Although the game puts a heavy emphasis on parrying, blocking is important too
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is going to put a lot of action veteran’s skills to the test. Like Sekiro, there’s a lot of focus on parrying and timing, which not everyone is keen on. The good news is that Wo Long‘s block mechanic is extremely strong, and you can use it to your advantage to cut down on the need to parry every single attack. Here’s how it all works.
Remember: you can block too
Holding down L1 (LB) will cause your character to stand in place and block. You do have a parry/dodge (both linked to Circle/B), but blocking is completely viable too. The one thing you need to understand about Wo Long is that blocking is a powerful tactic that can take most hits; as long as there isn’t a red/critical flash before the attack.
The first boss is a perfect place to put this to the test, as many of his attacks are done in quick succession: which will break a lot of people’s brains if they try and parry everything.
Use light attacks to raise your spirit bar, so you can block more
With that said, you do need to manage over-blocking, to ensure that the enemy doesn’t break your guard.
Take a look at the meter at the bottom center of your screen. That governs your spirit, which is consumed when you trigger basically anything, including magic and blocking. To ensure that you have ample meter to block bosses, get a few light hits in in-between blocks. Your meter will fill up with a blue bar, which signifies a “reserve” amount of spirit. If you have some spirit in reserve, you can continue to block until another opening pops up.
If you have ample meter, use a heavier hit on occasion to lower their spirit meter (which we’ll talk about momentarily).
Focus harder on parrying the red-flash unblockable attacks
The red unblockable attacks on the other hand: you’ll need to dodge or parry those!
For bosses, parrying them is extremely important, as this often results in a hard counter: stopping the enemy in their tracks, raising your meter, and opening them up for a critical hit. Bosses generally don’t have too many of these critical attacks, so you won’t need to learn a ton of different timings (like you would if you were trying to parry every hit instead of blocking).
Strike hard when the enemy is down
Below the health meter of the current boss is their spirit gauge. If you can fill this all the way up (through a combination of light and heavy attacks), they’ll enter a staggered state. Although you only have a limited time to get a critical hit in, resist the urge to instantly use a heavy attack and kick off a short cutscene.
Pepper in a few light attacks to slice some health off, then trigger the critical hit.
Save your Divine Beast special/ultimate as a finisher
Consider saving your Divine Beast special (Triangle+Circle/Y+B) until the fight is nearly complete, and it’ll essentially finish the fight. That way you aren’t blowing it during an inopportune time, and you won’t need to worry about wasting your meter, only to get hit once and reset all of your progress.
With these tips you’ll pick up the early game way faster than you would with the natural tutorial system!
