Greetings and Salutations!

For those that have made the leap, you know that the Abyss is a mix of a wonderful and terrible place. Difficult boss fights, challenging effects, never-ending mini-stages.

All of that adds up to either being an unrelenting nightmare that you only deal with when you want certain Ethereal Graces... or the best thing ever if you just want to spend some more time with Nioh!

The grind can feel infinite, but each floor is in fact considerably less random than they may seem at first. The bosses, effects, and secondary bosses are all preprogrammed, and some can make for a neat/dangerous combination.

This guide is intended to serve as a reference for those that, like me, need to decide whether just one more floor is worth it.

Each floor of the Abyss has 4 permanent effects that will go into play as soon as you enter the boss arena of the Crucible. These can range from things like letting an enemy inflict Paralisys on you with every hit to creating random Yokai Realms, to even summoning additional enemies or even Revenants.

You can remove these effects from the Crucible by completing the Planes of Infinity side missions, which are tied to the four boats you can see as you first enter the Abyss. Each effect is tied to the color boat that you see.

If you clear out a side area to remove these effects, when you advance to the next floor one of the effects you cleared out will come back. The order they come back is the same as the order you cleared them - so if you went Red-Blue-Yellow-White on Floor 1, on Floor 2 the Red effect will be back and you will need to either clear it again or choose to fight with the effect. If you went Yellow-Red, leaving the other two in place, on the next floor you would still have the Blue and White effects in place, and the Yellow effect would come back.

There are twenty-odd Ethereal Graces, which if you've spent any time in Way of the Wise or Way of the Nioh difficulty at all, you know they have some of the most amazing (and odd) effects in the entire game.

Getting the Grace you want, however, can be an utter pain.

Thankfully, like all things gear-related, the Abyss has an answer!

You will encounter Defiled gear all over the place, and can Defile your own equipment using Droplets of Decay and a bit of Amrita. Defiled gear becomes purified when you leave the Abyss, and can jump up a level of rarity (ie, from blue to purple, or Divine to Ethereal), with new Ethereal gear that is not already part of a set gaining an Ethereal Grace.

When you defile a piece of gear, every floor boss you defeat in the Crucible will increase the level and + value, along with a chance of ascending Divine gear to Ethereal. After three bosses, this effect is maximized.

Now, here's the fun part: the floor you exit on plays a huge role in which Grace the Defiled equipment will receive.

For example, if you leave on Floor 37, any defiled gear that goes Ethereal will be in the "Futsunushi" grouping, which includes graces like Futsunushi, Takeminakata, and Magatsuhi.

In this guide, the formatting of the Floor will tell you which Grace rotation will be applied to Defiled gear.

There are Twelve total side areas, each of which have 4 variations (1 Arena and 3 Stage layouts). They may seem randomly cut off parts of main stages at first, but as you start experiencing more of them, you'll come to realize that they're fairly predictable. While they never precisely stop being challenging, knowing what's coming helps you a great deal in deciding which fights are worth facing and where to position yourself for those decapitating strikes.

Each area may randomly have a Dojo-bro/Coop Boss wandering around a set area. They are non-respawning (with one exception, see Hanzo Farming at the end), and drop the same loot they do in the Crucible, so are worth killing if you can do it quickly.

The areas are:

There is an immense amount of information in this guide, but most of it is extremely repetitive - what floor you are on, who the boss is, what Ethereal Grace rotation that floor is assigned. So, I decided on a dandy little table for all of us to use!

Here's Floor 107:


Note that the first row gives you the Floor Number, then the primary Boss. You will always fight Date Shigezane on this floor, and he will always be a massive pain in the ass. The final column in this row has Fuku listed. She is the Coop Boss that will only show up if you go into this fight with a Visitor summoned or in Coop. These coop bosses will almost always be from the "Dojo" list (all the Marobashi boys) or from the supporting characters list - Hanzo and Fuku make fairly regular appearances.

The second row is where things get interesting. The Grace Rotation of this floor - Sakuyahime - is listed out, along with the four Side Areas - and yes, these are fixed to each floor as well, which can make is easier to plan out which order you clear the side areas in to ensure you get your Hanzo-farming fix in, or to say hit up Inariyama for some Accessory love or Fushimi Castle for the Burning Oil Jar drops. As you can see, this is the most incomplete section of the guide by far, as while there is a rhyme to it (no two floors will have the same areas in a row; ie, you will not have back-to-back Iga Mansions), I do want to actually visit the areas myself to verify I have the right information.

The final column is the status effects on that floor, which also come in handy deciding which ones you can afford to leave up or remove.

Let's take a look at the next floor, 108:


Note that there's a silly little Sasaki Kojiro sitting in that third column. That's because on select floors (all 10-level floors, ie 110, 120, 130) there is a secondary boss that will always be there, coop or no. These can be some of the hardest fights - especially in coop, where 3-on-2 is an absolute pain - and serve as micro-plateaus for you to push your way past, as some combos get particularly nasty. (no, I don't think Sasaki "I like to hit deceptively hard" Kojiro and Hattori "I love to slow you down" Hanzo paired with Ishida "stay still and die" Mitsunari is a particularly fun gatekeeping fight to break into the 500s, why do you ask?)

This should be enough now for us to dig into the meat of the guide. Enjoy!