Lone Shadow Masanaga the Spear-Bearer | Sekiro Shadows Die Twice Wiki

I think if I cheese a boss accidentally and without consulting the wiki, it's an earned kill. I took off his first life bar in Hirata Estate normally, but then grappled onto the tower to escape the dogs and heal. I fell off the tower accidentally to the outside of the compound, and Masanaga followed me. I fought him and the dogs all the way down the stairs to near the bridge. With half his last life bar left, I noticed he had stopped doing anything but block. I then mashed L1 and took my prayer bead. :)

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I want to bust the lip of the guy who thought it was funny to put this ****er (Hirata Estate 2) behind 4 unavoidable mooks. I had to run back to the bonfire at least 3 times because one of the archers snuck in a shot while I was dodging the shield taro, or the shield taro rammed me while I was killing the archers. "Mr Miyazaki, how do we make this recycled miniboss more interesting? No, he's not in a poison swamp. Put a gang of **** mobs around him without a quick way to stealthkill them all? Understood! We'll do the same for the Juzou copy later, we can just put a ministry ninja on the roof behind him."

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As stated below for Ashina Castle, an initial deathblow followed by spamming sparking axe through his attacks makes this fight very easy.

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For people saying stay aggressive on him and don’t let him whistle, the interrupting fire damage from burning debris and arrow guy from the wings would like to have a word. Also, the camera sometimes just gives up if you so much as brush up against the wall.

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It's possible the dogs might have a summoning limit? When I fought him in Hirata I doubled back to isolate the dogs and kill them one at a time near the bridge area, and after about 3 summons of 2-3 dogs, he stopped summoning more. Only fought him in Hirata once, unsure if this is legit but I'll test the sunken valley version later.

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I ran closer to the bridge and kept pushing him further from his spawn. It eventually broke his AI and I just pinned him with mortal draw for the second health bar.

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just kill the dogs and parry everything, glorified swordsman who can be countered hard in two ways

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You can cheese both versions of this guy by simply walking far enough away such that he starts walking backwards to his spawn point without attacking you (for Hirata estate you may want to kill the enemies on the bridge first)

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Attack while he breathes, rest when he doesn't.

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"lone" my ass this guy's got more dogs than I have friends

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For people having trouble with his dogs..just throw a shuriken at him every times he begins to whistle and he will be interrupted. Makes this fight an absolute cakewalk

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Overrated difficulty tbh, not even trying to flex. People just get so hyper focused on the dogs they miss the point of the fight, don’t let him use the dogs. Stay aggressive and watch his tells for whistling for the dogs, you can actually get hits in and interrupt the summon so the whistle works to your advantage. Don’t hesitate, stay on top of him. If the dogs come take a second to breath and get rid of them and get right back on his ass

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lots of ganks for a guy called "lone shadow"

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I was following a progression checklist and for some reason this guy hasn't spawned in my new game or the following new game+. I'm not sure what's up with that.

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You can stealth deathblow the one in Great serpent shrine, also use axe.

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I've found the best method is just to stay on him and stay hyper aggressive. You can interrupt the whistle, and if you stay consistent, he will never be able to call the wolves. Much easier than using any tools for gimmicks. You just have to learn the tells for the thrust vs the sweep attack and take advantage of them for more posture damage and he goes down fairly easily.

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CHEESE: Hirata Estate (Owl Memory) lure him to the bridge (kill enemies here first), lose aggro. wait a bit and backstab him when he walks back. lure him again tot he bridge and keep facing the bridge and spam normal attack. He only defends and doesn't attack. He doesn't get damage but posture goes up slowly, keep at it and BAM deathblow!

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this is just the worst enemy in sekiro or even all soulsborne games.. I've defeated sword saint isshin, demon of hatred, inner isshin, inner genchiro and even inner father, yet cannot defeat this total POS miniboss in default new game!! I always skip him everytime because it's not even worth trying to get the two prayer beads.

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"you'll want to equip two Shinobi Tools - Loaded Shuriken and Finger Whistle (Whistle has zero effect on dogs in this fight). Masanaga has the ability to summon a pack of dogs to his aid by whistling, but you can interrupt this move with a quick shuriken, and if you fail to do so, the Finger Whistle will make dealing with the dogs much easier."

So, umm....use the whistle for the dogs that is has zero effect on? Got it...

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I baited him out with a shuriken like someone else suggested and he stilled called the wolves, but he got near the bamboo on the right a bit closer to the bridge and I could just hit him repeatedly without him blocking it. Did that until he was dead. I aggro'd the enemies on the bridge on accident, idk if that's why this worked.

