"Can do, very imposing!"
"Brother Hei, good!"
Of course, he was also one of the players closest to him in terms of game skill.
As of now, no player had discovered the existence of the "ultimate deflect" mechanic.
In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, deflection was divided into four types:
Block, Near-Perfect Deflect, Perfect Deflect (i.e., Ultimate Deflect), and Block Failure.
Block: An early sustained parry. A simple block would significantly increase posture damage.
Near-Perfect Deflect: A slightly early parry, resulting in a small increase in posture damage. Characterized by a dull weapon clash sound and sparks.
Perfect Deflect: A parry at the exact moment of impact. It would result in minimal posture damage, and no stagger when posture was broken. Characterized by a crisp clash sound and a ring of sparks.
Block Failure: Failing to parry in time.
The timing for an ultimate deflect in actual combat was at the precise moment the enemy's weapon struck one's own body. This was within a span of ten frames, or roughly the time it took to blink two or three times. The condition for triggering it was extremely stringent.
Furthermore, in Sekiro, enemy attacks were not particularly fast, and their wind-up animations were very obvious. However, this was VR combat, and the immersion was too strong. Players rarely observed the actions with extreme care; they would instinctively raise their swords to parry upon seeing the enemy's initial attack animation.
To clearly see the enemy's movements and calmly wait for their blade to strike before pressing the parry button sounded simple, but was incredibly difficult to execute.
Otherwise, it wouldn't have taken several days after the game's release for no one to have discovered the ultimate deflect technique.
Of course, due to the inherent delay between the brain processing information and the hands responding, everyone's timing anticipation varied, commonly referred to as "feel."
With good feel, one had a sense of the enemy's attack animation, while with bad feel, one could only pray to block it successfully.
As for the rate of posture damage increase, they hadn't reached a stage that required such a minute distinction.
After all,
For players, simply managing to raise their sword in time to block the damage was already quite a feat.
As for anything else, they didn't even dare to imagine it.
Even if an ultimate deflect was triggered occasionally, with their attention fully focused on the enemy, they rarely noticed that their posture meter hadn't moved.
Of course, against the Sword Saint Isshin Ashina, the ultimate deflect would be very useful.
However, these were things that he would leave for the lovely players to discover themselves.
As for him...
He would, of course, have a good night's sleep and continue the battle tomorrow!
...