While Nioh 3 has many systems that will feel familiar to those who played the previous installments in the series, the truth is that there are many new ones that might feel a tad confusing to some. In this case, we’re talking about Martial Arts, Nijutsu, and the passive skills and masteries. They sound like a lot of things to keep track of, but fortunately, the game has several menus that streamline the process, making it feel less daunting. Here, we have a quick guide to show you how to unlock and equip your Martial Arts, Ninjutsu, and every other skill in Nioh 3.
How To Unlock & Equip Martial Arts and Ninjutsu in Nioh 3
We’ll go over the first two, as they share the same menu and process. Martial Arts are exclusive to the Samurai style, while Ninjutsu belongs to the Ninja style. To unlock these abilities, you have to spend your Samurai and Ninja points, respectively, or explore the world to unlock a few secret ones. Some skills can even be rewarded for certain activities.
To equip them, however, the process is the same for both styles. Once you unlock the skill in the right menu, you’ll see a notification in the Customize Martial Arts/Ninjutsu menu. Here, you have to go to the tab where the new skill is, which can be either in one of the weapons tab or the combat style tab. There, you’ll see the new skills already equipped, assuming you don’t have abilities that overlap. If you do, you can open the menu to swap the skill. For instance, if you have Heaven Flash and Heaven Flash (Lightning) and both belong to the same combo, you can pick which one you’ll perform when executing the combo.
How To Unlock & Equip Skills and Masteries in Nioh 3
Skills and masteries, on the other hand, come in three shapes: Common, Samurai, and Ninja. These abilities are passive and usually provide a stat boost or a new effect to one of your skills. For skills, you can equip as many as your capacity allows. However, for masteries, you can only equip one per tree, meaning that Samurai, Ninja, and Common can only have one active mastery at a time.
The only way to equip these is by heading to a shrine and selecting the Skill Management option. Here, you need to activate them, and once you do, your character will have those passive bonuses. Again, remember that some skills and masteries have a cost, and you can’t go over the capacity limit.
As you can see, the systems aren’t that intimidating to use once you get the hang of them. The only thing we recommend doing as a good measure is practicing any newly acquired Martial Arts or Ninjutsu in the training ground, as some of the combos can be a bit difficult to execute and remember at first.
