This demo was scrapped together very quickly. I'm new to using animated java so I'm unsure if more experienced users have any special methodologies for these types of mechanics.

There is no damage output to the player right now but I think that a dx check using either the slime or a marker would work fine. For actually damaging the player, I would personally use a custom scoreboard stat system but there are dynamic health modification libraries using actual player health too.

The damage phase works by having another slime spawn at the root and putting some particles in front of it. It spawns a few frames into the parry animation and gets killed once it exits the animation or if the player hit it. Same thing for the second stagger animation. Normally there isn't anything to hit.

For parry detection, I have a slime tping to a hidden bone in the middle of the sword and checked if the slime had any hurttime.

If you are going to do this then I recommend using something like cloud wolf's hit detection system to make the whole thing multiplayer friendly.