Nioh 3 has been released, which means it's time to sharpen your katana, save the friendly Kodama, and try to survive just about anything that tries to kill you. At the top of the food chain is a large list of bosses, with those tied to the main story being some of the most difficult to defeat.
One of them is Minamoto No Yoritomo, who is the final boss of the second act and can destroy your health bar if you are not well prepared. Here's what you need to know to successfully defeat Minamoto No Yoritomo.
How to beat Minamoto No Yoritomo
Before going into this boss fight, I recommend equipping anything that can give you some resistance to wind damage, along with ways to either buff damage or debuff Yoritomo's defenses. I also recommend using any magic or weapon imbued with lightning damage to try and use this elemental debuff to slow him down as he is quite mobile.
When the fight begins Yoritomo will use the range and mobility of his weapon to start pressuring you with attacks. His main moves include unleashing a flurry of blockable blade strikes, unleashing a pillar of wind at you, and flying across the arena to slash you twice.
The first of these has both a Burst Break and a normal version where Yoritomo lowers his blade low before running across the room to slash at you horizontally before turning around and doing it a second time. If this is the Burst Break version, it will glow red when it looks like Yoritomo is covering the blade. You can counter this by swapping forms on the first and second slashes of this attack, so if you miss his opening slash, be prepared to face a quick follow-up.
If it's the normal version, you'll want to roll or block both. He only deals physical damage and moves too fast to really counter, so your best bet is to play defensively. His other big attack that you want to avoid has him pull his sword over his head before slashing it in front of him. This crushes the earth and releases a wave of wind energy in a straight line. If you're not close, your best bet is to roll to either side, as this move deals a lot of damage.
His grab is also one of the easiest to avoid in the game, as he will fly into the air, hover there, and then come down in a straight line to grab you. Simply roll around him and spin around to hit him multiple times before he recovers!
After entering the dark realm, Yoritomo infuses his sword with wind energy, meaning that all of his moves deal both elemental and physical damage.so it's less favorable to directly block his moves. He's very vulnerable during his transition animations, so it's a good time to unleash a combo before he starts attacking.
Yoritomo a big new attack makes him float in the air and fire four crescent-shaped wind projectilesand then struck the ground to create a line of wind energy in front of him. This move, while scary looking, is actually not too hard to deal with as long as you don't panic. When he fires projectiles, stand in the middle of them and move slightly right and twice left to avoid all four. Immediately after dodging the fourth projectile, immediately dodge in any direction to avoid the wave of wind energy.
Another move to keep in mind is that he spins twice and launches small circles of wind completely around his body. This move can be tricky as it comes out quickly and the only animation is Yoritomo thrusting his sword forward first before continuing with the Wind Discs.
When he returns to the normal world, Yoritomo will be able to shoot several discs of wind at you from his sword. These move fairly slowly and can be avoided by either rolling or dashing in either direction once you see them. He will also perform a front slash that actually hits twice in a 180 arc in front of him. If you see Yoritomo pull his sword over his head and start to spin, it means he will perform this move.
Finally, I highly recommend not using your Living Artifact while in the Dark Realm with Yoritomo. While it may seem ideal to try to get him out of this phase faster, the sheer amount of AoE (area-of-effect) moves he can make will quickly chip away at your Amarita gauge if you're just tanking shots. Yoritomo is much easier to bully when outside of Dark Realm, allowing you to maximize damage in this form.
Once Yoritomo's health is depleted, he'll drop to one knee and you'll need to critical hit him. This will trigger a short animation sequence where you perform a flashy series of attacks to finish him off.
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