Sekiro – Skills Point & Money Farming Guide

I finally Platinum Sekiro Shadows Die Twice after~ 90 hours. of playtime. The most time-consuming trophy to me was the one that requires you to get every skill needed. It somehow forces you to stop and grind for a while.

As long as the combat is fun, this is not an issue. Video games are meant to be grindy one way or another. During this time, there are three spots that I picked to “cheese” on. This is thanks to the structure of the area and the number of enemies. Before checking out each of these “Farming Routes” let take a look at the overall skills points structure of Sekiro Shadows Die Twice

Sekiro Skills Points

Sekiro Shadows Die Twice did not focus on the five points attribute system similar to Bloodborne or Souls Series. Instead, From Software decided to diverse the combat via  Shinobi, Ninjutsu, and various fighting styles.

This is essentially what makes Sekiro focus on the fast-paced actions and demonstrate Wolf finesse as a Shinobi.

But to unlock this vast arsenal of Skills you will need a lot of points. The XP received from enemies will contribute to the top-right corner bar, when it is filled, you will earn a Skill Point.

The amount of XP to fill the bar will be scale depend on how many points you already had. This is similar to the level system at other games. I believe it is technically the same as the scale of the Souls needed to level up a stat in previous From Software titles.

Sekiro Skill Grind Areas

Before start, the ideal runs for Skill Points should be ~ 3 runs/XP point. This means if an area requires you to grind through more than three times, you better continue and proceed through NG+. This is way faster and will reduce the tedious level of the grind. Don’t spend hours facing the same mobs!

You can sprint through an area without worrying about the enemies. As there are several areas in Sekiro Shadows Die Twice that seem un-penetrable the first time you visit. After getting past the enemy and reach the nearest Sculptor Idols, take a rest and prepare yourself to become a farmer.

The areas below are selected base on the following criteria:

  • Number of enemies
  • Difficulty to complete a run

Sekiro Skill Grind Area #1 – Ashina Dojo

Difficulty: 3/5

XP amount: 1/5

This area can be accessed very early in the game during your journey to rescue Kuro from Genichiro. After defeating the first Ashina Elite, you can start to farm for a while here. The main enemies will be the Ashina Samurai and some small time soldiers. You can start from either Sculptor idols mentioned, the Bell Tower or the Dojo. I personally find out that the area from the Ashina Dojo is a lot easier to farm.

From the Dojo, going back and descend from the stair. There will be an Elite Samurai, a Soldier and the Priest (I am not sure what to call her properly) You can stealth kill the Elite Samurai and finish off the Soldier by continue attacking him (He won’t deflect by the way)

The trick here is to go outside as soon as possible. The reason is on the left side of the stair where you descend, there is two Ashina Samurai standing here chilling. The noise from the fight will lure them out and make your “operating” more miserable.

There is one more Ashina Samurai outside, you can start a duel with the Ashina Samurai here, or if even better, make a sneaky approach to get behind him. A priest is also walking slowly on the left side.

Getting familiar with the enemies moveset is one of the key point to overcome Sekiro agrressive playstyle. Trust me, those fearsome foes does have a tendency to repeat themselves after sometime

The duel with an Ashina Samurai will follow with the following pace:

These guys have a good choice of moveset as well, they will often jump backward with a hop and perform a powerful thrust. This can be countered easily by Mikiri Thrust. Follow the above pace, the fight can almost become trivial.

After this guy, there will be another Samurai sightseeing in the left room.

Turn left at this point and you will see another two guys are relaxing in the main room. You can quickly stealth kill the Elite Samurai first to save the trouble and continue to fight the remaining Samurai. Now is your time to return to the two Samurais near the stairway. Return to the area where you first descend from the stairs. Take the right path near the stair, you will immediately see two Samurai are facing each other. While the samurai facing you will notice you immediately, you can still perform a death blow on the guy turning his back.

