phantom form is possibly the worst "big cooldown" ability in all of gaming

[Max]

Honestly, nothing about this skill feels good. The fact that you have to dump a billion skillpoints into this garbage just so it can do ok damage (and then it's not even close to the damage you can put out normally) is pure dogwater design. The only worth you can get out of this thing is a free status cleanse and to soak some bs attack/mechanic on a boss, but just once.

I honestly don't understand why this ability is even in the game

[ForceKin]

I agree. It's super underwhelming. I understand they didn't want it to trivialize a boss fight by making you invulnerable while also being able to pump out a lot of damage, but it's so damn weak. I pretty much only ever use it accidentally, or like you said, I might pop it to remove statuses or to face tank a big attack with some tricky timing, or if I'm out of heals and the boss is at the last like 5-10%. It definitely doesn't seem worth the points, except maybe the 7 to make it auto pop instead of dying.

[Punished Corgi]

I always forget it's in the game.

[Cranium Salesperson]

Yeah it’s really bad. Only useful as an “oh ♥♥♥♥” button. You have to be careful with these types of abilities though. In Nioh Living Weapon was by far the best build and completely annihilates everything even on the highest NG cycle. In Nioh 2 they tuned it down substantially but they didn’t want to nerf the damage so instead they just made it way harder to charge and keep up and changed the move set for Yokai Shift. Which is pretty close to Phantom Form in all honesty.

Personally I think they just need to make the 2 actual abilities baseline and then increase the attack speed of both and the normal Swift Attacks by like 20%. Make it feel like we’re moving faster than any human could. Because right now it’s slower than Dual Wield and Spear.

[ZexxCrine]

its got some utility to it that makes it powerful but for its own merits it is pretty weak yeah. its three main benefits are

cleansing status
higher damage brutal attack
reset stamina

it has some merits that make it potent if it gets buffed and that might be why they arnt

dash attack combos into itself as a true combo
the two skills combo into each other until your out of meter
the pulse into phantom form staggers most humanoid bosses
the pulse out of phantom farm staggers long enough for you to combo after

let me be clear: it is still not very good.
however I have been going through new game plus with a phantom form build and it has been really fun


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaxGi56ocsc
https://youtu.be/8Qf3fQ5H1CU

[F.U.D.F.]

Originally posted by Cranium Salesperson:

Yeah it’s really bad. Only useful as an “oh ♥♥♥♥” button. You have to be careful with these types of abilities though. In Nioh Living Weapon was by far the best build and completely annihilates everything even on the highest NG cycle. In Nioh 2 they tuned it down substantially but they didn’t want to nerf the damage so instead they just made it way harder to charge and keep up and changed the move set for Yokai Shift. Which is pretty close to Phantom Form in all honesty.

Personally I think they just need to make the 2 actual abilities baseline and then increase the attack speed of both and the normal Swift Attacks by like 20%. Make it feel like we’re moving faster than any human could. Because right now it’s slower than Dual Wield and Spear.

I swear you could probably beat Nioh 1 entirely by getting every stat to 10 and then just dumping into guardian spirit lol.

[F.U.D.F.]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

its got some utility to it that makes it powerful but for its own merits it is pretty weak yeah. its three main benefits are

cleansing status
higher damage brutal attack
reset stamina

it has some merits that make it potent if it gets buffed and that might be why they arnt

dash attack combos into itself as a true combo
the two skills combo into each other until your out of meter
the pulse into phantom form staggers most humanoid bosses
the pulse out of phantom farm staggers long enough for you to combo after

let me be clear: it is still not very good.
however I have been going through new game plus with a phantom form build and it has been really fun


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaxGi56ocsc
https://youtu.be/8Qf3fQ5H1CU

Damn you ate.

[Leo K [Rogue]]

My best use for Phantom Form without investment is to instantly pop the Undead Shields in the final mission. Get between both of them, pop Phantom Form and immediately Execute both of them. This combined with the Skill that removes Meter-Loss from toggling it back off make it an amazing button to press to instakill Undead, in general.

It really is more of an Exploration tool, not great for Bossing at all.

But, I do suspect it can be made a little stronger by building into it, with either the Epic/Legendary Soul Eater set or Constantine the Devoted, or both.

[Baron01]

Demon form is my least used skill of the game, the second least used is Reflection.

Demon form requires way too many skill points to put into to be even marginally useful. You have better places to spend your skill points unless you are level 250+.

[Nikolaus]

Demon form is just another thing that really shines only in NG+ and NG++. You get new skills for it and with a specific armour set in NG+ you can stay in Demon form for quite a while and the cd in between uses is super low with the specific phantom equipped.

And in NG++ you can basically stay in the Demon form infinitely during the full boss battle because the legendary phantom armour set gives you phantom gauge increase for every heavy hit. So you can regen phantom gauge faster than you're using it.

NG+ and NG++ really open up a lot of build diversity like that, you can make so many OP builds there but it sucks that you have to wait until then to fully utilise some of these things that you could consider to be core mechanics of the game.