Rise of the Ronin Beginner Guide
Mar. 22, 2024Rise of the Ronin Beginner Guide
Rise of the Roninis a pretty hard game to get into, with an overload of information in tutorials and a high skill floor for combat. In this Rise of the Ronin Beginner Guide, we will be covering everything you need to know and our best tips and tricks to start your journey in the Bakumatsu Period.
When you first get into the open-world part of Rise of the Ronin, you definitely shouldn’t start exploring and trying to clear everything you see, since you have no means of traversal. You want to follow the main path, and clear the first Public Order. After that, you should spawn in the Veiled Edge banner of the Public Order, in front of a horse. Be sure to interact with the hay in front of the horse, as that is the Horse Whistle item which can be used to call your trusty steed. From there, you should feel free to do a bit of exploring within the constraints of your level.
If you want to be able to drop from heights while you explore as well, you should progress the main quest until the end of “Curtain Falls, Curtain Rises”, which will reward you with aGlider. From here, you have every traversal method available and can truly do as you wish. There is no timer for any of the quests in Rise of the Ronin, so you don’t have to worry about rushing the main quests or side quests. Even when you move out of the city into another one, you can come back to previous cities within theLonghouse, and pick up where you left off.
Speaking of the Longhouse, be sure to not neglect it. Later in the game, this becomes a timed-reward base with multiple systems for gaining items, coins, and crafting materials. Early in the game, you get 1 of these systems; Pilgrim Dogs. Every hour or so, you can send a Pilgrim Dog with a certain amount of coins in a money pouch to get Silver Coins. Petting Pilgrim Dogs you find on the road also gives Silver Coins, so be on the lookout for them.
To start, let’s go over the very basics of combat before we get into depth. You get a choice of 9 weapons throughout the game;Katanas,Spears,Paired Swords,Odachis,Sabers,Polearms,Bayonets,Greatswords,Oxtail Bladesand an Unarmed mode. Each weapon has stances with up to 4 special skills called Martial Skills attached to them. You can have up to 3 stances equipped on a weapon while using it in combat, and you can swap combat stances by holding R1 and moving the right stick.
You have a health bar and aKimeter, which represents your stamina which is depleted by basically any action in combat. When you run out of Ki, your stance is broken and you are temporarily stunned. The same applies to enemies, but when they are stunned you can execute a Critical Hit that deals massive damage. To keep your Ki up at all times, you should always press R1 after your combos to execute a Blade Flash, which replenishes Ki using the Blood Gauge meter which is shown underneath your weapon.
The combat system heavily revolves around theCounterspark, a special parry that changes in timing and style for each stance. When you correctly time this parry, you deflect enemy attacks and deal Ki Damage. When you parry against specific attacks, like enemy Martial Skills or the last attack of enemy combos, you cause them to Panic, leaving a small opportunity to get your own combo in or a Martial Skill. However, be aware that against some difficult bosses, they may bait you into attacks or martial skills during their panicked state, only to demolish you with their own unstoppable Martial Skill. In these situations, your strategy should be to panic the boss, then stay alert and try to predict the bait. If you think there will be another attack, use Counterspark to interrupt and then initiate your own combo or Martial Skill.
You also want to make sure that inMissions, you are swapping between characters often in combat. Whenever you get grabbed, or you run out of Ki, or are stuck in a corner, you can always swap to an ally and let the AI deal with the defense while you take up offense. It should become muscle memory to swap to another character every time you get grabbed into a cutscene animation so you can get good damage in and make the most from the situation.
Now that we’ve gone over the basics, let’s go back to Stances. There are 4 different types of stances:Jin,Chi,TenandShinobi. You will stagger enemies longer when they Panic if you use the correct Stance Type against a type of weapon. Jin is more effective against Sabers and lightweight weapons, and ineffective against Odachis and heavy weapons. Chi is effective against Odachis and heavy weapons, but ineffective against Katanas and normal weapons. Completing the cycle, Ten is effective against Katanas and normal weapons but ineffective against Sabers and lightweight weapons. Shinobi is ineffective against every weapon type, but makes up for it with good Martial Skills.
