Unseen Aid in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice can prevent the player from losing half of their XP and Sen when they die. You can see the percentage chance that you are likely to receive Unseen Aid at any Sculptor's Idol, and this number will change based on some factors. You can tell when you have received Unseen Aid, because a large message will appear on your screen after you have respawned at a Sculptor's Idol.
The Kanji that are shown when you receive Unseen Aid in the game ("冥助"; myōjo) is a Buddhist term and literally translates to the "Dark Aid" or "Unseen Aid" in the sense that assistance from high beings in Buddhism is often very subtle (but inherent and essential) and cannot be seen or sensed by human beings in the mundane world. It is a minor variation of the more common Japanese word 冥加 (myōga; lit. "Unseen Protection").
Unseen Aid Information
What Unseen Aid Does Exactly
- Provides a chance of preventing the player from losing any Sen or EXP upon awakening from True Death. True Death occurs when the user respawns at an idol, either because they do not have a resurrection charge available, or chose death deliberately.
- Normally, death penalizes the player with a loss of 50% of their Sen and 50% of their progress towards the next skill point; when Unseen Aid activates, it removes that penalty.
Things That Modify Unseen Aid
- The base percentage chance of receiving Unseen Aid is 30% and cannot be increased.
- Incurring Dragonrot by dying too many times causes Unseen Aid chance to decrease:
- Owning one Rot Essence decreases the percentage of Unseen Aid to 15%.
- Each subsequent Rot Essence decreases Unseen Aid chance by 2%
- Unseen Aid chance can go down to no lower than 2%.
- Healing Dragonrot increases the percentage back to the default of 30%; see the Dragonrot page for details.
Unseen Aid Notes & Tips
- Players can choose Quit Game from the pause menu to exit a boss battle easily and avoid loss of Sen and XP from death; this is best performed when the user is out of healing consumables and cannot resurrect (either because it is disabled or because they ran out of charges completely).
- Note that acquired skill points are not lost upon death, only EXP obtained in progress towards the next one are. One can reduce the cost of death by only taking risky actions like boss fights after a full skill point is obtained.
- Similarly, sen stored in pouches is not lost upon death; Sen pouches can be looted in the world or purchased in limited quantities off of merchants for 10% more than their monetary value, allowing the user to protect their money from loss due to death if there is nothing to spend it on. This 10% cost is much cheaper than the 50% cost from dying is.
AnonymousI remember losing 4000 exp during my first playthrough. It really hurts because I died fighting foot soldier.
- Anonymous
"Unseen Aid chance can go down to no lower than 3%"
I just saw it at 2% the last time before I cured it
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
May as well remove this. It benefits those who don't need it and doesn't ever kick in when you'd actually want it to.
- Anonymous
I think this mechanic is really weird. I don't mind making dying less punishing if you do it less, but attaching a chance to it doesn't sit right with me, particularily when it's capped at 30%. Like even when you have it maxed out, you shouldn't expect to get your money back, so you still shouldn't carry much money. But if the strat stays to never carry too much money, this makes it so that you hardly profit off of it when it does occur.
So basically it's only ever useful when you get lucky while being "stupid" (i.e. by carrying a ton of sen into a hard boss fight).
- Anonymous
Im getting a lot of unseen aid in fountain palace. Consequtively 7 times now
- Anonymous
I seem to get aid every time I die in a boss battle, anyone else get this?
- Anonymous
Oh, my god, what kind of pussy should you be to quit the game from the menu in order to save souls / sen! The deed of not worthy!
- Anonymous
I can always get unseen aid when I died like 50 times to a boss and I have 1 sen and 1 exp even if its only 3%. Thanks Miyazaki
- Anonymous
The translation of "Dark Help," while not technically inaccurate, is a bit misleading since 冥助 is an established term in Japanese meaning, "Unseen assistance from the gods or Buddha" (the "dark" part gives the meaning of "in the dark," as in, "unseen"). Only bothering to write this out because I can see the lore videos congealing in the distance.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
It feels like you have a higher chance for unseen aid if you have restoration charges left (if you "decide" to die rather than to revive)....completely untested though.
- Anonymous
I'm down to 3% Unseen Aid, so I think it's possible to have 0%
> The minimum percentage that Unseen Aid can go down is 5%. I think this should be updated as I'm currently at 4% :D
Every time I die I pray to RNGsus for sweet forgiveness at being so***** at the game (though I am way ahead of most on Xbox so far, FeelsSortaGoodMan)
- Anonymous
The steep penalty and associated dragonrot are just completely unnecessary mechanics. Which in turn makes this practically unnecessary. It's more insult to injury I feel. The soul mechanic is quite stupid in this franchise. That with the constant saving means your effectively punished for every and all experimentation and exploration.
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