KH3 - Armored Xehanort No Damage (New Game, LV1CM/All PRO Codes)

Описание: This is my favorite boss fight in the series. I did it No Retry, which is why I left the cutscene skips and loading screens in; unlike my last playthrough, I won't be doing it for Final Xehanort so I can more readily show off the tech at the start of his last phase.

-CHARACTER SETUP-
Keyblade: Ultima Weapon (+10)
Accessories: Orichalcum Ring, Orichalcum Ring, Orichalcum Ring
Cuisine: Caprese Salad+, Cold Tomato Soup+, Sea Bass Poêlé+, Stuffed Quail+, Tarte Aux Fruits+
(Full Course Bonus: Hearty Meal)

Counter Kick and Counter Slash are both completely viable choices here. I like Counter Kick due to its ability to damage him out of his fire pillar DMs, but you can easily get more reprisal damage with Slash depending on what attack patterns he uses and how riskily you'd like to play.

Turn off all Flowmotion abilities (Wall Kick, Pole Swing, etc.) so you can Air Slide into walls and poles without worry while comboing Armored Xehanort (AX).

Set your party members' AI to Hands Off, they will stagger AX and Final Xehanort at a bad time guaranteed.

-FIGHT STRATEGY-
This fight is divided into three phases: land, water, and sky. Each phase has AX use different attack patterns, but in general the actual attacks he uses remain the same. Furthermore, his Revenge Value remains constant between all the phases at a whopping 10RV, which is by far the highest in the game.

Since he has so many different attacks and patterns, and because I genuinely believe it's worth it for you to learn them yourself, I won't list them all out like I usually do. Instead, I'll try and go over some notes on the fight and general tips. I'm still due to make a strategy guide for this fight, again, Soon™.

FIRST PHASE:
Know that AX, as a floating enemy, has a extremely quick recovery on wall knockback. Your response to this should be either to Airstep cancel your base finisher when you're on a wall, or avoid walls by using Rising Spirals to allow Sora to go behind the boss to send him away from the wall (see 1:05). This isn't relevant during underwater phase, but definitely is for the others.

Another quick note is that there's an AI bug in the first phase on the fire wall (and the suction fire orb) move where if you hit AX after it, sometimes his RV bugs out and lets you infinite combo him as long as you don't let him recover either naturally or due to wall knockback.

Note that during the DMs in first and third phase, the pillars that appear under Sora or in front of him (this is dependent on whether you're moving or not, you can bait the pillars to appear wherever you want) are not normally blockable without a 360 guard. The pillars during the underwater phase, however, are completely blockable.
As mentioned before, if you get close enough to the central fire pillar during the DMs in first and third phase, you can guard the first or second fire walls and catch AX out with Counter Kick → Final Blow.

This phase ends when nine bars of AX's HP are taken out.

SECOND PHASE:
This phase is all about patience. Since you can't Airstep, you're playing on Xehanort's terms here, so your goal is to block or evade all the attacks in a sequence until he's open. In general the combo strings here and in third phase are longer than first phase.

For the fire pillar DM, dodging the third hit of his physical combo will cause him to disappear early instead of continuing. The fire walls after the four pillars converge can whiff your guard then explode behind you, so I recommend doing the upwards/downwards fast swim I do instead to dodge it.

This phase ends when Xehanort has four and a half bars of HP remaining.

THIRD PHASE:
Skip the cutscene and use Thundaga; Xehanort is open for a moment before he begins his opening attack.

Since this is a fully aerial fight, you have access to infinite Doubleflights (not unlike a phase in a certain other final boss segment). Use them to reset Air Slide lag or reposition Sora.

Since there can be a humongous height differential between AX and Sora, sometimes Xehanort will start at a vertical position way above or below you, like at 5:03. Be prepared for him to correct his position when he comes at you again.

AX can do SO MANY different moves and patterns here, including a command grab that, uniquely (besides a certain secret boss), will yoink you out of reprisals. This grab happens consistently in certain combo strings, so learn the patterns, and Air Slide away from him when he does it for an opening.

This phase shouldn't last too long, since AX's health has been whittled down pretty far by this point.

-PHASE TIMESTAMPS-
Phase 1 (Land) - 0:00
Phase 2 (Sea) - 2:38
Phase 3 (Sky) - 4:16

You can find more KH3 content, including speedruns, at my Twitch channel:   / beeboycubed