/ng/ Beginner's Guide 4.0

1. This isn't Dark Souls. You'll only be hurting yourself by constantly comparing it to and playing it like Dark Souls.

2. This one is one of the most important tips. Learn to Ki Pulse and Flux. Fluxing gives you more Ki than a normal Ki pulse so it's almost like you did damage without expending any Ki. Do NOT only use the dodge Ki pulse, it teaches bad habits and the dodge itself consumes Ki.

3. Ki management. Don't run yourself dry unless you know for a fact that an attack isn't going to be coming your way.

4. You don't need to always mash dodge to escape attacks. Running and sprinting can sometimes let you evade more attacks than dodging.

5. Don't worry about starting stats. You'll have every stat at 10 eventually due to stats giving larger returns from 5-10 than they do at 11+.

6. Don't worry about stats on NG. You won't mess anything up, so just put points into what looks good.

7. The ability to respec is easily available. Buy a Book of Reincarnation or earn them from certain endgame missions. This will reset all of your skill points (including the ones from locks of hair) as well as refunds all Amrita used for levels. You will then have to use that amrita to allocate your points. Yes, this means you can level down but that is not recommended.

8. Do not neglect Dexterity, Magic, and Spirit. Every single build benefits from ninjutsu and onmyo, while Spirit gives you more guardian spirit abilities which are too strong to pass up. If you really don't want to level up Spirit much, just use Kato.

9. The big two breakpoints for agility that you want to stay under are 30% and 70%. Those are for light and heavy builds respectively. C agility at 71-100% is really bad and is simply not worth it.

10. Agility affects the amount of Ki you consume on various actions, including attacking. The difference between A and B are fairly small but the difference between B and C are colossal.

11. If you go heavy, make sure to get as much toughness as possible. This will help you lose less Ki upon being hit as well as give you super armor as you attack. Don't get reckless since you can easily expend your Ki and set yourself up for death or simply lose health too fast.

12. Pick whatever two weapons you like. Since you can completely respec, try every single weapon type then try to focus two of them by the end of your playthrough.

13. Do not use the Sloth Talisman. It teaches very bad habits.

14. You won't need to forge for most, if not all, of NG unless you use odachi or tonfa. Since those two weapons don't really have anything spectacular in non-DLC areas, you might want to forge a good one.

15. You'll unlock something for tip 16-17 somewhat early on. Just play the game and you'll get there.

16. Use your Glory as you see fit. Just make sure not to waste too much by gambling for a weapon.

17. Join a clan that sounds useful to you. For example, heavily armored characters would be perfect for the Todo clan. A great all-rounder is the Kikkawa clan.

18. Don't get caught up farming in NG. You'll just be wasting time.

19. If a boss is dealing a lot of damage, think about if it's an element hitting you. Invest in Magic and get an (element)-stop Talisman.

20. Use every stance and learn to use different skills depending on which one you are. Combining that with Fluxing and you'll eventually learn to do some personalized combos.