Nioh Respec Explained: how to reset William's skill points and respec your build
It's not exactly news now that Nioh is actually rather good. We loved the original PS4 release, and the timely arrival of Nioh: Complete Edition for PC is a great reminder before the year ends of just how good Tecmo Koei's take on a Souls-like formula is. We're really rather obsessed with it - and you can learn more about why in our review. What at first looked like an interesting but potentially uninspiring take on the Souls series has actually turned out to have a whole life all of its own - and it's definitely taken over our RPG gaming plans for February.
One major part of any RPG is of course character progression. Nioh's progression will be familiar to some and perplexing to others depending on your attitude and history with RPGs, and thanks to that fact we've written a separate guide all about Nioh's stats and leveling systems. We highly recommend you go and give it a read to see some suggested builds plus exactly what each of William's base stats does when it's improved.
Mistakes happen, however. Sometimes you select something and regret it, and other times you might just feel like a chance. When things go wrong or you want to mix things up you might want to respec - reset William's progression so you can spend skill points again and turn him into a different kind of character. Nioh mercifully has this feature, but getting to it is a little obtuse. Here's what you need to do:
Need more Nioh help? Be sure to check out our other Nioh Guides:
- Nioh Weapon Types Guide: Choosing the Best Weapon to start with
- Nioh Builds Guide: Our picks for the best builds for different weapons
- Nioh Stats & Leveling Up Guide: what stats do, and which to improve
- Nioh Glory Guide: how to earn glory quickly to buy rare gear
- Nioh Skills Guide: The Best Skills you must grab right away
- Nioh Guardian Spirits Guide: how to unlock every one and what they do
Using the Book of Reincarnation to respec William in Nioh and start character progression over
- Complete the first two main story missions (the Prologue and "Isle of Demons") to unlock the blacksmith. Find the blacksmith by heading to an area's starting point (marked on the map by an enormous building) and selecting it. You get a number of items, but you want the blacksmith.
- At the blacksmith, look at the items for sale: the one you want, the Book of Reincarnation, is 10,000 gold. Buy it. Keep in mind that the book gets more expensive each time you buy one - the second time around it'll cost you 30,000, three times as much. It only gets more expensive from here, possibly even endlessly.
- Back in the starting point menu, head to the storehouse. You'll find your book here, ready for you. When you use it, all previous progression will be removed but also all Amrita previously spent will be returned to you, plus all Samurai, Ninja and Onmyo Magic skill points.
- Now visit a shrine. At the shrine, you'll be able to re-spend all those points at will just as with a regular level-up. That's a full re-spec! Pricey, but worth it.
- Later in the game the Hidden Teahouse will also sell the books in exchange for Glory, though the price will similarly skyrocket with multiple uses - so respec wisely.