Ginchiyo is very right when she says she know how to use Raikiri, in her hands it does waaaay more Lightning damage. That one room you have her is a great spot to learn about Discord, since there’s an achievement to Discord an enemy for the first time. If you circle the room before fighting the Ogre you’ll run into the Fire heads, likely kill one and get the buff, and then using that against the ogre with Ginchiyo will swiftly Discord the ogre.
The reason to Forge items at the Smith is tied up mostly in when you get Smithing Texts to drop. If you want unique Armor Sets and Unique Weapons (Like Raikiri and Warrior of the West’s Honor) at your level and rarity you want, you either grind like mad or go to the Forge. If you get the smithing texts. Some are mission rewards but most are tied to bosses and are ridiculously rare to drop, but once you get to NG+ they’re a godsend if you have a specific set in mind for a build, or just want a very good baseline like the Raikiri is.
Another little detail is the Amrita Memories option in your menu works differently in and out of mission. Out of mission it breaks out into a sub-menu with five options: Thought Amrita, Yokai Illustrations, Guardian Spirit Illustrations, Character Directory, and The Tale of Nioh. In mission it just puts you straight into Thought Amrita which has Tutorials and some other minor details that come from corpse amrita. The middle three serve as information on enemies, allies, and list of ghost pals, and Tales of Nioh lets you rewatch cutscenes.
Just talking about Mizuchi today, who has Enemies Defeated Damage Bonus (A); Gold Earned +15%; Amrita Sense; VS Water +20; Amrita Earned +12.5%
Summary
Enemies Defeated Damage Bonus crops up here and on equipment, based on the letter grade it gives you stacking damage for every enemy you defeat that resets to zero when you die, leave a mission, or use a shrine. A rank gives about 1% more damage per kill, to a max of 15%. If you have multiple sources of this bonus, only the highest rank gets used and in general isn’t great. Gold Earned +15%? You wanna get paid, Mizuchi’s got deals. Amrita sense means the various intractable points show up on the radar, which give an item or two, some Amrita, and occasionally some dialogue. Very good in levels where specific Amrita points drop Skill point items when you first interact with them. Mizuchi’s also our first spirit with Element resist, +20 is a fair amount. Amrita earned is, well. Want more XP? Want to charge your gauge faster? Yeah, your living weapon charges based on Amrita received, so if you get more through buffs like this you charge quicker. Speaking of Living Weapon, Mizuchi’s is about on par with Daiba-Washi, just slightly better stats everywhere but Gauge Rate. Even with the Amrita Earned Daiba-Washi charges faster. Really the only thing keeping Isonade from being the better Water Spirit is Mizuchi’s summon is distinctly superior, pushing forward in a serpentine pattern dealing light damage. It can multihit and as such inflicts Saturated easily, and any human enemy hit will be knocked to the ground after they stop receiving damage from the summon, leaving them open to attack. Nothing special happens to Yokai however. 11/10