It's odd we haven't delved into this subject yet, since the Guardians and what you can do with them are some of the more interesting mechanical changes that Nioh brings to the Souls genre.

I have used Enko for most of my first playthrough, but have recently switched to Suzaku and can say I'll stick with this one. It's movement when it aids you is insanely good. It swirls around you, basically stunning and lighting all enemies on fire around you, then it charges through the ground dealing damage and leaving napalm-like fire in its wake. Additionally, if I have my gauge full and take fatal damage, death is negated and Living Weapon is automatically activated, which is insanity. Especially for Suzaku because it remains active foreeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeer. Then, I also have a chance of instantly filling my gauge randomly which is great too and interacts with the other abilities of Suzaku nicely.

Suzaku is the "I'm Bad" Guardian spirit more or less so you'll see it about 80% of the time in co-op along with Sloth and Red Demon Armor (which is like the 8th or 9th best set of armor in the game or something); it's truly sad when people get hit by the boulder in Squirming Sprite and don't die because of Suzaku.

Bull is the best spell and health is handy too, Kato is just faceroll damage increase so pretty good; Bat is maybe the best for overall raw dps, Tanuki's Fat Chocobo summon is amazing, Saiorse and Mizuchi are solid for farming. The one that gives you a power pill every time you use a skill is good but dependent on the build for uptime. Shinka and the Atlas Bear are both fairly well regarded as well. In general almost every Guardian Spirit is good for one reason or another.

I've just been using the initial fire wolf for the most part. I don't use Guardian Spirits that much honestly, outside of burning down the last bit of health on some bosses. I never feel like I need to use them.

I tried using Enko, but I like the Ki and Ki regen that the fire wolf gives me, so I switched back to that.

I have only used one, the tsunami one or whatever was suggested om this site. Didnt even know it was the reason i saw enemies on the map. Honestly I forget to use it 99% of the time anyway.

Kara-Jishi with a lightning weapon all the way. His "Damage buff when using a damaging Skill" lasts about ~10-15 seconds, refreshes every time you do anything like a Kick, Riposte, Quickdraw and it stacks with Carnage. That buff coupled with a lightning weapon, his lightning damage buff, the lightning slow debuff and stacked backstab damage is obscene.

I never use living weapon because it kind've makes the combat less fun, but his damage bonus in living weapon is the second best there is with a mid-high duration. His activation mode is bad though it misses almost all the time and doesn't seem to do too much damage.

I also use the starting spirit because of the close combat damage and ki regeneration buffs. I also use living weapons a lot because there are some enemies I just hate fighting and want to get out of the way - like those big muscle guys with the tongue attacks. Popping living weapon in boss fights is also fun. I've also started using sloth in boss fights after I got over an idiotic sense of pride - the boss toad helped because man the run up through those rotating walls is a pain in the ass and I was doing well enough on my first try to actually get it over with. I dunno why I always get funneled into this completely asinine hardcore mode of "no man don't use all these tools the developer put in the game, only sword anything else is cheating and cheap!" Then I end up missing out on a ton of fun stuff because I was too proud to use it.

I really dig some of the Wind based Guardians, but I think Wind is a shit status effect to apply. At least for my playstyle.

@fredchuckdave: If you want to argue that Suzaku's life saver is for bad players because they wouldn't get by otherwise, then we can easily conclude that Nioh in its entirety is for people who don't like challenging videogames because the game is not hard to begin with.

Since there's been so many other games to play, I'm kind of beind on this one. Only in region 3 so far. But yeah I used Kato for the early parts, and now I've stuck to Daiba-Washi. Extra drop rate and ki usage down for dodging sounds good to me. I don't really even pay attention to the living weapon stats, beacause I don't enjoy using it. Call me silly, but I just wanna sword my way though everything, no ninja/magic/super bullshit. Just me and the blade. Hopefully I'll find some funny endgame build I can do with some of the later ones though. I hear you can make unarmed pretty viable.

The Last Guar- ... okay I'll go.

I've been using James Potter and it's been working great. He's got the best spell by far and I don't understand why it isn't getting more attention.

@shadow: Which one are you referring to?

@zevvion: the stag

@shadow: You mean Shinka? I don't particularly like Earth so I just avoided him.

The Green starting one, Daiba-Washi i think?

It gives me +20% equipment drop rate. I haven't found another guardian yet that gives me anything nearly as useful as that (At least for me, I LOVE increased drop rates in games. Extra damage? PFFF! Whatever!)

Also gives me +40 luck, which I assume also affects drop rates, so even more reason to keep it!

This conversation between @shadow and @zevvion is amazing!

@zevvion: Bonuses don't matter so much to me and neither does living weapon stats because the spell's so damn amazing. So aside from giving the earth elemental effect to anything in front of you which is okay but really just kind of whatever, casting the spell gives you SUPER ARMOR! You still take damage, but nothing you can do while it's active can be interrupted unless it kills you outright.

@shadow: I'll check it out. But I like dealing a more effective elemental affliction that suits my playstyle. I mean, armor sounds good, but I like to inflict Confusion so I can break everything without relenting.

@zevvion: So here's my wombo combo for if I really, really want something to die without it even being a contest

1. Quick change scroll

2. sloth talisman

3. guardian spirit talisman

4. carnage talisman

5. earth weapon talisman if it's a boss, electric weapon if not

So now, assuming it's not a boss, the enemy is half as fast, can't flinch me, I do twice the damage, also take twice the damage but can't die in one hit thanks to quick change, they have the earth elemental effect on them, and electric as well after I hit them a few times, putting discord on them as well. If it is a boss, I'll usually just lay on the earth damage since they usually have elemental effect resistance. All this stacks to be absolutely, utterly broken. Not counting the quick change scrolls which last multiple rounds of this, I can do all this 6 times between shrines, and also not counting quick change scrolls which I would cast before aggro, it takes about 4 seconds to cast all 4 spells to make it happen

Been using Hi Nezumi of late, his spell is pretty awesome but his living weapon is pretty garbage though. Not a fan of any of the wind based guardians.

I went from Daiba Washi, to paired raiken, the dragon, spider, tiger, until I finally settled on Atlas Bear nothing like summoning him from the aether to smack an enemy down hard.

It made me want to reroll Axe/hammer for ng*

I've been using my shark buddy Isonade. Being able to see where enemies are on the radar is a big help. Also, sharks are cool.

Bull's got my back. The health regen proved useful in the earlier going.

I just pick the newest one i get each time. And 90% of the time i never use it actively anyways.

Aya-Komori has a pretty ridiculous Unlimited Ninjutsu bonus and I love getting health back for stabbing dudes when they're down. It's a lot of fun for a light armor, low stance playstyle.

@dudeglove: Yea this was a fun one that was alluded to in the last chance trial. You could almost do it but didn't have the Shinka spirit guardian so you couldn't do it infinitely but you could certainly abuse it on bosses.

It's a very silly build, but it isn't the fastest and most effective. It does make you invincible though so what does that matter I guess?

Experimenting with different Guardians was cool, but ultimately they give you the most well-rounded one right out of the gate, Kato. Ki, Ki recovery (which is almost impossible to get from gear, unless you are going for set bonus on Red Demon), melee damage, skill damage. It just kinda has everything.