LogFAQs > #897617465

Touch posted...

I'm enjoying it so far. I'm a big loot fan

You're likely going to get a lot of fun out of Nioh then.

Touch posted...

Also I feel like I'm ass at ki pulse timing. I get it but always get the miniscule recoveries.

Ki pulse is not all about maximum ki returns. There will be many, many situations where it is impossible to ki pulse perfectly. There will even be times where you do not have the luxury to ki pulse at all, lest you get hit.

It's important as well to keep in mind a ki pulse isn't just about regaining stamina. A perfect ki pulse will clear a yokai realm, and any ki pulse is effectively a recovery time cancellation of the attacks you just did. That can often be more important.

Also you can absolutely go axes + dual katanas. You can go all weapons even. It's not SUPER strict on needing you to squeeze every last drop of damage out of your weapons and scaling works a bit weird for weapon damage in this, in that it has no diminishing returns and just cycles through a strong gain, a medium gain, a small gain, then strong again, and so on. So the gain you get for the 30th point of strength is the same as the 33rd, 36th, 39th, etc. all the way to 99 and beyond.

Equip load works similarly to Souls games, and is color-coded. So long as your equip weight is colored green you're fine. Yellow or red and you're in trouble. Blue is kind of overkill.

For someone coming from From Software's games, some things to consider:

- Your dodge is generally weaker; it has low i-frames, and you can't dodge to escape a lot of enemy combos, but you CAN block to stop enemies from comboing you. So blocking is stronger/more important, dodging is weaker.

- Status effects are very strong in this game and you can visually see the build up meter on enemies as you hit them with it. It'll show an image for the status effect and it'll fill up as you hit them. Build up mechanics are the same as Souls. When a status effect is inflicted, the symbol for it will be shown larger briefly, and there'll be some visualisation on the afflicted for the effect. Additionally, continuing to hit an enemy with something that causes build up of the status effect they have will extend the duration, and this can be used to make it last indefinitely.

- You can see enemy stamina (ki) too, and it is a pretty critical facet of combat; however, yokai ki is different and is essentially their poise, and it doesn't auto-regenerate unless they're in a yokai realm aura, or they perform a move that produces one; however smaller yokai have no poise and depleting their ki is less significant.

- You eventually get infinite respecs, so feel free to experiment; generally every playstyle still stands to gain from putting SOME points in every stat eventually so hyper-focused builds that neglect multiple stats are not really a thing because they're not actually optimal.

- Armor is very strong in this game. If you want to go tank, you absolutely can. Defense works similarly to defense stats in Souls games, but armor also has % based damage reduction and, from armor specifically, it stacks additively, and what that essentially means is the more of it you have, the more powerful getting even a little more is.

- Toughness is sort of poise, but it also affects how much ki damage you take from attacks (blocking or otherwise). It is also color-coded like equip weight. 100 is green and is worth shooting for, though 200, blue, is really good, big difference. Speaking of blocking: the "parry" stat on weapons can be thought of as stability, as in how good they are at blocking. Guard ki reduction, which is a % value, also makes stuff better at blocking
---

I am snazzier, hot, hot rant. Warily slight as.
Croak rush, OK? Weirder, almighty make out. ::)