Watch Your Ki (Stamina)
In Nioh, your Ki gauge determines whether you can perform actions with William or not. Underneath your life bar, you’ll see a second bar that indicates how much Ki you have left. Be warned that depleting your stamina bar is a lot more punishing than in any Souls game you’ve played; letting it empty out will cause you to become stunned for a while, and you’ll be unable to move. If this happens in the middle of battle, you’ll likely take a lot of damage and die.
The cool thing is, Nioh does give you a chance to recover stamina in the middle of a fight. If you tap the R1 button right after performing a combo, you’ll regain some of the stamina that you just expended. After performing actions, keep an eye on your stamina bar and tap R1 just as it flashes white. If you time it correctly, you’ll be able to activate your Ki Pulse and regain some of your lost stamina.
Make Sure to Touch Your Grave if You Die
When you die in Nioh, you lose all of your Amrita, along with your guardian spirit. While the Amrita can be easily earned again by repeatedly killing enemies, you’ll need to touch your grave to get your guardian spirit back. The spirit can be incredibly useful because it allows you to activate the ‘living weapon’ ability, which gives you some tremendous boost to your attack (depending on what spirit you have equipped), and makes you invulnerable for a short period of time. If you fail to touch the grave, you won’t be able to charge up your spirit power.
Do note that you can also recall your guardian spirit from a shrine. However, this will cause you to forfeit whatever Amrita you had left on your grave spot. Choose wisely.
Stay Below 70% Equip Load
After a bit of testing, I found out that letting your equipment load go above 70% will cause you to take a huge penalty in terms of stamina regen and dodges. When you’re over 70%, your dodge length will be shorter, and you’ll also require more stamina to perform basic actions like sprinting and attacking. The stamina damage you take from blocking attacks also seems to be a little higher. In addition to that, your stamina will also take a little longer to regenerate.
That’s bad. The moral of the story is: do not let William exceed 70% in equip load. Take a look at the armor you’re wearing, and the weapons you’re carrying around. If you really can’t afford to drop any of your equipped gear, consider leveling up to increase your equip load.
Get Used to Switching Stances
High stance allows you to deal the most damage, but actions will cost you a lot of stamina; mid stance balances both speed and attack, and generally allows you to perform wide, sweeping attacks; low stance is the speediest, but attacks performed in this stance will do the least damage. I usually just roll with mid stance when dealing with regular enemies, but it’s wise to find the stance that suits your play style the most.
It’s also important to get used to switching stances when dealing with different types of enemies. For instance, the burly guys with large axes can deal a lot of damage, and they can’t be staggered easily. If you try to use heavy, high stance attacks against them, you can deal a lot of damage, but you’ll usually end up trading with them if you don’t time your attacks well. Mid and low stance attacks are a lot more effective against these enemies because you can attack a lot faster, and get out of their range before they even have a chance to react.
Spend Your Samurai Points
You’ll earn Samurai Points whenever you level up in Nioh. These will allow you to unlock skills in different trees available in your customization menu. Make sure to purchase skills for the weapon tree that you’ll be utilizing the most. You’ll find that these skills can give you access to better chained combos. For instance, I have a skill that allows William to perform a jumping slash attack at the end of a combo, and this can really help in creating new, stock combos for yourself that consist of both light and heavy attacks.
Some skills will also let you deal more damage, and improve your stamina management as well. Leveling up is crucial in Nioh, so make sure to purchase skills whenever you can.
Look for Shortcuts and Alternate Paths
Just like Dark Souls, Nioh places a lot of emphasis on exploration and level design. If you see an area heavily guarded by three or more enemies, chances are there’s an alternate path you can use to get the drop on them. Look all around you for hidden paths that you can take, as well as ladders that you can kick down, which might offer you a shortcut back to the nearest shrine.
If you really want to, you can also run past enemies in Nioh. But be warned, these guys will chase you to the ends of the earth, and it’s rare that they will give up running after you, unlike the Undead you find in Dark Souls.
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