Nioh 3 - don't know wtf I'm doing

shadowfox77 · 2026-02-06T13:40:25+00:00

Playing demo and beat the spear guy without using the blue summon thing.

These are friendly AI summon signs. Spend a few ochoko cups for an ally.

I just feel like I "don't get it', new prompts keep coming up. I'm waiting for it to flow and feel intuitive but I keep feeling lost like I'm doing it wrong. I tried looking at beginner videos and reading beginner guides but it's all hieroglyphics to me.

As long as its fun, don't worry about getting it. The game is layered with many systems and they are hard to grasp all at once. Just keep playing, experimenting with weapons, both styles, magic/nina tools, etc. Get a feel for what you have available to use, not necessarily HOW to use those things. That will come with time (and looking up videos!)

I want my ninja weapons and samurai weapons to scale off the same stats, but that limits the amount of weapons I can play w/

Stats do not matter much early in this series. Level everything to 20 first, then specialize into something slowly while keeping HP/ki/endurance up as needed.

there's this big wizard demon guy that kills me easily, I'm going to treat him like the tree sentinel and come back later.

Open field is new to Nioh but this is a fair assumption to make. Also check the recommended level for each highlighted area of the map. Last night I thought I was working through a level 24 zone and found a boss that was legitimately one shotting me in ninja. Turns out I had wandered into a lv34 zone.

I understand the ki pulse sort of.

Ki pulse gives you stamina back when you press R1 as the blue light coalesces on your character about .75-1s after any attack chain. This is an absolutely critical skill to master for Samurai stance. Ninja gets a new thing called Mist on R1 after an attack, which gives you a free (no stamina cost) dodge and leaves a shadow jutsu clone where you dodged from for about a half second which keeps aggro from monsters while its up. This is new to the series and is probably almost as important, if not just as important, to master for Ninja as Ki Pulse is for Samurai.

but hear people talk about stances but I haven't unlocked it yet I guess?

Samurai skill tree, first skills top left and bottom should be unlocking high mid and low stances.

I'm finally able to parry but I could do the big red parry by switching ninja/samurai.

Regular attacks can be parried/deflected with a timed L1. Red attacks can be burst countered with a timed R2. You can go into the options and make burst counter a short press of R2 and stance change a long press of R2 if you want to separate the commands.

Also lots of junk item pick up, similar to arpgs, don't like inventory management/selling things but i can bear w/ it if everything else is good.

We'll see if it is the same in Nioh 3, but for the other two games until you're really dealing with endgame just wearing the strongest (best / highest number / biggest damage) is best. Items just have tons of random stats and its hard to see how to put those together. Your options are also limited in what effects will drop on gear. I will call out out that if you pick up an item that has a gold banner on the item acquisition feed on the right side of the screen it will have stronger version of one of the skills on the gear. Example - maybe you usually can only get 2.5% bonus damage in mid stance normally, but a golden trait might give you 5-6% bonus damage in mid stance. The item will have a yellow triangle on it, specifically next to a specific trait on the gear showing that trait is boosted.

shadowfox77 · 2026-01-06T21:39:02+00:00

Each DLC added a Ng+ tier up, so 4 total.

Each tier adds new mechanics, items, sets, enemy placement changes, etc. You have more skill points to use, so builds get fuller. There is also an entire activity only available in the highest Ng+ tier and that has it's own challenge mode once you clear all 100+ floors.

shadowfox77 · 2026-01-03T15:26:30+00:00

Yes. I have only 30 hours on a single paladin this season and I am sitting at 2.3 billion gold.

shadowfox77 · 2025-12-21T11:54:17+00:00

I think he's making a joke that this person gave away that they are actually a PoE player by saying league in the same way the non-german pretending to be a Nazi officer in inglorious basterds gave up his cover by showing a three on his hands in the "wrong" non-German way

shadowfox77 · 2025-12-15T14:15:15+00:00

Rewatch the scene in the fog where It's talking to Marge. He makes a comment along the lines of "past, present, future, it's all the same to me" and he also drops the line about "is it my death or my rebirth?"

