Version 1.4.24:

One Mind:
Now is much more versatile in its usage, instead of spending all the emblems on the unsheath, it costs 1 emblem on the unsheath, 1 emblem for each set of double slashes, and 1 emblem on the follow-up, and the follow-up can be cancelled into at any point after the unsheath. You are able to choose to use the combat art with only the unsheath and follow-up slash to only spend 2 emblems total. You can use the unsheath, all 3 double slashes and the follow-up, and any combination in between. The double slashes also have been buffed so they're more worth their emblem cost. When emblemless, the double slashes are non-existent and the unsheath and follow-up slashes do not stagger much and do not have piercing/dark damage. The usheath deals the most stagger but the least damage, and the follow-up deals a bit more damage than the double slashes, so it can be prudent to skip the double slashes if you're about to run out of emblems mid-way through the combat art. I had a lot of fun making this One Mind both strong and with a higher skill ceiling, I hope you enjoy!


Ashina Cross:
Now costs 3 emblems. Increased posture damage. Slightly increased L1 and prosthetic cancel frames.


Firecrackers:
Now costs 3 emblems. Chasing slice no longer removes sword buffs.


ShadowRush/Fall:
Now costs 1 emblem on the vault and 1 emblem on the descending whirlwind slash, so the player can now choose to be emblem efficient if they want to use ShadowRush and do mid-air R1s, or deal more damage with higher stagger using ShadowFall. The player can also use ShadowFall's vault with a mid-air prosthetic without worrying about spending 2 emblems on the vault.


DragonFlash:
Now costs 2 emblems. Re-added the projectile to the uncharged version, but its stagger is minimal, it will not interrupt an enemies' animation. The projectile was initially removed because it caused issues with enemies having trouble guarding 2 hitboxes at once, but this appears to be a perfect middle ground.


Praying Strikes:
Increased cancel frames. Added Mushin Strikes, similar to Mushin Monk, the player can use a prosthetic follow-up after the last hit of Praying Strikes (not exorcism, regular praying strikes). 


Spears:
Loaded and Cleaving spears - 1 emblem
Spiral Spear/Gouging Spear - 2 emblems
Flaming Spears - 3 emblems


Ninjutsus:
Bloodsmoke - 5 emblems
Puppeteer - 6 emblems
Bestowal - 7 emblems

SpiritFalls:
Reverted to vanilla, where they're an infinite use, emblem consuming version of sugars. I made this change as I believed this blended better with the regenerating emblems mechanic.



Player Misc changes:
Added better/more accurate footstep vfx to a whole bunch of player animations that no one will ever notice.

The player can now not go from sprinting to a stationary L1 instantly, because physics. You will now still play the sprinting L1 animation for a moment after letting go of sprint.

Removed the small windows in the R1 string where there's infinite turnspeed and replaced it with a more modest set turn speed, this should not be noticeable for anyone unless they're trying to cheese bosses by turning around mid R1 so they don't block it.

Lightning reversal no longer removes your sword buff.

Added an item that lets you toggle on/off a version of another mod of mine Attacks Can Deflect. (https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/1129)





Version 1.4.2b is out! A simple update, several bugs (Sakura Dance/Ultimate Mortal Draw >:)) have been fixed, as well as added polish.

Bug with the Samurai General's uppercut missing a hitbox fixed.

Rare bug where Nightjar Slash had the wrong R1 follow-up.

Bug where Geni can be looped with counter-slashes if the player uses Hidden Tooth at the very beginning, his opener on the rooftop fight is no longer always the same, however.

Added the first changes to the UI! So far it is a retexture of menu selections with the objectively best color scheme that also happened to be the color scheme that suits the theme of the mod, Red foreground on a Black background. A Main Menu replacer is planned as well.

Ema can now consecutively dodge praying strikes.

Enemies in the air can now play the "falling to the ground" stagger when hit by higher hitstuns.

Emblem regeneration has been moved to every 6 deflects.

Flame Vent projectile logic has been revamped, now the projectile is decays in strength over distance, but increases in size. Fire flame vents' effective range is very short, but Lazulite flame vents have much greater range and damage, but deliver lesser stagger and linger less. Emblem cost reduced to 4.

Isshin Ashina now backsteps and strafes when the player revives. He will no longer attempt to Ashina Cross as a heal punish if he has greater than 30% posture buildup.

Increased the speed the player can attack out of special deflect animations (Isshin's ichimonji/Geni's floating passage etc...)

The left side BlowBack-Medium deflect animation's R1 follow-up is now the 2nd stage upward slash.

Isshin, Geni, and Ema now play grunt sound effects when guarding, deflecting, or dodging.


The version 1.4.1 follow-up update has been released! This update addresses bugs and adds much needed polish to the anniversary update, such as the bug where enemies in the main game could sometimes load in with vanilla Ai, and Ultimate Mortal Draw's VFX not spawning outside Ashina, and Isshin Ashina standing still in neutral stance after being poisoned.

Enemies now have unique sound effects when deflecting causes posture break, special reactions, or when a large weapon is recoiling from deflection.

Isshin, Geni, and Ema now have a system where they can guard or dodge a continuous attack, and they will hold off on counterattacking until the attack is finished with the combo, currently the player's only continuous attack string that functions with this is sabimaru, if the player does not commit to it and stops the combo halfway, they will counterattack after checking that it is safe to do so. Ema and Isshin can now dodge and immediately start guarding a continuous attack if they cannot feasibly dodge the next attack in said string.

Armored Warrior has gotten a light rework, he should string together his moveset much more efficiently without returning to neutral of his own accord very often, yet still be slow and fairly easy to beat, also fixed the bug with being able to be posture broken despite deflecting the last hit of his rampage.

Okamis now have been polished, and had a decent rework of their lightning mechanics, lightning VFX visibly strikes them a bit before they unleash said lightning, and the timing of this lightning strike is consistent so the player can always time their jump X amount of time after the strike to reverse it, the projectile lightning of the Kemari wielding Okami has twice the delay because it will now knock the player out of the air if not blocked/deflected mid air, however it grants the player Thrust Lightning Reversal similar to Divine Dragon's lightning mechanic, which now has an actual AoE hitbox when it lands. This is also true for the Palace Hound's lightning, however that lightning is not embedded into a projectile so it will not knock the player out of the air if unblocked.

Sakura Dance can now reverse Thrust Lightning, emblemful Sakura Dance can lightning reverse when used in mid-air, and there's a visible difference in how much the emblemless and emblemful versions push the player into the air, emblemless mid-air sakura dance *can technically* reverse lightning, but it cannot keep the player in the air and thus they will usually land and be shocked before reversing. Grounded emblemless Sakura Dance can still just barely reverse lightning.

Shadowrush now has an emblemless/emblemful version and costs 2 emblems. The emblemless hitboxes will recoil upon being deflected and prohibit using the vault. While now both charged and un-charged emblemful shadowrush will not recoil.

Equalized frames on the player's posture broken animations where they could input a dodge roll.

Increased cancel frames on nearly all item use animations, so they are much safer to use mid combat. Pellets and other items using slower animations should now be able to be used and safely deflect a heal punish attack in time similar to a healing gourd.

One Mind's follow-up can now be cancelled into a bit faster, and Isshin no longer automatically deflects it, but only deflects it if he dodged One Mind immediately before. Isshin Ashina now always picks Ashina Cross as an opener to the fight.

Drunk Hirata Bandits with katanas now have their own separate Ai from the regular katana Bandits, they are unable to deflect unless it is a thrust from neutral stance and generally use clumsier attacks much more often.

Work in Progress overhaul to I-Frames: Enemy attacks now can have specific I-Frames on specific animations, similar to how all mid-air and jumping animations have I-Frames for specifically only sweep attacks. I had originally made it far too complex to be practical, so now I've tried to stick to a few rules For the Sake of Simplicity;
-Vertical slashes will have 0 I-Frames for the forward dodge, but 9 Iframes for the sidestep dodges.

-Slashes from the player's left shoulder to right leg will have 9 I-Frames for a left sidestep dodge, but only 3 for a right sidestep dodge as the player would be dodging directly into the blade's path, and vice versa for a slash from right shoulder to left leg.

