Can some give an in depth explanation of weapon building/upgrades ?

[SpaceBallzz]

I completed Nioh two nights ago and I'm now going for the DLC and some sub missions have re-appeared so I'm farming a bit through there.

I've enjoyed the game but the weapon upgrades are an absolute mess, I've never understood it.

I just got all the green gear after beating the game and their level is 150 so very high but there is no fire or electricity enchantment which would be really nice for bonus damage and the slow effect of electrify. But how do I do this ? I go to re-forge, I already used the divine fragment and it was wasted on an upgrade I didn't even want, seems like I'm rolling a dice everytime I want an upgrade.

I tried the forge option to make a new weapon but the menu makes no sense at all and whatever I come out with is crap with only two special effects which are not useful.

Can I produce all my own weapons and armour from scratch and choose specifically which upgrades I want on them ? That would be cool.

Also soul matching is so expensive that it just isn't possible anymore, I've accumulated almost 2m gold and I did a fair bit of soul matching early on which I've now learned was a waste but some soul matching now would cost 30,000,000 so it's not a feature I could use anymore.

[Shaun K.]

I can relate to your frustration as I was in your shoes about a month ago when I finished my first playthrough. You've noticed that everything is random and the odds of getting anything you want are incredibly small. You might get what you want in 25 tries or maybe 100+ tries. I burned through 9 million+ building my Swallowtail set for high luck and high item drop rate.
During Way of the Samurai, your goal for gear should be to use the best stuff you can get from drops. Don't bother Forging (since you won't have the good smithing texts) or Soul Matching (unless you don't mind burning the money) anything during the first playthrough because white, yellow, blue, and purple gear does not have a familiarity upgrade bar. The green "devine" gear you get in the second playthrough does build familiarity as you use it and you can get bonuses for maxing familiarity. The green gear will always have higher stats than the other colors when familiarity is maxed out.
So once you get devine gear that you want to keep and upgrade, get ready to start re-rolling (Re-Forge/Temper) your abilities UNTIL you get what you want. It helps if the item you have already has 1 or 2 abilities you want on it but it is not necessary. My strategy is go to the Reforge menu, change the material used to Devine Fragment, then select the 3 abilities I want the least and reforge 1 time. Then I back out of the Reforge menu and go to the Temper menu to see if the ability I want is available to temper on. If not, I go back to Reforge 1 more time. Then go back out to check my temper options again, etc... This takes forever but can save you money and some of the ability options available in the Temper menu are usually pretty high rolls.
As for Soul Matching, I only use it to transfer one of those abilities with the little arrow symbol in front to my item if I don't like the current one and to upgrade my item's plus level. If you spent a bunch of money early on, you should have a few Patronage points at the blacksmith. At least the money you burn can be used to discount the cost of forging/reforging/soul matching for later.
By the time you finish Way of the Strong (second playthrough), you should have a few good smithing texts that allow you to forge gear but as you found out, it's random number generated (RNG) so you could always get something useless and waste materials. There's no way to completely control the abilities you get. You have to stockpile materials and save before attempting to forge/reforge anything because sometimes you just won't have any luck.

[Doc Holiday]

So much text I didn't read but I will try to answer:

PRESS Y (Xbox pad) on the reforge screen instead of the regular button confirm. Problem solved. Now you will have to use umbracite and will be able to choose the effects.

[SpaceBallzz]

Originally posted by Shaun K.:

