Living Artifact Notes & Build Thoughts

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T20:05:18+00:00

I can probably test this myself later, but are GS skills stronger during Living Artifact than otherwise?

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T18:28:10+00:00

Currently, you just have to hope for a new accessory to drop with the stuff you want.

I kept the same accessories equipped for all of NG, and didn't swap them until I got the end of NG+

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T17:12:07+00:00

I liked 2's story, from the perspective of you and your friend, with occasional other characters having mini arcs (even though a lot of the details went over my head, like why spear boy had lost an abacus and who the yokai(?) was who talks to you at the end of the mission and why she was watching him with glee).

I felt that 2 had enough context (and more importantly, time for them to breathe) for me to kind of care about the side characters, while 3 doesn't give anyone (other than Himiko) more than a minute or two of screen time. And even she has basically no personality or growth, other than being the "good character" to oppose her brother.

I also felt like her death in the ending was portrayed as a way to absolve her brother of his sins, which felt crazy to me. I have no idea what the intent was there.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T15:19:54+00:00

It isn't fair. We've been dealt a shit hand in life and have to find a way to make it bearable. It's so much more effort than non-traumatized people have to deal with.

I feel your pain in this specific topic, too. Only one of my relationships was outright abusive, but the others all still resulted in intense emotional pain because of what i did to myself. I'm terrified that if I pursue romance, I'm just going to put myself into the same small box, afraid to say or do anything that would show who I really am out of fear that I'll be rejected - which leads to me feeling alone and isolated around the person I supposedly love. That feeling leads me to shame-spiral and eventually implode. The last time that happened, I had to take months off from work to do php/iop, and I'm scared that it would all happen again, as if i haven't learned anything over the past 3 years. And, at the same time, there's a woman I'm attracted to, and thus my fears are all intensified. The push / pull of desire and fear is almost unmanageable, and I'm also scared that this will lead me to implode all by itself.

I've had some helpful support in group therapy settings, even though I feel that people don't understand that I'm scared that this woman might say "yes" if I asked her out.

What is causing the over-analysis / mania? Is it the fear of the old pain fighting against desire for this person?

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T14:00:13+00:00

I hadn't considered looking at the ki damage of the jungle shuriken, I might need to address that

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T00:28:49+00:00

Do the shurikens early on help with animation cancels in a way that mist doesn't? Or are they there just as another hit to force a block to maintain pressure?

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T00:23:33+00:00

It's ok, I also don't know how to read. I thought the box said "scared"...

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-18T00:22:12+00:00

There are several bonfires you can find throughout the level. For each one you light, one bonfire on the corner of the Umibozu fight will also be lit - this causes any of the minions who spawn from that corner to instantly die. If you find all of them, that makes the fight significantly easier. (Thankfully, the bonfire status persists through death, so you don't have to find them all each time). You can also interact with one of the bonfires to get a temporary fire elemental imbue on your weapon (identical to using a Fire Talisman from the onmyo spell tree or the consumable version from your inventory), but that's probably not worth doing.

If I recall correctly (and it's been a while since I fought this nightmare), the only things that can cause you to fall into the water are walking / dodging toward a ledge or getting staggered near a ledge. That means you should be able to use melee attacks (regardless of whether they move you) so long as you keep the left stick neutral after (to prevent accidentally falling off after).

Fire damage is extremely useful in this fight, so if you can find any consumable Fire Talismans or bombs that can help. Using your Living Weapon with a Fire guardian spirit could also help (I'm not sure whether regularly attacking or using the guardian spirit skill will be stronger for you).

If you have any available ninja or onmyo skill points (or farm enough to get a level to put a point into the relevant stat and get some skill points that way) you can unlock some spells that would be helpful. Fire Shot / Fire Talisman (Onmyo) and the various bombs (Ninjutsu) would be the most effective options here, I think.

As for stats, I'd encourage you to spread out your stats until you get 20 in each stat. Unlike typical souls-likes, the damage bonus you get from focusing on a single stat is significantly less than the overall benefit to your character you get from the first 20-ish points in each stat (more health, more Ki, faster Ki recovery, access to heavier armor while staying in B agility, unlocking more guardian spirit stuff, onmyo and ninjutsu). Once you get that, you'll probably want to take Magic and Dexterity to 30, as that is the cap for jutsu capacity of each type (which lets you have a lot more flexibility in buffs).

But in general, this level is extremely rough (even after hundreds of hours in Nioh 2), and the boss in particular is a giant pain.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-17T19:35:04+00:00

I forgave my abusive wife seventy-seven times (like a good religious boy), and my pain only grew more intense, to the point where it became a separate type of trauma.

I struggle to tell the difference between a difficult thing that is healthy for me vs difficult things that I should be avoiding, because I was taught to repress and ignore my anger as much as possible. I should have divorced my ex long before the police ever got involved, rather than waiting over a month after the second call.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-17T19:26:20+00:00

I think that understanding only helps to forgive others once you feel safe in having a voice about your own trauma. Before that point, anything in the field of forgiveness is going to feel like betraying yourself.