-Slashes from the player's legs to shoulders is a bit iffy for me as generally you don't want to dodge in the path a blade is going, but in the case of a particular animation, that dodge could be properly avoiding it. So this rule could vary lol

-I have to manually add the Iframe category to a hitbox so as of now it's only applied to enemies I've very recently worked on, Geni, Isshin, Ema, Armored Warrior, and I think Schichimen Warrior's like 3 swing hitboxes got it too.

Increased cancel speed of R1s from Umbrella Pforce so it should always be safe to R1 after doing so even if it is blocked and they attempt to counterslash.

Increased speed of which the Axe goes into the un-charged variant when the input is released.

Lazulite Axe now breaks through apparition barriers IE: is effective against Headless by default. Also fixed a bug where the whistle projected force follow-up did not have barrier break even with confetti applied, and a bug where High Monk's 2 sword slashes only broke barrier for 1 of those slashes, and attempted to do so for floating passage hitboxes but it still seems to occasionally only break barrier for 1 slash :(

^Version 1.4.1^

~Miscellaneous changes~

-Deflection
Deflects now begin regenerating posture extremely early, in small or medium hitstun deflects it begins regenerating 6 Frames or 0.2 seconds in, Large hitstun at 9Frames/0.3 seconds, blowback hitstun at 12Frames/0.4 seconds, and maximum hitstun at 18Frames/0.6 seconds. An emblem will regenerate every 8 successful deflections. It is possible to attack faster out of blowback deflect hitstun now. Also added more turn speed to Deflect, Block, and unblocked Stagger animations, so it is less likely of an enemy getting behind you.

-Blocking
Blocks do not have posture recovery and the counterslash now comes out slower, but the player can now Guard from a block hitstun at the same timing as the same hitstun's deflect animation. Meaning say if a maximum hitstun attack was blocked, in vanilla you might not be able to Guard for 2 whole seconds, but if that attack was deflected you'd be able to Guard in 1 second, so if there's an attack string that utilizes maximum hitstun in the middle of it, blocking instead of deflecting the maximum hitstun attack could make the follow-up attack a guaranteed punish, now in the mod you can Guard from 1 second in with both the deflect and block hitstun.

-Unblocked Staggers
Increased cancel frames for small stagger, changed medium stagger so that it does not perform the stumbling guard with an L1 input, so the most common type of stagger in the game is not so inclined to stunlock anymore and moved L1 cancel frames to 6Frames/0.2 seconds instead of 12Frames/0.4 seconds. Added deflect frames to the very beginning of the stumble guard L1, so it is possible to deflect from Large Stagger, also slightly reduced safety roll frames on Large Stagger, but not on the version where the player is hit from behind in order to help against stunlocks. Increased cancel frames on staggers where Sekiro is knocked down/laying on the ground pancaked, but also removed Iframes from them. Medium stagger now builds upon itself, so if the player is hit by medium hitstun while also already in medium stagger it will build to large stagger.

-Loading Screen hints
Changed a few lines in a few hints to attempt to give more useful information.

-Sprinting
Holding Sprint now slowly builds up posture over time, and make Sekiro much less stealthy.

-Dodging
Sidestep dodges now recover posture throughout the animation and can be cancelled out of slightly faster, forward dodges have additional Iframes but you will not recover posture for a short while during it.

-Sliding
Now does not negate ambient posture recovery, so sliding will begin to regenerate posture as soon as it is performed. Now has the same amount of Iframes as the forward dodge.

-Burn Status
When an enemy receives a burn, they permanently take half as much burn buildup afterwards. This does not apply for the player's burned status.

-Poison Status
When an enemy receives a poison, they permanently take half as much poison buildup afterwards. For the duration of a poison an enemy will take additional damage similar to Purple Fume Firecracker's debuff, a times 1 and 1/8th multiplier. This does not apply for the player's poisoned status.

-Divine Confetti
Changed the Base Magic damage buff from 20 to 25, I don't know how this stuff calculates but now it do slightly more. Confetti provides a 100% Magic type damage and Terror buildup negation on deflect, and 50% negation on block, while also applying an ambient resistance to Terror buildup of 25% that's active even on unblocked hits. Once the 60 second buff has elapsed, instead of dieing out the flame decays into a weaker version of the buff, Defensive Living Force, that provides no damage bonus but still allows you to deflect Magic type damage with no chip damage or Terror buildup for an additional 30 seconds.
Changed the activation animation to the praying animation.

-Ministry Ignition Powder (replaces Ministry Dousing Powder)
Base Fire damage buff is 10, but also deals slight burn buildup on enemies as well. The sword buff provides a 100% Fire type damage and Burn buildup negation on deflect, and 50% negation on block, while also applying an ambient resistance to Burn buildup of 25% that's active even on unblocked hits. Once the 60 second buff has elapsed, instead of dieing out the flame decays into a weaker version of the buff, Defensive Living Force, that provides no damage bonus but still allows you to deflect Fire type damage with no chip damage or Burn buildup for an additional 30 seconds.
Gave Confetti's original activation animation with new VFX.

-Status reducing items
Changed Status reducing items such as Dousing Powder or Antidote Powder, they now only remove buildup and the status itself, while not applying a resistance, also changed the Kanji VFX spawn to only now display the "Recovery" Kanji and not the "Resistance" Kanji. As well as increasing max held capacity to 10.

-Elemental Gourds
Each of the non-healing Gourds now applies a powerful, 50% resistance at any time to their respective status buildup, as well as even a 25% reduction to that damage type whether it be Fire or Magic damage. However the buff only lasts 30 seconds, and will buildup a small amount of that status on when used, so the Elemental Gourds and the Powders will function sort of like a Cure vs Vaccine mechanic.

-Status buildup reduction on deathblows
Buildup of each type of status will be reduced on deathblow by 100%, for the moment it is comprised of 4 effects for each status that reduce it by 25%, and I wish to make these speffects latent skills dropped by future minibosses at some point, for now they are all active by default.

-Gaining special bestowals
Enemies that are poisoned will now give Poison Bestowal or Poison Bloodsmoke when the ninjutsu is used on them.

-R1 damage adjustments
Changed the damage of the player's R1s to better match the amount of windup and weight behind the slash.

1st/2nd stage R1 from neutral = 1x Original amount, 2-handed swing while moving the body behind the blade

3rd stage R1 = 1.5x R1 damage, 1 handed swing while turning the whole body with a longer wind-up

4th stage R1 = 0.5x R1, and small hitstun instead of medium, 1 handed swing using only arm muscles to power it

5th stage R1 = 1.5x R1 damage, 1 handed swing with whole body behind it, also the R1 string finisher.

1st/2nd stage R1 from reverse side = 0.75x R1 damage, 2 handed swing with a step forward, no crossover

Counterslash from normal deflects/block recoils = 1x Original amount, 2-handed swing while moving the body behind the blade

Dash attack/Large hitstun's turnaround counterslash = 1.5x R1 damage, this is actually vanilla

I have also changed the R1 string slightly, now it will go:
1st stage
2nd stage
2nd stage reverse side
3rd stage
4th stage 
5th stage
This should allow a bit more freedom in picking a thrust attack at oppurtune times, as the 3-5th stages do not allows the player to do so.

-Thrust attacks
Thrust attacks in vanilla did 1.5x vitality damage, 2/3rds posture damage, and the same amount of poise damage compared to their R1 counterparts (I think).
Thrust attacks now deal 1/2 posture damage, but 3x the poise damage, and armored enemies will take less damage from physical damage, but additional damage from thrusts and Piercing damage. Thrusts will now be an effective tool for Poise Breaking and dealing excellent damage to armored enemies, while normal slashes will be effective for building up posture as well as having a higher Damage per Second than thrusts despite dealing less damage on their own.

-Ceremonial Tanto
Now costs 1% health to use, and can be used an infinite amount of times per rest. Tanto now costs 5 white emblems to use, and gives 5 red emblems, meaning it does not give any additional emblems, but can be used to "bank" emblems to increase your max capacity. This change is made because of the Regenerating Emblems mechanic already increasing your emblems during a fight. Increased red embelm max cap to 10, but this change won't take effect unless the mod is started on a new save file, this also has a bug where it makes the game think you can use tanto again even when you're at the old cap of 5 on a save file that hasn't started with the mod.

