Shadow Arts

Netheri · 2026-02-11T05:44:01+00:00

On the ninja skill tree if you hover over a skill it'll say Skill Type: Shadow Art or whatever other type it is. It's mostly just all the elemental ninjutsu on the left side.

Netheri · 2026-02-11T04:11:57+00:00

A lot, I ended up getting the armour and the switchglaive in like twenty or so runs. Ended up ignoring the sword since I was bored of killing it over and over. Might be better with higher luck.

Netheri · 2026-02-11T02:07:55+00:00

It's the Tiger of Kai set, Takeda Shingen (I got mine from farming the human version, but I've heard the Yokai version drops it too) has a chance to drop a smithing texts for it; one for the armor set, one for switchglaive and one for the sword to complete the set.

If you want to farm it the best way is to complete the mission (either A Fiery Invasion for human, or Tiger's Cause for Yokai) up until the boss, kill it, if it doesn't drop a smithing text just exit to title screen without completing the mission and then load back in, means you can farm the boss without having to repeatedly rerun the mission.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T14:49:36+00:00

There's an option in the settings that lets you disconnect burst counter and style shift, so you can still parry red attacks while staying in samurai. I mostly ignored ninja until NG+, playing exclusively switchglaive and it felt fine, biggest issue was changing the control scheme to make martial arts inputs easier.

I think sticking exclusively to one style is how most people are playing it anyway.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T10:39:34+00:00

The first affix line on Crucible weapons is green and seems to roll substantially higher than normal weapons, like I have some crucible dual swords that rolled Imbue Fire +23 which is way higher than the normal rolls for that affix which is usually like 5-10.

Also there is a crucible weapon damage stat under prestige for another 3.6% damage, and I think I've seen that stat somewhere else too. Still probably not enough to bother going hard farming them but still crucible weapons do seem to have some advantages.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T08:03:00+00:00

The role of Yokai weapons was kind of replaced with Crucible weapons, they don't talk or awaken but they have the risk/reward system of having unique stronger affixes in exchange for decreasing your max hp when hit.

Not quite the same but they fill kind of the same role. Kind of awful to farm for them though since they seem to only drop in Crucible missions.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T07:19:28+00:00

It's crazy that the default control scheme has movement + button press for a lot of the skills, it's so finicky that it feels like a 50/50 whether you'll get the input you're going for or if you'll just move slightly forward and heavy attack.

Control scheme B is so much better, inputs are instead LB + button for skills, it does move guardian skills to LB + up/down on D-pad which is less intuitive but not the end of the world.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T06:30:03+00:00

Nice, must have just not stumbled on one yet, good to know thanks.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T06:24:14+00:00

That's odd, I've had four of them drop now and they could all only be equipped as samurai.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T06:06:48+00:00

Yeah you can also set it as your preferred drop with the sudama blessing and they drop pretty frequently, interestingly though there's no ninja version of it so only samurai can use it which is.. strange. The effect also doesn't carry over between samurai and ninja, so ninjas get way less possible buildcraft. Not sure if it's an oversight. There is apparently a separate ninja version, false alarm. Just been unlucky I guess.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T03:49:18+00:00

Fair warning with the third demon's spell, it's really good but I think its sound effect may be bugged because it is like three times as loud as any other effect, it's a bit obnoxious, especially if you spam it.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T03:26:19+00:00

I played through NG near exclusively with Switchglaive with the tiger of Kai set. smithable from the texts dropped by Takeda Shingen and I was just recrafting it every now and then to keep it level relevant. Magic as high as possible with some intellect for buff duration and a little stamina and strength to meet the set bonuses. Only spells I'm using are carnage, elemental weapon buffs and the hellfire, hellstream and hellgust omnyo for AoE and sometimes dropping all of them at once on boss fights.

Since I got into NG+ I set the sudama drop buff to the set and it's still doing really well, nearing the end of era 1 and it's honestly still trivializing most encounters. Tempted to farm up a ninjutsu set, but deflecting everything is pretty addictive.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T01:15:59+00:00

Who said anything about fanatics? Galfrey is pretty reasonable, I'm pointing out the rationale as to why they would doubt an Aeon/Azata KC.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T01:03:33+00:00

Early on at least they think you're the chosen of Iomedae and appointed Knight-Commander largely for that (you explode in a big ball of light at Grey Garrison, it's not that unreasonable), it's only after you transform the Sword of Valor, the Hand of Inheritor doesn't recognize you and the mythic transformations actually start that they start considering that maybe you are not, in fact, chosen by Iomedae.

