The purpose of this guide is to clear any misunderstandings about the forging system in nioh. The forging system in Nioh is rather complex and a common problem problem amongst players is that they do not fully utilize it and thus lose out on better stats. By reading this guide you will ensure you will be getting the most potential from your gear when you reforge it.

Stat Quality
First and most important thing about reforging gear is to understand the different types of stats that can appear on gear:

Stats can appear in different qualities just as gear does:

• White
  
• Yellow
  
• Blue
  
• Purple
  
• Green
  
• Orange(Ethereal rarity)
  
  Example of the different types of stat rarities.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The colour of the stat that an item can have is determined by the rarity of the item itself. For example, an item of blue rarity can have traits from the white, yellow or blue trait pool. If you then changed to gear that was purple you could also get traits from the purple trait pool.
  
  You may be inclined to believe that higher quality stats are better than lower quality stats however this is not the case. Think of rare traits as unique stats which you can only obtain on rare pieces of gear. When deciding on which traits to use often it is a good idea to use traits which add value to your build rather than using only super rare traits.
  
  
  Traits like final blow damage or guard ki reduction are very common traits but have very high impact during gameplay. So don't think that your gear is bad just because you don't have rare traits.
  
  Types of Stats
  
  This is important when it comes to reforging and is a hugely overlooked aspect of gear stats. Before you start reforging your gear you must understand the different types of stat gear can have.
  
  1. Random stats
  
  
  Pretty much all gear has these, these are standard traits that are randomized and can be rerolled by reforging
  
  2. Preset stats
  
  
  These are predetermined stats which appear on specific items that cannot be reforged. When you are a low level these are usually fairly strong and useful but lose their effectiveness the further you progress through the game.
  
  3. Set bonuses
  
  
  Takes up a stat slot on your gear but having more items in the set unlocks more bonus traits
  
  3. Inheritable stats
  
  
  These are stats that you can transfer to and from other pieces of gear via soul matching. When you reach max familiarity with an item you can then transfer the inheritable trait onto other gear. Note that the stat values are random so you might find an item with an insanely strong value such as this running speed one.
  
  4. Star stats
  
  
  These are stats that cannot be obtained by reforging but can be reforged. If you want a star stat you will have to find a new piece of gear with it.
  
  When reforging gear you will need to take all of these variables into consideration. You can have up to 7 stats max on your gear. If you do not utilize these slots correctly you will end up with a very weak item.

What are graces?

Graces are simple although the game doesn't do a good job of explaining how they work.

A grace is essentially a set bonus that you can apply to any gear that doesn't have a set bonus. Graces are not only strong because they have special traits, but they also can be used with any combination of gear. Got two of the same katana with the same grace? That's 2 points towards your set bonus.

How do I get a grace?

You get a grace via defiling OR by soul matching with an ethereal that has a grace inheritance trait. Each floor of the abyss has a set of graces that always appear on that floor. The pattern repeats every 3 floors.

For example:

Floor 87 = Susano / Amaterasu / Shinatsuhiko / Takemikazuchi / Kagutsuchi / oyamatsumi / rest of older sets

Floor 88 = Magatsuhi / Izanami / Kkona / Kushinada / Futsunushi / Izanagi / Takeminaka / Okuninushi

Floor 89 = Tajikarao / Sakuyahime / Omoikane / Sarutahiko / Ninigi / Izanami / Ame-no Uzume

If you wanted the Susano grace you'd have to leave the abyss on floor 87 the get the grace. If you progressed to 88 instead of leaving then you'd have to leave on floor 90 instead.

When you defile a piece of gear you can raise its defilement points by beating floor and moving to the next floor. You can get up to a max of 3 points which will increase the odds that it will turn into an ethereal when you leave the abyss. When an item becomes ethereal it will gain a grace if it did not have a set bonus.






A sword with ninigi's grace obtained from defiling. If I left the abyss on floor 89 my divine could turn into an ethereal with this grace.

