The Armored Warrior is a mini boss that’s found in the Senpou Temple region in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. You can find him at the top of the cliff above the Senpou Temple – Shugendo Idol. There are a few Senpou Assassins between the Idol and the boss, but you can bypass most of them if you want to make sure you preserve your vitality.
From the Shugendo Idol, grapple up to the cliff above you. The Senpou Assassin that’s on the lower level to your left will spot you, but just ignore him and stand by the wall of the cliff. He won’t come to you, and eventually the music will stop and the Assassins will forget all about you. Now work your way around the path that leads up the side of the cliff and there’s another Senpou Assassin that you can kill with a Deathblow. Continue around and grapple up to the top of the cliff – you’ll see a long bridge on your right.
Step on to the bridge (which looks intentionally ominous) and the Armored Warrior will step out in front of you like an absolute badass. It’s time to fight.
He looks really intimidating, but he’s actually pretty easy to kill if you know what you’re doing. There are a couple of things to know before you engage him if you want to win this fight; firstly, your Loaded Spear Prosthetic Tool cannot be used to tear off any of his armour, so don’t waste any time trying. Secondly, his armour is impenetrable, which means you can neither do any damage to his Vitality or kill him with a normal Deathblow.
Yeah, I hear you, how the hell are we supposed to kill him then? Well, let me tell you.
Armored Warrior’s main strength is the fact that you can’t do any damage to his Vitality, but his main weakness is that his Posture bar doesn’t recover at all. That means that we can work solely on his Posture bar, which you actually fill and break pretty quickly. Like I said though, once you break his Posture you can’t kill him with a simple Deathblow; instead, we’re going to have to be a bit more resourceful.
Armored Warrior’s weapon of choice is a massive sword that he swings around like a maniac. It’ll do a lot of damage to you if he manages to hit you with it, and it also destroys the sides of the bridge if he makes contact with them. That second point is the key to finishing this fight, so it’s important that we make sure he destroys as much of the bridge as possible. Try and fight Armored Warrior near the side of the bridge at all times. This will ensure that he destroys at least some of the bridge.
All of his normal attacks can be Deflected to cause some non-refundable Posture damage, but he’ll also do considerable Posture damage to you when you Deflect, so make sure you keep an eye on your own Posture bar. If he breaks your Posture he’ll do major damage to you, so if your Posture bar is close to breaking then back off and let your bar recover. His combos are pretty easy to get used to – he’ll either be swinging at you in a slower, more considered manner, or frantically swiping at you in a fit of rage. All of these can be Deflected if you have enough Posture or you can just get out of the way if you don’t think you can handle it. Remember that his Posture doesn’t recover, so there’s no problem backing off and taking a breather if you need to.
Because of his size he’s also quite slow, which gives you opportunities to get in an attack or two of your own between his strikes for some more Posture damage. His attack which sees him get enraged and charge at you tires him out, so you can get a good few hits in here before he recovers.
Armored Warrior has one Perilous/Red Kanji attack to watch out for. Thankfully it’s a Thrust attack, which means we can Mkiri Counter it for another big chunk of Posture damage and get in a hit or two of our own straight after.
Keep working on filling that Posture bar and making him destroy the bridge. When his Posture bar is close to breaking, you need to lure him over to one of the destroyed parts of the bridge. When he comes to attack you, Step Dodge around him so that he’s now stood on the edge of the bridge with his back facing the edge. Now, pile on the pressure to finally break his Posture and you’ll get a Deathblow marker. Hit the Deathblow and you’ll kick him off the bridge, causing him to fall to his death.
You’ll be rewarded with a Prayer Bead and a new Latent Skill called Breath of Nature: Shadow which allows you to recover some Posture when you perform a Deathblow. Now head on to the end of the bridge and find the Temple Grounds Sculptor’s Idol so you can have a well earned rest.
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