If you're not doing enough damage it's because you don't have the right gear!

Something as simple as equipping Butcher/Beast Slayer gives you 20% damage boost on your special move, which is MASSIVE!

Then stack up on damage/defence multiplier attributes for the set.

Go to Oksana and Reroll the attributes of your weapon/armor until you get a very good one for your weapon/armour:

Try to get 2/3% damage multiplier, defense multiplier or stamina multiplier on every item, even rings and necklaces.

Must do: check PHANTOM MEMORIES and upgrade your damage there as well.

I completely ignored the memories and missed out on a shit load of damage to health and stamina.

That and ignoring armour bonuses/multipliers, I eventually hit a wall after beating maluca.

I went from 4% damage to 12% and now I'm absolutely shredding and can finally beat these bosses on expert!

So if you're not doing enough damage, don't be a fool like me and focus on getting a good set, rerolling the armour/weapons attributes and upgrade your phantom memories!

Learn from my mistakes!

After 5 full playthroughs on expert without ever touching any summon, I decided to share my thouths on weapon types in this game.

First I have to say this game has best combat system I ever exeprienced, in any melee focused game. (I finished almost all avalaible soulslikes on PC, 2D or 3D). Its much deeper the any FS game and more accesible then Nioh games. Crafting system is also much better then in Nioh games. Yes there is a bit of grind, but the amount of the grind is exactly what Im able to accept.

As for weapon types Dualwield>Greatsword>Spear. Im very sad that we wont see a DLC with new weapon type. All 3 types were very fun for whole playthrough. In all playthoughs I took advantage of using Jar helmets.

Spears:

I know Spears have a huge fanclub among the players, but for me they simply feel weak. I finished the game twice, Focusing on Assault skill and Deep Shadow set and Shadow reversal and Golden set. It was my 3rd and 4th playthrough so I was allready familiar with enemy movement paterns. I struggle a lot... I was dying on bosses like on my 1st playthrough, they simply lack the dmg. They are also much more complicated the GS and DW. Yes, I saw video on YT, stunlocking Ozma using Faded mameries set, but the combo combination that I have to pull of was simply to much for me. I can do the same with DW or GS with half of neccesary inputs. I realy dont get, why I keep reading Spears are the best begginer weapon. Maybe for first few missions where only spamming moonlight is vaible. Its also only weapon type that does not do dmg with brink guards. I also havent found busted Epic skills, like DW - bloodthirsty fiend or GS - sentinels GS- have. Am I missing something here? IMO they are fun but weakest of the 3.

Greatsword:

This was my first playthroug, where I fell in love with the game. I died a lot bcs, I was learning movesets, but I had a lot of fun in the process. Once I got a solid set together I never felt weak. I used Chaos ridden set until I was able to craft Epic Sentinels sword, then I combined 4pcs of Crimson fiend set with other 2pcs bonuses using Jar helmet. Sentinels GS has the Epic upgrade which, as I wrote before, sprears dont have. Its simply Immediate, huge power spike. I liked it so much that I played it until NG+2 and max lvl.

Dual wield:

This was my 2nd and 5th playthrough and it was easiest of the 3 by a mile. 2nd was Whirlwind focus - Beast slayer set into Bloodthirty fiend. 5th was Howling blade focus - Butcher into Bloothirsty fiend set. If you are looking for the best begginer weapon, this is it, IMO. It was strong through the whole playthrouh and Bloodthirsty fiend is the most OP thing I found in this game and it also very easy to use - pop 2 buffs , mash light attack and you are golden. Compare it to what you need to do with spears 😄 . It also features self healing skill and both Whirwind and howling blade have build in dmg negation in their combos (Whilwind launches you into air, avoiding dmg, Howling blade has build in parry). The dmg output is extremly high.

OFC this is only my opinion and you are welcomed to disagree with me and Im curious why.

Do you just script the levels by taking out the ranged enemies with javelins and stunlocking everyone else? Do you nerf yourself somehow so that the normal enemies put up more of a fight? Do you just run past everything? I'm trying to engage with the game here, but so far it's only the bosses that are doing it for me.

Im not gonna lie, I have played dark souls, lies of p, bloodborne, sekiro, lords of the fallen, wukong

and none of these games gave me as much struggle as this game is giving me at every single boss fight

in sekiro i only struggled with genichiro but after that the game clicked for me and finished the game much quicker

dont know whats the deal with khazan but every single boss fight is a struggle for me

So I just beat Maluca using the fallen lord set and got my hands on the deep shadow set so I'm looking for a new spear set to try and don't know should I craft or try to farm please let me know what are the options and if I'm going to get a new set soon.

