Sekiro Corrupted Monk fight - how to beat and kill the first Corrupted Monk

Corrupted Monk is the nest major boss in Sekiro, found in the game's Ashina Depths area, following on from O'rin of the Water in our walkthrough of the game's bosses and mini-bosses, and shortly after her in the game itself, too.

You'll find the Corrupted Monk in a clearing shortly after the one where you fought O'rin. Continue past her over the bridge, hang left and grapple up the tree, and follow the path left of the building for the fight.

Below, we'll cover how to beat Sekiro's Corrupted Monk, including any particularly strong methods or weaknesses they might have and any handy things to bear in mind.

For more guides and pages like this, meanwhile, cycle back to our main Sekiro walkthrough and boss guide hub.

Sekiro Corrupted Monk - how to beat and kill the first Corrupted Monk

There are two Corrupted Monk encounters in Sekiro - this page tackles the first, for now - and it's the first one where you'll need a genuine strategy, beyond just good reactions and attack timing, to really get through it effectively.

How to beat the Corrupted Monk

For this strategy - which is a good one, we promise - you're going to need some items. You'll need:

• A full stack of Spirit Emblems
• A full stack of the Fistful of Ash item
• One or two Ako's Sugar items
• The Firecracker Shinobi Prosthetic

Not too much then - you'll likely have all of that already, but if you need to farm Spirit Emblems or the Sen to buy them, then the Mibu Village Idol is a great place to quickly travel to as there are so many easy enemies nearby.

Once you're prepared, executing the strategy is fairly simple. You need to use the Firecracker Prosthetic, then land a couple of attacks (we found the Mortal Blade Combat Art you learned automatically after finding it earlier did some decent damage to Vitality and Posture), then use it again, then a few more attacks, until the you're out of Spirit Emblems.

Once you're out of Spirit Emblems, switch to the Fistfuls of Ash, throwing them at the Corrupted Monk when it's near enough, landing a couple of Mortal Blade hits, and repeating.

Looking for more Sekiro pages like this? First up, the first main Sekiro patch notes for update 1.03 are live. Otherwise, our Sekiro boss guide, boss list and walkthrough hub has everything in one place, including pages on Lady Butterfly, Genichiro Ashina Way of Tomoe, Folding Screen Monkeys, Corrupted Monk, Guardian Ape, Great Shinobi Owl, Emma and Isshin Ashina, True Corrupted Monk, and Divine Dragon. We also have in-depth pages like Sekiro tips and tricks to get you started, Sekiro Skills, skill tree and Esoteric Text locations explained, our deep dive on the Sekiro combat system, Posture, and Perilous Attacks, or details on all Sekiro Prosthetic Tool locations, how to cure Dragonrot and Rot Essence in Sekiro, Gourd Seed locations, a Divine Confetti farm route method, all Treasure Carp Scale locations, all, Prayer Beads locations and all Snap Seed locations, too. And when you're ready - the how to beat Isshin Sword Saint and an Isshin Sword Saint cheese, plus the many Sekiro endings.

If all goes to plan, you should still have a few Fistfuls left by the time you've chipped the Monk's Posture Bar up to full, where you can Deathblow it and move on.

That's it! Like we said it's a simple strategy but a deliberate one - the Corrupted Monk has a huge health pool and does a very large amount of Posture damage with its attacks, so staggering it was by far the quickest way to take it down.

That's all you'll hopefully need for tackling this encounter. Next up in our guide is the Guardian Ape, or you can cycle back to our main Sekiro walkthrough and boss guide hub for much more explainers and advice.

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