Here's some quick tips for beginners!

[76561197963259080]

I'm surprised at how incomplete the Wikis are for this game despite its critical acclaim and popularity. I just beat The Queen's Eye mission on Way of the Nioh difficulty (~70-80 hours), here's some general tips & tricks for newer players that might be struggling:

• Gear makes the most difference, not your character's level. The recommended mission level that you see is for gear, not the player.
  
• Weapon stats give marginal attack improvements, it's often better to invest in other stats first. Try to get 20 Dexterity & 20 Magic before finishing the second region, you will need that to unlock all Dojo missions.
  
• Stats I'd recommend putting points into are Magic (for debuffs), Spirit (for Living Weapon), Dexterity (for stealth buffs), Heart for (Ki) in that order. Only upgrade other stats to pass armor requirements so you wouldn't lose the bonuses.
  
• There are no very few iFrames in Nioh, if you get hit, you take damage, plain and simple. So block, block and block. Blocking is SUPER effective in this game unlike Dodge spamming which would often get you killed. Get the timely guard skills so enemies would recoil after hitting your guard if you put it up right before their hit connects.
  
• It's rarely worth fighting normal enemies unless you're farming for something specific, if you can kite, then just ignore them and run past. On subsequent playthrough and higher difficulties, you can use Catwalking, Suppa & Tiger-Running scrolls together to effectively stealth yourself and run past them.
  
• Stay close to bosses rather than far away, unlike Souls series where you can observe boss movesets comfortably from a mile away, in Nioh most of the bosses will just absolutely wreck you at range. Even bosses that don't seem to be that strong at range like that fat giant frog are actually far better at range than close up. They will throw all sorts of trash with insane AoE damage at you like firebombs nukes, poison shurikens ebola canisters and rifles heatseeking missiles at range, it's far easier to deal with their melee attacks than this.
  
• Most of these youtube videos that you see are outdated and pretty much everything has been nerfed to the ground, you're not gonna be an overpowered killing machine that can instantly melt every boss with a mere glance of his eye anymore. Damage buffs can no longer be stacked into heaven and beyond for example.
  
• In higher difficulties, if you see bosses that have a buff with white armor icon, it means if you use a weakness talisman, it's gonna increases their defenses rather than decrease it.
  
• For Ninjustu & Omnyo mystic arts, get the one that lets you instantly cast without any casting animation on yourself. It also speeds up the casting time of magic on enemies and is very useful for applying buffs and debuffs mid-fight if it goes on for too long.
  
• Talk to the blacksmith and her grandfather, you can get bonus patronage points just by talking to them.
  
• Don't bother too much with Health and Defenses, further into the game pretty much everything can one-shot you in light armor, and even with heavy armor you're gonna be killed in three hits at most. So it's better to invest in damage and utility instead of health and defenses in the long term. Same applies to weapon stats, only upgrade them if you need them to pass requirements for the armor you're gonna use, the damage bonus they give to weapons is actually not that relevant.
  
• If you Forge your armor, it will have lower stat requirements than those you can find.
  
• Bosses in higher Abyss levels can animation cancel, which means if you get too greedy then can just instantly smack you out of nowhere because why not. So make sure you know this because as you head into higher levels, it's not a "bug".
  
• You need to get Ki Pulse and Dodge Ki Pulse skills as soon as possible for all three stances, they carry over to all weapon types. Timely Guard and Parry skills are very useful as well but they take a bit of skill to use effectively.
  
• Get the Serpent Strike skill for Kusarigama as soon as possible, it's very exploitable against human AI and can be used to cheese a lot of difficult bosses like Muneshige and high-level Revenants. What it does is, it'll grapple the enemy with an unbelievable range then drags them towards you while stunning them momentarily (as long as they're small humans, otherwise you jump towards them which isn't as good) that lets you follow up immediately with a heavy combo which they would block for the second half leading to a significant loss of HP and Ki. If they roll afterwards, you can just repeat as the grapple will catch them every time as long as they keep rolling.
  
• For Omnyo, get Sloth & Weakness Talismans as soon as possible, and use them on bosses. Just be careful that in higher difficulties, if the boss has a white armor buff, do NOT use the weakness talisman or it will reverse the effect (they will get higher defenses instead of lower). Then focus on Extraction & Pleiades Talismans for your Living Weapon. Also always carry at least 2 Elemental Talismans so you can apply Confusion (a.k.a. Discord), Guardian Spirit Talisman is good for this too when you unlock Dual Guardians.
  