So now you understand how all the different weapons traits work. Now lets focus on how you go about building the ultimate item. If you haven't beaten the game yet simply focus on filling as many stat slots as you can. As a low level some items with preset stats can help you pad those extra slots out when you're using low level gear. This guide will however focus on high level gear (divine and ethereal).

The most important thing is to start with is that you start with a piece of gear that has only standard random stats. When you've progressed this far in the game items with preset stats are simply underpowered, IE a sword with +17 water as a preset stat could instead be +24 or higher from a reforgable stat.


































This is a good starting template for a piece of gear. It has only rerollable stats plus a space for an inheritable trait and a grace. If you're planning to use a set bonus instead of a grace then this is fine, use the sixth slot for it.

Now when it comes to rerolling your stats you have the expensive option and the cheap option. When you reroll 3 or more stats at once, their values are slightly higher than changing them individually. By tempering you can quickly select the stats you want but the values will be slightly lower. If you want the best possible stats, keep rerolling until the item has all the stats you want and fill in what is left via tempering.

Next you want to go into the abyss and add in the grace you want onto the gear. First defile the item using droplets of decay, progress through the abyss to raise the defilement level and then leave on the floor which gives the grace you want. If your item has a set bonus then it won't matter which floor you leave on.

After that you should have one slot left for an inheritable trait. Find an item which has the trait you want (try to pick the stat you want with the largest possible value), raise the affinity of the weapon using wetstones or glue (for convenience) and then soul match the stat onto your chosen gear.

After that you should be ready to roll with all slots filled in with your chosen stats. It may take a few runs to for your item to turn into ethereal(orange) quality so just keep doing runs until you get it.









Here is an item that has been built using the proper method. It started out with only rerollable stats and the set bonus, then the inheritable stat was added via soul matching to fill the 7th slot. Note that all armor has DR as a preset stat, but this doesn't affect reforging like other preset stats.

Never start with an item that already has an inheritable trait!

This is important. If you start building an item and it already has an inheritable trait that means when you go to inherit your 7th trait, it will overwrite your existing trait instead of adding one extra. So that same item we were building before will look like this in the end:

You will be missing a stat slot because you couldn't add an inheritable to your 7th slot.

















Don't use preset stats on divine or ethereal gear!
Preset stats are nice when levelling up, but they lose their value once you get far in the game. Like the example I gave earlier, +17 water could instead be +24 water or change to attack skill AA. Preset stats are a waste of stat slots on high level gear.

One thing to note that if your item starts with preset stats, it will prevent you from adding an inheritable trait to your gear because all 7 slots will already by filled. Preset stats will just hog up any slots on your armor and prevent you from customizing.

Again best thing is to start with only random stats, then add your set bonus and inheritable on to the last slots. Starting with inheritables and or presets just leaves you with a worse item.

How does this make my gear better

Not only does it allow you to reforge all available stat slots on your gear to your liking and to a higher value, but the inheritable stats allow you to make crazy armour builds. For example I have +14.9 running speed on all my items which allows me to move at a ridiculously fast speed. Other overpowered builds include unlimited omyo on all pieces of gear to throw out an absurd amount of spells.

So in summary when building the perfect item follow these steps:

• Start with a divine that only has rerollable stats.
  
• Turn into ethereal with the grace you want by defiling.
  
• Add the inheritable stat you want to the last slot through soul matching.
  
• Reroll the item stats 3 at a time until you have all your preferred stats then temper the remaining ones.

Eventually you will end up with gear that has all stat slots filled with godly values.

Hopefully this guide has given you insight into how the reforge system works and you will no longer be plagued by missing or terrible stats on your items.

Inheritable traits allow you to take traits from gear that never appears in the stat pool for that type of gear. For example only boots and legs have +running speed. But having that stat as an inheritable means you can transfer this exclusive stat to the rest of your gear. So you can have a helmet or a chest with +running speed.

This allows you to create insane builds that you would never be able to do otherwise, so make sure you use the inheritance system.