Yubi boss guide: how to beat the No. 21 Swordfighter Puppet

At a glance

Who is Yubi

A Vessel-class Swordfighter Puppet with bladed lower legs, built from material harder than refined iron and crafted with unusual precision. Bi Taotao’s features still linger in its face — her black hair, her bearing — and it fights with a pair of Stormswords, wind and thunder running through the strikes.

Mechanically that last detail is what matters: this is not a person with a sword, it is a puppet built around two of them, and it has no reason to give you a turn.

Getting there

Beat the Chief Disciple of the Seven-Stars first — the route opens from his arena. Warp to the Road to the Training Grounds bell, climb the stairs and open the red doors, then activate the bell inside the Training Grounds and drop into the arena below to start the fight.

Moves and how to answer them

Each set below is three frames of the same move — wind-up, contact, recovery — HUD left in so you can match the moment in-game.

Do not trade hits

Yubi is one of the most aggressive bosses in the game. Trying to race her damage in a straight trade loses more often than it wins, because her strings come out faster than almost anything you can swing.

What actually works is perfect blocking. Her flurries are long, which means plenty of chances to land perfect blocks, and each one shaves her Guard meter. Parrying blue-flash attacks and dodging red-flash ones adds Ghoststep counters, which is where the heavy damage comes from.

Three combos, three blue-flash enders

She cycles three fast strings, and all three finish on a parryable attack with a blue flash:

Learn the opening animation of each and the finisher stops being a surprise. She can chain these onto the end of longer strings, but the blue-flash attack is always the last hit, so the rhythm to internalise is: block through the flurry, parry the end.

The two unblockables

Flip Kick. She flips forward with a red flash and comes down with an unblockable kick. This is the move to learn above all others, because a perfect dodge counter strips roughly 15 to 20 percent of her Guard meter in a single answer. She uses it both from neutral and at the end of combos, so keep the animation in the corner of your eye rather than waiting for a specific setup.

Spinning Knee Slash to Thrust. She drops to her knees for low spinning slashes first, then follows with an unblockable thrust. The setup is long and obvious — low spins mean the thrust is coming, so start the dodge on the transition, not on the flash.

The lightning ring

Two of her tells are lightning, not steel, and both punish sloppy positioning.

The signature one: she presses her blade against the other sword, holds it — get ready to dodge here — then slides the blades apart and a lightning ring spreads outward across the ground. Contact paralyses you instantly, and the follow-up is scripted: a heavy attack, then one of her red or blue attacks on top. This is the move that kills people who were having a clean run, and it is also the easiest to defuse, because the blade-press is a long, unmistakable wind-up.

Her ordinary double-sword combos also carry lightning on some hits. Getting tagged repeatedly fills a paralysis threshold, so even blocked chip matters here — which is why lightning resistance is the recommended accessory.

Two more positioning notes:

• Her tornado. Do not let it sit in the middle of the arena blocking your view. Walk up and block it and it dissipates immediately.
• The airborne red attack. The dodge point is not the moment the red flash appears — it is the instant she spins and dives. Dodging on the flash means touching down early and eating the dive.

The backflip sword-wave

Every time she backflips away from you, she fires a fast sword-wave in your direction. It can be appended to the end of any combo, which is what makes it dangerous: the string looks finished, you step in to punish, and a wave is already travelling at you.

Treat her backflip as an attack tell rather than a retreat. If you have not seen the wave yet, it is coming.

Build notes

Yubi is a puppet, and that changes gear selection more than any other fight in the region:

• Lifesteal and bleed do not work. Anything that relies on drawing blood is dead weight here.
• The Livingwood Talisman only partly helps. It lets bleed land on puppets at 50 percent, or 70 percent once polished — worth knowing, not worth building a loadout around here.
• Bring lightning resistance. The paralysis threshold is the real threat, not the raw damage.
• Widen your perfect-block window. Since Guard damage is the whole fight, an accessory that loosens perfect-block timing pays for itself.

The damage loop: open with the twin-blade and use its spin — it shaves Guard unusually well — break her Guard, then swap to the heavy blade and use its charge and skill for the punish, then rotate back when Sha-Chi runs dry.

Rewards

Notes

• Perfect blocks are the damage. Long flurries mean many block chances; her Guard is the health bar.
• All three combos end blue. Block the flurry, parry the last hit.
• The flip kick is the best punish in the fight. A perfect dodge takes 15–20 percent of her Guard.
• Low spins mean an unblockable thrust. Start moving on the transition.
• Blade-press means the ring is coming. Dodge when she slides the blades apart.
• No lifesteal. Puppets do not bleed.

Related

• Chief Disciple of the Seven-Stars — the fight that opens this route
• Wu Lengshuang — the region’s other duel
• Yuzan — another puppet boss, and the one that teaches the puppet rules
• All bosses