Combat arts in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice are special moves and techniques that allow you to deal massive damage to enemies and defeat them with style. They are an essential part of mastering the combat system.
In this guide, we will rank the 10 most useful combat arts based on damage, versatility, spirit emblem cost, and more.
How We Evaluated the Best Combat Arts
We rated and ranked the various combat arts in Sekiro based on the following criteria:
- Damage potential: How much vitality and posture damage the combat art can inflict.
- Versatility: How useful the combat art is against different enemy types and situations.
- Spirit emblem cost: The number of spirit emblems required to perform the combat art.
- Crowd control capability: The ability to damage/stun multiple enemies at once.
- Utility: Unique special effects or bonuses provided by the combat art.
We explored all the combat arts extensively in gameplay to quantify these attributes. We fought various minibosses and bosses multiple times while utilizing each combat art to accurately gauge its effectiveness.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the list!
10. Dragon Flash
Spirit Emblem Cost: 2
Utility: Long range wave attack
Dragon Flash allows Sekiro to unsheathe his sword rapidly and release a massive wave of energy towards enemies. This long-range attack allows you to snipe enemies from a distance.
However, the vitality and posture damage inflicted is generally quite low. It can take multiple dragon flashes to kill even basic enemies. In addition, the long charge-up animation leaves you vulnerable if opponents dodge or block the attack.
The main advantage of Dragon Flash is its range, making it excellent for stealthily taking down unsuspecting foes from range. However, it quickly loses usefulness in close combat situations where quicker combat arts can exploit openings much more efficiently.
9. Mortal Draw
Spirit Emblem Cost: 3
Utility: High burst damage
Standard Mortal Draw allows Sekiro to evade backwards before quickly unsheathing his sword for a highly damaging slash attack. It‘s perfect for punishing whiffed enemy attacks when you intentionally create distance.
The massive damage is its greatest strength. You can easily wipe out half a miniboss‘ posture and vitality with a perfectly-timed mortal draw.
However, the high spirit emblem cost and lengthy recovery animation make it very inefficient. Get the timing wrong or fail to make distance, and you‘ll take a pounding while locked in the animation.
Standard Mortal Draw shines when used sparingly to punish vulnerable attack openings. It shouldn‘t be spammed carelessly due to the high cost and risky nature.
8. Empowered Mortal Draw
Spirit Emblem Cost: 5
Utility: Extremely high burst damage
Empowered Mortal Draw is an enhanced version that inflicts even higher damage for 5 spirit emblems. You need to have a full posture bar to be able to perform it.
The vitality and posture destruction empowered mortal draw causes is downright ridiculous. You can easily obliterate posture bars if you manage to land a perfectly-timed empowered mortal draw on most enemies and bosses.
However, it shares the same downsides as the standard version: high spirit emblem cost, lengthy recovery, and very risky if botched. Bosses will make you pay badly for missing.
Empowered Mortal Draw should be used sparingly when you‘re struggling to posture break enemies using standard attacks. Save it for big burst damage openings.
7. Spiral Cloud Passage
Spirit Emblem Cost: 4
Utility: Multi-hit rapid slashes
Spiral Cloud Passage has Sekiro rapidly slash his sword multiple times while advancing forward. It hits 5 times for significant vitality and posture damage if all strikes connect.
Against slower enemies, it‘s easy to land the full combo. However, quick opponents can often evade, block, or even counterattack mid-combo to punish you badly.
In addition, the 4 spirit emblem cost makes it quite inefficient to spam.
Spiral Cloud Passage excels when opponents leave lengthy openings where landing the entire combo is possible. Use it sparingly rather than trying to brute force the whole combo.
6. High Monk
Spirit Emblem Cost: 0
Utility: Counter sweep attacks + AoE crowd control
High Monk allows Sekiro to perform an aerial kick that counters and punishes enemy sweep perilous attacks. It also inflicts area-of-effect damage, allowing you to hit other nearby enemies.
The vitality/posture damage isn‘t spectacular, but the versatility and reliability are exceptional. It perfectly counters sweeps without fail. This means you can confidently perform lightning-quick punishes in response to the often lengthy sweep animations of larger enemies and bosses.
In addition, the lack of spirit emblem cost and AoE crowd control capability provide great value. It enables decent damage against groups while conserving emblems.
High Monk‘s excellent reliability as an anti-sweep tool combined with good crowd control potential make it useful in virtually all combat situations.
