Nioh 3 – Stats & Leveling Guide

Stats in Nioh 3 are your primary method of progression — they determine survivability, stamina management, weapon damage, armor usability, magic potency, and utility effectiveness. By spending Amrita earned from enemies, missions, and objectives, you shape how your character performs in combat and how your build evolves.

The game lets you respec freely once you’ve progressed past the prologue; you can experiment with different builds without penalty.

1. What are Stats in Nioh 3

Stats Nioh 3

Stats in Nioh 3 affect your Life (HP), Ki (stamina), weapon damage, magic effectiveness, and equipment usability. Each weapon and armor piece has stat scaling and requirements, so investing in the right stats ensures your gear performs at its best.

Raising stats is done at shrines using Amrita, and because respec is free, you aren’t locked into a build forever.

• Constitution: Increases your maximum HP to survive tougher enemies.
• Heart: Enhance maximum Ki and Ki recovery for attacking, dodging, blocking, and combos.
• Stamina: Increases equipment weight capacity and adds more HP.
• Strength: Boosts melee damage and Ki damage, and helps use heavier weapons/armor.
• Skill: Improves melee/Ninjutsu success and damage for more advanced weapons and combos.
• Intellect: Increases Ki recovery speed and can enhance other effects like spell duration or utility effects.
• Magic: Improves Onmyo magic power and effectiveness to use magic spells or magic‑scaling weapons.

1.1 Constitution — Health & Survivability

Constitution stat

Constitution is critical for making your character tougher and able to withstand damage, especially in the early and mid‑game. Survivability is vital in Nioh 3, and Constitution prevents enemies from killing you in one combo. Constitution Stat is used for the following:

• Raises Life (HP): Every point increases your maximum health, letting you survive stronger hits.
• Important for tough enemies: Higher Life lets you endure big hits from bosses and elite foes.
• Second‑order scaling: Some weapons (like Spear or Tonfa) use Constitution in their scaling sets.

1.2 Heart — Ki (Stamina) & Recovery

Heart governs your Ki bar and how quickly you recover Ki after actions like attacking, dodging, or blocking — core components of combat flow. Without sufficient Ki, you’ll run out mid‑fight, leaving you vulnerable. Heart is one of the first stats you need to raise. Here’s what Heart raises:

• Increases Ki: More Ki lets you attack, block, and dodge longer.
• Improves Ki restoration: Faster restoration keeps you in fights longer without downtime.
• Weapon damage influence: Many melee weapons (e.g., Sword, Bow) draw scaling from Heart.

1.3 Stamina — Weight & Extra Health

Stamina stat

Stamina serves a dual role — it boosts weight capacity (letting you wear heavier armor without penalty) and adds a small amount of Life. Heavier armor can drastically improve defense, but it only works if your Stamina supports it. Stamina benefits the following:

• Increases equipment capacity: Higher Stamina lets you wear better armor while keeping agility penalties low.
• Adds Life: Provides a secondary source of health improvement.
• Synergizes with heavy builds: Tanky or heavy‑armor builds benefit most with weapons like Axes and Odachi.

1.4 Strength — Ki Damage & Heavy Weapons

Strength is key for builds focused on raw physical force — it enhances your melee punching power, Ki damage, and ability to wield heavier weaponry effectively. Great for aggressive playstyles and weapons like Odachi, Axe, and other hard‑hitting tools. Strength boosts:

• Boosts melee damage: Helps heavier weapons hit harder.
• Improves Ki damage: Stronger punches and guard breaks.
• Unlocks gear passives: Higher Strength often activates armor set passive bonuses.

1.5 Skill — Weapon Proficiency & Ninjutsu

Skill stat

Skill influences your finesse in combat — giving bonuses to weapon effectiveness and Ninjutsu item use, making it ideal for agile or ninja‑oriented combat. Skill builds excel at combo uptime and utility effects, distinguishing them from brute strength styles. Skill is useful for:

• Increases arts and ninjutsu power: Makes ninja tools and melee techniques more effective.
• Improves weapon damage for Skill‑scaling weapons: Especially useful for Switchglaive and Ninja Sword.

1.6 Intellect — Buffs & Ki Recovery Support

Intellect is a newer stat in Nioh 3, affecting Ki recovery and the duration of buffs/debuffs — blending support and combat effectiveness. Great for hybrid builds or those that rely on extended effects and sustained Ki management. Intellect increases the following:

• Improves Ki regeneration: Helps maintain stamina longer after engagements, good for Ninja style.
• Enhances effect duration: Buffs last longer, amplifying utility play from talismans.
• Scales with some weapons: Especially those that mix melee and magic synergy, like ranged damage.

1.7 Magic — Onmyo Magic Power

Magic governs your spellcasting prowess, determining how powerful your Onmyo Magic effects are and how effective magic‑scaling weapons perform. Essential for caster builds or hybrid builds that blend magic with melee. Magic is useful for: 

• Increases Magic ability power: Spells hit harder and last longer.
• Scales weapons with magic: Some weapons rely on Magic for extra damage, Switchglaives stats increase, and make magic and melee more powerful.

2. How Weapon Scaling Works

Each weapon in Nioh 3 has three scaling stats (Reference Stats) that determine how much extra damage it gets from your attributes. Whichever of those three stats is highest becomes the weapon’s primary scaling stat, giving the largest damage bonus.

Tip: Focus stat points on the top one or two of a weapon’s Reference Stats to maximize damage.