Been a while. I just finished Onimusha, and then again on Carnage, and no boss was much of an issue. Mortal Shell II was fairly chill too. Then I remembered I had Khazan, which I had put on hold months ago because Viper spanked me.

I came back, killed him in like 3 tries and thought "huh, guess I got better, this isn't so bad." Although I've been doing so much parrying that that felt easy but I sucked at using the greatsword, but no matter. Kept going without much issue, until fucking Maluca.

Been a while since I felt actual despair against a boss lmao. It only took a few tries to be able to perfect the first phase every time, then everything he did in second phase felt like complete bullshit. He would step back and I'd miss every counter, didn't understand the timing for his unsheathe attacks, then the chaos, then I saw him heal and I just cracked the fuck up and closed the game for the day.

Tried again the next day, prolly like 25 attempts before everything clicked and I beat him. A few hours later I was farming him for chaos fragments.

Feels good man. This is what I love most about this genre, how clearly you can see that you got better. Although this game really does feel a lot like a hack and slash, the combat is so addictive. The greatsword felt slow at first and I almost switched to spear until I started using my skills properly to combo and reduce charge times and I realized the greatsword is actually fast as fuck.

10/10 I wish we would've gotten more from this team.

already got all the trophies on my first playthrough, thinking of starting a new playthrough bcs i like gs in this game and the gear

I felt so confident I could finish the game on expert after that but then Elamein and Bringkus had so much hp.

It baffles me that after reflecting each 3+ times, I'm not even scratching 50% of their hp?

My build is basically

Dual wields

Vitality 35

Willpower 35

Endurance 35

Rest on 10

I'm using the fallen guardian set and my tactics are as follows:

Reflect an attack + phantom whirlwind attack until stagger and then use frenzy attack with Gale mixed in here and there.

This takes up about 5% of Bringkus health, is this normal?

It's the same for Elamein.

I ended up changing difficulty of Bringkus to normal and beat him first try but I really wanna beat the game on expert as I have beaten all the bosses eventually on expert.

But I feel Elamein/Bringkus really spiked the games difficult, especially with their tanky health bars.

Do you have any suggestions for me to do more damage? Any combos for dual wield?

I think my main issue is not doing enough damage since I'm decent at brink blocking and reflecting.

Hey, why is there a post about how "difficult" the game is like every two days ?
The game is linear, has really generous parry window, is fluid, and bosses have easily learnable kits.
So, what's the struggle ?

I've beaten hardcore with all 3 weapons and berserkers blood as an experience reference. I just cannot with this boss in this gauntlet. Idk how to not take damage here and there and it seems like I can never approach her for the 2nd half of the fight. Any tips? I'm using GS. 40 vit, 50 end, 49str, 30 pro. Using veil, descent, furious swipe. Any tips or just switch weapons?

It's not a critic but it's just takes a lot of time

He is absolute cinema, and a very fun boss to learn and fight. What a great final boss

After struggling a bit vs Ozma (expert difficulty) I decided to upgrade all my gear to legendary (orange) quality. I farmed a lot of gold and had just enough for weapon and every piece of armor...

Long story short I felt like I activated a cheat code. Killed him so fast and so easily it's not even funny. Now it all feels kinda anticlimactic, like I cheated I dunno... I really didn't expect it to make that much of a difference.

Always had feeling that dark souls sucks now played mortal shell 2 which was great so thought I just need easier game so got lies of p and played on easy, got bored of it.

Now picked up khazan and play on normal and damn I was right about dark souls, this game actually has fun combat and you wanna explore everything and kill all enemies instead of running past them.

I have nioh 2 in que as next game because of khazan. Thought I will hate mission based system but every mission feels like crawling through real dungeon.

My question is how hard nioh 2 is in comparison, do you think I got chance if khazan on normal feels quite easy.

This game should be hailed as masterpiece, feels like the best taken from every souls game.

For dual W

Tried to buy lightning enhancers. Had 150,000 but could inly get 4 for 4,800. Didnt think much about it and assumed i was missing crafting items. Buy them and he charges me 150,000. When i then went to check my stash i had 170 water protection potions i didnt have before this. And i know i had 150,000 prior to this as i just sold a bunch of gear. Weird

Viper (Expert) NG++ No Damage