Nioh: Feudal Era Dark Souls

[Talby]

no invasions no talk pal

PvP update is coming soon dunno if it will have invasions though.

 

[Hyperion]

PvP is here. First DLC is here - "Dragon of the North."

New Weapon Type Added! Odachi
New Difficulty - Way of the Demon (NG++)
Way of the Demon opens up new gear, ups the limit of divine gear levels, etc.
Monsters were rebalanced.

Full list of changes is here. Bunch of images so it's hard to post directly on the forum.
https://imgur.com/a/QpsDk#HkJKJP3

Unfortunately...PvP right now isn't looking so good. People aren't happy with it, but it should have been expected. This is a PvE game that allows for builds that are absolutely bonkers. It should have been expected from people that this would not translate well to PvP...but they asked for it anyway.

First: Odachi Gameplay


Next...PvP shitstorm

 

[sullynathan]

I literally called this shit happening months ago.

Does anyone fear that PvP won't be good with this style of combat? I can already see it having less variety than the souls games, then you have how long it takes to find people, the combat can be spam heavy and spear seems like the optimal weapon for this game.

 

[cvv]

I'm watching Cowboy's LP and OP builds are not problematic only in PvP. If you can three-shot a big demon from afar with your kunai something is wrong with the overall design philosophy.

 

[Hyperion]

To be fair, it takes quite a long time, with lots of effort and farming to craft the perfect set of gear to get to that point. I stopped playing after I couldn't get a Yasakani Magatama which is a necessity for literally every character in Way of the Strong. I should have ignored it and farmed for it later, but meh. I had lots of other stuff to play. I'll dive back into it when I get a chance.

The game is way more fun than anything Souls offers imo.

 

[cvv]

The game is way more fun than anything Souls offers imo.

The combat is solid, if you don't mind the weeby vibes. But it takes a lot more to be a great game. An Top10 RPG list with DS1 as the winner? Totally credible. With Nioh at the top tho? Not gonna happen, outside of some obscure fansite or some such.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The game is way more fun than anything Souls offers imo.

The combat is solid, if you don't mind the weeby vibes. But it takes a lot more to be a great game. An Top10 RPG list with DS1 as the winner? Totally credible. With Nioh at the top tho? Not gonna happen, outside of some obscure fansite or some such.

Still, Nioh is easily better than 99% of the shit out there as of this time.

 

[Hyperion]

Not going to argue Dark Souls is a more complete game than Nioh, because it 100% is. But at this point, the Dark Souls setting and lore has run its course. I'm not going to cum buckets because From put a statue of Velka in a hidden area. If I gave a fuck about that, I would post on the subreddit. DLC weapons in Dark Souls look cool, they add a fun special attack, but other than that, most of them function similarly to other weapons in that class. Valorheart, and Twin Greatswords are notable exceptions.

Compare that to 1 new weapon in Nioh. Whole new playstyle, new build planning, new skills, everything. Add in another difficulty, a second Guardian Spirit to further enhance the craziness, higher level equipment, and the DLC is 1/3 the price of AoA / TRC. And we still have 2 more DLC's to go.

The setting is highly overused because of Koei, and too Japanese for you, but the gameplay is second to none. Nioh's systems may be gamey as hell, but...it's fun. The biggest contention compared to Souls should have been its stage-based level selection, but they took advantage of that and created cool areas to explore with better level design than DS2 and DS3. Unfortunately, they repeated them a little too much in the side missions. In the end, what hurt them most was the lack of enemy variation outside of bosses.

Sure Dark Souls is more 'immersive' and will win more awards than Nioh in the RPG category. But at the end of the day, Nioh is just more fun to play and that's what I consider most important.

 

[cvv]

Well, waiting till you have your fill with Nioh too is probably better time to compare both games.

 

[Declinator]

Not going to argue Dark Souls is a more complete game than Nioh, because it 100% is. But at this point, the Dark Souls setting and lore has run its course. I'm not going to cum buckets because From put a statue of Velka in a hidden area. If I gave a fuck about that, I would post on the subreddit. DLC weapons in Dark Souls look cool, they add a fun special attack, but other than that, most of them function similarly to other weapons in that class. Valorheart, and Twin Greatswords are notable exceptions.

