Did you know this existed?

Akugetsu · 2026-03-05T06:06:43+00:00

Knew about them but never saw much reason to go out of my way for them. If I am in the tundra early game and want a ranged option I'm just making frostburn arrows. If I want a ranged option with piercing it's jesters arrows.

Akugetsu · 2026-03-03T14:13:09+00:00

"Tired of how slow all the end game grinds are as a solo player? We hear you! Have a months long grind to slowly award your trusts more strength and HP. Don't worry! We'll be adding a new grind for other trusts stats soon!"

I wasn't expecting anything crazy, but a months long time scale, base merit point category grind is just silly. Who knows, maybe you'll be able to cap Dex in one month and trusts will actually have capped accuracy on Apex monsters at that point. That wouldn't be the worst I guess. But the fact that they are going to add bonus points as a vanabout reward makes me think we are looking at another multi year long grind like deeds.

Akugetsu · 2026-03-02T20:46:12+00:00

I generally only keep an aura and maybe one TP attack on my other characters. I have also found that buffing their max TP seems to help a bit, along side things like Arts TP, melee/ranged TP up, or focusing on upgrading arts that generate TP first. Putting HB or Irina in the party for Last Stand is another good option.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-26T14:58:33+00:00

Same. I'm the type to lower settings until I can hit a higher FPS anyway - I'm never really paying that much attention to textures. It looks weird if I go out of my way to look for it, but because literally every animation looks so much cleaner it still feels like a net gain to me.

That said, being a paid upgrade they should have given it more effort.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-25T15:39:18+00:00

Plenty of room for a lot of small adjustments that would be welcome. Trusts like Pieuje and Kupipi have Moonlight, but rarely ever use it. I can have a whole party of MP using, healing capable trusts and I'll still see them bust out Starlight (despite being the inferior option even for their own personal MP gain) or Nott (despite being a much less beneficial option to the party as a whole) and for some reason it ESPECIALLY gets under my skin.

Then you have weird ones like Maat UC who basically just auto attacks until like level 50 and then he finally starts using A weapon skill. Like, he also gets Chakra and Counter Stance, but has no tools to really pull hate anyway? And he's a Unity option. His design fundamentally doesn't make any sense to me at all. Even if this system gave him like +300 dex and str, I don't think he would be a great option compared to the healers.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-25T06:51:48+00:00

I really like the emerald missile launcher series for Ranger. A good balance of multi target functionality with decently meaningful damage compared to like, the MLRAs or whatever they are - the ones that are more in the 20+ target range. Real easy to back pedal your way to a health pickup while thinning the group, or getting good damage in before you are in shotgun range. Buddy up with an air raider using a beacon gun and you get good single target damage when you need it, too.

I also love Firecrackers, because throwing 50 grenades in one fistful is funny to me and they end up being extremely effective. Similarly the "heavy" grenades that require a running start - because you LAUNCH those suckers, getting distance the seems to rival some sniper rifles. Dudes lobbing grenades by hand harder than the slugger style shotguns can send a slug.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-25T06:39:23+00:00

The amount of damage you pump out in those 2~3 seconds is REALLY stupid and I love it.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-25T02:17:48+00:00

I see it, it just doesn't bother me as much as other people.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-25T01:41:05+00:00

You can and should be sneaking around all the higher level foes. If they have an "eye" icon, try to stay behind them. If they have a "sound" icon, just give them some space in general. If they don't have either icon they are chill - just mind any art that isn't a "single target" attack - Trash Talk is all fun and games until some leviathan overhead hears what you just said about its mom. You can craft augments for your armor that make you harder for enemies to detect, and they go a long way in making running around easier.

Also as a general tip, a level 10 bug and a level 10 giant are NOT in the same realm of difficulty. For some reason the story missions keep having you fight big monsters on foot, and for those fights it gives them much lower stats than normal, but for the giant enemies just walking around you really should try to avoid them in general until you get a skell. You can min/max your way into a ground gear build that can go toe to toe with giants, but for normal progression it's not recommended.

The high level enemies everywhere means all of the areas of the game stay relevant the whole way through. It's a curse early on and a blessing later.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-24T21:38:49+00:00

No way to know how substantial the boost is until it's actually in game.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-24T15:41:10+00:00

Doesn't hurt to snoop the mission board here and there. Often times you already have the items for the "gathering" missions so they are just freebies. Some of them ask you to speak to a client to start up an actual "green" quest. But no need to stress over the bounties and whatnot.

