Kusa Shinobi Build?

[Karsk]

Just wondering how I should build it during New Game. I'm guessing I should choose Dual Katana as my backup?

What kind of skills and ninjutsu should I be aiming for?

I am also more than willing to do a Samurai kusa build.

Should I have maybe picked kusa+single katana?

For guardian spirit I picked Daiba-Washi bc skill seems more important for this build than strength.

[Just Aaron]

What exactly do you mean by shinobi build? Are you talking about a kunai build? If so you`ll want thrown weapon damage 20 percent (or as close to that as you can get) on every piece of armor. You`ll also want that and thrown weapon damage x2 on your accessories. Last I checked Hanzo`s Iga Ninja armor is the best for that. If you`re serious about it you should check for some guides on how to make a kunai build. It can be pretty complicated and I`m not an expert on it.

Some common guardian spirits to use with kunai is the bat and cat. Usually in that order. The weapons you`ll want to use are Kusarigama and tonfa since those both work off your Dex and Skill. Dex, Skill, and Ninjutsu should obviously be maxed out.

When you are looking at guides or youtube videos make sure they aren`t outdated. One last thing. A kunai build can easily hit for 90,000 damage in the abyss. I`m talking about every kunai doing that much damage. (As long as you are fully buffed and use weakness talismans.) It just takes a lot of work to find what you need.

[Karsk]

Originally posted by Just Aaron:

What exactly do you mean by shinobi build? Are you talking about a kunai build? If so you`ll want thrown weapon damage 20 percent (or as close to that as you can get) on every piece of armor. You`ll also want that and thrown weapon damage x2 on your accessories. Last I checked Hanzo`s Iga Ninja armor is the best for that. If you`re serious about it you should check for some guides on how to make a kunai build. It can be pretty complicated and I`m not an expert on it.

Some common guardian spirits to use with kunai is the bat and cat. Usually in that order. The weapons you`ll want to use are Kusarigama and tonfa since those both work off your Dex and Skill. Dex, Skill, and Ninjutsu should obviously be maxed out.

When you are looking at guides or youtube videos make sure they aren`t outdated. One last thing. A kunai build can easily hit for 90,000 damage in the abyss. I`m talking about every kunai doing that much damage. (As long as you are fully buffed and use weakness talismans.) It just takes a lot of work to find what you need.

Nah I guess I just meant using the Kusaragima and a toss up between dual katanas or tonfas.

That kind of damage is kind of ridiculous though I might have to try that out one day.

[montengo]

Word “shinobi” in subject makes your question unclear. And … is there a reason you start new character from scratch?

Anyways. My take on this “build”. * Caveat, there’re no builds to talk about until you max skills for both of your weapons, max neutral passives in other weapons trees and start putting points into mastery.

*Stats: Level spirit to 11. Dex to 10. Magic to 10. Then do Skill, Heart, Body and Strength to 10. After that’s done, your priority is to have both Dex and Magic at least at 20 by the end of A Defiled Holy Mountain main mission, and second priority is Skill stat – this would give you most of samurai skill points per investment.

Do not bother with weapons stat scaling until much, much later – at low levels weapon item level / innate damage dwarfs everything else. Once this is completed, get all your stats to 20, and then keep going with Skill and Dex to max (99 and then 200 once unlocked), get Magic to 30 and sprit to 25 and later to 32/34 if some of DLCs Guardian spirits pick your interest.

Note: doing this would lock you into using only light armor, forget about medium and heavy until NG+ or even later… or ever. There’s a trade-off in Nioh between mobility, less expansive ki usage for attacking, dashing and dodging in light armor and blocking, damage reduction and certain sets bonuses of medium and heavy armor and at the start of the game and throughout Samurai difficulty at least benefits of light armor/ agility A outweigh medium and heavy armor.



*Skills: if Kusarigama is your main weapon, then Reaper is the skill you want most, after that, unlocking Blade Spin is your next goal before unlocking Mystic Arts. In-between the above, get Living Water: Heaven, Living Water: Man and Living Water: Earth ASAP along with Flux and Flux II, the rest of the skills in Kusarigama tree is your secondary priority.

Skills you can ignore and don’t need to unlock until you know exactly what you’re doing in skills customization are: Whirlwind, Autumn Dusk, Winter Dawn, Leaping Strike and Waterfall. Don’t spread your points between weapons, invest all you can into one and only use leftovers on second weapon and passives and I would even go with some passives before secondary weapon.

Kusarigama with the exception of few skills and dash attacks is a bit of a slow weapon, you would want to master it including positioning and stance dance to unlock its potentials – I’d personally would get tonfa as a secondary weapon for its incredible speed and combos, plus it scales with the same stats; but it’s up to you what to get.


*Ninjutsu: sneak attack, capacity, quick-change, ki usage and speed passives are priorities. Then utility and tools such as Makibishi, traps, shuriken / kunai, suppa and catwalking and then fluff skills – ranged weapons and such.

*Onmyo: capacity, few talismans – fire and lightning are probably better at the start, then fire shots (against water blobs, some bosses) and water shots (against some bosses and centuries) and guardian spirit talismans, then gale shot* - depends on what GS you use at that time, carnage with steel, Kekkai or Shockwave, pleiades, extraction, weakness. No sloth – using it will get you into a habit to cheese everything and you will find it difficult to play without on higher difficulties.

This should get you started.

[Argyle]

Kusarigama scales with the same 3 stats as the tonfa, so I would take tonfa over dual swords. That being said, the highest damage you can get with the kusarigama comes from using the Hayabusa set, which uses the kusarigama and single sword.