-Sugar buffs
(Reverted in later release)

-Red Lump
Red Lump now lowers the stagger type played by each hitstun level by 1, so for example;
Small hitstun will now play minimal stagger (which will not interrupt you).
Medium hitstun will now play small stagger.
Large hitstun will now play medium stagger.
etc....
This does not change the block/deflect animation played by those hitstun levels, only the unblocked stagger animation is -1 the original. This Hyper Armor effect has *less* priority than armor that negates medium stagger or higher, so for example it will not be used over the charged Axe swings so you will still not flinch from medium hitstun during them, however it has *more* priority than the stagger buildup effect on stagger animations, so being hit with medium hitstun while in the medium stagger animation doesn't build to large stagger with this effect because Red Lump armor effect has a higher priority than the stagger animation's.
Red Lump now does not negate resurrection, it does however still grant a 2x weakness to fire. I've changed many projectiles of common enemies such as Ashina Samurai gunmen or Gunfort gunners to use Small hitstun, so Red Lump will be more useful for dealing with groups.
Also, Red Lump is not Poise, it is pure Hyper Armor, no amount of Poise damaged received will cause the player to flinch.

-Map changes
Senpou Temple is the only map to receive changes as of yet. Added grapple points to aid in returning to the first idol after jumping down to the area below. Removed the Glaive Monks in the courtyard just before the Shugendo idol. Added grapple point to aid in returning to the Temple Grounds idol from the building below, added grapple point to allow grappling to the roof of the building where the centipede miniboss resides. Added extra trees to grapple to around the area with several patrolling monks, these will not have edge collision and the player will be able to walk off of them without holding sprint or jumping, this is a bug and, as far as I know, is not fixable for modified objects as the edge collision is just 1 large collision for the entire map. Moved a homing bomb throwing monk to the clifface above the first Taro monk. Moved another homing bomb throwing monk to be closer to a wall hangable ledge. Changed the patrol route of the 2 monks that walk up and down the stairs to the Main Hall. Changed the grapple tree above them to be a slingshot grapple. Changed positions of Glaive Monks on the Main Hall balcony. Moved a lizard from the clifface with the Senpou Skillbook to in front of the side entrance to the Main Hall, so poison ninjutsus can be used on it.

~Fight reworks~

-Isshin, Hero of Ashina
This Isshin varies from the Resurrected Kensei Isshin quite a bit, his generic combo chain is more slower with higher hitstun, and utilizes more technique, such as dodging, using movement to get around you at some points, using the momentum of being deflected to one side to immediately go into a twirling double slash, attempting to recover posture in the fight and more. Isshin is only capable of sidestep dodging to your right, so he will not be able to dodge hitboxes that are marked "Horizontal slash" or "Left shoulder to right leg slash" as he would be cut by these attacks. He also is capable of auto-deflecting your Ashina Cross while he is in neutral stance, however if Ashina Cross (for the player it has to be the 1st hitbox) is used on him a split second before he unleashes his own Ashina Cross it will yield a critical hit effect, but the same goes for you. This also applies to Ichimonji and One Mind. His 2nd phase he starts using fire attacks, his fire sweep is now safe to sweep counter. The fire projectiles generated by his fire attacks will not connect with you at very close range, and deflecting those fire attacks will not push you back, however blocking or being hit by them will push you into the flames. His One Mind is now able to be consistently deflected sword only and features mix-ups. He will begin to cough when poisoned, allowing a longer opening, the 2nd time he is poisoned he will cough and go into an attack, and cannot be stunned by poison for a 3rd time. Isshin is capable of learning, after being staggered out of posture recovery once he'll begin to dodge out of it, and set up a preemptive fire attack in Phase 2 before attempting to recover, after being mikiri countered once he will begin to attack immediately out of it, after being hit with flame vent once he will begin to sidestep dodge it when in neutral stance, after being hit with flame vent once he will begin to sidestep dodge it when in neutral stance, after being hit by shadowrush vault he will attempt to dodge shadowrush in neutral stance instead of deflect it, after being hit with firecrackers once he will attempt to backstep them, he will dodge your own One Mind in neutral stance by default, he will auto-deflect floating passage in neutral stance only after being hit by it once before as he is familiar with Tomoe Arts but not proficient in them. He will also begin to deflect uncharged DragonFlash in neutral stance after being hit by it once. His One Mind follow-up now has the special Ichimonji deflect stun when deflected. His grab is now dodge-able with Mist Raven. Changed all sword phase Isshins' deflect animation, in vanilla his deflect animation for both the left and right side are the same, so I replaced both animation slots with the block animation so he can now have a unique deflect animation for deflecting on either side. Isshin now recovers a small bit of posture when his Ichimonjis are not deflected.

-Kensei Isshin
Kensei Isshin is much faster than his aged counterpart, and capable of using wind attacks. He also is capable of auto-deflecting your Ashina Cross while he is in neutral stance, however if Ashina Cross (for the player it has to be the 1st hitbox) is used on him a split second before he unleashes his own Ashina Cross it will yield a critical hit effect, but the same goes for you. This also applies to (charged) Ichimonji and DragonFlash. Isshin will learn over the course of the fight, when hit by One Mind once he will begin to attempt to dodge it when in neutral stance, the same goes for flame vent, shadowrush, firecrackers, he will deflect floating passage, and (charged) Ichimonji. He will auto-deflect uncharged DragonFlash when in neutral stance by default. When he's been mikiri countered once before he will begin to attack out of it, this resets when switching to spear phase. In spear phase he will begin to attack out of being sweep countered after being stomped on once. Isshin begins to attack out of the special stun when his Ichimonji is deflected, in phase 1 he will be stunned like normal on the 1st time, do a DragonFlash on the 2nd time and a new custom move on the 3rd, and cycle between them after that. In spear phase he will begin to use the spear retreat out of Ichimonji stun. He will have 2 different reactions to being shocked in phase 3. When in spear phase, Isshin will begin to attempt to stab the player upon resurrecting if he has seen the player resurrecting once before. Mortal Blade Ring attacks are projectiles, as so they do not build up posture when deflected, however I've given them the properties of projectiles now, meaning they can build up charge on the Umbrella. Lowered the recovery frames on Spear phase's high hitstun block animation, so attacking with say Mortal Draw he will not be able to attack fast enough to punish you in between swings.

-Ultimate Isshin (Inner Isshin)
Ultimate Isshin begins the fight with all of his abilities from his fights in story mode, so he no longer needs to be hit with the player's attacks before being able to learn from them. As well as having access to Fire, Mortal Draw, Lightning and able to use the moveset flow of both the Aged Isshin and Resurrected Isshin in his Phase 1. His phase 2 is similar to phase 3 of Kensei Isshin but with more in it, phase 3 enhances it even more. 

-Tutorial Genichiro
Tutorial Genichiro does *not* have any learning abilities, in phase 1 his moveset is quite limited, and he will not use thrust attacks on the player when in a New Game 0. He will begin using the bow in phase 2. When at close range to Genichiro after he uses a bow move with 1 single arrow, he will stow his bow and do a quick slash attack, and at long range will continue with the bow using another 2 arrows. Re-added Genichiro's block recoil to many hitboxes, when blocking certain attacks he will bounce off them and immediately counter-slash and will continue doing so until you deflect, avoid, get posture broken, or if somehow he does it 16 times before getting a combo off. Each of the Genichiro's posture break punish will now use a "3 strikes" system, the 1st time you're broken he will simply stop attacking, the 2nd time he will do a downward stab with enough delay to roll out of it, and the 3rd time and onward he will instantly do a downward stab. Genichiro will sidestep dodge or do a turning attack with the bow when you're behind him during a combo string. Genichiro is considered a heavily armored enemy, so he will have the damage resistances of those applied, meaning he takes 0.5x damage from physical attacks, and 1.5x damage from Thrust attacks or Piercing damage. Armored Genichiro will not use many Tomoe Style-esc attack strings. All the Genichiro's grabs are now dodge-able with Mist Raven.

