Onmyo magic totally ruins the game.

[Romeg]

The game bosses are really hard and very interesting to fight with. You need to learn all its' moves, which attacks to parry and which ones to evade. And only then you will be able to win. But there comes overpowered onmyo magic, especially sloth and water/lightning talismans. After this stuff acuired, every single enemy turns in a fcking punching bag. Oh, didn't I mention a "confusion" status (one with a ying yang symbol)? Why does even this ♥♥♥♥♥ exist?

[Zamus]

Romeg の投稿を引用：

Thank you guys for the answers. As far as I understand the onmyo magic loses it's power as I proceed to NG+. I don't really like making up challenges myself but I love when a game forces me to try hard without any options of cheating. Since I love all kinds of magic things in rpg games, it will be very hard but i will try to pick another interesting playstyle

Make no mistake Omnyo is still extremelly good, it just won't auto win the fights for you.

[Witcher]

@Sailing mate, appreciate your clarification and glad it's all good with Seyren :) Do Onmyo skills increment more than Ninjutsu b/c you the Spirit skill complements it and is using a weapon element attack with an Onmyo shot the only way to create confusion?

@Seyren Windsor, pity elemental damage don't stack ... so, elemental talisman always have higher damage values than what you get on weapons?

Thanks both.

[Anthyl]

I beat the game and all the dlc solo without using any omnyo magic besides weapon infusions. Now that I'm on way of the strong/demon I'm using sloth on some of the more annoying bosses to make things a bit easier.

Nioh is a game that is as easy as you want it to be. That's something you have to understand about it.

Ninjutsu can cheese pretty much every humanoid boss in the game. It's even more op than omnyo on some of the humanoid bosses. Paralysis/explosive traps, will stun/knock down almost every humanoid boss. Allowing free grapples/finishing moves. You can repeat this stuff non stop. There was a difficult boss in the dlc, I placed a paralysis trap at his feet. Grapple, then before he got up placed another at his feet. The boss proceeds to try and power up its living weapon and get stunned again, This works indefinitely. It might stop working on later difficulties.

[Sailing]

Thanks for being civil.

Seyren Windsor の投稿を引用：

I did not say Onmyo shots were powerful enough to one shot most enemies, nor should they be used for pure damage. They are incredibly good at applying status when properly supported.

Increasing their respective elemental damage allows that Onmyo shot to easily apply its status. You can test this yourself.

I have in fact recently tested stacking Onmyo Damage (Water Shot) + 80ish % and didn't notice a difference in the speed the debuff accumulated - that's why I brought it up. Intuition dictates that you should be correct - otherwise those effects are nearly useless - but I couldn't see a difference in the debuff regardless of the percentage increase that I stacked. Neither did I notice Tengen Kujaku affect it but I didn't verify that - I only really tested the elemental shots and the special effects dedicated to them. I'm happy to be corrected though.

Seyren Windsor の投稿を引用：

Additionally, Witcher in Japan asked for the most effective impact for Onmyo/Ninjutsu power based on stat investment. My answer was correct in that all to the way to 30 is the most significant return. 99 and beyond has fewer returns but they still remain extremely useful.

I'm aware of that but I felt it would be remiss to neglect what I mentioned.

Seyren Windsor の投稿を引用：

Finally, are we playing the same abyss? With minimal gear, you will barely keep statuses up on bosses who have varying resistances and buffs. So to say that inflicting elemental statuses is trivial is not correct. Here, i am referring to apply statuses via melee hits, not standing back and just spamming spells.

Gale shot is an exception because it has multiple leading projectiles but if you try it with only 20 magic or really low onmyo power, you will see it doesn't apply often and won't stay up often.

Your original statement was:

As for inflicting confusion, to successfully to do it solo on WotN requires mixing certain graces, having certain optimally rolled accessories and a firm mastery of the boss fights.

I don't want to be petty, but that's what I was disputing. My understanding of mediocre gear is a set of Tsukuyomi scavenged and hacked together from Way of the Wise, carelessly reforged during a spree of poverty and roughly soul-matched to par. Personally, I haven't touched talismans for a little while so I'm not really equpped to speak on their effectiveness but if you want to exclude actual spells from the discussion, that will need to be a personal concession.

