Nioh 3 Blacksmith Guide: How to get the materials needed to upgrade your gear

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The Nioh games are known for rewarding players with lots of loot, but they also include a Blacksmith. This Blacksmith helps you manage the abundance of materials you collect and upgrade your gear. In Nioh 3, you’ll find the Blacksmith in the Eternal Rift after defeating the first major boss, Jakotsu-baba.

Nioh 3’s tutorial doesn’t fully explain what materials you need to use the Blacksmith’s features. This guide will help you find and gather those materials.

Just a quick note before we dive in: the Blacksmith also lets you craft temporary items called Forge Tools using materials dropped by enemies. However, since this feature doesn’t connect to the rest of the Blacksmith’s functions, this guide will mainly cover upgrading your gear.

Disassemble

When you use the Forge to create new armor and weapons, you’ll need materials like Wood and Ingots. Unlike some other games, you won’t find these by simply gathering resources in the world – you’ll need to find them through other means.

You can get these materials by breaking down unwanted equipment using the Disassemble menu. The specific materials you receive will vary depending on what you disassemble.

  • Tamahagane: Swords, Dual Swords, Odachi, Ninja Swords, Dual Ninja Swords, Kusarigama
  • Wood: Spears, Switchglaives, Tonfa, Splitstaves, Bows, Rifles
  • Ingot: Axes, Hatchets, Hand Cannons, Ultra-Heavy Foot Guards (the latter applies to the foot guards from armor sets with the heaviest weights, such as Tatenashi, Warrior of the East, or Scion of Tamura)
  • Leather Cord: Cestuses, Talons, Arm Guards
  • Lacquer: Head Armor
  • Leather Platelet: Light Torso Armor / Leg & Foot Guards (if the armor set barely has any visible armor plating, it’ll usually fall under this)
  • Iron Platelet: Heavy Torso Armor / Leg & Foot Guards (if the armor set does feature any notable armor plating, it’ll usually fall under this)

Plus, when you break down certain items, there’s a small chance you’ll also get a valuable Material Essence. You’ll need these later when you’re reforging your gear.

Soul Match and Soul Extraction

With Soul Match, you can improve your equipment in two ways: by leveling it up, or by increasing its plus value, which gives even bigger stat boosts. Both of these processes require Soul Ores, and you can get those through the Soul Extraction menu.

When Nioh 3 came out, players started getting three different types of Soul Ore, depending on what they were dismantling.

  • Yellow Soul Ore: All gears
  • Azure Soul Ore: Gears with + values
  • Viridian Soul Ore: Divine rarity gears

As a big fan of the series, I’ve noticed something different about how gear upgrades work in Nioh 3. Unlike previous games where the cost went up based on the gear’s starting level, this time it’s tied to your current level, and the highest one at that! It gets super expensive as you get closer to the level cap, so my advice is to stop upgrading around 5 levels before you hit the max. Trust me, your wallet will thank you!

Reforge

The Reforge menu lets you swap skills on your gear. Keep in mind that you can only have one skill per category on each piece of gear. Some skills also require a rare Umbracite material in addition to the usual resources. Because you’re replacing skills, not adding new ones, it’s best to start with high-rarity gear that already has a lot of skills.

Reforging an item requires both a Material Essence – the type depending on the skill you’re using – and some common disassembly materials. If you previously disassembled unwanted gears as we suggested, you might already have the essences you need.

Remodel

The Remodel menu lets you improve your gear, but the options change depending on whether you’re upgrading a weapon or armor. When remodeling a weapon, you can redistribute its core stats. Each weapon has three main stats that determine its overall power, and you’ll want to assign these to the three stats you’ve focused on the most to get the best results.

Players will be able to customize their armor in several ways, including restoring it to its original state. Each customization will affect the armor’s stats – like defense and weight – and may also change the minimum stats needed to use its special abilities. Some changes will be beneficial, while others might have drawbacks.

If you’ve focused on building up your Stamina, Super Reinforce might be your best choice. It provides a significant boost to defense, though it also increases weight. However, if you’ve increased your weight tolerance, that extra weight won’t be a problem.

No matter what you’re fixing up, you’ll always need the parts you take off the old equipment.

Our recommendations for accessing the Blacksmith

When you defeat enemies in Nioh games, including Nioh 3, you’ll collect new gear, gold, and Amrita. While most equipment can be improved at the blacksmith, accessories are different. You can sell any extra accessories you find for gold, or exchange them for bonus Amrita.

When it comes to weapons and armor, we suggest breaking down items that are Unique rarity or lower, as you sometimes get a valuable Material Essence. However, if an item has a bonus stat (+ value), it’s better to use Soul Extraction on it – and any extra Divine rarity gear you find – to get special Soul Ores.

Okay, so I’m still pretty new to Nioh 3 and haven’t finished the story yet. What I’ve learned is, if I’m getting stuck on a boss, I only bother with the Forge and Remodel options for my gear. Unless I’ve already found some armor with really awesome abilities, like life steal, it’s not worth investing too much. The game keeps giving you new armor sets, and once you beat the story, you’ll get even better Divine-level gear that’ll pretty much make everything I’ve been working on obsolete anyway!

Once you’ve created a Divine equipment set you’re happy with, you can try out features like Soul Match and Reforge. However, if you’re planning on playing future DLC for Nioh 3, you might want to hold off. Past games have introduced even rarer equipment with new expansions, and we’ll need to see what those DLC packs offer before knowing if that will happen again.

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2026-02-23 23:27