Gameplay Tips and FAQs

Some tips in Gameplay Basics, Ambition Mode and Ultimate mode on Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends. Feel free to ask some questions in the comments and I will try my best to answer them for you. I have also included a list of DLC that's recommended to pick up. I will also constantly update the guide.

Introduction

Hello, I am a huge fan of this series and I have poured a lot of time into the Japanese version on my Vita. And I would be happy to share with you more tips on the game. Initially, my guide will have weird text as I translated them on my own. I will edit it as I play more of this version to make it easily understandable. This is the first guide I have created so my guide may not be formatted well.

Regarding Favourite Weapons/EX Weapons

Any character can use any weapon. The weapons are like movesets in this game. For example, if you were to give Lu Bu a Diaochan weapon, Lu Bu will start to act like a graceful dancer. lol

However, it's heavily recommended you equip the character's Favourite Weapons instead of any random weapon as Favourite Weapons gives your character the ability to execute EX attacks. For example, if you were to use Xiao Qiao, you should equip 2 Iron Fans, each with different weapon affinity (as explained in Storm Rush Mechanics). Equipping 2 weapons with the same affinity will cause the game to prompt a warning as it is disadvantageous to do so.

The default weapon equipment when you first start the game will always be his favourite weapon in Slot 1. But, Slot 2 will always be the generic Sword. Always change the sword to your favourite weapon. Using the sword has no advantages to your character unless his favourite weapon is the Sword.

Also, because anyone can equip any weapon. You can even turn Xiao Qiao into Lu Bu by giving her a halberd, which greatly powers her up. However, you lose the ability to use your EX attack.

In the weapon selection screen, you will see that there are stars beside the weapon type. This shows how effective your character will be when using the weapon. So now you will wonder, "OMG Why my favourite/EX weapon is 3 stars? Isn't that what he/she's supposed to use?!". This is because your level is too low. Once your character reach Level 26, the stars should have maximised to 4.

OMG A gold star Weapon!

In your weapon type, there are those effective stars thing and there's another type of stats that you should look at. In the first column, you will see dots or sometimes, gold stars. So what are these?

Those are the weapon's rank. More dots = higher rank = more damage. Easy. Gold Star weapons are unique weapons that are, I won't say powerful, but they are better than the dot counterparts unless you manually customise your own weapon attributes (covered in "The new Gems and Blacksmith in Xtreme Legends" section). In that case, it would be totally different. The gold star unique weapons come with really high level attributes.

Which also brings up the 5 Star Gold Weapons (which are Divine Weapons), these are really special and powerful weapons that can only be obtained by doing certain optional objectives in a certain stage with a certain character on Hard and above difficulty in Story/Free Mode.

Each character has 2 Divine Weapons to collect, each in different stages. Originally, there's only 1 Divine Weapon for each character. The Xtreme Legends expansion added another. The expansion's Divine Weapon will be stronger than the original base game's Divine Weapon. So Divine Weapon #2 > Divine Weapon #1.

Divine Weapons can be collected in Story Mode and Free Mode, as long as you play on Hard and above. I recommend Free Mode because you can bring your bodyguards and your mounts, which can make the optional objective easier to accomplish.

"Forcing Compatibility"

It isn't impossible, but it isn't perfect. If you level any character to 50, you will get notified you have learnt a "Weapon Skill" to equip in your Skills. That Weapon Skill is how you force "Compatibility" to another character. For example, the moment you level up Xiao Qiao to 50, you will get an "Iron Fan Weapon Skill". Anyone who equips this "Iron Fan Weapon Skill" and equips and holds the "Iron Fan" will get to use the that Weapon "Compatiblity", which in this case, is the "Double-Jump or Dash (is what it's called in the game)".

For example, you want to have Lu Bu do a double jump. Equip him any Iron Fan and the "Iron Fan Weapon Skill", whenever he holds the Iron Fan in battle, he will be able to do a double jump. This, however, does not increase your compatibility stars or let you use another's EX attack. Only the Weapon Special Ability AKA Compatibility.