• For Ninjustu, get Power Pills, Quick-Change & Touch-Me-Not Scrolls first. Always use Quick-Change & Touch-Me-Not together, so when you die and respawn you also do damage to the enemies. Touch-Me-Not is pretty useless without Quick-Change. Catwalking, Suppa & Tiger-Running scrolls are very helpful for running past enemies straight to the boss. You might also wanna get Paralysis Shurikens & Hemlock Broths for final blows. Poison is very powerful in this game as well.
  
• Kato is one of the best Guardian Spirits in the entire game, take it as your starting spirit. Later on for Amrita Farming, use Mizuchi as primary with Saoirse as secondary guardian. No, she's NOT useless although it seems her entire purpose of existence is to be used as secondary for amrita farming (?). For normal gameplay, use Kato as primary and Bisha's Centipede as secondary. Bisha's Centipede gives Pierce Guard which is crucial against blocking human enemies, always take him on missions with human enemies.
  
• If you have trouble with Umi Bozu, light all the torches around the map. That will despawn the baby umis and let you fire buff your weapon in the boss arena if you don't have a talisman. As for dealing with the boss itself, use your weakness talisman and power pills. The boss is slow enough already, it's not worth using a Sloth talisman because that might actually throw off your timings instead. When he jumps in the center of the arena, just use Kato LW with amrita buffs then spin2win.
  
• If you have trouble with Tachibana Muneshige, notice how developers have conveniently placed a huge rock to your left which confuses the hell out of him for whatever reason. You can easily kite him around the rock to dodge his mystic arts and guardian attacks since they don't go through it, he'll just get stuck on the rock. Again, sloth, weakness and lifeseal talismans are your friend along with your guardian spirit.
  
• If you have trouble with Hino-Enma, Sloth Talisman and Living Weapon are your friends. If you've been putting points into Dexterity like I suggested, then you should be using a Kusarigama. You can use it in low stance (with elemental buffs) to charge your amrita gauge fast (with extraction+pleiades buffs) then spin2win in Living Weapon. Always have Needles in your quick slots because she can paralyze you. Once you put Sloth on her, it should be easy to dodge her attacks just keep in mind that later she will add one kick and one umbrella swipe to her combos. But if you've been putting points into Spirit & Magic, you should be able to cheese her easily in LW with amrita buffs and sloth/weakness debuffs.
  
• Ah yes, the flaming Wheel Monks... It's actually pretty easy to deal with those annoying POS once you know how to bait out their flame breath. If you look closely, you will see that they have two faces and one of them looks broken. The broken face is their weakness, if you hit it they will fall down. Get close to them, don't get hit by their choo choo fire trail, then wait until they breath fire. It will always be from right to left, so you can get behind them from left then smash that ugly face until they fall down. Just be careful that if you don't kill them fast enough, they will explode before they get up again.
  
• Unlike other games, Leaching Talisman (the one that drains your life but boosts damage) can actually kill you. Yeah... ¯\(ツ)/¯
  
• On higher difficulties, don't bother with Steel, Protection, Resistance, Divination, Rejuvenation, Oasis & Devigorate talismans. You're gonna get one-shot in light armor and two/three shot in heavy armor anyways. Quick-Change scroll is better than any defensive buff; for Poison & Paralysis just keep Antidote and Needles on hand in missions that have those.
  
• Do NOT offer equipment to shrines for amrita, you can farm a lot very quickly later in the game. Always either Dismantle them for crafting material or sell them for Gold. Gold is much more scarce than Amrita, so don't waste your items by offering them at the shrines. Also don't forget to select your Kodama blessing.
  
• A great farming spot for everything (except glory) is Hyakki Yagyo in Omi region, it's just a bunch of boss fights one after another which give a lot of Amrita. If you're trying to farm glory, then use The Battle of Ohashi Bridge mission in Kinki (kinki... seriously? who named this??? :3) Region, it will always have a truckload of Revenants to kill. Just so you know, if you push them off the bridge, you won't get their equipment.
  