Compare that to 1 new weapon in Nioh. Whole new playstyle, new build planning, new skills, everything. Add in another difficulty, a second Guardian Spirit to further enhance the craziness, higher level equipment, and the DLC is 1/3 the price of AoA / TRC. And we still have 2 more DLC's to go.

The setting is highly overused because of Koei, and too Japanese for you, but the gameplay is second to none. Nioh's systems may be gamey as hell, but...it's fun. The biggest contention compared to Souls should have been its stage-based level selection, but they took advantage of that and created cool areas to explore with better level design than DS2 and DS3. Unfortunately, they repeated them a little too much in the side missions. In the end, what hurt them most was the lack of enemy variation outside of bosses.

Sure Dark Souls is more 'immersive' and will win more awards than Nioh in the RPG category. But at the end of the day, Nioh is just more fun to play and that's what I consider most important.

Nioh was worse on pretty much every level including all gameplay elements.

There is too much fiddling around with little things in Nioh. Constantly having to switch equipment and looking at the loot got old pretty much instantly. Obviously your mileage may vary here but I like being able to take the first goddamn weapon in the game and sticking to that or at least not having to switch every five minutes. The samurai skills are also an example of the fiddling but at least you don't have to do anything there if you don't want to. If they wanted to have combo customization then they should have gone full God Hand.

The weapons also don't have any differences in the moveset inside weapon classes. A spear is always just a spear in Nioh whereas in Dark Souls the spears will often have slightly different moves. This makes having to change weapons constantly even less interesting.

The enemy variation outside of bosses is indeed one of the other great stumbling blocks but the bosses are definitely not without fault either. There are only a couple of bosses that can either close the distance effectively or use some sort of projectile attack of any real danger. You are pretty much safe as long as you keep backing off with most human bosses and that's just not good enough.

Some of the mechanics seem superfluous or just boring. The Ki burst or whatever where you recoup some of the spent stamina trivializes stamina management too much and you're better off not using it if you want to have fun. The guardian spirit is also just "one third or one fourth of the bosses health for free!".

The level design while perhaps more even than in Dark Souls is also far more repetitive. Oh another place in fire! How interesting.

Also they should have just stolen the Estus mechanic but they had to have consumable health potions. Have fun grinding that shit or giving a bunch of items to the shrine.

 

[Hyperion]

There is too much fiddling around with little things in Nioh. Constantly having to switch equipment and looking at the loot got old pretty much instantly. Obviously your mileage may vary here but I like being able to take the first goddamn weapon in the game and sticking to that or at least not having to switch every five minutes. The samurai skills are also an example of the fiddling but at least you don't have to do anything there if you don't want to. If they wanted to have combo customization then they should have gone full God Hand.

The weapons also don't have any differences in the moveset inside weapon classes. A spear is always just a spear in Nioh whereas in Dark Souls the spears will often have slightly different moves. This makes having to change weapons constantly even less interesting.

Played Diablo 2 for years. Still play Path of Exile on occasion. Was one of my favorite aspects of the game.

The enemy variation outside of bosses is indeed one of the other great stumbling blocks but the bosses are definitely not without fault either.

Like I said, it was the game's biggest drawback. I'm sure most of it had to do with being in development Hell for a decade. Remember this was intended to be a ps2 game.

There are only a couple of bosses that can either close the distance effectively or use some sort of projectile attack of any real danger. You are pretty much safe as long as you keep backing off with most human bosses and that's just not good enough

Every single boss in the game has some sort of gap closer and a ranged attack, except for maybe Joro-Gumo and the guy with the lightning spear you fight in the battlefield level (sorry I can't remember all Jap names off the top of my head). Even he has a big overhead smash with his spear that he'll jump towards you with. He's also designed to punish people who stay close as he loves to sweep your legs, and has wide arcs on his attacks.

Some of the mechanics seem superfluous or just boring. The Ki burst or whatever where you recoup some of the spent stamina trivializes stamina management too much and you're better off not using it if you want to have fun

Obviously you played this game like it's an actual Souls entry. Ki Pulsing is an absolute necessity if you want to play an aggressive, fast-paced build with lots of focus on evasion. Or cause proper destruction with an axe through its Mystic Art synergy.