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In Hirata, you can start him with a shuriken, and pull him outside to never have to deal with wolves or burning.

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I could kill the Ashina Castle one without much trouble, but I'm constantly getting my ass beaten by the Hirata Estate one for some reason

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Sparking axe + red sugar will destroy his posture in a few combos.

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I can’t speak for the Hirata estate version yet, but his small arena was giving me a lot of trouble. I beat him very easily eventually. After a stealth deathblow, you have time to attack. He will then buff himself, giving you another opportunity. If you hit him with two double ichimonji right away, you begin the fight with his posture bar almost full. Anfew deflects and he will be done.

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I killed him afteere i finished the shura ending and when i engaged him he had a different dialogue. he calls you ddirectly demon (the translation was something like the demon shows himself) which i don t recall happening in my first playthrough.

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Love this game, but there is WAY to many of these Purple Ninja bosses, and there all mind numbingly easy once you kill the first one. Why are they so re-used? Does from really think they are that hard or something?

Would’ve loved to see those Straw-Hat Scythe Wielding dudes from Senpou as a mini-boss instead of re-using these guys 5 times.

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these lone shadow bosses have the worst arenas in the whole game

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Even with all the enemies assassinated & Gachiins sugar he still sports you when you try grapple

Who moderates these pages because that’s just bullsh*t

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This fight becomes much easier once you learn that A) You can mikiri counter his heavily telegraphed unblockable kick, and B) if you smack him with a shuriken while he tries to blow his whistle, he can't summon dogs.

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God damn does that delayed attack tip work. Poor boy went down from the temple, across the bridge and back again being able to do nothing but block.

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When you face him in Ashina Castle, the first line of his dialogue is "Oh, it's you". He could be saying that "it's you the one who killed my boy Masanari", yeah, but also he could be remembering you for your chronologically first encounter at Hirata Estate. I didn't finish my first playthrough yet, just beated father, but this is driving me crazy. Could Owl's memory have actually happened? This slightly contradicts the memory of the battle, as it states something like "Owl's wish to fight with Wolf to death was granted, even if it was in an old memory", but we do know that the way that the Buddha statue works is ****ed up, since you carry your prosthetic tool the past and some more stuff like that. Maybe some of the things you did did happen and some didn't?

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Ok so that part about not alerting him when on the the tree is a lie

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No actual spear being borne - name doesn't check out.

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How many lone sahdow bosses in this game?! They are easy af . From should have made senpou straw hat monk's a mini boss instead of this scrub.

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Mine glitched. I only got yellow gunpowder. Nothing showed up in my gift box. Doesn't respawn. Maybe i was punished for cheesing the fight dragging him to the bridge to face the big samurai and monk first... Maybe the game counts tics of health not taken by you?

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just spam mortal draw and you are all good

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I kited Akinas finest to fight him. It's a bit hard cuz their hitboxes get stuck in the doorway. I have this boss fight Akina enemies. And just back stab him.

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I lead him out of the fire area and down to the bridge in Hirata Estate, his AI didn't fight back and i attacked him knocking him backwards as he parried and he fell in the water beside the bridge and insta killed him BUT i didn't get no prayer beads, i only needed the last 2 since this is my second playthrough, sigh.

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HEY YOU GUYS LIKED CAPRA DEMON RIGHT?

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easy to kill. just remember to use mikiri when he is preparing the leg to kick you and you see the kanji. he has exactly the same moves as every other ninja in the game so you wont have to learn his moves

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I don't find him when I go to Hirata, anything I may have done wrong?

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Does he drop 1 prayer bead in the memory and in the shrine respectively? Trying to make sure if i missed his bead.

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"Spear bearer"? also ironically Spiral Spear is pretty damn effective.

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DOGGY BOSS BATTLE!!!!!!!

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So easy way,have 7 attack power,16 or so spirit emblems and mortal blade,as well as one Yashariku's Sugar (raises Attack and halves your HP) ,sneak attack him from behind after ingesting the sugar,than spam mortal blade,after you do it afew times ,his posture breaks

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the hirata estate one is a *****ing menace. a constant entourage of 3 annoying wolf body guards the he immediately refills once you kill them all. had to resort to some stinky cheese to get rid of this guy. still just a late game enemy with a more health and 2 death blows but with the added thing where he can tell the wolves to jump you while he also gets to do his thing it makes him really frustrating. one of the few weak points of this game. annoying cheesy difficulty that begs for a annoying cheesy method of destruction.

