Nioh Slash-All!

Hmm kinda lost track where you’re at. You meet mr. giant centipede?

Spirit Stone Slumbers

Nue, then Tachibana Muneshige, in the same mission. But it was the guy who stole my spirit back in London. Don't remember his name even, if they said it.

Ok thanks I was thinking one mission ahead.

You're right where I left off in my play through. I hadn't struggled with any of the bosses before Nue, but Nue took me hours to get past. I liked the area after him and one-shot the boss after him, but I was feeling burned out by then and wanted a break. A break that has somehow lasted a year!

Well I saw one of your complaints at that point as well. Loot overload. I went through and marked those good yellow sets I had found, and items that were over level 20 in case I want to forge some stuff and upgrade my old gear... And then I offered everything else yellow at the shrine, several dozen items.

So now I'm down to mostly blue and purple gear to actually use, but still feel like it's getting crowded.

Since my last post, I did do the one sub mission where I had co-op lightning sword girl again and that was pretty fun. No real difficulty, died to a couple of tough regular enemies but always got my amrita back. Ran into a bunch of chest mimics, so that was weird. Learned a new emote.

I didn't get to play this weekend, spent most of my TV time watching football. I'll hopefully get back on track this week. It looked like there were a couple more sub missions I could still do but the story wants me to get on a boat and go to a new area of Japan? Not sure if I can come back to this area later or if I should do it all before I go?

You can always go back. But don’t leave before dueling Tachibana. Hehe. He was the easier main boss on an earlier main mission.

Maclintok wrote:

You can always go back. But don’t leave before dueling Tachibana. Hehe. He was the easier main boss on an earlier main mission.

f*cking Warrior of the West.

Yeah I saw your post and I saw that the reward was a new spirit, so of course I had to try it. What a bastard.

Spent about 30 min of lunch break banging my head against that wall. Once I got him to about 60% health. A bunch of times I didn't even hit the son of a Female Doggo.

I tried spear, that I've been rolling with lately. Went back to my dual swords for a bit. Tried using the Rakuten? or whatever katana that I just got as a mission reward recently, with lightning, since it was the highest damage weapon in my inventory I think. But got rolled extra hard on that having no katana skills. So back to spear. I also recently got some ninja skills and unlocked the costume scroll or whatever it's called, the one that gives you a second life when you're defeated instantly. And he still blew right through me, with 2 lives. Sometimes I didn't even get up from the respawn.

Read some strategy after that and I guess I'll try again. But damn, that was painful.

Sorry/not sorry for recommending Warrior of the West

Spoiler:

- Start off the fight by shooting him in the head while he's standing still. Free damage! Screw honour...
- He's a humanoid, so attacking his Ki helps A LOT. Gas him, crumple him then do Way of the Cross with the dual katanas as he's getting up.
- Lateral sprint to avoid his guardian spirit attacks. Being slow in this fight really sucks as I'm sure you've noticed.
- His super aggressive rush in and slash move is best avoided with an almost diagonal dodge into him. You don't want to go straight into him but more at an angle.
- Others have used the large boulder to cheese him out but it's never really worked for me and seems to take too long.
- I've seen some really impressive speed run kills on Youtube. I'm only a mortal so I hope these tips help out!
- Have... fun?

Oh lord, what a fight that was. Took me countless tries, and that’s the truth because I died so much I really did lose count.

Spoiler:

Here’s a recording of how I finally beat him on PS4, man what a tough bastard.

Maclintok wrote:

Sorry/not sorry for recommending Warrior of the West

Haha.

Good video, G. That matches with what Mac says about how to dodge his rush attack. Cool.

And I like how you used the rock just for breathing room to heal.

I read some stuff about baiting him into attacks, dodging back, and then moving in to finish off his ki. Looks like that works.

I screwed up by trying to block him. That got my ki drained and me dead quick. Looks like it's all about dodging.

Stele wrote:

f*cking Warrior of the West.

I think this was the only side-quest I noped out of after about 20 tries. I just couldn't keep out of his attacks, even when I eventually tried to use the boulder as a cheese method. Finally I hit my personal line of "am I having fun?" and decided to move on. No regrets.

Yeah I spent another hour on it last night. Exhausted my supply of arrows and bullets so finally quit. That alpha strike was really helpful. I got him down to 5% or so, just a couple more hits, 4 or 5 different times but couldn't seal the deal.

Healing behind the rock was good. Everything else was frustrating.

Might have to come back later, if at all.

Ah the memories!

I beat him one time by imbuing my weapon and applying a DoT. I was doing fine but that last bit of damage saved me from another round of dancing with him.

There’s no harm coming back later to kick his tail once you’ve leveled up a bit more. No point getting stalled out here.

Yeah I put some points into the magics and ninja stuff. I have 2 fire weapon enhancements, and 3 of those shoot my spirit animal at an enemy. Plus the kunai, and I've tried to use those to interrupt his buffs.

I've also been thinking about respec as I've went a lot more staff than dual swords the last few missions. But the first couple missions I was all dual sword and put a lot of points in Dex that aren't helping me now.

