Sekiro: Best Tips to Fighting Genichiro Ashina

Genichiro Ashina was the one who cut off Sekiro’s left arm, and now it’s time for some proper payback

After braving the Ashina Castle in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the main character, Sekiro, finds himself face to face with the one who severed his left arm from him: Genichiro Ashina. Things have changed since the first time they fought, and the second round is bound to have a different outcome. Despite the use of his new Prosthetic left arm, Sekiro still has his work cut out for him. Here the best strategies to defeating this worthy opponent.

Genichiro Ashina

Master The Parry and Deflection

Genichiro is an aggressive fighter and an even more competent swordsman. The best way to approach this fight is remaining as close as possible, during every single stage of the encounter. Being this close comes with several consequences, such as having to endure the endless onslaught of Genichiro’s attacks. This strategy means you’re going to have anticipate the timing of his strikes to properly deflect them, if not, merely parrying them off you.

The more you deflect his attacks, the more you’re going to wear down his posture meter. The more you parry, the less damage you take to your posture and the more he’s going to feel it. Keep the pressure up and when you properly deflect, find a brief opening to grant yourself a single strike. Making more than one attack gives Genichiro enough time to recover and give you a cut of his own.

Learn His Attacks

Here are the big attacks Genichiro does you need to learn: The fast slashing attack, the jump and thrust, the sweep and fisticuffs attack, and lastly the jump and fire arrows maneuver.

You can’t do much against the fast slashing attack, which is him slashing away at you repeatedly for a couple of seconds. The one thing you can do to defend against this properly is time his strikes so you can adequately deflect. While you can’t outright hit him, it’s a great time to divert and destroy his posture.

The jump and thrust is the ideal time to devastate his posture while getting in a strike. First, he leaps into the air to perform a downward attack. If you time it right, you can deflect it, but parrying this strike is good nonetheless. After he strikes, he’s going to unleash an unblockable thrust, which you can prevent from landing with the Mibiri Counter, hurting his posture, and landing a strike of your own. You only have enough time to land one.

The sweep and fisticuffs is a tough one. Genichiro sweeps outward with his sword, which you deflect. However, once he’s finished with this strike, he’s close to you, and he’s going to attempt an unblock close-quarters combat move. When you see it coming, this is the only time you ever want to step-dodge away from him. Do a quick dodge, and when he misses, get in a strike, maybe two, against him.

The final, annoying attack he does is him jumping into the quickly unleashing a hail of arrows against you. You can’t do much against him, except for timing your parries to deflect them. They don’t reflect or harm his posture, but it does protect yours. He fires around five arrows in a matter of quick seconds, so aiming the deflection at this point can prove difficult.

Second Phase

After you’ve defeated his first health bar, you’re going to fight him again in his second phase. He makes many of the same moves, so if you did well against him during the first round, you should haven’t too much trouble here.

However, a big move that changes is the jump and thrust strike he did during the first round. Instead of thrusting, he makes a sweep attack, and if you’re expecting that thrust, you’re going to dodge right into the strike and take a considerable amount of damage. Instead, when you see the sweep coming, you need to jump into the air. You’ll dodge the strike, and have plenty of time to deal two or three strikes into him as he recovers.

Final Phase

After you’ve defeated him once you’ll see his entire health bar is gone. However, there’s a third phase to this strike. He strips off all of his armor and reveals his power to wield lightning. Now, more than ever, you want to remove as close to him as possible.

Luckily, a lot of his attacks and patterns have not changed. Instead of the jump and sweep strike, he’s back to using the jump and thrust pattern. Although you’re going to see some new lightning-based attacks, and you do not want to get hit by any of them. You may have time to consume an eel liver during this phase, but many of his lightning attacks are easy to dodge by side-stepping forward into him or jumping to the side.

There’s only one health bar during this phase. He’s also easier to hit due to his lack of armor, and he doesn’t seem to have as much posture. If you can fill up his posture meter quickly enough, you’ll find this phase significantly more comfortable than the last two.