NOTE: Also, equipping their own "Weapon Skills" does nothing. So if you equip "Iron Fan" to Xiao Qiao, Xiao Qiao won't be able to triple jump or anything like that. Equip something else.

The new Gems and Blacksmith in Xtreme Legends

The newly added gems in Xtreme legends are used in the Blacksmith in Ambition Mode for "Weapon Fusion". This feature is unlocked when you reach Level 30 with the Blacksmith. You gain gems by simply participating in Ambition Mode battles. The more battles you do, the more gems you get. Do take note that the gems are capped at 9999.

They are used to transfer Weapon Attributes between weapons, to customise your very own weapon easily. You can even transfer Weapon Attributes from one weapon type to another (Halberd to Iron Fan). They are not limited to just the selected weapon type, you can however (Halberd to Halberd, or Iron Fan to Iron Fan). You can also boost the base attack power by 1 and change the weapon affinity by using Gems as well.

The cost for increasing the bast attack power by 1 is 500 gems! It's very expensive, but you can make your weapon base attack power really high if you choose to do so. You are also able to transfer as many Weapon Attributes as you want, as long as you have enough Gems to spare. Also, if your weapon already has the attribute, it will level up your attribute. For example, when you transfer Slash 3 to your Slash 4, it will be come Slash 7 (to a maximum of 10). Some weapon attributes has no levels and cannot be leveled up.

By choosing to enhance your weapon that you selected, the weapon that has it's attributes transferred will break. So be careful! The game will prompt you that the weapon will be gone should you choose a weapon that is currently equipped. For example, if you choose to enhance your Iron Fan, and choose to extract and transfer from the Halberd. The halberd will break afterwards, so make sure to choose carefully before forging. The halberd will also break even if you decide to just boost the Iron fan's base attack only.

In short, this gives you a lot of freedom in how you want your favourite weapon to turn out as you can choose any attribute from any weapon and attach to it but will cause the other weapon to break.

The Many Musous You Have

In short, powerful attack -> people die.

There are 4 musou attacks in this game. Ground Musou 1, Air Musou, Ground Musou 2, True Musous and Rage Musou. Ground Musous and the Air Musou each expend 1 gauge of the Musou bar. Your Musou bar increases as you level up to a maximum of 3.

In the beginning of the game, at level 1, you only have 1 Musou bar and have access to only Ground Musou 1. So keep playing as the character and you unlock more Musous and extend your Musou bar.

There are also True Musous, which is basically your normal musous but stronger. True Musous does not change the Musou animation but adds more damage/range/elemental damage to that musou. True Musous can only be activated when you use a Musou on low health or if you attach a certain Weapon Attribute to your Weapon, or if you use a Team Musou. (The Team Musou can be activated when you see a red beam on Player 2's officer or your bodyguard.)

Rage Musou can only be used when your Rage Meter at the bottom left of your screen. It should look like an arc beside your character head. Upon activation of your Rage bar, you instantly gain full Musou and become more overpowered than your usual self. Higher attack power, faster attack speed, that kind of thing. Your Musou bar immediately merges together during Rage. To execute your Rage Musou, hold the musou button down. Do not tap it or you will waste your Rage Musou.

Rage Musou can only be executed when your Musou bar is full (which will be as activating Rage will instantly fill your Musou bar). Rage Musou lasts as long as you have Musou remaining and as long as you hold down your musou button. Rage Musou does not end even if you run out of Rage. It only ends if you release the Musou button or if your Musou runs out.

If you really want to maximise your Rage, you can attack normally with Normal and Strong attacks until your Rage meter is really low before executing your Rage Musou. But don't forget to activate it before it ends unless you intend to do so.

Storm Rush Mechanics

See that weird blue crystal thing on top of a named officer? Or an ! symbol perhaps? That has to do with your weapon affinity (Heaven, Earth, Man). Always carry 2 weapons with different affinity, try to always bring 2 of your EX weapon with different affinity. The affinity is some thing like "Rock Paper Scissors". So if your weapon affinity wins a named officer, the blue crystal thing will be on his name. If your weapon affinity loses, the ! symbol will appear.

