Item Find Guide for Hidden Skills & Smithing Texts

This guide will go over the nuance of how to properly set up a character to farm the rare Smithing Texts and Hidden skills scattered throughout the world of Nioh 2. It will also touch on the difference between Item Drop Rate and Equipment Drop Rate, and when to use them.

What's In This Guide?

Hello and Welcome!

I frequent r/Nioh/ quite often and a question that comes up far more often than it should is;

Why isn't X dropping from Y? I've been at if for over five hours?!?!?

A lot of people tend to think that it's super rare to get Hidden Skills and Smithing Texts from enemies in the game. While that was true at one time, long before the PC release, it's since been patched to make the drops more common. Are they still rare? Yes, but nowhere near the rarity they once were.

What if you're borderline OCD like me and go after everything the game has to offer? Yeah it's going to take some time investment, there are a lot of Text & Skills.

However, if you just want the texts/skills for your build or preferred weapon then no, it's not difficult, nor overly time consuming. If you spend over four hours on a single drop... I'm sorry to say, you're doing it wrong.

Disclaimer
RNG will be RNG, but there are many things you can do to swing RNG in your favor. You need to also keep in mind that some enemies drop upwards of 15 different items. So you may not get the item you want first, or even fifth.

The Guide
So that's what this guide is for. How to make a set that helps you get those elusive Skills/Texts. This is not a build guide per se, but rather a gear swap setup to farm with. So if you want to be a Ninja, Mage, or Tank, it really doesn't matter, as you can implement most, if not all of this guide to your character.

This is meant to be a load out swap via Equipment Sets in your Equipment menu by pushing Y or Triangle depending on your controller. Not the Builds section in your Hut. I just need to be really clear on this.

There will be no "re-speccing" attribute points or anything like that. This is literally putting some different gear on, swapping a Guardian Spirit and some Soul Cores, adding a Jutsu to your stuff, and saving that load out. As long as you've saved your original load out you can swap back and forth with a push of a button.

Extra Optional Information
I'm going to go over may things outside the scope of "Item / Equipment Find" in this guide. There are a few reasons why.

1.) Nioh & Nioh 2 are really bad at explaining things to new, and even veteran players. I've seen players who've put over 200+ hours into this game and did not know about the ability to customize Active Skills with extra effects.

2.) Some of the more advanced mechanics are needed to get the most out of Item / Equipment Find. Instead of skimming over, or assuming the reader knows what I'm talking about, I will explain it in detail so there is no confusion.

So Who Is This Guide For?
Is it for Full blown Item / Equipment Find, or the player who just wants a few things? The answer is both. How far you want to take Item / Equipment Find is completely up to you.

So What's Not In This Guide?
I will not be going over who drops what. There is a Smithing Texts and Hidden Skills guide linked in the Resources section that covers everything you will ever need in regards to that. This is a guide about how to get those items to drop quicker.

Presentation
I know many people just want the gear set up, and not the extra information. So I'm going to get right into the gear for each Gear Level. After that I will go over a great many things, from the basics to the advanced. So if you want to stick around and check that out, great! If not, then all the pertinent information is at the start of the guide in the Gear Sections.

If you just want the bare-bones affixes and item types needed in text format then I have created a section at the end that is specifically for Affixes and Items called "TL;DR - Just the Stats". Check that out if you want to skip over all the extra stuff.

Let's begin.

Early Game Gear: Dream of the Samurai / Strong

Before We Start
I go over in detail when you should actually start an Item Find build in the FAQ section. But to touch on it here, I don't recommend doing this until you cleared most, if not all of Dream of the Samurai, or the base game, also known as New Game. For more information please check the FAQ section.

First Step
I think the single most important early game Item Drop Rate item you should focus on getting is the Women's Face Mask Smithing Text



Which the Smithing Text drops from this lovely lady.


This head slot item rolls with an implicit affix of Item Drop Rate vs. Humans which isn't something that can naturally roll on armor. You can easily farm Nure-Onna in The Viper's Sanctum in region 1 - Awakening.

You may also just find a random Women's Face Mask as a drop or from a chest or something. That will also work in the short-term.

Umbracite
You will want use the basic Umbacite on these forthcoming crafts, I wouldn't waste your Quality Umbracite on this first set. Everything you need to hit on your gear can be achieved by spamming the normal Umbracite and re-rolling. Remember each time you re-roll a single affix, it re-rolls the out come of all affixes. So re-check each affix after each roll!

Remember you can actually craft the basic Umbracite at the Blacksmith.

Go Forge -> Tools -> Smithing Materials -> Umbracite

This just uses Umbracite Fragments which you get from using the Disassemble option on Weapons and Armor.

Second Step
What you will want to do at this point is to make gear based of your current build, or play style. On my most recent run I was doing Onmyo Magic. So I just went with Onmyo Hunting Set, which is unlocked at the blacksmith via normal progression. If you want to do Ninjitsu, then the Shinobi gear would work just fine. There are loads of options here, it's really up to you. But don't get too attached to the gear.

I highly advise against crafting anything that requires special / rare crafting materials such as Demon Horn's or One-eyed imps Clogs, with the exception of Women's Face Mask

I crafted this gear around Region 5 - Twilight. You do not need to get too fancy with this first set, It's bare bones and meant to get you into farming, or for farming a few things you really want or need for current and future builds. That's it!

Third Step - The Craft
The only thing you are after is an Exotic base item (Purple) with no Inheritables, with the following rolls;

What you want on all slots;
Item Drop Rate

What you want on your Hat
Item Drop Rate
Luck

That's really it! If you want also add Equipment Drop Rate its a good option as this allows you to get more gear that you can vendor, donate, or disassemble. Keep it simple!

Finally, make sure to craft Tenacity (Damage Over Time) and Faster Winded Recovery someplace on your gear.

Armor

Weapons

For weapons I would suggest Poison at this point in the game. You can do this by rolling Imbue Poison and Poison Accumulation on your weapon. If you want to sacrifice a roll or two on your Accessories you can get Melee Damage vs. Poisoned Enemies and even more Poison Accumulation. This can increase your damage by a substantial amount, even hard carry a build into Dream of the Demon.

Primary

Ranged

The Ranged slot is a great Item Drop Rate slot as you can get two rolls on it. Item Drop Rate, as well as Item Drop Rate vs. Humans. You only need one ranged item, as you only benefit from stats on your active melee and ranged weapons. You can craft a second weapon for Yokai if you'd like.

Accessories

You're after Luck and Item Drop Rate on both Accessories.
Note - Please ignore the level of the accessory here, as I trashed both my accessories from this initial set, and I had to re-craft some stuff for examples for the sake of the guide.

Soul Cores

Use anything that has at least one of these rolls; Item Drop Rate, Luck, Item Drop Rate vs. Humans / Yokai.

Final Stats

This is what my Item Find and Luck stats looked like at this point in the game. These stats aren't high, nor will they allow you to farm Text's and Skills super fast. However, it will probably triple, or quadruple the rate of drops compared to 0 Item Drop Rate and Luck. Even then I would only focus on things you really, really want or need. Don't go on a "Farming Rampage" with low stats like this.

I would focus on getting getting to Dream of the Strong at this point, and begin upgrading to the final form of Item Drop Rate gear.

Mid-Game Gear: Dream of the Demon

You will want to start crafting this gear as soon as you get into Dream of the Demon. I will go over in detail how to craft this in the section Divine Grace Crafting.