-Genichiro, Leader of Ashina
This fight picks up where the Tutorial fight left off, Genichiro can use the bow in phase 1 as well as thrust attacks even in NG0. In phase 1 and the Tutorial fight, he will always do a sweep or thrust from the dive slash which is always his opener in this fight, so it is possible to deflect that slash and fit an R1 in before dealing with either perilous attack. Phase 2 features a more aggressive Genichiro, he will even strafe side to side between combos for a slightly shorter duration, his 4-shot bow attack and punch grab are integrated into the moveset the 4-shot bow has been made more consistent to deflect sword only and Genichiro will move closer to you during it, so it is possible to deflect the arrows and follow-up with a counterslash that hits him unblocked, his punch grab is deflectable sword only but not blockable, attacking him immediately after this punch grab or while he's attempting to recover posture will result in him using a panic guard that puts him in a long stun when an attack in blocked with it. Genichiro in this fight is capable of learning, after being hit with flame vent, firecrackers, shadowrush vault, or One Mind, he will begin to dodge those when in neutral stance. When hit by (charged) Ichimonji or Ashina Cross, he will begin to deflect them in neutral stance. He will deflect Floating Passage in neutral stance by default. He is capable of learning when hit by Umbrella's LV 2 or higher Projected Force, after being hit with that and the player currently has an Umbrella equipped, when he is doing a bow move that goes 1 arrow + 2 more arrows, he will skip the + 2 more arrows to prevent the player from accumulating enough charge to get a high hitstun Projected Force off which is capable of staggering him out of every one of his bow combos. He will begin to attack out of mikiri counter after being mikiri countered once before, and will begin to use a jumping arrow attack out of sweep counter stagger after being sweep countered once, this can be punished with a mid air shuriken, and if the player does not have mid-air deflect damage can still be avoided by jumping backwards. He will also begin to do a thrust or sweep from his special deflect stun that's similar to Isshin's Ichimonji deflect stun, after being stunned by it once before. After seeing the player resurrect once, Genichiro will begin to attempt to stab the player upon resurrection. When at high (60% or greater) posture buildup he will attempt to recover his posture, after this being interrupted once he will always use the strong arrow attack before recovering posture. These learning mechanics are transferred over to Way of Tomoe phase as well. Way of Tomoe phase cannot use posture recovery however.

-Genichiro, Heresy Embraced (Way of Tomoe rooftop)
This phase is now the real threat of the rooftop Genichiro fight, instead of being the pushover. The moveset is structured differently, he now uses much more "floaty" attacks attempting to combo into one of his many variations, he can now use lightning, a Sakura Slash attack, Spiral Cloud Passage, (all of which are sword deflectable) and more. His mikiri counter reaction and his follow-up from the dive slash are now a quick elbow jab. When being shocked the first time he will apply a lightning resistance buff, which also displayed the appropriate eel liver "lightning resist" Kanji VFX, and will begin to only use arrow lightning instead of sword lightning, Projectile lightning now requires blocking or deflecting mid-air or else it shoots you down, Mist Raven also works. The 2nd time he is shocked he will take the shock and disperse it with an electrified sweep attack, this can be Mist Raven'd for a 2nd consecutive shock. After the lightning dispersal he will be able to reverse your lightning attack once. After being shocked after reversing your lightning, he will be able to reverse your lightning, and then reverse again behind him, preventing himself from being shocked, but also removing his lightning resistance buff, so the next shock will deal full shock damage (tbh the fight won't even last long enough for this to happen lol). Choosing to deflect his leaping thrust instead of mikiri counter will cause him to always use sword lightning. After the final deathblow, he will have red eyes, foreshadowing his resurrection in the coming cutscene.

-Genichiro, Heresy Embraced (Final Stand)
This Genichiro has does not posses the ability to learn from the special Ichimonji deflect stun, mikiri counter, or sweep stomp. His attacks with tracer VFX now use a white tracer with black spots, as he now has the Black Mortal Blade. He will always be stuck on the "2nd strike" of the 3 strikes posture break punish system, so he will always do a delayed downward stab when you're posture broken. His opener is now Mortal Draw, when you're far away from Genichiro during this attack (and Sakura Slash of the rooftop version), he will chase you with the attack. When you use a charged Mortal Draw attack on him a split second before he unleashes his own Mortal Draw, it will yield a critical hit effect. Slightly delayed the speed of his 2nd Mortal Draw from this first Mortal Draw, so it is now consistent to Iframe the first Mortal Draw with a dodge and immediately queue a Charged Mortal Draw and it will critical hit him. When this Genichiro is at half Vitality or Posture, he will stop whatever he is doing and perform his Final Stand wombo attack, which begins with him striking himself with lightning, this deals appropriate shock damage to his Vitality and displays the "Shock" Kanji VFX, which ends in his first successful Sakura Dance, this also instantly builds his posture to maximum, effectively ending the fight. It is my band-aid solution to this Genichiro needing to be fought every time before Kensei Isshin when in story mode.

-Ultimate Genichiro (Inner Genichiro)
Ultimate Genichiro is a culmination of every fight in the story mode, thus he is able to use a more Tomoe-esc style while still in his armored phases as well as starting the fight out with all the learning mechanics on by default. Upon entering phase 2 his moveset will change a bit, he will now use Tomoe Style-esc attacks as much as the Way of Tomoe variants do in story mode, in addition to lightning crackling across the sky. In phase 1 he still uses the normal Floating Passage version of the running sheathed combo-attack, in phase 2 this becomes the Spiral Cloud Passage variant. In phase 1-2 his chasing slice always comes out from his quick 1-shot arrow move from a kick, in phase 1 chasing slice leads into the attack chain that normally occurs from his floating double slash, in phase 2 chasing slice leads straight into the running sheathed combo-attack Floating Passage as if the chasing slice was the 1st hit of that attack. His sweep stomp reaction in phase 1 is the jumping backwards bow that he uses in the armored phases of story mode, and in phase 2 is the jumping to the side bow attack that he uses in the Way of Tomoe phases in story mode. His Sakura Dance will alternate between Lightning and Mortal Draw Ring, starting with Lightning each time. His Lightning arrow move is a bit janky, in that his animation is noticeably faster than the Way of Tomoe Genichiro's Lightning arrow animation, so you will need to jump sooner for it. In phase 2 his mikiri counter reaction becomes the kick move, it has the same timing as the regular sword slash. 

-Ultimate Genichiro (Way of Tomoe phase)
This phase has the most drastic moveset change of any Genichiro phase, his attack strings flow into each other extremely fast in comparison. He will always skip the +2 arrows from a single arrow move now regardless of whether you have umbrella equipped, and go straight into the next combo. He opens the fight by striking himself with lightning, applying an immensely powerful lightning resist buff that reduces all shock damage to 0. When you reverse lightning he will reverse it back to you, when reversed again he will throw it behind him, removing his lightning resistance buff and allowing him to take shock damage. Once his lightning resistance is gone he will begin to use a stronger arrow lightning move that has higher hitstun and is reversed by using the Thrust Lightning that's seen in Divine Dragon's fight, which Genichiro is unable to reverse. Choosing to deflect his leaping thrust will cause him to use sword lightning. His Sakura Dance is now a deadly combination of the two variants from the previous phases, combining both the Mortal Draw Ring and Lightning, this cannot be reversed without the use of Mist Raven, or an expertly timed mid air umbrella deflect. He does not follow-up with a downward stab afterwards like he does in his previous iteration. His Mortal Draw is now the same as the player's Ultimate Mortal Draw skill, generating Mortal Draw Rings that build up umbrella charge. The next time he uses Mortal Draw it will become the regular Mortal Draw that's seen in the Final Stand fight, this can be critically hit using the Counter Combat Art mechanic with your own Mortal Draw. After this is becomes the Sakura Slash seen in the rooftop Way of Tomoe fight, and loops back to Ultimate Mortal Draw once again. The knockback of many of his attacks are reduced to somewhat aid in preventing cornering the player.

-Ema, Student of Isshin
Ema now shares a lot of similarities to the Isshin Ashina fight. She can now perform a dodge when in neutral stance, and can dodge to both your left and right, so attacks marked as "Left shoulder to right leg" will force her to dodge to your left and vice versa. Many of her animations have had increased blending. She will always open the fight with an Ashina Cross, and now has a close range cancel for said attack the same as Isshin does, she can either do a quick slash attack or a grab. Using your own Ashina Cross on her a mere moment before she unleashes her own will yield a critical hit effect, the same is true for Ichimonji. Choosing to deflect her thrust attacks instead of mikiri countering will put her in the special stun that's normally given when you deflect the last hit of her wombo attack. Ema is capable of learning, after being mikiri countered once she will attack out of mikiri counter the next time. After being hit by firecrackers, flame vent, shadowrush vault, or One Mind, she will dodge them in neutral stance the next time. She will auto-deflect Ashina Cross in neutral stance. When Ema dodges One Mind, she will either do the run-around slash or an ichimonji follow-up depending on which side she dodges to, when she does the Ichimonji variant she ends up tanking a few slashes, so when she's at low HP she will never dodge to the side that performs the Ichimonji. Her grab is now dodge-able with Mist Raven. Ema now recovers a small bit of posture when her Ichimonjis are not deflected.

