Nioh 2 Build Guide – Kusarigama – Ninja Warrior Build

This is my first build for Kusarigama, this build is done after I finished my second playthrough on Dream of the Strong

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Guide


Despite the unique design and rarely see in Video Games, the Kusarigama is originally one of the five main weapons of Nioh, prior to DLC weapons like Tonfa & Odachi.

Kusarigama right off the bat scale directly with Dexterity, making it’s the perfect choice if you want to try out all those comical Ninjutsu skills in Nioh 2.

Kusarigama Pros and Cons

PROSCONS
– Easy to play with Ninjutsu Skills
– Can be very powerful early game
– Good sync with Dual Sword or Sword
– Powerful continuous High Stance Light Attack
– Kusarigama targeting need some time to get use to
– The Range of Kusarigama and the difference between the Sickle and the Metal Weight

Nioh 2 Build – The Ninja Warrior


This build focus on dealing damage with Kusarigama active skill while utilizing the awesome Ninjutsu Skills coming along with the Dexterity. You can of course go to another route for a full Projectile focus build.

This build combine the best of both world, but not a strong focus on Projectile, but rather a combination of both the melee weapon and the throwing power of Shuriken and ….

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Stat


You will get a bonus in Dexterity if you picked Kusarigama as your main weapon at the beginning. Dexterity will increase both Kusarigama damage, Ninjutsu Power and Capacity.

The base cap of Ninjutsu Capacity is around 35. You can equip more Ninjutsu Skill by upgrading the skill to reduce the Capacity cost. This is the same for Onmyo Magic.

Kusarigama stat scale

STATSCALE
DEXTERITY
SKILL
STRENGTH
B+
C+
D+

Kusarigama has a C+ Scale with Skill, giving 30 Attack every 15 Point.

The final stat scale with Kusarigama is Strength – which give 24 Attack every 15 points.

All of these stat increments can be checked in the Nioh 2 Stat Calculator here. This tool allow you to check how stat improve your character and planned for your Build.

Kusarigama Build will need Dexterity as it’s main focus. The rest of your points can be divided to Constitution and Stamina to wear armor. For Kusarigama build, some armor set require both the Constitution and Skill, so you are comfortable with 17 Skill as well.

The main armor in this build is the Kawanami Clan Armor Set which requires 16 Strength and 16 Constitution. Before acquiring this Armor, you are good to go with the Fuma Ninja Armor set.

The build at the end of Dream of the Samurai will look like this

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Skill


The Kusarigama on it’s own has a very good attacks move with High Stance Light Attacks. Most of the Active skill are divided base on the part that dealing damage – Sickle or the Metal Weight.

Kusarigama Skills

You can pick the following Active Skill to add to the base High Stance Light Attack moves. This is to finish the enemies after the initial combo.

  • Reaper – Quickly slashes the enemies with Kusarigama sickle – The range is a little short though.
  • Blade Spin – Perform a 360-degree spin with Kusarigama. This covers a pretty wide range and is a good way to evade enemies’ attack.
  • Renegade Dragon – This used both the sickle and the metal weight and finish with a downward strike, good to use when the enemies are slow or immobilized.
  • Summer Twilight – This buff increases your damage while increasing your Ki damage. It is slightly safer than Carnage Talisman.

Other nice skill to have:

  • Whirlwind – This skill is buffed by the Kawanami Armor set (more detail below) and later can be upgraded with Secret skills from the “Aquaman”
  • Crimson Flurry – A more “personal” Whirlwind – this skill focus more on a single enemy.

Kusarigama Passive Skill

  • Shadow Strike (I, II, III) – This is to increase your damage from behind
  • Full Moon Kata (I, II, III) – Increase your damage while in full health.
  • Relentless (I, II, III) – Increase your Ki

Kusarigama Mystic Arts

  • Waxing Crescent – Increase damage and Ki damage of Sickle.
Nioh 2 Kusarigama Skill
  • Shooting Star – Increase damage and Ki Damage of Metal weight.
Nioh 2 Kusarigama Skill

Depend on your mostly used Active skill, you can pick either of these Mystic Arts. As I mostly used Blade Spin, Waxing Crescent is my selection for Mystic Art.

The rest of your Skill point can be put to Melee Mastery

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Skill

Samurai Skills

Samurai Skills is inherited by all weapons, making the below is a must for every build

  • Flux I, II, III
  • Fortitude I, II, III
  • Other Passive skills that increase Ki or HP

The Samurai skills allow you to add some custom Passive Skills to the active skills.

  • Damage Boost: Dexterity – This will increase the skill damage base on your Dexterity

If you feel a little more risky, try the below Passive Skill

  • Raging Strike – Increase damage by 20% , the skill will use a little of your HP.

These will help increase the damage of the corresponding active skills.

Shiftling Skills

As this build does not focus on Yokai Shift, you are good to go with the basic Extend Yokai Shift, Reduce Ki Consumption in Yokai shift.

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Weapons


Kawanami Armor Set also has the Kawanami Kusarigama, which is undoubtedly your main weapon for this build (Until Yasakani Magatama – which allows you to reduce Armor Set requirement pieces)

Before this Kusarigama, you are good to go with any Kusarigama that has increment to Active Skill Damage, Melee Damage or Ki Damage. Below are some of the best Kusarigama in Nioh 2

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Armor Set


Nioh 2 Ninja Build – Early Game (Dream of the Samurai)

As mentioned earlier, Kawanami Clan Armor set from the “Aquaman” is your main armor set for this build. But this Armor set can only be obtained after chapter 4/5. Before this, you will mostly use Light Armor set, and the best one should be the Fuma Ninja Armor set.