Disclaimer
Equipment Drop Rate will not help you farm Hidden Skills or Smithing Texts in any way. I have it on my gear because I like getting extra Equipment that I can Sell, Dissemble, or Donate. If you don't want to do this, you can roll something else in its place.

Grace / Set

The Grace we are going to focus on is Ebisu's Grace. This is the Luck / Item Find Grace.


Secondary Set - If you want to squeeze just a bit more Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai you can use both one piece of Yokai Slayer and Yokai Annihilator . Each set yields 5%, for a total of 10% Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai. This is decent increase for sacrificing two armor slots.

Armor

Make sure to craft Tenacity (Damage Over Time) and Faster Winded Recovery someplace on your gear.

A quick note about the Luck Inheritable affix. This will roll on the Head Armor only, and is pretty rare. But if you want to get super optimized then you can put Luck via an Inheritable on all five armor slots. I opted not to do this as I was going Onmyo Magic and I felt Untouched Onmyo Magic was the better route for me. I just want to make it known it is an option.

I want to reiterate that finding a Luck Inheritable on a Head Armor is pretty rare, so don't worry too much about this.

Melee Weapons

You will only benefit from the stats of your active melee weapon. Which is why one is geared for Humans, and the other is geared for Yokai.

Ranged Weapon

You will only benefit from the stats of your active ranged weapon. Which is why one is geared for Humans, and the other is geared for Yokai.

Accessories

Scroll

Soul Cores

Stats

So as you can see my stats have increased substantially from the previous set of gear. This is final form of the Item Drop Rate build, as this amount of Item Drop Rate will enable you to comfortably farm any and all Smithing Texts or Hidden Skills. If you're going after everything, then you need to be prepared as it will still be a substantial time investment. However it will be exponentially faster than attempting to farm these items without Item Drop Rate stacking.

Women's Face Mask

Finally it's important to note that if you are planning to farm the mission Winds of Ruin in Region 7 - Afterglow there is no Kodama Blessings in this region, therefore it's better to use the Women's Face Mask instead of the Kodama Bowl.

Item Drop Rate vs. Equipment Drop Rate

So what's the difference between these two affixes?

Item Drop Rate - Item Drop Rate will increases the drop rate of nearly anything you can't actually equip but can use from your Shortcut Sets or Inventory. Stacking this stat will increase your drop rate for expendables like Sacred Arrows, Clay Bell of Beckoning, the different types of Sake, Whetstones, Glue, etc. As well as the most important thing that pertains to this guide -- Smithing Texts and Hidden Skills.

Equipment Drop Rate - This stat will increase anything that you can actually equip; armor, weapons, and accessories. It's important to note that Range Weapons and Accessories have a much lower Drop rate across the board than Main Weapons and Armor.

Variations - There are variations of these affixes that will stack with the base affix type, which is very important for getting the most % of drop rate out of a certain type.

Equipment Drop Rate vs. Humans

Item Drop Rate vs. Humans

Equipment Drop Rate vs. Yokai

Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai

The only conflict these mods have is with the "Humans" & "Yokai" part of the affix. You can't have both on a a single piece of equipment, you need to choose one, or the other. So its possible to have both Item and Equipment Drop Rate for Humans or Yokai on the same piece of equipment if it allows those affix types, more on that later.

Now this last part is based off my personal experience, and there seems to be no information about this.

The boss Saito Yoshitatsu is a Shiftling, therefore both Yokai and Human drop rate affix types will apply to this enemy. If anyone has more information on this I'd be glad to update this guide. I had roughly the same drop rates of all the drops going both Yokai, and Human Item Drop Rate. This mob also has 15 total drops so it's a decent sample size.

Affixes - What Rolls on What, and Where?

Item Drop Rate - This can roll on all Armor, Accessories (all types), Soul Cores, and Scrolls naturally.

Luck - For armor, this can only roll on the Head slot naturally. However, it can roll as an inheritable so you can, if you choose, put it on all five armor slots. It will also roll naturally on all types of Accessories, Soul Cores, and Scrolls.

Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai / Humans - This can only roll on Ranged Weapons and Soul Cores naturally.

Equipment Drop Rate - This can roll on all Armor, Accessories (all types), Soul Cores, and Scrolls naturally.

Equipment Drop Rate vs. Humans - This can only roll on Ranged Weapons and Soul Cores naturally.

Equipment Drop Rate vs. Yokai - This can roll on all Armor -- except Chest --, Ranged Weapons, and Soul Cores.

Luck Bonus (Amrita Gauge) - This can only roll on Accessories (all types). Conflicts with Luck. I personally don't think this is as good as the flat +24 Luck you get on accessories, and due to conflicts, you will have to choose between them.

You do not get a numerical increase to your Luck when you have it equipped, regardless of Amrita gauge level. Much like the Luckbringer Talisman, it seems to be independent of your actual stats, at least visually.

My thoughts on this stat are as follows. This bonus starts at 0, and you probably won't get the Amrita meter beyond 20% in most missions due to it ending so quickly. I feel without buffing it yourself via Spirit Stones and the like if would never reach a value that exceeded 24 flat Luck.

There are some exceptions such as Winds of Ruin in Afterglow - Region 7 as this an amazing mission to farm, and is a Human Boss rush and you might be able to get it over halfway in this mission without having to expend resources doing so. I honestly do not know the value increases here. If anyone has done extensive testing, please let me know in the comments section, and I will gladly amend this guide.

Note -
Not all Accessories can roll all stats. However in regards to this guide everything I mentioned can, there are no conflicts with accessory types. If you want to learn more about this please consult the Nioh 2 Build Bible linked in the Resources section.

White Inheritables and Orange Inheritables

What are Inheritables?
Inheritabltes are affixes that you can transfer from one item, to another, via the Soul Match Mechanic. They come in two different types; White and Orange. In order to transfer either a White or Orange Inheritable both the item with the Inheritable, as well as the target item must be at maximum familiarity.

White Inheritable Icon -

A White Inheritable is an affix cannot be change or re-rolled via the Temper Mechanic. The only way to change a White Inheritable is with another White Inheritable via the Soul Match Mechanic. This is much less flexible than the Orange variant of Inheritables

Orange Inheritable Icon -

A Orange Ihneritable works the same way as a White Inheritabe at first. You cannot change or re-roll this while it is in its first form. However, just like the White variant you can transfer it to a new item. Once it is transferred it looses the Inheritable Icon, and then can be re-rolled as many times as you like. I tell my friends who play Path of Exile to think as Orange Inheritables as an Exalted Orb, it basically adds another affix to your item if there is room.

Both Types of Inheritables are constrained by the same conflict issues as any other item when you use the Temper mechanic. For example you can't move a Melee Damage Inheritable to a item that has Active Skill Damage, as they conflict with each other. You can however, just re-roll the Active Skill Damage off the target weapon and then you should be able to move the Melee Damage Inheritable to the target weapon. For more information on affix conflicts please refer to the Nioh 2 Build Bible in the Resources section at the end of this guide.

Also the rarity of the Material item (the item with the Inheritable) does not matter. You can transfer an inheritable from a White (Common) Item to a Divine or Ethereal. So it's worth taking a few minutes to scan for those icons before you Disassemble, Donate or Vendor your gear.

