=============================================================================== Dynasty Warriors 3 (Xbox) Maxed Out Items FAQ by shoecream - shoecreamll at gmail.com Version 1.1 - 8/18/04 =============================================================================== Copyright (c) Jonathan Chang 2004. Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. 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The best way to do this is with a link to this web page: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ =============================================================================== Table of Contents =============================================================================== I. Introduction II. Starting Out A. Maxed out Characters B. Fourth Weapons 1. Lu Bu's Fourth Weapon 2. Lu Xun's Fourth Weapon C. Items 1. Buckler 2. Power Scroll III. Actually Maxing Out Items A. The Beginning: Taking Care of Business B. The Middle: Surrounding Cao Xiu C. The End: Battering Sima Yi's Morale IV. Applying These Strategies Elsewhere =============================================================================== I. Introduction =============================================================================== Welcome to my lovely FAQ for the excellent Xbox and PS2 game, Dynasty Warriors 3 (Shin Sangoku Musou 2 in some circles). This "Maxed Out Items FAQ" will tell you how to get items quickly, but don't expect it to be an easy trip. You'll need a lot of hard work before you can start trying to max out your items. IF YOU'RE INTIMIDATED BY PATIENCE, PLEASE STOP READING NOW. This guide is designed mainly for Xbox, so if you're playing the PS2 version and wonder, "That feature isn't there." Or "My PS2 slows down every time I do X", then I say to you: too bad. BTW, it's not really as hard as it sounds. Doing all of this will take less than a few hours, at most, if you've already unlocked this level for both sides and know how to play well. ,-------------------------. | Is this guide worth it? | `-------------------------' For those of you that are wondering if this is all really worth it, here's an overview of what I'm telling you in this guide. 1) Max out Lu Bu, Lu Xun and get their fourth weapons 2) Play You Ting, Wu Side, on Hard or Very Hard in a set pattern until you get the items you want. 3) Show your friends the l337 stats your items have. =============================================================================== II. Starting Out =============================================================================== Here is the list of materials required for getting items efficiently: A Maxed out Lu Xun Lu Xun's Fourth Weapon A Maxed out Lu Bu (or close to it)** Lu Bu's Fourth Weapon** Buckler Power Scroll Peacock Urn Turtle Amulet Shell Armor You Ting, Wu Side unlocked Very Hard Difficulty Unlocked (Xbox only)* Note that you don't need ALL of these materials, or any of them in fact, to get items efficiently. But it sure will help. * NOTE: On Xbox, beat Musou mode on hard to unlock Very Hard Difficulty. ** Don't get these if you're not playing Xbox. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Maxed Out Characters ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The characters that you need to max out are Lu Xun and Lu Bu. To unlock them...beat the game once with a Wu general (for Lu Xun) and kill 1000 people in Hu Lao gate, Allied Forces side. Getting 1000 kills is NOT hard. Just play someone like Guan Yu. Ok? Unlocked both of them? Good. Now we can move on to the next part: maxing them out. To max out characters, I recommend playing on the Siege of He Fei castle, Wei side. The reason for this is because it's quite an easy level if you play it right, on Wei side everyone is bunched together, and almost everyone drops at least +4. To max out life and musou bars, I recommend either the Yellow Turban rebellion, or Mountain Bandit Campaign (for you Xbox people). The life and musou powerups are located in jugs. If you can't find them yourself, I suggest using http://www.kongming.net/dw3/maps/ for all your mapping needs. Please note that all material on that site is neither owned nor endorsed by me, so if you have any complaints about it direct it to THEM, not me. So, now that you've maxed out both Lu Bu and Lu Xun, it's time to get their fourth weapons. On to... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- B. Fourth Weapons ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You'll need Fourth weapons to survive in You Ting on Very Hard. So, here's how to get them... ,---------------------------. | 1. Lu Xun's Fourth Weapon | `---------------------------' Base Attack +42 Death Element Speed +22 Musou +75 Defense +43 Reach +29 Ouch! This is the bad-ass that you'll be using to plow your way through You Ting. Death Element + Reach = DEATH. Plus he's really fast, almost as fast as Red Hare, (faster if you have a maxed speed scroll, but we'll get to that later) with this weapon equipped, so you won't have to waste an item slot for your "Red Hare Saddle." To obtain this weapon, you must play Yi Ling on Hard (a feat in and out of itself), while keeping Lu Meng AND Gan Ning alive while you traipse through the Stone Warrior Formation. Then, while still keeping Lu Meng and Gan Ning alive on the other side of the map, you must KILL ZHUGE LIANG! This feat is best attempted with two players. ,--------------------------. | 2. Lu Bu's Fourth Weapon | `--------------------------' Base Attack +50 Lightning Element Jump +24 Musou +90 Life +90 Attack +30 Defense +60 THIS dude, on the other hand, is gonna be the guy that takes all of your hits for you. Any other bodyguard is going to be killed within the first 5 minutes. To get Lu Bu's fourth weapon, play Hu Lao Gate on Hard mode. Play Dong Zhuo's side. Kill Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Liu Bei. (kill Liu Bei last because Guan Yu and Zhang Fei retreat when you kill him). Then, run over to Cao Cao's attack route and slaughter the supply team that's running away from you like a scared little rabbit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C. Items ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You'll need some red equipment before you can max out your blue equipment. The things required are: Buckler Power Scroll Buckler first. ,------------. | 1. Buckler | `------------' This item allows you to always hold your block, no matter if the enemy is a lowly private or Lu Bu himself. In Very Hard mode, when even a private can break your guard, you know you're gonna need this. He Fei, Wu side. Let Taishi Ci get killed in Zhang Liao's assassination attempt. Follow Sun Quan when he retreats, then jump over the broken bridge with him. Zhang Liao will then attack Sun Quan. Kill Zhang Liao, and he will drop the Buckler. ,-----------------. | 2. Power Scroll | `-----------------' He Fei, Wei side. Wait for Gan Ning to appear. Kill him. Congratulations! You have all the items you need! NOTE: Of course you don't *really* need these items, but they're helpful, because with these items, you have less of a chance of getting your ass kicked severely. =============================================================================== III. Actually Maxing Out Items =============================================================================== Wasn't that fun? So now that you've got everything prepped up, you can begin to max out your items. First, turn off cutscenes in the options menu. You don't need them, and they can get bothersome when you're in a combo and a random cutscene pops out. While you're there, bump it up to Hard or Very Hard mode if you haven't already. Second, go into Free mode, and select You Ting, Wu side. Then select Lu Xun. Third: Go into the equipment menu. Equip your fourth weapon, a peacock urn, tortoise necklace, shell armor, buckler, and power scroll. For your bodyguard, use an officer and select Lu Bu. IF YOU ARE PLAYING PS2, SKIP THIS PART. DON'T USE ANY BODYGUARDS. THEY WILL BE SLAUGHTERED. Now...start the level! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A. The Beginning: Taking Care of Business ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you start the level, run directly forward. You should see a large group of people gathering in front of you. Kill ALL enemies in this group, using Charge 4 attack (XXXY, or SSST for you PS2 folks). After killing all enemies, there should be a bend in the road ahead of you. Start killing enemies left and right. You should be double-teamed by both Zhen Ji and Xu Huang. Run back a bit, and take out each SEPERATELY. Officer tactics: (this applies for all officers in this level). Always hold L (or L1, for you PS2 folks). Let your bodyguard, or other soldiers, distract the enemy's bodyguards. Use XXXY (SSST), until it does little damage, then do XXXXXXY (SSSSSST) Always keep moving, especially if there are archers nearby. Save musou attacks for until they are almost dead, or to counter another musou. Repeat until dead. After killing Zhen Ji and Xu Huang (and clearing out the area with liberal amounts of XXXY), collect any meat buns they've dropped, and go to the place where you originally encountered the two of them. It should be a T intersection there (as well as a crate full of arrows). This