Nioh 2 - How to be the Gyuki

As if it wasn’t enough to dust yourself off from the last battle, now you have to take on a hulking great Yokai too. Here’s how to beat the Gyuki in Nioh 2- aka the terrifying giant spidery cow thing.

Maybe it’s just mental fatigue from the battle with Saika Magoichi, but the Gyuki is actually easier than it first seems. It’s a bit like fighting the big blue Yokai with four faces, you can actually block more of their hits than you’d expect.

That’s not all though. There are some nice cheese strategies to tackle the beast as well. Don’t bother with water element or poison Ninjutsu though.

Nioh 2 - How to beat the Gyuki

Below is a video of me taking down the Gyuki, including where to get a load of free damage on its horns. It's from my first blind run of Nioh 2, so it's not perfect, but shows how this fight is doable in normal conditions.

As soon as you land in the boss arena, run to your left and climb the scaffolding. The Gyuki’s weak points are its horns and the Amrita crystals on its hind legs. Spam bullets and arrows into these points to take a hefty chunk out of the boss straight away. Like Saito Yoshitatsu, some well-placed shots make this battle much easier.

After a while the Gyuki will break the scaffolding. When this happens, it’s best to chip away a bit more damage before you head over to the other set of scaffolding.

Your exploits at the beginning of the fight will likely have exhausted the Gyuki’s stamina bar and sent you to the Yokai Realm. Here the monster grows wings and a couple of new moves.

Lock-on to its head, and get in a few swipes between its attacks. You can block some of the Gyuki’s regular swipes, and roll under its three-hit combo by dodge rolling towards its body if you want to be aggressive. It’s safer to back off and bide your time.

What you need to watch out for are its black-and-white unblockable pincer movement - which you can dodge backwards away from, then dart back in for a free hit or two - and its body slam attacks.

When it rises into the air, you need to sprint far out of the way to avoid getting squished. This also goes for the water and poison cloud attacks.

If it raíses its front legs and scuttles towards you, then you can roll diagonally right towards it to slip under the attack and come out behind it’s hind leg.

Don’t get greedy with hits on its back though, or it’ll slam down a spindly leg before you can get away.

Its Burst Counters are quite manageable, but the timing is cheeky. There’s a long wait between the red flash and where it actually starts to rush forward - don’t move too soon if you’re using Feral or Phantom forms. Otherwise meet it head on.

At about half health, sprint over to the other set of scaffolding and spam the rest of your ammo. Sacred Arrows and Roaring Ammunition are particularly effective, and chew through the Gyuki’s health.

With a decent amount of hits to the horns, the Gyuki should be down low. This leaves it open to spam from your Yokai Shift abilities, or just rinse and repeat your punishes from earlier. Wait for the Burst Counters and black-and-white attacks, then dash in for some chip damage.

And just because you’re not safe on the scaffolding doesn’t mean you can’t shoot its horns with any remaining ammo.

For more on Nioh 2, here are the best weapons we've seen so far.

Here's our list of Nioh 2 boss guides!

Otherwise, why not try taking on one of the game's tougher side missions: The Shiftling's Wise Judgement.