Nioh beginner questions

The most common questions regarding "I'm new to Nioh" and their answers

NOTE: any mention of "Burst counters" "Soul Cores" or "Dark Realm" or "Raising stats to 200" can be ignored for Nioh 1, as they're Nioh 2 mechanics. Everything else? Pretty much applies to both games.

Q) I'm new, what do I need to know?
A) Start by doing EVERY tutorial available to you. You need to learn how to Ki Pulse and Burst Counter as they are the most vital mechanics in the game. Learn them and do them until they're second nature in a fight. Use the dojo to practice them as the free training option lets you fight enemies without risk of death, making it a great practice area. Even if you think you "know" how to play Nioh because you've played other Soulslikes or similar titles, trust me...You do not know how to play Nioh. Do the tutorials and thank me later.

Q) What kind of build should I do? What stats do I level?
A) You don't get into a true "build" until NG+ at the very least, since builds are heavily gear dependent. For stats, level everything to 20, except Magic/Dex which should be 30. This is because regardless of what build you eventually go into, you need a solid starting foundation as every stat contributes something important, and even if you aren't going to be maining Onmyo Magic or Ninjitsu abilities, both skill trees have incredibly good utility options that benefit ANY build. Long story short, DO NOT PUMP A DAMAGE STAT AS IF YOU'RE PLAYING DARK SOULS. The return on investment for this is worthless. Stat pumping doesn't happen until later NG+ cycles where your gear will be able to have bonuses that better reward stat pumping, plus once your stat cap raises to 200, you'll be able to unlock special bonuses for having 200 in a stat. THIS is when you stat pump.

Q) What Guardian Spirit do I pick?
A) Whichever one looks like it will fit your desired play style. You'll gain access to the other "starter" spirits later on in your playthrough, so don't stress too much about your first pick. You will get a ton of Guardian Spirits thoughout your playthrough and will be switching up fairly constantly.

EXTRA NOTE FOR NIOH 1-Guardian Spirits in Nioh 1 have a dedicated Spirit stat. Always raise this to whatever the most expensive guardian spirit is, stat wise, so you can switch up as needed. In Nioh 2, guardian spirits have unique stat requirements per spirit, which is another reason for the balanced stat approach.

In Nioh 2, this choice is a BIT more important in the early game because your chosen Guardian Spirit also determines what Burst Counter you will start with, as your burst counter depends on the guardian spirit's type: Brute, Feral, or Phantom.

Brute is arguably the easiest Counter to learn: You smack the enemy during their burst attack. It can often force its way through attacks and thus win in a damage trade, but be warned it CANNOT force its way through grabs, which take higher priority over this particular counter

Feral is a fast, evasion based counter that requires you to basically evade "into" the attack with it. It's also useful as a reposition tool however if you need to conserve your ki.

Phantom is the hardest to use but can parry damn near anything once you learn its timing.

Q) Okay so I can't do a "build" but what do I actually use? What's good?
A) If you want a balanced weapon, Sword. If you want a setup optimal for rapid hitting and applying elemental statuses or keeping your enemies under pressure at all times, dual sword, tonfa, or Fist (Fist is very hard to learn though. Also, I mean the FIST WEAPON CLASS, not your bare hands. Bare handed is mostly bad aside from a couple situational/niche skills. Do not go Bare Handed. Trust me). If you want reach, Spear, Hatchet, Switchglaive, or Kusarigama. If you want single, hard hits: Odachi or Axe. If you want flexibility for multiple situations, Kusarigama, Splitstaff, or Switchglaive. For armor, light if you want speed and evasion, medium for balanced combat, heavy if you want to minimize damage and ki loss when hit. For ranged weapons, a bow for silently head-shotting most human enemies, and a gun or cannon for anything wearing a helmet. Your ranged weapons are meant to be secondary/situational tools though, NOT your primary means of combat.
NOTE-Splitstaff and Fist are Nioh 2 exclusive weapon types.

Q) Okay, what about Onmyo/Ninjitsu?
A) If you plan to main in either of these for damage dealing, any ability that focuses on causing actual elemental damage: the Feathers from Ninja and the various elemental attack talismans from Onmyo are good picks. If you're looking more for utility, Barrier Talisman (Called Kekkai in Nioh 1) is always a solid pick from Onmyo, and Quick Change is the ultimate survival tool from Ninja. Otherwise, most branches of both skill trees are pretty self explanatory, you have various offensive and defensive buffs, attack options, and recovery/support options. Assuming survival is an issue, recovery/heal stuff from Onmyo in particular is great like the Life Leech talisman which lets you heal by striking a marked enemy, it's insanely good in boss battles.

