This *****ing guy man. Getting down the deflect on his forward strikes actually punishes you.

I just tried to keep distance and dogde. Attack with loaded spear & nighjar slash when there was a opening. I mostly got *****ed over when he corned me or when i got stuck on stuff trying to doge.

I upgraded my spear prosthetic and broke his posture a lot with it.

Every time I mikiri counter him it shows the animation but literally does nothing to his posture or health... Am I doing something wrong?

I screamed at how hard this is

Keeping your distance and using the Mikiri Counter to build posture damage felt like a good strategy. Sekiro staggers after doing this though, so don't try to attack after. Sometimes he will try a follow-up strike after you which you can parry to make him stumble forward, giving you time to do a charged strike and another swing after. Or, if you can manage to keep doing this, you can lead him back to the gate near where the Sculptor's Idol is. His AI will leash and start walking backward. At this point, he won't attack you but just attempt to block as he walks backward. If you strafe around to his left hand (your right) you can get in two normal swings. He will stagger and then start leashing again after turning around, at which point you can repeat until dead.

this mother*****er is dumb

>mfw Mikiri Counters end up punishing you half the time

If you lure him into the tower he comes out from, then run outside, he'll just walk back and forth in front of the door, which lets you do charged attacks and use axe/spear/fire/etc. And then run out