Witcher in Japan の投稿を引用：

... Do Onmyo skills increment more than Ninjutsu b/c you the Spirit skill complements it and is using a weapon element attack with an Onmyo shot the only way to create confusion? ...

To be honest, I'm not sure since I haven't played with Ninjutsu for a little while but individual skills across both disciplines will mostly scale differently. If you're looking to invest heavily in either, the distinction in playstyles will render any statistical difference a secondary concern.

Confusion can be caused by any damage belonging to the five elements when any two of them reach the necessary level - this includes weapons with inherent or imbued elements, living weapon or guardian spirit attacks, several consumable items or jutsu, and the fact that patches of ground in Japan are permanently on fire.

[Seyren 'D' Windsor]

@Sailing

Hi Sailing, do share your testing and finding as I have been doing a lot of it lately.

I have tested Onmyo water shot with ~13+13+13+30 = ~69% % Saturate augmentation (Accessories, weapons and Owatatsumi 2 piece) and found that increasing water shot damage through either A+ damage rank or 20% damage bonus does in fact increase the potency of applying Saturate.

The water shot I am referring to is the most basic Onmyo spell, not geyser shot which does not have item affixes to improve its damage.

However, elemental damage is inferior to status augmentation, that is to say Magatsuhi's Grace 7 Piece bonus (25%) is far superior to Owatatsumi's + 50% water damage for applying Saturate, but it still remains an important source of applying status.

You can test this by killing a blue skull that gives a massive boost to water damage, and a Water talisman that is weaker. The difference in water damage deal does in fact have a significant impact on applying saturate.

Do let me know if you manage to test other elements. I do not have the gear I need for testing anything outside of water at the moment, but I assume the process of inflicting and maintaining statuses are consistent across the elements.

At the moment, I have been able to fill most of the entire saturate bar when hitting Okatsu with a single water shot, and that's only with water shot +20% and water shot damage bonus A, additional 14% water damage and saturate % on both accessories, and Tengen.

@Witcher in Japan

Different skills within their jutsu category scale differently. The extent of it is not quite clear. but you will find that once you get past a certain threshold for either Onmyo or Ninjutsu power, that you are better off with item affixes that boost duration or damage of that skill.

Also, Onmyo talisman are absolutely required for elemental builds. Do not bother forging the +23 water / fire etc damage on your weapon. It is overwritten by the talisman, and by itself is so weak that you will have little success keeping the status effect up.

[AH-1 Cobra]

Sloth is still good in WoTN if you're running a oneshot build. It'll give you an opening to land your single iai draw in some annoying fights. And that, my friends is what they call 'maximum cheese'.

[Sailing]

crimsonedge11 の投稿を引用：

Sloth is still good in WoTN if you're running a oneshot build. It'll give you an opening to land your single iai draw in some annoying fights. And that, my friends is what they call 'maximum cheese'.

Spoken like a true meme, I salute you good sir / madam.

Onto the other topic, it's getting hard to sift through my observations but I'll finish up and post my findings after I wake up.

[Zamus]

@Seyren Windsor

Are you sure damage affects build up?, because at least for players seems entirely based around the attack, I say this because running with 98% Firearms reduction still got me instantly wind debuffed even if the attack did just 2 points of damage on WotN.

Also I used to run a 120% Wind damage build and I noticed no difference on the wind build up from my melee weapon, on the other hand just having 60% status augmentation made me apply the status in around 2-3 hits.

[Witcher]

Sailing の投稿を引用：

Gale shot is an exception because it has multiple leading projectiles but if you try it with only 20 magic or really low onmyo power, you will see it doesn't apply often and won't stay up often.

Another good thing to know, thanks.

Sailing の投稿を引用：

To be honest, I'm not sure since I haven't played with Ninjutsu for a little while but individual skills across both disciplines will mostly scale differently. If you're looking to invest heavily in either, the distinction in playstyles will render any statistical difference a secondary concern.