Wondering if I should try single sword, or something else? But then experimenting with weapons without any abilities will be hard to tell what I like. Feels like focusing on 2 is good. There are times in tight quarters where the spear isn't good. And I'm sure there are other enemies that other weapons will be effective against. I just might find I like something better if I try it. But all that takes time and I can't seem to get too much TV time with this game.

I’ve always thought choosing a weapon is one of the most difficult parts of these games. I went with single sword and duel swords on PS4, then kusarigama and tonfa on PC.

I'm sort of in the same boat in my playthrough of Nioh 2. I'm not far enough in the game to have respec items. Although I'm enjoying the switchglaive well enough, I picked up dual swords as a secondary and I barely ever use them (the switchglaive still does fine in close quarters). I'd love to do the odachi again but don't see a lot of benefit from pairing it with the switchglaive, so I'd want to make the odachi my primary.

The spear, on the other hand, does clang against walls and other obstructions at some inopportune times. I started a spear playthrough in Nioh 1 and had to be really mindful about kiting enemies and choosing my spots to pick a fight.

I respecced into a triple sword character partway through my first Nioh 1 playthrough. I would use dual swords for multiple enemy fights and single katana for when I needed to dish out more damage. Single katana is surprisingly damaging despite its short range and "jack of all trades" nature among the weapon classes. I would find myself using the low stance a lot as both light and heavy strings out of that stance were fast and did decent damage. Single katana also has its own version of Way of the Cross.

I feel you on the TV time. I'm always jazzed to fire up Nioh 2 but my motivation flags rather quickly these days once I start banging my head against a wall. Need to commit time to something more relaxing and skill-intensive.

I'm waiting to start Nioh 2 for the PS5 upgrade, since it's a free upgrade, next month or sometime after. Might need a palette cleanser between the two.

Well you got me to re-install it, so I hope you’re pleased with yourselves about that. I can’t decide if I should keep pushing ahead with my NG+ run, or go back and try to finish all the DLC now that I’m quite a few levels higher with all divine gear. I’m bouncing between this and Dark Souls Remastered, total masochist gaming mood right now for some reason.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1756934623904567078/2906D35AF26D57BB6AC1ABBA713A9EB72B9B0729/)

Well I decided to continue with the story in 2nd region now...

Stupid giant centipede.

Only 3 or 4 attempts but one I got caught on ladder and chain knocked off, that was dumb.

Doesn't seem like it should be too hard. Hopefully try again later.

Centipede down. Just had to get the timing right on baiting his smash attack so you can get some hits on him. Almost died on the one I did win from paralyze then boulder combo. I had those items to cure but thought I had enough health. Ended up with just a sliver, whew.

Next mission, the Ocean Roars... What a stupid level design. Apparently ninjas can't swim. I died more times to falling off the level than to enemies.

I accidentally opened the boss door before lighting torches and got my ass kicked. Wasted a few thousand amrita then because I wasn't going back in there on purpose. They really should drop your spirit at the boss room entrance.

Anyway I finally figured out the way to the third torch and quit for the night when I died trying to get back. So I'll take some shots at the boss next time I play.

I think after this I finally get some more dojo missions and can unlock some skills. I realized there's a few I want to try before I decide on that respec or not. I did go back to dual swords for a few enemies and had some success still. Not totally ready to give it up yet.

So... finished cleaning up one area of the level to try to retrieve my spirit. Oops. There was a fake wall that I hadn't found yet. Lost a few thousand amrita, but did find a hot spring and another Kodama. Love those little guys.

So, Ocean boss... attempt 1. I was in the middle of the stage, starting to move towards it. Tried to put fire on my weapon... it shot a big thing out the middle and killed me. I lasted 5 seconds or so...

2nd attempt. I won!

Spoiler:

All I had done was read the general tips on the wiki. Stay in close, get in some hits right after it drops arms at you and you dodge. And then when it gets to 2nd phase and jumps out of water, go all spirit weapon on it. Which I did, with my fire Kato, and I just decimated the boss.

Whew.

So then I had the Dojo warrior and ninja tests, Adept level, where you just have to fight the masters 1v1. Instead of being an easy tutorial, these missions became a pain in the ass. Died on warrior a ton of times, solid half hour or so. Every time I tried to get greedy and punish him for out of stamina I would screw it up. Sometimes I had him red, was in the stab animation, and he would recover and hit me. Total joke. And then anytime I got out of stamina he killed me with one hit. Very annoying. Finally I got a nice rhythm of lunge attack and back away, lunge and back away. Doing 200 something damage each time. It was boring as hell, but it kept my stamina fresh, kept him off me, and eventually I won.

Ninja test went better, just 4 or 5 attempts and got him. Nothing to report.

Went back and did another sub-mission on first area that I had missed that gave me a water spirit. Not high enough spirit to use it fully though. And also, I couldn't do the adept onmyo test yet because my stat was only at 9, not 10. So I was trying to do some sub missions and level it up. I finished the mission a few k short, so I'm going to have to dive into something else and hope I don't lose it.

