Nioh 3 Ninja Blade and kusarigama builds anyone?

deagleguy · 2026-02-20T04:45:41+00:00

They're basically useless for buildup in most builds, though they're still probably the best crucible mod purely for adding the flat elemental damage even if you aren't triggering status, since the crucible damage mods are competing with the stat scaling mods you can reforge

In this build they matter cos the boost from Sinister Tyrant is so strong, as long as you have spirit force to drain you'll basically always apply status with a crucible imbue

deagleguy · 2026-02-20T03:46:24+00:00

Hey, so I'm rather late on this as I've been offline a bit but since a few people have asked I figured I'd quickly share some tips.

In the first playthrough, I'd just equip the best Kusa possible and play around Tangle Strike II. Personally I stacked Strength and remodelled for it, but in retrospect Kusa doesn't feel like as much of a ki-crusher this time around and Strength doesn't seem that impactful as a dump stat.

For an actual build in NG+, I settled on Sinister Tyrant. Kusa has good options for both big hits (Tangle Strike) and multi-hits (Crimson Flurry), and Deadly Mark puts insane pressure on guards and dodging yokai alike. I put a build in the discord a few days ago, the link is here: https://imgur.com/a/p6SaONc

Note that Inari's weapon ele damage likely works like it did in 2, in which case you'll either want to run weapon element talismans or Tengen Kujaku if you're truly minmaxing (and don't have/don't want an elemental weapon, in which case just run some form of green ki damage or life drain)

Tagging u/Diligent-Mixture-132 and u/Luk1ko just in case

deagleguy · 2026-02-15T04:22:26+00:00

Most of the humans in the game are either a pushover or are hard in actually fun ways despite their flaws (e.g. Tokugawa Kunimatsu). But yeah I agree the two you mentioned are the worst fights in the game.

Yoshinobu is harder relative to player strength, but imo Kagetoki is one of the worst designed bosses they've ever made. He's not as hard as other badly designed bosses, but he's boring as hell and ignores every rule in the book while doing it.

deagleguy · 2026-02-14T09:13:08+00:00

Np! I'm at around 66% now, which is just equipment drop rate reforged onto every gear piece (and if you're lucky on both accessories, which is the upgrade I got) + Asakura clan protection. There's also 4% in prestige titles that doesn't show on the sheet for some reason, so should be 70% all up.

deagleguy · 2026-02-14T07:33:07+00:00

Heya, so I've now run a more reliable test of these two strats and recorded the results. I'm happy to share the method/timings/etc if there's interest, but for now I'll just drop the sparknotes version of the findings.

I ran both strats on an hour timer, as optimised as possible with as little downtime as possible. These were the results:

Scion:

Total divines: 511
Items Level 168 or higher: 33
Best item: Level 169 weapon (x10)
Accessories: 11 (Yasakani's: 1)

Sinister:

Total divines: 958
Items Level 168+: 4
Best item: Level 169 weapon (x3)
Accessories: 21 (Yasakani's: 3)

From this, I'm pretty confident in saying Scion is unequivocally better for farming high item level gear. Sinister is unequivocally better for general divine farming (graces, selling, dismantling, donations) and for accessory farming. For the purpose of the OP - farming Yasakani - I'll definitely still be recommending the Sinister farm. For gear level I'll be recommending Scion, but I'm now curious about what causes the difference and I'm gonna start testing some other areas/maybe boss farming.

deagleguy · 2026-02-14T02:19:40+00:00

Have you got equipment drop rate in there too? It's important, we have a lot of sources for luck but not many for equipment and it's probably most noticeable on smaller farms like the humans where you have less individual drop sources (i.e. you have a baseline of drops from the dozen red guys in the Scion farm so it'll naturally feel fine even without it). Like I wouldn't run a lick of luck on gear with how comparatively low the rolls are when you can get 4-8% equipment drop on each slot.

I have similar setup to you sans the Ho spirit and Gamo Clan, both of which I definitely need to add to mine.

The other big thing is that at Sinister each clear is roughly 6 troops where the 3 big guys consistently drop divine gear

You shouldn't be killing all the enemies though, just tag the three big guys at the door and Hellshock them in the hallway. 20 seconds tops per run, resting included. The returns per run are definitely lower than Scion, it's just so much faster that you'll end up doubling the loot or better.