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It was an awesome rescue, but one time when he was to kill me again somehow the armoured samurai from up on the bridge came all the way down the forest path and started attacking him. I managed to heal and buff up while he was distracted and still won.

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A particularly easy strategy for the one in Serpent Shrine for me was to use a Yashariku's sugar First get the butff, stealth deathblow him and then start slashing at him like no tomorrow After about 4 to 5 parries and/or hits, his posture is done

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I found that it was helpful to use the shuriken in Hirate Estate so I could stop his whistle if I wasn't in sword range

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Poor guy. You can cheese him in every encounter by luring him to the edge of his programmed area. Somehow, I pity him.

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The one in Hirata Estate is actually named Masanari the Tusked when I played through.

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normal mob in a tiny room with 3 dogs added because they knew just fighting the mob would be trivial? is this a dark souls 1 reference?

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Hirate Estate revisited Masanaga: 1. Port in to the main Hirata Idol. 2. Kill the 3 fat Taro and the 3 guards around the building. 3. Walk across the charred ground (where one of the fatties was facing) 4. Aggro Masanaga into following you back over the charred ground 5. Once there, his attacks are reduced significantly and he no longer calls the hounds on you

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The Lone Shadows might be a possible reference to the Inoue Clan of samurai even though they lived in the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) which comes right after the Sengoku period portrayed in the game.

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If you jump to tree branch and then to the top of the pagoda without triggering him, you can do a running jump and get a falling deathblow on him.

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gets stuck in the grass & stops attacking

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I accidentally missed him

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Why do they always put these "Lone Shadow" bosses in locations where the camera has a seizure every 5 seconds?

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I am convinced that he is programmed to refuse to go near you while his posture bar is high

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So I ran past him (in Hirata Estate) and got to the idol. After resting there, I went through, killed the enemies between me and him, but couldn't sneak up on him. So, I went most of the way back to the idol. He followed me there, through a couple of kicks, I set him on fire, then I started attacking him, pushing him back towards the well entrance...and kept attacking...and he just never swung back. I mashed R1 on my way to victory, eventually pinning him in the back corner after my first deathblow. He blocked every hit but eventually his posture broke.

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For those of you wondering why he's even called "Spear-Bearer"; apparently, his original Japanese name "槍足の正長" should actually be translated to something like "Spearfeet Masanaga" or "Masanaga the Spear-Footed", referencing how much his kicks hurt.

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I was first able to get to him in NG+ and luckily after he followed me down the stairs a little and taking out a couple of packs of dogs, I was able to get him into the stun lock by continuously pressing attack as mentioned in the article above. It still works as of version 1.04.

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Mortal blade jacks him up pretty good on NG once he's finished his perilous kick attack; not exactly the most honorable way of killing him, but it gets the job done

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What's with his left hand? When he did his double poison jab attack, I swear I saw a snake under his cloak instead of his hand or a blade.

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There's an eavesdrop opportunity at the Serpent Shrine where Masanaga is waiting if you can reach it without being detected. In it, it is implied that the dead Lone Shadow is Masanari; the lone shadow Juzou was talking to at the Hirata Estate(revisited). Masanaga comments that if Masanari was killed the way he was, then there truly is a demon in Ashina which of course refers to Lord Isshin or the Tengu of Ashina whom we encountered at the Serpent Shrine after killing Genichiro.

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If your lucky with the one at the shrine you can make him kill himself by falling into sunken valley

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The camera is the hardest part of the Shrine fight. Every time I start to get in rhythm with him, the camera goes on a roller coaster and he kills me with poison or his kick combo

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If you're struggling in Hirata Estate, you can lure him out to around the bridge area and his AI will bug out. He'll attempt to slowly walk back to his start point, but if you just attack relentlessly, he will do nothing but block. Alternatively, if you do 4-5 hits, stop, and repeat, he will usually eat the hits without even blocking.

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you can deathblow the hirata estate one if you leap towards it from the top of the building

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Is he supposed to use the poison in Hirata? I've only seen him use it at the Serpent Shrine.

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Never beat this guy in ng and in ng+ he only gave me a sack of money

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Cheap piece of***** on ng+. He will pretty much one shot you

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Does he only drop one prayer bead because I killed him in the memory then again in Ashina Castle and he only dropped a money bag

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Get on top of him and fight him just like you did with Genichiro, if you have to back off to heal, throw a shuriken as fast as possible if you see that he's trying to summon the dogs

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I am near the end of the game and I am trying to get the last set of prayer beads but I can't find him for the life of me. I know he is at the Great Serpent Shrine but he is not there. Where do i go?