3. How Armor Stat Requirements Work

Onmyo Hunting Hakama armor requirement

Every piece of armor in Nioh 3, light, medium, or heavy, can have bonus effects that improve your combat performance beyond raw defense. These effects can include things like extra Ki, reduced damage taken, increased elemental resistance, or even unique set bonuses. However, none of these bonuses activate unless you meet the armor’s stat requirements.

• Stat Requirement Location: Highlight an armor piece in your equipment screen, and the minimum stat requirements appear at the bottom of the info card. Requirements are shown with stat icons (Strength, Stamina, or Skill, etc.) and numbers.
• Requirement Colors: If the requirement text is White, all passives and bonuses of the armor are active. If the requirement text is Red the passive effects and any set bonuses linked to the armor piece remain inactive.
• Base Defense Always Applies: Armor still provides its base defense value, even if you don’t meet an armor’s stat requirements. All special effects—such as Ki bonuses, resistances, damage reduction, or set effects—remain inactive until the stat thresholds are met.

3.1 Tips for Meeting Armor Requirements

Selecting armor according to your build

Understanding how armor requirements work helps you plan stat distribution better, especially when juggling offensive power and defensive bonuses.

• Check requirements before equipping: Always inspect new armor pieces for stat requirements before assuming you’ll get full benefits.
• Respec to meet key stats: Since respec is free after the prologue, you can realign your stats to meet important armor (or weapon) requirements.
• Balance offense and defense: If your build is focused on a primary damage stat (e.g., Strength or Skill), you may still need to put some points into secondary stats like Constitution, Stamina, or Skill to unlock defensive bonuses.
• Passive bonuses aren’t scaled by higher stats: Once you meet the minimum requirement, additional points don’t further enhance the armor’s passive effect — they just unlock it.

4. How to Respec Stat Points

Respec stats

Each weapon in Nioh 3 has stat scaling tied to specific character attributes. You gain the Respec ability after completing the prologue and entering the open-world Warring States era. Respeccing is not limited, so you can adjust your stats whenever you want to match new weapons, armor, or strategies.

If you initially built a Strength-focused Samurai, but want to try a Heart + Ninja dual sword build, you can respec and reallocate points without penalty.

1. Visit a Shrine: Travel to any Shrine in the Warring States open world. Interact with the Shrine to access the Level Up menu.
2. Open the Respec Option: On the controller, Press L3 to activate the reset function. On keyboard/PC: Press 3 to open the Reset menu.
3. Refund Your Points: All previously allocated stat points are refunded automatically. This gives you complete freedom to reassign points across stats like Strength, Skill, Heart, Stamina, Magic, and Intellect.
4. Confirm & Reallocate: Decide your new stat distribution to match your weapon scaling, armor requirements, or preferred playstyle.

5. Blacksmithing and Weapon Reforging

Blacksmith

Blacksmithing allows you to alter weapon scaling, rarity, and stats, enabling you to tailor any weapon to your preferred build. However, it is resource-intensive, especially in early and mid-game. Blacksmithing isn’t just about upgrading gear — it’s about matching tools to your character’s stat priorities. Knowing when to upgrade, remodel, or reforge can make or break your build’s performance.

5.1 Blacksmithing Build Flow

1. Early Game: Use Soul Match to keep a good level weapon (e.g., a katana with decent base attack).
2. Mid Game: Once +1, remodel scaling to focus on your primary stats (e.g., Strength and Heart).
3. End Game: Reforge special effects (like +Ki damage or elemental bonuses) to fine‑tune DPS and synergy with ninja arts or Onmyo magic.

6. Recommended Build Strategy

Building an optimized character requires prioritizing stats that synergize with your chosen weapons and armor.

1. Choose your primary weapon and stance (samurai or ninja).
2. Focus on your main damage stat to 60–70 to hit the sweet spot of scaling.
3. Meet armor stat requirements to activate passive effects.
4. Invest in secondary stats like Intellect, Magic, or Skill, depending on your build type.
5. Optimize Stamina and Heart for mobility and Ki management.
6. Late-game: use blacksmithing to further refine weapon scaling and armor toughness.

7. Best Stats For Samurai Build

Bullhead Cross Spear Samurai

Focus on stats that increase damage, survivability, and Ki management while using the weapons like Sword, Odachi, and Axe in Samurai Build. Below are the recommended priority orders of the stats for this setup.

1. Strength: Primary damage stat for many Samurai weapons.
2. Skill: Helps with melee weapon effectiveness and advanced weapon moves.
3. Heart: Improves Ki pool and recovery to stay aggressive and defensive in combat.
4. Constitution: Boosts HP for survivability if you plan to stay close to enemies.
5. Stamina: This stat is optional for equipping heavier armor without losing agility.

8. Best Stats for Ninja Build

Genin’s Kusarigama Ninja

Ninja build focuses on speed, evasion, fast Ki damage, ninjutsu, and Onmyo Magic support. Make sure to choose the stats that improve Ki, Ninjutsu, and magic effects. Ninja Swords scale primarily with Skill, Intellect, and Strength.

1. Skill: Critical for Ninja weapon damage.
2. Constitution: Increase health so you survive closer range combat.
3. Heart: More Ki and faster recovery helps using combos frequently.
4. Intellect: Improves Ki recovery speed, making it useful for rapid attacks.
5. Magic: Increase the effects of magic, ninjutsu, or talismans.

Best Guides for Nioh 3

How to Get and Use Glory

Best Samurai Weapons Tier List

Trophy List & Achievements Guide

Beginner’s Guide To Help You Get Started

Best Samurai Builds

Best Ninja Weapons Tier List

Best Weapons Tier List

How to do Emotes