Each stance type also has a “scaling” from the 4 Stats in the game; Strength, Dexterity, Charm and Intellect. A hidden percentage of certain stats will be added as extra primary weapon damage, with each weapon type having a main stat that will always scale with it. You can improve the scaling by increasing your bond level with characters who use that stance, and unlock new Martial Skills for the stance by training at the Dojo against characters using it.
In summary, you want to equip the right stance against enemies, upgrade your stances with bond levels, and choose specific stats you want to prioritize based on the weapons you want to use, which you can do as early as choosing your Blade Sharpening Origin (Class).
At the start of Rise of the Ronin you will be asked to choose between 6 different Blade Sharpening Origins:Killer,Breaker,Seducer,Sapper,BeginnerandUnsharpened. Each ‘Class’ will give you a stat allocation with extra points for one of 4 stats.
Killer increases your Strength Stat, which in turn increases your Primary Attack and Defense. So your primary weapons like Katanas, Bayonets or Polearms will have some increased damage, and you take a little less overall damage with Defense. The origin also unlocks an ability allowing you to parry Arrows and Bullets back to enemies, which is somewhat useful as it opens up a bigger opportunity to attack. The weapons that will always have Strength scaling on stances are Katanas, Odachis and Greatswords.
Breaker will increase the Dexterity Stat, which increases Secondary Attack and Stagger Stats. This means it will increase damage with your ranged weapons like Handguns, Rifles and Bows, and also increases the Ki damage dealt to enemies. The unlocked ability Rapid Assassinations is incredibly useful in stealth combat, as you can stealth kill enemies that are right next to each other in quick succession, which is a very common situation. Weapons which always scale with Dexterity include Paired Swords and Bayonets.
Seducer will increase the Charm Stat, which increases Poise, Ki Recovery, and Luck. You will take less Ki Damage, recover your own Ki faster, and find more valuable item drops. The ability unlocked is Speechcraft “Liar”, which allows you to select the lie option in dialogue choices, which is also quite useful early on. Weapons which always scale with Charm are Polearms and Oxtail Blades.
Lastly, Sapper leans to the Intellect stat, increasing Infliction and Adaptability. These two stats are regarding Status Ailments, increasing your ability to afflict them on enemies and giving resistance against them. The assigned ability is Refill (Medicinal Pills), which gives you an extra healing item upon death or resting. Assigned weapons are Spears and Sabers.
The other 2 origins you should probably not choose, as the Beginner one does not give any abilities or extra stat points, and Unsharpened is the equivalent of a Wretch in Elden Ring. Don’t feel too pressured by having to choose your preferred playstyle early on, as the extra damage from choosing the right weapon and stat doesn’t really restrict you from using other weapons at all, and you can always change your origin later with a special item.
This is a pretty small but important tip, especially for people who want to use Odachis. Very early on in the game, you will meetRyoma Sakamotoafter being attacked by bandits in a cave. You learn that the leader of the bandits may have a permit to Yokohama, and storm the camp alongside Ryoma to find the Bandit Chief, known asGonzo.
Gonzo may seem like your average throw away character, being a small-time bandit chief, but in reality he is actually a bond, and can upgrade the Nodachi Jigen-Ryu stance for Odachis. This stance is one of only 2 Chi Stances for the Odachi, so when you defeat him and are presented the choice to kill or spare him, make sure you take this into consideration. You also later get some Bond Missions from him, so there is actual content that you may miss out on as well by killing him early into the game.