Also they should have just stolen the Estus mechanic but they had to have consumable health potions. Have fun grinding that shit or giving a bunch of items to the shrine.

I never understood where this complaint came from. I had 700 in my storage by the time I hit Way of the Strong. Most Oni have a near 100% chance to drop at least 1 Elixir. A lot of them drop 2 each, particularly the One-Eyed Oni. The game lets you equip a Kodama Blessing for 25% more Elixirs. If that's not enough healing...you have a magic scroll you can learn for Healing over time. You're also given a minimum number of elixirs every time you pray at a shrine. So it's actually a combination of Estus + Demon's Souls + Bloodborne. If that's not enough healing...the game isn't at fault.

 

[cvv]

Played Diablo 2 for years. Still play Path of Exile on occasion. Was one of my favorite aspects of the game.

OMG that's it. I was racking my brainz what's the vibe Nioh is giving off - it's basically Diablo Dark Souls. Down to things like loot showers and nondescript locations that look randomly generated.

 

[Silva]

OMG that's it. I was racking my brainz what's the vibe Nioh is giving off - it's basically Diablo Dark Souls. Down to things like loot showers and nondescript locations that look randomly generated.

Thanks for helping me understand why I find this game so uninteresting. It doesn't make any effort to pass it's world, characters and fictional elements as minimally believable. I don't expect a Lordran or Yharnam in every game, but shit, placing fucking SHINTO SHRINES on a LONDON PRISON TOWER because "save game reasons" is punch to the guts of my immersion.

Oh, and I also hate Diablo.

 

[Sturmgewehr44]

I beat this game a couple of months ago and I heavily enjoyed most of it except for the ridiculous inventory management and loot system, so there's another voice on the pile for that issue.

 

[Trodat]

God I hope this gets a PC release.

What I'm expecting is that once they have released all of their planned DLC's we will see the "definitive edition" for PC. This way they would maximize sales for both platforms.

 

[Hyperion]

Time for a fresh playthrough of Nioh. Patch 1.10 is here with pretty huge changes, especially if you liked Dual Swords, Kusarigama, or Ninjutsu because they got the nerf bat. Rumor is, Ninjutsu is still strong as fuck, and Dual Swords is still insanely powerful with Random Slice.

IMPORTANT

• As compensation for game balance adjustments, items will be sent to those who have progressed to the way of the strong before version 1.09. Items will automatically be given from the area screen. These include:
  -1 Book of Reincarnation and 1 Koan Manual.
  -Gold (the amount depends on the number of times you have reforged items)
  -Divine fragments (the number depends on your current progress)
  -Anima Stones (the number depends on how many PVP battles you have fought)

IMPROVEMENTS

• Added the Asakura, Mogami, and Gamo clans to clan battles.
  
• Added combat titles for the new clans.
  
• Increased storage space from 2000 slots to 4000 slots.
  
• Added "+ value“ as a sort option for equipment.

PVP-RELATED ADJUSTMENTS

• Implemented countermeasures against cheating via data manipulation in PVP battles.
  
• Changed the rules for 1 vs 1 battles so that exceeding the time limit now counts as a loss for both players regardless of the current win/loss count. In addition to this change. The time limit has been increased from 100 seconds to 300 seconds.
  
• The following changes have been made to 1 vs 1 stages:
  -The boundaries of "Doio: Spring" have been limited to indoors.
  -"Usuki, The Fishing Village" has been added.
  -"Dazaifu Shrine" has been added.
  -"The Underworld" has been removed.
  -"The Meadow" has been removed.
  
• In PVP battles, all players' Guardian Spirits are now set to the same level.
  
• A sound effect is now played in 2 vs 2 battles when your ally dies.
  
• You can now control the camera and switch between shortcuts during the countdown before a PVP battle.
  
• When playing PVP battles started with Secret Words, you will receive back the ammo and consumable items you used after closing the results screen.

ADJUSTMENTS TO ATTACKS/SKILLS

• Added the ability for certain skills to stagger the opponent (only in PVP battles). A unique icon will be displayed in the descriptions of such skills.
  
