Nine Sols: Eigong boss guide, equipment, combos and reactions

### Equipment

UB is unbounded counter, break refers to the green qi counter (jump and parry).

As in any boss fight, you mostly parry, UB and sometimes dodge while looking for small windows of opportunity for talisman attacks. You should hit her with the sword mostly when she strikes with her sword as well, but phase 2 and 3 don’t give many opportunities for sword strikes, talismans will do the most work here.

Jades I used:

– UB transfer internal damage jade. Extremely useful in this fight, UB is necessary for winning in this fight, you will have internal damage and you will transfer it all to her, turning the fight around.
– quick sword strikes. She is really fast and you do want to hit her some times, just to keep your morale up.
– convert some damage taken to internal damage. useful cause it will keep you alive if you miss a parry or fail to UB and so on. The internal damage can be transfered the damage to her with UBs.
– fast dodge jade. mostly here to use all the computing power but dodging is necessary in certain points of the fight, especially in phase 2 and 3. You may also find a use for downward moving, who knows.

May also be good

– quick internal damage recovery jade. Handy when she gives you a breather and more reliable than hitting her with the sword
– transfer internal damage through perfect parries. Not bad, but UB transfer is better.
– transfer internal damage with sword strikes. it’s not great cause she does not let you whack her much in phase 2 and 3.

You should have Full Control as a Talisman attack and the normal bow attack, both make her stumble and give you time to smoke the pipe when you are low on health. Save the arrows for phase 2 and 3. Yes she has three phases, in true Sekiro fashion.

### Phase 1

This is pretty straightforward, it is a useful phase to learn some of the combos and how to respond to them. Note she is capable of dashing and reappearing above you or behind you or to dodge sword strikes. The combos/attacks she uses are:

– the talisman attack. Look for a talisman appearing above her. Jump and break it. It is easy now but later she will chain it with other attacks or use it right after you parried a combo and she will get you the first few times. Does a lot of damage.
– the red chi ball attack, a red ball will form above her and she will jump and throw it on you. Causes area damage and flames to appear on the floor that cause damage. You have a lot of time to respond, do not immediately charge UB, just wait until she jumps and then UB and release as she gets close to you. Then she will stumble and you can talisman attack her.
– the fast downward red sword strike, followed by dashing behind you and generating three quick strikes in front of you, anime-style. the fast downward sword strike is to fast to UB, but the three slashes should always be parried. They give you three talisman points for free and you often can immediately talisman attack her with them.
– A long sword strike and a direct one, followed by 4 quick piercing strikes. you just need to get a bit used to them, do not attack while she does the 4 quick ones, you will get hit. Sometimes she will do dash and three quick sword strikes after the other attacks, just quickly tap parry three times together with the sound and animation, and talisman attack her.

### Phase 2

She won’t give you many breaks this time. She will do a few sword strikes but will immediately switch to the strong combos afterwards. When she finishes a combo she may transition to a new one immediately, using a talisman attack.

– a new attack combo starts the fight. She summons a red flame strike that covers the whole screen, so you have to UB. Be careful with the timing, she takes a bit of time to charge it. Immediately afterwards she does two quick slashes that cover the screen, just parry them. then she sends another red flame strike that covers the screen but this time is fast, so immediately charge UB and release it the moment you can do so! the last attack can easily one shot you.
– afterwards she will exchange a couple of blows but then immediately switch to the strong attacks.
– talisman attack happens happens now after a the quick three slashes, because it looks like a good opportunity for your talisman attack. if she does it, immediately stop charging, jump and break her attack. She will immediately do an aerial attack, and most often she will jump and strike at the same time! It is critial to memorize this, block it immediately.
– Afterwards she will either strike again (parry it) and then she will do a downward red sword attack. This is a perfect opportunity to UB, do not cower from it! Do not charge the UB long, the moment she begins to descend, release it. Then talisman attack her for a lot of damage, since the chain of attacks will probably have caused you a lot of internal damage and the UB counter transfers most of it on her.
– Alternatively, she may teleport and immediately summon a black torrent similar to the red chi ball earlier. Just dodge it, than relax as she charges a red chi ball attack and UB her again. Try to talisman attack her, but she usuallly does a short break and follows up with the three slashes, then talisman attack and so on.
– note if she manages to release the red qi combos, red flames will appear on the ground and deal continuous damage before they dissappear. so it is great if you pull off the UBs.

### Phase 3

This is quicker than Phase 2, because you are going to take a lot of internal damage this time and most openings come from UB blocks. However, she now can slash 4-5 times across the whole screen which looks scary and can throw you off. Be dirty in this fight, if you can get out of her way in the air do it.

– she immediately starts by teleporting and doing an aerial barrage of attacks that take up most of the screen. She will throw you in the air when you parry her and you want to stay there by parrying. Just parry the attacks but note once every two times (more or less) as a final strike she will charge a red one which look like it hits but after a short delay hits again. The first time can be jumped over but the second time needs to be dodged. She will do two sets of 4-5 hits everytime she does this. Note the final strike always has a bit of delay. At the end of this barrage YOU SHOULD DOUBLE JUMP and be ready to break a talisman attack. The ♥♥♥♥♥ waits for you to fall and is ready with it. This can easily kill you because of internal damage if you are not high enough to either dodget it completely or break it.
– instead of the talisman attack, she will sometimes dash behind you and do the three quick slashes she did before. do as before, parry and talisman attack her, but note she will usually immediately go back to the aerial barrage of attacks. she will not stumble even if you manage to do the 5 qi talimsan.
– when you are back on the ground and survived the talisman attack, she will do the jump-hit-hit-red flame combo. this is the BEST opportunity to talisman attack her by immediately UBing the downward-red-sword attack. you need this to win. Curiously, if you pull it off, she will slow down and do a couple of sword strikes and you can catch your breath for a second. Maybe she rewards you for your cool-headedness. But then she does the aerial barrage again so.
– sometimes she will do the read flame screen sword attack which opens phase 2, followed by two slashes but insteaed of a final red slash she does the aerial barrage again.
– sometimes she will do a red ball chi attack, just UB it per usual. However afterwards she will do an aerial barrage pretty quickly.

That’s it, phase 2 and 3 have almost no breaks, just keep reacting to her combos. Memorize, react and stay cool and you should beat her. Enjoy.