Shin Sangoku Musou 3/Dynasty Warriors 4 FAQ by Arcor (Mike Wu) 14/04/03 V0.75 Copyright Mike Wu 2003 ///////////////////Legal Notice////////////////////////////////////////////// This FAQ is for personal use only, and is not to be sold or reintergrated into any other guides for this game or any other game. DO NOT POST this FAQ or any part of it anywhere. This FAQ is authorized for posting ONLY on the following websites. If this FAQ is being hosted ANYWHERE else, please notify me immediately via the above email address. GameFAQs: www.gamefaqs.com IGN: faqs.ign.com Kongming's Archives: kongming.net You may ask for permission to post this guide via the email at the top of this guide, but chances are slim unless I know you personally. If permission is granted, the only conditions this guide can be posted under are if I get full credit for my work and this FAQ is posted in its entirety with this disclaimer. This FAQ is owned and copyrighted by me, Mike Wu, 2003. The game Shin Sangoku Musou 3 is copyright Koei, 2003. All other copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged and respected that are not specifically mentioned here. /////////////////End of Legal Notice///////////////////////////////////////// **************************************************************************** * Please read before you proceed! * * * **************************************************************************** If you see strange symbols while reading this faq please set your browser encoding to Shift-JIS. Notice: As US release is just around the corner I am requesting that someone please send me the English names for stages, minor characters and body guards. Basically anything that I have here in Japanese that's not translated is welcome. DW4 does not use save from previous DW games just to clear up any questions regarding that aspect. /////////////////////History///////////////////////////////////////////////// 14/04/03 Completed character overviews for both Shu and Wei, added Xu Chang in stage overviews. Due to time constraints I'll only be covering what I think are important stages in the future. V0.75 06/04/03 More character overviews, hints/bugs section updated, starting character parameters updated and Stage overview added. Added more complete descriptions to Gaiden requirements. V0.70 03/04/03 Thanks to Ed 3 and D'Agostino, a lot more English names have been added. Ending Section updated too. V0.68 31/03/03 Started putting in English names thanks to Ed. FAQ section update, and 2 more character overviews added. V0.67 23/03/03 More bits added to ending section, more character overviews. Updated FAQ section. V0.65 12/03/03 Added CAW, Endings, Starting Stats and overviews for Zhou Tai and Gan Ning. V0.57 09/03/03 Added Play Mechanics, Character Overviews V0.55 09/03/03 Added orbs, Items, Body guards and completed Snack&Wine section (almost anyway). Added Musou chart for other forces. V0.5 Added a few more lv10 weapons. 07/03/03 Added Playable characters, musou layouts and updated both Lv10 Weapons and Hints section. Started on snacks/wine section V0.4 06/03/03 First version of FAQ created. V0.3 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////Sections/////////////////////////////////////////////// 1.Playable Characters 2.Starting Stats For Playable Characters 3.Body Guards 4.Play Mechanics 5.CAW (Create A Warrior) 6.Character Overviews-[Shu] (Complete) Zhao Yun Yue Yin Guan Yu Ma Chao Zhuge Liang Wei Yian Huang Zhong Zhang Fei Pang Tong Jian Wei Liu Bei [Wu] Zhou Tai Gan Ning Tai Shi Ci Zhou Yu Huang Gai Sun Quan Sun Ce [Wei] (Complete) Cao Ren Xiahou Yuan Xiahou Dun Xu Huang Xu Chu Cao Cao Sima Yi Zhang Liao Zhang He Zhen Ji Dian Wei 7.Frequently Asked Questions 8.Musou mode layouts 9.Stage Overviews - Yi Ling - Nan Zhong - Xu Chang 10.Lv10 weapons 11.Items 12.Orbs 13.Horse Saddles 14.Wine and Snack locations 15.Endings 16.Hints and Interesting things/Bugs 17.Credits Anyone who would like to add stratgies or bits and pieces feel free to E-mail me with your writings and how you would like to be credited. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 1. Playable Characters ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Much thanks to Bill Wang for providing me with an accurate translation of all the playable officer names. (x)=Maximum number of item slots attainable, slots are gained by increasing the officer rank of the assosciated character. Starting item slots is 3 less than the final item slot. Bonus attained from officer points (Max 99999) 6000 - 1 extra item slot and 2nd costume unlocked. 20000 - 1 extra item slot and 3rd and 4th costume unlocked. 60000 - 1 extra item slot and 5th and 6th costume unlocked. ----------- | 蜀 (Shu)| ----------- (Liu Bei) 劉備(5): Playable by Default. (Guan Yu) 関羽(4): Playable by Default. (Zhang Fei) 張飛(4): Playable by Default. (Zhao Yun) 趙雲(5): After clearing Shu's「虎牢関の戦い(Battle of Hu Lao Gate)」 (Zhuge Liang) 諸葛亮(6): After clearing Shu's「虎牢関の戦い(Battle of Hu Lao Gate)」 (Wei Yian) 魏延(4): After clearing Shu's「荊州攻略戦(Campaign for Jing)」 (Ma Chao) 馬超(4): Defeat him in「成都制圧戦(Campaign for Cheng Du)」and clear the stage. (Pang Tong) ホウ統(6): After clearing Shu's「虎牢関の戦い(Battle of Hu Lao Gate)」 (Huang Zhong) 黄忠(4): After clearing Shu's「荊州攻略戦(Campaign for Jing)」 (Jiang Wei) 姜維(5): In Shu's gaiden stage「天水の戦い」(Battle of Tian Sui), listen to 諸葛亮(Zhuge Liang)'s plan and isolate 姜維 (Jiang Wei) by killing all his sub-officers, after a while he'll surrender then just clear the stage. (Yue Ying) 月英(5): After clearing Shu's 4th chapter. ------------- | 魏 (Wei) | ------------- (Cao Cao) 曹操(5): Playable by Default. (Xiahou Dun) 夏侯惇(4): Playable by Default. (Xiahou Yuan) 夏侯淵(4): Playable by Default. (Dian Wei) 典韋(4): After clearing Wei's 黄巾の乱(The Yellow Turban Rebe llion). (Xu Chu) 許チョ(4): After clearing Wei's 虎牢関の戦い(Battle of Hu Lao Gate). (Zhang Liao) 張遼(5): After clearing Wei or Lubu's 下ヒの戦い(Battle at Xia Pi). (Sima Yi) 司馬懿(6): After clearing more than 10 stages. (Xu Huang) 徐晃(4): After clearing Wei's 黄巾の乱(The Yellow Turban Rebellion). (Zhen Ji) 甄姫(5): After clearing Wei's 官渡の戦い(Battle of Guan Du). (Zhang He) 張コウ(5): After clearing more than 10 stages. (Cao Ren) 曹仁(4): After clearing Wei's 官渡の戦い(Battle of Guan Du). ----------- | 呉 (Wu) | ----------- (Sun Jian) 孫堅(5): Playable by Default. (Sun Shang Xiang) 孫尚香(5): Playable by Default. (Huang Gai) 黄蓋(4): Playable by Default. (Zhou Yu) 周瑜(5): After clearing Wu's 虎牢関の戦い(Battle of Hu Lao Gate). (Sun Ce) 孫策(4): After clearing Wu's 虎牢関の戦い(Battle of Hu Lao Gate). (Da Qiao) 大喬(5): After clearing Wu's gaiden stage ニ喬奪還戦 (The two Qiaos). (Xiao Qiao) 小喬(5): After clearing Wu's gaiden stage ニ喬奪還戦. (The two Qiaos) (Tai Shi Ci) 太史慈(4): Defeat him in 呉郡攻略戦(Campaign for Wu Territory) and after taking over the supply depot he'll appear as reinforcement. (Sun Quan) 孫権(5): After clearing Wu's chapter 3. (Lu Meng) 呂蒙(5): After clearing Wu's 黄巾の乱(The Yellow Turban Rebellion). (Lu Xun) 陸遜(5): After clearing Wu's 赤壁の戦い(Battle of Chi Bi). (Gan Ning) 甘寧(4): Make him surrender in 夏口の戦い(Battle of Xia Kou) or by clearing Wu's chapter 3. (Zhou Tai) 周泰(4): After clearing Wu's chapter 3. -------------- | 他 (Others | -------------- (Lu Bu) 呂布(4): Clear any faction's musou mode once. (Diao Chan) 貂蝉(5): Clear 1st chapter of 呂布(Lu Bu)'s musou mode. (Dong Zhuo) 董卓(4): Clear 呂布(Lu Bu)'s musou mode. (Zhang Jiao) 張角(5): Clear all other musou modes to make him appear. (Yuan Shao) 袁紹(5): Clear Wei's musou mode. (Meng Huo) 孟獲(4): Clear 南蛮夷平定戦(The Nanman Campaign) by capturing him 7 times. (Zhu Rong) 祝融(5): Same as the above. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 2. Starting Stats for Playble Characters ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Note bow attack and running speed are fixed for each character and there are no ways in the game to increase them permanantely. This hurts power characters who are slow but has more initial attack, defense and HP since those can be compensated for by doing a few more power up runs while running speed can not. Legend: S = Best F = Worst ----------- | 蜀 (Shu)| ----------- ***************************************************************************** * Names * HP * Running * Defense * Bow * Attack * Musou * * * * Speed * * Attack * * Gauge * ***************************************************************************** * Liu Bei * D * B * A * C * B * B * ***************************************************************************** * Guan Yu * B * C * B * B * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Zhang Fei * B * D * C * B * A * D * ***************************************************************************** * Zhao Yun * D * B * A * C * B * A * ***************************************************************************** * Ma Chao * B * B * B * C * A * C * ***************************************************************************** * Huang Zhong * B * C * C * S * A * C * ***************************************************************************** * Wei Yian * B * B * B * B * A * D * ***************************************************************************** * Jiang Wei * D * B * A * C * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Pang Tong * F * B * S * E * E * S * ***************************************************************************** * Zhuge Liang * E * A * S * E * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Yue Yin * E * A * A * C * C * A * ***************************************************************************** ------------- | 魏 (Wei) | ------------- ***************************************************************************** * Names * HP * Running * Defense * Bow * Attack * Musou * * * * Speed * * Attack * * Gauge * ***************************************************************************** * Cao Cao * D * B * A * C * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Xiahou Dun * D * B * A * B * B * B * ***************************************************************************** * Dian Wei * B * E * B * D * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Zhang He * E * S * A * E * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Xu Chu * S * E * C * C * A * E * ***************************************************************************** * Xiahou Yuan * C * C * B * A * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Zhang Liao * C * B * B * B * B * B * ***************************************************************************** * Xu Huang * C * B * B * B * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Zhen Ji * E * A * A * C * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Sima Yi * E * C * S * E * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Cao Ren * B * C * B * C * A * D * ***************************************************************************** ----------- | 呉 (Wu) | ----------- ***************************************************************************** * Names * HP * Running * Defense * Bow * Attack * Musou * * * * Speed * * Attack * * Gauge * ***************************************************************************** * Sun Jian * C * B * B * C * B * B * ***************************************************************************** * Sun Ce * C * A * B * B * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Sun Quan * D * B * A * C * B * B * ***************************************************************************** * Zhou Yu * D * A * A * D * C * B * ***************************************************************************** * Sun Shang Xiang * E * A * A * C * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Huang Gai * B * C * B * C * A * C * ***************************************************************************** * Ta Shi Ci * B * C * B * D * A * D * ***************************************************************************** * Gan Ning * C * A * B * B * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Lu Xun * E * S * A * C * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Lu Meng * C * B * B * C * B * B * ***************************************************************************** * Da Qiao * D * A * A * D * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Xiao Qiao * E * B * A * D * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Zhou Tai * E * B * A * D * C * A * ***************************************************************************** -------------- | 他 (Others | -------------- ***************************************************************************** * Names * HP * Running * Defense * Bow * Attack * Musou * * * * Speed * * Attack * * Gauge * ***************************************************************************** * Zhang Jiao * D * B * A * C * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Diao Chan * E * A * A * D * C * S * ***************************************************************************** * Lu Bu * S * S * B * A * S * D * ***************************************************************************** * Dong Zhuo * A * C * C * C * A * D * ***************************************************************************** * Yuan Shao * D * C * A * C * C * B * ***************************************************************************** * Meng Huo * S * E * C * B * S * E * ***************************************************************************** * Zhu Rong * C * B * B * B * B * C * ***************************************************************************** ------- | CAW | ------- ******************* * Male * ***************************************************************************** * Style * HP * Running * Defense * Jump * Attack * Musou * * * * Speed * * * * Gauge * ***************************************************************************** * Long Sword * C * A * A * A * B * A * ***************************************************************************** * Spear * B * B * B * B * B * B * ***************************************************************************** * Polearm * A * C * B * D * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Bastard Sword * S * D * C * F * A * D * ***************************************************************************** ******************* * Female * ***************************************************************************** * Style * HP * Running * Defense * Jump * Attack * Musou * * * * Speed * * * * Gauge * ***************************************************************************** * Long Sword * E * A * A * A * C * A * ***************************************************************************** * Spear * D * B * A * B * C * B * ***************************************************************************** * Polearm * C * C * B * F * B * C * ***************************************************************************** * Rapier * B * A * B * A * B * D * ***************************************************************************** ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 3. Body Guards ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Body guards which I'll refer to as BG from now on are much tougher than they were back in DW3 days. They hardly ever die on normal difficulty when maxed out and on hard it's relatively simple to keep them alive too if you manage to pick up food on regular basis. -There are 4 sets of BG available, names and model type can be edited. -Models are unlocked when you unlock their respective Musou mode, for example Yellow Turbine guards are available once you have their Musou unlocked. -BG recover HP as you pickup recovery items. Back to DW2 style. BG's growth is related with their own set of points, similar to your player character, they gain points when defeating enemies and it'll be calculated at the end of a stage. Point formula: kills x 10 BG alive after battle x 20 Number of BG participated x 30 There are 20 ranks available to BG, you can raise up to 15 by accumulating points. In order to progress from 16~20 you'll need to let them kill more people than their current rank. For example in order to progress to rank 16 you'll need to make them kill 16 people in a single battle while they're still lv 15. By pressing select, you can change the AI of your BG anytime during the battle. There will be a small icon below your character head pic indicating what kind of tactic is being applied right now. BG will follow player character around. Shield-Default icon, BG concentrates on protecting the player character will attack foes that comes within a certain radius. Sword-Aggressive AI, BG will attack anything that they can see within the viewing distance. BG will follow player character around. Hand-Passive AI, BG will guard their current location and attack anything that comes within a certain distance. BG does not follow player character around. BG can wield 5 kinds of different weapons, each type will affect their growth attribute when they lv up. ---------------- | Growth Chart | ---------------- 剣兵=sword 戟兵=polearm 槍兵=spear 弓兵=bow 弩兵=crossbow Sword=Balanced growth in all parameters. Polearm=Concentrates in attack parameter. Spear=Concentrates in Musou parameter. Bow=HP and defense. Crossbow=HP and defense. If anyone has more info on the details feel free to e-mail me about it. Now it's possible to raise their title above 修羅(Stalwart), depending on you customize the growth of your BG. It's possible that if you didn't plan your BG growth well that you'll never reach the 5th title. 朱雀(Masters)-HP maxed out by rank 20, fire element added to their attacks. 青龍(Experts)-Musou maxed out by rank 20, thunder element added to their attacks. 白虎(Tiger)-Attack maxed out by rank 20, blaze element added to their attacks. 玄武(Phoenix)-Defense maxed out by rank 20, ice element added to their attacks. 黄龍(Dragon)-At least 2 parameters maxed out by rank 20 with 2 others near maxed out. Slash element added to their attacks. Here's a method to obtain 黄龍(Dragon) posted in Bahamut BBS, I haven't tested it myself yet. Rank 1~9 (bow)-->Rank 10~11 (Spear)-->Rank 12~20 (Polearm) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 4. Play Mechanics ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ----------------------------------------------------------- | Basic Actions (Available universally to all characters) | ----------------------------------------------------------- ************** * New To DW4 * ************** ======= =Duels= ======= Duels usually happens when 2 named officers from opposing factions come across each other, it is a player-only event so it'll never happen for AI controlled ally officers. Whether a duel will actually happen is determined by the 2 officers affinity towards each other. Higher affinity decreases the chance of a duel occuring while low affinity will trigger duels more frequently when fighting that particular officer. Actions can be taken to either increase or decrease a officers affinity towards one and the other. Increase: -Help out that officer when he/she is in trouble when playing as their ally. -Playing 2 players with them. Decrease: -Defeat them on battlefield. Now when a duel screen comes up you'll have a certain amount of time to decide whether you'd like to accept the duel or not. Pressing start automatically means declining the duel so be careful not to take it as another boring cut-scene. Not pressing any button by the time the timer runs out also means declining the duel as well. Pressing Circle Button accepts it. Declining duels will result in a morale downfall across your entire force. =================== =Rules for Dueling= =================== -HP is independent from normal battle, both characters start with a full bar. -Your personal stats affect your power/defense to some extent but there are some other factors since my fully maxed Zhou Tai still gets his ass handed to him by Lu Bu in a duel, although everything turned around after the duel ended. -AI seems a lot smarter and will almost always block any direct attacks, also performs reversal on frequent basis. -The weapon you're wielding will determine how many hits you can link up. -Being defeated (HP=0) means gameover right away. -The duel lasts for 45s and no one dies when timer runs out it is viewed as a draw. -While playing with 2 player, the screen switches to full screen and the other player waits for the duel to finish before the game progresses normally. -After the duel ends both sides revert back the HP they had previously. -Winning means instant death for the enemy officer, the item they drop will immediately be given to you without having to pick it up. A morale boost to your entire force. -You can't duel commoner officers unless there's a special event associated with that person. -You can't duel commanders who you're required to kill in order to end a stage. -Duels seems to occur much more often when you pit characters from the same side against each other (Ie. Shu character playing against Shu in Free Mode) This seems to explain that the starting affinity rating between you and your comrades is rather low so you'll have to work on that if you like comrades to appear as Musou body guards. Duels are extremely handly when you want to take out a officer without dealing with his henchman or just trying to finish them off quickly during your power up run. Some hints for dueling: A fairly easy method to win duels is do a mid-air downward charge attack (T in mid-air) near whoever you're fighting and chances are they'll be knocked down by it. As soon as they try to recover by doing a back-flip run up close and time your slash so it connects just as they land, they won't be able to block. Rinse and repeat till it's over. Use arrows against them, after shooting once immediately release R1 and press it again to skip the reload timer. Take note though it won't work on some overpowering officers. *************** * New Actions * (Things new to DW4 not included in DW3/XL) *************** Mid Air Charge (MAC): Triangle while in mid air, your character will do a quick descending downward stab that creates a pulse around him/her while knocking down and damaging all those around him/her. Looks cool but in reality enemies will hit you out mid-air most of the time before you can complete the move. It's a good follow up for C5 though. Reversals: While blocking, press Triangle when enemy's hit is about to register will allow you to perform the reversal attack you them do during duels. During the reversal you'll be rendered invulnerable to all normal attacks, only Musou can break it. Button mashing won't get you anywhere for this so start practising! Name Declaration: Pressing the R3 analog button will allow cause the character you're playing to yell out his name along with a 360 green aura that will guard break anyone within its radius. There is a charging time associated with this move so the only use I see from this move is when playing with another person 1 guy can constantly do name yelling to stun while the other lays the smack down on people. *************** * Old Actions * (Just for those new to DW series, no need for those already *************** familar with DW) Normal Attack-Square button, can be chained up to 4~6 times depending on weapon lv. Charged Attack-Triangle button, can be mixed in with normal attack in order to execute Charged attacks. For example C2 would be S,T and C6 would be S,S,S,S,S,T . Maximum number of chains is affected by your weapon lv. orb effects comes out when the requirements are met. See orb Section for more details. Dash Attack-After walking a distance, press Square. Results usually in a knockdown attack but varies depending on the character. Jump-The X button. Guard-L1 button, protects you from all forms of attack except throws. Only covers the front 180 so becareful about those who try to sneak up from behind. Guard break from overpowering normal and charged attacks no longer exists in DW4. Air Recovery-L1 while being knocked into mid air, prevents further juggling. Archery-R1 Button, the view will become first person with a crosshair that semi auto locks onto your nearest target. You can fire normal arrows using Square button or charged arrows using Triangle. Mini Map-Use R2 button to switch between a magnified version of the map and the normal version. HP bar-Use L2 button to turn on and off HP displays for enemies and vital ally troops. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 5. CAW (Create A Warrior) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// New to DW4 is the ability to create your own playable characters along with body guard editing function simliar to those found in DW3:XL. Here are some basic aspects of CAW - Up to 4 characters can be created in DW4 save. - Only the motions of characters you've unlocked can be chosen. - CAW can be used in any factions Musou Mode. - 5 different types of weapon in total, you only have to earn each type's lv10 weapon once. Say if you created a long sword character with Cao Cao's move set and obtained his lv10 weapon and created another person under the long sword category, that person will automatically wield lv10 weapon from the start. Things you can edit in CAW: Sex: Male/Female ******** * Male * ******** Colour: White, Blue, Red, Green, Purple, Yellow Head: Short hair, Helmet, Bandana Armor: Fighting suit, Breast plate, Steel mail Legs/Wrist: Steel, Studded, Cloth Waist: Oriental skirt, Fighting suit, Steel ********** * Female * ********** Colour: White, Blue, Red, Green, Purple, Yellow Head: Short hair, Pony tail, Steel helm Armor: Fighting suit, Plate mail, Dancing suit. Legs/Wrist:Cloth wrist/leggings, Dancing wrist/leggings, Steel wrist/leggings Waist: Cloth, Dancing, Steel *********** * Motions * *********** You can choose from 5 different weapon types (3 initially not available) and under each weapon type will be a number of characters whose moveset you can use. 