Nioh 2 - Turn demons into loot again

Games
601

Definitely. Knew ahead of time it wasn’t going to be a killer/meta build, but Saratuhiko is fun and and it’s been an interesting changeup.

Yokai shift could be a lot better with a few tweaks as a lot of the stuff just doesn’t seem to scale. It lasted a lot longer earlier in the game, yet at the same time it doesn’t always seem to take damage into account. For instance, I can be in a fire for a bit and hardly even be touched when I’m just in regular form. But in Yokai shift? It’s like a “you lose 20% of your bar whenever you take damage”. So tick tick tick and then your yokai shift gauge is depleted. Even focusing a bunch of stats in it, I can lose my entire yokai shift gauge after a couple blocks or so. Blocks that would hardly even phase me if I were in human form. The Protection spell can help with a lot of that stuff, but I’ve also had times when I’ve had my entire shift gauge depleted yet still had my Protection spell 75%+. So seems a little buggy or at least some weird mechanics at play. Maybe I blocked an attack and that depleted the entire gauge despite protection absorbing any damage? No idea.

I hear Living Weapon builds were meta/OP in Nioh 1, this seems like an overreaction to it. Still, Saratuhiko’s grace is fun if not the most optimal thing I could be doing. Trying to get into and maintain yokai shift is another minigame to add to all the other interacting mechanics of the game.

602

So i keep getting drawn back to this, unlocked the first 5 regions in NG+. It’s sort of relaxing spamming Yokai with my strong attacks. I’ve added some lightning in there as well now. Have my main weapon up to +6.

I really need to play some of my other backlog games but this keeps pulling me back.

Is it NG++ where you get the orange weapons?

603

Dream of the Wise is when they show up so NG+++ I believe.

604

My onmyo/splitstaff build was already working pretty well, but has kicked into another gear since I switched some stuff around and built around keeping Extraction up all the time.

With a total of 77 life regained on amrita absorption, and the splitstaff’s array of multi-hit attacks, any damage short of killing me gets automatically healed almost immediately. And I have familiars available for even more, since each hit of contact damage counts. And between Tengen Kujaku and soul cores, I have Attack Up, Defense Up, Ki Recovery Speed Up, Movement Speed Up, and Anima build, all on amrita absorption, which is essentially constant.

Just wrapped up the last DLC on NG+. My plan had been to switch builds when I went into NG++, but this is working so well I almost hate to switch.

605

Dream of the Demon done. I didn’t do a full respec from my Extraction build, but kept things fresh by using hatchets and switchglaive most of the time. Neither of them felt quite as amazing as the splitstaff, but they mostly got the job done, and I could revert to splitstaff when needed.

Hatchets in particular wound up being a great complement to the spitstaff, since they could hit at long range, and also have a rapid heavy attack that could fire off Familiar orbs much quicker than the splitstaff. The throws really wind up doing a good chunk of damage at long range, and properly timing a Boulder Breaker was particularly satisfying.

Switchglaive didn’t quite gel as much for me. I think I was trying too hard to lean into the Flux bonuses, but found it hard to get all the stacks before the target was dead, or I wound up missing and having them wear off.

One complaint that I wish they had done a better job fixing from the first game is better integrating the DLC into the NG+ progression, or unlocking them before the endgame. At this point, I wouldn’t mind doing a few of the DLC missions again, but it kind of loses some luster when I know that whatever cool gear I find there will be obsolete the moment I step into Dream of the Wise.

Definitely going to respec to something else entirely based on whatever I find there.

606

Finished the game.

Enjoyed this one a lot. GOTY for sure whatever year it got released.

I am not very good at this type of game, but the game give so much tools to play your way, I managed to get till the end.

607

I’m in DotNioh, running around in the underworld and I can safely say this is one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. Top ten.

It will suffer forever for being abstruse – opaque to beginners – but really one of the greats, imo.

608

Went through DotWise using a dex-based fist/kusarigama build. Fists are a really fun and dynamic new addition to the series, with a good amount of movement built into their attacks. Didn’t get quite as much value out of offensive ninjutsu as I expected, partially because it was hard to justify dropping the quick-change scrolls to make room for more of them.

Started up DotNioh now, and have gone back to a magic build because Tsukuyomi is the first ethereal grace I’ve been able to put together a full set of and it looked fun to try out.

Have gotten a weird distribution of ethereal items so far, with a dozen each of dual swords, fists, and kusarigamas (despite not using anything with Lucky Drop on it), but not a single axe, switchglaive, or odachi.

And yeah, I’m pretty much in the same place here.

609

I’m glad to hear so many of you are loving it. Maybe I’ll jump back in tonight. I left the game on an annoying mission so I already failed one attempt.

610

I’m running it right now with the 5+ Onmyo Warrior set (Onmyo Austerity). Splitstaff. It’s fantastic damage.

611

I am right there with both of you. I finally set the game aside but I racked up 300+ hours in and embarrassingly short timespan. It basically was all-consuming in terms of my leisure time for weeks and weeks. I haven’t been that obsessed with a game in… I couldn’t really tell you when the last time was. 10 years? 20? Not sure.