I can relate to your frustration as I was in your shoes about a month ago when I finished my first playthrough. You've noticed that everything is random and the odds of getting anything you want are incredibly small. You might get what you want in 25 tries or maybe 100+ tries. I burned through 9 million+ building my Swallowtail set for high luck and high item drop rate.
During Way of the Samurai, your goal for gear should be to use the best stuff you can get from drops. Don't bother Forging (since you won't have the good smithing texts) or Soul Matching (unless you don't mind burning the money) anything during the first playthrough because white, yellow, blue, and purple gear does not have a familiarity upgrade bar. The green "devine" gear you get in the second playthrough does build familiarity as you use it and you can get bonuses for maxing familiarity. The green gear will always have higher stats than the other colors when familiarity is maxed out.
So once you get devine gear that you want to keep and upgrade, get ready to start re-rolling (Re-Forge/Temper) your abilities UNTIL you get what you want. It helps if the item you have already has 1 or 2 abilities you want on it but it is not necessary. My strategy is go to the Reforge menu, change the material used to Devine Fragment, then select the 3 abilities I want the least and reforge 1 time. Then I back out of the Reforge menu and go to the Temper menu to see if the ability I want is available to temper on. If not, I go back to Reforge 1 more time. Then go back out to check my temper options again, etc... This takes forever but can save you money and some of the ability options available in the Temper menu are usually pretty high rolls.
As for Soul Matching, I only use it to transfer one of those abilities with the little arrow symbol in front to my item if I don't like the current one and to upgrade my item's plus level. If you spent a bunch of money early on, you should have a few Patronage points at the blacksmith. At least the money you burn can be used to discount the cost of forging/reforging/soul matching for later.
By the time you finish Way of the Strong (second playthrough), you should have a few good smithing texts that allow you to forge gear but as you found out, it's random number generated (RNG) so you could always get something useless and waste materials. There's no way to completely control the abilities you get. You have to stockpile materials and save before attempting to forge/reforge anything because sometimes you just won't have any luck.

Thanks for the detailed response but I'm afraid I still don't get it, I haven't noticed a temper option anywhere before.

I'm not going to do a second playthrough I just want to do the DLC levels and bosses and then I'm done with it, I completed the game using only weapon drops from enemies and mission rewards.

[shwarmizzle]

Originally posted by SpaceBallzz:

I'm not going to do a second playthrough I just want to do the DLC levels and bosses and then I'm done with it

it's not really worth bothering with weapon/armor stuff until you reach way of the nioh though.

elemental effects get useless real fast (doing +500 additional fire damage on a boss that has 100 000 hp won't change anything). When you get to WotN, you will have access to ethereal equipment and that's when you can make good use of elemental based weapons by combining them with certain graces.

[Oninomiru]

There are certain stats that are good or even must have. Like change to attack (stat) A, Close Combat Damage 15% and Familiarity bonus A for weapons. The rest can be whatever, unless it's tonfa. For tonfa Parry Disabled is a must as well.

For armour RFD is a good stat to have. Most of things can be tempered, but you need umbracite.

Also, weapons and armour can have star skills, that aren't temperable, but you can forge equipment with these.

Untill way of the Nioh difficulty equipment doesn't really matter though, you can use whetever gets you by.

[Doc Holiday]

100% RFD is awesome

[Rain]

Playing Nioh for just one playthrough is kind of wasting the game though. Later on enemies get new movesets, new gear becomes available and also the abyss is locked to the difficulty you cleared. Really, keep playing, it get's better the further you go

[SpaceBallzz]

Originally posted by Rain:

Playing Nioh for just one playthrough is kind of wasting the game though. Later on enemies get new movesets, new gear becomes available and also the abyss is locked to the difficulty you cleared. Really, keep playing, it get's better the further you go

I'm still enjoying the game but it's wearing on me a bit, I've put around 100 hours in and for a game like this that's about enough, only strategy games and some RPGs will keep me engaged for 200-300 hours.

[SpaceBallzz]

Originally posted by Oninomiru:

There are certain stats that are good or even must have. Like change to attack (stat) A, Close Combat Damage 15% and Familiarity bonus A for weapons. The rest can be whatever, unless it's tonfa. For tonfa Parry Disabled is a must as well.

For armour RFD is a good stat to have. Most of things can be tempered, but you need umbracite.

Also, weapons and armour can have star skills, that aren't temperable, but you can forge equipment with these.

Untill way of the Nioh difficulty equipment doesn't really matter though, you can use whetever gets you by.

I don't understand half of what you wrote, that's the problem I suppose, upgrades feel impenetrable, I just wanna collect stones and upgrade like a dark souls system. Nioh feels needlessly complicated.

[Rain]

Originally posted by SpaceBallzz:

Originally posted by Rain:

Playing Nioh for just one playthrough is kind of wasting the game though. Later on enemies get new movesets, new gear becomes available and also the abyss is locked to the difficulty you cleared. Really, keep playing, it get's better the further you go

I'm still enjoying the game but it's wearing on me a bit, I've put around 100 hours in and for a game like this that's about enough, only strategy games and some RPGs will keep me engaged for 200-300 hours.