-Senpou Glaive Monk
They now have follow-ups for deflecting you, being deflected, and more. Changed attacks with an individual hitbox on each end of the Glaive to be a single hitbox spanning the whole glaive to allow them to be deflected sword only. These monks now take 1.5x fire type damage and have a small burn status threshold. They are capable of learning to dodge Flame vent in neutral stance after being hit by it once. They are capable of vaulting over sweep attacks when EvE-ing. 

-Senpou Monks
The normal unarmed Monks now consistently deflect you on the 2nd consecutive attack and have follow-ups to deflecting you. The staff Monks will consistently deflect you on the 3rd consecutive attack and also have deflect follow-ups. Gave generous block cancel frames to their attack animations, they will now defend themselves more vigorously. The unarmed Monk's grab is now sword deflectable and Mist Raven dodge-able.

-Hirata Bandits
Both the katana and katana + torch bandits will now consistently deflect you on the 3rd consecutive attack, and have follow-ups to deflecting. When having recoil from their attacks being blocked they will continue attacking. Removed Fire type damage from the torch hitboxes, they only deal physical damage and burn buildup now. They now have reactions to their target being posture broken, the "1st strike" will have them do a delayed kick and the 2nd will have them do an instant kick, this mechanic applies to EvE posture breaks as well. The shield bandits can now consistently deflect you on the 3rd consecutive attack, and their follow-up to deflecting you can be deflected to greatly build up their posture, when deflecting a shield hitbox that has deflect recoil, they will be vulnerable to an attack for a short while. Their shield rush attack is consistently deflectable sword only and when they backstep after deflecting you it means they are performing this attack. Changed a few Bow Bandits in Hirata to use normal arrows instead of Fire arrows. Added deflect recoil to a few more Axe Bandit hitboxes, most axe bandits have heavy armor and posses Poise, so deflecting an axe swing and using the counter-slash thrust will deal immense vitality and poise damage, while a regular slash will deal more posture damage.

-Bell Taros
During their normal bell slam combo, each bell slam comes out exactly 1.33 seconds from the last one, because I have a fetish for rhythm. When their target is behind them in one of these basic bell slams they will do a turning attack with the bell. Removed their self posture buildup on their rampage.  When they are stuck by an attack while they have their bell hoisted over their head (such as the rampage and bell grab attacks) they will drop the bell on their head and deal a large amount of posture damage to themselves. This will *not* happen if the attack lands on their armor, so it must be stripped to get this effect. Made their bell grab deflectable with umbrella and dodge-able with Mist Raven (most of the time). Made all taro's hitboxes have friendly fire.

-Rats
Not a total Ai rework, but they already use basically all their animations now so I figured it belonged up here. Added the unused kick attacks. Made the upward slash that leads into the downward kick not have recoil. When that kick is deflected they will go into a unique deflect recoil where they bounce off of you and do not have block frames in this recoil, when the kick is not deflected they will simply jump off their target. Made their grab attack sword deflectable and gave it the bounce recoil when deflected, is also dodge-able with Mist Raven. Gave a small amount of Iframes to the beginning of their rolling animations. They now consistently deflect you on the 2nd consecutive attack and their follow-up(s) are not instantaneous anymore and can have variation.


~Fights updated, not full Ai moveset reworks~
The majority of these changes will include reducing the recovery frames on staggers, so they will not begin regenerating posture for longer, and will not be able to start an attack for longer. As well as hitbox logic, which side the hitbox recoils to when blocked or deflected and which side the player deflects or blocks towards when it hits, and even implementing an unused level of hitstun into enemy attacks, it knocks the player on their back comedically and when deflected, has the turnaround counterslash, enemies also use an unused stagger type called "Push" when hit with hitstun levels that knock the player backwards etc... And making enemies begin to regenerate posture quicker after attacks that have deflect recoil, so if not deflected they will have a chance to recover, yet also making the beginnings of attacks and much more of their stagger animations negate posture recovery. And making block recoil reactions allow them to continue attacking you until you avoid or deflect a hit. In addition to Parry logic, I remove the RNG of them deflecting, so they no longer could have a 50% chance of deflecting on the 2nd R1, but either a 100% chance on the 2nd R1 or 100% chance on the 3rd R1, enemies with larger weapons will usually deflect you on the 3rd R1, enemies now have a learning mechanic where if they are hit by firecrackers once, they will attempt to backstep away from you when it is used again, firecrackers also have a 5 second timer on them where they can't be stunned again, and during that timer they will not attempt to block or backstep, so their attack will not be interrupted by them trying to avoid it. Enemies now also have a mechanic where they will have difficulty deflecting a thrust after they've blocked an attack immediately before, so weaving a thrust into a combo can yield a failed deflect on their part. Enemies will also now have no chance of trying to counterattack while in the middle of blocking one of your own combo-attacks such as floating passage. Enemies will now also have more plentiful blocking frames, many of them had little to no blocking frames on their own attacks so the fight came down to who hits who first a lot of the time, now they should attempt to defend themselves more vigorously and rely on counterattacking you. Enemies will now be capable of recognizing different attack types from other enemies, when they EvE they will be able to deflect thrusts, attempt to avoid perilous attacks, block combo-attacks until the last hit etc....

-Master Shinobi Owl
Not big Ai changes with him, I spent a day or two in total working on him and moved on, has mostly basic attack interactions like block recoil. I want to go more in depth will this particular Owl so that his difficulty comes from him using gimmicks and tricks that make the player think, not entirely dissimilar to how Isshin Ashina is now compared to Kensei Isshin. He now also consistently deflects on the 2nd consecutive attack, this change was made before I figured out how to make enemies deflect on the 3rd attack, and I'm not sure if I want to implement that for a main boss or not, but his weapon is certainly large enough to justify that change given my reasoning for other enemies deflecting on 3 is that. Gave his leaping vertical slam attack the special deflect that Owl Father has, and he will do a sweep attack out of it every time. Owl can now only mikiri counter the player when he's in neutral stance, furthermore he learns to dodge flame vent in neutral after being hit with it, and will attempt to dodge firecrackers by default. Owl now takes 1.5x fire type damage as well. His firecrackers now give an appropriate firecracker stun to the player instead of a generic stagger. Removed the multiple hitboxes during Owl's Chasing slice, no speedrun strats hehe >:)
During his Phase 2 begging animation he will have different reactions depending on if the player waits him out or attacks him, or walks into him.

-Ashina Samurai
More block frames to many of their attack animations. Offensive variant of Samurai cannot deflect consecutive attacks, they can only deflect obvious thrust attacks, if the thrust comes after immediately blocking a previous attack they will attempt to block it and get hit. They also will have the most aggressive reactions of the bunch to block recoil. Balanced and Defensive variant Samurai will function mostly the same as vanilla, added more block frames on their attacks of course. Spear Samurai will have a similar ability to defend themselves as the Offensive Samurai variant but they cannot deflect and do not even attempt to block thrust attacks from neutral stance, more block frames on attacks. Gun Samurai will now attempt to gun bash you while you're attacking them at close range and will continue to loop gun bashes when they bounce off your guard until one is deflected or avoided. They cannot deflect.

-Ashina Samurai Generals/Seven Spears
They will now consistently deflect you on the 3rd consecutive attack. Changed many deflect directions of hitboxes, it was very jarring for me to see a General recoil to the opposite side that the player deflected towards, on a vertical slash nonetheless. More block frames.

