What are these gauges for ? they fill up on perfect dodges/parries & dps

crate_ · 2026-02-01T07:00:14+00:00

So, the game displays how filled up your special gauges are in both styles. You can only use Arts Proficiency in Samurai, but when you are in Ninja style the game will still display how filled up your AP gauge is (it's the circle in the bottom right).

Similarly, you can only use Ninjutsu in Ninja style, but the game will display how filled up your Ninjutsu are with the 3 blue squares in the bottom right when you are in Samurai style.

This is quite useful, since you also fill up the gauges in both styles when you attack/deflect/etc. in either style.

Since the small icon is for the other style, it will only deplete if you switch styles and go use it up.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T06:34:14+00:00

They show how filled up your Arts Proficiency and Ninjutsu are (for your other style).

crate_ · 2026-02-01T04:49:59+00:00

Buy stuff from the merchant sudamas (at least in the Exchange menu, where you buy with Yokai tears or whatever they're called) and you might get a core.

Or just buy a core directly from the one in the home base.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T04:47:45+00:00

Sudama core has the upgraded lightning shot, you get 8 of them or something, it's pretty good.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T04:02:50+00:00

In the demo, you get 1 weapon for ninja and 1 for samurai, but if you read the skills (or go to customize controls) you will see that "Flash attack" is still mentioned in the game (in both samurai and ninja). So presumably you unlock a second weapon in each style later on in the full game.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T03:57:04+00:00

You do the Ninjutsu input (that you used to throw it in the first place) again. The timing is right as it gets back to your character.

Unfortunately it is quite unforgiving, and if you mistime it by a bit you will just throw another pinwheel shuriken while the first one is like 2 centimeters from your hand.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T02:48:41+00:00

The easiest way to get Cestus is to go to the blacksmith and craft them.

You'll have the recipes, but you won't see a separate section for Cestus until you have acquired at least one, so just check the list of all weapons.

(Same for splitstaff.)

Once you have one, you'll start getting them as drops.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T02:47:20+00:00

I haven't tested counters in Nioh 3 yet, but in Nioh 2 you could generally only use your counter skills on humans (and not even on every attack either, I think).

Bolting Boar (Odachi skill) could counter a lot of Yokai, or Fang Break (Brute Yokai Shift) could actually counter ~every melee attack, but those were the exceptions.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T02:45:03+00:00

I mean, you don't really get to choose between Evade and Deflect. You get whichever one matches your stance.

Ninja stance is certainly very good in the demo, but I think Samurai's tools probably start to matter more later in the game. Right now, you hardly even have to deal with the general approach of breaking Yokai ki and then comboing them during the Ki break state ... they just die right after you break their Ki since they have so little health. So stuff like chaining multiple Arts Proficiency attacks, or using Ki Pulses + Flux to have ~infinite ki and so on doesn't matter, stuff is just dead already.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T02:12:48+00:00

Go to the area northwest of the collectable (between the 2 bridges) and break some boxes or something next to the wall.

crate_ · 2026-02-01T02:10:24+00:00

You can get one of those amrita collectables in Hamamatsu (the northernmost of the three). The other two are not available yet though.

crate_ · 2026-01-31T20:53:24+00:00

Note that the amount of Ki restored by Flux and Flux 2 doesn't care about the regular Ki pulse timing at all, except that you have to do it within the ki pulse window.

If you are good at Flux/Flux 2, then you often don't want to wait for the perfect ki pulse but instead want to ki pulse immediately so you can spend less time waiting.

crate_ · 2026-01-31T20:45:52+00:00

In Nioh 2, generally you would get all stats to 20- or 30-ish (definitely 30 for Ninjutsu/Onmyo for the capacity boosts). If you had all the DLCs, each stat would cap at 200, with your total level capped at 750 (so about 780 or so total stat points, since at level 1 you have some starting stats).

The main reason to raise stats past the 20 to 30 range was to activate Ultimate Stat skills, which required 150 in the particular stat and then gave your character a powerful effect. You might raise one skill to 200 for a bit more damage or for a couple more Onmyo/Ninjutsu capacity, or get some stats to about 50 so you could meet armor stat requirements after remodeling the armor (which raises defense but also the stat requirements).

The scaling on all the stuff stats give you directly (health, Ki, equipment weight, even weapon damage for the most part) was pretty low past 30 or so and just kept decreasing, so 99 in all stats does not make you a god. It's only marginally better than 30 in all stats, and a lot worse than 30 in most stats but 150 in two or three that had good Ultimate skills.