Let's take a look how this process works.

White Inheritables

Here is my base item. As you can see there are no inheritables on it.


Now I am going to transfer a White Inheritable to those boots.


Here I will showcase that you can change a White Inheritable with a different White Inheritable. Remember the Chest had Untouched Ninjutsu.

Orange Inheritables

Transferring a Orange Inheritable to a chest item that already has a White Inheritable to showcase they don't conflict.


Now as you can see with the new mod I can re-roll it via the Temper Mechanic at the Blacksmith.



That's about all there is to say about how this mechanic works. Throughout your progress through the world of Nioh 2 you will find many Inheritables, and you need to decide which are good and worth keeping and which aren't.

My Advice is as follows.

Armor
Armor Inheritable can be very powerful and flexible. Armor has mods that can only roll on certain slots, or even armor types (Light, Medium, Heavy). Armor is special in this regard because you move an Inheritable that can only appear in a specific slot, and move it to another slot that it cannot roll on. This is extremely powerful, as it allows you to stack certain stats on all your armor slots, where you otherwise could not.

For example Luck can only roll on the head slot, however it can roll there as an Inheritable. Due to this if you get (very) lucky and find a bunch of these inheritable you can put Luck on all five armor slots! However a Luck inheritable is exceptioanlly rare to find, I don't advise this even on a Item Find Build unless you have access to multiple instances of this mod.

My recommendation here is to find those Inheritables are that are exclusive to an armor slot/type and drop them in your Storehouse. Examples are the "Untouched" mods, Ammo, Ninjutsu, Onmyo. Active Skill Damage buffs that rolls on light armor hands, e.g. Sign of the Cross Damage. Life from chest slots (it rolls the highest here) and even mods like Toughness to get you over that 200 or 300 value. There are some good utility affixes such as Enemy Sensor that rolls on the head slot that might be worth using in a pinch.

Weapons
Weapons are less important because you can Temper anything that you want, with the obvious exception of Star Effects. There are no issues like there are with armor. Due to this White Inheritables are not overly important, until Dream of the Nioh when you get the Transform Bonus [STAT] mods that can roll as an Inheritable. Orange Inheritables are a different story, they basically add another affix, so keep all you find.

Remember if you cannot transfer an Inheritable be sure to check if both items are max Familiarity as well as no conflicts of stats on the target item. You have 4,000 slots of space in your Storehouse for Weapons, Armor and Cores -- Use it. It's better to have a good mods in your Storehouse than not having it and having to farm for it!

Kodama Blessing

You will want to make sure that you have all the Kodama in the region you are farming and that you set the Blessing to Hunter Blessing. Materials works for Smithing Texts, and for whatever reason it also works for Hidden Skills

If you are wanting to farm actual Equipment, then change this to Samurai Blessing.

Kodama Bowl

The Kodama Bowl is a really great Helm for an Item Drop Build, it's actually Best in Slot.

What makes it so great?
Well, as discussed before the "Hunter's Blessing" from the Kodama Shrines applies to both Smithing Texts and Hidden Skills. You get a 25% bonus from the Shrine if you've collected all the Kodama (and you should do that regardless). What makes the Helm so great is that it increases that buff by a further 28%. This is much better than the Woman's Face Mask used earlier.

So how do you get one?
There is a guaranteed way to snag yourself one and that's by doing the mission The Search in Region 1 - Awakening on Dream of the Strong and all subsequent difficulties.

If you accidentally vendor or dissemble this item you can always try to farm Revenant graves in the mission Voice in the Twilight also in in Region 1 - Awakening on Dream of the Strong.

If all else fails and you can't get one use the Woman's Face Mask, it's still a viable option.

You can actually get the Smithing Text for the Kodama Bowl, but there is some work involved. You need to clear all missions in the main game on Dream of the Strong, with the exception of the DLC and any "Online" missions. So all is not lost.

Yasakani Magatama

It's inevitable wasn't it? Pretty much every build in this game either uses this item, or this items special effect, once it starts to roll on any Accessory in Dream of the Nioh. Any build that doesn't use this effect is objectively worse.

For those of you who are not familiar with this item, what it does is lowers the set requirement by 1. If anyone has played Diablo 3, think of Ring of Royal Grandeur, but better.

A set will require you to have two pieces of a set equipped to get the first buff. However, if you have the Yasakani Magatama equipped, you now only need one piece of that set to get that buff. So if a set needs 7 pieces to get all the buffs, you now would need only 6. Obviously this is super, super strong.

And what do you know, in order to push the Item Drop Rate to it's final form you're gonna need one too! The thing is, it doesn't drop in New Game, not even in the DLC's, so you need to head to Dream of the Strong.

There are two widely accepted ways of getting this item. There is the hard way, which is guaranteed. Then there is the easy way, which is 100% RNG and Item / Equipment Drop Rate in any way, shape, or form -- will not apply.

The Hard Way

Complete 18 Missions in Dream of the Strong, as long as they are not tagged as an "Online Mission" it will work. Every mission has the same value, so a Sub-Mission or Duel is worth the same as a Main mission.

This will move the progress bar of that difficulty, gradually unlocking region after region until you finally unlock Afterglow + The DLC's. This doesn't take long, but you may not be ready for it quite yet. Once you've Unlocked Afterglow - Region 7, you can do the mission Eye of the Beholder. This is the final mission in the main game and the reward for completing this mission is the coveted Yasakani Magatama. Keep in mind, you will have to do this to get to Dream of the Demon, which is required for the final version of the Item Drop Rate setup anyway.

The Easy Way

Well easy as in you don't actually need to do much in the way of beating bosses and such, it's a simple farm. Like the hard way you're still going to need to unlock some regions, but not as many this time. You're looking to unlock Region 4 - Dawn. Here there is a mission called Abduction. When you start this mission there is a building with two Gaki, and one One-Eyed Imp. They are surrounding a body that has an item on it. This item is always an accessory. It's completely random what rarity or type you get, but each mission you get two shots at a Yasakani Magatama.

First kill the three mobs, Shikigami's work great, but it's up to you how you want to dispatch them. Faster the better. Once they are dead, check the corpse. If a Divine item doesn't pop out just ignore it and go to the Shrine. If it's Divine, see what it is, but don't pick it up unless it's the Yasakani Magatama.

If it's not what you want, go back to the Shrine and repeat the process. You can now pick up whatever drops here on the second attempt because if you reset at the Shrine again nothing will pop out of the body.

Don't get what you want? Divine Branch Fragment out and do it over, and, over, and over, and over... You get the point. The first time I did this method it took three+ hours, so yeah.

Here is a link to PWARGaming's video on this method if you want a visual representation of the farm. Yasakani Magatama Farm

It's up to you which way you decide to go, but either way you need to unlock Dream of the Demon as well as get a Yasakani Magatama. You really don't need this item to progress through Dream of the Strong, so I would honestly just do the 18 missions and be done with both steps.

Corrupted Affix on a Non-Corrupted Weapon

I'm sure some people are reading this section and are like "What does this even mean?" There are so many mechanics in this game it can be overwhelming.

A Corrupted weapon is any weapon that has the affix "Imbue Corruption." They will have an extra bar below the Familiarity bar called "Sentience."

Corrupted weapons have a unique property exclusive that weapon type, which is you can Soul Match using Soul Cores.