Some of the skills in the skill tree are incredibly useful for the entire playthrough, and in my opinion should be acquired as fast as possible. The 3 most important ones are undoubtedly the Speechcraft skills; namely Persuade, Intimidate and Lie. Getting these speech-crafts allows you to choose specific dialogue options in the story and bond missions that seem to always have a good outcome. Whenever I chose a Persuade, Intimidate or Lie option in a conversation with a Bond, it always increased my bond level. Additionally, there are some quests and decisions later on that will be locked behind these speechcraft skills. I would put these as the first skills you should get for any player, no matter your playstyle or build. Additionally, later on I would max out the level of Persuade to reduce global prices at shops by up to 10%, which is also incredibly useful in the long run.
Other skills that you should consider getting as soon as you can are Auto-Life Recovery in the Strength tree, any Medicinal Pill upgrades, as well as the entire Grappling Rope Tree and part of the Assassination Tree on Dexterity. Auto-Life Recovery is an absolute must-have, as it will fully recover health upon finishing or leaving a battle, so you don’t have to use your Medicinal Pills after every fight to top yourself off.
The Grappling Rope tree is not as essential, but still incredibly useful. You can pull yourself towards enemies on high ground, throw enemies with depleted Ki that are too far away to Critical Hit, and best of all, steal items that enemies use with your grapple hook. That means if bosses try to heal with a medicinal pill, instead of just trying to cancel it with an attack, you can steal it to get an extra heal. You can also steal Status Ailment items being used, like Flaming Whetstones, being auto-applied on your own weapons.
The Assassination Tree is down to preference, but I found it extremely convenient in my playthrough. Some players may rather attack everything, but personally I found stealth unavoidable and quite satisfying, which made this tree a great investment. The first skill is already amazing, letting you assassinate multiple grouped enemies in quick succession. The next skill lets you assassinate enemies from above with a grappling rope without much risk of alerting enemies, which is also very convenient.
Whatever skills you get after these is up to you. I found myself liking Handguns quite a bit, so I spent some points in that tree as well as the ally upgrades in the Charm tree.
Do not overlook increasing the level of your Bonds in Rise of the Ronin! A lot of them can upgrade the various Stances in the game, and all of them provide you with at least 1 stat point in levelling them.
To get your bond level up, keep an eye out for the Bond Missions on your Missions Tab and the in-game reminders to do their story quests. You should also select Persuade, Intimidate and Lie options whenever you can, no matter how egregious they sound, as they always seem to increase Bond level.
The last way to increase your bond level is by buying them a bunch of booze and poems. You can find where characters are by using the Bonds menu, and navigating to Location, and once you find them you can interact and give them a gift. Gifts that they like will have a small heart icon on the top left of the item, so give these out as much as you can throughout your playthrough and get all the important characters with your favorite stances up to Level 4: Fated. Whenever you give gifts to aBond, you will have to wait a while before being able to give another, so I recommend giving 3 of the same gift at once for maximum efficiency.
You can get gifts from rewards from missions, but more often from buying them from the Sundries tab at Traders and Black Marketeers. You can buy gifts from them for Silver Coins, a reasonably rare currency in the game which I didn’t find myself using for much else besides gifts. You will want to make sure that if you do blow all your cash on gifts, you don’t do it at normal ports; Traders and Black Marketeers in areas with a high bond relations will give you a small discount which adds up quite a bit.
You can improve your bond relation with areas by clearing Public Orders, finding cats, visiting landmarks and in general just clearing all of the activities in the area. You can always go to Faction Bases for discounts as well, which are the bases for the Pro- and Anti-Shogunate Factions. You can buy Sundries at the one which you have a higher bond with, and get some nice discounts for items. Another way you can get a “discount” is from Peddlers found occasionally on the streets. These merchants will give you gifts for simple coins, which are much easier to acquire.
That wraps up our Rise of the Ronin Beginner Guide, and if you’re looking for more Rise of the Ronin Content on Fextralife, be sure to check out ourReviewand ourRise of the Ronin Wiki!
Tyr
て んじよ うてんげ ゆいが とくそん
