Nioh 2: The ten hardest bosses and tips to beat them

Nightmare Bringer

It seems as though Otakemaru has grown two extra legs and become more feral. Technically, he did merge with his guardian spirit, making the legendary yokai even more powerful, and a fitting final boss.

He’s also way bigger than Otakemaru, so also fittingly, his attacks will hurt way more and inflict either a guaranteed thunder, water, or burn proc. This also means that confusion status effects will most likely be your demise in battling him. Like I said about Lady Osakabe, you might want to use the Sohaya guardian spirit or have abilities that can dispel your ailments. Ki is so important against hard hitting bosses. Sometimes one blocked attack is the difference between life and death.

Bring a purity weapon if you can, slow him down with sloth abilities, and aim for the glowy bits again. You want to inflict as much ki damage as possible so he can slow down his ultra aggressive tactics. Know how to space yourself from him when he sets a big chunk of his arena on fire or strikes lightning in a huge area.

When tackling this beast of a final boss, I usually went on the offensive during the phase where he doesn’t cast dark realm. I played a lot more defensively when that wasn’t the case, and I quickly learned to burst counter his thrust move. If you successfully counter those attacks, you’ll have just enough time to get a combo and a half in before you need to back off. Don’t worry about running away too much and not getting anything done either; he loves to close the gap between him and the player since he’s also really agile and jumpy.

One more thing, if he starts to conjure his elemental tornadoes, just run. Those hurt and will probably also get you killed or heavily wounded.