This video is part of a full BL4 guide that I wrote, which can be found here: [ Ссылка ]
Gehrman is one of the most beloved fights in the game due to how cinematic it is, especially when paired with that beautiful soundtrack.
Gehrman has two phases, but his first phase is divided into two (so… three phases?).
He will start of with his Burial Blade in scythe form, and it’s the easiest form to fight. Keep your distance and walk in and out of his range to bait his attacks and combos. He can only do a few things, and here’s how to deal with all of them:
1. Three hit combo. Gehrman will combo you with three separate attacks that track you. Outspace or quickstep backwards for the first attack and parry the second for a free opening. The best way to punish parry openings is to quickstep onto him and do a L1L1 combo (L1 right after the quickstep will do a trick attack).
2. Scythe pull. Gehrman will attempt to pull you with his scythe and follow it up with a slash or a jumping attack that goes over your head. If he does the slash, you can parry him and punish. If he jumps over your head, you can unlock your camera and backstab him as he lands; but if you’re not comfortable with that, dodge away and not into the attack or else you’ll get hit by the hitbox behind him.
3. Charged attack. There are two variations of the charged attack: it can either be faster and then Gehrman will perform an uppercut into a downslash or it can be longer and Gehrman will spin onto you. For the first one you’ll want to outspace him and parry the downslash for a punish, and for the second one you’ll want to wait right before he spins to shoot for a guaranteed parry. You can also wait until he spins and shoot, because he actually spins twice and you can easily parry the second spin for an easy punish.
That’s really pretty much all that Gehrman does and it all boils down to good old parries.
Once Gehrman is below 75%HP, he will trick his Burial Blade to curved sword form, which is the trickiest one to deal with. It’s very easy to dodge everything he does, you can just quickstep diagonally to the right and everything will miss you. The problem ends up being that he will sometimes randomly shoot you, even at close range, and there’s no secret to dodging that - it all boils down to reaction. The other problem is that, after dodging his attacks, it’s hard to get an opening because Gehrman dashes away from you very quickly; so most of your openings will be one or two hit attacks - be extra careful because he can dash away and shoot you immediately after a punish.
The only attack that you can reliably parry is when Gehrman does his big combo. Shoot him at any point in the combo and you’ll get a nice parry opening. If you don’t parry him, beware the shot that comes off at the end of this combo.
Outside of these general tips, there’s not much I can say about the curved sword form. Quickstep diagonally to the right, hit him once and avoid his shots. Keep it up and you’ll get to the next phase hopefully very quickly.
Once Gehrman gets below 50%HP, you he will scream and get a blue aura around him - that signals the start of phase 2. During the scream, Gehrman gets hyper-armor and you can hit him during it. Right after the end of the transformation, you can backstab into a charged R2 for a huge chunk of free damage to start this phase off.
The important thing about this phase is that now Gehrman doesn’t get staggered by R1 attacks, only by parries or backstabs. He will get a few new attacks that you should be aware of:
1. In curved sword form, he pulls his gun out while kneeled and shoots a single bullet that will parry you if it hits regardless of what you’re doing. Always dodge this or you’ll be open to Gehrman’s follow-ups.
2. In scythe form, he can dash across the arena and then dash onto you again while attacking. This attack has very bad tracking, so usually just walking backwards or moving at all is enough to dodge it.
3. Also in scythe form, he can jump up in the air and summon a wind attack to you that works as an AoE. To avoid this, simply spam quickstep backwards as soon as you see him go up in the air, or just sprint away from him.
4. In both forms, Gehrman can sometimes stop and stare at the moon. This is a free opening for a few hits, but back run away from him after punishing or else you’ll get caught by his AoE explosion.
Other than these new attacks, the fight is functionally the same. Since he doesn’t get staggered by normal attacks anymore, you should always be careful with damage openings since you can’t interrupt his attacks anymore and he can try to hit you out of nowhere.
I find that the best way to deal with this phase is to wait until he trick back to scythe form and perform a few easy parries until he dies.
Keep at it and this fight shouldn’t take you long since you beat much harder bosses already.
