Demon of Hatred Boss Fight Guide - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

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[nyamouch]

The boss got so tired of killing me, when I killed him he said thank you.

[jayo]

Fighting for 8 minutes feels like an eternity in this game.

[Cuenta-rybm]

They simply cant make a souls game without one huge fire spamming boss lol

[natascroft]

A few things I've picked up from other comments and my own experimentation:
Phase 1: Eat an Ako's Sugar sweet (12.5% damage increase) as you're walking down the steps from the Idol, if you have the passive ability devotion you make this last for 45 seconds instead of 30 seconds and wail on the boss at the start of the fight, if he goes for his low sweep/grab move jump over and immediately consume another Ako's Sugar. With this buff you can get his first bar down REAL fast.

Phase 2: Hit him with a Sabimaru while he's transitioning between health bars to get some poison on him straight away, taking away what looks to be about 15-20% of his HP. (I didn't use the Sugar during this part because he follows up the grab attack with that damn fire quake)

Phase 3, when you're near him and he's not attacking (especially in the fire ring) hit him with the Malcontent whistle, this stuns him for ages and you can do this 3 times and beat his ass while he's stunned. Try and save 12 Spirit Emblems for this because this tool consumes 4 per use.

This is the strategy I used to beat him, a lot of this will come down to RNG on his attacks, I used nearly all my healing on Phase 2 but because of the Malcontent strategy for Phase 3 I literally only had to heal the one time.

Hope this helps, good luck!

[erregibi]

Beasts all over the shop.... you'll be one of them... sooner or later

[Genesectking]

Just finished it, all you have to do is win

[ScaredHelmet]

Nice to see that Laurence made it in the game.

[childeater]

The sculpter became so pissed at me using only the firecrackers he deadass became immune to them

[astrojeet]

Man the sculptor wasn't messing around when he said he had a demon inside of him.

[jhowson]

The camara is the real enemy in this fight.

[DisturbedKananadian]

Side note. You can stun the demon of hatred with the prosthetic finger Malcontent. It stuns him for 5 to 10 seconds. But it only works three times and it has to be the Malcontent.

[davidjperez]

Spent literally all day trying to beat this guy and I finally did it. When I performed that third deathblow after hours and hours of failing... Man, what a feeling.

[Blackening]

One useful trick I found is that while he's stunned after you deplete his first life bar, you can use the Improved Sabimaru tool to apply poison to him with two sets of combos. The poison will carry over and he'll start taking damage when the phase begins.

[porci]

this fight makes me really miss those soulsborne huge invicibility flames

[guitar_md]

Update: Just beat him in NG+, and used a slightly different strategy that helped me:

Use the Ceremonial Tanto at the Idol, and then heal with a pellet. This will give you 5 extra Soul Emblems to use, which goes a long way in this fight. I previously wrote that the Lotus Umbrella wasn't very helpful, but I retract that statement. Those 5 extra emblems allow you to use the Umbrella in emergency situations when you mess up, or are not feeling confident that you can dodge some of his attacks, especially his long-range ones. Just keep an eye on your emblems and make sure you have enough to use Malcontent 2x, and Subimaru 2x.

The first 2 phases are pretty much just rote memorization of his attack patterns, and remembering to always close the gap so he can't use his long-range attacks. Lots of sprinting and dodging, and deflecting only as a last resort emergency response, with the goal being to get behind him and hit him a few times. Always stop one hit short of what you think you can get away with, as if his Deathblow procs off and you're in the middle of an attack, you won't be able to jump to dodge it. Phase 2 always seems to start with his Deathblow, so be ready to jump.

At the end of phase 1, I used Subimaru, as others have recommended. That's the same. Here's all I did differently:

Phase 3: I used Malcontent 2 times, and immediately after the second time, I spammed Subimaru again to poison him again. My reason for this is that the third time you use Malcontent, it doesn't stun him nearly as long as the first two times. I figured I could end up getting more out of it by poisoning him, and it ended up working.

Ungo's sugar also helps, and Rice if you're really struggling. And the Ceremonial Tanto trick will allow you to get away with using the Umbrella as an emergency defense a few times, while still leaving you enough emblems to spam Subimaru and Malcontent two times each.

[kosviik]

Fextralife about boss: "You can punish him pretty often when he makes X Y and Z moves, but be aware of this 'W' move which is quite hard to defend against, he shouldn't do it all that often anyway. Overall a pretty tough fight, but can be beaten."

Boss vs Fextra: Literally uses 'W' move twice, spams the basic X move a million times in succession.

Boss vs me: "What do mean I have X Y and Z moves? I like this 'W' move, I'm going to use it constantly, forget about ever being able to get a hit in, never going to use X Y or Z"

Why do you hate me, game?

[Trupster]

During the transition to phase 2 btw you can use the Sabimaru and spam him until he gets poisoned. Takes about 2.5 full combos, takes about 15% of his hp off I'd say, nice start to the phase.

[HandsomeNamed]

This strategy is fine but it's lacking three things to make it way easier:
1. Divine Confetti
2. Ako's Sugar
3. Whistle of Malcontent to keep him stunned for entirety of phase 3.

[danielitoalcazar]

Oh my god. I didn’t know you could block the foot stomps, that would’ve made beating him so much easier.

[justsomeguywithabeerglass]

it amazed me how this boss' hitbox is far more *broken* than Nergigante and Ludwig.