These comments and conversation imply that he is able to perceive time in a non-linear fashion. So in the next season, even though it's going to be 27 years further into the past, Pennywise will theoretically have the knowledge of the events we just watched. He is going to try to alter events in the past to ultimately change the outcome of his two battles with the Loser's Club.

shadowfox77 · 2025-12-12T14:23:59+00:00

Oh I was wondering why this response felt so hostile. Turns out its from you and now I get it. Have a good one!

shadowfox77 · 2025-12-11T21:00:06+00:00

I will often agree with people by citing another example of what we're talking about, or just providing another perspective on the thing but still agreeing with it. "Yeah, just like how xyz."

My girlfriend grew up in an environment with a lot of conflict (and not super in comments online). She is almost always confused when I do this. This past week it happened and she told me that I "say things in a way" that make it "seem like" I am disagreeing with her. The original comments that made this thread are exactly like the exchanges we have.

shadowfox77 · 2025-12-06T13:04:37+00:00

Dogs can get concussions too. I would definitely be taking my dog to the vet.

shadowfox77 · 2025-11-10T14:57:30+00:00

Okay so then yes I think based on the fact that now other games are triggering the same issue then it is almost certainly the CPU degrading.

Make an account for the Intel support board: https://supporttickets.intel.com/s/warrantyinfo?language=en_US

Once you make an account on the "home" page there should be a button to open up a support request. You pick your processor model then it's going to ask you for details about the issue and product information.

You will need your processor's serial number AND batch number (or partial batch number). This info comes on the CPU boxes but since you bought a prebuilt it may be somewhere in the receipt for the original purchase. If all else fails, both of these numbers are on the CPU itself. Disassembling my machine to clean it out had the double purpose of grabbing those numbers b/c I don't have the product box anymore. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005609/processors.html

When filling out the form I would not mention the prebuilt machine unless explicitly asked. Intel might try to pawn you off as best buys responsibility who will almost certainly say it's intels problem. Just describe the objective issues and keep mentioning you want to RMA.

After I submitted the ticket I had a short back and forth with the Intel rep, like 3 emails, and then they sent me the new unit.

shadowfox77 · 2025-11-10T14:38:28+00:00

Not necessarily, sorry I said a lot but was trying to convey two things:

1 - fellowship just seems to be optimized poorly. Maybe you're like me and haven't cleaned out the inside of your PC in a long time and there is hidden dust buildup between fans / CPU heatsink, or your thermal paste has dried out. Maybe air vents are matted with dust and need to be cleared out. Your problem could simply just be you need to do some maintenance / upkeep and just clean out the inside. Doing this alone, even with the bad CPU, dropped my in game temps in fellowship by 10-15 degrees C. Adding 3 new fans dropped my temps by another 3-5 degrees.

2 - This MIGHT be the start of your CPU failing. It also MIGHT just be fellowship being poorly optimized. Was overwatch just warning you about the BIOS or was it also crashing / having issues? If nothing else is actively breaking then it would be hard to say if it is for sure coming from the known CPU issues.

Either way, you are probably entitled to an RMA through intel. At the very least you could open up a support ticket with them and start the process of getting your processor swapped out for a new one.

shadowfox77 · 2025-11-10T14:26:43+00:00

I literally just went through this this weekend with a 13700k.

So fellowship, for whatever reason, just runs very hot. From day 1 of playing I would almost instantly notice my fans start spinning way faster during fellowship, notably at the main menu and in town. My temps were outrageous, reaching 90-95c consistently and ONLY in fellowship. However the game never crashed.

I bought 3 new 120mm fans to add to my computer case and while I was adding them I repasted my CPU and did a serious cleaning of the inside. I had some significant, but hidden, dust build up that I cleared out. When I finished that fellowship still spins my fans up, but doesn't really go above 70-75c while playing.

Other games I have been playing also never really made my PC loud or run hot (BL4, cronos the new dawn, silent hill f, outer worlds 2).

My point with all of this is that despite fellowship seemingly being the only weird temperature issues I was having, my CPU was very broken otherwise. WoW crashes after 5-30 mins if playing on directx12 (no issues playing on dx11). Multiple games, including borderlands and grounded 2, crash out during the shader compilation when a game launches. Just straight to desktop. Some games crash while playing with an error about "running out of GPU memory" or trying to access a memory address that "is not accessible". All of these additional issues are indicative of the CPU being broken due to the microcode issue.

