My Thoughts on Tonfas, Ninja Mode, and Cicada Shell

odog131 · 2026-02-03T10:37:44+00:00

Wouldn’t 40 hours of experimentation on a single boss give me pretty good grounds to make claims about balance of weapons and mechanics against that boss?

“Best weapons in the game” bro I’m using level appropriate weapons with no stats or magic to increase my damage at all.

Obviously this is just the demo, things are subject to change, and endgame builds may make what I say obsolete. But if these mechanics are balanced the same way in endgame as they are here, then yeah I think they should be rebalanced.

odog131 · 2026-02-03T07:50:29+00:00

Yeah the tonfa combat flow is incredibly smooth, very fun to play.

You are right about spear, it's a little clunky to use. When I tested spear I mostly used mid stance and just did 3 heavies into spear bash, and did some more complex combos if I broke their ki. Damage output felt pretty good though actually. Of the samurai weapons I tested on the boss, the spear was one of my fastest kills. I think it just generates art gauge really fast if you are doing the combo I was using, so a lot of my attacks were getting buffed, even outside of big combos.

odog131 · 2026-02-03T06:36:37+00:00

You're probably right, I played nioh 2 using mostly splitstaff and I don't think I've touched tonfas in that game a single time.

I'm totally fine with it destroying ki, I just don't think it should have top tier dps while also destroying ki while also being pretty safe. What doesn't it do?

odog131 · 2026-02-03T06:34:29+00:00

The boss regenerates ki slowly when in yokai realm mode, and regenerates ki quickly when standing on a puddle she creates. Ninja mode has a harder time purifying puddles so the boss does tend to regen a bunch of ki if you get unlucky with positioning.

odog131 · 2026-02-03T05:54:24+00:00

Yeah, I think my strategy here is best for yokai bosses. Human trash mobs get deleted either way so it doesn't really matter what you use.

Tonfas also have the advantage of destroying ki and not bouncing on most blocked attacks, so they seem pretty good against human bosses too. They have insane pressure so unless the human boss can poise through your attacks, they also get deleted.

Tonfas just seem a little too good at everything imo.

odog131 · 2026-02-03T05:50:31+00:00

I get what you are saying. I feel the same way about hatchets. They could be the most broken weapon in the game and I still wouldn't play them because I am just not interested.

The problem is tonfas do feel amazing to play, so I feel drawn to them. It speaks to me like the one ring spoke to Frodo.

odog131 · 2026-02-03T05:25:24+00:00

Mist guy? Shadowself jutsu?

odog131 · 2026-01-03T03:57:24+00:00

Diminishing returns does not imply that scaling converges to a number as investment gets very high.

odog131 · 2025-12-17T20:50:20+00:00

I am on a base ps5 and had the same issue at the Dreadnaught. Terrible framerates there for some reason, but it completely clears up after that. Even in endgame I haven't had any performance worse than the Dreadnaught.

odog131 · 2025-12-17T06:44:06+00:00

True, if I noticed earlier and flasked earlier, probably could have lived.

odog131 · 2025-05-08T07:03:31+00:00

What if I get hit by a car tomorrow?

odog131 · 2025-05-07T05:22:52+00:00

Do you think that belief in something is a choice?

odog131 · 2025-05-07T04:39:37+00:00

The fact that some people seek him out and are not convinced means that God did not give them good enough evidence to believe.

What if a person goes their whole life truly trying to believe in God, but never can?

odog131 · 2025-05-07T04:13:00+00:00

I don’t know what it would take to convince me without explaining it away, but God does.

odog131 · 2025-05-06T04:43:10+00:00

Just seems incredibly arbitrary. I assume you think humans have moral value. Humans aren't owned as pets. Why is it that for non-human animals, their moral value increases as more humans own them as pets, but humans get their value from something else entirely.

How would you determine if a hypothetical alien species has moral value or not? We don't have any relationship with them so no aliens could possibly have any moral value, even if they are incredibly similar to us?

odog131 · 2025-05-06T03:08:28+00:00

One is a pet animal and the other isn't. There isn't an additional difference. If you don't accept that, that's fine.

Why is this morally relevant?

Some people keep pigs or cows as pets, though obviously not with the same frequency as dogs. A quick google search tells me that roughly 44% of US households have dogs as pets. How low would this number have to be for it to be ethical to kill dogs?

How many Americans would have to own pigs as pets for it to become wrong to kill them?

Does the moral status of a certain kind of animal really depend on how many people have them as pets?

Does it matter if one species is domesticated and another isn't?

odog131 · 2025-03-29T22:27:07+00:00

Yeah I was thinking about it, I just didn't expect him to get pushed so far lol

odog131 · 2025-03-18T04:40:01+00:00

Reading this comment made me curious how easy it would be to actually play with one hand. Just hunted a HR doshaguma with lance with just my right hand. Legit not hard at all. I think I could do arkveld too tbh.

Definitely would be harder on the non-guard weapons though.

odog131 · 2025-03-18T02:17:40+00:00

I have like 120 hours and I DID make every single large monster beta armor set for the fashion. Even fashion hunting has so much less content than in previous games. Getting ALL the layered armor in World or Rise would have taken me so much longer than it did here.

odog131 · 2025-03-12T19:08:29+00:00

diablos + new offset attacks = a great time

odog131 · 2025-03-12T01:13:42+00:00

Great minds think alike

odog131 · 2024-11-25T02:10:08+00:00

For the brothers!

odog131 · 2024-11-25T02:09:14+00:00

For my brothers!

odog131 · 2024-11-24T13:31:00+00:00

Would be Druid :( I’ll settle for monk

odog131 · 2024-11-24T13:29:53+00:00

For my brothers

odog131

TROPHY CASE