Q) What the heck are Soul Cores?!
A) Whenever you defeat a youkai enemy (or high ranking human opponent), you have a chance to get a Soul Core based on what you defeated. Soul Cores can be used to perform Youkai Abilities at the cost of your Anima Gauge (The one right below ki). Youkai abilities can be extremely powerful and potentially define a build, so it's strongly advised to always try out and experiment with new ones in the dojo as you find them, and figure out which ones in your collection will benefit your playstyle. You can also fuse Soul Cores of the same type to level them up, or use a "Mortal" Soul Core to change the alignment of an existing core of any type (IE, turn a Feral Core into a Brute Core).

Q) There's so much gear, what do I use, what do I trash?
A) In basic NG, keep the highest levels of the weapon types you're using, disassemble everything else that's purple rarity and you outlevel, sell anything below purple rarity. For armor, figure out what armor you prefer, light, medium, or heavy. If you're going heavy, make sure you stay at B agility (AKA midweight) as heavyweight is a bad place. Remember what I said about stats being 20 minimum? Well, you can make an exception for that if you need more weight capacity for heavy armor. Just be warned some of the heaviest like Tatenashi will require 99 Stamina to be in B agility rating.

Q) Should I craft/upgrade gear at the Smithy?
A) In NG? No. It's a gold sink with crappy returns. Plus once you hit NG+, all your gear instantly becomes useless as a new rarity tier (that's MUCH easier to craft) becomes available to you. The idea of keeping a piece of gear you like via Soul Matching may sound tempting, but it will become too expensive to remain feasible. Soul Matching isn't something you use until you start seeing gear with "Plus" upgrades for the purpose of increasing its plus upgrade level, and this isn't going to really be a thing until NG+ as well.

Q) What about tempering gear?
A) As long as you have common Umbracite from disassembly of your unwanted gear and have the gold to spare, this can't hurt. That said, don't waste higher tiers of umbracite to roll good effects until you have gear you know you're going to be keeping, like item level 150-160 gear from NG+ (AKA Strong difficulty). Higher rarity of umbracite that you get from Twilight Missions and similar should ONLY be used when you see an effect you want to get on a piece of gear you know you'll be holding onto in NG+ and beyond. And for the purpose of getting the results you want, you should temper with common umbracite until the rare result you require is a possible outcome on the higher tiered umbracite.

Q) Why do I keep running out of Stamina? It recovers so slowly!
A) First off, Ki, not stamina. Second, you need to learn to Ki Pulse. Go back to the Dojo and do the tutorials, learn how to ki pulse and don't go back into real combat until ki pulsing is second nature. You can also use the Barrier Talisman (Kekkai if you're a Nioh 1 player) from the Onmyo skill tree to help with passive ki recovery, especially in the Dark Realm where its passive recovery is severely hindered. Sacred Water can also boost your passive Ki recovery. Also, learn all the "Flux" related passives from the Samurai skill tree, this will give you BONUS ki recovery if you change stance as you ki pulse.

Q) What's with the ki bar on Yokai? It doesn't behave the same as human enemies!
A) Yokai play by their own set of rules. The most important thing to know is that yokai ki meters recover slowly when they're standing in yokai realm pools (Those black pools they leave behind with some attacks). A perfect ki pulse purifies these and removes that benefit for yokai. The other important thing is that until this meter is emptied out, yokai DO NOT suffer hitstun in most cases. This means you ideally want to play defensive and focus on whittling down their ki meter with damage until it's empty, THEN you can go ham as you'll be able to stunlock them with your combos.

Q) What's with these stances?
A) Each weapon stance in Nioh 2 has its own moveset and can have special moves attached to it. Advanced players can quickly swap between stances to do complex combos that utilize multiple moves, but this is not required and you shouldn't stress too much about it if you're a beginner. The general rule for stances as a new player is:

-Use Low stance if you need to focus on quick pokes or hit and run, this is your mobility focused stance and allows you to rapidly do a step dodge as well. It also is good for offense if you're good at using your step dodge to reposition as needed to avoid attacks.

