I hated Nioh 3's samurai style until I discovered one easy-to-find upgrade that helped me learn to love the art of the Ki Pulse

Nioh 3: The player character in samurai attire with a stern expression, with a glowing white Guardian Spirit over their right shoulder.

(Image credit: Team Ninja)

The Samurai style in Nioh 3 is much closer to the methodical, more hardy, planted sword master that you'd expect from a soulslike, at least compared to the shadowy ninja. However, Nioh 3's samurai has one defining factor that makes it hard to get to grips with for newcomers: Ki Pulse.

Ki is effectively your stamina, and you'll soon be breathless if you start flailing around as the samurai. So much so that I barely used the warrior early on in favour of the ninja, where I simply overwhelmed the enemy with a flurry of attacks and dodged here, there, and everywhere.

The Ki Pulse is how samurai manage their stamina, requiring you to press the right bumper on a controller at the correct time during combos to recover Ki. It's a lot to keep track of, and it doesn't lead to very smooth, impactful samurai combat if you can't do it right. Plus, I'm a sucker for odachis—large, Ki-eating swords—so I was burning through stamina after just a few hits, leaving me defenceless.

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Nioh 3: A map of the Hamamatsu Castle Crucible with a red circle highlighting the location of the chest containing the Running Water skill. — (Image credit: Team Ninja)

You can find this skill in the Hamamatsu Castle Crucible (the nightmare realm you'll enter a short way into the story). Once you reach the point where rock platforms come out of the lava, head into the building to your right. Then jump over the platforms on this side, kill the enemy that pops out of the mist, and then open the large red chest. There are two other skills I recommend grabbing while you're in the area; they'll also come in handy for the Jakotsu-baba boss fight coming your way.

Of course, there's no substitute for mastering the Ki Pulse, even with the Running Water skill. I recommend increasing your heart stat and unlocking the Flux and Flux II skills on the right side of the Samurai tree to enable you to switch stances mid combo while also triggering a Ki Pulse. It's the gateway to long, deadly combos.

Rory has made the fatal error of playing way too many live service games at once, and somehow still finding time for everything in between. Sure, he’s an expert at Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and more, but at what cost? He’s even sunk 1,000 hours into The Elder Scrolls Online over the years. At least he put all those hours spent grinding challenges to good use over the years as a freelancer and guides editor. In his spare time, he’s also an avid video creator, often breaking down the environmental design of his favourite games. If you can’t track him down, he’s probably lost in a cave with a bunch of dwarves shouting “rock and stone” to no end.

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