This Armor set has an innate boost to Throwing Projectile. By equipping the full set, you got a total bonus ~25% Shuriken & Kunai Damage.

Combine this with tempering option from Accesorries and Gloves, you will get around 90% increase to throwing damage.

To use this build effectively, you also need Untouched Ninjutsu – which increases your chance of not using the Ninjutsu skill, which allows you to throw more shuriken at the enemies. Another tool to use is they Shinobi box – which refills your Ninjutsu items

Kawanami Armor Set

This is the main armor set for this build. The Kawanami Clan Armor set is currently the best Armor set for Kusarigama attack boost. This set has the following bonuses

This has a slight focus on Yokai Abilities Damage as well, making the power of your Yokai Abilities can be boosted to a new notch.

After the fight with … at chapter … you will get a chance to fight with him one on one by talking to him at the Interim (With a condition of picking his side on at the mission , I believe) This is the easiest way to farm for his armor set.

This guy also drop the two secret skills for Kusarigama

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Secret Skill
Nioh 2 Kusarigama Secret Skill

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Ninjutsu Tree

Ninjutsu Skills

As you already investing in Dexterity, you will get 30 Ninjutsu Capacity (At 30 Dexterity) This is the maximum capacity you can get from Dexterity, subsequent upgarde will only increase Ninjutsu Power (This affect the duration and damage of the Ninjutsu Skills)

Projectile Skills for Ninjutsu

  • Shuriken (I, II, III) – Your first skills to get to become the ninja.
  • Kunai (I, II, III) – Has higher damage than Shuriken.
  • Poison/ Paralysis Shuriken – To quickly inflicted the corresponding ailing status.

Ninjutsu Poison

  • Gallnut Broth – Imbue your weapon with Poison effect
  • Hemlock Broth – Imbue weapon with Paralyzing Effect.

Ninjutsu Passive Skills

  • Thrown Blade technique – Increase damage of the above

Later on, you will need the Mystic Art

  • Concealment – This further enhance your Throwing weapon damage
  • Enlightenment– Similar to Onmyo magic, this allow you to cast Ninjutsu more quickly

Other nice to have Ninjutsu Skill

  • Quick Change Scroll – To let you have one more live
  • Fire/Lighting/ Water – This is actually pretty powerful and can later combine with Onmyo Magic Tree

Onmyo Magic Skill

You can still utilize Onmyo Magic with around 20 – 25 points to Magic. The most commonly used Onmyo Magic is Weakness Talisman, which increases the damage received of the enemies.

You can use some elemental Talisman if you feel like it as well.

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Guardian Spirits


For any build that favor speed and Ki, you will never go wrong with Ame-no-Mitori.

As you progressed through the story, you will obtained Nekomata the original Guardian Spirit for the Ninja build

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Soul Cores


For Soul Cores, the giant shrine snakes Yatsu-no-Kami has a bonus damage to Poisoned enemies – something you do quite a lot in this build.

Magatsu Warrior Soul Core

Another

Nioh 2 Kusarigama Build – Playstyle


An upside of Kusarigama playstyle is that their normal attacks (Light Attack and Strong Attack) are pretty powerful to use alone, and you don’t need

You can easily see players abusing the High Stance Light Attack. This attack can easily stagger Yokai as this can break their horn pretty quickly. The rest is compensated by Active Skill like Spinning Blade or Crimson Lotus

The downside of this is Kusarigama doesn’t have any charge attack (or a one powerful hit skill) All of the active skills are multi hit.

This will make inflicting Poison is your main priority as soon as the fight start. This will trigger the buff from Yatsu-no-Kami Soul Core, and increase your damage.

For bosses, start the fight with a Weakness Talisman and following the same route. There are some bosses completely immune to Poision, when this happens, try changing your coating to Paralysis, or elemental (if you have some spare points on Onmyo Magic)

The Poison Shuriken and Paralysis Shuriken are also very effectively at inflicting the Poison or Paralyzing effect, don’t forget these! You can temper for Shuriken & Kunai Damage to deal some significant damage from afar, and then finish things off with Blade Spin or Kusarigama normal attack

Dream of the Strong playstyle (NG+)


On Dream of the Strong, you can pick another stat to focus on after maxing out Dexterity. Both Skill and Strength have a C scale with Kusarigama.

This makes combine this with a Dual Sword Sign of the Cross build (With Paralyzing) is super effective. Check out the Dual Sword Sign of the Cross build here.

For Strength, you can also use Odachi as your secondary weapon and combine with Paralyzing as Odachi has several powerful attack that can benefit from …

Both of these builds for Dream of the Strong can easily clear out bosses and help your progression a lot.

On Dream of the Strong, you can get Yasakani Magatama (Dropped at the end boss) This will reduce Armor set requirement, allowing you to mix and match different armor set.

Conclusion


If you decided to try out Ninjutsu build, then Kusarigama will be your main weapon to the path of becoming the Master Ninja. On second playthrough, you can easily combine the Ninjutsu Skill with any of the weapon (The best are Dual Sword and Odachi) and make this build even more powerful.

Check out my Nioh 2 Builds compilation in below post

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