Some tips for beating Lu Bu

[Fateburn]

I managed to beat Lu Bu on Hero in 6 minutes, according to the end-game screen. And while I want to offer some general tips that will hopefully make life easier for you to pursue Lu Bu, I must preface this by saying that you WILL eventually need to learn his attack patterns and adjust accordingly.

There is no cheese strategy (as far as I know anyway, other than he can't attack you if you ring-around the rosy that catapult near Shisui Gate, but then you can't attack him either so what's the point), but again, I hope the advice below can help at least some of you!

If anyone is curious, my setup was the default set-up with the sword, except I replaced the bottom skill, whirlwind something or other, with Fickle Fury (Though I believe Aerial Retribution works too), which is a counter stance move. I find this very useful if you have trouble parrying or dodging some attacks that flash white, and heartily recommend a counter stance skill. I kept double healing items.

Tip 1)
Now then, first thing is, before you defeat Li Jue at Shisui Gate, make sure you capture the two closest bases to it! Shisui gate is on the top left, and there is a base directly to its right (Sun Jian will be there early on and you can help him take it) and there is one directly below as well. MAKE SURE THESE BASES ARE CAPTURED AND DO NOT TOUCH THE VASES HERE. We need them. Stock up on healing buns from other bases down south, and make sure you are stocked up with God of War Gauge maxed out when you defeat Li Jue.

Would recommend controlling your companion to clean up before Lu Bu so that Wanderer can start the fight with maximum resources. Your companion gets merked in seconds by Lu Bu anyway.

Tip 2)
Keep in mind that God of War Mode not only makes you invincible, but heals you a bit and gives you lifesteal for a little bit. Save it for when you are at low health, and then chunk his bravery and damage him while invulnerable.

HOWEVER, do not fall into the trap of blowing your bravery on damaging skills, even if you are tempted to. Not unless you are sure it will kill, because you NEED those bravery points for counter stance.

Some skills cannot be counter stanced, when he glows orange or red, dodge the hell out of the way. You have to time some dodges as spamming it won't get you away from some moves, such as his third arrow volley which has a slight delay from the 2nd volley to catch anyone dodge spamming.

Keep in mind that jumping. Yes, JUMPING at the right time is also considered a dodge, so make use of that to keep uptime, for example when he does the single counter slash move that you cannot parry, you can dodge out of the way, or jump, dodging it and immediately transitioning into damaging him.

Sometimes his attacks also cannot hit you while you are in midair, so you can attack him while in mid-air safely. However, mody of his attacks CAN STILL HIT YOU so I would not recommend this strategy. It is something to think about though in fringe cases where he is using mostly ground hitting attacks.

Speaking of Counter-Stance Skills (Fickle Fury & Aerial Retribution), these have a very, very generous parry window, so you can use it as soon as you see him winding up a white flash attack and you can get the counter off. Make sure you have the bravery to use them, and sometimes he attacks twice in succession so make sure you have enough to commit to countering twice, otherwise dodging away might be the safer choice.

Tip 3)
Make ample use of your birds eye...Whatever it is called, basically the one where you order your troops to attack him. Wait until he finishes an attack, and you can use one for a free mini stunlock.

ALSO, it SLOWS TIME FOR FREE. So you can tap it, quickly see what move he is about to do, and let go, and immediately ready a counter stance or dodge away, if your reflexes are fast enough.

Remember those 2 bases you captured? When you are running out of meat-buns, you have 2 bases worth of second chances, so grab your horse and hoof it to your base if you need supplies. However, Lu Bu can and will follow you there, and if you leave him with a base you aren't at, he takes it in like 5 seconds.

Fighting Lu Bu in an allied base is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. While you are in an allied base, your 21 guards will always be replenishing by 2 per second, which means you can spam your 3 birds eye commands whenever they are up. Also, your allies in the base, the mooks and generic soldiers may be small and weak, but they make excellent meatshields sometimes when Lu Bu starts swiping at them for no reason, allowing you to poke him in the back.

However, if you run out of healing supplies at one and need to hoof it to the other base, you have no choice but to give up control of the current base to Lu Bu, it buys you precious seconds to get on your horse and get to the other base. Essentially, you have 2 chances to abuse allied base home field advantage against Lu Bu.

Uhh...But also keep in mind Lu Bu does heal a bit every time you run away from him, so if you are close to beating him, might be better to bet it all on a perfect game than run away for some meat-buns.

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Now, even with all these tips I have shared, he is no pushover, you definitely will still need to eventually be able to read his attack patterns and react accordingly.

I personally recommend once again NEVER to use damaging skills, especially the ones that takes upwards of 3 to 4 bravery bars. You NEED those bravery bars to use your counter stance, which can save you from almost every attack of his, except the orange and red ones.