Next time...

Great progress, Stele, you are definitely moving through the game quicker than I did. One thing I want to know is how in the hell do people level up so high? I just hit 160, which took forever in itself, and at this point I now require just shy of 3 million amrita to level up. I’ve been fighting spirits of other players that are 260 and above, dayum!

Wow, Stele, you are just trucking along! Very impressed you bested Umi-Bozu only after a few tries. I drowned in that battle too many times to count.

Finished a couple more sub missions on 2nd area. Nothing super exciting. Got 3 new spirits and finally tried something besides Kato. Isonade seemed cool because of the Close Combat Life Recovery. But I really struggled using the guardian spirit attack. Totally missed the enemy I shot it at. Guess it's a different attack pattern than Kato, straight forward fire rush. Shark swam in a circle in the air it looked like. Guess I'll try again and figure it out later.

Need to move on to 3rd island next time I play and continue story I guess. Still not ready to go back for Warrior of the West I think. Ugh.

2nd area sub missions complete last night. Nothing crazy hard like Warrior of the West.

Then today went to 3rd area... spider-mission and spider-boss finished! Pretty severe arachnophobia here, so this level was not fun at all. Maybe a little therapeutic to kill the buggers, but when I was in the underground part and one jumped on my head, holy sh*t. And I almost beat the boss on the 2nd try. Popped my spirit weapon when I got her below half, and had here down to almost nothing, 5% or less when it ran out. Got caught on the wall, trying to dodge, camera went a little wonky, and boom, dead. Then it took me about 10 more tries to finally win. Never did build up enough to use spirit weapon again, but grinded out the win anyway.

I also found all 6 special parts or whatever... wasn't really trying but after fighting a couple things I noticed the popup part 1, part 2, etc. So 3 or 4 were kind of on the way to the end of the level, but a couple were out at the end of one way paths, that I had to trip the spawns for. Not sure if you were supposed to get all of them to beat the level? Anyway, got a trophy pop when I got the 6th so that was nice.

Then after, I got the teahouse and clan thing and that took me a minute to try to figure out, so haven't progressed any more on 3rd area. Any clan suggestions? I assume the points aren't super active anymore, but passive bonuses for me would be nice.

Snow butterflies...

Level was rough. I lost my spirit twice, missing at least one level up. Found all kodama but otherwise not much fun.

Boss lady was kicking my ass. Lost about 10 times, never getting her below 50%. Decided to try summoning finally. Since I unlocked clans, I started playing online for those rewards. So did my first summon. They had some kind of fire weapon and kicked the sh*t out of her. I might have hit her 10 times in the back while they wailed on her and finished her off.

No shame here. Was tired of banging my head against a wall.

Forgot I also did a side mission fighting some big boss on a bridge. He kicked my ass about 7-8 times. During one fight I noticed there was a gap on the bridge. I tried knocking him back without much success.

But then after a few more butt kickings I decided to go for the ledge again and just get out of the level. Went high stance dual swords, windstorm, which always seems to stagger. Maybe threw in a combo kick, can't remember, but knocked him off the bridge and won. No loot that way but saved my amrita and got out with a win. Hehe.

Stele wrote:

Boss lady was kicking my ass.

She was the boss I mentioned after the second boss. By far the boss I struggled with the most in the game.

Shadout wrote:

Grats. You basically have won the entire game then

Okay, for me there was one other really difficult witch later on too. So maybe not the entire game.

She was weird. I got into a rhythm where I would slash a few times, she would do the big aoe ice and I spin away. Rinse and repeat. And even when she did either of the 3 or 5 projectiles overhead I could lunge in and hit most of them and her. Then dodge away from the aoe. So sometimes I got her down to half health that way.

But sometimes, she would throw weapon at me and even blocking it would knock me back, drain all stamina, and exhaust me. Usually end up dead. Or other times she would jump into a grab of me, instant death. Seemed like just dodging slightly too far away would trigger those other attacks and the fight was over. Hard to keep her in the loop of attacks I could handle.

Happy I finally tried help. Have about 30 of those summon items since I never used them before.

Finished off the mountain and white tiger last night. Skipped the optional Nue battle, yuck. RIP

Spoiler:

Nekomata

That was awesome and sad.

Boss took maybe 15 or 20 attempts. I was doing well learning patterns and then all the sudden tail grab that I didn't see the first 7 or 8 attempts. Then it was another 5 or 6 before I saw it again. Finally got my spirit recharged after burning the weapon 4 or 5 runs in but not finishing him. Then was able to take out his last 40% or so with spirit weapon when I finally had a good early fight.

I also switched back to a lightning spear I had been using after a few runs. He's so fast that I didn't have time to reapply elements to a regular weapon so I figured one with some built in would help.

One run I almost won but the jerk suddenly did 5 lightning bolt streams instead of just one. And he turned and used them in an arc similar to Nue, but longer range. That move isn't even listed on the wiki, I checked after the fact. Must have been a low health variant thing.