A lot of people feel that the fight is out of place and that it has a huge difficulty spike. I don't think the absolute difficulty itself is out of line -- rather, I think the game didn't prepare you well for this kind of fight. It could've felt right at home as-is if the rest of the last 1/3 of the game was radically changed (but still the same general difficulty). If you commit to being experimental, the fight should start to feel like a more normal final boss after a short while.

A lot of people say that this fight forces you to play in a certain way, but outside of a few edge cases (tip 1-2, one of the sidenotes in tip 1-9, and tip 2-1), I don't think that's true. I mention a few specific build options and how to make the most of them, but there are no full builds in this guide, and there are no build options I consider essential.

I've ordered and individually spoilered the tips, so you can go down the list as you try new things and hit new difficulties. However, nearly the entire list is appropriate for people who are still finding their footing. I'll also say something general about soulsy-games: take breaks. If you try for 30 minutes, take a 30-minute break, and try for another 30 minutes, you'll likely do better and feel better than if you tried for 90 minutes straight

A couple disclaimers: due to my playstyle, there isn't anything about the Charged Strike or the Qi Blast Spell Style. Also, comparing what people have said about the fight to my own experiences, it's hard for me to not think that there were some small changes to the fight since release. This guide evolved from notes I was taking between attempts, and I'm publishing it the day after I defeated the true ending version of the fight, so it should be very up-to-date at the time of publishing.

1. This fight relies heavily on rote memorization, whereas with all of the other bosses, it was at least possible to mostly play them by feel. Intense memorization definitely isn't my kind of fight, and this is probably another reason the fight is unpopular. The timings of the attacks are absolute chaos, and the only way to get a good feel for them is lots of attempts.
   
   Normally, when fighting a boss in a game, I'm always fighting in an attempt to win, but for this fight, you may find it necessary to do a few attempts where you're fighting to learn -- such as by trying to get perfect parries on the different combos and neglecting actually doing damage.
   
   
2. The *only* correct response to the Talisman attack is to jump and use an aerial parry (Tai Chi Kick or Skull Kick). In the second phase, always be prepared for the jumping attack after this. If you are caught by the Talisman, you will always be given extra time for a heal.
   
   The mechanics of the attack are very janky, so there are lots of approaches which look and feel like they would work, but they are inconsistent. It's absolutely possible to Immortal Dash through it, but the jank makes the timing unintuitive, and you'll often find that you appear to dash through it successfully, then you teleport to Eigong and get Talisman-ed. That's an "early" dash. It feels awful and honestly I recommend not trying to dash through it just to avoid feeling slighted by the janky attack. I also experimented a lot with unbounded counter for the purpose of this guide, but it never worked on this attack. If it is possible, I can at least be confident that the timing doesn't feel right.
   
   jank example:
   
   (spoilers don't work properly for video links. sorry) https://youtu.be/s1H3jrzYRDM
   
   
3. The (non-sol, non-mutant) enemies of the Empyrean district and the Grotto of Scriptures have likely conditioned you for fast-paced fighting, but even though this fight has some fast combos, it is on the whole a slow-paced fight. There are far more opportunities for the Triple Slash, Talisman, and heal than it initially appears.
   
   Because you're used to speed, you'll likely spend a lot of attempts getting so much internal damage from early parries that the internal/direct distinction isn't very meaningful. I recommend using the Breather Jade to help deal with this while you adjust. The Reciprocation Jade probably won't help much during this early learning since by the time you can land Unbounded Counter against her, you're probably not making many imprecise parries.
   
   To be clear: the Breather Jade can still be a good choice even after you've got a feeling for the timings -- it's not just a learner's tool.
   
   
4. When you are still learning the timings, Water Flow spell style is a good choice both since you can react immediately after applying it and since it pairs well with the Breather Jade to let you recover internal damage between applications. Once you have the timings down well, Full Control spell style becomes very powerful. There are actually lots of opportunities for a 5-chi Talisman explosion, but you'll need to be good at timing smaller explosions to make good use of the spell.
   
