Nioh: How to Beat Onryoki (Boss Guide)

Throughout the course of Nioh players will have to go toe to toe with a huge number of deadly enemies. Much like the legendary Dark Souls series, Nioh pits players against seemingly insurmountable odds at every turn and forces them to determine the best way to come out on top. Each enemy will require that players know exactly what the best way to bring their enemies down is.

Where things become even more interesting though is when Nioh gets players to face off against one of its many different bosses. These enemies are massively powerful and have unique abilities that make them particularly difficult to bring down. One such boss is Onryoki, which is an early game boss that serves as something of a test for new players to throw themselves at. Bringing this boss down is no easy feat, so this guide is here to show players how exactly to defeat Onryoki.

Nioh: How to Defeat Onryoki

Players will go up against Onryoki, who is a very powerful Yokai, for the very first time at the end of the second mission of the game. The boss also appears in a couple of side missions, but during those fights, his attacks remain the same and the player is much stronger, so dealing with him should be simpler. This first fight though is incredibly difficult and tends to weed out players who are new to the game or genre as a whole. The first thing that players will want to do when fighting this boss is pick the weapon that they think they are best at using. It may be helpful to use a weapon that has a faster attack speed or slightly longer reach, but really as long as the player is comfortable with their weapon it will be fine. The player will want to keep whatever weapon they choose though in Low Stance and only attack Onryoki from behind. Attacking the boss from the front is always a bad idea because it gives him more opportunity to deal damage and avoiding attacks from here is extremely difficult. Another thing for players to keep in mind is that they should try to save their Living Weapon until the second stage of the fight, as the boss becomes much more aggressive during this segment, so they will want to end the fight sooner here.

The only way to win this fight is to take things slow and do not get greedy with attacks. Onryoki has a ridiculous range in both phases of the fight and is capable of dealing a huge amount of damage, so players should focus on staying away from his weapons whenever possible. During the first phase, he has two attacks that the player can exploit to deal damage. His first is he will pick up his two stone spheres and slam them down on the ground. The player should step backward away from these and then rush behind him to attack. The other attack is Onryoki’s spin attack where he grabs the chains attached to the weapons and spins the spheres in a giant circle. This attack will absolutely ruin a player, so they will want to stay outside of the range of it and rush behind the boss as soon as they see an opening. In both instances, the player will want to dish out two heavy attacks on Onryoki’s back and then run away as quickly as possible before the boss decides to initiate another spin attack. If they can’t get away in time they can throw up their block, which will be broken by the attack and they must then hope that Onryoki doesn’t decide to immediately attack again.

The main game plan for this part of the fight is not to deplete Onryoki’s health, but rather to deplete his Ki bar instead. Once the player fully depletes the Ki bar they will be able to stun Onryoki until the bar regenerates, which means that they are able to rush in and attack at full force to bring his health bar down considerably. Depending on the player’s speed and the weapon that they are using they can possibly bring Onryoki down to half health, which ends the first phase of the fight. If not then they will just need to repeat the process until the first phase has ended. Once down they should prepare themselves for the harder half of the fight.

Once Onryoki’s health bar has hit the halfway point, the chains holding the stone spheres will break. Turns out that these powerful weapons were also a hindrance for the boss, so he now becomes much faster and more aggressive than before. Fighting against the boss now will require that the player remain very vigilant. Rather than swinging his weapons around, Onryoki will now resort to rushing straight at the player to deal damage. His melee attacks consist of swinging his arms back and forth or slamming onto the ground right on top of the player. Both of these attacks are quick and deal huge damage, so the player will want to avoid at all costs. The trick is to stay just outside of his attack range before dodging backward when he goes to attack. As soon as he finishes attacking the player will want to rush in, swing their weapon a couple of times, and then quickly sprint away. They then just have to keep this up for a bit.

The biggest thing to worry about during the second phase though is that occasionally Onryoki will walk over to pick up on his detached weapons. This means that he is about to throw it at the player, and if it makes contact it is capable of killing some low-level characters in one hit, and blocking it will break the player’s guard and set them up to be finished off by a follow-up attack. The only way to avoid taking damage from this attack is to stand and wait for Onryoki to throw the sphere. At the last possible second the player will want to dodge left or right to avoid it hitting them. The throw has a certain level of tracking on it so if they dodge too early it will follow them and still make contact. As soon as the player dodges they will want to ready themselves though for a follow-up melee attack.

Players should wait until their Living Weapon is fully charged and Onryoki is running low on Ki. As soon as the Ki bar is nearly depleted the player can activate their Living Weapon and deplete Onryoki’s Ki bar. This will stun the boss and allow the player to maximize the amount of damage that they can deal with the boss. They should try to hit him with everything they have and hope that they can bring him down entirely right here. If not they will need to follow the same strategy to whittle his health all the way down. Either way, the player will just need to keep it up and they will defeat Onryoki down in no time at all.

Niohcan be played on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.

About The Author

Cody Peterson
(951 Articles Published)

Cody Peterson is an avid reader and writer. Graduated from Midwestern State University with a BA in English where he worked as an editor for the University literary journal. Currently a freelancer for Screenrant, where he spends most of his time writing guides or reviews. Be warned that any conversation started with him will probably wind up gravitating towards his two dogs, The Adventure Zone, or Kingdom Hearts 2.

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