Blue Crystal Thing:

The more you whack the guy with your attacks, the crystal will start to grey out, when it's fully greyed out, you will trigger Storm Rush automatically. The blue crystal thing will deplete and grey out faster if you use EX attacks against them. (You are able to trigger Storm Rush manually if you set it in Options) I recommend Manual Trigger of Storm Rush as you can time it and try to get the greyed out guy to an area where there's a lot of enemies, then trigger Storm Rush. Everyone in front of you will get hit! To manually trigger Storm Rush, the enemy blue crystal thing must be greyed out, and hit Normal and Strong Attack together (X+Y on XBOX controller).

If they are low on health, they will attempt to switch their weapon, changing their weapon affinity. So watch out for that!

! Symbol:

On lower difficulties, this will not matter a lot. But on higher difficulties, this is pretty dangerous. Why?

• Enemies will not stagger when you hit them, so you are always open to counter-attacks from them.
  
• I think they deal slightly more damage.

So how do I counter them?

• Switch your weapon immediately or wait and,
  
• Counter Attack. When the ! officer is about to hit you with a strong attack, he will be in slo-mo, and a very dim blue cross will show on his model, now's the perfect opportunity to switch your weapon, when you do this successfully, you will trigger a special attack animation then change your weapon.

Why should you start with Story Mode first?

To get to know the story better. lol

OK, not just that reason but Levels.

If you start with Ambition Mode and pick a character, note that they are Level 1!

If you play Story Mode, as long as the character is featured as playable in the Story Mode Stages, the characters will be automatically levelled up for you as you play. Even if you didn't pick the character to play in that Story Mode, they will level up as well (but slower).

Basically, Story Mode helps scale your character's levels (even if you don't play as them), saving you from training them from Level 1. This works for all playable characters featured in Wei, Wu, Shu, Jin story lines will have their levels scaled to about 10-20++ for you.

Lu Bu story is special, Lu Bu will start at Level 25 the moment you begin, and for characters related to Lu Bu such as Diaochan, Chen Gong and Zhang Liao, they will also start at Level 25, as long as you have reached the Stage where they are playable.

Why? Because Lu Bu. lol

Story Mode: Why are there 2 lanes?

If you go to "Stage Select", you will realise that there are 2 lanes. One at the top and one at the bottom.

But as long as you press New Game instead of Stage Select, you will start the right way.

Always play the top lane first! (as shown below)




The bottom lane (as shown below) are What-If scenarios newly added in the Xtreme Legends expansion and are all stages that require you to have prior knowledge because they will suddenly cut to somewhere in the timeline and begin from there. Hence, the pre-battle briefing is important as it will tell you when this happen. Then the next stage, could happen many years later. These stages do not carry forward except the part where there are lines connecting them (usually with a star/Hypothetical objective). If you start with this lane, you will get very confused with the storyline.




Oh and play as Jin last

Increasing Leadership Points

At first, you would lack Leadership to equip powerful bodyguards such as Famous Officers (Liu Bei, Xiao Qiao, Lu Bu, etc). To easily gain Leadership EXP, you would need to be in your town. Press START -> Officer Info -> Bodyguard Settings, and equip any officer that fits the cost. Usually the ones that currently fit the cost at Leadership Level 1, are Normal Officers (generic looking units). Equip them as your bodyguards.

Hint: Emergency Support is one of the fastest way to increase your Leadership really fast.

Once they are equipped, head into battle. For the sake of quick farming, pick the "Skirmishes" type of battle, as they are quick and easy to complete. When in the battle, press START to pause the game, and go to Command Bodyguards" -> <Officer Name> and proceed to use their unique skill.


Resume the game to allow the bodyguards you recently ordered to do whatever they need to do. The moment you gave the order. You will get a Feat +5. But do not give them a second order until what happens below.

Upon completion of the task assigned (for example, setting fire to the enemy base), you will hear them speak and you will gain "Feat +30". You can now rinse and Repeat to gather more Leadership EXP. The higher the level of your bodyguards, the more times you are able to use their unique ability. Hence, accelerating the rate you gather Leadership EXP.

