Nioh 2 (PS4 (PC in November?))

Man, I applaud Nioh for making it fairly easy, if a bit expensive in gold, to rework a piece of gear to exactly what you want, but the drop rates on smithing texts are goddamn ridiculous even if you make a set of gear specifically for item drop rate. The worst part is that (according to reddit) if a boss drops multiple texts the first one will drop quickly and then all the others have a vastly reduced chance... so if you don't get the one you want first you're just screwed.

Got the platinum, still got a lot of gear and level griding to do (223 I think) but i'm gonna hold off until dlc turns it into an endlessly fun loot grind like the first. Took 120 hours or so but could be done a lot faster, I wasn't really going for 100% - like in the first I just kinda noticed when i was 90% there and grinded for the rest. Was mostly spears this time, liked it quite a bit

Combined 600 hours between n1/n2 and i still get fucking molested by raven tengus sometimes, goddamn they're assholes.

DrSpooge said:

Combined 600 hours between n1/n2 and i still get fucking molested by raven tengus sometimes, goddamn they're assholes.

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Glad i am not the only one. I just started 2, but I hated them more than any boss

Gankak said:

Glad i am not the only one. I just started 2, but I hated them more than any boss

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It's funny because they're basically sekiro enemies. They have two or 3 attacks rhat could be considered perilous, both in animation and player response, and their remaining swipe combos are quick but telegraphed. I got really good at sekiro and I still just sometimes can't get the timing down with raven tengu when they come at me with their moveset as a whole. Doesnt help that if you lock on their movements can completely disorient you and get you killed by other stuff.

DrSpooge said:

It's funny because they're basically sekiro enemies. They have two or 3 attacks rhat could be considered perilous, both in animation and player response, and their remaining swipe combos are quick but telegraphed. I got really good at sekiro and I still just sometimes can't get the timing down with raven tengu when they come at me with their moveset as a whole. Doesnt help that if you lock on their movements can completely disorient you and get you killed by other stuff.

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Cant tell you how many times my noob ass just watched them run up to me and smack me with that fucking staff before I could dodge.....

What annoys me most about them is that I have played ki-busting builds almost exclusively and I don't think I've ever depleted a tengu and gotten off a grapple/finisher.

At least they're pretty susceptible to poison though, that's my go-to when I don't feel like wasting time with them.

Not sure how I feel about NG+ after being in it for a week or so now. Yasakani is way too mandatory for basically every build so you either do mind-numbing repetition of the first room in Abduction mission praying to RNGesus, or you rush to the end and kill Otakemaru again to get one. And then, since it's so damn rare (took me about 50 resets of Abduction, which I believe is actually much faster than most people got it that way) you have to put pretty generic farming stats on it unless you want to play just one specific build.

I don't mind that farming revenants is still a big part of gearing up--even bigger now due to orange inheritables--but I'd say about 80% of the revenants I see have a straight ninjutsu cheese build, so it's a bit frustrating if you're looking for, say, a set of Kintaro or Tosa.

On that note, I have orange inheritables for attack, shuriken and kunai dmg, untouched ninjutsu, etc. if anyone needs them still. Some white ones for specific skill damage too, though I think the only notable one I have is Water Sword. Really looking for Iai Quickdraw and Mad Spinner inheritables if anyone has them.

Vorph said:

What annoys me most about them is that I have played ki-busting builds almost exclusively and I don't think I've ever depleted a tengu and gotten off a grapple/finisher.

At least they're pretty susceptible to poison though, that's my go-to when I don't feel like wasting time with them.

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I actually got one drained today on accident with a burst counter, but didn't get a finisher off before he regened his Ki

I have a new hatred... the snake bitch yokai can suck a fat one....

PSA for anyone considering an axe build at some point, Shuten Doji is up today as one of the twilight missions. Getting a divine version of his gourd is a huge pain in the ass normally, but it's a guaranteed mission reward when you do it on twilight.