So what you can do, is take an Inheritable from a Soul Core, and move it to a Corrupted weapon. Soul Cores have many exclusively unique affixes not found elsewhere. So by doing this you can create some pretty neat stuff. One such affix type that can role as an Inheritable on a Soul Core are Item and Equipment drop rates of all types.

Equipment Drop Rate vs. Humans

Item Drop Rate vs. Humans

Equipment Drop Rate vs. Yokai

Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai

These can roll as both White and Orange Inheritable, but the ones we need for this specific method are White Inheritables.

However, if you want to use a Corrupted weapon for your build then Orange Inheritables are just fine. Let's take a look at the process.

Step #1
Craft a Corrupted Weapon, it doesn't matter which weapon type, or rarity. Get the Familiarity to max via Whetstones.




Step #2
Find a Soul Core that has a White Inheritable that you want to put on your weapon, in our case Item Drop Rate related. And Soul Match it with the Corrupted Weapon




Step #3
Re-Max Familiarity on Corrupted Weapon, as well as the Weapon you want to have the new affix on. Then use the Corrupted weapon as a Material and Soul Match it to the Non-Corrupted Weapon.


Step #4
Enjoy your new Item Drop Rate Weapon!

Guardian Spirit and Soul Cores

Guardian Spirit

On your first set of Gear you're probably just going to use whatever Spirit you'd use in normal play.

Ultimately though you will want to get Itokuri. This is "Luck" Guardian Spirit.



However in order to get this Guardian Spirit you need to complete a few extra missions.

First you need to beat the main mission Prevading Waters in Region 4 - Dawn.

You will also need to complete the Dojo Mission - Master of the Dual Blades which requires 120,000 proficiency in Dual Swords.

Proficiency is based on the level of the enemy you hit -- not kill. So getting 120k Is much easier than you think it would be. Just go to the highest level available, go to the first enemy you find, beat it up with the best Dual Swords you have, then refresh at the starting Shrine - Repeat. If you for some reason have a Wooden Dual Sword, even better! As Wooden weapons increases the rate in which you gain proficiency.

This Unlocks the mission Masters of the Three Evils - Region 4 - Dawn. Which is a Duel with Matsunaga Hisahide. Beat him and you get the Guardian Spirit Itokuri.

Your secondary Guardian Spirit is whatever you'd like.

Soul Cores

The Soul Cores you want to look out for is anything that either has Item Drop Rate, Item Drop Rate vs. Humans, or Luck. If you can get two of those on a single core, you've scored. If you're farming for Equipment then you will want to look for the various types of Equipment Drop Rate and Luck.

It's actually more important to have the affixes on the Core, rather than a specific Core. If you manage find something good on a Core you enjoy, even better. But if you find a Dweller with Luck and Item Drop Rate, use that. Just find two or three cores with the aforementioned affixes, depending on where you are in progression.

Be on the constant lookout for upgrades for your Soul Cores. Getting three rolls on a single core, regardless of the core is the dream. Remember you can use the "Soul Fusion" Mechanic at the Shrine in the Soul Cores menu to merge two of the same Soul Cores. This is how you can move and Inheritable from one Soul Core to another. This will also increase the level of the Soul Core which increases the power of the affixes.

Don't go to hard on looking for perfect Soul Cores as you will eventually just switch to 100% Equipment Drop Rate vs. Yokai for the endgame anyway.

Soul Core Fusion

Below I want to go over how this mechanic works. When you go to a Shrine you can access this menu.


In this menu you can actually merge same type cores together. For example you can merge a Gaki Soul Core with another Gaki Soul Core. But you can't merge a Gaki Soul Core with an Enki Soul Core. The only exception to this is Mortal Cores which are used to change the base type of a core to something else. Like a Brute Core to a Feral Core.

Here I am merging Aberrant Solider Cores together.



In this window you will notice I am actually merging five Aberrant Solider Cores at a time into the target core. Many people don't know you can do this.




When you do this it is possible that you will actually have multiple Inheritables. This is something I didn't learn for a very long time. You can actually choose the outcome you want by hitting the RT Button on your controller.




Before you chose you can see what you will get when you fuse the cores. It's also important to note that on the left side in the lime colored box I've highlighted how where it tells you how many cores are being fused in this fusion.




Here is the final outcome I chose.

Kodama Soul Core

This is a very special Soul Core, as like with the Kobama Bowl Hat, it will increase the Kodama Blessing buff. Which ends up being better than most other options for Item / Equipment Find at it's base level without a single mod than a Sould Core with one relevant mod. If you find one with Luck or another Item / Equipment Drop Rate mod, you've scored!

In order to find this Soul Core you need to seek out Sudama, the purple Kodamas that you can trade with. Here you will want to drop any Soul Core, and there is chance it'll drop you the Soul Core of a Kodama in exchange.

Tea Sets and Clans

Tea Set

Don't neglect your Tea Set in your Hut. Set it to "Splendor is the Highest". Winds of Ruin in Afterglow - Region 7 is a super quick way to farm Tea Sets.

Clans

There are three main "Luck" based Clans.
Gamo - Gives you + Luck
Araki - Gives you + Luck while in a Critical state (low life).
Hosokawa - Gives you + Luck% Enemy Killed

Those Clans are fine and all, but I personally wouldn't choose any of them.

This is reasoning I have for why I wouldn't choose a Luck-Based Clan, or a Big Clan.

1.) You're probably not going to be Item / Equipment finding all the time. You also lose half of your total Clan Favor each time you change Clans.

2.) Clan Treasured Tea Set - Depending on how much you donate each week you can get a special fifth Tea Set item that will increase the bonuses from a Tea Set, which buffs you get to take advantage of for the next week. In order to get one of these you need to be pretty highly ranked in donations in your Clan. This is much easier to do in a smaller clan than it is to do in one of the big clans like Honda or Toyotomi. For a few reason, the bigger clans have more players, and those player are donating more. In turn you'd have to grind pretty hard to get this bonus.

The other huge problem, at least on PC, is that some players in those big clans just use Cheat Engine to give themselves like 11.5 million favor at the start of each week. This makes it even more unlikley you will get a Treasured Tea Set each week.

So I would suggest being in a smaller clan, as long as it works for your build mind you, this is a better way to go to make sure you get that fifth tea set each week. It's not the end of the world by any means if you don't get it, but every little bit helps.

Onmyo and Ninjutsu

Onmyo Magic

Luckbringer Talismans - Regardless of whether or not you intended to use Onmyo Magic this is a must to get. It only requires five points to unlock it at Tier III.

Ninjutsu

Sneak Thief - This skill doesn't pertain to farming Smithing Texts and Hidden Skills - at all. I wanted to add it as it's a late-game ability that just gives you an extra loot item. I got a Bow with Marici's Grace using this skill, so yeah, it's in my "mandatory farming kit" solely due to that lol.

This is accessed pretty early, after you've unlocked Sneak Attack in the Ninjutsu tree and complete the Dojo Mission - The Way of the Warrior: Adept.

Advanced Shiftling Tree Mechanics

These are upgrades that reside in the Shiftling Tree. Due to there being so many near-mandatory skill points in this tree I am putting this in different category.

Mercenary Strike
This is the first of the three advanced skills you will want to get. This is a Custom Active Skill setting.