I arrived at way of the demon yesterday and let me tell you: The gameplay really shifts. Before you could do with mindless buttonmashing but now you can't rely on that anymore. It fells just like the game was intended to be experienced from here on out when you actually need to use your skills and react to enemies rather than rush through them. Also the guardian spirits and sets are making sense now.

The forging system is not more complicated then choosing a build in DS. I could explain it to you briefly and you'd be like: Yep, that makes sense.

I mean, it's your game, you do you, but by only doing one playthrough you're really missing out on the game unlike DS which only adds numbers while the overall gameplay is the same, no matter if NG or NG7

[King Donco of Punhcistania]

to get the most out of nioh you really have to go through all the difficulties as not only do enemies get stronger but they also change up a bit. making a build starts being important since button mashing wont get you anywhere. this game is amazing and i guess it truly appeals to the more hardcore audience thats why is not as popular. dark souls was only popular due to its meme difficulty the journalist and every casual kept peddling. nioh requires patience and to hone your skill.

[Doc Holiday]

Originally posted by Kei_K-Kay:

dark souls was only popular due to its meme difficulty the journalist and every casual kept peddling. nioh requires patience and to hone your skill.

I think it's so funny how every casual who played Dark Souls loves to say: "I'm a Dark Souls veteran"... lol

[KariWari]

Little intro about quality
So with Way of the Samurai in the later missions along with DLC you'll have green gear that can drop, this is quality is called divine which can be disassembled to give you Divine Fragments used in reforging (this becomes super important in later playthroughs!). I believe the highest weapon level you can get on Samurai is 150 +15, the + part is from Soul-matching equipment to increase it's value.

Reforging
Reforging will allow you to alter any of the non-locked affixes on your gear, an example of this may be you don't like "Gold 4.9%" so you reforge this and get "Fire +21". Reforging will cost materials from disassembled gear, weapons/armor it doesn't matter. The greater the rarity of the material the better the affix is that may be applied to your weapon. It's worth mentioning the reforge option gives the player no selection, meaning you could be reforging into the billions of gold waiting for that sweet, sweet 20% Close Combat Damage (or other!).

Tempering
Tempering is similar to reforging in that you are able to alter the affixes on your weapons however the main difference is that you are able to select up to 12 affixes (3 for each of the 4 quality of Umbracite you can find). To Temper, navigate to the Reforge option and press the "Y" or "Triangle" button while hovering over the gear to initiate the Temper option! This is an essential tool when it comes to the end game grind and you will truly thank yourself for using this option as opposed to simple reforging in the long run!

I hope this helps!

Good luck with the rest of your playthrough, Nioh is one wild ride and a lovely journey! If you have any questions or need any help feel free to send a message!

[Just Aaron]

You`ll figure it out. One step at a time.

[SpaceBallzz]

Originally posted by Rain:

Originally posted by SpaceBallzz:

I'm still enjoying the game but it's wearing on me a bit, I've put around 100 hours in and for a game like this that's about enough, only strategy games and some RPGs will keep me engaged for 200-300 hours.

I arrived at way of the demon yesterday and let me tell you: The gameplay really shifts. Before you could do with mindless buttonmashing but now you can't rely on that anymore. It fells just like the game was intended to be experienced from here on out when you actually need to use your skills and react to enemies rather than rush through them. Also the guardian spirits and sets are making sense now.

The forging system is not more complicated then choosing a build in DS. I could explain it to you briefly and you'd be like: Yep, that makes sense.

I mean, it's your game, you do you, but by only doing one playthrough you're really missing out on the game unlike DS which only adds numbers while the overall gameplay is the same, no matter if NG or NG7

I've put nearly 100 hours in and I've enjoyed it, DLC is too hard for me, I had to use a summon to beat the centipede guy and now at Aoba castle there's the ninja yokai with guns and the new namahage. It's requiring more than I'm willing or able to give. It's time for a more chilled out playing experience, I'm thinking of going back to Civ 5.