-Sunken Valley gunmen/Snake eyes
Sunken valley gunmen will now attempt to thrust as a hit reaction after blocking every attack (that isn't a combo-attack) and because of the newly added block frames to their attacks, they will continue blocking your consecutive attacks until their posture breaks, instead of blocking one and being hit by the next. They are capable of deflecting thrusts only from neutral/not in a consecutive attack, similar to offensive variant of Ashina Samurai. Snake Eyes will now consistently deflect you every 2nd consecutive attack, much more block frames added to her attacks, made her hyper armor on her kick and grab moves last until the attack actually ends. Snake eyes' grab is sword deflectable in vanilla game but now has deflect recoil upon being deflected (this actually makes somewhat unsafe to attack afterwards which I did not intend, I wish to make deflecting it an opening and will likely change this when a full rework of this enemy is made) and can be Mist Raven dodged.
Sunkey valley shotgunners and cannoneers will now consistently block one attack and always pick a slow, hyper armor having attack as a hit reaction, it is safe to get 1 more R1 in after they block one hit, and then deflect their attack. Gave deflect recoil to cannon swings and made the deflect direction match the direction they recoil towards.

-Nightjar shinobi
Made their spin attacks sword more consistently sword deflectable, more block frames. The melee variants now consistently deflect you on the 2nd consecutive attack, though only have 2 different follow-ups from deflecting you. Ranged variants cannot deflect you outside of a thrust from neutral stance. Gave their kamikaze attack friendly fire and made it deflectable with the sword.

-Lone Shadows
More block frames of course, they now consistently deflect you on the 2nd consecutive attack, and when their attacks with block recoil bounce off your guard they will continue attacking until an attack is deflected or avoided.

-Red Guard Samurai
The dual katana red guards have minimal changes to their animations, however the dual kodachi red guards (the ones that attack really fast) have had hitboxes changed, deflecting their pincer thrust now gives the larger deflect recoil where they cannot defend themselves in, extra block frames of course.

-Blue robed Fencers
Extra block frames on attacks, gave their thrusts deflect recoil, they will continue attacking off of block recoil. I wish to make the Offensive and Defensive variants of these more unique in the future.

-Monkeys
More block frames on the monkeys with swords. Made the gun monkey's gun explosion have friendly fire. The dual katana white monkey now consistently deflects you on the 2nd consecutive attack, and does not like to begin attacking randomly while you're attacking now. Changed all attacks with an individual hitbox on each sword to a single hitbox on both swords, so it only hits once. Monkeys now take 2x fire type damage. The Headless Ape bride can now be driven mad with the Finger Whistle prosthetic. The weaker monkeys and dogs will be set on fire by firecrackers, this isn't a change that was done on purpose, they just have such little burn threshold and I gave firecrackers a very mild amount of burn buildup.

-Drunkards
More block frames, block recoil will have them continue attacking, changed a few of their deflect and deflect recoil reactions. Increased the duration of Shigekichi's fire sword buff to 45 seconds from 15 seconds, this is because at that point in the game the player would just be receiving the Ministry Ignition Powder, a fire counterpart item to Divine Confetti that replaces Ministry Dousing Powder, granting a 60 second fire sword buff that allows deflecting of fire attacks without chip damage or burn buildup, and when the 60 seconds have elapsed instead of going out, it will decay into Defensive Living Force for an additional 30 seconds of fire defense.

-Shinobi Hunters
Extra block frames. Shinobi Hunter miniboss in Hirata can now learn to attack after being mikiri'd once, and applies a Gokan's sugar buff upon entering phase 2.

-Headless
Made their belly flop attack able to be picked by their Ai more. Changed deflect directions and deflect recoil reactions to blend better, made their hitboxes spawn at the time of them swinging it and not before, while also lingering less.

-Underwater Headless
Changed Magic damage to Physical damage of all their underwater attacks, and removed terror buildup from all but their Headless hair projectiles, so it is somewhat viable to deflect underwater now.

-Chained Ogre
Made their grab attack hitboxes spawn 1 frame later, previously it would spawn a tiny sphere on their hand as they reached for you, now the hitbox does not spawn until just as the Ogre's hands are coming together. Made their grabs Mist Raven dodge-able. Changed deflect directions of a few attacks I think.

-Blazing Bull
Added all fire type damage onto Physical damage, so the bull will not deal chip damage now but will still build up burn.
Made bull able to aggro to Ashina Samurai

-Demon of Hatred
Fixed bug/oversight where one of DoH's fire arm swings does not deal fire type damage. Gave more hitboxes recoil when deflected. Added a grapple to DoH in his deflect recoil animations and after his sweep attacks. Made his phase 2 transition hitbox deflectable.
His fireballs for some reason deal damage even when deflected with the Lotus Umbrella, I don't know why and this will be fixed for sure at some point.

~Player ability changes~

-Regenerating emblems
Emblems now regenerate every 8 Deflects, Deathblow, and Resurrection. However most abilities cost more emblems now, so the player is able to use them in short bursts throughout the whole fight, instead of wanting to save or horde them and end up never using said tools.

-Prosthetic switching
Prosthetic switch animations now have cancel frames to allow you to Guard or use said Prosthetic immediately, allowing switching mid fight to be more safe and practical.

-Shuriken
Added lots of L1 cancel frames to shuriken animations, both before and after actually throwing the shuriken. Enemies will now treat a shuriken throw as an actual attack at close range. Gouging Top and Lazulite shuriken will now deal pure Piercing or Magic damage instead of half Physical half other, so they will not deal any "extra" damage, but will chip through the enemies' guard more, as well as dealing half the Posture damage as normal shurikens. Normal shurikens visibly bounce off their target, Gouging Top shurikens now bury themselves into the target, and Lazulite "Shooting Star" Shurikens penetrate through the target and if they do not strike the map behind them, rebound and strike again a second time. Sen throw and Phantom Kunai are unchanged, aside from Phantom Kunai costing 3 emblems.
Chasing slice follow-up now deals 1 R1 of damage with Piercing damage replacing Physical damage and the follow-up from this chasing slice is the R1 4th stage after the turnaround slash in the R1 combo.

-Firecracker
Enemies will now react to firecrackers as if they were an attack, enemies I've changed so far will attempt to block, but after they've been hit by them once, they will attempt to backstep out of them. Reduced the radius of firecrackers to more accurately match the radius of the firecracker's VFX. When a firecracker connects with an enemy it applies a 5 second timer to where that enemy cannot be stunned by firecrackers again, and enemies will not attempt to block or backstep at all when they have this timer active. Also deals slight burn buildup.
Purple Fume Firecrackers have a larger radius, and deal a fairly large amount of poison buildup instead of burn.
Chasing slice from Firecrackers now imbues your sword to become a firecracker slash, similar to Owl's. This deals 1.5x R1 damage with Fire damage replacing Physical damage, as well as applying the same status buildups and no firecracker stun timer as the firecracker projectile. The follow-up from this chasing slice is the R1 3rd stage turnaround slash. Added L1 cancel frames before and after throwing firecrackers. Now costs 4 emblems.

-Flame Vent
Enemies will now react to flame vent as if it were a normal attack, but it is unblockable with the sword. Fire flame vents will deal a mild amount of Fire damage, but a massive amount of burn buildup and a decent amount of poise damage and high stagger and beefier sound effects and camera shake, also fixed the small chance charged flame vent had to hit an enemy twice. Lazulite flame vent will deal a massive amount Magic damage with much greater range but very little posture, or poise damage and linger for a shorter amount of time with lesser hitstun levels as well. Immediately after attacking with the Living Force follow-up the R1 input will do the 3rd stage turnaround slash R1. Added additional L1 cancel frames both before and after the flame vent's activation, charged flame vent still leaves you immobile for a time. Now costs 5 emblems.

Flame Vent Living Force sword buff has gotten quite a change, both flame vent's sword buffs last a total of 60 seconds.
The fire variant, for the first 10 seconds, will grant a sword buff with the vanilla amount of Base Fire Damage of +20, double the buff of Ignition Powder, but the Burn buildup will be triple that of Ignition Powder. Then after the 10 seconds have elapsed it will decay into an Ignition Powder equivalent for 20 more seconds, then it will decay again into Defensive Living Force for an additional 30 seconds. The VFX of Living Force and Ignition Powder can be seen by the flames on the sword dying down slightly, and the Living Force buff has flames bleed off the sword tip for every attack.

