Skip to content
Learning Skills and Skill customization
Nioh 2

Learning Skills and Skill customization

Learn how to unlock and customize skills in Nioh 2, including Samurai, Ninja, Onmyo, and Shiftling trees, plus Mystic Arts.

By ···10 min read·Multi-source verified
1 reading this guide  

Learn how to unlock and customize skills in Nioh 2, including Samurai, Ninja, Onmyo, and Shiftling trees, plus Mystic Arts.

Walkthrough
  1. 1
    Invest skill points into weapon, Ninja, Onmyo, Samurai, and Shiftling skill trees to unlock new attacks (active skills), passive effects, magic, and tools.
  2. 2
    Samurai tree unlocks combat mechanics and abilities; fill yellow and blue tiles for a full arsenal.
  3. 3
    Shiftling tree focuses on Yokai abilities, with yellow slots for Yokai shift and blue/green affecting both normal and Yokai shift.
  4. 4
    Ninja and Onmyo trees unlock magic and tools, allowing you to lower their costs and increase preparation numbers.
  5. 5
    Complete training missions, which unlock as the game progresses and have proficiency requirements, to acquire many skills for Samurai, Ninjutsu, and Onmyojutsu trees.
  6. 6
    Defeat human bosses and enemies wielding specific weapons to obtain Art of Combat skills, which are automatically added to your skill tree.
  7. 7
    Unlock Mystic Arts by unlocking preceding nodes and using skill points; these are powerful passive effects for weapons, Ninjutsu, and Onmyojutsu.
  8. 8
    Mystic Arts for weapons, Ninjutsu, and Onmyojutsu are locked behind special late-game training missions requiring 120,000 proficiency with the respective weapon or skill type.
  9. 9
    After unlocking a Mystic Art, you must select it to set and activate it.
Tips
  • Use active skills (special attacks in certain stances with specific commands) to perform new attacks.
  • Passive skills in weapon, Ninja, and Onmyo trees are useful for overall gameplay.
  • Green slots in Samurai and Shiftling trees allow for customizable effects to be applied to active skills during customization.
  • Locks of hair items grant a free stat point for their respective skill tree (weapon, Samurai, Ninja, Onmyo). Weapon locks are first-time training mission rewards (including NG+). Samurai locks are first-time mission rewards. Ninja and Onmyo locks are found on corpses, in chests, and as NG+ mission rewards.
  • Shiftling skill points are obtained via Astral Wisdom, which requires completing missions, purifying soul cores, and performing resting rites with them.
  • You can reset any skill tree's points at the dojo by pressing triangle, which costs gold.
  • In Skill Customization, you can change which active skills are used for the same button commands, or turn off commands entirely.
  • Customizations can be edited for each stance.
  • In NG+, you can save and load builds in customization to create unique movesets.
  • Pressing square when selecting a skill in customization allows you to apply customized effects (green nodes).
  • You can only equip one effect per active skill per weapon, and these effects either decrease or increase the skill's Ki consumption by approximately 0.9 to 1.4.

100% Human-Written. AI Fact-Checked. Community Verified. Learn how AntMag verifies content