Current Events > Nioh is done downloading. Any early game tips for a new player?

(+) Yeah! (+)

You have to take the little path to the side after the big gate. You go behind the houses close to the mountain and then along the rooftops, and you'll have to fight 2 or 3 yokai along the way including the axe one on the roof. Past him there's a water tower, you can knock it down to put out the main fire.

Yep, I've figured it out. I'm trying to beat the Fire Boss on the boat now and getting fucking destroyed.
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That boss will come across as weirdly durable at this stage of the game making the fight take a long time since you don't really have access to any good ways to do damage. Plus some of his attacks do a lot of ki damage making them difficult to block.

In addition, another thing I don't think the game ever explains: there are unblockable attacks. Almost all of them are identified by what basically looks like yokai realm energy enshrouding part of the enemy as they attack, like the part of them involved in the attack (hands, weapon, head, whatever).

Often this is a grab, but this boss has an unblockable attack that is just a very heavy hit.

Mostly you just need to be prepared for a slow fight.

The next boss will likely be pretty difficult too, for most people anyway.
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I think the issue is that right now I'm a Spear user, and it sucks in the fight because of how small it is. I'll beat it tonight
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Spear is absolutely never the best damage-dealer. It is of course better for doing safe damage. It has one base characteristic that can be of note, if you're good at perfect ki pulsing to remove the yokai realms the boss creates: the mid stance strong attacks do A LOT of ki damage. It might be the best way overall to deplete his ki. A yokai with no ki, staggers to every hit. They will eventually create a yokai realm to recover however.

These attacks are also pokes, so good safe range. The running attack in mid and high stances are also good "get in, hit, get out" moves. As are the dodge attacks in all stances.

However, at this stage of the game your options to do a lot of good damage are basically nonexistent, as all the most damaging stuff tends to be weapon skills, not basic attacks, and you don't have access to a lot of that right now.

The boss is a little susceptible to...water I believe. If you wanted to get some Onmyo water talismans that replenish like Dark Souls spells, though I forget if you can actually do that on this mission... Definitely can by next mission at least.

Actually, here's a helpful thing to remember, both for you and enemies: status build up is shown just like damage numbers, with a little icon that fills as you hit. The icon simply showing up, does not mean the status has happened. When it's filled, and a larger version of the icon is temporarily shown, and some sort of particle effect is around the one afflicted, that is when they have been inflicted with a status.

There's actually a fair bit of misinformation about what the elemental statuses do, so I'll tell you:

Fire (Scorched): Damage over time; duration can be greatly decreased if the afflicted performs dodges.
Water (Saturated): Slight increase to the build-up of additional statuses and increased physical damage taken.
Earth (Muddied): Substantial increase to ki damage received.
Lightning (Electrified): Decreased movement and action speed.
Wind (Blustered): Drastic reduction in physical damage output.

Additionally, unlike Souls, if just ONE status of these is afflicted, and the victim continues to take damage of that element, it will extend the duration. It is fully possible to trigger one of these, and keep it going indefinitely on an enemy. This goes for the non-elemental status of Poison as well.

So if you find yourself in the Onmyo skill tree and considering buying one of the talisman weapon buffs, that's what each element does when its status is inflicted.
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Thank you!

I really need to work on switching stances during combos and getting perfect Ki Pulses. Because right now, I don't know where the perfect timing is for them
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You can actually look at your ki gauge (advised to not do this a lot in combat though). That will show the ki you can pulse back and this can help you get a timing for it. There's also a visual around your character, little particle effects, though this is of course not super easy to notice in combat either.

Starting off it's best to just get really good at timing a perfect ki pulse after one specific attack, something quick and easy, for clearing yokai realms.
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