Equipment

Learn about Nioh 2 weapon and armor stats, including attack, defense, weight, familiarity, and set bonuses. Optimize your gear.

Weapons

Weapons are your primary means of dealing damage in Nioh 2. They possess a level and attack power, alongside other effects. Weapons have at least one fixed effect and can have up to six additional effects (more than five effects are exclusive to divine weapons and orange inheritables). Each weapon has a Base Attack value, visible in the lower tabs of its description. You will also find Break, which affects how easily you can stagger enemies, and Block, which determines the Ki (stamina) lost when blocking attacks.

Between these stats, you'll see three attack bonuses graded by letters. These grades correspond to your core stats and indicate how much of an attack bonus the weapon receives from your primary stats. Different weapon types are boosted by different core stats. The letter grade signifies the bonus magnitude, which can be improved for +value weapons through remodeling. To maximize weapon damage, focus your stats on a specific core stat or use weapons that offer bonuses for your highest-stat core attribute.

All weapons have a familiarity level, which varies by rarity. Lower rarity weapons cap at 300 or 600 familiarity, exotic gear can reach 900, some yokai exotic weapons go up to 999, and divine weapons can reach 999. As familiarity increases, it boosts the weapon's base damage and enhances its effects.

Weapons can be imbued with elements either as a fixed effect or through tempering. Two notable elements are Bless, which has useful effects against various yokai, and Corruption. A weapon imbued with Corruption is known as a yokai weapon. Many natural yokai weapons drop from enemies, but they can also be crafted via tempering. When a weapon has Imbue Corruption, it gains a purple gauge called Sentience. Filling this gauge by attacking with the weapon awakens the yokai weapon, increasing its damage and Corruption damage. The weapon will also speak briefly. After a duration, the corruption effect ends, and the gauge resets to zero. Corrupted weapons offer another advantage: soul matching with soul cores allows them to increase their level or gain inheritables.

Armor

Armor in Nioh 2 differs significantly from weapons. Like weapons, armor has levels, but its other stats are distinct. Armor has Defense and Weight, but no Attack. Weight determines your agility in battle and the effectiveness of your dodges. Increasing your Stamina and Strength stats allows you to handle heavier equipment. Armor does not have familiarity until New Game+ (NG+), at which point divine armor can have up to 999 familiarity, functioning similarly to weapon familiarity.

Armor effects function like weapon effects, but the types of effects differ. Armor does not have attack bonuses; instead, it provides resistances and indicates defense against specific elements or attack types. Armor also has Toughness, which dictates how much Ki damage you take and how easily you are staggered by hits. High Toughness minimizes Ki damage and prevents staggering, but this often requires using heavy equipment.

All armor pieces have core stat requirements. If these are met, you can utilize the armor's effects; otherwise, they remain unusable. Forged armor typically has lower stat requirements than dropped armor.

Accessories also fall under the armor category but have very low weight, cannot typically be soul matched or forged, possess low stat requirements, and +value versions are usually found as drops.

Sets

Certain armor pieces and weapons belong to equipment sets. These are often gear associated with enemy bosses or specific characters. For example, Imagawa Yoshimoto's master archer set comes with the Golden Boy set bonus. A set bonus requires a total of 6 pieces of equipment, including weapons. When you equip two or more pieces from the same set, you gain a specified bonus listed on the equipment (accessible by pressing R2), with additional bonuses unlocked as you equip more pieces from that set.

In NG+, you can obtain the Yasakani Magatama, a reward from the final boss of NG+. This accessory has the effect of reducing the number of set pieces required for set bonuses by one. For instance, if you equip only one piece of the Golden Boy armor along with the Yasakani Magatama, you will still receive the two-piece bonus.