Mercenary Strike will give you a flat 10% increased Item Drop Rate when you kill an enemy with selected Active Skill. I would recommend something that is in your regular skill rotation, i.e. an Active Skill you like to use, and isn't difficult to land a hit on a target. It will take some practice, but you will want to kill the enemy you are farming with the skill you attach Mercenary Strike to.

I would 100% have this unlocked by the time you are on your second gear upgrade.

Once you allocate this ability, you can then access these skills in Skill Customization window. Scroll down to a mapped Active Skill, and press X or Square depending on controller type. You can then set this ability to your preferred skill.

You'd be surprised how many people have no idea this is even a mechanic in the game, which is why I over-explained it. Now to double down on that with pictures!






The final two are late-game upgrades. I wouldn't even worry about these until you are farming Dark Realm areas in the Underworld, but I wanted to add them to be as thorough as possible. Dark Realm Farming is where you will primarily be farming in the end game. Any little bit helps, but again, this isn't anything I'd worry about until much later. However if you are fighting a Yokai enemy, and you kill it in a Dark Realm this will 100% apply.

Dark Aucumen
This increases drop rates of Items by 3% at rank II while in the Dark Realm.




Silver Lining
This increases luck by 10 when in the Dark Realm at Rank III

Divine Grace Crafting

Once you manage to get yourselves in to Dream of the Demon new Graces become available, including Ebisu's Grace which is the one we're after.

Step #1 - Preparation

Before you get going on this I would advise that you get at least 10 million gold or so, it sounds like a lot but it's really not. You will want at least 200-300 Divine Fragments to be on the safe side. At this point in the game you probably don't have a lot of Patronage Skill points unlocked at the Blacksmith (you will soon enough lol) so crafting is pretty expensive. As for Divine Fragments we're going to try to stretch them out as much as possible by not using 10 per craft.

For ideas on how to quickly get money and other resources, check out the FAQ at the end of this guide.

Step #2 - Gear Selection

The first step you need to do is figure out what slots are you going to craft. Your Helmet is already taken, its either the Woman's Face Mask, or better yet the Kodama Bowl. Either way, you know what your hat is going to be.

It's vital that you get the full seven piece set of Ebisu's Grace, so that will require six pieces of gear because you got yourself the Yasakani Magatama.

Are you going to use the one piece Yokai Slayer and Yokai Annihilator as well? If so that's eight slots taken.

Did you clear all of Dream of the Strong and unlock the Smithing Text for the Kodama Bowl? If so you can craft one so Ebisu's Grace is on that. If not, you're running a Grace-less helmet, which is fine but you need to account for this.

Are you running an actual set with set bonuses? Is it possible to incorporate it into the gear set? If not, there might be an alternative.

For example; I am running an Onmyo Magic Build, my main build uses the Genmei Onmyo Set (Spirit of Seimei). However it's simply not possible to work that set into this set up. So I decided, that just using the Onmyo Hunting set would work fine. It has no set bonuses, but each slot gives me Onmyo Magic. I can also roll Ebisu's Grace on the Onmyo Hunter's Set so it's a win/win for me. I could then easily work in one piece Yokai Slayer and Yokai Annihilator as well.

You may need to think outside the box. remember that you have two melee weapons, and two ranged weapons to work with. Set bonuses still work even on the non-active weapons.

Is what you're going to craft require a rare crafting material like a Demon's Horn? If so do you have enough? Do you have enough Glory to buy them from the Hidden Teahouse? Or are you wiling to farm them?

My suggestion is to not use anything that requires a Rare Material. It's an extra step that can be very costly or time consuming. If you decide you want move forward with an item that requires a Rare Material, you need to be very aware of this. You may want to reconsider after reading through the crafting process section below

Ultimately you don't need to be super powerful right? You're going to be farming Normal Difficulty with gear and character levels based in Dream of the Demon. Keep this in mind. I rarely even use my magic with my set up, I just beat everyone to death with my Tonfas nearly instantly.

Crafting Criteria

Alright now you've figured out what slots you need to make, so let's get crafting.

As I mentioned before we're only going to use one Divine Fragment per craft, instead of the normal 10.

Why is this? Well you need to understand we need to hit multiple perfect crafts. While not overly difficult to do, you can burn through your Divine Fragments super fast.

10 Fragments gives you an 86% chance to get a Divine Item.
1 Fragment gives you a 49% chance to get a Divine Item.

What we need to hit is as follows;

1.) A Divine Rarity item
2.) The correct Grace - Ebisu's Grace
3.) An item without any Inhertables

Any one of those is easy, but all three? Keep in mind you need to craft at least six items that fit this criteria. If you have 300 Divine Fragments, using 10 Fragments per craft, you have 30 Crafts to hit 6 items. Or 8 if you want to get the two Yokai Sets. Yeah, I'll take the 300 attempts with the nearly 50% chance at a Divine per craft.

This is another reason crafting items that require a rare material is much more risky, it's not cost effective to not use 10 fragments when you are also using a rare material.

You can opt out of trying to not get an inheritable on your gear, but this can potentially limit flexibility. For example; let's say you get something that doesn't apply to your build at all. You are now stuck with that inheritable until you can find a different one that does apply to your build and Soul Match it to swap inheritables. This is up you, based on what you can afford, or roll. Just know this step isn't 100% necessary.

Crafting Cost Example

Ok I'm going with a Ninja's Tonfa for this example;
I did this craft three times, with three different values to give you a clearer understanding of why I decided to go with 1 Divine Fragment opposed to 10.

First craft I used 1 Fragment per craft. It took 30 attempts to get the required result. At a cost of 30 Divine Fragments.

Second craft I used 5 Fragments per craft. It took 25 attempts to get the required result. At a cost of 125 Divine Fragments.

Third craft I used 10 Fragments per craft. It took 33 attempts to get the required result. At a cost of 330 Divine Fragments.

RNG can be RNG - however using 10 Fragments would have bankrupted us on our first craft. You don't lose much when you forge a Rare or Exotic item with 1 Divine Fragment, but when you brick a craft with max Divine Fragments, you lose 10. This adds up incredibly fast.

A Craft From Start To Finish

Starting off this is the craft I made that hit everything I needed. Divine Rarity, correct Grace, and no Inheritable.


Creating a Corrupted Weapon and putting a Soul Core Inheritable on it.


Transferring that Corrupted Mod to my new Tonfa.


Corrupted Mod on my Tonfa.


Now I am adding an Orange Inheritable to my Tonfa


Tempering on Affixes I want on my Tonfa.


Soul Matching so the Tonfa is +1 so I will be able to use the Remodel option.


Remodeling the Tonfa so it now scales primarily from DEX for my build. It went from D+ to A- Scaling.


The Final Product

So from here you will want to repeat this process until you have a 7 piece bonus of Ebisu's Grace. From there you can either craft both Yokai Slayer and Yokai Annihilator for those two set bonuses, or do something else.

Temper all the gear to you liking, getting the affixes I go over in the Mid-Game Gear: Dream of the Demon section above. You're basically good to go after that!

White and Orange Inheritables will come with time, just keep an eye out for them. You will eventually be able to fill up all you Affix slots on your armor and melee weapons. Ranged weapons aren't all that important since you can actually Temper everything you want.

If you want a lot of gear quickly, make sure you have the Equipment Drop Rate rolls on your gear and hit up Winds of Ruin in Region 7 - Afterglow. You'll be swimming in gear. Just check those items for Inheritables!