Edit: Er, nm... for some reason I thought that one was part of a set bonus but it's not. Still a good mission to do for the rewards though; I think the effect on the gourd is pretty useless since Yokai Shift in general is useless, but the club will have a really good chance of being at least +2 or +3.

So, I got the platinum on Monday. Thanks to this quarantine, I was able to play this game pretty much non stop and put well north of 200 hours into it. I'm about halfway through NG+ now and ... yeah it's ok lol.

I dunno few things: I despise the Yokai Shift system. I really do. You can see where they did not like that the answer to everything was "living weapon" for most people in late game of Nioh 1. Fine, I actually agree. But the Yokai shift is just so gimped in comparison it's almost not worth using. In fact I'm to the point of just going for the stats that are buffed by your Amrita Gauge amount. I like the Yokai Abilities stuff a little bit more but frankly, again, you can tell where they were terrified of rusting the try hards' jimmies if they made it too plentiful so it takes damn near a full gauge to do a majority of the abilities. And the stats on them are mostly worthless. I've used it to stack auto grave recovery and one that compliments my elemental buff build I'm rolling.

Stats: They just seem to be a whole lot of absolute meh this time around. All the really cool shit is either watered down to being almost worthless. Skill damage at most is like 5% now on many pieces. Reduced Firearms is completely neutered at 4-5 percent to piece. And my coup de grace, Auto Recovery on Amrita Absorption, is absolutely worthless. Not only do you have to get an entire set to even have it. When you finally do it restores a grand total of 10% of your health over 20 seconds? What the actual fuck TN? Along with stats the two non weapon trees seem to be really held back. I know people are talking about how powerful ninja is, and I think it is if you run poison for sure. But throwing? I don't see how since it's so limited. Capacity is really low at 35 and you can only carry 10 kunai and stars and 6 storm kunai. Even though I have complained about this, I really do think they are thinking long game here and slowly going to roll out power levels as the DLC hit, so I'm not totally holding all of this against them.

What I love: Burst Counters. Love this shit. Granted I suck dick on Feral and cannot get the timing down to save my soul, but Brute? Fuck yeah I just go in and tell them to sit the fuck down any time they flash red. Great system, and I wish I could gain anima faster to compliment all of this with yokai abilities mixed in between. I also love all the little quality of life changes like automatically getting your spirit back if you walk into a boss room.. and the expansion of auto grave recovery... that shit is dope. Life drain on melee and the life from amrita absorption are the new auto recovery and it's amazing to watch my health go way down, only to instantly go back to full after a few whirlwinds on my duals or combos from my glaive.

Overall, I have loved this game, but if this were a 9.5 then Nioh 1 would still be a 10. But that's with ALL the DLC released, so I'm holding off complete judgement until we get them all for 2. However, unlike most, I've also not really loved the level design. Many of the levels just felt convoluted for the sake of being convoluted and it got annoying. BUt my sense heading has ALWAYS sucked. Guk still makes me break out in cold sweats, so that's a just me thing. But I cannot wait to see this games version of the Abyss, and I hope it's more randomized and easier to farm versus doing all the normal levels for a 5th or 6th time. Now it's time to farm a shit load of smithing texts. I have the Master Archers for lightning damage and it's great but I have a ton of points into Stamina that I'd love to put into Constitution instead. So Warrior of the West it is.

Namon said:

I dunno few things: I despise the Yokai Shift system. I really do. You can see where they did not like that the answer to everything was "living weapon" for most people in late game of Nioh 1. Fine, I actually agree. But the Yokai shift is just so gimped in comparison it's almost not worth using. In fact I'm to the point of just going for the stats that are buffed by your Amrita Gauge amount. I like the Yokai Abilities stuff a little bit more but frankly, again, you can tell where they were terrified of rusting the try hards' jimmies if they made it too plentiful so it takes damn near a full gauge to do a majority of the abilities. And the stats on them are mostly worthless. I've used it to stack auto grave recovery and one that compliments my elemental buff build I'm rolling.