剣 (Sword): (Liu Bei) 劉備 (5) (Huang Zhong) 黄忠 (4) (Cao Cao) 曹操 (5) (Xiahou Yuan) 夏侯淵(4) (Sun Jian) 孫堅 (5) (Sun Quan) 孫権 (5) (Zhou Yu) 周瑜 (5) (Gan Ning) 甘寧 (4) (Dong Zhuo) 董卓 (4) (Only available for male) (Yuan Shao) 袁紹 (5) 槍 (Spear): (Zhao Yun) 趙雲 (5) (Ma Chao) 馬超 (4) (Jiang Wei) 姜維 (5) 戟 (Polearm): (Zhang Liao) 張遼 (5) (Lu Meng) 呂蒙 (5) 大剣 (Bastard Sword): (Fu Xi) 伏犠(4) (Only available for male) 細剣 (Rapier): (Nu Wa) 女カ(6) (Only available for female) Trick for getting 6 slot character with any motion: When creating your CAW, initially choose the rapier move set and proceed till the final confirmation. Cancel your confirmation and you'll able to change any particular part of CAW, now choose the moveset you prefer and you'll notice your CAW will still have 3 initial item slots available. (Might be fixed in the US release) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 6. Character Overviews ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Here I'll be analyzing each individual characters based on their performance on Hard difficulty. -Characters analyzed will be fully maxed in HP, Defense and Attack. -Wielding their lv10 weapon with Wind Scroll. -Storm Runner saddle equipped. -Different orbs will be equipped depending on the nature of their move set, I'll explain why I chose that particular orb over others. -For characters with 4 slots I equipped the following, Peacock Urn, Tiger Amulet, Tortoise Amulet and Wind Scroll. -For 5&6 slot characters I either add Elixir or Iron Shell Hand. -Using Nanman stage as the test bench since it's flooded with infantry (Hard). -C3 attacks are now called rush charge, with each weapon type upgrade the characters gains an extra from c3. -S6 stands for the normal Squarex6 attack, sorry I didn't realise that this wasn't a standard convention and received a lot of questions on it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ******************* Lv10 Weapon Range=Execellent * 趙雲(Zhao Yun) * Running Speed=B (Good) ******************* Being one of the most popular characters in DW it's only fair I give him the first coverage. Here's a run down his attacks. C1-Forward dashing attack, often seen used by infantries. Good for escaping but nothing else in particular. C2-Your standard aerial launcher target can be combo'ed after he/she drops down. I never use this personally. C3-Zhao Yun thrusts his spear downwards and upwards continously while advancing and ends with a 180 forward swipe that dizzies his foe. It's half decent for duels since after dizzying your foe it can be followed up with another c3 or anything of your choice for more damage. In big crowds this move won't do you much good since the range covered is too small. C4-I consider this Zhao Yun's main arsenal, you can access this move right at the start and use you'll be using it a lot. After 3 wide swipes to the front, he charges up a bit and unleashes a powerful 360. The charge up time is minimal and chances are you'll be able to pull this one off without much hassel even in big crowds. With Wind Scroll and his lv10 weapon, this move alone makes him one of the best crowd characters in the game. It does have a bit of recovery time if your foe blocks it and it'll leave you open for a combo. Have your Musou ready in case this happens. C5-This is a enhanced aerial launcher that seems to be identical across all characters, I don't use this move much at all since it only deals 1 person effectively. I sometimes use this in duels when I equip myself with the fire orb. Zhao Yun's c5 only does 2 hit, 1 for launching and another for beating them down from mid-air, you can choose to follow it up with another MAC but chances are you are going to get knocked out by jumping soldiers. C6-This move was practically useless in DW3 due to it's minimal damage and narrow range, Koei seems to have taken notice and thus it has been improved somewhat. Zhao Yun does multiple forward thrusts which juggles his foe in mid-air and ends with a 360. This move is quite hard to aim and more than often you'll miss your target until you become more familiar with it. When equipped with an Ice orb, the first hit of C6 has a chance to freeze your foe. If it freezes then your foe will take insane damage from the strikes that come afterwards since when frozen they can't be launched into mid air and the stabs will do full damage. S6-His S6 is also very good at clear out crowd like his C4, while it does more damage and has no charge up time I still prefer to use C4 mostly cos of the orb effects. What I suggest is to use S6 when there hordes of infantries but no officers and use C4 when a officer is around so you can take your chances at freezing him/her. Musou Ranbu-Identical to what he had in DW3, juggles the enemy into mid-air continously and ends witha 180 swipe in the front. The damage isn't great and the range is pretty poor except for the last strike. I use it as a fail-safe move mostly when I get hit by enemies or when there's frozen officer around me. Test Run at NanMan: With his defense maxed out and wearing lv20 Tortoise Amule, normal soldiers can't stun Zhao Yun, a commoner officer and above has the ability to stun him but still he takes relatively little damage. Using his C4 with Ice orb equipped I was able to clean out large chunks of enemies without much hassel. It takes about 2~3 rounds of C4 to defeat a group of enemies, with Elixir equipped there was hardly a time when I couldn't pull off a Musou when I wanted to. Once the mobs are out of the way the officers are fairly easy too, Zhao Yun is fast enough so he can run around officers and try to poke them from behind. S6 or C6 is recommened for dealing with officers when there aren't many mobs around. On a whole Zhao Yun is a very versatile character that is capable of handling any situation at any given time. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Slash (I prefer Ice personally) Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir ******************* Lv10 Weapon Range=Execellent * 月英(Yue Ying) * Running Speed=A (Excellent) ******************* Yue Ying is the newest addition to Shu's line up of playable characters, in many ways she's quite similar to Zhao Yun yet she's unique enough on her own to warrant playing. Here's a run down of her attacks: C1-She thorws out her scythe in a boomerang like fashion, travels a bit of distance and then returns to her. She's left open for attacks from sides and the back when executing this move. The best time to use it would be to stop a swarm of chasing enemies so they don't dash attack you. While the damage done is minimal, it does release orb effects when hit. C2-An uppercut with a long charge time, definately not recommended since it can still be blocked even if the previous hit registers. C3-Her C3 is similar to Zhao Yun's C6 where she advances while performing forward thrusts. There is a delay between each thrust and more than often it doesn't combo too well. If a thrust hits, it's immediately followed up by about 4 more mini thrusts, the whole thing ends with a 180 swipe. On a whole I don't really recommend using this move even in a duel, there are faster and easier to aim moves that does more damage. C4-This is where Yue Ying's potential starts to shine, being one of her crowd control moves you'll be using this till C6 becomes available and even after that you'll want to use this from time to time. Yue Ying does a 360 swipe while advancing slightly so it's a good move to do when charging into crowds, when coupled with Slash or Ice orb there is a decent change that more than a few foes will taste the wrath of its effect. The charge time is fair so as long as your defense isn't too low you'll have no problem pulling this off frequently in the same manner as Zhao Yun's C4. C5-An high air launcher with a bad charge time like her C2, I don't really see a use for this move unless paired with Fire orb. C6-This is the ultimate for Yue Ying, once you get this move pretty much no crowd can stop you. She starts rotating her scythe repeatly like a humanoid helicopter and anything that's within the radius of her spin gets some quality dicing. With her insane range you'll pretty much hit almost anything on the screen. This move works well with Ice orb since if foes gets frozen the first hit the consecutive hits that follow will do much more damage than normal since they're not counted as aerial strikes. Her Musou Ranbu combos well with C6, time your rotations so as soon as you sense the rotation is coming to an end immediatelly follow up with her Musou Ranbu. Not many foes can stand that while frozen. There is a slight recovery after her rotation finishes but she can just pull off a Musou Ranbu if anyone attempts to attack. S6-Again very similar to Zhao Yun's S6 but slightly slower, does a 360 slash at the end. Good when you don't have a lv10 weapon yet or somehow can't access the orbs Effects (Musou bar not full for eg.) Musou Ranbu-Can be viewed as an enhanced version of her C6, she rotates with her scythe extended until her Musou bar is depleted and then finishes off with a rising spin similar to how Sun Ce finishes his Musou Ranbu. It's very linkable with C6 and does devastating damage to all frozen opponents. Damage isn't that great when used normally but it's a good crowd cleaner when things get too hectic. Test Run at NanMan: I had her in the same setup that I used to test Zhao Yun since both of them have access to 5 item slots. What can I say, her C6 with Ice orb just dominates. Any person getting frozen with her C6 gets a free flight to nether land. With a lv15 Elixir equipped her musou was fully charged after every 2 executions of C6, I kept her Musou bar short so she could pull off Musou Ranbu more often. officers like to block a lot but she can easily just pivot her attacks so it hits them in the back. Her swings may be a bit slower when compared to Zhao Yun but her uniquess and range makes her one of the top crowd controllers too. Oh and did I forget to mention that she doesn't reel back from normal infantry strikes, charged strikes still does have an effect on her though. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Slash (I prefer Ice personally) Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir ******************* Weapon Range = Excellent * 関羽(Guan Yu) * Running Speed = C ******************* Guan Yu is much weaker in DW4 than he was in DW3 when he had the amazing 4th weapon which helped him charge up Musou Bars incredibly fast. Guan Yu is kind slow and his charge attacks have a pretty bad charge time but he makes up for it with range and the area covered with his attacks. C1: Guan Yu's new move, he hops quite a distance forward while spinning his weapon. The only use I can see of this move is to jump into a bunch of incoming infantries and hope that the orb effect that's released can grant you an advantage. C2: Standard air launcher, charge time is too slow to be of much use. Avoid. C3: His other new move, it's pretty fast compared to his other moves but only covers a small area in front of him. Guan Yu advances while doing upward thrusts, it's good against officers if all the hits connect as it stuns on the last hit. In a crowd just tap Triangle once so you'll pull off the ender which covers a wider radius. C4: This is his most useful move, it covers 360 around him and you have access to it right at the beginning. The only downside is the charge time is horrible and you'll find yourself being hit out of it very often unless you equip "Iron Hand Shell" which makes him uninterruptable during charged attacks. Works great with Ice or Thunder orb. There's quite a long recover time after this attack so better start praying if it's blocked. C5: Standard high air launcher, again the charge time is too long to make it of any practical use. C6: This move remains pretty much unchanged from DW3, Guan Yu does a massive swing in the front and releases an impulse that travels a short distance. The area covered is 360 like C4 but it does cover a bit further in the side he's facing due to the short impulse. The charge time is long enough so that it won't combo. Like C4 you'll have to deal with constant interruptions Guan Yu might face in a crowd. S6: This covers a very good area with all the attacks and ends with a 270 swing that's really fast compared to his C4 and C6. Damage is pretty good too so I use it in both 1 on 1 or in groups. Choose this over his charged moves if you don't have any good orbs. Musou Ranbu: His walking top spinner Musou is back, it's the same as how it was in DW3 in a sense that he juggles any foes that gets caught within it. Like all juggling Musou Ranbus, it's very effective when used against a frozen foe. This is one of the most practical Musou Ranbus in the game, it works well whether you're surrounded or just trying to add damage to your combos. Test run at Nan Man: Guan Yu walks around fairly slow and he gets hit out of his charged attacks much more often than most others so equipping Iron Shell Hand might be an option for some of you. When his C4 does land it clears out a good chunk of space due to his awesome range and the damage is pretty good too. He's still fast enough to sneak behind blocking officers pretty well. Guan's charge time and his fairly slow walking speed is his obvious weakness but if you can manage those downsides then he's still an ok character but nowhere as effective as how he was in DW3 due to his 4th weapon. ****************** LV10 Weapon Range=Excellent * 馬超(Ma Chao) * Running Speed=B (Good) ****************** Ma Chao really lives up to his name in DW4, Ma stands for horse in Chinese and Chao stands for super. He's probably the only character in the game who you'd want to stay on a horse most of the time except when killing off lone officers. His Triangle attack on a horse is an equivalent of an elephant stomp, meaning that it does a large AOE stun attack to all those around him and decent damage. It's really amazing how fast you can clear a horde of infantries with this move, while it doesn't kill officers that fast you can always get off the horse after you've cleared out all infantries. His standard moves isn't too bad either but on the horse is where Ma Chao's true potential lies. C1: Ma Chao does a 360 flying kick, not much use really. C2: Standard air launcher, not quick enough to combo and I don't use it much. C3: Ma Chao does a series of quick stabs and ends with a mini swing that covers a good area in front of him. The damage isn't that good so I recommend sticking to C6. C4: The forward thrust attack that you sometimes see infantries use, while damage is decent the range is too narrow making it useless in most situations. Even against a officer S6 and C6 would be a much better choice. C5: Standard high air launcher, not quick enough to combo and I don't use it much. C6: Ma Chao performs a very wide 360 swing that's works well for clearing out infantries but really the usefullness of this move is dumbed down by the fact he's much better at clearing crowds on horses. Use this if you want to proc the orb effects or just want to do some fighting on foot. S6: The area covered is kind of a mixed bag because some of his swings within those 6 hits are really short and it doesn't work too well in most cases that the person you're hitting actually blocks it halfway through due to 1 of the hits missing. It's still pretty good for 1 on 1 but you have to be quite close to your opponent to ensure that all hits connect. The final hit covers a good deal of area in front him but use his Triangle attack while riding horse for maximum efficiency. Musou Ranbu: Ma Chao moves around while spinning his spear, the damage isn't too good since those hits juggle opponents and is kinda awkward to control. The final hit is reallly wide and is excellent for clearing out crowds with some decent damage to add. Don't rely on this move for damage unless someone is frozen, in most situations you'll be using it as a life saver. Test run at Nan Man: Ma Chao is probably the most efficient and simple crowd clearer ever, all you ever need to do is ride into a bunch of people with Storm Runner and hammer Triangle like mad. You can pretty much switch to another change and come back 20s later to find everyone except the officers dead. If you want to explicitly use his AOE stun attack, then you might want to save a slot for Horned Helm to increase his efficiency even more. Overall no crowd will stand in your way once you obtain Storm Runner saddle and Ma Chao's ability to handle 1 on 1's pretty well makes him a very powerful character in DW4. The only distinct downfall is the somewhat varying range of his Square strikes. