Sekiro: How to Beat Corrupted Monk (Weaknesses, Counters, Moves & More)

How to Beat the Corrupted Monk in Sekiro

The Corrupted Monk is easily one of the best boss encounters in FromSoft’s new action game, and can also be one of the trickiest as you’re getting use to her move set. Here’s how to beat the Corrupted Monk in Sekiro.

Purple Corrupted Monk (Apparition)

There are actually two Corrupted Monk fights in Sekiro, and you’ll face her apparition form first in Mibu Village when you collect the Shelter Stone.

This fight only consists of one phase, but it can still be quite the ordeal due to her insane Posture and general tankiness. There isn’t much prep required for this fight, and while Divine Confetti does allow you to deal some extra damage, it’s not necessary at all.

For this fight, you’ll basically want to focus on whittling her health down to about 30% before you start focusing on Posture damage.

The Corrupted Monk has an insane five-hit spinning combo string that you can deflect. In the apparition fight, however, I don’t recommend trying to deflect it as it does way too much Posture damage to you, with very little Posture damage done to her in return. When she starts spinning the naginata, it’s more efficient to dodge away from her instead. Wait till the combo string is done, then go in for the punish.

Generally, you’ll want to try to stick close to her and bait out her overhead swings. She rarely follows up after the overhead swing, which means you can consistently dodge to her side and attack from there. Every now and then, she’ll jump back with a frontal swing to create some distance, but this move is easily blocked as well.

Aside from that, the Corrupted Monk also has very telegraphed Perilous Attacks, which are either a sweep or a thrust. Sweeps can be responded to with the jump-kick counter, while the Mikiri Counter works flawlessly against the thrust attack as usual. Keep the pressure on once she’s down to 30% health, then you’ll start to do some serious Posture damage.

True Corrupted Monk in Sekiro

When you reach the Fountainhead Palace in Sekiro, you’ll finally get your chance to face off against the true Corrupted Monk. This time, she has three Deathblow counters. The good news is that the first two phases are pretty much identical to the apparition phase.

As with the apparition fight, you’ll want to keep the pressure on and stick to her side. Follow the above strategy, and you’ll be done with the first phase in no time.

However, there is a way to cheese this fight. For the first two phases, you can make use of the grappling points on the trees to the side, and perform a plunging attack to immediately take away a Deathblow counter. This is a little harder to pull off for the first phase, but it’s much easier to do at the start of phase 2.

Once phase 2 begins, immediately grapple to the tallest tree above the bridge, and wait for the Corrupted Monk to spawn below you. Jump down with a plunging attack to immediately end the phase.

If you fail to pull it off, continue grappling from tree to tree in order to avoid her illusory attacks. Once she stops spawning the illusory versions of herself, jump back down to the bridge and continue the fight. Her patterns here are identical to phase 1 and the apparition fight.

Phase 3

Things only really start to change once you reach the third phase of this fight. Now, the Corrupted Monk has a centipede peeking out of her neck, and she can deal terror damage.

For the most part, her move sets are similar to the first two phases, but she now has a new Perilous Attack where the centipede juts forward and spews a bunch of terror gunk in front of her. This move is extremely fast, so you’ll want to dodge to the side as soon as the warning pops up.

The good news is, once you dodge it, you get a huge opening to start wailing on the Corrupted Monk as she completes the attack. The strategy remains the same here: stay close to her side, and attack from the side or behind.

That’s all you need to know about how to beat the Corrupted Monk in Sekiro. Be sure to check our Sekiro guide wiki for more tips and information on the game.