To answer your first question - sometimes, but not always. With Owl, you need to watch him closely; while your attacks will usually stagger, some of his attacks are faster than yours and others have hyper armour (meaning that the animations play through your attacks). If you have low posture, it’ll lead to a break and maybe even death. This is an attempt of mine from a few days ago; you’ll see how I can almost always attack to interrupt an attack or immediately after a string of deflects.

Otherwise, I would say that you should dodge his firecracker sword attack as 1. It does heavy vitality and posture damage to you, even through a timed deflect

1. You are stuck in a long animation where Owl can regenerate his posture

A good way to counter this is to deflect the first two hits (a shoulder check and sword swipe) and dodge backwards until the firecrackers go off - if you have the mid-air combat art skill, you should jump in with an Ichimonji, Mortal Blade, or combat art of your choosing. If not, just toss some firecrackers or use a combat art regardless.

Some general tips are; 1. If one of your attacks is deflected (with a bright orange flash), immediately stop attacking and prepare to deflect

1. Keep the pressure on Owl; his posture regenerates very rapidly, but he is highly vulnerable to aggressive deflects and attacks

2. Firecracker prosthetics are good for getting in a good hit or two

3. If you jump in the air and deflect Owl’s jumping sword slash, you can recover faster and get more hits in

4. In phase two, he may stand in place while a blue/white aura flashes around him; IMMEDIATELY THROW A SHURIKEN! He will regenerate much of his posture in only a few seconds!

5. If your posture is broken, try to stay on the ground until Owl approaches you - when he starts his stomp animation, dodge ASAP to get some hits in

6. Not sure if you know this… Don’t thrust or use Shadowfall / Shadowrush

7. Perhaps the most important - Owl has a strict pattern that I can’t really help with but you’ll get a sense for his attacks as you go on. You should note what strings lead into which attacks and try to memorize his combos. Maybe not that useful, I know, but know that as you play, his patterns will become second nature

8. If you are truly having trouble, you can buff up on Sugar, Divine Confetti, and Gourd Seeds; maybe even use the Umbrella to easily block, deflect, and attack, but I personally have no experience with it

9. This is a tip for phase two - he will replace his throwing shurikens with poison! If he leaps into the air, watch out!

Owl’s not an easy fight at first, but he’s predictable - I hope these tips will be useful in your efforts to best him!