Item Find - Beyond Dream of the Demon

After you've farmed all the Smithing Text and Hidden Skills the uses for Item Drop Rate begins to wane. You'll still be getting loads of random expendable items but the sacrifice to sustain these drops outweighs any actual benefit.

Moving forward Item Drop Rate gives way to Equipment Drop Rate. Especially when Dream of the Wise opens up and you get access to new Graces, which are more difficult to craft -- and yes, you can craft them --. As well as new affixes on accessories called Lucky Drop.

I would personally not worry too much about Equipment farming outside of getting your new Grace once you get into Dream of the Wise. I would just wait until you've unlocked Dream of the Nioh, and started delving into the Underworld. At this point an upgrade to Ebisu's Grace is available. This is Sukunahikona's Grace, which is exclusively found via trading with the Large Sudama in Dream of the Nioh. You will need to drop at least one Grace to utilize this. However the benefit to this is as follows;

Fulls set yields: +100 Luck, Equipment Drop Rate 20%, Ethereal Drop Rate AAA.

You will find much more Ethereal items using this set. What this does is as long as you are wearing the correct armor / weapon bases you want your main Grace to be on in combination with Lucky Drop Armor/Weapon accessories you will have a much higher chance of getting better rolls on the bases you need.

You would ideally roll the stats on this set very much like the previous Item Find builds to maximize drops. You'd also swap any Item Drop rolls on Weapons and Soul Cores to Equipment Drop Rate geared to Yokai, as that's what you farm in Dark Realms. Finally you would want to find a floor of the Underworld that has at least one good Dark Realm to farm to increase drops further. There are quite a few, getting better the deeper you go, but that is outside the scope of this guide.

Needless to say I will not be going over Equipment Drop Rate Farming in this guide as it's pretty much an entirely different subject that is more end-game oriented, and this guide is much longer than I had initially intended it to be. I may look into making a guide that covers that topic in the future, if there is interest, and I have time. It really depends on how well this guide does.

I just want to finally add that this step isn't needed. You can clear all the floors of the Underworld and Depths with a decent set of gear and a well rounded build, and/or skilled gameplay. Going hard on farming is for people like myself who focus more on gear than actually clearing the content. The gear is the proverbial carrot on this stick for us. It's like finding that perfect gun with all the right parts in Borderlands, or that perfectly rolled Tier 1 Unique in Path of Exile. You don't need it, but once you find it, it's like you've won the game.

Is Farming Smithing Texts Even Worth It?

The argument I hear a lot is that it's simply a waste of your time to farm Smithing Texts because crafting isn't worth it once you get into Dream of the Wise / Nioh or the Underworld / Depths.

While it is 100% accurate that the best affixes are Star affixes that are forge / drop only. Hitting that perfect craft is nearly impossible, as you can't temper these affixes. The counter argument to that is, it's also nearly impossible to find that perfect drop.

Ethereal items and Ethereal Graces also cannot be crafted, which is another reason many people completely disregard crafting at the end-game.

But that's not actually accurate.

Wait, hold on, they can be crafted?

Yes actually, you can 100% craft Ethereal Graces.

Let's go over this process in the next section!

Crafting Ethereals & Etheral Graces

Team Ninja added a very specific pair of affixes called - Rarity Inheritance and Grace Inheritance. These two mods can be used as a material via Soul Match at the Blacksmith. These affixes are very powerful options and you should hang on to both types whenever you find them. Drop them in your Storehouse in the Hut!

The Rarity Inheritance affix can change the rarity of the targeted item to whatever the rarity is on the item that has this mod. So if the item that has Rarity Inheritance mod is Ethereal, you can then upgrade a different item to Ethereal. Which is great! You can take a Divine Item you've forged, and upgrade it's rarity to Ethereal using this method while retaining all the mods you've tempered!

Rarity Inheritance Example:

Here is my Divine Weapon I forged that I want to Upgrade to Ethereal


This is the Ethereal item that has the Rarity Inheritance affix that I will use as a material.


Final Result

Grace Inheritance Example:

While the Grace Inheritance affix can add, or change a Grace, to the Grace that's currently on the item that has Grace Inheritance.

Once again, the sword I just upgraded from Divine to Ethereal


The weapon that has Grace Inheritance that I will use a material.


The Warning that pops up before you Soul Match. It's important to keep this on as you do not need to have max familiarity in order to change the Grace for this type of Soul Match transfer. I've lost a good Grace when spamming Soul Match to level up +Levels. Don't make the same mistake!


This is the final result of the transfer of the new Grace to the sword I crafted from scratch. Now to work on Tempering some better Affixes!


So what this means is you can Forge an item from the Set/Type you want, then upgrade it to Ethereal, and finally add the Grace you need. Is this going to be a best in slot option? No, but it's a great start to have the Set you want upgraded to Ethereal. Or the Grace you need, on the actual base item you want. Then continue farm using the Lucky Drop mechanic.

Upgradeing Base Set Items

Once you make it into Dream of the Nioh you can then upgrade a base set to the "+" version by simply Soul Matching a drop of the same set since it's already Ethereal. Example below

Here is a set of Flying Kato's Gauntles, still in the "Base Version" set of Master of Illusion. This version is craftable from the Smithing Text.


Here is a dropped version of Flying Kato's Greaves that have the Dream of the Nioh exclusive upgraded "+" version set bonus of Master of Illusion +. This version gives the set an extra 5 piece bonus.


You will notice now when Soul Matching the Greaves into the Gauntlets the Gauntlets now are upgraded from the normal set version to the "+" version.

It's important to note that this will not work by using an level 190+ Ethereal item of a different set. It needs to be a level 190+ Dream of the Nioh drop of the same set. Also Rarity Inheritance will not increase the Set to a "+" version, even it the base item is level 190+.

Using this method you can quickly upgrade your base set to the "+" version if you are utilizing Lucky Drop Armor / Weapon as soon as you get into Dream of the Nioh.

Conclusion

Utilize both crafted gear in tandem with Lucky Drop is a great method of getting a build with the new Graces up and going as soon as you can when entering Dream of the Wise, and again in Dream of the Nioh as shown above. You can also incorporate Equipment Drop Rate on this new gear to increase the chances of getting increased drops with potentially better affixes with Lucky Drop.

For many people, especially Path of Exile, Diablo 1&2, or Borderlands players, the farm is the main driving force behind these games.

Crafting your gear gives you a powerful leg up on the farming process!

To further expand on how powerful this mechanic is, you can quite literally clear the entire game --Underworld/Depths and all-- from the items you craft at the start of Dream of the Wise. You do not need to have god-tier, best in slot items to do this. As long as you crafted decent items, that works with a well-rounded build, then continue to Soul Match the Level and +Level you will be fine.

I cannot emphasis enough on how powerful the Blacksmith mechanic is in this game. Anyone who states otherwise is objectively wrong on this topic. Anyone who tells you that you can't craft Ethereals, please direct them to this section of this guide.

I may create a Blacksmith Guide in the future as there seems to be a lot of confusion, misinformation, and general lack of information on how powerful the Blacksmith mechanic is.

FAQ

Below are some questions I've seen and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

What Difficult Should I Farm Skills / Texts On?

Dream of the Samurai, also known as New Game, or the first difficulty. There is absolutely no reason to ever farm for Smithing Texts or Hidden Skills on higher difficulties unless you just want a bigger challenge. The drop rates are the same for New Game as they are for Dream of the Nioh.