To increase the level of your bodyguards, you would need to be in your town, instead of selecting "Organise Bodyguards", select the other option, there, you select 1 officer that you want to level up, then choose up to 8 ( Will confirm) officers and pump them in. The officers that you used to pump will be retired, so careful not to retire your Famous Officer by accident.

Unlockable Mounts

To unlock the use of Cao Cao's horse, Liu Bei's horse, and Lu Bu's horse (Red Hare), you will need to participate in Ambition Mode Consecutive Battles. Instead of selecting "Return to Camp", select "Next Battle" and always pick Skirmishes type of Battle. Reasons being the time remaining is carried forward and enemies get progressively more spongy.

To make the horse easier to unlock, play on the easiest difficulty. By battle 15 or so, your easiest difficulty would have "upgraded" itself to Ultimate difficulty, where the enemy health is really high. Although, it gets more difficult, the enemy units' attack will never increase, only their defense and health, so in other words, by battle 15 or so, you would be fighting Ultimate difficulty enemies (including no-name officers), however their damage dealt to you will still be on the difficulty you selected.

Cao Cao's Horse - 30 Consecutive Battles (Regen Musou as long as you are on horse)
Liu Bei's Horse - 30 Consecutive Battles
Lu Bu's Horse - 30 Consecutive Battles (Horse never gets stunned if you hit an Enemy Officer twice while on horse, and fastest horse)
War Elephant - 100 Consecutive Battles
Some special eagle (lol) - Complete Ambition Mode Part 1 (if I'm not wrong)
Golden Panda - Recruit all allies

You are allowed to actually fight 100 consecutive battles and unlock all of them in 1 go. That is if you have enough time and stamina to go on. It's also recommended you finish all the huge mock battles (AKA Duel in the game) that happen every 2-3 consecutive battles, so you do not trigger them and waste a lot of time in them.

Extremely IMPORTANT (especially when tackling 100 battles): There is a limit to how many horses you can carry! If you think you hit the limit cap, you are able to discard mounts while in battle (unable to sell, but you can discard) I have no idea if you are able to unlock it anymore. And do not sell the 4 mounts in the Merchant Facility. They sell for ZERO gold. And I have no idea if you are able to unlock it again if you sell them.

Speaking of mounts, Any mounts' with effects equipped on a character will still take effect in Story Mode as long as the same character has the mount equipped in Free or Ambition Mode.

Quick Farming of Materials

Play "Skirmishes" type of battles. And break every vase all boxes you see. Every container in this battle will contain a type of material. Defeating Enemy Officers may give you materials as well (except the final boss)

The "Barracks" facility is able to award you resources and animals when you send gold to the countries. You can use the barracks each time you return from any Ambition mode battle.

Additional Notes:
When you unlock the facility "Merchant", Do not upgrade it to Level 50 yet. From Level 1 - 40, the trading of materials are more advantageous to you. This is what I mean:

Level 1 - 40: 1 Weapon Material can trade for 2 Building Materials, 2 Building Materials for 1 Weapon Material
Max Level: 1 Weapon Material can only trade for 1 Building Material.

Ambition Mode Random Tips

• The Blacksmith in story mode before the battle starts never have any good stuff. And they do not level up. The best Blacksmith is the one in Ambition Mode, where you are also able to upgrade your weapons. This is one of the Facilities you should max out first.
  
• The second facility you should max out is the "Barracks" facility. It's really similar to how Assassin's Creed sending of Assassins to various places to get rewards. Instead of assassins here, you pay gold (I always pay 10k) to get rewards. Sending your troops to Yan Province is the easiest way to farm gold as it provides an elephant as a reward.
  
• Always place Supervisors at "Farm" and "Training Dojo Facility". They actually give rewards. The other Facilities are Conversation only.
  
• Every time you return to the Hub in Ambition Mode, always check the "Farm", "Barracks", "Training Dojo Facility" as they give rewards each time you come back. Think of this as some mobile game, where you need to poke each facility to get free stuff. You can also check out the Stables for additional items by feeding horses. Think of them like Barracks, except instant rewards.
  