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Horned Helm Item4:Wind Scroll ************************ Lv10 Weapon Range=Poor * 諸葛亮 (Zhuge Liang) * Running Speed=A ************************ Zhuge Liang lacked power in DW3 and in DW4 he still can't do much damage but he makes up for it by having the largest item slot (6) in the game. He's still a defensive character that while isn't very good at killing like a few others can survive pretty well. An intersting thing about Zhuge Liang is his aerial charge attack actually shoots out a laser to the ground, while nothing spectacular in terms of damage it's pretty to look at. C1: Zhuge Liang shoots out a triple arrow like energy pulse, it carries orb effect. More of a fun relief than anything else. C2: Standard air launcher, horrible charge time never used it much. C3: He shoots a energy ring in front of him that travels a tiny distance before it dissipates, I don't really know how to make good use of it but it's pretty useless now as it stands. C4: Zhuge Liang's main crowd clearing attack from DW3, it remains largely untouched except the whirlwind effect looks a bit nicer now. Covers a good radius around him and does good damage considering it's Zhuge Liang you're playing. Very easy to be hit out it while charging, having Iron Shell Hand equipped doesn't seem to help much either as you'll be knocked down if you get hit while trying to execute this. C5: Standard high air launcher, avoid due to horrible charge time. C6: Zhuge Liang shoots out 3 lasers that homes slightly but it's kinda difficult to aim. The damage it does isn't really worth the effort plus the area it covers is minimal. Don't bother with this and just use S6 if you want to go 1 on 1. S6: This is the move you should use for 1 on 1, it does good damage but the area it covers is small due to the nature of Zhuge Liang's weapon. Musou Ranbu: It's been improved slightly from DW3 version now that the lasers home slightly and dizzies anyone that it hits. The damage kinda varies since the lasers shoot all over the place, it does moderate damage if you manage to score every hit but usually that's not the case. It's ok for clearing crowds but you'll have to rotate around to cover a good radius. Not exactly the best Musou Ranbu in terms of effectivness but does look interesting though. Test run at Nan Man: It's very hard to kill efficiently with Zhuge Liang, his range is so narrow compared to other people and his main crowd clearing move C4 has terrible recovery time. In crowds you'll just have to spam C4 over and over again until infantries go down and everynow and again when someone blocks it you'll definately be retaliated. He has a fairly fast running speed so it's not hard to keep yourself alive but he just takes much more time to kill stuff. Even with 6 item slots, I still feel Zhuge Liang is weaker than most of the characters out there due to his inablility to deal out damage. The range of his fan is one of his biggest weakness, even with Wind Scroll you'll be suprised at how little it actualy covers. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir Item6:Anything (Iron Shell Hand doesn't make much difference) ******************* Lv10 Weapon Range=Fair * 魏延 (Wei Yian) * Running Speed=B ******************* I didn't use Wei Yian a lot in DW3 but in DW4 he has gained a few nice additions making him very powerful. C1: Wei Yian does a double flip forward that hits anything in its paths. Not really that useful considering the amount of damage it does is minimal and you'll often get hit out of it in a crowd. C2: Standard air launcher affair, no reason to use this when he has much better things at his disposal. C3: This is of Wei Yian's new additions and it's absolutely awesome. He falls on his back and turns into a live spinning top using his double edged blade. It has no charge time and he's practically invulnerable while executing, anyone that tries to get close will get some quality shredding. The damage is first class too and leaves opponents stunned for further juggling. The only weakness is a small amount of recovery time that's present after it finishes, but that doesn't really affect the overall effectiveness of this move. In a small crowd or in 1 on 1 I highly recommend that you stick to his move, you'll be amazed how much damage all the shredding can do. C4: His main crowd control move that he had kept over from DW3. Wei Yian does a wide slash covering 270 around him, very little charge time meaning you will hardly ever be interrupted when trying to execute it. The damage and area covered are both excellent and the only setback is the noticeable recovery time which will give enemies opportunities to strike back. Generally speaking this is a very effective move in any sort of crowded situation. This and C3 makes Wei Yian a force to be reckoned with. C5: Standard high air launcher, never bothered with it. C6: This move was mildly useful in DW3 due to the purple element attached to it. Wei Yian stands still while spinning his double edged blade and ends with a wide slash. It's not very effective for any situation since the area covered is too small and you're open to attacks from behind while doing this. Look elsewhere for more efficient alternatives. S6: Wei Yian does a series of slashes and ends spinning his double edged blade in the front. The area covered is kinda narrow which means it's not really suitable for clearing crowds, for 1 on 1 it's ok but I prefer to use C3. You don't really need to use move at all when he has those nice C4 and C3. Musou Ranbu: This is somewhat of a mixed bag, Wei Yian dances around while spinning his double edged blade. While the damage is not too bad it's really hard to get more than 2~3 hits on a single target due to way he moves. As a crowd clearing life saver though it's very good and you can move around with this and by the end of the Musou it's very likely most people will be lying on the ground with a dent in their HP bar. Very devastating when used on a frozen foe as well but still kinda hard to aim. Test run at Nan Man: Wei Yian has an easy time basically since his C4 and C3 takes care of things nicely in a short amount of time. While equipped with the Ice orb he usually freezes up to 3~4 people per C4 and all you have to do is repeat C4 till his Musou bar is full, unleash Musou and repeat. When there aren't that many people around you can opt for C3 instead and while the area it covers isn't nearly as large as C4 the damage is better. Wei Yian's speed is moderately fast as well so he has no troubles sneaking behind people and force feed them a C3. Overall it might be a bit hard at the beginning with Wei Yian but his true potential is unleashed after you obtain his lv10 weapon and give him a wind scroll. Definitely one of the better characters around. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ********************** Lv10 Weapon Range=Fair * 黄忠 (Huang Zhong) * Running Speed=C (Fair) ********************** Huang Zhong has always been the master of bow art and in DW4 he's the only person with a S bow attack rating. Overall arrows have become a lot less lethal than they were in DW3 and that includes player and infantry bow man. His strong archery is handy in duels and can easily win it for him in most situations. Aside from archery though he doesn't have many strong aspects. C1: Huang Zhong takes out his bow and shoots out mulitple shots, very hard to aim since the view doesn't switch to first person but it he can use this even when his arrow stock is 0. If you have Fire Arrow equipped the arrows will have flame effect attached to it. Like Xiahou Yuan's crossbow it's much more annoying when they use it on you. C2: Standard air launcher, I don't use this much. C3: Huang Zhong's new C3 is strictly for 1 on 1, use it a crowd and you're just begging to be hit. He pulls out his bow and releases a barrage of arrows in a straight line. The arrows go in a straight line so don't expect them to hit a lot of other people. While the damage is fairly decent if all the arrows hit the effort required to aim and the restriction of not being able to pull it off safely in a crowd leaves this move with little practical use. When you equip Fire Arrow the arrows he shoots out will have flame effects attached. C4: Huang Zhong main crowd clearing move and it isn't impressive to say the least. He swings his sword in a way that it covers just a little more than a quarter of his side. As a result it's not going to hit nearly as many people as you like, depending on the situation you want to switch to S6 but C4 is faster to pull off. The damage isn't great, I strongly suggest that you give Huang Zhong a Thunder orb so he can immobolize more people than he can actually hit. C5: Standard high air launcher, I don't use this much. C6: Huang Zhong shoots out 2 sword waves, 1 after the other. The area it covers like all other sword wave attacks is small. It's a bit more damaging than a full S6 combo but really I could do without the little extra damage when S6 covers a much wider area. S6: After a series of slashes Huang Zhong does a big horizontal slash that covers the front 180 quite well. This is what I use mostly since it covers the most range and deals decent damage as well. One thing that I noticed while I played Huang Zhong is I rarely see any orb effects since I rarely use any of his charge moves. Musou Ranbu: This is a pretty good Musou Ranbu actually, it's unchanged from what he had in DW3. He basically dances while spinning his sword. It's good in a huge crowd because he can hit a lot of people with this and the ender does some decent damage too. If you ever equip him with a Ice orb then it'll make this even more effective. It's kind of annoying though how he almost falls over after ending his Musou Ranbu (age?). Test Run at Nan Man: Huang Zhong really has a poor area coverage with most of his moves, I tried to use C4 but it just doesn't get enough area covered and ends up being poked from side or back. Even with S6 he's going to get hit from the back but it's not as severe as C4. His biggest advantage is obviously his archery and in order to take advantage of it accept as many duels as you can. Under normal circumstances it's much harder to hit officers with archer since they know to strafe and block your arrows now. In duels the problem isn't as bad since there are infantries around, make sure you take advantage of the quick reload trick mentioned in the duel section. Overall aside from his spectacular archer abilities, Huang Zhong is pretty average in all other aspects. Playing as him on hard in the later stages will definitely be a challenge. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ******************** LV10 Weapon Range=Fair * 張飛 (Zhang Fei) * Running Speed=D (Poor) ******************** I only Zhang Fei a fair for his weapon range because of the inconsistency of range. Some of his hits have a large radius while others have really bad range for example S2. It really hurts his comboing abilities since you always have to be right up close to the opponent to ensure that all hits link together. C1: Zhang Fei grabs his opponent and slams he/her on the floor. Not much practical use. C2: Standard air launcher with horrible charge time, avoid. C3: This is Zhang Fei's best move, he advances while swinging his spear left and right in a rapid fashion and ends with an AOE impulse. The impulse is what makes this move great in crowds, with a filled up Musou bar the impulse Zhang Fei releases has a chance of releasing orb effects on anyone it hits (applies even if you have lv10 weapon). When in a crowd it's best to just tap Triangle once after C3 so you can execute the AOE impulse attack as soon as possible. In 1 on 1 situations you can rapidly tap Triangle button to score as many hits as possible. His C6 stomp attack becomes redundant after Koei gave him this. C4: Entirely revamped what he used to have. Zhang Fei now grabs his opponent (throw) and dices him/her with his spear and then send them away. It's useful earlier on when officers don't react to throws that much but later on all you are going to get is a aerial charge attack on top of you. In the end this move is ok to use in the earlier stages but avoid it totally later on. C5: Standard high air launcher, avoid due to horrible charge time. C6: Zhang Fei's earth stomp is back and unfortunately it's still not useful like it was in DW3. In DW3 (Japanese version) I recalled that Zhang Fei's stomp did very little damage compared to Xu Huang and Huang Gai's. Now they've fixed the damage but also increased the charge time so it won't combo now. Basically C3 does the same job but much better so just avoid this one since it's a pain to pull off and you end up with majority of the officers blocking it. S6: A quick series of slashes ending with a nice big 180 in the front. The bad thing is you gotta go up pretty close in order for the hits to link up. Something I usually do is freeze a couple of people with C3 equipped with Ice orb then just go hard on them with S6 or Musou Ranbu. Decent damage if everything connects too. Musou Ranbu: Unchanged from DW3, Zhang Fei walks around while doing vertical thrusts left and right. A very fine crowd clearer as it makes full use of his weapon range and the ending hit packs quite a punch too. Use this on frozen foes to maximize its damage potential. A very decent Musou Ranbu overall. Test run at Nan Man: In order to kill infantries efficiently I preferr using C3 to soften them up with the impulse attack and then concentrate on ones that are frozen with either S6 or Musou Ranbu. For 1 on 1's his C3 works nicely but you just have to be up close due to short of his S2. He's kinda slow but you can still sneak up behind officers, it just requires more work but not as hard as say Xu Chu. Overall Zhang Fei is slightly above average in my opinion and his short S2 really hurts his performance overall. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ********************** LV10 Weapon Range=Poor * ホウ統 (Pang Tong) * Running Speed=B (Good) ********************** I hate to tell this to Pang Tong fans but I feel Pang Tong is one of the weakest characters in DW4. He has a short range, slow swings, toned down Musou Ranbu and other disadvantages that I'll be mentioning. The only positive thing I can think of is his ability to carry 6 items but he's still much weaker than Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi. C1: A single sword Impulse, becomes 3 when Musou bar is fully charged or weilding his lv10 weapon. Pretty useless. C2: Standard air launcher with high delay time, avoid. C3: Pang Tong does backward cartwheels that is slow and only hits in front of him, he does a 360 upside down swing to finish it off but often he'll get knocked out of it. This is a very bad C3 no matter how you look at it, it's slow, doesn't do much damage and only hits in the front. Avoid using this if you can. C4: Pang Tong does a 360 upside down very similar to the ender of C3, however its long charging will make it very hard to pull it off and his preceding hits doesn't set him up too well cos they don't enough area. I guess you'll have no choice but to use this before you gain access to C6 but believe me you're not going to have an easy time. C5: Standard high air launcher, avoid. C6: This is his best crowd clearing move and it's been toned down a lot in terms of its damage output from DW3. Pang Tong does a spin creating a whirlwind that sends anyone within its radius flying. While the area covered and the charge time isn't too bad the damage it does is very little. Don't expect to kill people quickly this, I use it to activate Orb effects most of the time and don't rely on its actual damage. S6: Pretty useless, Pang Tong does a series of very stiff swings that are slow, narrow and basically very easy to be interrupted before he jumps forward spinning his staff. You'll find it extremely hard to kill officers in a crowd using this since it doesn't hit many other people so enemies surrounding will be interrupting frequently. Musou Ranbu: His washing machine Musou from DW3 is back and while the animation hasn't changed much the damage has been toned down signifcantly and together without his ability to charge up Musou bar fast it becomes more of a life saver Musou Ranbu than a damage dealer. The only way for it to deal reasonable damage is to freeze your opponents with C6 first then pull off the Musou Ranbu. This is one of the rare cases that I'll actually suggest eqipping Way of the Musou because the fire ticking damage will actually deal out more damage than his normal version. Test Run at NanMan: Pang Tong has a very hard time taking out crowds and even in 1 on 1 he doesn't excel too much. It's really hard to pivot when he's attacking so you'll end up missing a lot of your hits or being interrupted midway by infantries. It takes a long time to kill anything due to his weak base attack rating, I just have no idea why Koei stripped Pang Tong of all his positive attributes and left us with one of the weakest characters in the game. Overall I seriously don't recommend those who likes to have an easy time to try Pang Tong at the start since it'll be nothing more than trip of frustration and pain. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice/Vorpal Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir Item6:Way of the Musou ******************** Lv10 Weapon Range=Excellent * 姜維 (Jiang Wei) * Running Speed=B (Good) ******************** Jian Wei started out being a clone to Ma Chao but in DW4 he has gained enough unqiueness to hold his own as a decent character. C1: A sword impulse that turns into 3 with fully charged Musou bar or lv10 weapon. Not really useful when you use it but AI controlled Jian Wei does insane damage with it during duels (took away half of my HP with 1 hit with Thunder element). C2: Standard air launcher, avoid. C3: Jian Wei advances while making quick swings left and right with his spear. It ends with a small 360 around him and that's actually the only 360 charge attack he has. I use this very often in 1 on 1's since it's relatively easy to aim and deals out good damage along with orb effects. If you want to release orb effects in crowds then you can do a single tap C3. Generally however if you want efficient crowd control then stick with S6. C4: A modified version of Ma Chao's C4, Jian Wei pushes his spear out horizontally rather than doing a thrust. The result is a tradeoff between distance and area, Ma Chao's C4 hits a bit further but narrower while Jian Wei's C4 is wider but shorter. In short this still isn't up to par for efficent crowd clearing so I suggeset you steer clear unless you don't have access to better moves like S6. C5: Standar high air launcher, avoid. C6: A disappointing sword wave C6 which you have probably seen a lot by now. Narrow area covered and the difficulty with aiming ensures that this move should be kept in the freezer. S6: Jian Wei's best crowd clearing move period. He performs a series of wide hits covering a good area around him then ends with a 270 that hits foes even from behind. Good damage and area covered makes it a wonderful attack. He can hit a lot of people at once with this so if you equip him with a fairly high Elixir (lv15+) then he can perform Musou Ranbu right after he finishes a round of S6 usually which can cover up for the recovery time. Musou Ranbu: Jian Wei retains Ma Chao's old Musou Ranbu from DW2 and it's a lot more useful than Ma Chao's new Musou Ranbu. Jian Wei moves while swing his spear left and right similar to C3 and ends with a massive 180. Easy to aim, wider radius and higher damage than Ma Chao's Musou Ranbu. Highly recommended either as a life saver or damage dealer. For best results execute the Musou Ranbu on frozen opponents. Test Run at NanMan: Jian Wei has an surprisingly easy time clearing out hordes of infantries thanks to his power S6 and Musou Ranbu. What I usually do is start with a single tap C3 to get a few people frozen then either unleash a Musou Ranbu or perform a S6 combo. The combination mentioned above worked exteremely well for me and usually after 2~3 repititions only the officers will remain alive and you can take them out pretty effortless by sneaking behind them and launch a full C3. Overall Jian Wei feels a lot like Zhao Yun now since he can handle all situations fairly well. While he still lacks a large radius charge attack it's hard to find a serious fault about him. Definitely an above average character. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir ****************** Lv10 Weapon Range=Fair * 劉備 (Liu Bei) * Running Speed=B (Good) ****************** Out of all the leader type characters (Cao Cao, Sun Jian, Sun Quan and Liu Bei) Liu Bei is definitely the strongest of them all after he obtains he 6th hit weapon. His C6 is not only one of the best charge attacks in the game, it's the only move he'll ever need to use basically. C1: Liu Bei ice skates in an arbitary direction then slashes his opponent as he ice skates back. It's sort of hard to control but I can see people using this to escape out of big crowds. The damage potential is pretty slim if you don't take in account of orb effects. C2: Standard air launcher, avoid. C3: It's identical to Sun Quan's C3. Liu Bei advances while making quick small strokes that hits to the center and right hand side. I wouldn't recommend using this a lot since the damage is pretty poor and C6 beats it in every aspect. C4: Liu Bei does a generic looking slash in the front that hits wider than it seems but still isn't very effective when surrounded. This is what you start out with and while it's not very impressive it's still useable until you obtain his 6th hit weapon. After seeing his C6 you'll never touch this again. C5: Standard high air launcher, avoid. C6: This is the king of all of charged attacks, the only move that comes to my mind that can rival this is Lu Bu's C3 but Lu Bu was designed to own. Liu Bei does a 360 swing with his sword that releases a large radius impulse all around him, the damage is good, there's barely any charge time and the satisfaction you get when you see a bunch of people getting frozen (Ice Orb) is just too much. This combined with his Musou Ranbu turns Liu Bei into a pure dicing machine, whether in big crowds or in 1 on 1s Liu Bei can handle them all without breaking a sweat. The only bad thing I noticed about this move is the recovery time which can lead to retaliations if an officer close to you blocks it. S6: Liu Bei does a series of slashes and ends with a vertical slash directly in front of him. Don't bother with this since C6 beats it in every aspect. Musou Ranbu: Liu Bei moves around doing wide slashes and ends with a mini combo that can hit quite a number of people while doing decent damage at the same time. The Musou Ranbu by itself is good but when coupled with his C6 and high lv Elixir (15+) it can make Liu Bei almost unstoppable. After a round of C6 immediately cancel into his Musou Ranbu and then do his C6 again. It's strongly advised that you try to keep Liu Bei's Musou Bar as short as you can so he can execute it on frequent basis. Test Run at NanMan: It's a walk in the park with Liu Bei, all I really had to do is walk into crowds and repeat my C6 --> Musou Ranbu combo till there are nothing left beside me. Sure he doesn't have the range of spear users but with Wind Scroll his range is still pretty good. A good balance of power, speed and range but it's really his C6 that rises him above the others. Overall Liu Bei may seem to be very generic at first but once his weapon reaches lv7 he suddenly evolves into a very strong character that I am sure should be relatively easy to play for most people. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ******************* Lv10 Weapon Range=Execellent * 周泰(Zhou Tai) * Running Speed=B (Good) ******************* He's the first character that I maxed out, he's my newest favourite in DW4. Those who love samurai style fighting will doubt enjoy playing as him. While not as efficient as Zhou Yun or Yue Yin at crowd clearing, he's not slouch either and his 1 on 1 ability is outstanding. Here's a run down of his attacks: C1-Zhou Tai impales his foe with his Katana still in its sheath and then knocks them away. Like most of the throws, the damage isn't a lot and officers will generally jump over it. The only time I'd recommend this is when foes are busy blocking hits from your BG and has no time to jump. C2-Zhou Tai knocks his enemy into the air with the sheath of his Katana, the charge time is minimal so this isn't an entirely bad move but not too useful as it only deals with single enemy most of the time. C3-One of Zhou Tai's primary arsenals, he advances while making very fast slashes depending on how many times the triangle button is pressed and the level of your weapon. The last hit stuns so it's possible to repeat it twice, although the 2nd round will do much less damage since the enemy will be in mid-air. This move has very high priority thus it's very rarely interrupted, if all the slashes hits then the damage done is very significant, can be followed up by a Musou Ranbu for even more damage. A typical combo with this move would be C3-->C3-->Musou Ranbu or just C3--> Musou Ranbu if you want to save time. C4-Another essential within Zhou Tai's moveset, this is the move you'll rely on most of the time for crowd control. Zhou Tai charges for a breif moment and then lunges forward in Kenshin style. It covers a wide area, although not 360, the fast charge and recovery still makes this move easy to use. Enemies being hit by this gets knocked quite a distance so when used in huge crowd it'll clear out an empty pretty quickly. C5-Zhou Tai kicks the foe up into the air and proceeds to knock them down from mid-air. Your standard C5 affair here. C6-His C6 is cool to look at but in practice it's not entirely useful due to its long charge time and limited range covered. Zhou Tai charges up and does a charging forward thrust that can't be blocked, while it sounds cool there's a very high chance of being interrupted during the charge sequence unless you're using Iron Shell Hand or have extremely high defense. Even if you do finish the charge, this move requires some precise aiming and what makes it worse is enemy officers tend to jump over it. S6-Zhou Tai does a series of slashes that cover a wide range of areas and ends with a Katana swipe that covers the entire front areas pretty well. It has no charge time and is pretty fast. It does better damage than C4 overall but minus the orb effects. You'll be using this move a lot before you obtain his lv10 weapon and it still remains useful after getting his lv10 weapon. Musou Ranbu: This is in my opinion, one of the best Musous in the game. Zhou Tai stands still and makes wide swings with his Katana covering a great area and ends with an enhanced C4 charge. Since you can pivot Zhou Tai while executing this, he can basically clear out everything around him or just concentrate dealing damage to the group in front of him. The damage dealt from this is very nice, where as I use Musous mostly as fail-safe escapes I use this one as an offensive weapon. A C3 linked into this will gurantee that even the most challenging officers you come across will take a massive dent in their HP bar (Special cases in duels are not accounted for in this case). Test Run at NanMan: With a fully maxed out Zhou Tai I could hardly feel the hits that were raining down on me. None of the normal hits from infantries even tickles him, and he clears crowds at a pretty good speed. While he's not as good as others say Zhao Yun at clearing crowds, he's definately more potent at 1 on 1's. There wasn't a single officer (yes that includes Meng Huo) who could stand more than 2 assaults from C3-->Musou combo. As far as orbs go Ice doesn't automatically win my vote this time since none of his attacks cover 360 but the chances of freezing enemies is still pretty good if you perform C4 into a huge crowd. vorpal orb is also an alternative here cos his C4 officerl hits a lot of people and the more people you hit, the more chances are that someone is going to be affected by it. Overall a very nice and unique addition to the DW lineup, while I wouldn't call him the best character overall, he's definately up there with the best of them. