How to deal damage with dual blades?

[Timbermaw]

Family, I've been a long time high stance axe addict, since nioh 1, and recently started a few new characters (axe best weapon btw ).
One of them is a kusarigama / dual blade user but my ability to deal damage with either is lackluster. While with kusarigama I'm kinda winging it with the square combos in high stance, low stance and the parry on mid stance, with the dual blades I have to resort to blocking everything and waiting for a good opportunity to finally retaliate for some minor damage, repeating this for minutes. The active skills are hard to hit with, the spinning high stance one leaves you wide open if you miss, plus costs a lot of stamina if you attach an element to it (which is believe is the moves' main purpose? Hitting a lot and applying an element?) and the "jump over and get behind the enemy" low stance once is so long some enemies dodge out of the way or block and hit me mid air during the move. Plus what's the point in getting behind the opponent if they just instantly rotate to face you? This should've been useful to get a few backstabs at least, or am I wrong?

Furthermore, all those hold R1 + CIRCLE moves are so finicky to use. Sometimes they don't even fire at all, my guy just sheathes his weapon and doesn't charge the skill.

ps: I apply poison and water elementals to my weapons for a little boost so at least that's covered

How do I proceed?
Dual blade users, how do you cope?

[la_nague]

God of Wind, Water Sword, high stance combo ender, Sign of the Cross are the main attacks.


You have Minds Eyes in low stance, not sure why you think you have to block everything.

[Aizen Sosuke]

To me dual blades are a heavy combo based weapon, at least if you want to get the most damage out of them. Since you're just starting out with dual blades, god of wind is nice to start of combo chains. If you land the finally hit of god of wind 2 it will leave them open for a few seconds. Setting you up to a few other attacks to combo into.

For example:
God of wind -> Cherry Blossom -> Signs of the cross -> etc
God of wind -> signs of the cross -> god of wind -> signs of the cross = (infinite loop if done right)
God of wind -> signs of the cross -> double-headed slice -> signs of the cross -> etc

(There are a lot of combo strings you can do with dual blades that I haven't stated.)

When it comes to using signs of the cross make sure to hold R1 + circle for just a little bit and the release. With a little practice you should be able to activate it every time.

[Timbermaw]

Originally posted by la_nague:

God of Wind, Water Sword, high stance combo ender, Sign of the Cross are the main attacks.


You have Minds Eyes in low stance, not sure why you think you have to block everything.

cuz dual blades are like the king of blocking and blocking is safer than evading

Originally posted by Like Drifting Clouds:

To me dual blades are a heavy combo based weapon, at least if you want to get the most damage out of them. Since you're just starting out with dual blades, god of wind is nice to start of combo chains. If you land the finally hit of god of wind 2 it will leave them open for a few seconds. Setting you up to a few other attacks to combo into.

For example:
God of wind -> Cherry Blossom -> Signs of the cross -> etc
God of wind -> signs of the cross -> god of wind -> signs of the cross = (infinite loop if done right)
God of wind -> signs of the cross -> double-headed slice -> signs of the cross -> etc

(There are a lot of combo strings you can do with dual blades that I haven't stated.)

When it comes to using signs of the cross make sure to hold R1 + circle for just a little bit and the release. With a little practice you should be able to activate it every time.

gonna look for those skills, and practice the sign of the cross thing I guess.

[Dweller Beyond the Threshold]

You should watch some of Xenoswarm and PooferLlama's dual blades (as well as other weapons if you are interested) videos, they both cover builds and combo/attacks to use.

For the sheath attacks with R1+O, to ensure you get the attacks out properly, be sure to press and hold onto R1 first before pressing O.

[JtDarth]

Quite honestly, Dual swords are kinda busted just by how powerful god of wind is.

[Crowmanhunter]

Corners are your friend. If you can ki break something in a corner, and then use Water Sword, the fight is over.

A critical skill of Dual Swords is the Mystic Art Momentum. Once you get that, dual swords become so stamina efficient that your assault becomes virtually endless and is integral so that you'll have enough stamina to Water Sword a boss from 100 to 0 hp in one combo.

Also, I don't recommend use spinning dragon. That move is far too much of a stamina dump and leaves you vulnerable. Personally, I prefer Cherry Blossom. It does just as much damage as Spinning Dragon, but in one single hit and comes out faster.

Lastly, The Shrike is one the best anti-human parries. Any human parried by this skill falls into a crumple state, letting you instantly follow up with a free final blow. Or, if you've mastered timing the Sign of the Cross as others have described above, you can get a free Sign of the Cross followed by a Final Blow. This devastating combo is what makes human enemies a Dual Sword User's ideal enemy.

[GατΠιсЭ]

--spin-to-win-- on Dual blades. Coat it w.Paralysis -- o w8 we're getting into some of my build which is still semi-secret atm. :) As a small Olive Branch tho on Dual Blades u can get all fancy. That'll lead to a lot of animation gaps. Or u can follow Dojo Prodigies and adapt some stuff that TN apparently copes with by directly nerfing the output--lol. Another reason I refrain from sharing everything on forums ne more. Ends up reverse engineered after a while. PM me on Steam and I can stream for ya on my Dual Blade/nWeapon build. Basically; high and low stance is all u want to use on Dual Blades. Ignore mid completely and look for two Ancient arts of combat: one is a finisher and the other is a spin atk that uses both blades as one[low only].

[JtDarth]

Originally posted by Crowmanhunter:

Corners are your friend. If you can ki break something in a corner, and then use Water Sword, the fight is over.

A critical skill of Dual Swords is the Mystic Art Momentum. Once you get that, dual swords become so stamina efficient that your assault becomes virtually endless and is integral so that you'll have enough stamina to Water Sword a boss from 100 to 0 hp in one combo.

Also, I don't recommend use spinning dragon. That move is far too much of a stamina dump and leaves you vulnerable. Personally, I prefer Cherry Blossom. It does just as much damage as Spinning Dragon, but in one single hit and comes out faster.

Lastly, The Shrike is one the best anti-human parries. Any human parried by this skill falls into a crumple state, letting you instantly follow up with a free final blow. Or, if you've mastered timing the Sign of the Cross as others have described above, you can get a free Sign of the Cross followed by a Final Blow. This devastating combo is what makes human enemies a Dual Sword User's ideal enemy.

Meh, spinning dragon CAN be more useful if you are using 'life drain, active skill' starred effect. It's also more capable of abusing out-of-ki on opponents who aren't in a corner, as it doesnt't quite leave enough of an opening for them to attack between chains the way blossom can. Admittedly, most enemies aren't fast enough, but it is a thing to consider.
The formula used for determining amount of HP gained back is less efficient toward large single hits as opposed to a rapid series of smaller ones, in my experience.

The other side of Mystic Arts for Dual Swords is also pretty cracked. Having dyad lets you get close to face-tank capability, even in depths, so long as you are running constant HP regen or steel/untouched reduction on top of it.