• Always play "Skirmish" type of battle. Why? Because no matter which type of battle you play, you always get Fame and Allies. As long as you defeat a named officer in battle, you are guaranteed to recruit him. Your Fame fill up really fast and you will reach the cap really fast. The longest and most time to farm is actually Materials and Allies. So the battle to get Fame is barely needed.
  
• If your Allies count is maxed out, and you have new allies coming in from a new battle. The new allies will always be retired. So if you know you are going to get Famous Officers, make some space.

Ambition Mode Part 2

Part 2 is where the Expansion comes in.

After completing your Toquetai, some guy will come in and talk to you about some fake emperor doing fake stuff. The second part will not begin until you talk to him. The moment you talk to him, you get to choose 1 famous officer from your allies, after thal, most of your allies will be retired.

Take note that you can continue building optional facilities and get those unlockable mounts even if you begin part 2. Talk to the Guard you always talked to in Part 1, to access Part 1 Battles. Talk to the new guy to start conquering China (which is Part 2 Battles).

Upon completion of Part 2 Battles, you can do a New Game +, by talking to the new guy (the one who gives you all the subjugation battles). Never ever pick New Game from the Main Menu. It erases all your progress the moment you save in that New Game!

Differences between New Game and that New Game + by talking to new guy:

• New Game + will not erase all your Toquetai progress, so you don't have to re-farm all that again.

Before you actually go to battle, there's a part where you need to assemble your army. Here, you can customise who gets to be in your army. However, only 8 Famous Officers can be in your army at any given time. The rest must be Normal Officers.

Be warned: If officers in your army gets defeated in battle, they are automatically retired (regardless if they are Famous or Normal). That means they will be gone from your allies. You cannot assign them in your army (obviously because they are gone) until you recruit them in battle again.

However, bodyguards that you assigned will not be retired even if they are defeated in battle. They will just be un-usable for the remainder of the battle.

Allies in your army go down pretty quick at the start of the battle. Assist immediately if you don't want to lose your favourite officer!

Challenge Mode

Challenge Mode is basically an assortment of challenges/missions. Your character will always be fixed at Level 30, and you are unable to use your weapons from Story/Free/Ambition Modes.

So why should you play this since there aren't even Global Leaderboards? Well, you get special weapon attributes that you can only attain from this game mode. The special attributes come in the form of a weapon. The weapon will not be as strong as what you can find from other game modes. But the most important thing is not the weapon, but the attribute that it comes with. So go to Ambition Mode's Blacksmith and "transfer" that weapon attribute to your weapon to make it stronger!

Lu Bu

You should always run away from him. However, there will be times you have no choice but to tackle him as an optional boss. One of them would be to attain Guan Yu's ultimate weapon. Which you need to play the Shu Hulao Gate on Hard and above and kill Lu Bu within 8 mins in the battlefield.

When I tackled this with Guan Yu at level 80++, he was still very challenging and a single musou attack from him, will take out a huge amount of your HP. So whenever you see him activate a musou (you can hear the musou sound and him saying something), run away. Run far far away. To actually kill him, you need to slowly jab at his health. But before attacking him, do an interim save just in case, so you don't have to redo the entire battle again if you get killed.

And fighting Lu Bu also means you have to guard. Guard is rarely used in this game unless you play Hard and above. But when fighting Lu Bu, you definitely need to guard as it almost negates any damage he deals to you. At low health, he will start to become more violent and will use musou attacks. That's where you need to be alert.

When he has extremely low HP, make sure your AI teammates don't kill him or you will have to re-load the save and kill him again.

Ultimate Difficulty

So you want Dark Souls experience in your Dynasty Warriors game? Here.

• Even unnamed units can kill you! They attack more frequently and deal a lot of damage!
  
• Ranged units or machinery are the most dangerous enemies as they deal huge amount of damage quickly especially the machinery turret thing. Always take these down first.
  
• Best level to take these difficulties on is at Level 150. Even then, you die really quick. It's best to also increase your stats (or levels) with the "Learning Facility". The "Learning Facility" is one of the last facilities you unlock in Ambition Mode.
  