The final step of this route is to jump down and deal with the final group of enemies: One Samurai and Three additional soldiers. The samurai can be finished off with a jumping deathblow from the ledge. The rest should be pretty easy to kill.

Area #1 Total XP

Total XP for this run is 829/9554 for NG & NG+ respectively.

Enemy Quantity XP(NG/NG+) Total XP(NG/NG+)
Ashina Samurai 9 79/~854 711/~7686
Priest 2 17/~184 34/~368
Bandit 4 21/~376 84/~1504

Sekiro Skill Grind Area #2 – Gun Fort Entrance

Difficulty: 1/5

XP amount: 3/5

The second route is discovered upon your journey to fight the Guardian Ape This begins near the Long-Arm Centipede Girrafe miniboss.

The first introduction to this route is quite a painful experience, as you have to cross the cliff with the constant firing from the riflewoman (You read that right) My best advice is to get past these enemies quickly and not bother fighting the miniboss Snake Eye. This is to quickly go to the Gun Fort Idol. This idol is also just before the Long-Arm Centipede Girrafe fight.

From here, those goons become a lot easier to fight. Starting from the idol, backtrack to the path you went in and quickly annihilate the Heavy Gunwoman. This will alert the nearby mobs.

I personally defeat the smaller guy on the ledge first by grappling to her place.

The lesser gunwoman can be finished off quickly with continous Sword strike. At the second strike, she will counter with a thrust. If you success at perform a Mikiri Counter here, it is guarantee a Death Blow.

You can then deal with the “Senior” Gunwoman alone in a duel. She doesn’t have any special close range attack, but her speed may cause some trouble if you are used to tapping the L1/LB button style.

  • A Barrel Swing to the right side of Wolf – This can easily be deflected by a delay L1.
  • A front kick, if connect will be followed by a shot – The kick is almost instantaneous than the Swing.

If you keep a close distance in the fight, you will not be shot by those bullets, as there is an invulnerable frame when you are up close to these enemies.

Next off, follow the small corridor and defeat the Alert Goon. Your next opponent is another Gunwoman near the cliff, If you somehow stealth on the way there, you can perform a deathblow.

After this area, return to where you defeat the first lesser Gunwoman. From here, drop down to the left and continue to the left side Don’t venture too far on the ground, As there are several alarm springs below! Jump up and grapple up to the tree and finally near to another goon. From here, lock on to the gunwoman just below you and jump down. Doing the same for another in the lower area.

But that’s not all of them. There are still other two on the cliff. From the last place where you finished off the three lesser gunwomen. Grapple to the upper ledge and continue forward, you can perform another air finish blow to the guy on the opposite side. From this ledge, follow the same pattern to the final Gunwomen in this area.

You have just finished six irritating gunwomen that make your trip to Sunken Valley a nightmare.

Area #2 Total XP

Total XP for this run is 1891/7377 for NG & NG+ respectively.

Enemy Quantity XP(NG/NG+) Total XP(NG/NG+)
Lesser Gunwoman 6 160/~624 960/~3744
Shotgun-Wielder Gunwoman 3 297/~1159 891/~3477
Alert Goon 1 40/~156 40/~156

Sekiro Skill Grind Area #3 – Ashina Antechamber

Difficulty: 4/5

XP Amount: 5/5

This is probably the best area for end game farming. I haven’t found any other places that can beat this place. You can start grinding here as soon as you finish the fight with the Corrupted Monk and return to Ashina Castle. This is before and after you fight Owl – Great Shinobi.

I suggest starting off the route in Kuro rooms. By using the window in the library you can then drop down to the rooftop below. There will be a Lone Shadow Guy stand here, drop down here will land you a killing blow for this guy. Shortly after, a wolf will come and you can finish off this doggie with just two Shuriken.

Grapple to the opposing rooftop and quickly make a right to jump grab the ledge. You can then stealth kill the Lone Shadow Viper on the rooftop. Right under him is another Lone Shadow patrolling. Finish this guy off with another stealth kill. Behind this rooftop is two Wolfs. Dispatch them with shuriken.