• All attacks:
  -Adjusted the damage increase granted according to a player's equipment weight. Now wearing light armor will grant an equal damage increase as wearing heavy armor.
  -Fixed a bug in regards to the amount of Ki consumed when using "Flash Attack" with an axe as your main weapon.
  -Reduced the amount of Ki used by the skill "Flash Attack".
  -Living weapons' quick and strong attacks can no longer be parried.
  -Reduced Ki damage taken when a player with low toughness guards an attack (in PVP battles only).
  -Increased Ki damage taken when a player with high toughness guards an attack (in PVP battles only).
  
  
• Swords:
  -Increased the damage of Swords' second quick attack in high stance.
  -Increased the damage of Swords' fifth quick attack in low stance.
  -Increased the damage of the Sword skill "Morning Moon."
  -Changed the Sword skill "Sword of Meditation" so the attack now initiates whenever you release the “Strong Attack" button during the action.
  In tandem with this update. The damage of fully charged attacks has been increased.
  -Increased the damage and animation speed of the sword skill "Night Rain".
  -Successfully pulling off the Sword Skill "Leaf Glide" now grants a buff that increases attack power
  -Increased the damage of the Sword Skill "Haze" (outside of PVP battles).
  
  
• Dual Swords:
  -Increased the damage of Dual Swords' fourth quick attack in mid stance.
  -Increased the damage of Dual Swords' third strong attack in mid stance.
  -Increased the damage of Dual Swords' third quick attack in high stance.
  -Increased the timing at which you can cancel Dual Swords' strong attacks in low stance with a Ki pulse or dodge.
  -A decreased the damage of the Dual Swords skills "Windstorm" and "Windstorm II".
  -Increased the animation speed of the Dual Swords skill "Moon Shadow".
  -Increased the damage of the Dual Swords skill "Flash Attack", as well as the timing at which you can cancel the skill with a Ki pulse or dodge.
  -Increased the homing and hit box of the Dual Swords skill "Cherry Blossom", and players can no longer be staggered during the action.
  -Successfully pulling off the Dual Swords skill 'Heavenly Flow" now grants a buff that increases attack power.
  -Decreased the "Break" effect of the Dual Swords skill "Sign of the Cross" (only in PVP battles).
  -Decreased the "Break" effect of the Dual Swords skills "Windstorm" and "Windstorm II" (only in PVP battles).
  
  
• Spears:
  -Increased the damage of Spears' strong attacks in high stance.
  -Increased the damage of Spears' fourth and fifth quick attacks in low stance.
  -Increased the damage of Spears' first and second quick attacks in low stance.
  -Increased the damage of the second attack of the Spear skill "Chidori".
  -It is now easier to hit enemies with an attack after launching them with the follow-up attack of the Spear skill "Chidori".
  -Increased the damage of the Spear skill "Rising Dragon".
  -Increased the damage of the Spear skill "Piercing Rain".
  
  
• Axes:
  -Increased the damage of Axes' third attack in mid stance.
  -Increased the damage of Axes' first and third strong attacks in mid stance.
  -Increased the damage of Axes' first and fourth quick attacks in low stance.
  -Increased the damage of Axes' second strong attack in low stance.
  -Increased the timing at which you can cancel an Axe‘s quick and strong attacks while a Living Weapon is active using a Ki pulse or dodge, or by moving.
  -Fixed a bug in which the Axe skill "Flash Attack" had trouble hitting the enemy.
  -Increased the damage of the Axe skill "Flash Attack". As well as the timing at which you can cancel the skill with a Ki pulse or dodge.
  -Shortened the time it takes to fully charge the Axe skill "Lumber Chop" and increased its damage when fully charged.
  -Increased the animation speed of the Axe skill "Earth Carver“.
  -Increased the damage of the Axe skill "Spirit Wind".
  -Increased the damage of the Axe skill "Cloud Crush" when it sends the enemy flying.
  