And that red grab is especially dangerous, just get the hell away when he starts doing that. Though, he is wide open for a few seconds after a failed grab.

I managed to beat him without ever normal-parrying him, only dodging, jump dodging, and the oh so lovely counter stance. Seriously Fickle Fury is the true MVP for me, a free counter that deals decent bravery damage for the cost of 2 bravery bar which you can easily get back by spam attacking him while he is recovering from the initial counter (unless it is the aforementioned 2 attacks in a row thing). I assume you can see similar results with Aerial Retribution.

Anyway that's all I can think of that contributed to me defeating Lu Bu on Hero in 6 minutes (Took me 3 on Wayfarer). Yeah it's kinda cowardly to pursue Lu Bu then run away like a coward while HE is the one pursuing you, but hey you lead him into an allied base to ambush him and he's still kicking your ass so...oh well.

Best of luck, fellas! And Remember, do not pursue Lu Bu, unless you have a ton of bravery points and most importantly, a damn good counter stance skill! And also dodge reflexes, because you can't counter those red and orange moves.

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As an aside, if anyone was curious as to what I thought of the Lu Bu fight, I do think it's difficult, challenging, but ultimately still fair. Yes it's hard to an almost gimmicky level, but honestly, you have plenty of tools at your disposal to make fighting him a bit easier, and once you have his patterns down it's definitely doable.

I feel like they have made him too damn easy in some of the more recent dynasty warriors games, that when his theme plays I just think 'Oh hey it's Lu Bu, let's go insta-gib him'. But here, oh boy, his theme makes me shudder, in a 'time to really test your skill' kind of sense.

I had a lot of fun trying to beat him at the TGS 2024 demo and here I finally did it, free from the damn timer from that demo. So...I am very satisfied.

So ultimately I think it's a fair but very challenging fight, and I ASSUME in the full game, they will give you an out, basically a way to get the heck away from Lu Bu, since if you beat him in the demo he just says he is going to spare you and leave you be afterwards, so you can't canonically defeat him.

So honestly, just practice the fight. You can retry right when Lu Bu appears with the 'reconstruct battlefield' option, so as long as you've prepared the battlefield in your favour, you can retry with the same conditions (in fact retrying is better since he starts off his horse) and practice, practice, practice until you finally beat him.

As someone who played a lot of Wo Long and other such Soulslike games, the Lu Bu fight perhaps felt more similar to a fight from those games than a 'Dynasty Warriors' game boss fight. Pattern recognition, reading moves, reacting accordingly with parries or counters or dodging, that kinda thing, rather than just spamming attacks and overwhelming him with powerful moves.

I know it can be discouraging, and he can feel like a brick wall, but hey, what do you think the soldiers felt facing him in the past? You can surely summon the courage and perseverance to face him, and you have an advantage those soldiers back then didn't...
The chance to retry the fight as many times as you want, haha.

[Schwab]

Thx i will try it tommorow

[Chinek]

Yhe he is doable but most newcomers must know we will be able to grind and upgrade our character/weapons in full game so dont worry.

[VintenDio]

Publicado originalmente por Chinek:

Yhe he is doable but most newcomers must know we will be able to grind and upgrade our character/weapons in full game so dont worry.

Yeah but is that fight the same in the real game or it's just a challenge in the demo?

[First Mate]

Publicado originalmente por VintenDio:

Publicado originalmente por Chinek:

Yhe he is doable but most newcomers must know we will be able to grind and upgrade our character/weapons in full game so dont worry.

Yeah but is that fight the same in the real game or it's just a challenge in the demo?

It will be more or less the same fight but at Xiapi, unless you want to fight him at Hulao gate.

[WeissRook]

Publicado originalmente por VintenDio:

Publicado originalmente por Chinek:

Yhe he is doable but most newcomers must know we will be able to grind and upgrade our character/weapons in full game so dont worry.

Yeah but is that fight the same in the real game or it's just a challenge in the demo?

Generally, fighting Lu Bu at Hulao Gate is always a challenge in Dynasty Warriors games. The famous line 'DO NOT PURSUE LU BU' is pretty specific to this story arc too.

[First Mate]

Publicado originalmente por WeissRook:

Publicado originalmente por VintenDio:

Yeah but is that fight the same in the real game or it's just a challenge in the demo?

Generally, fighting Lu Bu at Hulao Gate is always a challenge in Dynasty Warriors games. The famous line 'DO NOT PURSUE LU BU' is pretty specific to this story arc too.

I think there is a Steam achievement if you beat him at Hulao Gate, but yes its generally a very hard fight.