Nioh 2

[Lyre Mors]

Nioh 1 is $8 on greenmangaming btw, for anyone who has been waiting for a deep discount. Koei rarely ever lets any of their games discount this low, so it's a good opportunity.

 

[Multidirectional]

274 hours in I finally realized I can use Yokai abilities during yokai shift without consuming Anima and that they recharge by simply hitting enemies. I'm a fucking genius, what can I say.. Just completely raped that Tatarimokke bird boss with it, it went down in like 20 seconds. Suddenly yokai shift doesn't seem useless anymore.

 

[Silverfish]

Yokai shift is generally underrated. Even besides skill spam, it's a great panic button since you can't die while it's active and it's useful when activated preemptively on enemies that are low on ki if you're confident you'll get them down for a grapple. Brute specifically is good for trading hits since it can't be staggered, so you can use charged heavy strikes with impunity once you've stacked a bit of shift extension from soul cores.

 

[Multidirectional]

Yeah Brute is the only one I like using so far. Tried other types of spirits for a bit but I just like Brute burst counter best. And the charged heavy strike spam is the only way used yokai shifts up until now. I will have to try stacking up some shift extension bonuses for sure, I ignored those before.

 

[Biscotti]

Brute counter makes some burst attacks piss easy to counter while others become damn near, if not outright, impossible. Luckily secondary guardian spirits exist, so I can just pop in a phantom or feral guardian spirit and quickly switch to them to counter the more problematic burst attacks.

P.S. 350 hours and counting here. Didn't know about the yokai abilities during yokai shift.
I've always resorted to Yokai shift for panic mashing the last 10% of a boss's health bar and never bothered to explore it further.

 

[Multidirectional]

I fucking hate having a second guardian spirit because I keep switching them by accident and only noticing it way later. Have so much to git gud at in this game still. Feel like combat depth of this completely dwarfs all From Software games combat put together. Great for a combatfag like me, no doubt.

 

[Silverfish]

I cheat the system by equipping two spirits of the same type and just shift for whatever souls cores I want.

 

[Multidirectional]

I cheat the system by equipping two spirits of the same type and just shift for whatever souls cores I want.

I also used two spirits of the same type with my previous character and I always made sure they both had the same exact soul cores in same slots, so that when I accidentally switch them I at least don't lose my favorite yokai abilities.

 

[Silverfish]

I probably would have done the same with cores, but NG+ started getting stingy with One-Eyed Oni core drops.

 

[Multidirectional]

Ok there's no doubt now that my Odachi build was super easy mode. This Saika Magoichi faggot made it perfectly clear today. He didn't even register as a hard boss on my first character at all, now he's raping me over and over. Already did 3 breaks from him, must be over 20 deaths total so far. Had that fucker down to very little HP few times with the Yokai Shift but then he just rapes my entire health bar in couple seconds as soon as I'm out of it. This is by far the hardest Nioh 2 boss I've ever fought so far, and I did all the NG+ modes including about 100 floors of Underworld with my Odachi dude already. If this shit keeps up I am not sure if I'll be sticking with Kusarigama as it seems like I'm way too shit to use that weapon.

 

[cvv]

Ok there's no doubt now that my Odachi build was super easy mode. This Saika Magoichi faggot made it perfectly clear today.

I remember not being able to beat him with my axe build, had to respec to kusa, then got him in a few tries. And yes, he's one of the most annoying bosses in the base game.

 

[Multidirectional]

And yes, he's one of the most annoying bosses in the base game.

I don't remember being annoyed at any boss previously except for Lady Osakabe, because it's a crappy gimmick fight. But even that one didn't take me many tries. Don't think any boss took me more than 5-6 tries before and about half of them went down in 1-2 tries on first run with Odachi. I guess I'm in for finding out the actual difficulty of bosses now. Maybe I invested Kusarigama skill points into wrong things. Not really a big fan of the moveset so far except for couple of them. That leg sweep move seemed really cool from description and thought it was gonna be OP against human enemies/bosses until I actually tried it and realized they get up so fast after I land it that I can never get there in time for final blow. Even if I perform it when standing right next to them.
Hopefully I get some cool moves as drops from bosses eventually.