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cheesed the hell out of the one in the hirata estate by luring him out of his territory and mashing r1 until his posture depleted. You're gonna wanna take out the guys behind where you first spawn in though.

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This guy in Hirata is total bull*****Like ***** off with the unlimited adds, for real.

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It's bizarre he is able to be fought at the serpent shrine if he supposedly died in the memory (past). Then again, Owl is there as well... I'm really confused about how those memories effect the present.

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This guy is not in my game I have completed the story but not started new game plus. Does he disappear after a certain trigger? There's mokeys fighting the dog down there now

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He is weak to fire. Stealth killed the first life, then flame vent spammed him and it was highly effective. Okinaga's flame vent was pretty good along with the living force skill to imbue the katana on fire.

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Cheese Strait (Do it proper tho) Lure him down the stairs past the archway and into the bush. He will start slowly backing up. Abuse the first dash portion of shadowrush and dart back, repeat two or three times then he will try and combo then start moving back again. Repeat until dead.

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For whatever reason he gets bugged if you pull the fight down the stairs to the bridge and decides he no longer feels like attacking Sekiro. I've done this twice now. Not sure why it happens or what triggers it.

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He won't become hostile by himself, says something about still not mastering the Ashina arts, i think there is something you have to do so he becomes hostile without attacking.

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Fistful of ash help out a lot

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If you fight him at Hirata Estate on NG+ start at the Hirata Estate Main Hall idol. Kill the enemies around that idol. Equip the shuriken if u need if for the dogs. After you have the area cleared, lure him down the main hallway that leads to juzuo. He hits the edge of his boundary and will not attack you. You can keep swinging and your blows will be blocked for a while. But, eventually he stops blocking and lets you kill him. He will not deflect or attack. It works for both phases. Just spam R1 and he cannot attack you. At long as he is far enough away from his start position.

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There is a 3rd version of him in Hirata Estate if you are doing the Purification ending. You can stealth hit him once if you kill the 3 enemies on the bridge then bait him down there and he loses sight. Then when he start walking back stab him in the back.

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At the great serpent shrine location, the easiest strategy I found is to sneak attack him to get a deathblow, hug the left of the stairs and stealth creep along the left side of the building. Do not jump over the rail or he will notice you. Then use shinobi firecrackers and it lets you get in one hit each time. To finish him off cheese him with fist fulls of ash. Toss it in his face and it lets you get in 3-4 hits each time. I used this in new game plus and it worked very well.

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Also, there is another one in the room where you fought Ashina Elite Jinsuke Saze, becarful, there is another "one arm" shinobi with him, but you can kill him first with stealth. Doing so will trigger the fight right away

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or you can sneack behind him, use the candy of strength and interrupt his buff stance with Shadowrush and the upgrade which I don't rembember the name. Btw you can spam Shadowrush and he will fall easy (like must bosses).

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You can actually get a stealth attack to wipe out his first health bar. At the stairs, leading to his building just 1 meter before he notices you double jumb to the left or right on the fence and go round the building and enter the other side. His back will be turned on you.

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If I do purification ending, he will appear at Serpent Shrine?Miss him, and get offering box glitch...

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You can actually bring him to the gate on his 2nd phase, get his attention and let him chase you, he wont go in and will try hitting you outside, a funny way of taking him out if you're having a hard time.

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He is also at the very start of the father's bell memory and drops a prayer bead there

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For the record, if Ashina is burning, he despawns and you miss your opportunity to kill him.

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He says he is avenging his dead friend, so whos the badass that killed his friend all these purple dude

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You can make his pet wolves attack him with the finger whistle. Good if you sneak up to him to take off a health bar then run back to whistle the wolves

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He fell into the ravine for me, I didn't get the rewards for beating him. Bugged? Can I still get the prayer bead?

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Bring him far enough into the forest (not that far) he slowly walk backward and you can just hit him for free and when you're back into his aggro zone, bait his leap => repeat. Also I tried what anon said, using flame vents charge prevent him from buffing, can confirm.

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you can use the flame vents charged attack to stagger him at the start of phase 2 and prevent him from buffing, i only had to do it once and he never tried to buff after the fact.

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Its possible to miss this guy and not fight him if you skip him and proceed with the questline. Monkeys take over the location but the bonfire room is empty where this guy should be.

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