The boss fight against Shen Yiren will be the hardest challenge of the Twelve Years of Feud quest in Where Winds Meet as it tests your build and your timing to execute successful combat on the enemy. In this battle you will need to play aggressively using good positioning and executing perfect parry’s instead of patience. It will be much easier to complete this duel from beginning to end if you know what weapons to bring and staying close will make this intense duel far more manageable from start to finish.
What to Bring Into the Fight
To play optimally, you’ll want to use a damage focused setup. Weapons which apply consistent pressure have a clear advantage over those which use a slower, burst focused approach. Right now, the Infernal Twinblades are one of the strongest weapons, especially when they are used in conjunction with the Rope Dart. In addition, if you’re comfortable with the timing of the Strategic Sword, it works very effectively too.
Using status effects such as Bleed in particular is very advantageous in this boss encounter. They continually reduce the health and Qi of Shen Yiren, giving you more chances to stagger or kill him without having to be perfectly timed on your attacks every second.
How the Fight Unfolds
Instead of directly battling Shen Yiren, you will first encounter his minions. You will be prompted with an on-screen QTE when you first engage with his minions; please pay attention to the prompt and react. Clearing the minions will make the remainder of your encounter more manageable.
Once he appears, you’ll see that Shen Yiren is heavily reliant on his spear. He uses lunges as a way of closing the distance quickly and can be very difficult to hit. These charges can be avoided or parried, and missing them leaves him open.
The majority of his short-range pressure is from a repeatable chain of spear strikes, followed by a kick, and finally a heavy slam. All three of these actions can be blocked if you know when to expect them, and it is worth spending some time figuring out how long you need to wait to perform them correctly.
The second half of the fight consists of him switching from using his spears to using his bow. His bow has three different types of ranged attacks:
- A wide arrow volley that needs to be dodged
- A rapid multi-arrow shot
- A fast single arrow that hits hard
Only the volley forces you to dodge. The other two can be parried if you stay calm and read the animation.
Positioning Matters
Staying right on top of him during the fight will make it much easier than if you back off and give him some distance to shoot his bow, and this will cause the fight to last longer along with increasing chances of mistakes. Being close makes his moves predictable and allows you to continue to apply pressure on his Qi bar.
After Shen Yiren goes down, speak with the younger Zheng E to complete Twelve Years of Feuds and close out this chapter of the story.
