Once I started having actual magic to use, it wasn't all that bad. It especially helped when I finally got some healing from my accessory. It was weird experiencing sustainability. Weird, but quite nice. As for the DLC, I more than likely will take a crack at them at some point down the line. More than anything, it's just a matter of time investment.

​@SpuddyCube bro, I loved the video yesterday. I watched you ninjustu only vid and loved it keep up the good work ima sub rn. Also how do you beat this game so easily it seems iv been playing for day and only got to the 3rd boss

I'm glad to hear it! I wouldn't call it particularly easily though. Between the two runs I've done, Steam says I've logged about eighty nine hours. So don't feel too bad about pacing. Also, the game is pretty difficult, so take the time that you need to enjoy it. At the end of the day, it should be fun, and there's a lot of fun to be had in this title.

@@SpuddyCube you are wholesome

I've always enjoyed playing games just a little bit wrong. Challenges are more or less the logical extreme of that. I've wanted to play Nioh two regardless, and this was a fun way for me to do so.

The best part is that it didn't respawn. Which works for me, because those things were shrugging off my damage like it was nothing,

The only problem is that ninjutsu doesn't scale nearly as well as magic to higher difficulties. Pure magic builds later on can be extremely strong.

@@georgen5882 you can get some mileage out of the elemental stuff, but poison falls off hard on the later NG+ cycles. That being said; i still think going with both is fun; and ran a "sage" build on occasion to cast from both lol

It's weird how late into the game you get things like the spirit summon talisman within the actual tree. Maybe it gets better later down the line and I slept on it the whole run, but especially with the magic capacity required matched with things like just how hard it can be to hit with some spirits... I dunno. It made me yearn for the weirdness that was the first game's magic run.

@@SpuddyCube I'll be real, the spirit summons mostly suck. They were a good tool for breaking ki in 2; iirc they were better in 1 where they may or may not have been busted. There are a few decent ones for status builds, and even a decent white mage penguin one for party play, but for the most part. . . summons are like a tool you can use if you REALLY want to, but don't need to worry about. Thankfully they were mostly made obsolete with the Yokai abilities; which not only have way more variety, but also allow for up to 6 active choices when you unlock the 2nd guardian spirit slot. Before the nerfs; yokai skills like Enenra and Yostu-no-Kami just melted whole sections of the game lol

What bothers is is that the passives are so late. Why do i have to beat 2/3 of the game before i can get longer buff durations?

If nothing else, we know William can swim from the intro to the first game after he gets shot. Then never again. And I do get it from a gameplay perspective. Water can be weird... But it is also weird just how many games have you instantly dying like your skin is made of Alka Seltzer. Also, thank you! It's much appreciated!

I'd love to! I'm not sure when exactly, but I've been really excited to try it.

@@SpuddyCube i have once seen a build with yokai shift where they used the brute yokai shift against william, and he could only do the tiniest chip damage against the yokai shift's time limit, while the time limit crawled so slowly, and atleast with yokai abilities you would still have a way to heal

Yeah, lore justifications! The yokai shift is what makes me excited to try working out a yokai only run. Gonna have so many different cores to play with!

@@SpuddyCube thing i've learned since i started doing that run, if you die with partial amrita gauge it actually will fill up when you pick up your grave. could help your sanity when you do it.

That... sounds about right. Running things a bit backwards, as usual. In ways that I didn't even consider...

It's all in the projectiles. I think I'm at least mildly okay in games like Dark Souls, but Nioh melee has me floundering. I do appreciate that though!

@@SpuddyCubedon’t feel bad the game is really in the vein of Ninja Gaiden where melee is really burst or be bursted

I definitely disagree. His method of play basically sidesteps a lot of the actual execution difficulty of the game. It takes player skill out of the equation and turns it into number crunching, for the most part. Which is fine for a challenge run, but I get the feeling he'd be pretty hosed in 'normal' gameplay.

no. hes not good at a game if hes doing everything possible to ignore the VAST majority of mechanics. these are simply fun challenge runs, nothing more

So, I think it depends on a lot of factors. Ignoring the rough start of the run, I preferred the versatility of magic this go around. I've heard statuses become a lot less effective into later playthroughs, so I would probably favor ninjutsu in the long run. I have heard ninjutsu also opens up a lot more if you use things like animation cancels, so it probably would win out if you're not restricted to using _only_ one or the other. I think that answer would probably change when looking at things like buff/healing spells. If I wasn't relying on the chosen category for damage, then magic has utility in spades. I think magic in the first game was had a bit more variety, but I think the quality and feel of the spells was greater this go around by a pretty large margin. Familiars not withstanding. I did miss the sword talisman... Overall though, a really fun system to work with!

I'm curious as to what causes it on one machine vs another. I know enough to know the technical reason as to why they get all wiggly, but I don't know enough to know why hardware would change that.

@@SpuddyCube it'll probably be something as simple as cutscene physics being keyed to work at exact increments of 30fp and a big enough blip sends the physics objects out of sync with the rest of the animation and they go crazy trying to catch up.

It makes me wonder what QA testing looks like internally. Because the game is genuinely so good. It's full of so much passion, and I mean sincerely that I really like it! But also, there's just a lack of polish in certain areas that comes through when you look at very specific angles.