• Always save your Musou bar. Using any musou immediately cancels out your attack and the enemy attack and making you invincible, saving you from death!
  
• Remember to guard against named units! It's important and can also save you from a fast death!
  
• Remember that guarding does not protect you if an attack hits you from the back!

The first time I tried Ultimate Mode. I was like, "how much damage can they deal? how hard can it be?". I used Level 150 Xiao Qiao, dies in 3-4 hits from unnamed enemies. Go Ultimate! LOL.

Another person has posted an Ultimate Difficulty Guide on Community Guides, so please do take a look at it as I rarely play Ultimate Difficulty and will not be able to give great tips like he can.

Best DLC to get

Well, what a sight to behold! The DLCs are released and the price is just wonderfully set..... nope.

So anyway, all DLCs are optional and you don't have to get them all. Costumes DLC are your preference only.

If there are any DLCs you should get, it's going to be the ones below. Take note of the exact names. Some DLC packs have similar names.

1) WEAPON SYSTEM PACK
2) WEAPON SYSTEM & UPGRADE PACK (Note: these 2 packs contain different weapons, 2) pack contains new DLC weapons from the original Dynasty Warriors 8. 1) pack contains new DLC weapons created for 8 Xtreme Legends Expansion)

^Above packs are new weapons with new movesets, hence recommended.

3) NEW STAGE & ANIMAL PACK (contains remake stages from old Dynasty Warriors. The other similar named Pack is not as worth it as the maps used on the other pack is basically reused maps with new objectives)

4) BGM PACK (The music is good!)

Of course, you don't have to get them full-priced. Wait for a sale (like me :D: )

5) JAPANESE VOICE OPTION (It's free. lol)

End of Guide

Xiao Qiao best girl. That DLC cost. GG

[FADHILZZZ]

my game always gets stuck on the loading saving screen after finishing a battle, do u know why?pls help me, i wanted to play this game so bad

[Shalashaska]

Hello OP! Thanks for your extremely useful guide! :D
I have started playing only recently and I am still "collecting" weapons from defeated enemy officers. Since most of my weapons are 2/3 dots, and most of them don't have the perks required for higher difficulties, is it a good call giving to each officer a secondary weapon which is not an EX weapon?
For example, Zhang Liao uses a 4 dots Rack (the only weapon of that level) and he mows down mobs as cutting grass in a backyard, even if that's not his EX weapon. Compared to other 2-dots twin axes, the rack is much stronger.

Another question: each character has 4 lines in the right part of the screen: DASH, DIVE, SHADOW SPRINT and WHIRLWIND. Each voice has some 1-4 stars. What does that mean? How can I make properly use such "skills"?
Thanks in advance!

[Ibex]

Just landed here in 2021. Thank you for your timeless guide... Having a blast with the game!

[Udder Domination]

Fantastic guide! Got this on PS4 recently after a near-20 year stint away from the series (last one I played was Dynasty Warriors 2), and was trying to figure out all the minutia, and this was incredibly helpful. Unfortunately I can't rate the guide here because I don't own it on steam! lame.

Anyway, great guide, and thanks for your work!

[OwlParrot]

This is a great guide and I feel like I understand all the options alot better now. Thanks!

[MMR Donator]

This is DW7 why steam give the title DW8?

[Firehex]

So, as in DW4, i need at least hard difficulty to get super weapon ?)

[happynaru]

It should work as long as you are playing Lu Bu in Story/Free Mode on Hard and above difficulty. The weapon box item will appear near to Yuan Shao's location once all conditions are met.

[deathmaths11]

I am trying to get explosive Halberd which is lu bu 6th weapon. from google, l found out l need to do: Defeat Zhenji, Zhang He and Yuan Shao within 10 minutes of starting the battle, in Recapture of Chang'an.

Done it in hard mode since someone said so. after l kill yuan shao(which is the last one for me), l only get this 'echo blade'...

l also played it in story mode, really frustrated that it did not work. The time 10mins is up is when you see 50'00;00, since the total time is 60'00;00. I finished it in 6-8 mintues...

[arbor daze]

Thanks for the neat guide!