Gaichu's favorite katana seems very gimpy?

[Dragon]

I took Gaichu on most of the missions and I couldn't help but notice how gimpy his favorite katana seems. It's missing a whole a lot of abilities that the other katanas have.

For example, I wasn't able to stun an enemy with Gaichu's favorite katana. The only good thing about it, as far as I can tell, is the Coup de Grace ability. But he can't even use that by default since his katana is too gimpy to stun in the first place.

To compensate for this, I ended up giving him an extra katana and used that most of the time, and then switched to his default one to use Coup De Grace after he'd already stunned them with the good & different katana.

Am I missing something here? Or is Gaichu's katana indeed as gimpy as it seems? (which by the way, wouldn't fit in with the game's own narrative that he is a super effective warrior).

[St0rmFury]

Gaichu can only access his stances if he is using his own katana. Use metal stance if you want to stun enemies.

[frdnwsm]

Gaichu's katana is indeed junk. I routinely give him either the Chinese warsword (for damage) or Distant Storms (for the AP reduction). With these weapons, he has abilities which his katana does not allow, namely thrust, cleave and pommel strike. I am not that impressed by the stances, and will gladly trade them for Cleave. Forget metal stance, Distant Storms stuns like crazy. I rationalize this by imagining that his katana is a valued family heirloom which he keeps for honor's sake, but he is smart enough to realize its limitations, swapping it out for a better one when actually going on a mission.

As for his effectiveness as a warrior, that doesn't depend only on hs sword skills. I would like to add as an aside that he becomes even more effective if you also give him a shuriken and a cestus or some other unarmed accessory. Looking at his character sheet reveals that he also has thrown weapon and unamed combat skills, but his abilities with these do not show up unless you actually equip him with weapons that are appropriate to those skills. He can pin enemies or knock them out of cover with the shuriken, for example ... giving him a ranged weapon attack ... and with the unarmed skills he can use something like the shock glove.

His hitting accuracy isn't the best but with some magical support he really shines. Give him Haste 2/3 and Aim2/Wild Aim and he becomes an absolute threshing machine. And don't forget his spore cloud, which turns him into a living hand grenade. He can run into the midst of some enemies, explode the cloud, then run back into cover.

Note: Much of what I have said applies to the later portion of the game, when you can actually afford the better weapons that I mention. Early on, he may have to function with just his own katana and a cheap throwing knife, for example, purely for financial reasons. Just make the best of it, or if he is too ineffective, replace him with a different crew member until his upgrades are available.

[Batbro]

In general, nobody's default weapons are quite as good as the high-end stuff you can buy in shops if you feel like upgrading them. That said, they do often have unique and useful features (like Gaichu's claws and stances) that can be very effective in their own way. Also, money is rather tight in this game, especially compared to the others, and you might be more comfortable saving up for yourself.

[Gwumpy Fwog]

Originally posted by Batbro:

In general, nobody's default weapons are quite as good as the high-end stuff you can buy in shops if you feel like upgrading them. That said, they do often have unique and useful features (like Gaichu's claws and stances) that can be very effective in their own way. Also, money is rather tight in this game, especially compared to the others, and you might be more comfortable saving up for yourself.

Gaichu's abilities offset his sword (also heaven stance does ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of dmg.....)

[frdnwsm]

Gaichu's stances are OK if you can't afford a better weapon. My point is that with a better weapon, he is just as effective, if not more so. Cleave + Distant Storms => lots of stuns, for example. Also, his claws, bte etc. are perfectly usable without his katana, while Spit and Spore cloud are fairly nasty. In fact, if you throw in a shuriken and the Shock glove, he could probably get by without needing to swing a sword at all. Although I must confess that I have never actually tried this variation myself.

Yes, cash is tight until fairly late in the game; budgeting skill is important. You have to decide how and when you are going to allocate gear upgrades for yourself and your crew members. Don't grab the first upgrade that comes along; you can't afford everything. It is often better to stick with basic gear until upgrade 2 or 3 comes along.

It also helps to have gone through the game once before, so you know what free items will become available. I know that I can get Gaichu the Emperor sword, for example, long before I can afford to actually buy him an upgrade, while the Steyr AR ... probably the best rifle in the regular campaign ... can be picked up for Duncan during the Prosperity Towers run. Until then, he can make do with his own armament.

[Mauman]

Well, he can't use the awakened blades so that's out, and the non-awakened blades don't offer enough to replace stances.

Heaven's stance does a TON of damage (it ain't qi onslaught but it's still good), coup-de-grace is obviously useful, and whirlwind combos very nicely with spore cloud....so I dunno what the problem is. Also his claws are nowhere near as damaging as Heaven's Stance. 100% crit is a hell of a thing. They're not bad though.

I do agree with giving him the star and glove if you're not using it though. Personally I use the glove, since I like playing melee in HK and take Gaichu anyways since he works well with a melee guy. I slap the nearest (or most dangerous if Gaichu can reach it) target and let Gaichu cut his head off as my guy goes on to qi-onslaught (or barrage) the next guy.

Also, I find the emperor sword to be a waste. Gaichu's acc with the blast sucks, and it can't be sold (I always take the mummy token for an extra 400 nuyen).

note - Gaichu is supposed to get a new (and better) sword after his story mission. It's been known to disappear though. Perhaps that's the problem? Though I do believe that op's problem mostly stems from not using stances. Stunning can be done via stances for instance.

