The Return of the Gourd

[Hank Schrader]

What? How is this legal? I would be fine with it if you didn't have to kill all the enemies before Nobunaga and Obsidian Samurai, but it's just so tedious.

Currently level 125, can anyone help with how I kill the enemies before the bosses quicker?

For now I'm just gonna grind missions for xp, but I would also like to know the best way to get Onmyo skill points, thanks.

[Deostades]

Return of the Gourd is probably the hardest mission in the base game (not including DLC), and as a result you WILL die, to attrition if nothing else, if you jump into as soon as it becomes available.

Avoid hits, learn the best ways of dealing with Revenants (the only "cheese" move is the one you won't use), and above all, have fun!

And don't be ashamed to continue on to the DLC or NG+ and come back later.

[Deostades]

For Onmyo Skill Points: keep an eye out for missions that offer the Onmyo Mage locks as rewards, and every so often a glowing corpse will drop them (these are one-time drops).

Fun thing about NG+: every one of these mission reward and corpse Samurai/Ninja/Mage locks WILL BE THERE AGAIN to earn/loot. Thus, even if you no longer put points in Magic you can still get Skill Points as you progress.

[Drybonz]

If you progress and come back later, as mentioned above, it's a lot easier.