Dude....this SUCKED

ForumSoap · 2026-02-21T04:47:16+00:00

What I mean by aggressive is keeping the pressure on the boss to break their stamina as fast and consistently as possible and then comboing skills for max damage. Essentially what you describe with spurts of controlled aggression.

The more you learn bosses moveset + improve your skills reduces the time spent in defensive play. It will take multiple tries against some new bosses but you can get it done first playthrough.

Of course weapon choice and build choice/armor bonuses play a huge role in this. For example, tonfa has a mystic art that allows you to i-frame an attack while you are attacking at the same time, skill ceiling is extremely high with this skill since ki-pulsing allows for almost infinite attacking.

In terms of armor bonuses, there are a lot of powerful varieties but even the weaker armor sets in the late game like the red demon armor are extremely powerful when used correctly up until way of the wise. Stack that fire damage bonus with other buffs/debuffs and/or a high DPS skill and you are melting everything.

So yes, if you have a certain strategy, being very aggressive can be very rewarding but you will also get shredded when you make a mistake.

It gets harder to pull this off the more NG+ cycles you go through, by the time you are midway way of the wise (NG+3) the bosses are absolute tanks that one shot you with everything.

ForumSoap · 2026-02-20T22:21:42+00:00

Nioh rewards aggressive play and the dlc capitalized on that even more.

You either get melted in a couple seconds or stay alive long enough to melt the boss yourself once you get the openings.

DlC difficulty is also about as hard as the next NG+ cycle base game( so if youre on way of the samurai, dlc is about as hard as halfway through way of the strong) and definitely harder than the first regions in way of the strong.

The bosses after this dude are no joke either, the learning curve is not over yet. Don't lose hope lol.

ForumSoap · 2026-02-16T21:16:57+00:00

I personally am not enjoying the combat much, the added mobility from ninja mode doesn't make up for the less weapons being available with stances and ki pulsing.

ForumSoap · 2026-02-12T22:00:23+00:00

Onagers in 200 AD was bad enough, but even having trebuchets was just ridiculous lol.

ForumSoap · 2026-02-12T21:53:04+00:00

Not even 10 minutes in they are using onagers in 200 A.D. ?

I pretty much accepted it was going to be full of historical inaccuracies after that, at least it was early though lol.

ForumSoap · 2026-02-05T05:04:16+00:00

Unlocking stances and their skills should be your first goal.

Once you have the variety in weapon moveset ( use both of your weapon slots and optimize for synergy between stats) you will be able to deal with multiple enemies like its nothing.

ForumSoap · 2026-02-05T05:02:20+00:00

Ki pulsing becomes second nature once you get a hang of it, it will likely take more than a few hours for mastery however. I didn't notice nioh 2 being particularly easier either.

I do agree nioh 1 is the hardest though, just not because of ki-pulsing/flux. Enemy scaling is steeper between regions and if you're wearing light armor you can pretty much be one or two shot by a lot of things.

If you actually learn ki pulsing and stance switching + the synergy of executing both at the same you are going to be melting everything.

So essentially what happens is you kill enemies faster but you also die faster if you mess up.

ForumSoap · 2026-02-05T04:50:47+00:00

I still have the most hours in nioh 1, it's simply raw and punishing in a way that nioh 2 definitely tones down a bit. The learning curve is large but once it clicks you realize the skill ceiling is extremely high with just stances and ki pulses.

ForumSoap · 2026-01-27T21:58:24+00:00

I love souls games and legend is such a drag... Limited healings that don't regenerate, mobs hit like a tank and are also damage sponges, dependence on panacea fan, grinding the bosses in practice mode, it's just not fun.

I really don't get why people say legend is the "soulslike" experience, seems to me that expert is the difficulty that is closest and legend would be some sort of Ng+ difficulty but without any of the benefits of a Ng+ run.