[frdnwsm]

Gaichu is supposed to get a better sword? OK, that's news to me. I have never seen that happen, and I have done something like 6 full play throughs. Where did you see that?

Also I have to amend one thing. I thought Gaichu could use Distant Storms but I checked it out, and he doesn't have the Qi casting needed. It was the Chinese Warsword that I usually gave him. As for the Emperor weapon, yes his accuracy with the blast is poor, but so is mine when I am playing a melee character. The only reason to use the Emperor sword is access to the various melee attacks.

I like to have him use the Warsword because it gives him access to Cleave, but the opportunity to use that doesn't occur every time. It occurs to me that he doesn't really use the shock glove that often, in which case he can carry both his own katana and the Warsword. That would give the option of using either his own weapon with the stances, or the Warsword. I'll have to pull up a saved game and see how that plays out.

[Mauman]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2444767883799825126/22D143B7024490DCAC34BDB8ECCA8F587711C9CF/

I've never not seen this show up, but I've heard it can disappear.

Dunno what to tell you.

it also has an unlisted on kill effect - increased movement +2

I also find little use for cleave considering he has whirlwind and spore cloud. To each their own though.

[frdnwsm]

Actually, I see the problem. Most of you folks have been giving Gaichu more or less all of his skills from the Red Samurai line. I always go full ghoul, since this gives him more options in combat. Yes, if you go Red Sam all the way, then his sword skills do become quite good. Whirlwind = Cleave, etc. He also gets his own Shuriken attack, so you don't have to buy him one.

But since I am going full ghoul skill tree, I also usually give him the warsword in order to maximize the diversity of his attack modes.

[Mauman]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

Actually, I see the problem. Most of you folks have been giving Gaichu more or less all of his skills from the Red Samurai line. I always go full ghoul, since this gives him more options in combat. Yes, if you go Red Sam all the way, then his sword skills do become quite good. Whirlwind = Cleave, etc. He also gets his own Shuriken attack, so you don't have to buy him one.

But since I am going full ghoul skill tree, I also usually give him the warsword in order to maximize the diversity of his attack modes.

Nooooooooooooononononononono

I give Gaichu Coup-de-grace and whirlwind, and only coup-de-grace if I'm playing a character with reliable stuns. Otherwise full ghoul. And why bother with the shuriken attack when actual shurikens are just better?

Outside of those two, the samurai skills are just kinda eh....

Or in the case of Augment: metal stance (which is pretty rad) has to compete with Disease (which sucks as I want both). Disease usually wins out.

As for whilwind vs regenerate, regenerate costs 1 ap and doesn't exactly do much fast enough. Especially at the level of play you get it.

[frdnwsm]

> And why bother with the shuriken attack when actual shurikens are just better?<

This would be dependent on what character I am playing. If I'm into thrown weapons, I may want the real shuriken for myself, since we can only buy one of them. That's assuming I actually give Gaichu any Red Sam skills at all.

[Mauman]

You can buy multiples of the same weapon now. It says "owned" but nothing stops you from getting a 2nd shuriken. Though you can only buy one at a time between missions. Just come back after your next mission and get the 2nd one from the re-stock.

This is particularly powerful for riggers. Two auto-guardians is a hell of a thing. (or 3 for the expansion as Rachter can use one for his 2nd drone).

plus Shurikens are dirt cheap, even for this money-stingent game :P

You can do something similar with +charisma fetishes (they stack). In fact you can get the highest charisma check in the game (7) with a natural charisma of 1 if you were willing to dedicate all six of your item slots (or 5 + pheromones) to cheap charisma fetishes. Course you wouldn't have any ettiquettes.

[frdnwsm]

Whoa! That's a bit of a change. It certainly doesn't apply to spells, though. I can only buy one of each.

[Mauman]

You'd be surprised. Buy a spell, come back after the next mission and it should be back in the shopkeepers inventory. Even though it says owned you should be able to buy it again. Useful for getting Gobbet some new spells if you're a mage yourself. With spells it's generally useless to have the same one equiped multiple times as the cooldown will be shared.

Speaking of which, multiples of the same weapons generally share cooldowns. So no multiple chi-onslaughts with multiple fulminating blades.

Drones are oddly exempt from this, so cheers for riggers.

[Dragon]

Originally posted by Mauman:

I dunno what the problem is.

The problem is:

1. Why does a master of the katana with an excellent sword, who has decades of rigorous training, have less skills with it than, say, my random street samurai main character who has zero combat training and who is using a cheap low-end katana that I bought at a bargain basement price from a back alley pawn shop in the Triad-run ghetto? [the posts in this thread that say you need a "high-end" katana to out-class Gaichu's do not seem to be correct..and even if they were, nothing else in the game should even come close to being as high-end as Gaichu's katanas...according to the in-game lore which describes him as the most elite samurai warrior].

2. Until I read this thread, I didn't even know that one of his stances does a stun.

3. I want to choose what skill I use, and at precisely what moments when I activate them...as opposed to setting a "stance" and then having it lead to random effects that pop at only-God-knows-when, and often do not pop with the effect I want at the time when I want it. The latter is boring, and also untactical.

4. I did Gaichu's personal mission, and afterwards, he still seemed just as gimpy as ever with the katana, and still had access to way less skills than when using any non-default katana instead.