Nioh 2: Tips & Tricks for Beginners

If you’re like me and this is your first time venturing into the world of Nioh, you might be in need of a little guidance. After going through all of the first area’s main missions multiple times, here are 10 tips and tricks for beginners in Nioh 2.

These tips are pretty simple pointers that should help get you through the early missions in the first area without too much difficulty. Sometimes, simply “getting good” just isn’t the most helpful advice, so read on for a bit more guidance.

Kodama Blessings

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

Those little green creatures that are hiding everywhere can actually help you out in several different ways. As you start to find them, you can choose which passive buffs they give you from the Make Offering option at Shrines. Then, select Receive Kodama Blessing.

You can choose from five blessings, but the most useful early on will be the Healer Blessing which raises the elixir drop rate by up to 25%. By the end of the first area, you’ll have more elixirs than you’ll even know what to do with. All that healing potential leaves you more room for errors.

If you have an item with the Kodama Sensor effect, be sure to equip it so that they appear on the map. If not, listen for the little noises they make while keeping your eyes peeled. So, the first tip for beginners is basically to win this game of hide-and-seek.

Life Leech and Oasis Talismans

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

You’ll only be able to hold up to eight elixirs at once early on, so if you’re still in need of even more healing, this second tip for beginners is for you. By putting just two or three points into the Onmyo tree, you can unlock Life Leech and Oasis Talismans.

Both skills provide extra sources of healing, and can be upgraded to provide even more. Life Leech Talismans provide health as you damage the enemies that they are used on, while Oasis Talismans cast an AOE heal effect that gradually restores health.

You can gain Onmyo skill points by regularly using magic items in combat, or by finding the Onmyo Mage’s Locks loot drop.

Dojo Missions

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

Do you want useful items while putting in very little effort? Of course you do. Dojo missions are essentially just tutorials that’ll teach you some of the basics while rewarding you for learning. Nioh 2 beginners should definitely complete new training missions whenever they become available.

If you select the Starting Point on the map, then go to Dojo, you’ll see the list of missions. Completing them not only provides decent items, but also unlocks certain skills in your skill trees.

A few of those items include Ninja’s Locks and Onmyo Mage’s Locks which will give you free Ninja and Onmyo skill points to spend on some great skills that’ll help you survive.

Resetting Skills

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

While you’re in the Dojo menu, you can also reset your skill trees individually if you don’t like the decisions you made in the past. For a relatively small amount of gold, you can refund your skills in order to choose all over again.

This is a pretty important tip for beginners because you may have gone in a completely random direction in a skill tree without realizing where the more helpful skills are located.

This is especially true for the Ninja and Onmyo trees since those skill points can be a bit harder to come by depending on your play style.

Backstabbing

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

Speaking of Ninja skill points, you only need two to unlock the Sneak Attack skill. Sneak Attack is Nioh 2’s backstab, and it can save you a lot of frustration and lost life by either killing or seriously injuring enemies before they have a chance to hit you.

Even if the enemies don’t die, you can down weaker enemies like Gaki in order to immediately use a Finishing Blow.

Performing a backstab to start a fight will, more often than not, give you the advantage in a situation that would otherwise be considered unfavorable. This is an essential skill for both beginners and Nioh 2 veterans.

Pausing the Game

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

For those truly unfavorable situations, sometimes you just need a breather. This one may not seem obvious if you’ve played other Souls-like games, but you can actually pause the game. Like, a real pause.

To pause the game, hit the touchpad to bring up the menu, then hit the Options button to fully pause the game. This may not seem like a big deal, but you can definitely put it to good use in some tense situations.

Feral Burst Counters

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

For some of those tense moments when you can’t pause, you’ll need to learn how to effectively time your Burst Counters. A Burst Counter allows you to deal a bunch of Ki damage while stopping an enemy in their tracks.

The best Burst Counter for beginners belongs to the Feral Yokai Shift. Unlike the other Yokai Shift counters, the Feral one moves the user in whichever direction they choose while avoiding all damage.

This means that you don’t even need to properly counter to avoid being hit when using the Feral Burst Counter. It’s more or less a get out of jail free card for tough situations as long as you have one bar available to use in the purple Anima meter.

Managing Soul Cores

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

The Anima meter is also a major part of this next Nioh 2 beginner tip. You’ll need Anima to perform Yokai Abilities, which are attacks you gain from attaching Soul Cores to your Guardian Spirit.

You’ll learn this naturally as you play, but the one of the best things about Soul Cores is that they give you various buffs that can be upgraded. Equipping gear that increases Soul Core drops can help tremendously early on.

Some Soul Cores even come with the Kodama Sensor ability which can help with that little game of hide-and-seek mentioned in the first tip.

Weapon Familiarity

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

Nioh 2 has a ton of weapons in it, but you only really need to stick to the types that you like. As you use weapons, their familiarity will increase, which then increases their attack and other abilities.

Basically, the more you use the same types of weapons, the better they become as you gain proficiency with them. You’ll unlock new skills for the weapons naturally, and even gain the ability to transfer certain abilities from one weapon to another in Soul Matching.

Soul Matching

Nioh 2 Tips and Tricks

Soul Matching allows you to raise the level of a piece of gear to match the level of another piece of gear you have. If your favorite sword just isn’t cutting it anymore, you can help it cut a bit better by matching its level to a higher piece of gear you may have, but don’t use.

Understanding the Blacksmith’s Soul Matching feature is important if you’re a beginner so that you don’t feel the need to constantly switch from weapons and armor with good effects just because they’re under-leveled.

Those are 10 tips and tricks for beginners in Nioh 2. Hopefully they can help keep you alive as you improve. If you’re looking for more, you can check out our wiki guide.