wankerness
Well-Known Member
There aren't posture breaks in the context of DS3/Elden Ring, but they most definitely can be drained of Ki and beaten on while it recharges. A good example is the third (?) boss, the somersaulting lightning dog, will get stunned almost instantly if you hit him in the stomach, and then you can freely hit him and every hit staggers while he's out of ki, but then you have to run away quick because when he regains ki he does a big aoe blast. If you're really good with whatever weapon you're using and can consistently hit him in the stomach, though, you can keep him stunned most of the fight between those recovery AOEs. The first boss, Onryoki or whatever (the big wrecking ball guy in the ship), can be instantly stunned if you hit him in the horns and break them off, and then his ki is easier to drain afterwards if you're relentless enough. Don't remember on hino-enma other than she's vulnerable to guardian spirit knockdowns, but I'm always playing so defensively on her that I probably wouldn't be able to ki break her anyway.
One thing to look forward to is the game reusing bosses a lot. It mostly only does it in side missions (which you should absolutely do if you're playing offline cause good luck ever getting gear otherwise), but does it a bit in main missions. I don't view it as a problem like in most Soulslikes cause it's kind of an arcadey game with bonus levels as opposed to a coherent, innerconnected world where it is bizarre to see a reused boss (ex GODEFROY or whatever the Godrick reskin is called in Elden Ring). But you will unfortunately be seeing more of Hino-Enma eventually! Just by that point you can sloth her so she's no big deal.
There's an advanced mechanic in both Niohs that I have never bothered with much (cause I hate juggling buffs/spells with the game's control scheme) called "Confusion." Basically if you get two different debuffs (ex lightning/fire) on an enemy at once they like, get a super ki debuff, so if you can keep doing it to them they'll mostly be defenseless. I think it's easier later in the game when you can get good fire spells/ninjutsu thrown items, cause elemental weapons don't tend to stack the debuffs fast enough for you to be able to get them on the enemy before the first debuff falls off. I only really was able to do it easily with using the "fire feather" highest tier ninjutsu items.
Nioh 2 also has an elemental type called "purity" or something where the debuff it gives the enemy is a ki regen penalty, so that's good for ki-breaking boss type enemies if you're too lazy to do the confusion thing, but I don't think that's a thing in Nioh 1. I dunno. I played Nioh 1 for a couple hundred hours, but I played Nioh 2 for well over that and haven't replayed Nioh 1 since starting Nioh 2 so some of it is confused in my head.
I suspect the roadblock that may break you is the goddam boss on the "The Ocean Still Roars" level. I hated it SO much. I almost quit the game there. If you get an accessory that buffs damage of hykotto masks (I lucked out and had a Fan, I think, that had that buff on it), and can get like 8 of those, and also light all the torches in the area, you can walk right up to the boss and spam the masks and he'll just fall over dead. Savescum before it, cause they're a real bitch to farm more of if you screw it up.
but if you have to fight him legit, hooo boy. Just make absolutely sure you light all the torches or he spawns adds the whole fight and it becomes vastly more difficult. It's such a bad boss fight cause he's right on the edge of a bottomless chasm so depending on what weapon you use you might attack yourself off the cliff between you and the boss and die instantly, plus the boss is kind of hard even without that horrible gimmick and without any adds. He's extremely weak to fire damage if you have a fire weapon, and you can get a super strong fireweapon buff during the fight by going over to a lit torch and using it, but if you light your weapon with one of those torches in the room then it goes out and starts spawning adds, so there's some risk involved. But, if you can beat that boss and unlock sloth you've basically broken the rest of the game. Assuming you have the complete edition, there's like 80% of the game remaining, plus the NG+ modes (Nioh has the best NG+/++/etc of any game I've ever played).
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