Despite almost eliminating all the broken techniques from the previous game, Nioh 2 comes with ones that make the last game's So Last Season.
- The Otakemaru Soul Core ability allows you rain down his Fire Ice And Lightning blades from the sky like its the freaking Unlimited Blade Works on your enemies. The catch is that it's supposed to be avoidable if you know how to do so like in his boss fight. But on Giant Bosses and groups of enemies, its like summoning the damn wrath of god, shredding through HP like its nothing, even on Otakemaru himself. In fact, it was so overpowered, the developers nerfed it considerably in Version 1.08, making it overwhelming, but not as much, though its still a Bragging Rights Reward in spite of this on larger bosses.
- Similarity, while they have since been nerfed, bare-handed builds were once among the strongest in the game, capable of using a talisman of the fist to do thousands of points of damage with each strike.
- Ninjutsu builds. Despite being a class half dedicated to consumables, no other build has such sheer damage output to the point where you can forego elemental weaknesses and strategies to just pelt higher-level yokai and bosses to death in roughly 5-10 seconds with nothing but Kunai and Shuriken, all while staying an incredibly safe distance away. While the damage has been nerfed since the game first came out, it's really only lengthened that speed to about 10-20 seconds instead.
- Ninjutsu feathers in particular can just nuke any enemy in the right circumstances, all it requires is breaking their Ki first. While their long cast time would normally be a problem, one can simply use a Yokai ability or Burst Counter to cancel the recovery. It should be noted that speedrunners have a separate category for banning the use of these jutsus, compared to any of the other game breakers listed here.
- On the Onmyo side of things, Lightning-type builds focused on enchanting weapons, lightning shots, and slow talismans. This is because most enemies you encounter Don't have any resistance to lightning, and even if they do, electric damage in general afflicts enemies with the slow status effect. Add in the aforementioned slow talismans which stack with the lightning debuff, and not only are you doing absurd amounts of damage up-close, but Bosses and Yokai you're wailing on will be moving so slowly that it's almost impossible for them to even touch you before you've shaved down their health to nothing.
- The high-level "Familiar" spells create floating orbs around the caster that guarantee inflicting their respective status effects in a single touch as long as they aren't outright immune to it, only requiring them to move next to an enemy to hit them with it. It is an extremely fast and safe way to work with Confusion.
- Barrier Talismans dispel Yokai Realms and boost ki recovery speed, simple, right? Well, it also provides the highest ki recovery increase in the game, nearly tripling your base rate. Any Dark Souls player can tell you how important extra action economy is, especially with how important being able to perform long combos on ki broken enemies is. It makes Dark Realms much more manageable while depriving bosses from regenerating ki thanks to purifying them instantly.
- The passive version of this is Ultimate Courage, which stands out as even more Simple, yet Awesome among other ultimate stats* , which simply slashes ki consumption by a very large 20%, and halves the effect any detriments to ki recovery such as the Dark Realm. It is widely considered the best "ultimate" stat and without a doubt the most universally useful one, no matter what build players make by Dream of the Nioh.
- And of course, Sloth Talismans are still present in this game. While heavily nerfed from the first game, they can still completely trivialize Yokai and Boss encounters as long as you've become accustomed to the game mechanics due to the sheer breathing room they give you.
- Rare endgame accessory effects can allow players to apply Sloth with any ninjutsu or onmyo magic depending on which bonus they have, negating any resistance build-up throughout the fight the regular talismans would eventually run into.
- In terms of weapons, expect to see most players Wielding either the "Seething Dragon" Switchglaive or the "Blood Spider Blade" Odachi. Both of these are sentient weapons that drop fairly early, have tons of perks attached to them, and often drop frequently after being first obtained. Because of the variety of perks and how you can transfer them to duplicates with higher sentience, along with their spike in damage output after a few kills thanks to said sentience, these two weapons can easily allow you to just continuously reforge them well until the final boss since most of the time these two weapons will outdamage everything else you pick up regardless of rarity.