Next off is the two Lone Shadows and two wolfs on the opposite side of this building. Again, using your Shuriken to quickly dispose of the Wolfs. Finally, choose one of the Lone Shadow to stealth kill and you can then make a decision.

  • Facing him heads on – Lone Shadow is an enemy type that you will face a lot in Sekiro Shadows Die Twice. Facing these guys can lead to serious rage quit problems. I recommend checking out the in-depth guide on Lone Shadow.
  • Ignore him and continue the farming route. You can then return one everything finish.

You can just ignore him and go back to the rooftop where you first killed the Lone Shadow with the Wolf. From here, drop down to the rooftop near the stair. On your right will be a Lone Shadow that standing on the bamboo bridge. You can jump off the roof and stealth kill this guy.

Next off, grapple back to the roof and wait near the Ashina gate (This is the same place where you faced the third General Samurai) After a while, a Red Guard will slowly move out. Jump down and stealth-kill this guy. After finishing him off, quickly approach the door and press square (X on Xbox) to hug the wall. Press Left to peek, you will see another two Red Guards are moving out. You can now pick one of them to perform the Wall Hug Death Blow.

If you are lucky, you can quickly kill both of them in this manner. The final stage is to defeat the remaining enemy. If you left the Lone Shadow back at the rooftop, it is time to finish him off. This is because he has forgotten the event where all of his fellows got killed by a one arm Shinobi…

The above is how I clear through this area of Sekiro Shadows Die Twice. If you have a better approach, feel free to use it, but this area is probably the best place to farm XP in my opinion.

Area #3 Total XP

Total XP for this run is 7,279 / 17,478 for NG & NG+ respectively.

Enemy Quantity XP(NG/NG+) Total XP(NG/NG+)
Lone Shadows 6 686/~1647 4116/~9882
Wolfs 5 221/~531 1105/~2655
Red Guard 3 686/~1647 2058/~4941

What about the money?

I don’t forget that 🙂 The thing is if you already did the above runs. You don’t need to worry about Sen anymore. As Sekiro Shadows Die Twice is very generous with those purses. I didn’t find any trouble at any time with money at all. But if you want to have more effective runs, just pop those balloon to increase your chances of obtaining items and money.

Another tool to ramp up your Shinobi’s purse is the Golden Vortex Prosthetic tool. Upon activation, this will make the enemy to turn their back, dropping loot on the process. The loot dropped from this Prosthetic tool is the same as the one you will pick upon defeating that enemy. This essentially doubles your drop rates.

Sekiro XP Modifier

This is a pretty hidden mechanic. In Sekiro, you can increase the difficulty of the game by several mechanics. First is the Demon Bell, located by visiting an area in Senpou Temple.

First is via subsequent playthrough which is pretty self explainable, the XP and damage of enemies will be increased. On subsequent playthroughs, you also gain access to Kuro’s Charm, which you can choose to return it to him to further enhance the difficulty of the game. This can be done in the first area where you rescue Kuro. By doing this, under your HP bar there will be an icon indicating the current status.

By keeping the Kuro Charm, you will have 20% more XP and Sen, at the cost of more powerful enemies (beefy Posture and HP) You still receive damage even when blocking an attack making your Deflect game an important factor.

A stroll out via Sekiro Discord Channel discussion help me get a hand on how XP is increased/ affected by certain mechanics in Sekiro Shadows Die Twice.

You can take a look at this page(From an Official Guide) to see how Sen & XP is affected during the time of the days as well.

If you prefer a simple summary. I feel that just playing the game multiple time at your own pace combined with Kuro Charms is enough already. Just don’t spend too much time at one spot for grinding. Here is a quick look at how ridiculous NG+ can be when it comes to XP

Tribute to Tolvo on Sekiro Discord Channel..

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