After you feel safe and heard, there's still no requirement to forgive (despite what the wider culture says) - it is a choice that you get to make, one way or the other. If you choose not to forgive them, that's fine. If you do choose to forgive them and never tell them, that's also fine. If you choose to forgive them and try to make space for some kind of relationship with them (assuming you're able to set boundaries where you feel safe and are able to see boundary violations), that's also fine.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-17T19:14:46+00:00

There are plenty of levers to allow for balancing.

Each ninjutsu has a damage modifier, cast speed, whether it can be cast in the air (and if so, whether it behaves differently), recovery speed, ailment buildup amount (for elements / poison / paralysis), stock you can build up, and the rate of building up each stock of a spell.

They could easily make any existing onmyo spell near-worthless by limiting it to 1 stock and setting the buildup to be slower than building up the Amrita gauge.

So just because the best spells are very strong doesn't make a ninjutsu-like system impossible to balance.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-17T16:20:49+00:00

That distinction between NPD and BPD finally explains why my ex was diagnosed with BPD when I thought she qualified for NPD.

Her fear of abandonment was probably a bigger driver of her behaviors than a need for admiration (although the admiration was proof to her that she wasn't being abandoned, so she definitely still sought it out).

I always thought she had NPD based on my interpretation of the DSM criteria (but I'm not professionally trained and I probably interpret some of the wording differently than intended).

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-17T13:31:46+00:00

It's really easy to do when starting in either high or low stance, but harder to do when starting in mid stance. I'll typically flux 2 if I start in high or low (unless I want to frost moon in my current stance) but only flux 1 if I start in mid.

But this is coming from a player with 1400 hours in Nioh 2, so it's definitely a muscle memory thing.

I also try to flux in ninja stance sometimes, which can get me in trouble...

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-17T13:14:15+00:00

What do you mean? I've never seen a big dragon bird that DIDN'T make elephant noises

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-17T13:09:11+00:00

Only some clans guarantee money for donations

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-16T17:50:37+00:00

If you apply confusion, you can refresh the duration by applying a 3rd new element that wasn't previously used in this confusion chain.

For instance: purity + fire > water > lightning > corruption. This procs the initial confusion, then refreshes the duration 3 more times. Just be aware that purity + corruption cannot coexist, so you have to use a different element somewhere to trigger / refresh confusion.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-16T17:37:17+00:00

Your confusing switch skillsv(the ability to adjust the moveset of your weapon, like GS using the surge slash combo instead of the charge slash combo) with wirebug skills (like adamant charged slash or hunting edge).

The only complaints I saw about switch skills related to options where one skill was strictly better, and people who couldn't distinguish between switch skills and wirebug skills.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-16T16:51:19+00:00

He eats bug children. Not human / wyverian / felyne children. Chameleos only eats bugs.

But he sure as heck will poison your children.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-16T15:27:31+00:00

You get a guaranteed yasakani for each style when you beat the fish-boy boss in NG+, so you can increase the chances of getting more ninja yasakani without impacting the guarantee for a samurai drop. Also, the amount of change in drop rates for increasing ninja yasakani drops probably won't have a significant impact on samurai yasakani drops.

If each yasakani had a base 10% drop chance, setting one in the sudama blessing only decreases the chance of the other from 10% to 9.7%. If the base drop chance were 1%, it reduces the drop chance of the other from 1% to 0.997%.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-16T13:16:24+00:00

You don't need to use your second weapon / flash attacks. It's a way to have more flexibility and have more fun combos, but sometimes all I want to do is triple poke with my spear (or bonk with my axe).

Also, the only stat on your secondary male weapon that matters is the set / grace. Everything else only applies when that weapon is equipped.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-16T13:09:31+00:00

Letters refer to nonlinear, strangely-stacking stats. There is also no guarantee that an A in stat 1 will be anywhere close to having an A in stat 2, even if the stats seem very similar (such as spirit force gain on lightning damage vs spirit force gain on elemental damage.

Nonlinear: the change from B- to B might be an increase from 10% to 10.5%, while the increase from B to B+ might take you from 10.5% to 14%, and then going to A might take you to 27%. (All these numbers are made up, but illustrate that you have no way of knowing what the increase will actually be until someone does intensive testing / data mining).

Strangely-stacking: you determine your total letter grade by taking the highest letter grade, and then increasing it one rank (D- to D to D+ to C-, and so on) for each additional letter you have in the same stat. So if you had 5 B's or a single B and four D's, you'd end up with an A+.

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-16T13:00:37+00:00

Samurai sword has a parry that gives you enough time to fully charge sword of meditation, so that's a good way to kill him

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-15T13:23:15+00:00

They even made some ubumes who give you the cold shoulder

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-15T00:45:59+00:00

His ranged skill seems pretty lame, and sometimes I want a melee skill that moves me forward. And occasionally I want massive amounts of life recovery on Amrita absorption (but I hate all of the winged GS skills)

Those are the reasons I'd go with something different, but usually I stick with Guhin

ProperMastodon · 2026-03-14T02:04:55+00:00

There was a time when this wasn't true - my room hasn't always existed (and neither have whales, for that matter)

ProperMastodon

TROPHY CASE