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I came straight from 1 where I used living weapon to finish off almost all the bosses on normal(I just did a normal play through as I just bought played 1 on PC like a week ago). Boy was this a wake up call that yokai shift doesn't work the same way. At this point I pretty much forget I even have it. I can't agree with what you said more, in 1 it did feel cheesy finishing out staggered bosses with living weapon but there has to be a middle ground between that and Yokai shift that doesn't just suck.

Gankak said:

I came straight from 1 where I used living weapon to finish off almost all the bosses on normal(I just did a normal play through as I just bought played 1 on PC like a week ago). Boy was this a wake up call that yokai shift doesn't work the same way. At this point I pretty much forget I even have it. I can't agree with what you said more, in 1 it did feel cheesy finishing out staggered bosses with living weapon but there has to be a middle ground between that and Yokai shift that doesn't just suck.

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Well it's the dark souls try hards who think anything short of flipping between all 3 stances and switching between both weapons during 1 combo should do 0 damage that we need to thank. It's annoying because across the board you can see where they gimped the fun shit just to appease their bitchy asses. Yes LW was beyond OP. But Yokai Shift is an extreme over correction along with everything else. Another example is the Japan's Bravest set. In 1 it buffed Tornado by 30%. It made a tornado spear build fun and devastating. Now it's 10-15%. Yeah you can get it higher but not by much for a whole lot of work. I was rolling damn near 100% and it was a blast. And it felt right. Especially with the sponges you took on in way of the Nioh.

Yep, it's pretty sad what a dumpster fire Yokai shift is, and even the Amrita Gauge bonuses are fairly negligible. IIRC utility stuff like ki recovery and maybe defense are about the only ones worth mentioning and the attack/damage bonus ones are all wasted slots.

Yokai abilities are still insane though. The Enenra bare-hand build is dead now but until yesterday it would kill anything in a couple seconds. Yatsu-no-Kami got nerfed into the ground too, but Otakemaru was better and still basically unchanged. Generating a full anima bar seconds after depleting it to use the ability is fairly simple to set up too, making it easily spammable even at 10 cost.

As far as ninjutsu goes, NG+ decided right out of the gate that it was going to load me up with Kato and Iga sets, and ninjutsu inheritables, so now I have the complete set(s) with Ninja power, shuriken/kunai dmg, and untouched ninjutsu on every piece. It's every bit as silly as they say. Human bosses are slightly annoying because they block after 2 kunai, but you just have to pace yourself. Everything else just dies long before you run out. And don't forget about feathers--they can do upwards of 20k damage on out of ki enemies.

Onmyo got hit way worse since Nioh 1. Debuffs last only a few seconds on most bosses even with a pretty hefty investment. Talisman damage is pretty anemic when you compare it to feathers and yokai abilities, so magic basically is just buffs, and debuffs when they actually work. Up until yesterday, the faster casting mystic ability didn't even do anything at all (thankfully 1.08 made it comparable to the ninjutsu version though).

Fortunately I've got the stuff almost all ready (need a pair of gloves with Windstorm inheritable if anyone has) for some axe, sword, and dual sword builds... just a matter of leveling everything to 999 familiarity like 8 times, which does get pretty old. I want to try odachi and hatchets too, but those may have to wait for some DLC.

Yeah yokai shift is lame as hell. I don't know how many of you guys played the Nioh 1 dlc's and leveled 300-600 (800? I forget) through them, but it was pretty much entirely LW cheese builds - seriously, the gearing and build homogeneity was nuts, like close to 100% either kigetsu/tatenashi/kingo depending on era - so I totally get the impulse to change things up but shift, as noted, just kinda sucks. Also I really, really hope the dlc's, in addition to obvious content updates, do the under-the-hood kinda work the trio od dlc's for the first did and expand the endgame basically to infinite. Hopefully with some semblance of build variety at the high end.