  
• Kusarigama:
  -Increased the animation speed of Kusarigamas' quick attacks while a living weapon is active, but decreased the attacks' damage.
  -Fixed a bug in which the hit radius of the Kusarigama was sometimes smaller than expected while a living weapon was active.
  -Increased the damage and hit box of the Kusarigama skill "Crimson Flurry".
  -Increased the damage of the Kusarigama skill "Crimson Flurry: II".
  -Increased the damage of the follow-up attack of the Kusarigama skill "Whirlwind".
  -Decreased the damage of the Kusarigama skill "Blade Spin".
  -Decreased the "Break" effect of the Kusarigama skill "Blade Spin" (only in PVP battles).
  -The timing at which players are invincible to stagger during the Kusarigama skill "Blade Spin” has been delayed (only in PVP battles).
  
  
• Odachi:
  -Increased the hit box of all Odachi attacks.
  -Increased the timing at which you can cancel any Odachi attack by moving.
  -Increased the damage of Odachis' third attack in mid stance.
  -Increased the damage of Odachis' first and second strong attacks in mid stance.
  -Increased the damage of Odachis' running attack in mid stance.
  -Increased the animation speed of Odachis' second quick attack in high stance.
  -Increased the damage of Odachis' strong attacks in high stance.
  -Made it easier to hit low-standing enemies with Odachis' quick attacks in low stance.
  -Increased the damage of Odachis' first quick attack in low stance.
  -Increased the damage of Odachis' running attack in low stance.
  -Increased the damage of Odachis' second strong attack in low stance.
  -Fixed a bug that allowed for the parrying of the Odachi skills "Moonlit Snow", "Twin Moons" and "Cuckoo‘s Call".
  -Increased the damage and forward-moving distance of the Odachi skill "Twin Moons".
  -Increased the damage of the third attack of the Odachi skill "Moonlit Snow" after having fully charged it.
  -Fixed a bug in which Ki would not be properly consumed when using the Odachi skill "Moonlit Snow" without charging it.
  -Increased the damage of the Odachi skill "Imperative Strike" after having fully charged it.
  -It is now easier to hit enemies with an attack after launching them with the Odachi skill "Retrograde Flow“.
  
  
• Ninjutsu:
  -Decreased Ninjutsu power damage scaling for "Shuriken".
  -Decreased Ninjutsu power damage scaling for "Kunai".
  -Decreased Ninjutsu power damage scaling for "Storm Kunai".
  -Widened the angle at which "Storm Kunai" are thrown, and changed their initial throw position to outside the character.
  -Decreased the duration of "Quick Change" (only in PVP battles).
  
  
• Onmyo Magic:
  -A decreased the duration of "Protection Talismans" (only in PVP battles).

 

[cruel]

Uch... Does it make sense to continue playing this, if I'm not that excited after first 6 missions? I'm currently at the one with Umi-Bozu boss, level 46. And I'm finding myself fighting very hard to not play this, not sure why. The combination of crappy loot system, repetive enemies, mediocre level design and anything that really stands out makes it a much worse experience than Dark Souls unfortunately. Is there anything that changes after first 6 missions, anything that is a little bit exciting / surprising / fresh and new? Or should I assume this stays this way for the rest of the game?

I bought this on day 1, which was February I guess. Asking those questions in September means that probably the game didn't meet the expectations, a little bit. It seems that great combat is not enough to make game a great one, after all.

 

[Dyskolos]

The only thing that could really change is combat - both in the sense of trying different weapons and then in getting extra moves/combos (mainly just varied finishers). You will develop a much richer sense of strategy once you get fully comfortable with stance switching and ki-pulsing in case that aspect seems lackluster to you so far. But then some of the more viable longterm builds - like near permanent living weapon or boss cheese throwing weapons - don't open up until you've finished ng and get access to all the guardian spirits and divine items with extra/more powerful modifiers so if you don't care for the loot and repetition already there's probably no reason to push through. I mainly like it for occasional drunk cooping with my brother (who doesn't have a pc) and probably wouldn't have stuck with it past ng otherwise.

 

[Silva]

Uch... Does it make sense to continue playing this, if I'm not that excited after first 6 missions? I'm currently at the one with Umi-Bozu boss, level 46. And I'm finding myself fighting very hard to not play this, not sure why. The combination of crappy loot system, repetive enemies, mediocre level design and anything that really stands out makes it a much worse experience than Dark Souls unfortunately. Is there anything that changes after first 6 missions, anything that is a little bit exciting / surprising / fresh and new? Or should I assume this stays this way for the rest of the game?

