of your HUD), and their effects vary wildly. Much like takedowns, all focus attacks interrupt enemy attacks, giving you much-needed room to breathe. They're best used against enemies that pose the biggest threat (special archetypes or otherwise enemies with the highest HP bars), but by nature they're essentially "get out of jail free" cards.
This isn't a ranking, the order doesn't really matter.

Eye Strike

Cost: 1 Bar
Use case: Universal
Description: Applies Dizzy. Best used on enemies with higher HP compared to the rest of the group, and is generally useful in 1v1 fights. Use it for a quick burst of damage, or to get out of pressure.

Strong Sweep

Cost: 1 Bar
Use case: Crowd control
Description: Temporarily takes an enemy out of the fight for a very long time, causing them to lay on the ground for 10 seconds. This allows you to take the most threatening enemy out of the equation during a group fight. Deals decent damage, doesn't apply dizzy. For the above reasons, it is strongly advised to never use Strong Sweep in 1v1 fights. You'll be effectively wasting a focus bar for not a lot in return. And please don't use a ground beatdown after it. Just let the enemy lie on the ground.

Calbot

Cost: 1 Bar
Use case: Universal
Description: Instantly raises your score multiplier up by 1 (from 1x to 2x, from 2x to 3x). Very useful for high score runs, and for styling on enemies. It's also a focus attack, so it'll still interrupt anything that the enemies might be doing at that time.

Vertical Strikes

Cost: 2 Bars
Use case: 1v1 fights
Description: It's like Eye Strike, but stronger. Applies Superdizzy, allowing you to combo your target for longer periods of time. Especially useful in combination with lengthy attacks like Raining Strikes and Chasing Strikes, as well as anything that generally leads into very long combos.

Face Smash

Cost: 1 Bar
Use case: 1v1 fights
Description: Deals a lot of damage, applies superdizzy.

Thigh Cut

Cost: 1 Bar
Use case: 1v1 fights
Description: Deals A TON of damage, but that's about it.

360 Swing

Cost: 1 Bar
Use case: Universal (but mostly crowd control)
Description: Knocks your target down, dealing damage to them. Also has an AoE effect that hits surrounding enemies.

Double Palm

Cost: 2 Bars
Use case: Universal?
Description: Doesn't do much on its own other than push an enemy away from you, but deals a lot of damage when the pushed enemy hits a wall. Even with that, I wouldn't really ever consider it to be worth using.

[gh0st]

Fantastic guide! Really helped orient me. Enjoying mastering Sifu. This guide is like a glossary, I just keep coming back to it to look up specific things.

I'm also in this same situation as another commenter:

"Visually, the game briefly freezes time, with a short freeze and a long freeze corresponding to dizzy and superdizzy respectively. As for audio, they both have very distinct audio cues that you can't confuse with anything else."

I've played the game for hours and have no idea what the short/long freeze frames are or the "distinct audio cue" is.

[𝚆𝙾𝙺𝙰]

I see in a lot videos when character do pose like taunt in 79 old but don’t talk and don’t moving how to do that?

[ᏵꝊ𐌀𐌕]

tyy

[rJarrr]

Awesome guide, I learned quite a lot!

[JamesWhisky]

The guide is very well done sadly none of this helps me. I guess Im not good at the game at all. Like I died 20 times on first boss, the stupid lose HP gain damage is not good mechanic when you need more survivability cos boss twoshots you and you cant hit him cos his break bar has 250+ hits to fill and then he get knife which twoshots you no matter what. Like Im playin on normal and Im strugglin a lot. Most of the time I askin myself what do you like tryin to acomplish here you are at club at age 67 and you are at start of the mission. I was exicted to start the game I knew it was difficult but imo the character Im usin is hella slow and enemies just flyin over the place. Like the HP bar is like so low it s not even considered HP bar. Like you get 4times hit and you die. Then you revive and only can get hit 3 times yay.

[yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmpers]

finally, how to play Sifu

[Cpt.Rayray]

Thanks a lot for this guide! While I agree with some criticism, it has done a great job in explaining many of the aspects the game leaves you to "figure out" and fed the little min-maxing-goblin inside of me. This is great for the finishing touches
I am now 13h in, managing <24y in a run-through of location 1-4 thanks to this :) Will optimize shrine layout for the final encounter next.

[Aquatic Mammal On Bicycle]

"Visually, the game briefly freezes time, with a short freeze and a long freeze corresponding to dizzy and superdizzy respectively. As for audio, they both have very distinct audio cues that you can't confuse with anything else.

I've played the game for hours and have no idea what the short/long freeze frames are or the "distinct audio cue" is. Your guide is supposed to explain what these states are, which should include a clear description of how to identify them, not just "a thing happens, distinctly."

[NoRain :( 🗕 🗗 🗙]

I first want to say thank you; as someone with only 80 minutes in the game and aged past 70 trying to kill the botanist, this is incredibly helpful.

But...

I find it way too wordy, and had a much easier time grasping the concepts when there was a .gif accompanying it. If you plan on continuing to update this guide, I think the community at large would benefit from the on-screen WASD layout as well as a visualisation of the combos. The skill-tree itself is even tough to really dissect when there's so much to digest.

I think i'm gonna be spending a lot of time in the training screen, as I found it really useful for downloading the combos into muscle-memory. Overall, great guide, thank you for doing what the developers didn't; creating a cohesive way to understand what to use and when to use it

[JAG]

Alright, that should fix it for the foreseeable future. Thanks for the heads up!