-If you're not sure what to do, Mid Stance is always a safe bet. It's a balanced stance with a slight extra focus on defense, as you slowly recover ki when blocking (Other stances don't do this). Definitely use this stance if you're blocking a lot during a fight. It's also good on offense due to, again, being a relatively balanced stance.

-High stance is what you use when you have an opening to exploit on your enemy, as this stance is raw offense at the cost of heavy ki spending. It's also very good against blocking foes for breaking through their guard and exploiting the opening it creates. High stance is also very good for hitting horns on Yokai enemies with overhead attacks, breaking these horns gives you great opportunities to wreck yokai.

Q) I keep dying in two to three hits!?
A) Nioh is a game that punishes mistakes very heavily, it also has a very different combat flow if you're coming from a Fromsoft title. Here's the key differences you need to be aware of, and if Nioh is your first game, this is still important stuff.

-The invincibility period when dodging is very brief. Trying to dodge through every single attack like in Dark Souls isn't going to work well unless you are very, VERY precise, we're talking near frame perfect precision. Long story short, panic/rapid dodging is not going to save you in most situations. Dodging should be used to get out of a bad spot and put spacing between you and your enemy in most cases. If you absolutely NEED to use a dodge for i-frame purposes, the roll option you have in high stance gives you more i-frames than a step dodge (though it also has more recovery lag at the end).

-Blocking is extremely powerful in Nioh and is arguably your best defensive tool. A lot of enemy attacks are not "True Combos" and can easily be interrupted simply by holding down Block *AFTER* you get hit to prevent followup hits.

-As stated before, learn to Ki Pulse. The dojo has a tutorial on it, but the tldr version is: Watch either the light particles around yourself or the part of your ki bar that's red but fills up with bright green after an attack. When the particles shine bright or your bar's full, tap your stance button to instantly recover that ki. You do NOT want to hit zero ki ever, if you can help it. Getting hit at zero ki puts you in a "winded" state where you cannot do anything, and essentially gives the enemy a free attack on you.

-Any time you see a red flash from an enemy, burst counter it. If you aren't good at burst counters, do the tutorial in the dojo then practice. Burst counters are extremely important, especially in boss fights, as they quite literally can get you back on the offense due to the ability for them to recover ki instantly, and even heal you with the right passive from your Shiftling skill tree.

-Use onmyo to boost your defenses or health recovery. Life regen and extra defense can make all the difference.

Q) I need mastery on a weapon/ninjitsu/onmyo to unlock a dojo mission to get access to more of the skill tree! -OR- How do I get skill points for weapon/ninja/onmyo skill trees?
A) Skill points and mastery for these are gained through using the weapon/skill type. Consumable items associated with Ninjitsu and Onmyo grant mastery EXP to the appropriate skill as well. For Onmyo, consumable talismans (Fire/Water/etc) should get your foot in the door. For Ninjitsu, various consumable bombs should do the trick. For actually raising these two with skills from the trees, elemental attacks from Onmyo and Ninjutsu are probably your best bet. For weapon EXP, the best option is the Daidara Bocchi boss, who can only be killed by a finishing attack (Heavy attack when their lock on cursor is red). You can just spam anything you want weapon wise on this boss, let it recover when its health hits 0, and keep doing this until you have the mastery you need for that weapon type.
NOTE-This works differently in Nioh 1. In Nioh 1, Samurai points are used for all weapons. Just gain levels and use different weapon types to gain more points. Ninja/Onmyo points are gained by investing in the appropriate stat.

Q) I just got into NG+, what now?
A) Couple things. First, you want to farm Divine Fragments. Look for red graves with green rarity gear and summon them to kill them. What gear it is doesn't matter, you're going to disassemble it all for Divine Fragments unless it's a piece of gear that benefits your planned build. Divine Fragments are used for making your OWN divine gear via smithing, which will finally be useful in NG+! Second: If you want a specific gear set, farm its Smithing Tome source (This is typically whoever wears the set. If no one wears the set, it's probably the first mission of the final chapter, the one that's a single boss fight and nothing else, this guy has a LOT of Texts).

Q) How do I play co-op with my friends?
A) Assuming you're on Steam, go to your network settings and disable Epic Crossplay, it's a broken feature that often makes online with your friends not work at all. Second, from your world map, go to Torii Gate and Expeditions. From here you can set up a private session to invite your friends to. Note that some missions are solo only and will not be playable in co-op, primarily Dojo missions that are used to unlock new skills in the skill trees.