• The purpose of Spirits Stones is to charge your Amrita Gauge for Living Weapon, do NOT waste them for their Amrita. If you use Plaiedes talisman, they will charge your gauge even more.
  
• It's called Lifeseal talisman, not Life Steal. Oh well, I got it early on thinking it was lifesteal wondering why the hell it's not working so... Now with that out of the way, it's pretty useless against Yokai but it's very good against Humans/Revenants.

Let me know if you have any questions or need tips for a specific boss.

[Nikro]

how to not get one shot at way of nioh?!?!?

[Pajonk]

I'm using Red Dragon set and even on WotW I mostly died after one shot...

[Nikro]

wow i though the game was gonna get more challlenging by throwing even more enemies but no they just buff them and scale them way beyond my level and one shot me that why i didn't play NG+ on DS its simply tedious and boring not challenging just boring welp there goes my high hopes for a actually challenging game :/

[Pajonk]

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ님이 먼저 게시:

wow i though the game was gonna get more challlenging by throwing even more enemies but no they just buff them and scale them way beyond my level and one shot me that why i didn't play NG+ on DS its simply tedious and boring not challenging just boring welp there goes my high hopes for a actually challenging game :/

You have more mobs: in vanila game you can fight with DLC monsters and this is real horror - when you have Nehagane (or something) as a demon you just ♥♥♥♥ your pants... :D

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Iris of the White님이 먼저 게시:

Lahoo Eckbert님이 먼저 게시:

I'm in way of the strong. Is the game playable without ninjutsu or omnyo magic ? With just melee ?

I'm halfway through the DLCs on Way of the Demon (after finishing the main story on it) with a pure physical, very little ninjitsu (kunai that do no damage for pulling enemies + antiparalitics), no magic (the only time I used fire talismans was at Umi-bozu in WotD), no Living Weapon. Difficult, but possible and mostly fair.

What DLC's ?
I heard people talking about DLC but how do I play them ?

[MasterDrake]

Lahoo Eckbert님이 먼저 게시:

Iris of the White님이 먼저 게시:

I'm halfway through the DLCs on Way of the Demon (after finishing the main story on it) with a pure physical, very little ninjitsu (kunai that do no damage for pulling enemies + antiparalitics), no magic (the only time I used fire talismans was at Umi-bozu in WotD), no Living Weapon. Difficult, but possible and mostly fair.

What DLC's ?
I heard people talking about DLC but how do I play them ?

After main story.
you'll know!

[Xuhybrid]

Lahoo Eckbert님이 먼저 게시:

I'm lvl 117 or something and I haven't invested in magic at all.
Invested 5 points in dexterity(I have 10 dex but don't tell anyone I leveled that up) to use some ninjutsu.
I'm in way of the strong. Is the game playable without ninjutsu or omnyo magic ? With just melee ?

You're missing out on a lot of the strategy in the game. You have so many tools at your disposal to get you through the game more reliably.

[MasterDrake]

Xuhybrid님이 먼저 게시:

Lahoo Eckbert님이 먼저 게시:

I'm lvl 117 or something and I haven't invested in magic at all.
Invested 5 points in dexterity(I have 10 dex but don't tell anyone I leveled that up) to use some ninjutsu.
I'm in way of the strong. Is the game playable without ninjutsu or omnyo magic ? With just melee ?

You're missing out on a lot of the strategy in the game. You have so many tools at your disposal to get you through the game more reliably.

Well, he must be really goood if he hasn''t used sloth.

[Anatolius]

Wait .. way of the nioh, in 96 hours????
68 hours, not even gone through way of the samurai
Tho i do every mission thoroughly

[Xuhybrid]

MasterDrake님이 먼저 게시:

Xuhybrid님이 먼저 게시:

You're missing out on a lot of the strategy in the game. You have so many tools at your disposal to get you through the game more reliably.

Well, he must be really goood if he hasn''t used sloth.

Sloth is for beginners. Removes any kind of challenge lol.

[Witcher]

Thanks for your comprehensive list of tips :)

Whilst I have not finished the game yet, I found and confirmed from this vid - https://youtu.be/H1AznGBwlUk - that Weakness and Steel talismans have -9% and +6% respectively decrease/increase only. I find Lifeseal and Protection talismans (the equivalents) more effective.

What are i-frames that you guys refer to?