- Shuten Doji's Club is a Yokai Weapon with the ability to generate Amrita with each Strong Attack. By itself this is fairly minor, but it reaches gamebreaker level when combined with gear that provides buffs upon gaining Amrita. For an example, if you have Shuten Doji's Mask, the Guardian Spirit Tengen Kujaku, and the Soul Cores for Shuten Doji and Kasha, it is possible to activate four buffs at once with a single Strong Attack in Low Stance! The mask grants an attack buff, Tengen Kujaku grants a Ki recovery buff in Low Stance, Shuten Doji's Soul Core grants a defense buff, and Kasha's Soul Core grants a movement speed buff.
- The Odachi's "Bolting Boar" skill is unique in that it is a parry that works on a variety of Yokai's attacks as well as humans'. While its damage is low, it will stop Yokai three times Hide's size dead in their tracks onto the ground, and because it's a Timely Guard parry, there's little risk in the player throwing their guard up early. Once the player masters the timing for it, they can completely dismantle the threat of certain Yokai and cut them down to size at their own leisure. Strangely, using Bolting Boar on an Ippon-Datara allows the player to follow up with a Final Blow unlike any other enemy, which sweeps them up that much faster.
- Fists are hilariously overtuned, to begin with, its passive allows it to cancel skills and basic attacks into each other seamlessly, providing smoother stance switching than both the Odachi and Switchglaive and uncontested offensive pressure. Most human enemies are simply unable to escape the combos players can do with them before having their Ki broken, let alone fight back. Their unique passive also bizarrely ends up giving Fists the best range, as they can close and distance their opponents make within the same breath that other weapons would have to stop and sprint toward them for. The amount of hits per second also make Fists the best to apply status ailments. Defensively, the "Opportunist" skill uniquely allows them to No-Sell just about any attack, rather than being limited to humans' attacks like most other defensive skills while allowing players to choose to follow-up with a counter, in the case of enemy combos. The end result will likely make a player feel like they're playing Balrog with Royal Guard from Devil May Cry 5 in a Souls game. On top of all of this, Fists build power by utilizing its passive to gain a unique stacking damage buff. While they are undoubtedly Master of All, they are mostly held back by guzzling the player's Ki, and having a larger learning curve than most weapons, making them Difficult, but Awesome.
- Of course, if that weren't enough, Version 1.20, which added one-or-two new skills for each weapon even for those who did not buy DLC, added "Beyond Infinity" for Fists, a Deadly Rave-like skill that requires precise inputs to unleash an extremely long and damaging combo, with mistimed inputs only slowing it down. It takes some practice to perfect the timing, and its long animation doesn't let players spam it with impunity (most of the time), but it's without a doubt the single highest DPS skill in the game, emphasizing the aforementioned difficulty and reward even more.
- Before players realized how Yokai Shift's mechanics worked, it was often regarded as a Power Up Letdown compared to Living Weapon, but Phantom Yokai Shift can create a nasty Cycle of Hurting on even bosses when paired with the right soul core like Gozuki or Ippon-Datara. Attack to create just enough Anima to use either soul core, which will stagger the boss and generate Amrita. The Amrita will drastically speed up the Charged Attack, which is also a guaranteed stagger, and due to Phantom-type Guardian Spirits gaining extra Anima on ranged attacks (which their chakrams count as), they can just as easily earn enough Anima back in a single charge attack to use Ippon-Datara again. The Amrita earned will extend the player's Yokai Shift for a decent amount of time, and not letting the boss even get a chance to attack means not taking stray hits that would deplete the timer. Repeat until their Ki is gone.
- The humble Scampuss, summoned by Clay Bells of Beckoning. While active, they slowly recharge your Anima and headbutt nearby enemies for a meager amount of Ki damage. The catch is that this stacks up to 3 times. Suddenly you recharge your Anima so fast you can spam your strongest Yokai Abilities with impunity while they chip away at Yokai bosses' Ki at an alarming speed, while human bosses get no chance to recover their own Ki. Very rarely will players naturally find 3 Scampuss in quick succession, so it will likely be first seen in the "Stray Cats" Sub Mission, where the game allows the player to witness the power of having 3 Scampuss with infinite duration. Do not underestimate this Ridiculously Cute Critter, and remember to keep those bells handy.
