Combat is one of the strongest pillars of Ghost of Tsushima. It's more intricate than a simple hack-and-slash since you need to evaluate enemy types, read their moves carefully, and attack accordingly. It can be challenging, but once you get a feel for timing attacks and using your ever-growing skill set, you'll start to build a rhythm. Here, we have some advanced combat tips that'll push your capabilities even further.
Even though there is no traditional leveling system with stats, you'll strengthen Jin throughout your journey by unlocking more tools and skills to make tougher fights easier to take on. Since you can choose different skills that'll affect your playstyle as you level up, we'll go over a few of the essentials and list which skills are necessary to pull off some of the more intricate techniques. You can watch the video below to see our combat tips in action, or continue further down to read the guide if you prefer.
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Now Playing: Ghost of Tsushima - 8 Combat Tips and Tricks You Need To Know
This charm gives wider timing windows for all of your parries, perfect parries, and perfect dodges--these are essential combat mechanics, so this charm is valuable throughout the entire game. It can make you much more efficient in battle, especially if you need to parry or dodge multiple attacks in a row.
You can pair Smoke Bombs with the Chain Assassination technique for easy multi-kills against enemies caught in the smoke's blast. Smoke Bombs essentially put you in stealth state which opens enemies up to assassination.
If you use the Typhoon Kick, immediately throw a Sticky Bomb, then line up an arrow shot with concentration, you'll have a badass looking high-damage combo.
You can combine the Way of the Flame with Moon Stance's Tornado for a flaming-hot spin attack. Remember that Way of the Flame makes your attacks unblockable and Moon Stance's Tornado cannot be interrupted, so you're guaranteed to chop through enemies.
Simply pull out your bow by holding L2 then initiate concentrate by tapping R3 when you sense that an enemy may soon attack. You can now focus on timing your parry reaction. Release L2 then press L1 immediately to parry exactly as the enemy strikes. There is almost no delay between putting your bow away and initiating a guard, so you'll land easy perfect parries like this.
You can also upgrade your parry to a resolved parry, whittle down a squad of enemies to one man, and farm resolve by parrying him over and over until your resolve is filled. Killing hostile wildlife, such as boars and bears, also refills resolve.
Remember which stances are meant to take on enemy types: Wind Stance for spearmen, Moon Stance for Brutes, Water Stance for shieldmen, and Stone Stance for regular swordsmen.
Doing jump attacks, including the jumping sword slash or jump kick, are also considered a jump themselves, so learn to use these against the right enemy attacks and you'll have another technique for getting aggressive.
Hopefully you've learned a thing or two that'll make the next fight a little easier; if you're unclear on any of the tactics listed, you can watch the video version above to see them in action. For more on this latest PS4 exclusive, be sure to check out all our Ghost of Tsushima guides and walkthroughs, or read our Ghost of Tsushima review.
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