Greater Nue Boss Guide in Onimusha: Way of the Sword

The Greater Nue is the oversized, electrified version of the Nue you fight earlier, and it hits far harder. Its health bar reads 48,923 at full, it commands lightning at range, and it swaps into a high-voltage second phase that turns sloppy play into a quick death. The fight is short once you know what it punishes.

Quick answer: Hold mid-range, dodge or deflect its claw swipes and lightning, cut off its tail to stun it, then drain its stamina with the Earth-Shakers and cash the opening in with an Oni-form attack.

Greater Nue attack patterns and counters

Spacing decides this fight. Sit too far back and the Greater Nue defaults to lightning, throwing bolt after bolt until you close in. Stand directly under it and you eat claw swipes you never saw wind up. Mid-range is the sweet spot, close enough to punish, far enough to read the tell.

Attack	Answer
Claw swipes and lunges	Dodge or parry, then punish the recovery with a short string
Lightning bolts at range	Deflect them back — a clean deflect stuns it and opens a heavy-damage window
Head and tail smashes	Dodge sideways; this is your cue to start working the tail
Pounce	Dodge through it and strike the hind legs while it recovers

Parries do double duty here. Every guard drains its Rikido posture faster than raw attacks do, so a defensive rhythm gets you to a stamina break quicker than mashing. When that bar empties, you choose between the damage option or the bonus souls. Take the damage unless you badly need upgrade currency.

Musashi trading blows with the Greater Nue as the boss health bar fills the top of the screen — Punishing the Greater Nue at mid-range while its health bar tracks the damage. Image: Capcom

How to sever the Greater Nue’s tail

The tail is the single biggest swing in the fight. It feeds the boss extra attack options, and it stops being a problem the moment you cut it off.

Bait a tail or head smash from mid-range. These are the moves that leave the tail extended and low enough to hit, rather than curled behind the body where your slashes glance off.

Dodge the swing, then commit to the tail instead of the head. Two-handed strikes land the damage you need faster than a flurry of quick pokes.

Keep cutting until it comes off. Musashi calls it out — “I’ve had enough… of that damned tail!” — and the boss is briefly stunned. Attack immediately; this is free damage, and the moves that relied on the tail are gone for good.

The Greater Nue reeling after its tail is cut off, with Musashi closing in for the punish — Severing the tail stuns the Greater Nue and hands you an unpunished attack window. Image: Capcom

Phase 2 and the Earth-Shakers

Once the health bar drops far enough, the Greater Nue shifts into a high-voltage state. It leans on lightning much more heavily and pressures you almost constantly, so the openings you were taking in phase one get shorter and rarer.

Phase	What changes	What to do
Phase 1	Physical swipes mixed with occasional lightning strikes	Work the tail off, deflect bolts, build your gauges
Phase 2	Far more lightning, higher aggression, tighter gaps	Swap to the Earth-Shakers, defend until it settles, then burst

The Earth-Shakers are the tool for this half. They are a pair of Oni-made hammers built to strip enemy stamina, and holding the attack input charges them for more power. Because posture damage is what buys you the big punish windows, they shorten phase two considerably compared to sticking with the katana alone.

Note: do not try to out-trade the boss while it is winding up. Dodge and parry until the aggression tapers off, then rush in. Trading damage during its aggressive stretches is the fastest way to lose the run.

Combat against the Greater Nue during its high-voltage second phase with the boss health bar on screen — The second phase leans hard on lightning, so defend first and attack only after the pressure drops. Image: Capcom

Closing out the fight with Oni form

Every deflected bolt and every parry feeds your gauges, which is the real reason the defensive approach ends the fight faster. Once your Awakening meter is full, save the transformation for a confirmed opening — after a tail sever, after a stun from a deflected bolt, or right after a stamina break.

In Oni form, Issen counters land far more easily, so keep countering rather than immediately firing off the finisher. Hold the big finishing input until the meter is nearly spent, then use it on the last chunk of health.

You will know the sequence worked when the health bar empties into the execution animation rather than the boss recovering mid-combo. If it recovers, the stamina break window closed before you committed, which usually means you were too far away to reach it in time.

Why the Greater Nue fight goes wrong

You kept your distance. Backing off does not make the fight safer — it switches the boss into near-constant lightning.
You ignored the tail. Leaving it attached means dealing with attacks you could have deleted in the first minute.
You took heavy damage early. Bosses here escalate dynamically, so eating big hits in phase one pushes the enhanced state forward and makes the rest of the fight harder.
You attacked instead of deflecting the bolts. Sending lightning back stuns the boss; dodging it only resets you to neutral.

Played that way, the whole encounter compresses into a rhythm — read the swipe, deflect the bolt, take the tail, then convert one clean opening into the kill.