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Slash (I prefer Ice personally) Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll ******************* Lv10 Weapon Range=Fair * 甘寧(Gan Ning) * Running Speed=A (Excellent) ******************* Gan Ning was total powerhouse in DW3 due to his weapon and Musou Ranbu that made him far too powerful. Koei obviously noticed and decided to patch him up a bit. In DW4 he has been toned down significantly and while he can still hold on his own, he just doesn't stand above the crowd like he used to anymore. Here's a run down of his attacks: C1-Gan Ning impales his opponent and kicks him into the air slightly, after they drop back down they can be comboed further with S6. A slightly more useful throw than most others cos of the S6 string that can be followed. C2-Your standard C2 affair, don't bother with it usually. C3-Gan Ning flicks his sword up and down while advancing, this is a pure 1 on 1 move, use this in large crowd and suffer the consequences! That being said, this move actually does pretty good damage if you land it properly. Like all C3 moves you can follow up with another round after you stun your opponent with the last hit. C4-This and C6 will be your primary tools for clearing out crowds, I prefer C6 to C4 usually cos of the smaller charge time and bigger radius. C4 does have a slightly longer charge time than C6 meaning that enemies can block C4 after the 3rd strike. Gan Ning charges and swings his sword in a full 360, clearing out anyone around him while doing decent damage, it's been completely revamped from DW3. It's a good change since he does need a better move set to make up for his weakened Musou Ranbu which was his primary weapon back in DW3. C5-Standard C5 affair, don't bother unless you're wearing Fire orb. C6-Another revamped move and for the better. Gan Ning now releases a mini tornado that covers a decent radius around him, identical to Zhang Liao's C6 and Zhuge Liang's C4. The charge time is short and there isn't much recovery time so this is the most preferred move for clearing out crowds after you have access to it. S6-A string of slashes finished with a horizontal slash. Very good for 1 on 1 but I never use this for crowd clearing. It's been changed from DW3 as well since he no longer does a jumping rotation with his sword which hits 360 around him. Musou Ranbu: Ok let's put it simple, it has been nerfed no matter how you look at it. The running speed has been majorly increased which in turn means it's much harder to control where you're going. You'd be hard pressed to hit a target twice now, and the damage on the whole has been reduced a lot. It is still capable of doing great damage if you're really precise but overall you're not gonna be expected to win the game with this. Lacking the ability to charge his Musou bar quickly hurts this too and while you can wear an Elixir to make up for it the effect just isn't the same. A semi-good way is to freeze people with Ice orb then charge them, that does a lot of damage if you hit them point blank. I was able to take almost half of Sima Yi's HP in Jie Tin (he's the boss there) freezing him and then ramming him with Musou. Wind scroll is also highly recommended to increase the effective range of his Musou and his attacks overall. Test Run at Nan Man: Firstly a fully maxed out Gan Ning doesn't reel from infantry hits lead me to believing that once defense is maxed out it's the same across the board for all characters. Whether that's good or bad isn't the topic of discussion here but it's certainly a good news for Gan Ning players since now they won't have to worry about Gan Ning lack of defense from DW3. Clearing out the infantries was easy with constant C4 barrage and Musous in between, by equipping Elixir enables Gan Ning to pull off Musous more frequently which definately adds to the total damage output, although one minute you might hit a lot of people and the next you don't hit much at all. Gan Ning's speed is one of his most valuable assets since it can't be compensated normally just by eat power ups, he's quick enough to escape and run behind officers when they start blocking. His range is only fair at the most compard to others for his lv10 weapon so Wind Scroll is highly recommended. So playing Gan Ning for me was basically C6 or C4 till the Musou bar was full then charge around. Once the infantries have been taken care of I use either S6 or C3 to take out officers. Overall Gan Ning has been toned down but he's still relatively fast and powerful. Playing him now actually requires more skills since it's not longer slash->Musou->Slash affair in DW3. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Slash (I prefer Ice personally) Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll *********************** Weapon Range=Good * 太史慈(Tai Shi Ci) * Running Speed=C (Fair) *********************** Tai Shi Ci is Wu's powerhouse, he's relatively slow compared to all other Wu characters maybe except Huang Gai and his attacks naturally are supposed to be more damaging. His moves hasn't changed much from DW3, his C6 remains as useless as ever and the new C3 doesn't really contribute a lot. I found myself using S6 and C4 most of the time. Here's a run down of his attacks: C1: Throw technique, he impales the opponent with his massive twin sticks (more like towers later on) and contiunes to whack them in mid-air similar to Lubu's C1. More of a show off move than anything else. C2: Standard air launcher, the charge is short enough so it actually combos. C3: Tai Shi Ci advances slowly while swinging his sticks, doesn't cover a lot of range but better than some other C3 that only hit anything that's directly in the front. The damage is ok but there are better moves like S6 which is much better (minus the orb effect). C4: This the move I love to pull off the most, nothing beats seeing a bunch of people flying out towards the horizon. Although the actual animation may lead you to believe that it only hits anything in front of him but in reality the area affected is quite a bit more than that. Any person who gets hit by C4 will have "knock down" property attached to them. As they fly backwards, any other person they come in contact with will be knocked down too have this "knock down" property attatched to them, so even though you may only hit 3~4 people, in reality far more may end up on the floor than you'd think. The damage is pretty decent too, best used when a bunch of people are in front of you (not surrounding). C5: Standard high air launcher, quick charge time so it can't be blocked if previous hits registers. C6: This move remains untouched from DW3, Tai Shi Ci advances forward while making a series of quick stabs and ends with a bigger one. The damage for this is a joke unless your opponent is frozen, then the damage becomes better but still isn't worth the effort. It only hits stuff directly so that just about takes away all the reasons to use this other than for coolness's sake. S6: This is Tai Shi ci's primary move for clearing out large crowds and it's quite effective as he swings pretty fast and is able to pivot during the execution. The only downside is that you won't benefit from your orb with this move. The damage is also very nice too, I often use it in 1 on 1 as well. Musou Ranbu: It looks the same as DW3 where he does his crab walk and finishes with a enhanced C4. In DW2 every hit used to knock everyone away but now only the last hit knocks people away so it actually inflicts nice damage if the person you're fighting doesn't retaliate with their own Musou Ranbu. Execute this on a frozen opponent and you'll be guranteed to bring them down pretty fast. Test run at Nan Man: Tai Shi Ci can hold his own however his attack power doesn't seem to be on par with his "power house" image. When clearing out infantries I sometimes can't help but wonder why he isn't doing a heck of lot more damage than Zhao Yun. I tried him out with Ice orb and it works well with his Musou Ranbu providing that he can freeze the target with C4. For those who prefer everyone around them lying down probably would want to go with Thunder orb instead. I think Koei could've gave Tai Shi Ci's moves a bit more attack power to justify his power house status. However in his current state he's still an ok character but just nothing outstanding. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll ****************** Lv10 Weapon Range=Good * 周瑜(Zhou Yu) * Running Speed=A (Excellent) ****************** Zhou Yu is extremely agile as he was from DW3, non of his charge attacks cover all areas extremely well except for maybe C2 but he more than makes up for it with his nice speed and range. His charging attack is fairly nice as it hits multiple times and dizzies enemies. C1: Sword impulse, very narrow and does minimal damage. Avoid at all costs. C2: Standard air launcher, quick enough to combo though. C3: One of his new moves, very interesting one as well. Zhou Yu swings his sword left and right extremely fast while advancing. Each swing covers 180 on 1 side so effectively he has 360 around him covered. The damage isn't great but he swings quite a few times. In a crowd I wouldn't rely too much on it since the damage dealt to anyone on the side is too small. In 1 on 1 I'd go for C6 since it seems to do more damage with less effort. C4: This move remains untouched from DW3, Zhou You jumps into mid air and slashes his foe up to 3 times. The damage is good until you upgrade your weapons but be prepared to be hit when using this in a crowd. It's still passable as a minor crowd clearer in the front before you obtain a 6 hit weapon. C5: Standard high air launcher, Zhao Yu does 3 slashes in mid-air though so this move isn't entirely uselss as the damage dealt is actually pretty good. C6: Zhou Yu shoots out a sword wave, travels quite a distance down a straight line and does good damage. Kinda hard to aim at times and like all sword waves it's really geared against 1 on 1. Pull this off in 1 on 1 if you can for a bit of extra damage over S6, but don't feel too disadvantaged if you choose to use S6. S6: This is probably Zhou Yu's most efficient crowd clearing move. It's fast and each swing covers a decent area with the ender clearing out everything in front of him. The only set back is that orb effects won't kick in. Musou Ranbu: Not much change has been done to it. Zhou Yu juggles any foe he's facing and ends with a wide swing that's good for clearing out people. The damage isn't too good usually since it juggles but if you execute this on a frozen foe then you'll be pleasantly suprised. I use this more as a life saver than damage dealer. Test run at Nan Man: Zhou Yu's hits aren't nearly as hard as say Xu Zhu but he makes up for it with excellent agility and the ability to pull of many hits within a short time frame. Against crowds I would opt for S6 usually but if you fancy orb effects then C2 isn't a bad choice either since it covers a good area (remember to tap Triangle only once so you'll execute the ender as soon as you can). Against a officer you can basically stick to S6 or maybe try out C6 and C3 to see if you can get a orb effect out. officers go down with relative easy once they're frozen. Overall Zhou Yu is a pretty good character that isn't over powering but can definitely hold on his own. Like Lu Xun, people who prefer speed over raw power will love him. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir ******************** Lv10 Weapon Range=Good * 黄蓋(Huang Gai) * Running Speed=C (Fair) ******************** Huang Gai gained a few interesting moves in DW4, the most noticeable being the ability to either throw or plant a bomb. His earthquake stomp is still very useful and Koei hasn't really weakned or strengthened him in any way. C1: Huang Gai either throws of plants a bomb depending on what direction button you press. Leaving it on neutral will make Huang Gai plant the bomb beside him, holding a direction button will make him throw it towards that direction. The bomb doesn't detonate upon impact which is a pretty bad thing, usually by the time the bomb detonates the people you actually want to bomb have already walked past it. The only practical use I have found so far is to plant a bomb and lure enemies into it. The damage it does is quite decent but it can never kill anyone outright and hurts allies too. The possiblity of sending your friend high into the air makes this move worthy of your attention. C2: Standar air launcher, I don't use it much. C3: Huang Gai's new move, he advances while kicking anyone in front of him and ends with a throw. The damage dealt isn't all that great compared to his S6 and the area covered is very small so you might want to avoid using this. C4: Remains unchanged from DW3, Huang Gai does a hard swing taking out a good chunk of people standing in front of him. Clears crowd fairly well but you'd want to switch to C6 after you gain a 6 hit weapon. C5: Standard high air launcher, I don't use it much. C6: His earthquake stomp is back and it's still a very nice crowd control move like it was back in DW3. The charge time seems to be shorter than Xu Huang and Zhang Fei's but still doesn't seem to be able to be linked into a combo. It's fast enough so that you won't have much of a problem pulling it off in midst of a huge crowd. The damage is pretty good and its ability to release orb effects while your Musou bar is full makes it even better. S6: Huang Gai swings 5 times then does a big wide swing that covers the frontal 180 pretty well. It's not a bad crowd clear but since he has C6 for that I use S6 primarily for 1 on 1 since it's easy to aim and does good damage overall. Musou Ranbu: Unchanged from DW3, Huang Gai moves around while making very wide swings and ends with a big hit that sends everyone flying. The area covered is excellent due his range and motion, since the hits juggle for maximum damage output execute this on a frozen foe. It works well both as a life saver and a damage dealer. Test run at Nan Man: Huang Gai is the type of person who you can afford to charge into a huge crowd and just wreck havoc without too much trouble. His normal swings cover a good area meaning it'll give him enough buffer time usually to pull of his C6. I use bombs every now and then simply because it's hilarious to watch people being blown into the air but that's just me. He doesn't have any apparent weakness other than his running speed which is a tad slow but still fast enough to sneak behind officers. Overall I feel Huang Gai is very well rounded and can handle any situation pretty well. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ******************* Lv10 Weapon Range=Fair * 孫権 (Sun Quan) * Running Speed=B ******************* Sun Quan is one of characters with a very generic feel to them. Koei hasn't given him anything unique so he ends being average in just about every aspect with a pretty medicore moveset and somewhat low damage. C1: Sun Quan grabs his opponent and slashes them twice. A medicore throw move, again this doesn't work too well on officers in the later stages. C2: Standard air launcher, doesn't seem to combo. C3: Sun Quan advances while slashing left and right really fast and ends with a vertical slash in the front. This is a pure 1 on 1 move since it barely covers anything else except in the front. The damage is ok but it's very easy to stray off target so I'd recommend S6 for 1 on 1 or C4. C4: This is his best crowd clearing move and it's not really good IMO. Sun Quan does a downward slash and follows with a rising slash. The damage is ok but the radius covered is pretty poor, it doesn't even cover his frontal 180 properly. This is the best move Sun Quan has if you want to hit multiple targets with orb effects. C5: Standard high air launcher, don't think it's quick enough to combo but I may be wrong since I haven't used this extensively. C6: Another sword wave C6 that flies straight, it's ok for 1 on 1 but pretty useless in a crowded situation since you're only hitting a few people in front of you and it's very doubtful you'll be able to pull it off frequently. I hardly ever use this myself. S6: The hits preceding the ender covers a decent area but the ender itself is again pretty disappointing as it only hits a small area in the front. On the plus side this move is relatively easy to aim and I suggest you use it in 1 on 1 if you mind missing out on orb effects. Musou Ranbu: Sun Quan advances while swinging his sword left and right and ends with a big horizontal slash. The move itself isn't too bad but like all Sun Quan's moves it doesn't do as much damage as it should. The hits don't juggle so you can easily combo it and reap nice results since enemy officers don't counter with Musou Ranbu that often in DW4. Works either as a life saver or damage dealer. Test Run at Nan Man: Sun Quan has a hard time killing efficiently based on 2 factors I've noticed, first being his low damage output even with maxed out attack rating and the small area that's covered by his moveset. Playing him requires trading hits with enemies a lot and he doesn't have anything in particular that makes me want to play him. Average speed, below average moveset and damage makes Sun Quan a very challenging character to play with. Definitely not recommended for those that enjoy slaughter parties. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn Item4:Wind Scroll Item5:Elixir ***************** Lv10 Weapon Range=Poor * 孫策 (Sun Ce) * Running Speed=A (Excellent) ***************** Sun Ce is like Wu's version of Zhang He, he's extremely agile and relies upon rapid strikes rather than power hits to dispatch his foes. He's just a tad slower than Zhang He but his charge moves are more useful than Zhang He's. C1: Sun Ce grabs his foe and whacks him/her hard with his Tonfar. C2: Standard air launcher, avoid. C3: Sun Ce advances slowly while swinging his Tonfars left and right and ends with a double advancing roundhouse kick. I prefer to use this move with a single T button tap since the double roundhouse kick hits 360 around Sun Ce which is pretty good for releasing orb effects. I wouldn't recommend using this move for 1 on 1 purposes since it's too slow when compared to his other moves like C4 and S6. C4: This is his primary crowd clearing move. Sun Ce does a huge leap forward while spinning his Tonfars. It's very fast and chances are you won't be interrupted frequently when using this. Unlike most crowd clearing moves this only covers a straight line but it's fast and you can execute it many times in a short time span. C5: Standard high air launcher, avoid. C6: Sun Ce stands still and does rapid hits with his Tonfar and whacks them away at the end. I don't use this much at all cos you're basically open to attacks from all sides when executing this so it's a big no no in crowded situations. You can use it in 1 on 1s but the damage really isn't too great so I'd stick with S6. S6: I can't recall what his motions were for this but he basically performs a flurry of fast strikes and ends with flying kick. It's really fast and you move forward a lot while executing it so the chances of being interrupted mid-way is greatly reduced. This and C4 is what I use most frequently when playing Sun Ce. Musou Ranbu: Unchanged from DW3, Sun Ce moves around swining his Tonfars and ends with a rising spin. You can choose to hit a lot of targets for chipping damage or go after 1 target for serious damage. It's very linkable after 5 square hits and takes a good chunk of any officer's HP. You can use this as a life saver or a damage dealer (single target). Test Run at NanMan: Sun Ce is the kind of character that doesn't deal out a lot of damage with a single blow but the damage adds up very quickly as you can pull off many more hits than most other characters. He's very rarely interrupted during his comboes because he's always moving as he strikes and that makes him a hard target for AI. Play him like how you'd play Zhange He but he has those extra crowd control abilities thanks to his C4. Overall a very speed and fast character that's geared more towards 1 on 1 but can also stand on his own when handling crowds. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice or Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wei ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ******************* Weapon Range=Fair * 曹仁(Cao Ren) * Running Speed=C (Fair) ******************* Cao Ren is Wei's newest addition to DW4 lineup, unfortunately is nowhere near as strong as the new additions from the 2 other factions. First of all he's slow, range of his weapon and moveset doesn't compare too well with other characters. The only thing he has going for him is his ability to withstand 1 hit that would normally stun him without being stunned. Think of Hulk or Juggernaut from Marvel's Vs series. It would've been more balanced if he had higher defense in the end but with DW4's defense system everyone will end up being the same in terms of defense in the end. Here's a rundown of his attacks: C1: Cao Ren grabs his opponent and slams them on the ground, does ok damage for a throw but you can't combo after it. I don't use this much at all. C2: Your standard C2, unfortunately the charging time is long enough that you can be blocked after registering the 1st hit. C3: This is one of Cao Ren's more interesting moves, although the practical use for this is still limited somewhat. Cao Ren shoots out a series of fireballs which requires pretty good precision to get all of them to hit. The damage is decent but nothing extra-ordinary, the last fireball does stun like all C3 enders do so there may be some of you that will enjoy pulling this off. Never do this in a crowd unless you're playing on an easy stage or prepar to be whacked hard. C4: Usually with C4 people think crowd control, not the case here. Cao Ren does a forward mini stomp and enemies in front of him will be knocked down. This is his best crowd control and while some may say C6 is better I prefer C4 since it's faster to pull off. The radius of this attack is pretty when you compare it with say Zhao Yun's C4, it doesn't even cover the sides. The damage isn't something to write home about either but you will have no choice but to rely on this move constantly if you play as Cao Ren. C5: Standard C5 affair, foes can block it due to the long charge time so the pratical use of this move goes down the drain. C6: This is somewhat of a crowd clearer move but the bad charging time really hurts it, I've lost count how many times I get knocked when I try to do this in the middle of a huge crowd. Cao Ren lifts up his shield in front of him and charges a fair distance, running over everything in its path. The damage is decent if you can pull it off but again being able to pull this off is a major problem. S6: The range is limited but it does good damage so I always use this when going 1 on 1. No charge time meaning it'll be much less likely to be interrupted. Musou Ranbu: Cao Ren's best move in my opinion, he walks around while taking swipes left and right and ends with a C4 stomp. Does decent damage if your Musou bar isn't too short and gets you out of hairy situations when surrounded. It's safe to say you'll be relying his Musou a lot. Test run at Nan Man: Cao Ren's moveset really hurts his ability to be efficient, it takes me about 2x the time to clear out the same crowd compared with Zhao Yun. You are going to be hit in the back no matter what you do since he has no moves to cover his back side so your best bet is to keep a short Musou bar and pull off a Musou Ranbu whenever things go bad. Seriously I didn't know what Koei was thinking when they designed Cao Ren, his attack power is average, fairly slow and the range isn't great either. He's just one of those characters that are designed to provide a challenge I guess. What I did basically in the test run is to constantly use C4(with Thunder orb) till my Musou bar was full, pull off a Musou Ranbu and then repeat. Thunder orb is absolutely essential to provide a breathing space. Overall, Cao Ren's unique but he's an average fighter at best and that's being pretty optimistic. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ************************ Weapon Range = Fair * 夏侯淵(Xiahou Yuan) * Running Speed = C ************************ I'll be referring Xiahou Yuan as XY here for simplicity's sake. Unfortunately poor Xiahou Yuan didn't receive the improvement I was hoping for in DW4. In DW3 his C6 was a joke and it remains untouched in DW4. His weapon changed from a sword to a club but in reality it doesn't affect his motion and the effects in the end are just cosmetic. Here's a run down of his attacks: C1: XY takes out a cross bow and fires out multiple bolts in Diablo2 fashion. The damage vary depending how many bolts hit but it's kinda useless in a heated battle when you have lots of people surrounding you. Enemy officers tend to be pretty good at blocking those too. This move is annoying when the AI uses it on you since they have the ability to auto track. C2: Standard air launcher, charge time is short enough so it comboes. C3: The other of XY's new move, he advances while swinging his club left and right and ends with a stun hit. The damage is fairly decent if you can get all the hits to land but usually that isn't possible when you're surrounded by hordes of infantries. C4: His old crowd clearing move that has remained the same since DW2. XY swings his club in a way that it covers around 135 degrees in front of him meaning 1 side will be completely covered and the other only to a certain extent. This is his best charge move and while it isn't ground breaking by any means when compared to others, you'll be using it a lot in conjunction with S6 since most of his other moves are useless. C5: Standard high air launcher, quick enough to combo. C6: This was one of the worst C6 in DW3 and I am pretty surprised that Koei didn't do a thing about it while other better ones like Zhao Yun's got an improvement. XY swings his club rapidly left and right, juggling his opponent for very little damage each hit and it doesn't even have an ender. Avoid this move like plague. S6: This is probably his most practical move, covers a good range in the front and deals good damage in 1 on 1's. The only set back is the lack of orb effects. Use C4 if you prefer orb effects otherwise stick to S6 because it's the more efficient of the 2. Musou Ranbu: The old sword dance super is back and nothing has been changed to it. It still juggles your opponent meaning that they won't be able to retaliate with a Musou Ranbu of their own but it also means less damage than ground only Musou Ranbu. Covers a good range and deals decent damage if all hits connect. Very nice damage potential on a frozen foe. One of the better Musou Ranbus in the game. Test run at Nan Man: XY definitely needs to equipt the Thunder orb in order from being hit too much. With Thunder orb equipped I didn't have much of a problem when being surrounded if I constantly pulled of C4. While the lightening damage is minimal it does floor nearby foes giving XY the breathing space he needs. He has no problems surviving here but he doesn't kill nearly as fast as some of the others. S6 handles officers nicely. Not a completely useless character but I think he's a little below average. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Thunder Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll *********************** Weapon Range = Fair * 夏侯惇(Xiahou Dun) * Running Speed = B *********************** Xiahou Dun has always remained one of my favourite characters, he's somewhat an all-rounder being slightly more geared towards the power side of things. I'll referr him as XD (no it's not a smiley face) for simplicity's sake. Here's a run down of his attacks: C1: XD does a charge in your desired direction and can swing up to twice after the charge (the charge itself does not hit). It's a pretty nice move to run away from a huge crowd or simply charge into a incoming crowd and hopefully you can score some orb hits (Ice) with it. C2: His standard air launcher, avoid this move at all cost. Horrible charge time means it won't combo into anything. C3: This is one of his new moves along with C1, it's kinda useful if used properly. I never tap the T button more than once so he'll execute the ender asap. The ender itself is pretty decent and covers a good range, I've noticed that it hits foes coming behind too. I use this in conjuction with C4 mostly. C4: His 360 crowd clearer that he had since DW2, the charge time is long enough to be hit out of it frequently but not horrible enough so that you'll want to abandon from using it completely. Works well with Ice orb and more than often you'll end up with a few frozen foes after a successful execution. The damage isn't bad either. C5: High air launcher, this one actually charges pretty quick but I don't really see any reason to use this. C6: The same sword wave move from DW3, I really dislike those moves in officer since you're required to perfrom 5 buffer attacks for this one and it only covers a straight line. The damage is good if it hits but not worth the effort really. Stick to S6 or C2 if you want to go 1 on 1. S6: This is a very decent attack whether for 1 on 1 or crowds, it covers his front 180 pretty nicely and has no charge up time at all. Use this if you don't mind not using the orb effects. Musou Ranbu: Still remains unchanged from previous installments, he walks around while swinging upwards and ends with a enchanced C4. It juggles pretty well and the ender works well for clearing out crowds. Very devastating to frozen foes. Test run at Nan Man: XD clears out stuff pretty fast, not as fast as Zhao Yun but definitely much quicker when compared with his cousin. C4 and C2 works wonders in crowds and against officers. He's also quick enough to sneak behind blocking officers and wipe the floor with them. His weapon range could've been longer but that's asking for too much I guess. Overall XD is very capable fighter even at early stages, his C4 and C2 can handle pretty much every situation pretty well when equipped with Ice orb. Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb:Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ******************* Lv 10 Weapon Range=Good * 徐晃(Xu Huang) * Running Speed=B ******************* Xu Huang was a powerful character in DW3 due to his 4th weapon and his above average move set. In DW4 he's even more powerful in my opinion since many others were weakened without their 4th weapon and Xu Huang gains a very nice C3 in addition to his already fairly good set of moves. C1: Xu Huang grabs his opponent and whacks them away baseball style, you have to constantly tap Triangle for the 2nd hit to ensue. Not too much practical use really. C2: Standard air launcher with horrible charge up time, avoid. C3: This along with C4 makes Xu Huang a pure power house, he advances while swinging his poleaxe in wide arcs that covers more than 180 in front of him. The damage is awesome and this move rocks whether you're in a crowd or in a 1 on 1 situation. In a crowd I prefer to use C4 if surrounded, but if most of the foes are in front of me then I'll opt for C3 since it does more damage. C4: This is the same move that he had in DW3, Xu Huang swings his poleaxe around him, covering 270. It hits hard and the best thing about it is that it hits people behind him. The charge time is about medium and you can expect to clear out hordes of infantries very quickly just by spamming this. It's more practical than his C6 since it can be executed faster and enemies tend get hit by it much more often. C5: Standard high air launcher, avoid due to the horrible charge time. C6: This used to be my favourite move when I used Xu Huang in DW3 but it's been weakened in DW4 and overshadowed by C4. Xu Huang charges then stomps on the ground hard, knocking everyone around him down with some damage. The damage seems to have been toned down a bit but the most severe downfall of this move is the charge time. I can't recall how many times I get hit out of it while in the middle of execution and there's a very high possibility that officers will block it meaning you'll get retaliated due to its long recovery time. It's not a entire horrible move but he has much better choices. S6: Xu Huang does a series of swings then ends with a wide swing that covers a little more than 180 in front of him. I don't use this much at all because it's kinda hard to aim and C4 does the job much better along with orb effect. In 1 on 1 situation I go with C3. Musou Ranbu: Xu Huang advances while swinging his poleaxe in wide arcs. This is like an enhanced version of his C3, it hits for good damage since it doesn't juggle his opponents and covers a very nice area too. Can be used in any situation whether for pummeling frozen foes or just trying to get yourself out of a hairy situation. One of the better Musou Ranbus in the game. Test Run at Nan Man: Xu Huang is performs really well under any circumstances, I had no problems clearing out hordes of infantries with C4 and against officers it usually only takes a few C3 to send them back home. His decent running speed really gives him an advantage when trying to sneak behind guarding officers. Basically I couldn't find much about Xu Huang that I can complain about, he's just a very good character overall. The only possible complaint might only be that he swings his poleaxe a little slow but that won't be a problem generally since he excels in so many other categories. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb: Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ******************* Lv10 Weapon Range=Good * 許チョ(Xu Chu) * Running Speed=E ******************* Xu Chu defines the word power, while being one of the slowest moving character in the game. His normal swing has a 360 radius so naturally put him in the middle of a huge crowd and watch him wreck havoc! C1: Throw move, Xu Chu dumps opponent on the ground. I use this as a bait normally to lure officers into doing a mid-air charge attack then nail them with Xu Chu's Musou Ranbu. Works like a wonder when you're trying to deplete those last centimeters of the HP bar. C2: Standard air launcher, I hardly ever use this even though it seems to be quick enough to combo. C3: His new C3, Xu Chu advances while hammering his mallet constantly. There isn't a much use for this move really unless there are no infantries simply because the area covered is too narrow. He has much better moves to cover his 1 on 1 needs. C4: This is the hands down Xu Chu's best move, the famous home run smash is back and more powerful than ever! I can't express how much I love this attack, it hits hard, covers a wide range and has minimal charge time. Basically Xu Chu will perform a 360 with his mallet sending anyone close into the horizon, and with infantries usually they don't come back for more after 2 rounds from this thing. Add in a Ice orb and if an officer gets frozen and you follow up with a Musou Ranbu then that's pretty much the end for that poor person. C5: His high air launcher, I use this sometimes in conjuction with S6. C6: Xu Chu hops around a bit depending on how many times you tap the Triangle button and jumps into the air doing a bottom dive. The end result is an earth quake effect similar to Huang Gai's C6. I don't use this much at all since it's easily interuppted and blocked and C4 just does the same thing much better. It's more of a comical relief than anything else in my opinion. S6: Xu Chu does a serious of wide swings covering almost every place around him and ends with a vertical smash in the front. This mostly what I use in 1 on 1, although the last hit may miss sometimes due to its narrow radius. Musou Ranbu: This is probably the most devastating single hit Musou Ranbu in the entire game, Xu Chu rotates around with his mallet and basically anyone that comes into contact will travel a good distance along with some serious dent in their HP. Perform this on a frozen foe and more than likely you won't see them again for a while (till next stage). Excellent as a life saver and a damage dealer. Test run at Nan Man: Xu Chu's biggest weakness is his extremely slow walking speed is it's first priority that you find a him a good horse saddle (preferably Storm Runner) so he won't have to spend years just trying to navigate around the map. He cleans out crowd with his C4 like a menace, the only problem he does have is trying to find an opening when facing an officier. His walking speed doesn't really allow him to sneak around their guard so most likely you'll have to resort to other means of creating an opening. Something I usually do is sneak behind an officer while they're guarding hits from my bodyguard. Once you knock them down, stand behind as they get up and proceed to pummel them to death. Overall playing Xu Chu is what power is all about, solve his slow walking problems with a saddle and you have an extremely powerful character in your hand. Recommended setup at Maximum Rank: Horse Saddle: Storm Runner orb: Ice Item1:Tortoise Amulet Item2:Tiger Amulet Item3:Peacock Urn/Elixir Item4:Wind Scroll ****************** Lv10 Weapon Range=Fair * 曹操(Cao Cao) (Cao Cao) * Running Speed=B ****************** Being the leader of Wei faction Cao Cao lost the advantage he had in DW3 with his 4th weapon which had purple element. Now he's more like an average character that doesn't particularly excel in any category but doesn't have any significant weakness either. C1: A single pulse of energy that changes to 3 when you have orb effects activated. Not much use really, you get to see enemy officers use this on you a lot but they're just annoying and don't do much harm really. C2: Standard air launcher, I never use this much. C3: Cao Cao's new attack, he advances in zig zag style while slashing left and right. The damage is pretty decent if you can get all the hits in which is kinda hard to usually due to the zig zagging nature. When used in a crowd it's unlikely that you'll ever hit a person twice and the terrible recovery time at the end means you'll be hit by infantries running up from behind. I use this and S6 to slowly wear out crowds, C4 is just too slow. C4: In previous DW this was Cao Cao's main crowd clearing move but in DW4 it's very hard to pull this off in midst of a huge crowd without being interrupted. The damage is decent but considering the slow charge up time and recovery time I suggest you look at S6 instead. I hardly ever used this again once I got a 6hit weapon. C5: Standard high air launcher, Cao Cao does 2 slashes in mid air though after jumping up. I usually don't bother with this move. C6: This move decent in DW3 only because it had purple element attached to it. Now that is no longer true I don't see any reason to use move anymore, the charge up time is bad meaning officers can block it even if your 5th Square hits. The damage is nice if you actually hit someone but considering the narrow area and bad charge time I'd avoid it. S6: This is what I use mostly to clear a crowd, it covers the frontal area pretty well. However since it only covers the front side there will almost always be someone there to poke/stab you after you finish a round of S6, but it's the best Cao Cao has really. It does good damamge during 1 on 1 to officers too without having to worry too much about the aim. Musou Ranbu: It's exactly the same as it was in DW3, Cao Cao walks around while swing his sword and ends with a wide slash. Its damaging potential isn't that good due to its juggling nature and really only the ender does decent damage. On a frozen opponent it does good damage but still not oustanding since Cao Cao doesn't seem to get too many hits during the execution. Average Musou Ranbu at best. I use it to get out of hairy situations mostly. Test run at Nan Man: Cao Cao doesn't any good crowd control moves other than S6 and even that is only OK when compared to what characters like Xu Chu can offer. The damage he dea