Hey people, I’ve been spending some time messing around with guardian spirit skills and seeing what use I can get out of them. When invested into I think gs skills can be pretty solid and I haven’t seen much in terms of discussion or notes on it, so I’m posting here some of my findings and hope others do the same in the comments.
I started out trying to build for Living Artifact, and a big part of building the Amrita gauge for that was being able to use multi-hitting gs skills often to charge the gauge, so most of my experimentation with gs skills came out of that context.
So with Guardian Spirit Skills, the main 3 areas of investment are in GS skill damage, GS skill ki damage, and then spirit force charge. Here are some notes on each one
GS Skill Damage
The actual gs skill damage star effect can roll on soul cores and maybe some other piece of equipment, but at least on soul cores I’ve found the damage bonus (stat) gives about an equivalent amount of damage to gs skills and applies to everything else, so I find those effects better. I think most damage bonus (X) effects also impact gs skill damage, even the ones that just say melee damage in the description. This actually makes million koku’s 5pc attack bonus very good for gs skill damage, as with wealthbringer talisman that becomes about a 30% boost to gs skill damage. I believe that weapon level and +value also impact gs skill damage (two weapons with different attack values but same level and +value resulted in gs skills dealing same damage vs different +value). GS skill damage can also be directly boosted by the oda clan bonus and by yata mirror. If saturate is easily accessible there’s also the clan bonus that boosts gs skill damage vs saturated enemies, and there are stats for weapons that also boost that. Then ninja has the shaman queen set which I think gives about 10% at max magic, and sinister tyrant gives a large damage boost through spirit force ignition although it makes gs skills much more expensive. Aerial attack damage also affects gs skills which could synergize quite well with some aerial gs skills. I think these things + destroying crucible spikes are the ways to boost damage for gs skills, though if I missed anything would be glad to hear.
GS Skill Ki Damage
This is pretty straightforward. Samurai has Cunning Spirit 2pc which gives 12%. The star effect can roll on soul cores at about 6%, and it can also roll on weapons and gloves at the same value. There’s also a clan bonus for this that gets up to about 13-15%. Ki damage vs X’ed enemy also affects gs skill ki damage. I’m unsure if strength stat affects this but I don’t believe it does, so that’s pretty much it for ki damage. Once this starts getting high it’s pretty noticeable in how fast a gs skill will drain a Yokai bosses max ki after they’re winded.
Spirit Force
This is pretty important obviously, as maintaining sprit force and generating it quickly determines how often you can use your skills. Ninja is pretty great at generating spirit force through its shadow arts and quick burst and only requires investment through titles for the spirit force ninjutsu bonus. Aside from that, spirit force deflect/evade on accessories is great for getting big chunks of spirit force, and yata mirror already has that locked. If you have it on both accessories it will generally be enough, and I’ve also seen the star effect roll on leg armor. Other solid sources that don’t require much investment are spirit force bonus Amrita, and spirit force bonus unscathed/crit Amrita on top of it. Using this + extraction + familiar talisman is quite effective for keeping a constant stream of Amrita coming in. There is also Yoki soul core’s spirit force bonus (purification) which synergizes well with spirit channeler common skill. Many of the other spirit force bonuses aren’t very good from my experience; I haven’t tested cumulative damage sf bonus from raiju but that bonus was strong in nioh 2, and sf bonus Amrita gauge can come from a few different places which also could be strong. There is also the star effects for spirit force charge on head and gloves which are quite powerful as well. Ultimate intellect and sf reduction from clan can also help bring down the cost of gs skills.
Amrita Gauge
Not much to say here but wanted to note that the star roll for Amrita bonus inflict ailment gives about 10 Amrita gauge points. Against groups of enemies, having the electrified amrita bonus with lightning calamity or hellshock can give pretty large boosts to the gauge. Having one that matches the element of your equipped gs skill can also help boost the gauge a good deal.
My Build
Currently I’m running 5pc koku + 7pc tsukuyomi in samurai, and 7pc marici + whatever for ninja. I’m prioritizing living artifact duration on my ninja and good star effects like sf deflect on my yasakani so the build isn’t optimized, but the goal is to have 5pc koku + 7pc tsuku + 2pc cunning spirit on samurai, and 7pc Marici + either 6pc sinister, 5pc kato, or 6pc picturesque scenery. With a good assortment of the earlier mentioned sf bonuses, and the extraction + familiar talismans, guhin from samurai becomes very efficient. Koku gives it a solid damage boost too along with the yata mirror. In combat I can quickly charge the Amrita gauge and deal damage by using guhin and arts proficiency. Once my gauge is full, I switch to ninja and activate living artifact with artifact defense skill. Living artifact in ninja benefits from all of its elemental and aerial damage skills, along with giving ninja hyper armor while casting ninjutsu, and the marici 7pc lets the gs skill extend living weapon as well while I attack.
This all works quite well for me, interested to hear what others are doing with gs skills in the comments.