Should I Farm Dojo Missions?

Short answer - No
Long answer - I'm sure if you've looked over the Item Drop Rate gear in this guide and noticed that a lot of Item Drop Rate is on items that aren't actually your Armor, Accessories, or Scroll. Remember, when you do a Dojo Mission the only thing you bring in that's from your gear, is those three slots.

So you lose your Weapon, Ranged Weapon - which is huge! Guardian Spirit, therefore all three Soul Cores, all Buffs and Offensive Jutsu. You're also gimped, using a wooden weapon and forced to use the Jutsu they give you -- if any at all! Kodama Blessings are also not active in these missions.

So no, it's simply not worth it at all. If you really, really, really want to get that one Smithing Text just a little bit early just know you will spend about five times as long as you would had you just waited instead of farming the Dojo Mission.

Remember: You do not need a build for the first play through!

If you need to farm the Dojo Masters listed below;
Tsukahara Bokuden
Sakata Kintoki
Shisenin Kosen
Kato Danzo
Ashikaga Yoshiteru
Hattori Hanzo
Mumyo

Then your best bet is to run the mission Winds of Ruin in Region 7 - Afterglow. This mission just so happens to have every single one of them all in one place! With their entire loot pool intact!

I Need Glory, Money and Divine Fragments What Do I Do?

Did someone mention Winds of Ruin in Region 7 - Afterglow?



Seriously, you can get a lot of loot quickly spamming this mission especially if you've rolled Equipment Drop Rate on your Item Drop Rate gear. The first thing you want to do with the loot is to always check for Inheritables, White and Orange. After that you can alternate Selling to Toyo, Dissembling, or Donating to the Teahouse. You also get a lot of Tea sets naturally in this mission that you can donate or sell. Also, you can donate -- everything -- to the Teahouse, not just the stuff your clan is asking for. You can get Glory pretty fast doing this.

As mentioned before there are no Kodama in this region, so it's better to opt for the Women's Face Mask instead of the Kodama Bowl if you intend on farming this mission.

A second option would be farming Revenants in Voice in the Twilight in Region 1 - Awakening on Dream of the Strong/Demon. You can get loads of Divines and Glory this way. Once you kill all of them, reset the graves at the shrine and repeat.

To Yokai Shift or not to Yokai Shift?

Full Disclosure - I am not a fan of Yokai Shift. Like Living Weapon in Nioh 1, it's just not something I am a fan of. That being said, I understand the power of this mechanic.

Soul Cores can roll with Drop Rate Increases for Yokai and Humans, for Equipment and Item in large % values, such as 10%+. I feel the resources required to get you into Yokai Shift when farming a single enemy may not be worth that % increase it provides. I could be wrong, I've never tested this, nor do I intend to due to how I feel about this specific mechanic. It's definitely not worth it early game or later without significant investment.

If anyone wants to add a comment or opinion on this, please let me know in the comment section below.

Which Weapon Type Should I Use?

My simple answer - Which ever you enjoy most!

Here is an answer that is as a bit more involved.

For Human boss enemies, which you will be farming a lot, Fists and Tonfas are generally regarded as the best. That's not so say the others are bad, but those two really seem to shine. So my Human weapon would be either of those.

For Yokai it's really up to you. I used Dual Swords because they are my favorite weapon. But personally I'd use whatever fits your build best for stat scaling the damage.

It's important to note that the Barbarian's Hatchet has an Item Drop Rate implicit, so this could be one of the best weapons to use for Item Find.



However it's smithing text is dropped, so you will need to farm it. It drops from multiple locations, such as Saito Yoshitatsu, Otakemaru, Kamaitachi, among others.

Does Item / Equipment Drop Rate Apply to Chests?

No, it will not effect chests or loot-able objects. It only works from killing enemies.

How Much Luck Do We Want In This Setup?

This build is shooting for roughly 200-220 Luck, this isn't a big investment. If you keep your Tea Set updated you'll be fine. If you're also donating enough to get the Treasured Tea set each week, that's just extra. Basically, get Luck rolls on your hat, and both accessories which is +59 Luck on your gear, you're good.

Don't You Need Over 400 or 500 Luck to See Any Difference?

No, this is such a ridiculous claim and I wish it would just go away.

1.) Team Ninja wouldn't put a stat in the game at such low values per roll, per item, if it requires 500+ value to even be worth using. The math literally doesn't add up. Remember Critical Luck and Yokai Shift Luck do not stack! So getting 500+ is unrealistic without a massive investment, as well as an end-game Grace set. So ask yourself, why would a game developer put a basic stat in the game that only works at near-unrealistic values?

3.) All research I've done has shown that this myth was created from someone in Nioh 1 using Cheat Engine to manipulate Luck to absurd levels to see what would happen. Somehow, someway, this was lost in translation, and people took this as you actually need absurd Luck values to see a difference. Thus the myth was created, and has remained.

3.) You can literally debunk this myth yourself by running setup with 0 Luck, vs. 200 Luck and observe the differences yourself.

Luck Only Applies To Getting More Star Effects On Gear

I have no idea who started this rumor, but it's pretty silly. Remember Luck is a stat that's in the Base Game. Star effects only start appearing in the first DLC, which is Dream of the Demon. Ask yourself; why would a stat exist that does nothing until the first DLC?

Luck does increase the amount of star effects drops have, but it also affects many other things including getting more drops. Luck by definition is an enigmatic stat in pretty much any game ever. As stated in the last question, you can see the difference if you run 0 Luck vs. 200 Luck.

FAQ Part II

When Can I Start Farming?

Technically you can start farming at the beginning of the game, there is nothing is really stopping you from doing so other than resources to craft the right affixes.

That being said, the best time to start farming Texts/Skills is when you've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stronger than the enemy or enemies that drop them. You will want to faceroll them as quickly as possible to increase farming times.

If it takes you 5+ minutes to kill the target it might not be worth your time to do it just yet. This is another reason why I don't suggest farming Dojo Missions.

I need to make this very clear, Dream of the Samurai -- or New Game -- is designed so you don't really have to worry about sets, gear, builds, whatever. You can literally pick up whatever you want off the ground and do 100% of the game +DLC's. The DLC's will be difficult but it's very doable.

Bigger Damage - regardless of rarity, and you will be good to go.

Better Defense - regardless of rarity, and you will be good to go.

If I were a new player I personally would clear most, if not all of Dream of the Samurai, aka New Game before I started an Item Drop Build. This does not include the DLC mind you, just the main game.

That's really all there is too it early game. But if you're really want to start early I will give you some suggestions.

I tend to break up my farming in a few different times. I've played through this games a few times and I love the Item hunt. However knowing when to start the item farm is important.

For example -- Region 3, Shadow -- is where the first sets of Duels happen. These will probably be your first "farms" as they are a "duel" type missions. Duel missions are by far the most efficient ways of farming something. While obviously this isn't always possible, it's always best to do these mission types for a specific drop, if it is an option.

Anyway, I would probably clear Region 4 (Dawn) or even Region 5 (Twilight) before I even think about farming Region 3, Shadow.

There are a coupe reasons for this.

First, this will give you a chance to stock up on Umbracite to Temper, and Resources and Money to Forge.

