Guardian Spirits and Soul cores

Learn how Guardian Spirits and Soul Cores work in Nioh 2. Understand buffs, yokai shifts, attunement, and how to acquire and use powerful Soul Cores.

Guardian Spirits act as Nioh 2's soft classes, offering significant buffs to stats and abilities. Each spirit has unique protections and requirements based on combined core stats. Some spirits with a fox-like symbol can be used as a secondary spirit with reduced effects. A secondary effect, displayed in a blue bar, has no requirements.

Every spirit possesses two aspects: an element (Fire, Water, or Lightning) indicated by color, and a symbol representing its Yokai Shift type: Brute (red symbol), Feral (blue symbol), or Phantom (purple symbol). You can equip up to three Soul Cores to a spirit, provided their attunement cost does not exceed the spirit's limit (typically 20-24). Soul Cores contribute their attack and defense stats, which are then multiplied by the spirit's multipliers to grant the player buffs. For example, Saoirse offers a 0.95x attack and 1.10x defense multiplier, while Nekomata provides 1.10x attack and 0.9x defense. Equipping Soul Cores also enables the use of Yokai abilities.

Soul Cores are potent drops from Yokai enemies, taking the form of the defeated foe. Their drop rates, levels, stats, and effects increase significantly as you progress through the game, with the highest level being 160 (or 170 for ultra-rare drops). Yokai Soul Cores feature two fixed effects and three random ones, with additional white and orange inheritable effects available in New Game Plus. Soul Cores have a rank from 1 to 9, which can be increased by fusing two cores of the same Yokai. This fusion process improves the core's effects, though fixed attack and defense stats only change with level increases via Soul Matching.

Each Soul Core grants a unique Yokai ability, a special attack usable in battle that consumes Anima. The attunement cost varies, with boss Soul Cores reaching up to 10 or 11. Cores also have a type (Brute, Feral, or Phantom), matching the spirit's type grants bonus damage or boosted effects. Mortal Soul Cores, obtained from human bosses, cannot be fused with each other but can be used to increase the level or rank of Yokai Cores. They also allow for color-changing: fusing a Mortal Core with a Yokai Core of a different color lets you choose the resulting Yokai Core's color.

All Guardian Spirits are obtained by completing all missions. However, acquiring all Soul Cores may require grinding. The following is a list of Soul Cores:

• Gaki
• Enki
• Yoki
• Mezuki
• Ippon-Datara
• Dweller
• Kodama (Trade a Soul Core to a Sudama)
• Mujina (Found in random chests; look for 3 gold bars and whistle, then repeat the same emote)
• Skeleton Warrior
• Nurikabe (Found in several areas; either kill it or perform a desired emote)
• Enenra
• Thunderstorm Oni-bi (Yellow)
• Infernal Oni-bi (Orange) (These three Oni-bi can also be found in Region 4, Dawn, during the Abduction Sub Mission)
• Maelstrom Oni-bi (Blue)
• Gozuki
• Aberrant Soldier
• One-eyed Oni
• Scampuss (Chance to get after the timer expires)
• Karasu Tengu
• Nure-Onna
• Toxic Slime
• Yatsu-no-Kami
• Yamanba
• Waira
• Lesser Umi-Bozu
• Karakasa Umbrella
• Kamaitachi
• Koroka
• Rokurokubi
• Mitsume Yazura
• Biwa Boku-boku
• Tatarimokke
• Namahage
• Tesso
• Ubume
• Flying Bolt
• Onryoki
• Gyuki
• Wheelmonk
• Onyudo
• Kasha
• Ryomen Sukuna
• Kappa
• Magatsu Warrior
• Daidara Bocchi
• Shuten Doji
• Lady Osakabe
• Otakemaru
• Mortal Soul Cores (Grindable in the Brother's Blades mission by fighting the revenant next to the blue crystal. Do not destroy the crystal; kill the revenant for a guaranteed drop of all three types. Reset at the shrine and repeat.)