Dweller punting (BF did it)
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Iām dying far less to bosses now than I did when I started playing the game. Even new ones I stumble upon, I almost defeat on my first go. I think aside from the Centipede my complaint about the fights might have been just misunderstanding how to play.
On a different note, does anyone here use two different weapon types frequently? Iāve kind of stopped using my kusari-gama and am now just using a single sword with ninjitsu and magic. Not sure if I should respec and just remove all kusari-gama points.
Yeah, Iāve pretty much always been dual-swording - though it is worth changing it up a bit because you get free skill points for raising proficiency with each weapon (up to a point) as well as titles. Also a lot of the weapons do have good passive skills - kusarigama has an āincreased damage when attacking from behindā thatās really nice.
Axes mostly since iām most comfortable with them but I tend to switch between the four others frequently.
Kusariās feel a little tricky to me though, like iām really committing to an attack with the chain.
So I have 5 points in Strength and no skill points in Axes/Hammers. But then I wondered what would happen if I gave a Hammer I had the ability to scale with my Skill score?
It became terrifyingā¦
Just devours ki and health.
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When you say āgave a Hammerā that ability, how do you do that? I suspect thereās some aspect of the blacksmith system Iām completely missing. Thouh I did get some dual swords with a āskill scalingā ability - turns out that stacks with the normal one, it doesnāt modify it. Hugely overpowered.
When you reach maximum familiarity with a weapon and use it as an ingredient for Soul Matching, the base weapon will get the ingredientās inheritance ability. Thatās the ability that has the []>[] icon on it.
There are some limits, like you canāt use multiple skill scalings on one weapon.
Ah, that I knew. I assume you just have to luck out in getting the inheritance ability you want, then.
Well the Umi-bozu was probably the easiest boss so far. I just kept using those masks since he kept missing me.
A purple Nami-oyogi Kanemitsu has a chance to have either Change to Attack (Heart) or Change to Attack (Skill) and both have a chance to be inheritable. I got mine by mostly fighting revenants in regions 3 and 4. You can then Soul Match that onto any other melee weapon. If youāre a Skill or Heart build, I definitely recommend never disassembling it, because you can just put it on any new weapon that already doesnāt have its own Change to Attack ability.
Hammers are real good, the super armour on them just lets you tank right through attacks.
Based on my testing last night, it seems that my current build makes hammers great for defensive targets and the sword great for offensive targets. Itās hard to guard break with a sword, so I have to be more opportunist versus mobs, revenants and NPC bosses, but versus standard bosses or offensive enemies, the sword just destroys them.
I have a similar setup with dual swords and spears - the spear is good for reach and guard breaking, the dual swords pair really well with using elemental enchantments as the large number of hits can land the status on enemies pretty quickly. Combine with a guardian talisman and the right guardian (Suzakaās guardian attack is really good for this) and you can Discord enemies fairly reliably.
It is definitely worth switching weapons up every so often though - I used an axe for a while and got a lot of skill points for raising the proficiency, though it does cap out after a while. (Thereās a bar under the proficiency in your status - it looks like once that is full then youāve got all the points you can get.)
I havenāt played in a bitābeen all Horizon and Zelda latelyābut I was rocking katana + dual katana for a while there, even though they donāt complement each other all that well. I just found dual katanas to be pretty fun, while katanas absolutely ruin yokai once you have Sword of Execution because of how easy it is to hit them in the back. (They ruin humans, too, if youāre good with parries, because Sword of Execution makes your Iai + down-stab combo do double damage.)
I think my ideal would probably be katana + spear for versatility, but I eventually stopped really feeling the need for what spears could offer. The reach is fantastic but eventually my strategy for humans was just āparry everything all the timeā so I never really needed reach, and I want to be as close to any yokai butts as I can be for maximum murder. Itās a shame because I enjoy spears a lot. I just eventually became a katana fiend.
I finished the game yesterday (or the day before? It was after midnight anyway)
From start to finish itās a really good game. Final boss seemed overwhelming at first but was relatively simple once I figured out the gimmick. [spoiler]The real final boss after the credits wasnāt too bad either, but is probabably the harder of the two on repeat playthroughs.
Iā'll be forever pissed at the game for making me look like a chump in the cutscene after I wrecked Nobunaga by parrying, Iai, finishing blow, change to spear high stance, spear fall (first hit even got blocked, the other two still knocked him down), finishing blow. Took out more than half his health. Utterly brutal combo, hard to pull off, though.[/spoiler]
Overall, I found the game fairly easy. Most bosses went down my first attempt with some exceptions. The first boss took me four or so tries I think, the second two or three. (I know thereās stats in the game telling me how much I died to each boss, but that counts deaths from sub-missions too, which definitely happened.). By about the third area I got a better hang of things and it went more smoothly. (Hadnāt played any of the alpha or beta versions)
I started NG+ and it seems tougher. Where I could previously take the risk to tank a hit easy itās now better to play it safer. Because that one hit went from taking out a sixth of my health to half of it.
That lack of difficulty I perceive is more of an observation than a complaint and I realize there are a lot of people who have plenty of trouble with the game. I find it a very enjoyable experience myself.
[spoiler]Heās an absolute nightmare on NG+. Heās significantly more aggressive and summons a bunch of laser eyes immediately. Unlike the first time you fight him, he doesnāt just sit there and let the eyes do the work in the first phase, eitherāheās up and aggressive while youāre dodging the eye beams the entire time. He was easily the hardest NG+ fight for me.
The trick? Heās going to keep summoning eyes forever and those give amrita. Come in with a full amrita gauge, activate Living Weapon, and keep it going the entire time.[/spoiler]
Heh, I shall look forward to that challenge then. I was a bit disappointed with a lot of the boss fights, some felt like they should be memorable. I hope NG+ can fix this. I only played the intro and the first actual mission on NG+ so far.
If only I could find a revenant that doesnāt use Divine Red Demon but something else. Itās a bit disturbing how many people wear that set. I mean, it has nice bonuses but I got bored of it just looking at other people wearing it. Guess I need to find a way to craft Divine Yatagarasu gear. I also like the Genius and Legendary Strategist sets.
I know I could just refashion one of my red demon sets, but Iām not using it simply out of principle.
Iād suggest farming Saito Magoichi in the NG-difficulty version of Watcher in Darkness for his smithing text. You can smith divine gear with the mountain of Divine Shards youāll get from dismantling the piles of Red Demon stuff the revenants are using. I smithed myself a full set of divine Justice Ministry armor immediately upon starting NG+ and never ended up taking it off.
Gotcha. I figured Iād do that eventually.
I already have so many Divine Shards I have no idea what to do with them all. I suppose Iāll craft all kindsa stuff eventually when Iām in a lucky mood.
Iām free of the clutches of Nier and am finally back to this game and working my way through region 6. Can I say how much I appreciate the humor of this game? Not only does it let you dress up like a complete doofus, but some of the ways revenants die are hilarious.
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