5. Sakura Dance
Spirit Emblem Cost: 4
Utility: Rapid combo slash that avoids damage
Sakura Dance has Sekiro perform an elegant flurry of 5 sword slashes while avoiding all enemy attacks throughout the animation. It can only be unlocked in the late game after defeating one of the toughest optional bosses, but provides exceptional value.
The damage per hit isn’t spectacular, but the combo itself inflicts very solid vitality and posture damage. Unlike Spiral Cloud Passage, Sakura Dance allows you to avoid ALL damage throughout the lengthy animation.
This makes it very efficient at countering perilous attacks compared to dodge/Mikiri counter, especially if you can trap enemies against terrain and unload the full punishing combo.
Sakura Dance‘s immense damage potential and complete damage negation grant it immense value once unlocked in the late game. It becomes one of the most powerful combat arts against all tough enemies and bosses due to reliability.
4. Praying Strikes: Exorcism
Spirit Emblem Cost: 0
Utility: Rapid hand strikes that break blocks + Does vitality damage through guards
Praying Strikes: Exorcism has Sekiro sheathe his sword and unleash a series of incredibly quick hand strikes to batter enemies.
It breaks the posture of blocking enemies rapidly thanks to repeatedly striking their guard. Even better, the strikes also inflict mild vitality damage through blocks, making it useful against shields.
The lack of spirit emblem cost and hand strike animation also make it unparryable. Enemies cannot perform perfect deflects against Praying Strikes.
Praying Strikes: Exorcism works wonders when battling enemies turtling behind blocks or shields. Use it to punish defensive play and conserve emblems.
3. Double Ichimonji & Variants
Spirit Emblem Cost: 0
Utility: Massive posture damage
Double Ichimonji and its follow-up variants (Double Ichimonji: Dragon Flash, Double Ichimonji: Earthshaker) have Sekiro perform one massive overhead sword slam or multiple slams to obliterate posture bars.
These combat arts completely lack horizontal range, but the massive vertical posture damage inflicted makes them essential boss-killing tools. 2-3 uses of Double Ichimonji is often enough to completely destroy posture bars of most enemies and even bosses.
The key is to utilize the combos only when big openings where landing hits is guaranteed present themselves. Double Ichimonji lacks versatility for general combat, but dominates in takedown situations.
Double Ichimonji turns Sekiro into a lethal posture destroyer capable of capitalizing on major mistakes to instantly posture break enemies for the deathblow. It‘s an invaluable combat art against all bosses.
2. Whirlwind Slash & Variants
Spirit Emblem Cost: 0
Utility: Crowd control spin attacks
Whirlwind Slash and its follow-up variants have Sekiro rapidly spinning while hitting all nearby enemies multiple times with his sword.
These exceptional crowd control combat arts hit all surrounding enemies for major vitality and posture damage. Even tough enemies get shredded quickly by the multi-hitting spin attacks.
In addition, the lengthy animation and hyperarmor allow you to withstand damage while damaging entire groups. Enemies struggle to interrupt Sekiro during the spins.
The lack of spirit emblem cost further boosts efficiency.
Whirlwind Slash dominates when battling groups of enemies. It enables easy crowd control and helps conserve emblems for tougher 1v1 fights.
1. Ashina Cross & Variants
Spirit Emblem Cost: 1
Utility: Charged dash slash with massive range
Ashina Cross and its variants have Sekiro charge up his sword while dashing forward before unleashing a brutal horizontal slash. Holding the button charges the attack for even greater range, damage and posture destruction.
The massive range and damage enable lethal punishes against perilous attacks from all ranges and angles. Unlike standard dash slash moves, the arrow-straight line and chargeable nature make avoiding or blocking the blow almost impossible for enemies.
Even better, the relatively low spirit emblem cost of 1 makes this sustainable to use often. 2 emblems can kill most non-boss enemies.
Ashina Cross dominates as the best overall combat art thanks to its unparalleled range, tracking and lethal damage potential. No attack opens enemies up for bigger punishments across all ranges. Once mastered, it enables you to bully virtually all enemies thanks to the versatile applicability.
And there you have it, our picks for the top 10 best combat arts in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice!
Whirlwind Slash, Ashina Cross and Praying Strikes: Exorcism offer exceptional versatility and efficiency to dominate normal enemies. Double Ichimonji, Empowered Mortal Draw and Sakura Dance specialize against bosses.
We hope this guide gives you some great combat arts to try out on your next shinobi adventure. Don‘t hesitate to experiment with different ones yourself and discover fun tactical combinations!
Let us know in the comments section which combat arts stood out the most for you while exploring the dark world of Sekiro!
