Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – How to Beat Owl (Father) Boss

Owl (Father) Boss Tips

Tips for Phase 1

• His double slash attack will always leave him open to an attack.
• During his firecracker combo, you can dodge to the sides and get two hits or a thrust attack on him.
• When he does his sweep attack you can either jump on him or not, if you don’t he will charge an attack which gives you just three hits (to play it safe, I’d do two). Keep in mind that depending where you dodge at that moment, he will counter accordingly.
• He will do a plunge attack after you heal, so if you’re far enough you can get a hit on him.

General Tips

• First of all, have you “learnt” all the relevant combat arts? By that I mean passive arts that will increase your damage dealt to opponent’s posture bar after a successful deflect or what we call a “perfect parry/deflection”?
• Never use thrust against Owl the Father or he will mikiri counter you and you will be dead.
• To be aggressive doesn’t mean just attacking him senselessly. Keep close to him which mean you have to be cool and not panicking whenever he “twitches” or starting to attack.
• Whenever you see him raising his sword above his head after a sequence of attacks, STOP! Don’t move and keep watching his hands. If they start to move, dodge to the side, left or right. And hit him once. You can also use mortal draw on him. I tend to just hit him once because if you don’t time your mortal draw correctly, the iframes of mortal draw can cause problem to you.
• For his firecracker move, just pay attention to his elbows. He will always “jerk” his elbows twice to his left, i.e. your right. When you see this, you can either dodge right or the way I do it, jumping back and after the firecracker exploded, I run and dodge forward and hit him once.
• Always keep an eye of where your position is in relation to the room. This is to make sure that you are not back against any column or wall, as this will affect the camera and you will be f***ed. Owl’s AI knows that you are up against something and will rush in to attack you. This will completely f*** up the camera. Subsequently, you will not be able to see his attack or worst, the game will ignore any key that you press, i.e. you will die. This is the most frustrating thing in the fight. It took me long time to learn how to position myself in the room. Don’t think that the room is so big. His attacking A.I. can push you against the wall or column.
• Owl has a fast posture recovering rate so you have to be patience. Remember this, if his health is down to 30%, his recovering rate will slow down. Then 50%. And when his health is down to 75%, it will stop recovering or recovering really slow. So, you really have to be patience. Having high AP (Attacking Power) does not help. I mean even if your AP is max out at 99, you won’t be able to defeat him any quicker. In fact, it will take longer because all enemies will also be buffed up. As a matter of fact, it is quicker to defeat Owl the father during the 1st playthrough then in NG+ games.
• Watching tuitorial videos are fine. I have watched tons of them. At the end of the day, you still have to find your own timing, how you react, how to spot his attacks, etc.. There will be a learning curve. But from experience, you really have to learn to keep calm. By all means, be excited but don’t let frustration take over you. If so, STOP. Leave the game. Do something else and come back when your brain will be cleared of thoughts about the game.