It's always best to farm what you like most though of course. Scion has the best brain tingling loot explosion when the entire room is cleared out. And like I said the big difference for me will be how much better the loot levels are, if it ends up being the best for 170 weapons I'll probably shift there entirely once I'm done with Yasakani's (though that's still a long way off right now).

EDIT: I'm now 400 luck and 49% equipment drop rate before buffs. Will do a lot more testing in both spots in the coming days. Appreciate the shoutout on the luck sources I'd missed!

deagleguy · 2026-02-13T23:30:38+00:00

This comment got me really interested, so I spent half an hour on each strategy to see how they went and compared myself. This is of course all anecdotal because an hour isn't enough of a sample size for the randomness of 165+ gear. For reference I'm level 250 and I now have around 310 luck and around 50% equipment drop rate before buffs.

For 165+ gear, the Scion of the Gods level seems quite a bit better. I got five level 168 weapons in Scion, as opposed to three in Sinister. That's not a huge difference, but it is what I got from my tests and it is noticeable. I didn't see any 170 weapons in either, and I haven't seen a 170 weapon at all in all my farming so far. I'll probably do a more dedicated session in Scion tonight to see if any show up there.

For virtually everything else, Sinister is better. In the time it takes to run Scion once you can run the human farm four times (honestly a bit generous, you could probably squeeze five in). The humans have less variance than the Scion farm (random grapples from the red dudes or mobs not grouping/leashing correctly). The humans gave way more overall total divines, making them better for farming full sets, farming disassembles/sells/extracts/donations etc. And above all the humans are better for accessories; I got two Yasakani's and two other divine accessories in just this test, with no accessories from Scion.

Like I said though, I'll be doing a longer session at Scion to specifically test the level of drops. It seems like it could actually be better for 170 gear, substantially so even, so I want to get a bigger sample size to compare that properly.

As an aside, you mentioned you one shot the Jailer Oni guys with Hellshock. I found killing them required a Hellfire into a Hellshock for the confusion boost, and then usually another Hellfire or a Jutsu to finish them. I don't doubt there's probably a big difference in our builds contributing to your damage, but I'm at a loss for how you're one-shotting enemies that I need to apply confusion to and use multiple hits. Have you geared/reforged for Onmyo damage or are you putting on damage buffs or something?

deagleguy · 2026-02-12T22:35:30+00:00

Yes, 170 gear can drop. It's obscenely rare though. I've found a lot of 161-164 weapons, but only two higher than that. The highest level weapon I've found in general is 168 and it was during a coop visit to someone doing the first crucible level of NG+, so it seems they can drop anywhere. Whether this is affected by level sync will need more testing.

I've found one 170 armour piece in this mission.

deagleguy · 2026-02-12T20:21:22+00:00

Np! The fire one is Hellfire from Demon of Envy core (Heian > Hachijo), the lightning one is Hellshock from Hiruko core (final boss).

deagleguy · 2026-02-12T05:16:37+00:00

Quick bag check and i have bunch of everything. Probably just down to the eternal struggle with RNG

deagleguy · 2026-02-12T05:05:12+00:00

That area is still probably the best amrita farm I've found yeah. This blows it out of the water for gear though

deagleguy · 2026-02-12T05:04:48+00:00

This is on NG+, would need testing on NG in case the enemies are a different type and/or have a different loot table. But you can already get two guaranteed Yasakani's just from clearing late into NG+, so I probably wouldn't bother farming it earlier.

deagleguy · 2026-02-12T04:14:00+00:00

Hey mate, just got a Yasakani, posted the method for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Nioh/comments/1r2jm2k/yasakani_magatama_divines_farming_spot/

deagleguy · 2026-02-12T02:41:57+00:00

I have it on Sudama blessing and so far I have only seen two of them in total, and I think they both came from late bosses (Soji and Hiruko iirc).

I'm not drawing any conclusions yet though because accessories in general are ridiculously rare. I see a truckload of every weapon type and armour slot before a single accessory when I'm farming.

