Water Dual-Swords Build

Nioh 2

Stats

Dual Swords scale primarily with Skill so this will be our main stat for this Build. Skill also unlocks most Light Armor special effects, and slightly improves our Ninjutsu power, making our jutsu skills more powerful. Additionally, it increases our Bows and Rifles damage allowing us to kill most enemies with a headshot.

The other Stats you want to focus on are Heart and Dexterity. Heart increases the maximum amount of Ki and bow damage. Having a large Ki pool is essential, because it allows you to increase the number of Blocks, Dodges and Attacks that can be performed before you must disengage to recover. If your Ki pool is low, you will be able to Block or Dodge but you won’t be able to strike back, which is a crucial part of this Build.

Dexterity increases the power and capacity of your Ninjutsu abilities, allowing us to carry more and deal more damage with them. This is last in terms of priority because while we use them in combat, we use Ninjutsu more for buffing than dealing damage, and so is an augment not a staple for this Build.

Weapons

Because this Build focuses on Skill the ideal weapon for this Build is the Dual Swords, and the whole build revolves around that. Light Armor is also the best choice here so that you can move quickly and conserve Ki.

Water Swordsman Weapons

You will use Dual Swords for this build but you can have a Kusarigama as a second weapon if you want to fight from a distance in a particular fight. You can also have two different Dual Swords for different Stances. For example the Mino Dual Uchigatana lowers the Low Attack Ki Consumption while the Mino Dual Tachi increases the High Attack Damage. You can swap the weapon according to the stance you are using if you find a good pair this way.

When selecting your Dual Swords you will want to prioritize Damage and Ki consumption. Damage will increase the amount of damage per hit but Ki Consumption will determine how many hits you can perform while saving some to Dodge backwards and recover. Both are good so you’ll want both if possible.

Another important thing to consider is the Stance that you are using the most. I personally like to use the High Stance as it provides the highest damage in the shortest time, but some enemies have very quick recovery times and you will want to use the mid-stance or low-stance to deal with them. You can search for Special Effects that focus on only one stance and use that weapon for that stance. High Attack Ki consumption, High Attack Damage, Mid guard Ki consumption, etc. Remember that you can have two different sets of dual swords one for each stance.

Armor

For armor, you will want to focus on Special Effects and not in armor. You’ll want to search for: Dash Ki consumption and things that Increase your Ninjitsu. You can also search for Untouched Ninjutsu, Ammo or Elixirs as these are just generally good bonuses. Some good early sets for this build are:

Skills

Guardian Spirits