The Parry Check of Where Winds Meet - Wolf Maiden (Legend, Mo Blade Only)

Описание: Wolf Maiden completes the current trifecta of hardest bosses in the game next to Qianye and Tian Ying though I have to say I personally found her a lot more straightforward than both of them. While Wolf Maiden took me a while to beat it was still less time than Qianye and significantly less time than Tian Ying so out of the three I’d say she’s the “least” challenging relatively. At the same time I’d say she is the most punishing boss out of the three and definitely takes it for the biggest parry check in the game. She has really long combos with very little opportunities to attack her so this fight becomes more of a Sekiro fight where you mainly just parry to break her posture and do Execute damage on her. I did try to sneak in hits when I could but this is probably the absolute worst weapon to use against Wolf Maiden because her openings are so small to begin with LOL. I’ve fully embraced being a Mo Blade main though and its shield is also great for tanking hits so I had no plans of switching it out. This fight was probably a minute longer than it needed to be because I got really nervous and played it safe not wanting choke, especially since I thought it was a fairly clean run for my first win. This makes the last minute a little dull but as usual it’ll be much more confident in the Abyss fight! I also got an immense feeling of satisfaction beating her too which I normally only feel to this extent by beating very difficult bosses :D

In terms in the moveset while Wolf Maiden’s combos look intimidating and hard to parry I noticed pretty early in that they all have pretty good telegraphs and rhythm to them. The long 9 hit combo she does is the best example of this; there is a shimmer in her claw right before she initiates the attack and each movement has very clear momentum in it to indicate when each hit will connect. While this is her longest combo I also feel that it’s the most telegraphed of them all. Her other 4 hit combo with the spinning kick was a bit tricker for me despite being shorter because of the pauses in between the hits, especially the last kick she’ll do. These are the two main attacks she’ll use in this phase but she can also use a few red attacks as well.

Her transition into phase 2 seems to be at around 65% health so in order to extend P1 for longer I decided to not attack her after the first stagger, leaving her a little above this threshold. In doing this I could get her health down to around 45% after the execute so I’d spent less time in the harder P2. Here shes gains a lot of new attacks and all of them are infused with bleed which does exactly what it does in Souls games; deleting a big chunk of your HP when it fills. This combined with the already massive damage her attacks do made getting hit at all very threatening. Because of this, it felt too risky to attacking her most of the time which is why I played more defensively, especially towards the end. Her biggest punish window in this phase is after her twirling “Destined Death” attack that ends in the gold plunge as it takes a while for her to pull her claws out but I didn’t want to risk overcommitting. This attack at close range specifically was always dangerous and it only ever felt reliable to parry at range. Another attack that gave me trouble here was her quick lunge into the 6 hit claw flurry that ended in the red attack. The issue of this attack was mainly the initial lunge. It happens so fast and you have to parry way earlier than expected as she starts attacking immediately. On top of that if you get hit by the first swipe you’re usually comboed into the rest and likely bled to death so messing this one up was really punishing. The combo itself isn’t too bad as it’s basically just rapid tapping the parry button until the end but it was the cause of many deaths. Ideally you want her to use the 9 hit combo from P1 (now 10 in P2) here because it drains her Qi bar the most. It was a little harder to tell when she’d use it in this phase because she can transition into it seamlessly from other combos but if you recognize the rhythm from P1 you adjust to it quickly.

Overall I’d say that Wolf Maiden is both a challenge and satisfying parry check boss. Many people consider her to be the hardest in the game and I can see why but I think the rhythm of her attacks combined with only 1 health bar made her learning curve not as steep as Qianye and Tian Ying. She does require the most precision with parries though so if you aren’t good with parrying she is definitely the “Genichiro” of Where Winds Meet.