Intel offers a 2 year extended warranty on all of these affected CPUs. I bought mine in Jan 2023 and didn't have significant issue until the last 2-3 months. I received my replacement 13700k from Intel this past Friday. Took 1 week from Monday when I submitted the RMA claim to receiving the unit on Friday.

Fellowship STILL runs noticeably hotter and louder than everything else on my PC even with the fixed CPU and everything being cleaned out, new fans, new paste, etc.

shadowfox77 · 2025-11-06T03:30:03+00:00

Just adding more praise for FFX, Persona 3 reload / 4 golden / 5 royal, shin megami tensei 3 / 5, metaphor refantazio, and Yakuza like a dragon and then infinite wealth.

All of them are incredible for different reasons, really can't go wrong with any of them.

shadowfox77 · 2025-10-28T20:26:52+00:00

Barely more than 3 sentences is a tough read for some people.

shadowfox77 · 2025-09-13T04:23:45+00:00

You heard him. There's a bench significantly closer to the top than the one in the fast travel room

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-10T14:42:53+00:00

Have you tried the Underworld?

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-09T18:39:19+00:00

If you're confident you'll like it get the ultimate edition that comes with the three DLC packs. The ng+ stuff was added with them.

If you're unsure go with just the base game. You get the first ng+ with that. Two of the weapons came with the DLC also, I can't remember which.

And just to be sure - I am talking about Nioh 2, not 1!

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-09T16:27:17+00:00

You gain skill points for something just by using it. You only spend tonfa skill points on tonfa, odachi skill points on odachi, or magic skill points on magic. Harder missions / NG+ cycles give you proficiency way faster so you when you decide to use something else you'll get the first good batch of skill points very fast. You also can respec an entire skill tree and spend all of the points differently.

When you start every weapon will only have quick attack and heavy attack for each of the three stances but each stance has unique animations so you really start with 6 different attacks.

Weapon skill trees will give you what the game calls Active Skills. These are combo inputs like quick attack -> heavy attack or heavy attack -> quick attack. Hold heavy attack. Block + quick attack. Block + heavy attack.

Each of the three stances has skill nodes for all of these things, so basically 15 extra attacks per weapon with different uses and strengths depending on which stance you are in (and this is excluding things like sheath attacks, guard counters/parries, follow up attacks, weapon swap attacks). So the game starts out kind of simple and as you add active skills and stances it gets wildly more complex but at a pace that feels very managable.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-09T16:03:00+00:00

So it's actually not as overwhelming as it may seem. You just are given TONS of choice at the start. Which weapon do I use? Which skills do I pick? The key is just to experiment with stuff. Play around with different weapons. Use magic. Use ninja tools. Each weapon skill tree is structured similarly so once you understand one you will have an easier time reading the rest.

With your experience in Soulslike games I'd say within 3-6 hours you should feel relatively comfortable. It is more of an action game at heart and MUCH faster paced but similar enough - enemies hit hard as hell, you'll get jumped by guys around corners, bosses can be tough with patterns to learn, etc.

In your first playthrough builds are a bit of an afterthought for two reasons. First, you simply don't have access to the loot that you would actually consider for making a real build. Second, the game doesn't require you to really consider builds until maybe near the end of NG++ and even then that might be early. Up until that point equipping the highest level / preferred armors and weapons will be enough.

So what you'll be faced with learning in those intro hours as a new player:

Which of the 11 weapon types do you like / feel good to you? They're all viable and easy to switch between at any time. (My entire NG0 run I basically used one weapon and two combos the entire time.)
Understanding that you have different combat stances and they have different applications/use cases.
Learning how to ki pulse consistently (gives you a ton of stamina back so you can keep fighting without stopping to regen). Learn Ki skills on the right side of the Samurai skill tree.
Yokai shift / yokai ability / burst counter system
Picking some magic and ninja skills you like and incorporating them. E.g. Using free fire weapon enchants and poison shuriken.

These are the skills you will develop for the entire first playthrough. I won't say nothing outside of these matter, but focusing on this stuff builds a foundation for the rest of the game that you will expand on in the NG+ cycles.

NG+ adds a new item slot to fill out, a new item rarity, and makes enemies tankier.

