Way of the Mystic: Use These Talismans To Destroy Bosses in Nioh 3

While Nioh 3 is sensibly easier than previous games, it is still challenging. Human enemies tend to block a lot, while Yokai only stagger with attacks when they are out of Ki.

Depleting an enemy's Ki has always been the core of the Nioh experience, but getting to do so at the start of the game can be difficult, as both your knowledge of the game's mechanics and weapons is limited, and you can't access many Martial Arts that deal solid Ki damage in a short amount of time.

The only workaround to this issue is slowing the enemy down, allowing you to get more attacks in. This holds true even more for bosses, whose high speed can overwhelm less experienced players.

Embrace the Way of the Mystic: use these Talismans to utterly destroy every enemy in the game.

The Power of Slowing Movement

Slowing down enemies isn't just a way to get more time to style on them with aerial Ninja combos or unleash a sequence of Martial Arts empowered by Arts Proficiency in Samurai Style. It is, hands down, the single most powerful strategy against bosses.

To master this, you need to leverage the new Onmyo Box system and two specific Soul Cores.

The Sudama Core (Thunderstorm Shot Talisman)

• Location: The Sudama Core can be obtained after trading Yokai Teardrops for any item with any of the Sudama in the game. These are the little aratama spirits with a half-skull hat found in all maps and in the Eternal Rift.
• Effect: Positioning the Sudama Core in the Yang position grants you 8x Thunderstorm Shot Talismans.

These are, simply put, incredibly powerful. With a clear shot where the enemy is hit multiple times, Electrified is almost guaranteed to apply to most enemies in the game.

The Daidara Bocchi Core (Sloth Talisman)

• Location: Obtained by defeating a Daidara Bocchi Yokai.
• Effect: This Soul Core, positioned in the Yin position, is your source for Sloth Talismans. While limited in uses, it provides the most significant speed debuff available early on.

Fundamental Skill For Consistency

The Awakening Mastery Skill, which reduces Onmyo magic casting time, is mandatory for the most consistent application of this strategy. Without it, you will likely be punished during the casting animation against the game's faster bosses, who won't leave you any time to cast these spells.

This skill is learned after completing The Way of Onmyo: Novice mission. This can be started in the Eternal Rift after clearing the first Crucible in the Warring States map.

Field Testing: Takeda's Four Heavenly Kings

I struggled for some time in the Takeda's Four Heavenly Kings optional mission—a boss rush against the major bosses of the Warring States map.

I found that 4 Sloth talismans simply weren't enough to cover all the bosses in the rush. However, by combining the 8x Talisman Shots from the Sudama Core with my Samurai Guardian Spirit Shin-Roku, Uncanny Bolt Ninjutsu, and Lightning Familiar from the Raiju Core, I maintained almost 100% uptime of the Electrified status on every boss.

For Yamagata Masakage, who was still too fast on his horse for my liking, I also used a Sloth Talisman on top of the Electrified status for even more reduced movement speed.

Bonus Tip: Stacking Status Ailments

If you are feeling confident about applying the Electrified status effect, you can take this further by applying more status ailments such as:

• Saturation (Water)
• Blustered (Wind)
• Burn (Fire)

Applying two or more status ailments simultaneously applies Confusion. At its lowest level, Confusion lets you inflict 40% more damage to an enemy. We will cover the complexities of the Confusion system in greater detail in a future guide.

This concludes our Way of the Mystic guide, where we go over the intricacies of the Onmyo magic system. For more help, visit our Nioh 3: Complete Walkthrough and Guides Hub.

Guide based on a full playthrough conducted in the Steam 1.02 version, and a partial second playthrough in the 1.03 version. Screenshots captured from the 1.03 version.

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