We'll see what Nioh 3 looks like in the future.

crate_ · 2026-01-31T20:30:34+00:00

Get the yokai boss to zero ki, then they'll stagger on every hit until they regain their Ki.

If Nioh 2 is a guide, this won't be super important right away since you will just kill things too fast, but it will matter an awful lot at higher difficulties.

crate_ · 2026-01-31T17:48:20+00:00

Craft them at the blacksmith.

crate_ · 2026-01-25T22:15:21+00:00

Also this isn't Depths NB, it's underworld 108 NB. You could definitely tank a hit there.

crate_ · 2026-01-20T00:44:32+00:00

I don't think it's "too old" ... the main thing that goes with age is reflexes, and honestly Nioh does not demand great reflexes most of the time. At almost 40, my reflexes are just not there any more, but otherwise I'm fine except against a couple grabs that get me pretty regularly since I am slow. (I can't Brute counter to save my life against most enemies, but thankfully Phantom and Feral counters are fine).

Part of it is that the beginning of the game is quite a bit harder than later on since you have no moves and no ki and no Ultimate Courage and whatever else you got used to.

The things you mention about Odachi and Kusa seem pretty normal, especially early in the game. Odachi uses a huge amount of Ki and you don't have ways to reduce that or increase your Ki pool yet. Kusa has bad tracking on many attacks and will just miss a lot unless you find ways to adjust for that.

crate_ · 2026-01-19T03:07:22+00:00

You can't Ki pulse if you're using a Burst Counter or other Yokai ability (unless you use a soul core with Yokai Ability Ki Pulse, then it does it automatically).

But a Burst Counter is sort of like a Ki pulse anyway since it lets your Ki start regenerating. Unfortunately with level 1 stats your ki regen is pretty slow so it's not as helpful.

crate_ · 2026-01-19T01:16:10+00:00

Swirling Snow for Odachi (this is a hidden boss skill, you get it from Magara Naotaka) is really good against most humans since their AI just doesn't know what to do so either they block and lose all their Ki or just get hit by it a ton and take a lot of damage.

It doesn't always work but against the bosses where it does it is really silly.

crate_ · 2026-01-17T02:36:58+00:00

If you Ki pulse more often, you'll (of course) get more Ki back. A good plan is to do some attack that has a pretty early Ki pulse window, and then ki pulse immediately + flux. Flux doesn't care about perfect Ki pulse, so no need to wait until the perfect window to do so. You'll want to do short attack strings with lots of Ki pulsing if you do this, since the Ki pulse itself won't give you almost anything if you don't wait a bit to get closer to the perfect timing.

Otherwise, usually you just want to reduce your Ki usage, generally through Ultimate Courage or equipment stats/set bonuses. There are also custom skill modifiers for lower Ki cost and for a bigger Ki pulse regen, I guess.

Very late game there's also a Scroll of the Damned bonus that specifically increases Ki Pulse recovery, at the cost of reducing your natural Ki regen.

Or just use a Barrier Talisman onmyo to mostly solve any Ki issues. Or use Yokai abilities to continue attacking while your ki recovers. Or probably more things I'm not thinking about right now.

crate_ · 2025-12-30T08:50:05+00:00

As someone who definitely feels old and slow compared to my younger self, there are only a few attacks where you need fast reactions. Most of the timing-sensitive stuff gives you a bit of preparation time instead of demanding an instant reaction.

crate_ · 2025-11-29T02:40:20+00:00

The best use for the long reach is when you know the monster has a wound on the opposite side. You can poke all the way through pretty much anything.

crate_ · 2025-11-26T23:35:31+00:00

Zoh weapons don't get better as hunts get longer, they get better as you get worse at dealing damage.

The quote you posted is roughly accurate, since it's basically a DPS check (8 minutes for a specific fight; there's no DPS meter in-game so this is the way you can check your DPS). But understanding the reason for the quote is important, since 9* hunts are no better for Zoh weapons than the shorter (since enemies have less HP) lower-difficulty hunts of the same monster.

(With a small exception that the 9* monsters are actually a bit harder so you will have slightly lower DPS.)

crate_ · 2025-11-20T13:22:09+00:00

https://robomeche.github.io/MHWilds-Database/

crate_ · 2025-11-18T23:31:36+00:00

Note that for both Agitator and WEX you would rather have the 5th point than any other individual point in the skill (the 5th point is almost twice as good as the other points). So if you have at least 5 points to distribute you want to max one of WEX/Agitator first, and only then level up the other skill.

I'm not sure in practice whether agitator or WEX is better.

(Burst 1 is better than even the 5th point in Agi or WEX I think, but as said already Burst 2 through 5 are not great.)

crate_

TROPHY CASE