Confusion can be caused by any damage belonging to the five elements when any two of them reach the necessary level - this includes weapons with inherent or imbued elements, living weapon or guardian spirit attacks, several consumable items or jutsu, and the fact that patches of ground in Japan are permanently on fire.

I prefer not to heavily invest in both if I can. I just want to confirm if using a weapon with element damage coupled with another element damage from guardian spirit/LW will create confusion - i.e., the higher element damage doesn't cancel out the other.

Seyren Windsor の投稿を引用：

@Witcher in Japan

Different skills within their jutsu category scale differently. The extent of it is not quite clear. but you will find that once you get past a certain threshold for either Onmyo or Ninjutsu power, that you are better off with item affixes that boost duration or damage of that skill.

Also, Onmyo talisman are absolutely required for elemental builds. Do not bother forging the +23 water / fire etc damage on your weapon. It is overwritten by the talisman, and by itself is so weak that you will have little success keeping the status effect up.

I prefer not to heavily invest in both jutsu as said above. If talisman element status effect always cancel the element on the weapon (i.e., they do not stack), will using both be futile to create confusion?

Sorry for the late response as I was busy doing Demon King Revealed last night ... will write my XP later ...

[Witcher]

crimsonedge11 の投稿を引用：

Sloth is still good in WoTN if you're running a oneshot build. It'll give you an opening to land your single iai draw in some annoying fights. And that, my friends is what they call 'maximum cheese'.

I had to use Sloth on spider queen and Oda in Demon King Revealed last night but agree with others who said it can ruin attack timing especially when the buff wears off.

[Sailing]

It was a challenge looking for a meaningful way to present my data since it's a little difficult to quantify that tiny debuff icon - even more so if the goal is to do so scientifically and not just with guesswork... I think my autism won out fairly well in the end. I haven't tested Elemental Attack Damage % in any meaningful way and I'm honestly too lazy to so I'll limit this post to those I did for the elemental shot effects. To keep things simple, I'll just go through the results that illustrate the most important numbers.

For my control, I had:

Status Ailment Augmentation (Saturate) +42.1%
Onmyo Magic Power 923
Primary Guardian Spirit: Hi-Nezumi
Secondary Guardian Spirit: Genbu
No adjustment to Water Shot

I used Water Shot at the start of a fight with Muneshige in Invitation from the Warrior of the West on Way of the Nioh, dealing 2602 damage and filling most of the saturate bar. After that, I waited for the effect to wear off.

The next test was almost identical. Apart from a few irrelevant changes like lower Unlimited Onmyo %, these two effects were also added:

Onmyo Magic Damage Bonus (Water Shot) B
Onmyo Damage (Water Shot) +79.2%

At this point, our hypothesis is that the saturate bar will fill up more than it did in our control.

Firing the water (lol) at Muneshige dealt 4811 damage - proof that the new bonuses were taking effect - and again filled most of the saturate bar.

I then trimmed down the recordings for both tests and located the first frame in which the saturate debuff was clearly visible. Following that, I extracted both frames and layered the images on top of each other. However, thanks to the fact that I was now looking at a picture of a video of a game, it was difficult to discern whether the amount the bar had filled was identical. At the very least, they were extremely close - with the same rows of pixels fading in and out.

Nonetheless, to remove all doubt, I examined the exact timing of the frames.

In the first (control) video:
The first frame in which the saturate debuff became clearly visible occurred at 2.779 seconds.
The first frame in which the saturate debuff was no longer visible occurred at 13.958 seconds.
By means of an ancient Japanese ritual known as Mathematics, we can deduce that the saturate debuff lasted roughly 11.179 seconds.

In the second video:
The first frame in which the saturate debuff became clearly visible occurred at 1.693 seconds.
The first frame in which the saturate debuff was no longer visible occurred at 12.852 seconds.
After invoking Mathematics once again, we can deduce that the saturate debuff lasted roughly 11.159 seconds.

0.02 seconds is barely more than a single average frame at the stable 60 FPS I was running and recording on but even after factoring skips, it's within an extremely strict margin of error (not to mention in conflict with our hypothesis too). For an increase in damage as dramatic as nearly 85%, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the difference in saturation is effectively null.

