Nioh 2 Blacksmith Guide: Forge, Soul Match, Reforge

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The Blacksmith is an essential facility unlocked after the second main mission in Nioh 2. It's crucial for creating powerful builds and optimizing gear, serving as the primary hub for spending your gold.

Several Blacksmith facilities are initially unavailable and require completion of specific missions to unlock.

Forging and Smithing Scripts

Forging allows you to create Weapons, Armor, and tools using materials found during missions. You can also use lower-value materials to create rarer ones. Access to specific gear, such as that from human bosses or named enemies, requires finding rare Smithing Scripts, which drop from human and some Yokai enemies, including those in training missions like Hanzo. Forged equipment requires half the stat investment (Constitution, Skill, Strength) for its effects compared to dropped gear. Using rarer materials during forging increases the chance of creating higher rarity equipment, including items with a +1 rarity bonus. After defeating the final boss, Divine Fragments can be used to significantly increase the chance of forging Divine equipment.

The level of forged equipment is determined by your in-game progress, capping at 160 in the endgame and New Game Plus (NG+). Smithing Scripts can be found on any difficulty, though some are first-time completion rewards in NG+ missions.

Soul Matching

Soul Matching is used for both weapons and armor to transfer effects and increase overall stats. Effects marked with a white symbol (two rectangles with an arrow) can be inherited. If the target item has an existing inheritable effect, it will be overwritten; otherwise, it will be added to an empty slot. The source item must have maxed familiarity for the effect to be inherited. Divine gear, found after beating the final boss, features orange inheritable effects. These function similarly to white inheritable effects but do not overwrite them and lose their orange symbol upon transfer. Using these, you can fill all seven effect slots on a piece of equipment. If all slots are filled, you can choose which existing skill to replace when transferring an orange inheritable.

Soul cores also have white inheritable effects that can be transferred to weapons with the 'Imbue Corruption' effect. Soul Matching can also increase the level of weapons and armor (ranging from 1-160, with rare 170 drops in endgame NG+). Equipping a higher-level item as material increases the target item's level and stats, though there's a limit to this process. This method is expensive and generally not recommended during the first playthrough.

Raising a weapon/armor's +Value is crucial, especially in NG+. Exotic and Divine gear can drop with a +1 or higher bonus. Soul Matching an item with a +1 bonus transfers it to the target. Soul Matching two +1 items results in a +2, and this process continues up to +10. This is also expensive and primarily recommended for NG+.