   With Water Flow style, I found that the second phase felt extremely damage-spongy. I'm not sure how heavily my approach leaned into internal damage when I was using Water Flow style, but if you're getting to phase 2 often and prefer Water Flow, I have to recommend trying things like the Hedgehog Jade or Reciprocation Jade to increase the talisman's effective damage.
   
   
5. The Talisman cooldown, the time to perform a Triple Slash, and the time to heal once are all approximately equal to each other, so once you have an approach that works for one of her attacks, you can use this to iterate on the approach and to make situational adjustments. Similarly, the time to apply a talisman is about 1.5 slashes. When trying to make adjustments, don't forget to think about the time to jump or turn around if needed for a parry.
   
   
6. Because of how much you are needing to parry, if you are using Water Flow style, you are essentially never out of qi charges, and even with Full Control being used to its fullest, you're rarely low or out during the first phase. So the core of the fight essentially becomes about squeezing in as many talisman attacks as you can. Don't worry about the fact that she sometimes dodges back when you try to apply the talisman -- you'll get the chi charge back soon enough. For the same reason, don't worry about the chi cost of the Focus Jade or the Qi Blade Jade, especially if you use Water Flow style.
   
   
7. It's often tempting to use the Immortal Dash to try to close the distance so you can get a hit or talisman attack in, but this will often leave you unable to respond if she follows up with one of the crimson attacks. Trying to apply a talisman moves you forward by about the same amount, but you can still use the Immortal Dash right after if needed. You won't miss the wasted chi charge. In the second phase, trying to close the distance like this will occasionally put you in fire, but it doesn't actually do much damage.
   
   
8. For most attacks, Eigong commits to an attack direction/location very late. It's often tempting to use the talisman to "dodge" to the other side and deal damage at the same time, and while it is often possible, it is very difficult. Too early is a guaranteed hit (she turns around and hits you). To late is often also a hit (you can't turn around or jump in time before the next attack, so a parry won't count).
   
   
9. Most of the crimson attacks have time for Unbounded Counter, and most of them actually have a generous amount of time to ready the counter, but it's essential and difficult to keep track of what you just did -- since you'll often be locked into an animation for just long enough that you can't fit the Unbounded Counter anymore after waiting for the animation to conclude. Starting and abandoning a counter will almost certainly mean you don't have time to dodge (you often need to move before dodging, otherwise you will end the dodge still in the hitbox). In the second phase, the timing of the big crimson ball attack seems to change, so dodging sometimes isn't possible (the need for movement again). If you are using the Full Control spell style, Unbounded Counter becomes important in phase two for getting enough chi charges.

1. The third phase (which only exists if you are on the true ending route), opens with an attack combo that is very intimidating and does a lot of damage, but it's not a complicated attack. Since it can take so long to get back to it to try it again, I'll give a lot of detail: The First two attacks (the diagonal ones) can be parried regardless of facing direction, even when grounded. The "perfect" parry timing for these two attacks is pretty much as fast as you can hit the button comfortably, so if you tap parry twice when you see it start, you should parry both. Parrying or being hit will lift you high into the air. The third attack has a delay between its tell and its impact -- similar to the dash-and-delayed-strike attack in the other phases. The tell spawns based on your current height, but if you parried the previous attacks, you will have enough upward momentum to go above and back down to it before it hits. This gives you time to dash if it is crimson, and you can parry it if it's not. When you're airborne with this attack, be judicious with your dash and double-jump, since the next attack can be the talisman, and it's very difficult to handle it if you've already used up both of those.
   
   Since describing timing is hard, here's a demonstration:
   
   (spoilers don't work properly for video links. sorry) https://youtu.be/ZbGxhBQSoyY
   
   
2. In the third phase, there are much fewer opportunities to land talismans and slashes. You may need to adjust your build and approach so that you are dealing more internal damage, which the talisman can capitalize on.

If you're still having a bad time, you can look at some of my runs of the Eigong fight to get ideas. The video descriptions have jade builds

https://youtu.be/CUW9zYxxV1Q
https://youtu.be/WTQhDd9uIN8
https://youtu.be/QJE_sspz97U