In conclusion, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that "Onmyo Magic Damage Bonus (Water Shot)" and "Onmyo Damage (Water Shot)" have no effect on the rate at which the Saturate status ailment gets applied.

Witcher in Japan の投稿を引用：

...

I prefer not to heavily invest in both if I can. I just want to confirm if using a weapon with element damage coupled with another element damage from guardian spirit/LW will create confusion - i.e., the higher element damage doesn't cancel out the other.

...

... If talisman element status effect always cancel the element on the weapon (i.e., they do not stack), will using both be futile to create confusion?

...

I hope I'm understanding the question properly. Saying that Living Weapons and Talismans cancel the weapon's inherent element means that they will temporarily overwrite the damage you deal with a melee attack, but not the status your target has already accumulated. So if for example, you don't want to invest too much in Onmyo, you can use a weapon's inherent element to inflict the first ailment and then whip out your alternate weapon, a Talisman, Guardian Spirit or Living Weapon for the second, assuming your target isn't too resistant.

[Witcher]

@Sailing mate, thanks for sharing your comprehensive test results. So does the Water Shot deal more damage than Power Pill or Carnage given the same skill points in Ninja and Onmyo?

You have answered my question where I thought using weapon, etc. with a different element damage can cancel the first but NOT the status effect already put on the target, hence can still create confusion. What about say the Kato clan which bestows 15% Earth damage - will this be applied same time as when you attack target with a different element damage on the weapon, and create confusion?

[Sailing]

Witcher in Japan の投稿を引用：

@Sailing mate, thanks for sharing your comprehensive test results. So does the Water Shot deal more damage than Power Pill or Carnage given the same skill points in Ninja and Onmyo?

I'm not sure you can compare those in any meaningful way. Water Shot is a single use "bullet" attack while the other two are temporary buffs.

Witcher in Japan の投稿を引用：

You have answered my question where I thought using weapon, etc. with a different element damage can cancel the first but NOT the status effect already put on the target, hence can still create confusion. What about say the Kato clan which bestows 15% Earth damage - will this be applied same time as when you attack target with a different element damage on the weapon, and create confusion?

The Earth Damage + x% is an increase to existing Earth elemental damage and not a base elemental stat. That is, I'm fairly sure it does nothing unless you make a purple number appear. If your weapon deals fire damage, Earth Damage + x% will presumably do nothing. If your weapon deals earth damage, Earth Damage + x% will presumably amplify the purple number by the indicated amount. I'm going off distant memories here though.

[Witcher]

Noted and thanks.

[Seyren 'D' Windsor]

@Sterling & Zamus

You are right. And I have something more to add to it.

In my tests, the only equipment I had that were identical and could freely swap around had meaningful differences in Onmyo magic power, around 80+ (accessories and the Onmyo mage gear)

I assumed, based on checking player discussions that Onmyo magic power only increased duration and damage / effectiveness of its related skills but had nothing to do with applying status. For that, I thought status augmentation was the way to go.

Here's what I tried this time:

Testing repeatedly on a Tengu using nothing but a [water talisman], [635 Onmyo power]:

2 quick Odachi attacks in high stance will almost saturate him, but will never be able to apply the debuff.

Using [+28 water damage] on weapon, [635 Onmyo power], [no water talisman]: Saturation build up is noticeably really lackluster; water damage is predictably very low

[Water Talisman][635 Onmyo power][+51% weapon water damage]: same as the default test. Close to saturate after 2 hits but will not apply the debuff.

[Water Talisman] [ 750 Onmyo power]: 2 quick Odachi attacks in high stance always applies the Saturate effect. Water damage is also higher by a hundred or so points.

My apologies for my earlier assumption. Giving the way I controlled the results, I took it that more elemental damage would rather Saturate application. Instead, I believe Onmyo magic power raises both elemental damage on Talisman (and duration) but also seperately improves the potency to apply an elemental status.

I wasn't really expecting for Onmyo magic power to affect how rapidly you can apply a status when engaging in melee with its respective talisman.

Can anyone confirm the results?