DrSpooge said:

Yeah yokai shift is lame as hell. I don't know how many of you guys played the Nioh 1 dlc's and leveled 300-600 (800? I forget) through them, but it was pretty much entirely LW cheese builds - seriously, the gearing and build homogeneity was nuts, like close to 100% either kigetsu/tatenashi/kingo depending on era - so I totally get the impulse to change things up but shift, as noted, just kinda sucks. Also I really, really hope the dlc's, in addition to obvious content updates, do the under-the-hood kinda work the trio od dlc's for the first did and expand the endgame basically to infinite. Hopefully with some semblance of build variety at the high end.

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I can just about chain yokai shifts, there is all kinda of options out there. Love it!

Hatorade said:

I can just about chain yokai shifts, there is all kinda of options out there. Love it!

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But why though? The normal yokai quick/strong attacks suck (doubly so if you run Tengen like nearly everyone does now, because Phantom is even more ass than the other two) so at best you can spam a lot of Otakemarus? But you have to wait for the initial cooldown to start spamming, and if you're building for amrita gain to chain yokai shift then you could just as easily build for anima gain instead and chain Otakemarus without bothering to shift.

The only interesting use I've seen for yokai shift so far is some dude who stacked all the different luck and item drop rate bonuses while shifted, and that's actually a pretty huge boost to overall drop rate for smithing texts and boss skills. He still doesn't shift until the absolute last second of the fight though; the rest of the time he spams Moonlit Snow and uses Tengen like everyone else. :/


That said, there actually is a ton of build variety at NG+ endgame, so hopefully they keep that going. Every weapon has a really strong skill (or a few of them) that work really well and can be built around, ninjutsu is super OP, and even onmyo is viable, although the lion's share of your damage will still probably come from Otakemaru. Only real lack of variety is that practically every build will use a Yasakani, Tengen is just miles ahead of every other spirit. Clan choice is ridiculously stacked in favor of Toyotomi too, even though Honda is vastly better. I assume most people don't realize that shitty-looking 4% active skill damage scales all the way up to 28% at max rank.

Vorph said:

But why though? The normal yokai quick/strong attacks suck (doubly so if you run Tengen like nearly everyone does now, because Phantom is even more ass than the other two) so at best you can spam a lot of Otakemarus? But you have to wait for the initial cooldown to start spamming, and if you're building for amrita gain to chain yokai shift then you could just as easily build for anima gain instead and chain Otakemarus without bothering to shift.

The only interesting use I've seen for yokai shift so far is some dude who stacked all the different luck and item drop rate bonuses while shifted, and that's actually a pretty huge boost to overall drop rate for smithing texts and boss skills. He still doesn't shift until the absolute last second of the fight though; the rest of the time he spams Moonlit Snow and uses Tengen like everyone else. :/


That said, there actually is a ton of build variety at NG+ endgame, so hopefully they keep that going. Every weapon has a really strong skill (or a few of them) that work really well and can be built around, ninjutsu is super OP, and even onmyo is viable, although the lion's share of your damage will still probably come from Otakemaru. Only real lack of variety is that practically every build will use a Yasakani, Tengen is just miles ahead of every other spirit. Clan choice is ridiculously stacked in favor of Toyotomi too, even though Honda is vastly better. I assume most people don't realize that shitty-looking 4% active skill damage scales all the way up to 28% at max rank.

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Ryomen Sukuna - Nioh 2 ALL Day, spin my axe with lightning until out of stamina(assuming they not dead already) pop that, they get the debuff, I spin again and any boss is dead. I can also do this when I mass pull a bunch of whatever and funnel them into a tighter spot. This also works well with Nure-Onna - Nioh 2.

I think it's safe to say I've beaten the game until the DLC starts dropping:


Took me about 250 hours total playtime, but a 170 soul core finally dropped so I could upgrade it the last little bit.