 

[Silverfish]

If this shit keeps up I am not sure if I'll be sticking with Kusarigama as it seems like I'm way too shit to use that weapon.

Actually I'm surprised. I figured he wouldn't be that bad between serpent strikes and the weapon's inherent ki damage.

 

[Multidirectional]

But the ki damage on Kusarigama is really shit, at least compared to Odachi. With Odachi the human bosses were all pretty much a joke with how easy it was to break their posture. It takes a really long time to do that with Kusarigama. Also not sure what move a serpent strike is, I must've skipped it. I will have to check next time I launch the game. The most reliable move against that fucker I've found is Whirlwind so far but it kills him very slowly and eventually he fucks me over with his lock-on cancelling teleport and fireball spam bullshit. Gust talismans help a little against his rifle but they last very short time with my omnyo stat and good luck re-applying that shit during fight, it's pretty much impossible. Even using an elixir is a pain in the ass.

 

[Biscotti]

Do you have the skill that's a forward moving double knee strike? Put the modifier that increases ki damage by 20% on it and you got something with pretty good range that deletes ki. Should be easy to dodge through his three shot rifle barrage and get some free hits in, and when he takes to the air it should be possible to stand beneath him and use the rising slash skill, if you have it.

 

[Multidirectional]

Fuck I really don't feel like restarting entire mission to respec skill points now. None of the things you mentioned rings any bell now so I doubt I have them. I'll have to check it later. If I still can't beat him for another couple hours I might have to restart then.

 

[Silverfish]

Human bosses should be as easy as serpent strike (Drags the enemy to you, if human. It's also the first skill in the high stance branch, so you've definitely got it.), high stance light combo, back off and repeat as needed. Use a poison or fire buff to speed things up.

 

[Multidirectional]

Ah yes I checked, I have it. I forgot all about it as I very rarely use high stance. Though I don't see how it's better than Deadly Mark. Chance to hit with it seems about equally low, that fucker dodges it a lot. I guess I'll experiment with it some more, not like I have any other choices.

 

[Silverfish]

I forgot all about it as I very rarely use high stance.

High Stance users in Nioh:

 

[Multidirectional]

Finally the faggot is down. Though not from me doing anything new, that Serpent Strike shit didn't seem to be anything special. So I did a run where I was super defensive and just use Whirlwind over and over because it's the skill that hits him most consistently and then finished him off with Yokai abilities. Guess I could've done this shit sooner but I was so used to playing aggressively over previous hundreds of hours that defensive play just feels unnatural at this point. Must've taken me 40-50 tries, brought back memories of majority of bosses during my first Sekiro run. It's nice how Nioh 2 became really challenging once I played it for almost 300 hours. Maybe couple hundred more and I won't even be able to beat regular enemies anymore.

 

[Multidirectional]

And of course the main boss of that mission, Gyuki, was no trouble. Went down on second try. Would've killed him on first try if I had Yokai shift available. With shift he became absolute pushover, decimated like 90 percent of his health bar with only couple hits left to finish him off after returning to human form.

 

[Multidirectional]

Experimented some more with serpent strike in next mission, combined with it I can finally make foot sweep work on human enemies. Couldn't deal a single critical blow with it before. Too bad this shit is useless vs yokai so I guess I'll still keep crimson flurry in that skill slot, at least for now. But might be something worth trying out should I run into another annoying human boss.

 

[Spike]

I am so effing angry. I am on that triple boss fight with that gay snake enemy, the fire monk guy, and the end boss. I have limited herbal remedies left. Maybe I should just actually use that moon odachi ability...

 

[Multidirectional]

Kasha dead on first try. These Yokai bosses are kinda pushovers compared to human ones. After this I checked out "online" missions in previous region that I ignored before and human boss in one of them killed me close to 10 times. Saito something dude, who likes to spam some elemental mines ability.

 

[Biscotti]

Ah yes, good old Saito Toshimitsu. Hurter of many butts.