TL;DR at bottom of this section

Enemy reactions: Parry and Blocks

In Sekiro, enemies will react to your actions. When you attack an enemy, there are three main possibilities that will happen:
> The attack will hit directly dealing damage to their health
> The enemy/boss will block the attack, taking posture damage
> The enemy/boss will parry the attack and counterattack or jump back

We will be focusing on the last 2 outcomes to help you get a better understanding of mechanics and attacking windows.


When an enemy blocks

When you attack an enemy, you can tell when it blocks when you see a tiny spark, along with a sword clashing sound effect:

Short video showcasing the block sound effect (last 2 hits):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwJ_XI5dfTc

If the enemy you are facing does this, you are free to keep attacking them without worrying about a counterattack. Bosses block a lot more than they deflect, so you can quickly chip away at their posture. Make sure you are pressing the attack button fast enough, as if you take too long to react to a block or parry and don't chain another swing fast enough you still might get slashed








When an enemy deflects

When you attack an enemy, you can tell when a deflection occurs if you see a bigger shockwave, along with a louder sword clashing 'clang' sound effect:

Short video showcasing the deflect sound effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMz7FoH9uyQ

When you see this bigger shockwave or hear the slightly different sound effect, that's when you need to brace for a block or parry, whichever one you're more comfortable with. If an enemy deflects, their next action will take priority which is either jumping back or more likely a counterattack in which your only responses are to block/parry the attack or dodge/jump if its a red symbol perilous attack. Enemies usually counterattack with 1 swing but occasionally they could do a 2 or 3 hit counter. Once you've responded to the attack correctly, you can get back to swinging, keeping an eye out and watching or listening for the next time the enemy deflects.

Examples of enemy counterattacks:
1 hits > Normal enemies, normal boss slashes (most common)
2 hits > Owls' double slice, Isshin's stab into a thrust
3 hits > Owls' shoulder bash into firecrackers, Inner Genichiros' sakura dance

Next section includes video examples applying this to the bosses: Lady butterfly and Owl (Father)

By applying this mechanic to bosses, you can make what feels like a very long boss fight into a quick dispatch and disposal of the boss.




TL;DR/Summary
When attacking, if the enemy blocks, shown by a small spark and sound effect, you are free to keep attacking them. If the enemy deflects, shown by a bigger shockwave and sound effect, you need to stop attacking and react to the enemies attack.

Ignore this section if you don't want to see any of the bosses, this is just showcasing it works on even end game bosses













Keep in mind, this only applies to humanoid enemies (and weirdly enough doesn't work on 'Leader Shigenori Yamauchi' at the prologue, but you can just two swing and brace for a parry).

Using this mechanic is very effective against Lady Butterfly, shredding her posture bar. Try to see and hear the difference between when the boss blocks or deflects.

Yes I was using a Sword Saint Isshin skin while recording this but as you can see, if you get used to this mechanic, you can keep aggression and stop bosses from doing certain moves altogether. By being hyper aggressive and reactive by parry trading, you can lock off Inner Fathers' opportunities to perilous thrust and use his fire phoenix to name one example.

Almost every humanoid boss/miniboss that can stagger has this mechanic built in whether that's Genichiro, Emma, the lone shadows etc. Just don't go around trying to parry trade with the guardian ape it will not get staggered.

Just learning how to parry trade and the reason why it works helped me get better at the game, along with another tip.

Blocking over spam deflecting or running away (for newer players)

A lot of people go all in with just parrying or dodging, panic, spam block, don't deflect at all and get hit, or get hit while trying to run away. A lot of people forget they can also just block normally. Holding block recovers your posture a lot faster and it's very useful for trying to analyse a bosses pattern and get it down. A lot of people frantically spam block hoping they get a parry if a boss does a new move they've never seen before or frantically spam dodge or run away and get hit. If you don't know a bosses attack patterns or simply aren't confident with the parry timing yet, just stay still and hold block. This won't deal any posture damage but you can get a better view at the boss combo. Don't be afraid to be posture broken, a lot of the time you can safety roll after losing your posture and get away better than before with fully recovered posture.

Example of the power of blocking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc4wmKAZ7Qg

I made a quick video making a new save file, grabbing demon bell and running straight to Gyoubu with no upgrades focusing on only blocks and a couple dodges. You can see I was posture broken a lot of times but I just safety rolled out and had a free posture refresh. Now if you were going to fight Gyoubu, I wouldn't just hold block the entire fight and dodge, I would try to memorise the moves he does while I block so I can throw in parries in phase 2, but if you're still uncomfortable with a bosses movesets, holding block requires almost no skill and is very powerful on its own. Parry when you can as it will be better, but if you aren't confident or just don't understand or know the moves then holding block is a plenty viable strategy.

Deflecting will be the right solution 95% of the time, but blocking can also be correct, even if it's just to take attacks to memorise their rhythm and pattern.