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Developed by Omega Force,Wild Heartsis a brand new open-world game, teeming with Kemono to find and defeat. At your disposal, you have a wide range of Karakuri to act as tools to aid in your combat and maneuverability, along with a selection of eight different weapons to learn and master.
Related:Wild Hearts: Complete Bladed Wagasa Weapon Guide
One of these weapons is the Nodachi, a massive heavy sword that is slow to use but can create devastatingly powerful attacks. This weapon will have you standing still charging it up so that you can unleash a massive swing to deal maximum damage.
The Nodachi
The Nodachi is agood starting weaponto use as it is simpler than some of the other weapons in your arsenal and is unlocked from the get-go. Your movements and attacks will be slower than with other weapons and that will mean you need to ensure to hit your attacks, as missing a fully charged heavy swing will be a big waste of the time that you’ve spent setting the attack up.
Basic Moves
Like most weapons, there arethree basic abilitiesthat come with your weapon. For the Nodachi, you have yourlight attack(Square/X), theheavy attack(Triangle/Y), and theIai Stance(RT/R2).
Your light attack is athree-hit combostarting with aWide Sweepand then moving into twoDownward Slashes.
Your heavy attack will be aForward Roll Slash, which can help to reposition yourself slightly so that you can have a better angle at hitting your other attacks.
You canchange which way you move with your heavy attackif you move in the desired direction.
Your special move for this weapon is theIai Stance, which willcharge up the power of your weaponwhilst draining your stamina - this will be indicated by the blue bar above your health in the bottom left of the screen.
For combat in the air, your light and heavy attack will both do the same move,Jumping Slash, which brings your Nodachi slicing down toward the ground.
In general, youwill not be spending that much time in the airwith your Nodachi as it is a more formidable weapon when you are able to charge your Iai Stance, which is done more effectively on the ground.
Iai Stance
There arethree different statesthat you’ll be able to take advantage of as you charge your Iai Stance. To increase the rate at which your stance charges, you will want to bestanding completely still.
The first is simply themoment you move into the stance. If you immediately leave this stance, you will performIai: Lightning Slash, which does a little bit more damage than your normal attacks and hits in a wide arc, giving you a good shot of hitting your target.
If you remain in the Iai Stance until yourNodachi glowsand then release, you will performIai: Whirling Blade, which does abouttriple the amount of damage as the Iai: Lightning Slash.
Your most powerful attack will come if youfully charge your Iai Stance, having the blue bar reach its max. Releasing at this point will have you performIai: Bisection, which is a two-hit combo dealing overwhelming damage.
When charging your weapon with the Iai Stance, you will move a lot slower, and rolling out of the stance to dodge an attack will reduce your stamina by a large chunk, so be aware of how much time you have before a Kemono will attack and that you have enough stamina to get the attack you want.
Nodachi Combos
It is easy for a new player to pick up the Nodachi, use the Iai Stance standing still to fully charge it, release Iai: Bisection, get bored of only doing this, and then move on to another weapon. The thing is, there are much more interesting and enjoyable ways to build up the gauge other than standing on the spot waiting.
If you start charging your Iai Stance,attacking with a light or heavy attack will not take you out of the stance. In fact, hitting an enemy whilst you are charging up your gauge will give more charge toward it.
If you manage to hit your3-hit light attack combo, your Iai Stance will becomefully charged,and you can then release it, performing Iai: Bisection.
You do not have to wait for the combo to end to do your big move, as it will be added to your sting of attacks as soon as you release it allowing for a devastating 5-hit combo dealing insane damage to the Kemono.
Whilst moving around will not charge up your gauge as quickly as standing still, it can still be done to move around the Kemono’s attacks so that you may position yourself somewhere that allows for you to unleash a full combo without any worry of being knocked out of it.
This allows you to move around more andbe in the action more consistently, so you don’t constantly feel like you are waiting for a long opening to stand still and charge your powerful attack.
Nodachi Combat Tips
You want to befocused on how much stamina you haveduring your fights because if you are charging your Iai Stance and you run out of stamina, you’ll suffer arecoil effectand bestunned for a few seconds, leaving you incredibly vulnerable.
In situations where you are about to run out of stamina, it is always best torelease out of the stanceto perform whatever attack you can to save yourself from being stunned, as at least this way, you might be able to put out some kind of damage.
Karakurican be especially useful in fights with your Nodachi, as the attacks you perform fromjumping off a wall or from using a spring allow for quick repositioningand good to high damage depending on how much charge the weapon has.
If you jump from a spring and release your Iai Stance, you will performIai: Soaring Slash Streak, which is one of the flashiest attacks in your arsenal and is great fortraversing a wide distancequickly and dealing decent damage.
When fighting, you want to make sure that you areutilising the spring as much as possible, as when you jump off of them you will alsoregain some of your stamina, which can work to counteract the stamina loss from your Iai Stance, allowing you to charge it up for a few more seconds and gives you a quick way to move around the area.
Before you do any of your light or heavy attacks, you shouldalways try to move into the Iai Stanceso that you can charge your gauge and lead into your more powerful attacks.
When upgrading your Nodachi, you canchoose upgrade paths that provide abilities that make it harder for youto be knocked out of your Iai Stance, giving you even more opportunities to perform a fully charged attack.
Ultimately, the Nodachi is arelatively simple weaponthat doesn’t have that large a moveset, but that can make it particularlyeffective for new playerswho want to spend a little more focus on working out how to effectively use the Karakuri and to work out a Kemono’s moveset.