Lazulite Living Force now has a +50 Base Magic damage buff, and allows the player to deflect *every* damage type and status buildup while applied, it has new custom VFX on every attack animation, recolored a bright Cyan that changes to Purple over time as to show the buff degrading while in swing. The VFX on strong attacks will have VFX even for the decayed versions, but also additional sound effects for the pure versions as well as Lazulite Living Force's VFX being one that does not even decay to purple for that strong attack. After 20 seconds have elapsed, it will decay into a Divine Confetti equivalent for another 20 seconds, then into Defensive Living Force for the final 20 seconds.

-Loaded Axe
Now costs 2 emblems, 4 for Sparking or Lazulite Axe. Added L1 cancel frames before and after axe attacks. The normal axe swing will deal medium hitstun, and hyper armor during the attack now only prevents flinching from small hitstun, however when charging the Axe swing using the Mechanized Axe, swinging the Axe around has hyper armor that will prevent flinching from up to medium hitstun as well, and each axe swing plus the axe slam from swinging deal large hitstun, so enemies will be stunlocked in the axe spinning combo all the way until the Axe's Fang & Blade follow-up which now has medium hitstun, but you can R1 out of it fast enough to attack before their counterslash of that usually. The Axe slam explosion of Sparking and Lazulite Axe will deal large hitstun regardless of it being uncharged, or mid air. Increased the damage, and burn buildup, of the Axe slam explosions. Lazulite Axe does not build up a burn, however it can now build up a charge when swung, allowing that stored energy to be dispersed when slamming the axe down for a powerful explosion. This charge can be stored for usage at a later time by using the Fang & Blade follow-up while spinning. This charge is also remembered even after switching prosthetics, however it seems to disappear when collecting charge with the Umbrella, not sure why. The first level of charge is the equivalent of the charged axe slam, but it can be stored and used on the weaker axe slams suchs as the mid-air or uncharged variants. The second and third levels of charge however are more powerful, with higher hitstun levels, and cannot be blocked, the third level of charge will knock enemies back, and the Fang & Blade follow-up from an axe slam has additional movement speed when locked on to a distant target, allowing you to chase the enemy and get several R1s in addition to the slam itself. There is a bug where the Sparking and Lazulite Axe do not break shields anymore, not entirely sure why this happens, but will look into fixing it.

-Mist Raven
Added extra woosh sound effects when disappearing, you now take no status buildup from the attack you dodge off of. Some enemies' grab attacks are dodge-able with Mist Raven now, this is because I make an invisible damage-less hitbox around their grab attack to activate Mist Raven dodge with (this is why you may feel controller shake when dodging these), so only enemies I've changed so far will have this. Great Feather Mist Raven now instantly creates an explosion with blowback stagger on activation, and 3 subsequent explosions while moving, these have no delay and a larger radius than vanilla. The follow-up attack of Great Feather Mist Raven will apply a very short Living Force equivalent fire sword buff, this only happens if you do not currently have a sword buff so it will not override the current buff. Added special R1 follow-ups to the Fang & Blade follow-ups, the mid-air variant continues with the 2nd stage R1 upward slash, and the grounded variant will continue with the 3rd stage R1 turnaround slash. Now costs 3 emblems for regular, and 6 for Great Feather.

-Sabimaru
The original Sabimaru is now capable of doing the dodge/stance change attack and the alternate combo, Improved Sabimaru is now replaced with Piercing Sabimaru, and where Piercing Sabimaru was is now a new variant, Sparking Sabimaru. Each of these unique sabimarus will now deal pure Piercing, Fire, or Magic damage respectively, instead of half Physical half Piercing, so they may not deal "more" damage but will chip through an enemies' Guard more. Added dodge attack follow-up cancel frames for the entire sabimaru combo after the first attack, meaning the player can activate the dodge at any point. The dodge attack however now has recoil when deflected, so it is not as simple to switch to the alternate combo on a whim, it may be easier to finish the combo and allow them to deflect the final hit before dodging, or use it immediately after the first attack on an enemy that deflects on the 3rd hit. The 1st attack of the alternate combo is now treated as an actual thrust, the enemy will have to deflect it or get hit, and it will deal less posture but more vitality/poise damage like a normal thrust.

-Umbrella
Umbrella has gotten a lot of attention, for the most part I have nerfed its general usefulness, but buffed its niche usefulness. Now costs 2 emblems. Umbrella is now slow and bulky as the Iron Fortress item states, making it impractical to use in combat normally, and when deflecting with the umbrella open it will deal half as much posture damage as a normal deflect because it has double the deflect frames, and umbrella spinning will deal a quarter of posture damage as a normal deflect as it has 4x as many deflect frames. However when using it to deflect projectile attacks will build up a charge that powers it up. This happens in vanilla, but now having levels of charge enhance all aspects of the umbrella, it gains much more cancel frames to become faster, gains small to eventually medium hyper armor on Projected Force, and of course gains additional projectiles on Projected Force just like vanilla. All umbrella projectiles are unblockable, charge LV1 has medium hitstun, LV2 large hitstun, LV3 blowback hitstun, and the newly added charge LV4 has maximum hitstun and will knock enemies backwards. Added custom VFX, Projected Force of Lotus or Lilac umbrella will now have a small, Red or Purple VFX, and both apply a 60 second long Defensive Living Force of their respective type. In addition to the projectiles of each umbrella will have uniquely colored VFX. These projectiles and Projected Force itself will deal pure Piercing, Fire, or Magic damage. When using Projected Force of Lotus or Lilac umbrella with a sword buff, it will *not* override that sword buff with its own now, and using it with a fire or confetti type sword buff will give it more power than it could generate on its own, giving the Projected Force hitbox back high hitstun, which has been changed to be medium hitstun by default. Umbrella also can now only accumulate charge when deflecting enemy projectiles, not at any time when it's opened.

-Divine Abduction
Added more L1 cancel frames before and after gathering wind. The Living Force follow-up now does not remove the wind around your body, allowing you to use the follow-up and still disperse wind around you afterwards. Double Divine Abduction allows you to use the Living Force follow-up again after dispersing once. Double Divine Abduction now costs 4 emblems, and Gold Wind 5 emblems.

-Loaded Spear
Added lots of L1 cancel frames before and after attacking with the spear. Changed the original Loaded Spear prosthetic to be able to rush like Spear-Thrust type, and replaced Spear Thrust type with the Cleaving Spear, and replaced the Spear Cleave type with the Gouging Spear (Spiral Spear but renamed) and replaced the original Spiral Spear with Leaping Flame, and replaced the original Leaping Flame with Driving Flame, a flaming spear rush type. The normal spears now cost 2 emblems each, Gouging Spear 3 emblems, and the fire spears 4 emblems. The normal spears will deal 1 R1s worth of damage on the thrust, and 0.5x an R1's damage on each of the first 2 rush hitboxes for a total of 2 R1s worth of damage on the spear rush, and 1.5x an R1 of damage with the cleave. Thrusts with the spear prosthetic deal immense poise damage the same as R1 thrusts now. Gouging Spear will deal 0.75x an R1 of Piercing type damage on each of the first 2 rush hitboxes, and 1.5x on the thrust, for a total of 3 R1s of Piercing type damage on a rush attack. Fire spears will deal 1 R1s worth of Fire damage on the first 2 rush hitboxes and 2 R1s worth of Fire damage on the thrust for a total of 4 R1s worth of Fire damage on the rush, and Leaping Flame's cleave will deal 3 R1s worth of damage while doing far more burn buildup than the flaming thrusts. The chasing slice follow-up for spear thrusts will do 1.5x an R1 of Piercing damage and has the 3rd stage R1 turnaround slash follow-up. The Fang & Blade from the spear pull will deal 0.75x an R1 of Piercing damage but does not recoil when deflected, allowing you to continue attack regardless of if the enemy deflects it. The chasing slice from fire spear thrusts and Fang & Blade will have a short, Ignition Powder equivalent fire sword buff applied if the player does not already have a sword buff applied. The chasing slice from Leaping Flame cleave will apply a short Living Force equivalent fire sword buff. The first 2 rush hitboxes are now treated as actual thrusts, the enemy will deflect all 3 in quick succession or be hit by them.

-Finger Whistle
Added more L1 cancel frames. Malcontent now costs 5 emblems.

