Trail of the master side quest?

[Fel]

In the fourth region I came across a nice but brutal side mission in a hotspring building.
The map itself is fairly packed and I died more there than in any other mission excluding bosses but I managed to pull through and reach the last room.

But the fight in that room has an enemy combo I can't seem to even start to figure out how to beat, with a tengu (ultra agressive, high damage and still has a ranged attack that is fairly wide) supported by a flying cloth.
With the abuse of sloth and a very helpful random ally we managed to clear that room, but how are you meant to do that without it?

I'm sure I overlooked something important because there is no way a "near impossible without heavy use of sloth" fight comes that early in the game.

[puzzlefox]

You kill the flying bolt first, always. They are fairly squishy, so you should be able to kill her quickly. Don’t even bother hitting her with weakness talisman. You can pop LW before storming in to take her out extra fast. If you use kusarigama, you can hit her with serpent strike to get to her even faster.

Then it’s just the raven tenge, which by himself should be a breeze.

(You think that’s bad, the abyss gives so much worse enemy combos and a much smaller room to fight them in. Some arena zones throw the 4 armed dudes and kusarigama yoki at you at the same time. Or kusarigama yoki and cannon yoki.. but none of that compares to some of the boss combos like Maria and Li... or the everlasting duty mission with 9 tails and the mid heavens light dude)

[Fel]

I have seen videos of NG+'s Nobunaga + yuki onna so it gives me a good enough idea of just how crazy the post-story stuff can be.

The weird thing was that I did try to down the flying bolt first but she seemed to have way more HP and/or defenses than the ones from the previous region (the mission level did rise a whole lot between the last flying cloth I saw and that one, so it's probably that and the fact that "boss" rooms tend to give more HP to the monsters) and I ended up getting hit from outside of my vision by the wind blade the tengu fires when he goes in the air, then slowed by the flying bolt.

Now that I think about it, I tend to forget to use my living weapon, that could probably help me land the extra hits I need and the pseudo immunity from stagger.

[puzzlefox]

The bolt’s torpor effect is the main thing. Torpor is even worse than sloth. It pretty much guarantees death. You should be able to kill them pretty fast and easy, especially since flying bolts have no toughness and are easily stunlocked. Might be time to upgrade some gear ;)

And Oda + Yuki isn’t even a bad combo compared to what the abyss has to offer lol. I’m not trying to fill you with dread, cause trust me, the abyss is awesome and fun as hell!

[Deostades]

The Abyss is to the base game what the Base Game is to most other action games out there - difficulty, but oh so very fun.

For this fight, the Flying Bolt is absolutely the target. If you use fire attacks of any kind (Fire Talismans, Fire Onmyo, Horoku-dama or Kyaku-dama), she should die easily. Living Weapon is another great option - and you shouldn't shy away from using your LW when you need it. The bar is fairly easy to fill back up, and sometimes you really could use the boost it gives you.

Then it's onto the Tengu, and yeah, these guys suck, but once you learn their patterns they're less dangerous by far than the worse Yokai (Cannon/Kusarigama dudes).

[Lapom]

Originally posted by Fel:

I have seen videos of NG+'s Nobunaga + yuki onna so it gives me a good enough idea of just how crazy the post-story stuff can be.

The weird thing was that I did try to down the flying bolt first but she seemed to have way more HP and/or defenses than the ones from the previous region (the mission level did rise a whole lot between the last flying cloth I saw and that one, so it's probably that and the fact that "boss" rooms tend to give more HP to the monsters) and I ended up getting hit from outside of my vision by the wind blade the tengu fires when he goes in the air, then slowed by the flying bolt.

Now that I think about it, I tend to forget to use my living weapon, that could probably help me land the extra hits I need and the pseudo immunity from stagger.

I actually find that killing the Raven Tengu first is much easier since it's much more aggressive and chases you while the Flying Bolt doesn't. This is especially true if your dps is too low to burst down the Flying Bolt.

[[{******---Dead4Life---******}]]

by getin gud.

[Fel]

Tengu on its own hurts when a hit lands but with a mid stance spear you can just drag on the fight and only go for 1 heavy attack between his attacks (or alternatively a light attack on high stance works as well), there are similar paterns for each weapon too.
Tengu seem to be there to punish the people that over-extend, a lot more so than yokis (because depending on the weapon you can reliably break his horns to empty his "ki", I have not found a way to do that to tengus).

In fact, this fight is significantly different from nearly everything you can encounter until that point (you usually are a lot safer by taking it slow after all, even for bosses where you need to stay close) so it went heavily against my acquired muscle memory.
I tried the fight again with the tiger spirit, a combo of living talisman and red demon set's spear made short work of the flying bolt and the sloth on the tengu kept him out of the fight for long enough to make the entire fight more like 2 separate 1v1 back to back than a 2v1 and it was significantly more manageable.

[[{******---Dead4Life---******}]]

So you DID got gud. Noice!

[puzzlefox]

That’s playing smarter not harder ;)

Any difficult situation can be made easier in some way. Whether it’s changing the order of enemies you fight, targeting ki, parrying, playing more aggressively, ect. Nioh is extremely complex, taking a moment to think and problem solve willl serve you well.