Second, this will give you the chance to get higher levels and better gear. The Stronger you are, the easier the farm is. I cannot emphasis this enough.

Finally, I wouldn't really worry about farming anything you don't actually need at this point in the game. What's the point of farming the Obsidian Samurai if he has zero drops you would use this early? Farming gets faster, and easier the further into the game you get.

However, if you are hell bent on a build this early make sure you choose something realistic. Something that you can reasonably farm, without a lot of trouble. If you need to farm someone like Minamoto no Yorimitsu from DLC 2 for your build... All I can says is, yeah, good luck with that buddy.

TL;DR - Just the Stats

Disclaimer

Equipment Drop Rate will not help you farm Hidden Skills or Smithing Texts in any way. I have it on my gear because I like getting extra Equipment that I can Sell, Dissemble, or Donate. If you don't want to do this, you can roll something else in its place.

Grace / Set

7 piece Ebisu's Grace - Work around any existing Set you are running. This is a case by case basis, depending on what else you're running. You will 100% want to drop any base set slots to ensure you get the seven piece bonus of Ebisu's Grace.

If you want to squeeze just a bit more Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai you can use both one piece of Yokai Slayer and Yokai Annihilator . Each set yields 5%, for a total of 10% Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai. This is decent increase for sacrificing two armor slots.

Armor

As per usual - make sure to get the affixes Tenacity (Damage Over Time) and Faster Winded Recovery someplace on your gear.

Helm
Base - Kodama Bowl or Women's Face Mask
Luck
Inheritable - Build Oriented / Any
Item Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate

Chest
Base - Any
Inheritable - Luck / Build Oriented / Any
Item Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate

Arms/Gloves
Base - Any
Inheritable - Luck / Build Oriented / Any
Item Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate

Legs
Base - Any, or either Yokai Slayer or Yokai Annihilator
Inheritable - Luck / Build Oriented / Any
Item Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate

Feet
Base - Any, or either Yokai Slayer or Yokai Annihilator
Inheritable - Luck / Build Oriented / Any
Item Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate

Note - the Luck Inheritable can be changed to whatever you like or need. I personally did Untouched Onmyo Magic on mine. I just want to make it known it is an option. However finding a Luck Inheritable on a Head Armor is pretty rare, so don't worry too much about this.

Main Weapons

Weapons require you to Soul Match a Soul Core with an Inheritable to a Corrupted Weapon. you can then transfer that inheritable to a non-Corrupted Weapon. You will only receive the stats on the Active weapon. This is why one is geared for Humans, and one is geared for Yokai. Switch weapons based on what you are killing.

Weapon #1
Base - Any
Item Drop Rate vs. Humans
Attack Bonus [Any]

Weapon #2
Base - Any
Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai
Attack Bonus [Any]

Ranged Weapons

As is the case with melee weapons, you will only receive the stats on the Active Ranged weapon. This is why one is geared for Humans, and one is geared for Yokai. Switch weapons based on what you are killing.

Ranged Weapon #1
Base - Any
Item Drop Rate
Item Drop Rate vs. Humans
Equipment Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate vs. Humans

Ranged Weapon #2
Base - Any
Item Drop Rate
Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai
Equipment Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate vs. Yokai

Scroll

You're at the mercy of the game here but you will want at least one of the following stats:
Luck
Item Drop Rate

Optional
Equipment Drop Rate

Guardian Spirit

Itokuri

Soul Cores

This depends if you are focusing on Item Drop Rate or Equipment Drop Rate. You will want three Soul Cores with at least one of the following stats;

Luck
Item Drop Rate
Item Drop Rate vs. Yokai
Equipment Drop Rate
Equipment Drop Rate vs. Yokai

If you want to go the Shiftling route you can get Shiftling variants of many of the above stats. That is out of the scope of this guide however.

Tea Set

Set to Splendor is the Highest

Clan

Gamo, Araki, or Hosokawa or whatever you want to run. This isn't overly important in the grand scheme of things.

Resources

Nioh 2 Build Bible[docs.google.com]

Nioh 2 Soul Core List and Stats Table[docs.google.com]

Smith Text and Hidden Skill Guide[docs.google.com]

PWARGaming's Yasakani Magatama Farm

All credit for above guides goes to the Guide Authors and the Nioh 2 Community

Thanks for reading and Happy Hunting!

Updates, Edits, and Thanks!

If this guide has helped you in any way, please like, favorite and share! Thanks!

Any errors found in this guide please leave a comment and I will amend the guide and give you credit!

*1-5-23 - Added more information in the Item Find - Beyond Dream of the Demon, Is Farming Smithing Texts Even Worth It?, as well as FAQ Part I sections.

*1-27-23 - Added information on the Barbarian's Hatchet in the FAQ section. Credit to /r/DezoPenguin.

*3-17-23 - Added some more information at the end of Is Farming Smithing Texts Even Worth It? section.

*3-18-23 - Separated Farming Smithing Texts Even Worth It? and added a new section Crafting Ethereals and Ethereal Graces. In order to bring more attention to this process, as there is a lot of misinformation out there stating this process isn't possible.

[Tirpitz721]

The Blacksmith is the single most powerful mechanic in this game. The level of control players have to craft their builds is insane. Yet most guides tell people to ignore it...

Anyway I hope this long-winded explanation answers your questions.

[Tirpitz721]

Sorry for the rant.

To your question specifically. Magic is the determining factor for damage, as well as duration for Onmyo buffs and debuffs. Duration has break points, and for the life of me I can't remember what they are, I think there are 2 or 3 major breakpoints. Magic also determines damage bonuses for any weapons that scale with Magic i.e. Switchglaive.

Re-rolling a Yasakani Magatama is only really needed when farming specific Graces on it, which is something you do once you get into the final difficulty for the most part. This also requires some minor save scumming as to not brick the item. I have a very long reddit post on this method someplace, though I no longer go to reddit... I didn't go over this because I was trying to focus on Item Find only, and it got a bit bloated. Had I finished my Blacksmith guide the goal was the cannibalize part of this guide and move it over to the new guide to make it more succinct.

[Tirpitz721]

@Doctor William Von Tacos – Multi post incoming due to character restrictions.

Haven't touched Nioh 2 in over two years. I was nearly done with the Comprehensive Blacksmith guide but decided I didn't have time to finish it, nor was there the interest for said guide. I've found that the Nioh community is very resistant when it comes to learning things that goes against how they think things work. Example - the narrative is you can't craft Ethereal items. I explain you can, and give step-by-step methods on how to do it, with pictures, and they still disagree with me lol. I've even had people tell me the Item Find information in this guide is wrong. When I asked for sources to back up their claim, they didn't have any, but only they "heard" it works differently...

[Doctor William Von Tacos]

im asking because in general this is just a really good guide for crafting, you might wanna also include the fact big Kodamas can reroll your Yasakani Magatama

[Doctor William Von Tacos]

I do got a question for ya, do you know what all boosts Oyomo magic damage with abilities? I know Ninjusu has the kunai damage up. I figured elemental damage but what about stuff like Luminous Blade?

[Tirpitz721]

@Doctor William Von Tacos - Glad I was able to help!

[Doctor William Von Tacos]

this genuinely taught me thinks I didn't know, like using orange items to just add more affix's to an item. That's pretty good!

[.]

[慢生活]

great

[Tirpitz721]

@ Hermitkrab No problem, I hope it helps!