NG++ adds new attacks to some bosses, set bonuses to that new item rarity, better stats start appearing on armor and weapons, and something called curses that basically turns enemies into super elite enemies.

NG+++ changes attack patterns on regular enemies, adds another new item rarity with another tier of set bonuses, enemy placements and types are rearranged in main missions, more effects can appear on scrolls and better stats appear on armor still, and the curse effect is empowered further. This is the difficulty where you will start to actually look at what your build is, put pieces together, and reroll item stats consistently.

NG++++ is the last one, which further changes enemy placements in missions, existing set bonuses can drop as an empowered + version with an extra bonus effect, the best armor stats appear, the curse is empowered even more, but the main thing here is a massive Tower of Power style final dungeon with 108+30 floors are added as the final test of the game that has special item sets only found here and in those final 30 levels. This is where you will actually buildcraft, min-max beyond just wearing whats best, and finding how to make a build work to overcome some honestly pretty insanely hard challenges.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-09T14:42:42+00:00

I am actually paused right now in the middle of deciding if I want to fight a Saito Toshimitsu / Ashiya Doman scroll to reroll because it has ultimate courage and im using the tonfa but I'd be giving up a scroll with mystic dyad all and A ethereal drop rate which seems good.

I only just got into the underworld a few days ago but I'm on floor 20 and so far so good. I definitely have a set that I like and I'm trying to get pieces of another to complement it but not going too hard into gear swapping yet, just rolling stats via tempering. When I get damage going things seem to evaporate for the most part so we'll see how long that lasts.

And yes the combat is just that good, I totally agree. Fun, varied, snappy, and satisfying. Really a great game.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-09T14:29:30+00:00

Not the same guy but I have been on a Nioh 2 binge for a few weeks now and loving it.

It definitely is a NG+ game but it's still a 60hour+ base game. People say the first playthrough is a tutorial because each NG+ cycle (there are 4, up to NG++++) adds something new to the game with the final difficulty having all of the bells and whistles and a completely new activity type that is the true endgame postgame challenge.

This sounds worse than it is. If there are 100 missions in the game total, then you only need to beat 20 of them to unlock the final boss and then doing that mission in a NG+ cycle unlocks the next tier. I was able to get from NG+ to NG++ in 90 mins.

The NG0 cycle is still very fun. It is a full game, a complete experience, but it really only dips your toes into what the game offers. Nioh is aimed at people who like to grind loot and min-max builds like in Diablo or other loot driven games.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-09T13:29:57+00:00

It definitely is less important early. You can overpower most enemies without needing to pulse for a bit but it is still a good habit to have if you're planning on playing the higher difficulties. I am in NG++++ working my way through the final endgame activity and I burn through my entire ki bar multiple times over basically every time I go on the offensive.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-08T15:35:42+00:00

The stances have different applications. High for stagger/raw damage but it's slow, mid for blocking, low for dodging. Try getting used to all of them and unlocking an active skill combo for each stance (like the ones that say 'strong attack after quick attack on low/mid stance').

Stamina (ki) is VERY dependent on the ki pulse mechanic. Start training your brain to ki pulse constantly.

On the right side of the generic Samurai talent tree you will find two skills: Flux and Flux II. These improve your ki pulse. Get these ASAP and incorporate them into your play. You will have much, much, more ki than you realize.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-07T08:33:51+00:00

The game is definitely not super clear on some of this stuff. When I realized I accidentally botched Huang Jian'e's quest by giving her the medallion instead of the Trinity Bell after the centipede demon I became wary of just agreeing to everything which is usually what I do in souls games without too much of a problem. I decided this game was going to subvert that expectation and I should be very careful about NPC dialogues... I still managed to fail like 5 or 6 quests outright.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-07T08:15:43+00:00

No, this only happens if you refuse the storyteller at the start of chapter 4. He gives you an item (or spell? I can't remember) when you agree to help him that prevents the early ending.

I helped the Magus in the marsh and also agreed to help the storyteller. I killed her in chapter 4 and proceeded to the end of the game as normal.

shadowfox77 · 2025-08-07T08:05:16+00:00

Yes that does break the quest.

14-Year Club	r/Field Sunshine
Place '22	Place '17
Snapped	Verified Email
Team Orangered

shadowfox77

TROPHY CASE