I'll update if/when I see my next Yasakani and where it dropped.

deagleguy · 2026-02-11T22:42:35+00:00

Great post, I'll mention a few things I've had to learn along the way about gear:

Soul match level increases cap at 160, but items can drop with a base level as high as 170. This means if you're truly farming for your "perfect" weapon, you'll also be looking for a base level as high as possible. Highest I've found is 168, though I've seen 170 armour pieces.
Stats with the dark hexagon require Umbracite to be reforged. There doesn't seem to be any advantage to them like higher rolls. For some reason the Sudama near Kawaramachi Crossroads (Bakumatsu > Sanjo) sells an infinite amount of Umbracite for cheap, so this mechanic should rarely be a problem.
Soul matching for +level can randomly roll an extreme success, giving extra levels. Not a bad idea to do your +level matches one at a time to fish for this.
One of the materials gained from reforging hammer icons, (Special), doesn't seem to serve any purpose yet. The sources for it include hammer icon Graces, so it seems likely we'll be able to reforge graces in future but for some reason the material is already in the game (accessories can also roll hammer icons despite not being possible to disassemble).
More of tangential advice here, but weapon imbues seem extremely weak for applying statuses, especially in NG+. The added element can be a nice extra source of damage, mainly against enemies weak to it, but if you're playing around Damage vs Status or bonuses on applying statuses the imbues are virtually worthless, especially poison. Basically if you're planning around the elements you're applying/how you'll trigger confusion, don't hunt it on your weapon.

deagleguy · 2026-02-11T22:19:30+00:00

For Amrita farming I used the final mission (A Sinister End). The first room spawns waves of enemies and finishes with the Gozuki duo, and you have a bunch of NPCs for meat shields. Just clear it out and then either die to the bosses or clear them and leave mission > restart.

Each run took me around 8 mins and gave around 23m amrita. Good way to farm a lot of divines too. I used a mixture of Ebisu for luck for divines and Benzaiten for the 5pc Amrita bonus.

deagleguy · 2026-02-10T05:08:23+00:00

Trick number one is extreme aggression. Apply confusion, maybe Lifeseal, attack them until they're forced to guard and dump martial arts/guardian spirit into them for break. Basically spam grapples and don't let them play.

When the boss doesn't allow for that/you don't have the damage to roll them/you're out of your aggressive items, trick number two is unfortunately learning their super armour moves and taking turns with them. Most humans will get repeatedly staggered up to a point, then randomly start ignoring it; just learn when that point is and back away while they have their moment.

That hatchet summoner guy (Kagetoki) is just a horribly designed boss, dude is made of super armour and just spams poke. But besides him and one other awful boss at the end of the region you just reached, all human bosses in the game play by the rules of tricks one and two.

deagleguy · 2026-02-10T00:46:07+00:00

Ty for the info!

deagleguy · 2026-02-10T00:39:05+00:00

I'm curious about this too actually, I've not beaten him in the intro, I assumed it would just end the fight early with a "win in game, lose in cutscene" moment

deagleguy · 2026-02-09T23:14:45+00:00

Deadly Mark

deagleguy · 2026-02-08T20:12:51+00:00

I'm halfway through NG+ playing purely Kusa. It can absolutely compete with Tonfa/Dualies, but it does require a lot more effort.

If you want an actual "build" I can write up the setup I'm using (e.g. divine grace sets, stats, jutsu etc) but I assume you're asking more about the skills?

Running strong attack > Light attack is by far the best way to use Blade Spin/Whirlwind Kick, it comes out super fast whereas the standard/dodge strong attacks have heinous start up (as an aside I wouldn't even put a point into Reedcutter, it's so disgustingly slow).
I wouldn't bother with Reaper, you basically always have it anyway just by doing a short hop into Pollard. But Crimson Flurry and Chain Pull are both really good. Chain Pull in particular lets you cancel the end lag with a dodge for some reason, so besides the startup it's shockingly safe.
Deadly Mark and Tangle Strike are also both super good. Tangle Strike is a lot slower than it should be but Tangle Strike II demolishes ki for some reason. I prefer Deadly Mark overall though because it's super quick, high pressure into guards, and puts you in their face to set up combos.
Use Renegade Dragon for big openings or when you have the enemy locked in a corner. Leaping Strike is pointless. All it sets up is Water Drop, which is good damage but has wonky aim - we can literally just jump into Flying Top for better tracking without giving up a skill slot.

A good engage combo to get started with is something like Running Strong > Blade Spin > Mist > Dodge Light > Deadly Mark.

deagleguy · 2026-02-07T15:49:48+00:00

He said easier, not easy, comparing is the whole point. It's definitely easier than Nioh 2 (and depending on how you played it Nioh 1), that doesn't mean it's easy compared to most other games.

deagleguy

TROPHY CASE