[Xuhybrid]

Witcher in Japan님이 먼저 게시:

Thanks for your comprehensive list of tips :)

Whilst I have not finished the game yet, I found and confirmed from this vid - https://youtu.be/H1AznGBwlUk - that Weakness and Steel talismans have -9% and +6% respectively decrease/increase only. I find Lifeseal and Protection talismans (the equivalents) more effective.

What are i-frames that you guys refer to?

He corrected those stats in his next video where he explains how much the jutsu scale based on your stats. You can check it out here where he says Weakness is -13% but does not scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh5vWFe3oz4

[Witcher]

Oh, OK thanks :)

[Stealthunter]

Pretty great guide for starters, but some of them may be the results of your play style and probably affect some of the tips your giving,you should probably include, for starters only and will not apply throughtout the entire game, because certain factors can change,and you don't want to give the new players the wrong idea.I'd like to give my own humble opinion about some of the tips in your guide because it differs from my playstyle,and If I followed your guide regarding combat, I'd probably end up dead
-" So block, block and block. Blocking is SUPER effective in this game unlike Dodge spamming"
I would not recommend it since Nioh has a stun system where if you get hit when you have no stamina, you will be stunned for a short amount of time( which would most likely get you killed because you can't react to oncoming attacks), so I should mention Nioh's dodge is split into two, the first press is a dash, which is to quickly cover ground or quickly make distance, but does not full evade the attack unless its a horizontal arc( in that case a dash can pull you away from the attack and you won't be hit), the second press is the roll animation which is the "dodge", so to fully dodge an attack, you would have to press the key twice rather than once.
-"Stay close to bosses rather than far away"
I would also not recommend this because even though most bosses have a ranged attack ,staying up close will get you killed quicker unless you have fast reflex, so unless you can react to an imment attack instantaneously, staying at a distance gives you more reaction time. Bosses have different moves and every time you encounter a new one, your going to get caught off guard unless you watched a video about it,and its best to know the moves first before charging straight ahead.
I don't want to get into it, but you get the idea that everyone plays differently, so I really appreciate the general tips and tricks, like the soul stones and the white armor icon and how you forged armor have less of a stat req and tips about the bosses, but your combat tips and skill unlocks probably shouldn't be in the guide, let the players figure out their own style, see what they like, and once they are above that stage, they will probably be looking for specific builds, then maybe some of those tips you mentioned might givem them insight.

[One41]

Stealthunter님이 먼저 게시:

Pretty great guide for starters, but some of them may be the results of your play style and probably affect some of the tips your giving,you should probably include, for starters only and will not apply throughtout the entire game, because certain factors can change,and you don't want to give the new players the wrong idea.I'd like to give my own humble opinion about some of the tips in your guide because it differs from my playstyle,and If I followed your guide regarding combat, I'd probably end up dead
-" So block, block and block. Blocking is SUPER effective in this game unlike Dodge spamming"
I would not recommend it since Nioh has a stun system where if you get hit when you have no stamina, you will be stunned for a short amount of time( which would most likely get you killed because you can't react to oncoming attacks), so I should mention Nioh's dodge is split into two, the first press is a dash, which is to quickly cover ground or quickly make distance, but does not full evade the attack unless its a horizontal arc( in that case a dash can pull you away from the attack and you won't be hit), the second press is the roll animation which is the "dodge", so to fully dodge an attack, you would have to press the key twice rather than once.
-"Stay close to bosses rather than far away"
I would also not recommend this because even though most bosses have a ranged attack ,staying up close will get you killed quicker unless you have fast reflex, so unless you can react to an imment attack instantaneously, staying at a distance gives you more reaction time. Bosses have different moves and every time you encounter a new one, your going to get caught off guard unless you watched a video about it,and its best to know the moves first before charging straight ahead.
I don't want to get into it, but you get the idea that everyone plays differently, so I really appreciate the general tips and tricks, like the soul stones and the white armor icon and how you forged armor have less of a stat req and tips about the bosses, but your combat tips and skill unlocks probably shouldn't be in the guide, let the players figure out their own style, see what they like, and once they are above that stage, they will probably be looking for specific builds, then maybe some of those tips you mentioned might givem them insight.

Thank you for the tip about blocking. I have a habit in Dark Souls to roll and dodge