@@SpuddyCube I've played most of Team Ninja's games and most of them have the same bugs/glitches all across them, I reckon there's a bunch of stuff that they just accept as 'edge-case' stuff because removing it would mean building new tools or (and far more likely) it's baked into some third party tool they use and either don't have the license to tinker or the knowhow. I can imagine some poor QA logging the dress going bonkers and the programmer/animator in charge of physics objects just laughing before walking off.

18:28 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA you are killing me

Not as quickly as gravity is killing me!

I'm not sure if I'd want to use _just_ yokai shift. I'm not sure if it would be the perfect fit, but I think it'd be fun to use shift + abilities.

@@SpuddyCube yeah yokai abilities only would be great (I count yokai shift as a yokai ability)

It's not super high on my priority list of things to tackle, but it has crossed my mind. There are at least a good handful of things I'd really like to do in Nioh. It's always just a matter of finding the time vs other games.

That sucks so badly... The bright side of learning that now is that it at least didn't taunt me during the run. Because no, that definitely wouldn't have been allowed.

Yeah, familiars are pretty much intended to be used in combination with weapons, whether that be to launch them for big magic damage from afar or to keep them circling for continuous status application in melee range. They're definitely worth using if you ever try a less restrictive playthrough, but for a challenge run like this they're basically useless.

I've done some testing on it, but my lack of experience with the core game has betrayed me a fair bit. I'm fairly sure ki pulses (off of things other than attacks) come later. I didn't know they gave anima though, that's interesting. The main issue with getting the run going is absolutely anima regen.

I was really disappointed to not see earth magic return. The amount of ki damage you could deal was incredible! It was nice having multiple proximity mine based options though. As inconsistent as they were sometimes. I didn't expect Sloth to still be so effective in the sequel, but every time I needed it, it worked a treat. There are at least a few more that I'd like to take a swing at, even aside from the DLCs. Some of them can even come out of the gate already following the rules! And I really appreciate you coming along to see how they go!

Because Earth and Wind were basically repurposed into corruption and purity, albeit it, under more general parameters. Wind reduced resistance to break (I.E., Increased ki Damage - Purity) and Earth doubled ki consumption and slowed ki recovery (In essence, max ki damage - Corruption). Of course, they dont translate 1:1 but they do function pretty similarly.

It seems like a long standing tradition at this point that games break for me in strange and often subtle ways.

After how well my first attempt at melee went? I dunno... I could certainly try, but I'm worried as to what the attempt counter would look like!

I hadn't really considered doing any content on the full completion of a game. I suppose it's not out of the question. I think the weapon achievements alone would take me a bit.

That's good to hear! I like to switch out what I'm playing to avoid burnout. I would like to do the DLC, but I think I'll be doing it later down the line. I do also need to circle back and do the DLCs for the first game.

It is a title that I'd like to revisit. Time allowing of course, but the greater intricacies of it are often rather lost on me during gameplay.

I could certainly try... but with how well my melee excursions have gone so far, I'm just a wee bit terrified.

@@SpuddyCube wooden weapons on nioh 2 give bonus proficiency and bonus ki damage. sept the wooden hammer which I think you can get early on, that's just a normal hammer.

I do still want to, but there have been so many new games coming out as of late. It's hard to keep up with!

its a second tier fire spell called explosive shot

I know it can at least mostly be theoretically done. The bigger question is just how badly it'd go with my lack of skills.

Especially since magic in this game is literally you just making and using your own talismans

That's probably fair, but 'tis my burlap doll! Also, thank you for engaging!

I feel like it comes into its own when you eventually get the Awakening Mystic Art. When the true spell slinging can begin, it opens a lot of doors to things like confused. I think it'd take getting a bit deeper into the game to get the right gear to make the build sing though.

Seeing only magic runs made me understand why Team Ninja went the direction they did with wizardry in Wo Long.

Yeah... I think you technically _could_ get through with the spirit guardians. But I also think you'd be looking at hundreds or even thousands of hours to get through the first three missions. I enjoy a good challenge, but there does reach a point where it just stops being fun. And that's usually where I draw the line. I'll put up with a lot, but when I can't enjoy it at all? Not so much.

The start was pretty rough, but it did get a lot more fun when I got some damage based spells. I really do appreciate the concern, but I'm doing alright. I did make things a bit worse for myself with my notes for the run. I mapped out things like the general build upgrades as a sort of timeline for the run, and they were subpar. I kept getting excited for things like new armor, only to find out that the armor I was waiting for was terrible.

@@SpuddyCube Yeah thats Nioh 2 for you. Lots and lots of fun... beware the minute power ups, or for said power up to ruin your look. Glad that things got better for you, and take care.

or delete game

Probably to fast for ya might want to play a slower game

Honestly, I'm not one hundred percent sure. I've never really identified strongly with my asigned gender, but I also haven't really felt things out a ton. I've never tried using she/her, but I'm at least reasonably comfortable with he/they. I at least don't _think_ I mind whatever folks prefer using at the time, but I haven't had the best environment to try. I suppose the biggest reason I haven't made that sort of thing more visible is that I'm just not totally sure of myself yet. Life is a series of discoveries, and I'm not sure where I am exactly, but I'm also happy to enjoy the ride of just exploring for now.

@@SpuddyCube