I bought this on day 1, which was February I guess. Asking those questions in September means that probably the game didn't meet the expectations, a little bit. It seems that great combat is not enough to make game a great one, after all.

Posts like this (which I agree with) make me wonder if Dark Souls in the end isn't much more than an action game. I mean, I dropped Nioh halfway through because it felt too much like an action game with little else besides it, so I lost interest fast. At the same time Souls series keep pulling me back again and again even with it's inferior combat system. This makes me think the appeal of Dark Souls is a combination of factors, atmosphere, themes, lore, mechanics, etc. and calling it "action game" may be a huge mistake.


*Edit: Oops, just noticed I've crapped in the thread. I'm sorry

Spoiler

..not

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Well, I'd still say Dark Souls is primarily an action game. But good atmosphere, original and imaginative level layout and design, enemy and boss design etc. go a long way towards making a game more enjoyable. There's way more to a good action game than good combat mechanics. Same goes for most genres tbh; good mechanics are extremely important, but so is everything else. What makes Dark Souls so enjoyable is that it does almost everything right and that everything, even the flaws, blend together in a way most other games don't achieve, even if some of them surpass Dark Souls in certain aspects.

 

[Silva]

Yeah it's the intangibles, man.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Combat system is slightly deeper than in Souls, but you'll soon find that, for the most part of the game, you're killing the exact same enemies with the exact same methods, so it gets highly repetitive. You unlock most of your weapon skills quite early and after that there won't be much evolution in your playstyle, unlike in Souls where finding a new weapon might have a new moveset that changes things up slightly to keep the game fresh.

Just pick the weapon that you enjoy. Nothing is so bad that it can't be used. Dual Swords and Kusarigama (sickle + chain) are both quite powerful, though it has been so long since I played Nioh that I forgot what the most optimal use was for the Dual Sword. Something to do with applying a debuff faster than the slower weapons that increases elemental damage by a significant amount.

Armor is so-so. Either go big or go home, and don't forget the Onmyo magic debuffs / buffs to help with mitigation. But it is better to just go with lighter armor for dodges.

Edit: I had to go back and see an older post on why 2 katanas are good and this is what I found:

Dual Swords requires the most skill to be good at so don't feel bad if it feels weak. You'll definitely want a weapon buff or a 2kat that comes with natural elem damage since applying debuffs and dishing out large amounts of elemental damage is what they excel at. The final step in mastering the 2kat is reailzing that if you can apply 2 elemental debuffs at the same time the enemy gets hit by a special debuff called Discord. To quote the wiki:

When you stack 2 elemental status effects on a foe, they are inflicted with Discord. Discord heavily slows them and breaks their guard making them stagger with every attack taken. The guard break lasts until the status disappears, far longer than a normal guard break. When the status is applied to humans they become severely slowed and recover Ki much more slowly. All enemies take more damage while the status is in effect.

 

[Hyperion]

The game has changed quite a bit. Kusarigama was nerfed hard, so the one attack wonder doesn't work anymore, but it's still competitive.

Unless they nerfed them since the 1st DLC, Dual Swords are obscenely powerful. Windstorm was nerfed, and deservedly so, so the people who played entirely in High Stance and did nothing but spam it were totally fucked. The nerf allowed for it to be more of a choice between it and Water Sword, which is fucking ridiculous in terms of raw DPS, and applying status effects. Most things are dead long before Discord can even be applied. Blocking instead of rolling is a viable strategy, and in some cases the only way to get out of a potential stunlock. Coincidentally, Dual Swords are also the best weapon available for blocking, and consume the least stamina per block. When you're in mid stance with over 200 toughness this really starts to show, and blocks start removing about 10 stamina from a smaller enemy and only 40 - 50 from a big fucker, instead of instantly staggering you.