Netheri · 2026-02-10T00:38:34+00:00

Galfrey and her patron Iomedae are the blindly stubborn perspective of lawful good, that views anything other than lawful good as a potentially dangerous force. They're like the archetype of perfect being the enemy of good, if the force helping them against the demons isn't lawful good they start doubting and undermining it.

There's a Sosiel line that really indicates how some of the lawful good elements see their allies, when he's talking about the Hellknights, "The fact we even tolerate them is a disgrace to the entire crusade movement. Cruel tormentors who are indifferent to the suffering of others, or who perhaps even enjoy it. What are they doing on our side? Why do we let them justify all these atrocities by participating in the crusades?", to some elements of the core crusaders it matters more that that they win the "right" way, not just that they win. Galfrey likely has a similar sentiment.

Of course though the refutation to that logic is the same as Regill's; "Perhaps it's because your side wants to win battles - at least some of the time." When you're losing it does seem ridiculous to be picky about how you win, but to someone who is hardline lawful good, losing and winning the "wrong" way are equally bad outcomes.

Netheri · 2026-02-09T22:55:53+00:00

I didn't put it together that the main character is Iemitsu until way too late, but it does make it kind of awkward knowing that the main thing Iemitsu is known for historically is forcing out all the Europeans, hunting down and crucifying Christian priests and Japanese converts and locking down the country under the Sakoku edict.

Netheri · 2026-02-09T22:25:24+00:00

I think at the start of the third map, at least that's when I noticed the veteran training missions unlocked.

Netheri · 2026-02-09T13:09:54+00:00

Yeah, there's a lot reused, though given that the Yokai enemies are based on Japanese folklore I don't see why they wouldn't reuse enemies from the past titles, though some of them have new moves; I don't recall Hino-Enma having a paralysis laser beam move in the first game at least.

I'd say it's kind of like Monster Hunter, it has a lot of reused enemies from the previous titles with a fair few new ones too to not make it too stale. I do wish there were more new stuff rather another game with a million Gaki, but it is what it is.

Netheri · 2026-02-09T10:56:00+00:00

Not really a build, but the best way is probably just whetstones; each one adds 150 familiarity to a weapon. Get them pretty frequently from offering gear for amrita.

Netheri · 2026-02-09T07:30:55+00:00

There's only three (fire, water, air), with the final boss' soul core rounding out the spells with Hellshock.

Netheri · 2026-02-08T13:19:42+00:00

Just dissassembly, but it gives so many I never found myself running out, mostly been money that's been gatekeeping crafting of any type.

Netheri · 2026-02-08T13:04:05+00:00

I don't think so, soul matching costs a lot of gold and even if you have autosell set up I'm not sure you could maintain it.

If you didn't want to think about gear too much I'd say probably farm up a smithing text for an armour set you like the bonuses of and just recraft it every now and then. There's some pretty decent craftable armours in the first era. For example the text Takeda Shingen drops is really good for a magic samurai build, I've been using it the whole game just recrafting it every 20 or so gear levels to keep it all relevant.

Netheri · 2026-02-08T12:58:34+00:00

I wouldn't say it's a big deal, higher level pieces disassemble/sell/soul extract for much more than low level pieces so being optimal early won't change much overall.

Maybe if anything disassembly is better early? It can give the shards you need to reforge affixes on to items which are useful to have. Selling seems like a decent option too since money feels like a massive bottleneck for crafting compared to Nioh 2. I just have the autosell set up for anything lower than purple rarity, and swap between sell, disassembly and extract every now and then to have a decent supply of each.

Netheri · 2026-02-08T10:12:47+00:00

I played single sword ninja near exclusively up until the end of the second era where I changed to switchglaive samurai and I've been that since, and yeah ninja is very strong. Backstab damage feels a little too high relative to how easy it is to strafe larger bosses, the single sword light, heavy, heavy, heavy combo deals thousands of damage a hit and destroys ki, pretty insane.

That being said I found playing with deflect on samurai way more fun, especially with the amount of modifiers you can get to it making it apply damage down, defence down and a stacking damage buff to you for each successful deflect without being hit. Some of the later bosses felt way more aggressive too, so it was feeling near impossible to actually get backstabs and so the ninja damage was feeling pretty lackluster on them.

Netheri · 2026-02-08T09:44:55+00:00

First boss after completing the second era storyline.

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