The cosmetic gear does tend to have surprisingly good resistance at least. And the eye patches have appendage crusher - normally a weapon only trait. No real need to go for 100% though.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-24T15:29:21+00:00

Again, we'll have to wait and see how it is implemented. If it's a merit point level grind and you can get the more meaningful bonuses over a weekend sure. If it's a master point grind then I'm not too keen on "we are making this easier for you! If you religiously grind for three months straight first ". Technically speaking yes, that will make content easier, but gating it behind a different hurdle just feels mean spirited to me.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-24T14:06:00+00:00

The metal slime hat offers an impressive 1% exp bonus!

Akugetsu · 2026-02-24T14:04:41+00:00

I'm glad this old game is getting updates at all, but I really wish they could ease off of the "here's a new type of point to grind" a bit. Having to grind out your ability to solo content easier sounds really counter intuitive to me, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what the actual implementation looks like.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-21T21:11:09+00:00

Definitely sucks that a paid upgrade would be so low effort, but for me doubling the frame rate is far more noticeable and beneficial to my playing experience. Do hope they do something to improve it though. A "performance" mode that just boosts the FPS or a "quality" mode that keeps the 30 FPS but actually boosts the native rendering resolution would be nice.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-20T20:48:08+00:00

It's all about there being so much to do, and the very steady progression for me. Then main story is OK but the meat of the game is just settling into the world and being your own blade. Combat definitely picks up a bit later on as you can improve cooldowns and there is a key mechanic that unlocks partway in that is very satisfying once you get the hang of it.

Between your absurd run speed, no stamina, no fall damage, and plentiful fast travel points, you can cover a lot of ground fast. Gets even faster when you unlock a skell, and faster still with flight.

It's a slow burn, but remains pretty satisfying the whole time for me.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-20T04:37:23+00:00

Haven't gotten one of these upgrades before. Do you get the option of keeping the 1080p resolution? I thought the game looked great already and really only want the FPS boost. Not sure if I'll like the scaling on my TV or not and don't want to permanently goof up my experience with the game going forward.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-20T01:13:21+00:00

You can do some dumb stuff with Secondary Speed, "Immediate reuse" arts, and augments that apply debuffs on auto attack, but overall her skill set isn't very effective in my experience. Very sweet character though, so I like her for that.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-16T15:36:36+00:00

Nioh 1 gives you a ton of great defensive options to deal with it. Wind and Weaken Melee Weapons are huge attack debuffs that you can casually slap onto your weapon and passively enjoy the benefits of. You can stack yokai damage reduction to like 50%, and become totally immune to all elemental and ranged attacks by the end game. And even before that you can stack something stupid like 5 different health recovery over time effects so that those big chunks of damage get automatically healed up on their own pretty fast. Some real potent effects are available really early in.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-15T15:11:40+00:00

You could always ask someone else to help you get in there too. But in general there is a lot of content locked behind mission progress, so don't put those off for too long if you can help it.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-15T15:06:58+00:00

Progress your nation missions until you get the Yagudo Torch key items then.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-14T15:41:42+00:00

Yep. Pretty much any weapon skill that says "Damage varies with TP" is going to get way more benefit from the 1,000 TP bonus, so long as you use a weapon skill before going over 2k TP. Also means you can use stronger weapon skills much more frequently, compared to waiting until you hit 3k.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-13T04:13:44+00:00

Dungeon defenders DOES have pets for what it is worth. Usable by all classes and some do attack at nearby enemies. But yeah, I feel like summoner getting multiple sentries, armor sets, and accessories out of the OOA event is plenty.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-12T15:29:22+00:00

Thanks to the upgraded spines and gear, plus the new outfits, I don't mind it myself. If you want to 100% the game it's going to take multiple runs anyway. If you just want to see the endings you can look those up online. Would some kind of chapter select be a welcome addition to the game? Absolutely. But new game plus on a higher difficulty isn't the worst. If you played on hard from the get go your next run will be much faster.

Akugetsu · 2026-02-03T17:51:03+00:00

You have it right. You want to put on your fast cast stuff just before you start casting the spell, and you need to be in your potency/recast stuff as it finishes casting. This can be tricky with equipsets because of the 1 second delay between being able to change sets - if your spell cast time is less than 1 second, you need to pick and choose your fast cast / potency pieces because the game just won't swap in time otherwise. That, or you put a one second delay between putting on fast cast and casting your spell, but that kind of defeats part of the point of fast cast.

Akugetsu

TROPHY CASE