The Dual Sword Iai Strike equivalent, Sign of the Cross, is gamebreaking once you build around it with enough Close Combat Damage, Skill Damage, a Weapon with +Sign of the Cross Damage, and the Master Swordsman set. The hardest boss rush missions on the highest difficulty have been cleared in sub-1 minute doing nothing but spamming it. Insanely powerful, fast, and can be built to be stronger than a Final Blow.

it also has the best Parry in the game, The Shrike, which can be used in mid-stance only, but is a 2 hit parry AND leaves the enemy prone to a Final Blow. Has parry frames equivalent to the Parrying Dagger from DS1. Crazy, crazy shit.

They also get a Mystic Art which reduces the damage you take for every sequential hit you get without taking damage. In combination with Water Sword, skill heal, Kara-Jishi, and Heavy Armor you're invincible against pretty much every attack in the game. Attacks that normally do 1,500 will be cut down to about 2 - 300 if you combo enough before getting hit. I 1-shot most of the challenge fights that I watched certain streamers (*cough ManVSGame *cough*) die repeatedly and take about 4 hours to complete. Without a doubt my favorite weapon style, nothing comes close to the level of fun I got out of them.

In short, Dual Swords are ez-mode, Spears lagged behind the rest of the weapons a bit because their staple skill is only useful against human enemies that can be staggered easily. Larger enemies will fuck you up because switching stances and trying to dodge is delayed from the Spear Attack.

One of my favorite characteristics of Nioh is actually the strength of Axes. Unlike Souls games, you can be a motherfucking juggernaut. I'm talking moving at Iron Flesh speeds, and 1-shotting bosses with Lumber Chop. There are vids of people instagibbing every single boss in the game with that attack. Not as flashy as the Sign of the Cross build, but oh-so satisfying.

I've never been a fan of single Sword builds, as I think they're basically a slower, less fun version of Dual Swords, but they're the ultimate weeaboo pissing contest weapon. Heavy parry sets, lots of jumping behind enemies and nonsense. There is a youtube video of a dude who made a build that I believe was "THE MOST POWERFUL BUILD IN THE GAME!!!!" that focused on Night Rain and Single Swords.

Ninjutsu builds have the capability of killing every boss from a distance with Storm Kunai almost instantly, but have VERY specific gear and skill requirements, and are mediocre until you hit that point.

Every build should have some sort of Onmyo Magic attached to it, otherwise you're just gimping yourself. Fortunately, Sloth Talismans were nerfed, and, while still very VERY strong are not ridiclous as they were. Your first build should aim for 20 Dex / Magic so you can unlock the highest levels of spells / ninjutsu, then min/max the way you want to after.

Is armor as useless as it is in the Souls series? Also, just how grindy does it get?

Unless it was recently nerfed, Heavy Armor is INCREDIBLE. Better than it was in DS1. Grinding should be avoided at all costs on Way of the Samurai. When you get to Way of the Strong, there is (again unless it was nerfed), one Side Mission, The Isle of Bandits, that allows you to get level 150 gear with nearly perfect stats that people leave behind on their corpses. After that, your goal is just to get it to Level 150 + 10, (by forging a 150 with a 150, then a 150 +1 with a 150 +1, 150+2 with a 150 +2 etc. etc.). I never got to Way of the Demon, because I wanted to wait till all the DLC was out to go balls deep into the game and burn myself out. I do believe it gets VERY grindy after the 2nd difficulty, though. 3rd difficulty is specifically built around min/max monsters who have spent hundreds of hours in the game.

Do note, the 1st DLC on Way of the Samurai is actually harder than most of Way of the Strong. The beginning of the game has a much steeper learning curve than any of the Souls game, imo. Once you figure out how to really manage Ki Pulses, and balance offense and defense the game becomes much more manageable and even rewarding than any of the Souls game.

 

[cruel]

Hmm, reading posts above, maybe it is worth after all to just respec and switch to dual swords or something. I was playing with single sword whole time, and maybe this was one of the factors why the game got so boring for me. Also leveling up wasn't very fun, you just pump Heart as it covers both sword damage and Ki. Will try one more time with this, we'll see.

 

[Talby]

I started with the single sword, found it was boring so I switched to dual swords, then to kasurigama, then to the greatsword when the first DLC came out. You should definitely try each weapon for a while and see which you like, since it will affect your enjoyment of the game.