The Ronin is the healer class of Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, designed to stop the bleeding and carry the team through near-impossible situations. It is safe to say that having a Ronin on your team is a must if you plan on running the Nightmare mode or the Raid. There, Legends doesn’t just scale up the difficulty, but rather makes a massive jump only to land on your teeth.
Early on, the Ronin is one of the least impressive classes next to the Hunter, but once leveled, they become incredibly useful.
Class Ability: Spirit Animal | Healing Incense
The first class Ronin ability in Ghost of Tsushima: Legends is Spirit Animal, which allows the player to summon a single spirit dog to assist the team. Similar to the Spirit Dogs gift that can be acquired in survival mode, Spirit Animal only summons one dog that inflicts minor damage.
The ability is quite useful at distracting enemies and buying time on objectives that are teeming with Oni. It is unlikely that the dog will kill more than a single enemy, but they still make good company. When matchmaking in story mode, only a small minority of players use voice comms. If you are stuck with a less-than-effective teammate, a furry friend is useful while healing and grabbing more supplies.
Healing Incense is the primary ability that most Ronin players in Ghost of Tsushima: Legends will have, especially in survival mode. The ability places down an item that radiates in an area of effect, healing any players who stand inside it for a short period. This is one of the best abilities in the game, since only one other item in Legends does AoE healing, but it takes up a Legendary slot with a long cooldown.
Healing Incense is a necessary skill to have if going into any activity on Nightmare, not only because of the incredible difficulty, but the increased likelihood to encounter poison enemies. Poison doesn’t do significant damage to the player, but it does stagger them, opening up you and your team to a one-shot from most enemies. Healing Incense is placed on the ground and has a long duration, making it an excellent stand-your-ground tool when the going gets tough.
Ultimate: Breath of Izanami
Breath of Izanami is the Ronin’s ultimate ability, and this revives the entire team from anywhere on the map. It is pretty self-explanatory how useful this ability can be, even more so in survival mode where pulling off a revive can be nearly impossible, especially on a Boss wave.
As the Ronin gains experience, Breath of Izanami will heal over time for eight seconds, and light nearby enemies on fire, becoming incredibly useful at providing a moment of respite once being revived.
Building a balanced Ronin
In Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, the Ronin carries the heavy burden of keeping the team alive against all the odds. Building a powerful Ronin will take a while, since Healing Incense isn’t unlocked until rank 10. The Ronin’s perks all increase the ease at which you can keep your team alive and weaken the enemy.
The sword you choose does not matter, but the Ronin does have access to a bomb pack as a special ranged weapon. The bomb pack will stagger groups of enemies with ease, and also has a modifier adding black powder bombs to your arsenal to light the Oni on fire.
Since Ronin keep the rest of the team alive, it is imperative that they do not fall first. For that reason, a defense charm will be Ronin’s best option, with melee charms being a close second. Defense charms will more than likely provide damage reduction, revive health, and resolve gain, among other skills.
The sticky bomb is a great go-to for the Ronin because it is a way to help the team from a distance, or stun large opponents, making it safe to go in for the attack.
Below is the Ronin Technique Tree.
- Rank 2: Enhanced Ghost Weapons – Increase damage from all Ghost Weapons by 50%.
- Rank 3: Staggering Imposition – Increase stagger damage inflicted by 15%.
- Rank 5: Soothing Breath – Breath of Izanami now also applies a heal over time on all players for 8 seconds.
- Rank 7: Weakening Burst – Weaken enemies so they deal 25% less damage and take 25% more damage. Costs 1 resolve.
- Rank 9: Resolve Increase – Increase max resolve by 1.
- Rank 11: Fire Breath – Breath of Izanami now also ignites enemies near all players
- Rank 14: Ronin Unleashed – Decrease class ability cooldown by 15%.
- Rank 16: Quick Regen – Increase healing received and health regen by 50%.
- Rank 18: Legendary – Increase the number of Legendary items you can equip by 1.
The second ghost weapon slot depends on whether or not Spirit Animal or Healing Incense is chosen as the Class Ability. If you have Spirit Animal, equip a healing gourd, preferably Kenji’s Shared Brew, which will heal allies around you when activated. For those who have Healing Incense, pick up a smoke bomb to move quickly in and out of the battle with ease. There is a perk for the smoke bomb that grants one resolve point upon use, making the smoke bomb ideal for going in, reviving an enemy while gaining resolve, or getting the Oni off your back to use Breath of Izanami.
Once the Ronin has a few levels under its belt, the versatility of the class shines through, let you build for more damage and debuffs or the option to focus purely on healing. Most of the classes play a specific style very well, with only minor variations. The Ronin, however, can play two drastically different styles, each viable in Survival and Story mode.
