Sekiro

I think the point about Prayer Beads is a good one. A sliver more health or posture and I'd have had him done 20 attempts back. That or Git Gud, obvs.

I've reached the point where if he gets more than a single hit in the first phase I let him kill me, and two in the second. I have the life steal on Deathblow thing and some healing upgrades, so that gets me back to full health for the final phase (where I'm fucked if I've ever been able to heal). What's great (/awful) is that it's now so rote that I don't even get an adrenaline surge during this fight. I'm just programmed to react to certain animations or sounds, and I play it out as best I can.

I'm trying to do this one with as few as possible - I already have four. If I need to heal more than that I definitely haven't nailed the tactics for the fight correctly. :-D

His first phase as almost exclusively mikiri counter.
Second phase almost also swipe/jump counter.
Third phase always starts with mikiri.
He has that grab move as well be doesn't seem to do it often and has a very different animation to the other perilous attacks.

His lightening attacks all have a decent build up so you don't need to panic. So jump slightly later than you think, block and then immediately attack in the air before you land. Does large posture damage and leaves him open to a few attacks.

You can also dodge through his lightening attacks though if you prefer.

In all phases stay close to him. You can usually get two attacks that he blocks and then he will parry so that's your turn to parry.
In the third phase giving him a little bit of space usually will trigger a lightening attack which is what you want really. If he keeps lightening attacking you can end that phase in no time at all.

I wouldn't worry too much about which combat art as he doesn't have that many windows to execute a ichimonji strike like a lot of bosses.

IT'S ALWAYS NICE TO HAVE MORE MAGIC JUICE

I need to heal like a motherfucker in these games. I'll take whatever I can get.

Respect to anybody that completes this. Dark Souls could be made easy, in that there is a ratio between leveraging equipment and levelling up and player skill, so as to give you a trajectory to follow in order to make the game, as I say, easier. Seems like Sekiro is skewed towards skill.

Genichiro is basically your "have you been paying attention" exam. If you can beat him you are good enough to beat the rest.

@wuntyate : Thank you for the suggestions, will certainly try some of that for a change of pace, smashing my face against Genichiro I mean

Awesome man well done!

I had a quick try at one of the gauntlets but Inner Genichiro destroys me.

I wonder if I've been making life harder for myself: the only time I've consciously used block was during the Lady Butterfly fight when she'd lob a handful of shuriken at me. Would Genichiro have been easier if I'd blocked rather than deflected the whole time? How would you build up the posture guage without deflecting? Just a lot more slowly?

I thought blocking was holding down L1, whereas deflecting was tapping it at just the right moment. They're quite different inputs. One isn't a poorly timed version of the other, I think?

OK, so I haven't been making it harder for myself. This is great news.

I've now got two paths open to me: Senpou Temple, where I've already rinsed a bunch of monks, and Sunken Something where I've already rinsed a bunch of primates. Is there a sensible order to these two, or just run both to their respective boss encounters and suck it and see?