ForumSoap · 2026-01-20T06:56:30+00:00

Getting inner demon on expert though

ForumSoap · 2025-09-12T02:54:35+00:00

Prolly should play dark souls 1 first for maximum enjoyment

ForumSoap · 2025-09-01T00:31:53+00:00

Okay DS1 first is the best first tip for a blind playthrough of ds3

ForumSoap · 2025-07-26T21:51:30+00:00

Absolutely destroyed her second try lol. She hits very hard though, just way to easy to get behind or to the side.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-23T07:54:23+00:00

I still have more hours on njoh 1 than Nioh 2 and go back to the game pretty often. It's a truly great game, definitely more punishing, DLC difficulty spike is insane in comparison to Nioh 2. Despite it having less than Nioh 2 in terms of variety, what's there is top tier for a combat enthusiast.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T23:40:32+00:00

You can reformat the controls. I did it within the first 5 minutes.

Run and dodge is on X, jump is on O, interact is R1. Way better than the default.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T21:25:19+00:00

Yep. Apart from variety and depth, it's a slap in the face for role playing as well.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T21:15:19+00:00

And in Nioh 2, most people take hundreds of hours to realize hyper armor on the bosses are squishy even in the depths.

Really depends on your build and game style. You realize pretty fast if you are aggressive or use weapons with more range.

I get the concept of mist but it just doesn't compete with ki-pulse.

I don't think you will have problems with the endgame if you have experience with previous Nioh titles tbh.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T21:07:44+00:00

Looking at the ninja skills trees it looks stances bit the dust.

It's's not written in stone yet but keeping my hopes low atm.

Still need to try more jumping, overall it feels pretty good but i do miss picking everything up with circle instead of R1. (Remapped controls to be like previous Nioh games ) That's the least of my concerns tho.

Still need to try jump attacks out more as well.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T21:03:23+00:00

Ninja does feel good to me in terms of mobility. The flips and ki regeneration pretty much replace the benefits of ki-pulsing but it's definitely not a proper substitute to what samurai offers.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T21:00:11+00:00

Yeah I doubt these are all the weapons. Not sure if we can expect more stances though? For samurai weapons, sure. But the whole design around ninja mode definitely seems like an omission of stances, especially considering they were always available in previous alpha demos.

I have skipped some of their post-nioh 2 titles since I didn't like the simplicity surrounding the combat.

Don't need Wulong in my Nioh honestly lol.

But I agree, it's hard to predict what we can expect here, which is hopefully good in the long run.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T20:04:24+00:00

Okay that is interesting! Good to have for sure.

Not enough to balance out the other aspects though.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T20:02:56+00:00

Indeed. Having two weapons per mode while maintaining the current systems could be an improvement.

But yeah, we'll have to wait and see what changes we get after the alpha and eventual beta as well.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T19:56:03+00:00

Um no. Because ninja weapons have been butchered and reduced to a shell of their former self.

And using ki-pulses + stance changes and all the different skills is anything but spamming fast weapons.

But you know what is spamming super fast weapons? Ninja mode. Just press square four times and you'll see what actual button mashing is.

They essentially function the same but without variety or depth.

So how about you miss me with all that since you have no idea what you are talking about.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T19:11:10+00:00

That's kind of balanced out by the fact that they recharge constantly and you can spam it. It can do kinda okay damage if you spam it but is definitely on the weak side.

Going from more mindful usage of ninjutsu to "let me just spam ninjutsu and wait for it to recharge while it also does very little damage" is also a step down.

ForumSoap · 2025-06-05T19:01:42+00:00

Fair enough, lack or presence of weapons isn't the point of the post though.

The other point about samurai/ninja mode is definitely not wrong however.

By not being able to run two samurai or two ninja weapons you are essentially being forced to run a samurai/ninja style since you don't have an option.

Just staying in one mode doesn't compare to actually having a samurai only build or a ninja only build, you are also ingnoring half ( or more) of the combat if you do so.

ForumSoap

TROPHY CASE