-Whirlwind Slash
Adjusted damage, honestly I've forgotten what the vanilla damage was lmao. Made the 1st attack medium hitstun instead of small. Added sweep Iframes in between the 2 slashes. Added special turnaround slash 3rd stage R1 follow-up immediately after the 2nd slash, the idea is you only can use the special R1 immediately after the attack because you're preserving the momentum of your combo to keep it going.

-Nightjar Slash
Added more sweep Iframes and movement speed, the R1 follow-up for a short time is the 2nd stage R1, the upward slash. Nightjar Slash Reversal now has Iframes for both sweep and normal hitboxes for the entire backflipping part of the animation. Sekiro will now recoil when Nightjar Slash is deflected.

-Ichimonji
Reduced the hitstun level to medium and increased the speed of the attack, so ichimonji can now function similar to R1s. Charged Ichimonji still has large hitstun.  Added unique R1 follow-up for a short time after the Ichimonji double. Ichimonji single is now unsafe to use on an enemy that can block and counterslash without charging it for high hitstun, iIchimonji double allows it to function safely and effectively. Ichimonji has a Counter Combat Art interaction with Isshin and Ema's Ichimonjis, if Isshin or Ema is hit by your (charged) Ichimonji a mere moment before they unleash their Ichimonji, there will be a critical hit effect, the same goes for the player as well. Isshin will auto deflect (or dodge) charged Ichimonji when he is in neutral stance, Genichiro will begin doing that only after being hit with it once before, as he is familiar with Ashina arts but not proficient.

-Ashina Cross
Increased Piercing damage substantially, reduced posture damage. The first hit of AC is now the stronger hit instead of the 2nd, it has large hitstun and will interrupt quicker than vanilla. Added the upward slash 2nd stage R1 as the follow-up for a short time after the Cross. Added Counter Combat Art interaction with Isshin and Ema's crosses, hitting them with the 1st hitbox of AC a split second before they unleash their own AC will yield a critical hit effect, however the same goes for you. Ashina Cross's sheathed stance now recovers posture and can be cancelled into a dodge or guard very quickly. Now costs 4 emblems.

-Praying Strikes
Reduced hitstun levels to prevent cheesing, extra cancel frames.

-Senpou Leaping Kicks/High Monk/Mushin Monk
Sped up cancel times for High Monk combo slightly, added special turnaround slash 3rd stage R1 follow-up from the final kick. Senpou Leaping Kicks now can function as a separate art I like to call "Mushin Monk", it allows the player to use the currently equipped prosthetic's follow-up attack as the finisher, but it is a little janky. The prosthetic follow-up has to be "registered" before it can pick one, meaning it just has to be used once, since there's L1 cancel frames at the beginning of all prosthetics now it is possible to tap R2-L1 in quick succession to register the follow-up you want to use, but it will be forgotten as soon as you switch prosthetic again. If it is not registered or you do not posses enough emblems, it will do a basic R1 instead.

-Shadowrush/Shadowfall
Enemies will now actually deflect the thrust of Shadowrush instead of staring at it. Removed deflect recoil from the 2nd slash of Shadowfall, added  special turnaround slash 3rd stage R1 follow-up immediately after the 2nd slash, so it is possible to continue attacking an enemy even if they deflect the 2nd slash. Increased damage of charged Shadowrush thrust. Added early L1 cancel frames.

-DragonFlash
Removed the projectile from the uncharged version, greatly increased damage, increased speed at which you uncharged version comes out. Cancel frames allow you to weave DragonFlash into an attack string or defend yourself immediately after attacking. Added Counter Combat Art interaction with Isshin's DragonSlash, hitting him with a charged DragonFlash a split second before he unleashes his own will yield a critical hit effect, but the same goes for you. Kensei Isshin will auto deflect uncharged DragonFlash by default, Isshin Ashina will need to be hit by it once to begin doing so. Now costs 3 emblems. Added early L1 cancel frames, after reaching the point of becoming the charged version, the player will use the stumbling guard L1.

-One Mind
One Mind is now the same as Isshin's One Mind in this mod, with 6 invisible slashes consisting of a 1-2 1-2 1-2 pattern. Increased damage and decreased posture damage. Added Counter Combat Art interaction with Isshin's One Mind, hitting him a split second before he unleashes his own One Mind will yield a critical hit effect, but the same goes for you. Removed dodge cancel frames of One Mind, once you unleash it you're committed to the attack, with the exception of being able to cancel into the follow-up immediately (do not spam R1 lol). The opening slash deals immense poise damage and cannot be blocked, enemies will still attempt to block it unlike in vanilla where they have no block reaction to it. Bosses will learn to sidestep dodge it in neutral stance after being hit by it once. One Mind's sheathed stance does not regenerate posture and will be able to cancel into a guard or dodge slower than Ashina Cross. Now costs 6 emblems.

-Floating Passage/Spiraling Passage
Adjusted damage of hitboxes, they now deal little posture damage, and build in strength as the combo goes on. When used on Genichiro when he is in a neutral stance he will auto-deflect it, causing you to recoil, Isshin can do this as well but only after being hit by the attack once before, as he is familiar but not proficient with the Tomoe style, Ultimate Isshin will do it by default. Added unique follow-up R1 after the final hit.  Added early L1 cancel frames.

-Spiral Cloud Passage
Cloud hitboxes are similar to the sword hitboxes in that they build in strength inside the combo, they now have small hitstun instead of minimal hitstun, so they will be enough to actually interrupt most mobs around you when used. Emblem cost is remembered now, if you spend your last emblem on the first attack, the second attack will still have the clouds around it.

-Mortal Draw/Ultimate Mortal Draw
Regular Mortal Draw skill can now be charged the same as vanilla Empowered Mortal Draw, costs 5 emblems. Empowered Mortal Draw now does 2x the damage of Mortal Draw instead of 1.5x. Changed hitboxes to be pure Magic damage instead of half Magic, half Physical damage, so the amount of damage is the same, but you'll chip through guard much more and deal more damage to an enemy that takes extra damage from Magic type damage. Fixed Jumping Mortal Draw bug where it would spawn the EMD hitbox on the mid-air or landing animation. Empowered Mortal Draw is now Ultimate Mortal Draw. It will spawn the Mortal Draw Rings that vanilla Inner Isshin uses as an opener. I have had trouble editing the VFX of this, so it is still black, but I fully intend to recolor it Red. UMD now costs 10 emblems, and does slightly under double the damage of its regular Mortal Draw counterpart, so it deals more damage per second in a larger radius with greater hitstun levels, but less damage per emblem. Added early L1 cancel frames, after reaching the point of becoming the charged version, the player will use the stumbling guard L1.

-Sakura Dance
Lowered hitstun levels, it goes small-small-medium now instead of small-medium-large. And fixed bug(?) where enemies did not treat it as a continuous attack, leading to them deflecting the 2nd hit and then being staggered by the 3rd hit anyways. Emblemless Sakura Dance can now only reverse lightning if you catch it on the ground. Costs 2 emblems.

-Bestowals
Now costs 10 emblems. The effect lasts 60 seconds, all bestowals allow deflecting of Magic type damage. Red bestowal allows deflecting Fire type damage and Burn buildup, Poison bestowal for Poison buildup, and Lifesteal bestowal for Terror buildup and Thunder type damage (lightning attacks remove sword buffs, I want to change this and add more options for negating the damage lol). Adjusted the damage of bestowal additive hitboxes, in vanilla only Red bestowal deals Magic damage, the others deal physical damage, Now Poison bestowal deals half the Magic damage of Red (this does *not* include the damage multiplier enemies now receive when they are poisoned), and Lifesteal 2/3rds of Red.



Huge thanks to Ionian, creator of the Sekiro: Resurrection mod and a pioneer of the Sekiro modding scene, without joining the Resurrection server I would never would've even thought of making my own mod
Sekiro: Resurrection discord: https://discord.gg/KRdeXEWR

Nuffly, creator of Dream of the Damned mod and a big help in development
Dream of the Damned discord: https://discord.gg/q8gVRVcqrx

Axismind19, creator of the Inner Demons mod by Axismind19 and a huge help in development
Inner Demons discord: rip :(

ShinyPockets, for playtesting (and being cool)
https://www.twitch.tv/shinypockets

For the Sake of Ashina discord server: https://discord.gg/myseb67M9W