If they decide to do a Nioh 3, I will buy a PS5 to not have to wait for the PC port.

612

And I’m right there with all of you. Nioh 2 is easily one of the best games I ever played, and, as it stands now, is my personal game of the year for 2021.

Of course, chances are that GotY will change with Nier Replicant right around the corner. Even so, I don’t see Nioh 2 leaving the top 2 for me this year, or my top 10 of the decade.

613

how did you develop your build and what did you focus on for your playstyle to get you through the game? and yeah, its excellent.

614

For the initial playthrough, my advice is not to worry about a “build” per se. You’ll be finding new, better gear constantly, and the benefits from putting together a partial set or optimizing gear abilities are negligible compared to just using higher level stuff. And getting all your stats to 15 or so will benefit you way more than pumping one of them to 100.

You do want to pay some attention to equipment weight, and keep close to 70% without going over it for the good balance between defense and mobility.

615

I’ve actually been experimenting quite a bit which has some pros and cons. The pro being that having some skill in each weapon lets you choose the weapon that best suits the boss youre fighting (usually this boils down to a choice between spear or tonfa).

I’ve also invested time into gaining points in both onmyo and ninjutsu, with only marginal usefulness from either (the iga bombs help in cheesing tough enemies like the waira, and barrier talismans help a bit in the dark realm), but nothing I would really miss. i was especially disappointed in quick change scrolls due to it being on a fairly short timer.

I mostly keep my gear to light armor because i find the ki recovery rate and dodge animations more useful than the increased defense, so i tend to stay under 25% equip rate. this is usually the pit vipers set or shrine maidens set for the past about 10 missions id say.

I’m also really finding this to be true which is kind of bugging me. I want cooler set bonuses, but so far theyre not really crazy. auto grave recovery is ok, lifesteal on kill is ok, but for the most part the bonuses are not really that exploitable. at least so far (just fought saito yoshitatsu). same goes for the choice in guardian or soul cores, but im still feeling that out.

616

Set bonuses are huge but they don’t really come into their own until Dream of the Wise and Nioh. Things do start to get spiced up in Dream of the Demon, you’ll just be looking to replace your Divine graces with Ethereal ones once you hit Wise.

IMO, Wise is where builds really take off since you have access to the Ethereal graces which are really impactful. That being said, as an Onmyo user something like Onmyo Austerity can really make a difference. Having Devigorate-lite on hit is pretty huge. You’re talking about a 30% damage reduction enemies can do with a lot of uptime. Once you hit Nioh, this set gets spiced up even further with Empowered Onmyo which can really change the way you approach the game as a caster (Tsukuyomi has it as well).

617

Has much survavility has possible trough the use of heavy armour and life regen on gaining amrita. Extra damage gaining amrita. Fast regen of the purple line so I can do yokai cores skills often.

My inventory (4 tabs) full of grendes, bombs, scrolls to gain more life regen or resistence to damage.

Weapons:
Double hatchets with fire damage, medium position, I use this set on defense.
Kurasigama with paralysis damage for offense.

Decorations and artifacts boost all of the above, and paralisis gain on enemies (so they get paralyzed more and sooner)

Range weapons: bow and arrows, canon. I oneshoot small enemies, and 4 shooted big enemies. I would often use the scroll for explosive arrows.

With this setup, I was hard to kill, surviving to mistakes, rarely getting one shotted. Being able to do range damage to gain some purple sauce to be able to use yokai skills. Thrown a lot of explosives at boses and enemies.

Battle:
I would start a battle against a boss buffing my defense and throwing bombs at the boss. Once I get the gist of the boss, and If I am still alive, would use openings to apply damage. Then stay alive, do more damage when possible, stay alive. Reapply buffs when the effects end.

I played tons of coop. So I got carried on some bosses that would have been difficult alone.

I started playing Nioh 1. Is funny after playing Nioh 2, like learning greek after learning latin. Harder in some ways, more flexible in places, less in others. I don’t know if will play for long, since I want to do other things with my free time and a Nioh game takes too much of it.

618

What’s the difficulty like in Nioh 2? I am not into the Souls-like game design approach of repeating the same thing over and over to get past a boss and on steam this is tagged as both “difficult” and “souls-like” so I’ve avoided it. But I’m all about loot and that part appeals to me.

619

I personally feel it’s much less punishing than the likes of Dark Souls. It isn’t an easy game, but it’s definitely manageable, partly because you also have a lot more options in how to build your character compared to DS. Or at least that’s how I feel.

620

I, on the other hand, cannot fathom how anyone would say this. I probably have two hundred and fifty hours collectively between the various souls games from Demon’s through Bloodborne, every boss, and Nioh 2 makes me rage and not just the bosses, either. It contains what I consider a ton of bullshit, like incredibly fast windups on attacks that come after a large pause so there’s just no way you could see it coming, and the tracking on grab attacks is just fuuuuuck yoooouuu. I think it’s much less fair. However, it’s got much deeper systems and I think the bullshit is worth putting up with as long as your blood pressure isn’t too high.