is what it should look like: (to Cao Xiu) | | | | | \_______ | x (to bend & life up near tree) | _______ | C/ | T | | | | | | | | _|_ | \#/ V go this way! x - you C - crate of arrows T - tree While facing the top part of the T (the part where you can't go forward, you can only go left or right), turn left, and you should see in the distance (or if you're using PS2, run a bit until you see it) a crate and a few jugs. Break the crate and jugs for a +FULL HP recover and an item. Good work, soldier. At this point, you should be in the bottom left quadrant of the map. Run over to the other side of the map (bottom right side) (you'll have to cut through your base to get to it), where Da Qiao is probably being molested by some guy or something. Go and save her (if she's not dead already) kill the officer that's attacking her. He should be called Hu Zhi. Kill him for another item. If you get woefully battered from this fight, run back to your base for a +100 life up. Please quit and save your game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- B. The Middle: Surrounding Cao Xiu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After beating up on Zhang He's subordinate officer, Zhang He should have little people left. Go up to the east fortress, and start beaning on his guys. Again, use XXXY liberally. Now, start attacking Zhang He. If you're playing Xbox version, Lu Bu should aid in the battle very well. After he dies, he drops a Defense +8 - who cares? You're maxed out anyway! If you get bloodied and bruised from this fight, there is a +200 life up in the east fortress. Run DIRECTLY ACROSS to the West fortress - don't care about any little munchkins that get in your way. Check the time - if you're good, you should have at least 22 minutes left. That'll give you a whole minute and a half to take down the West Fortress. The reason for the time limit is that, at 10 minutes, Sima Yi will discover that Zhou Fang is a traitor, and Wei morale goes up while Wu morale suffers. You don't want that. In fact, you don't want Wei's morale to go above 5 stars. You want to keep them as downtrodden as possible. So, after running to the west fortress, ELIMINATE the officer there: he should be called Zhang Pu. He should be really easy to defeat, and Xiao Qiao should help, because unlike her useless sister, she can actually take a few hits. So, now that both the east and west fortresses have fallen, Cao Xiu should be surrounded, Zhou Fang returned to Wu ranks, free beer and cigars for everyone, etc. Run over to the central fortress. Go to the south part of it, to retrieve an item of yours. | (Cao Xiu's fortress interior) | | / \ | |A_______ _______|__A__|______ _________A| I _______________________ A - OMGWTF archers I - item box Now run around the fortress and locate Man Chong. ELIMINATE him. But never stay in one spot, because of two words: Arrow. Shower. After eliminating him, he ought to drop an item bag. Pick it up. Now go to the middle of the Central fortress to destroy Cao Xiu. Don't worry about Jia Xu (his reinforcements). Just kill Cao Xiu. You should have quite a handful of people helping you. After destroying him, he should drop an item bag too. This brings our total count of items up to 5! Yay! Don't forget to save your game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C. The End: Battering Sima Yi's Morale ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now comes the fun part - with every general on the map eliminated, except for Sima Yi and friends, you can have the entire Wu army at your side. Run up to the top part of the map, near Wei fortress. There should be a constant stream of people running out of the bottleneck. Please don't hesitate to use Death Attack. After killing a good number of them and battering morale, run in when there is an opening across the bottleneck. Jumping works well. If you get hurt severely during this part, there is a life up to the right of the bridge after you cross it. GATE GATE GATE | | O <------- +LIFE crate ------------| |----------- (water) | | (more bridge) to fortress wall | | V (not drawn to scale) After you run across the bottleneck bridge, ignore Sima Yi. Run directly to the right, and run up to the gate captain. Dispose of him with a quick XXXY (SSST). Now run back and start killing everyone in site. Don't kill Sima Yi yet (you can kill Xu Zhu if you meet him). Go to the central gate at the top of the map: there should be two archer towers. Right next to one of the archer towers is a crate with your sixth and final Item bag: _______________________ __________________________ | A | G | A | |___| |___| I A = archers G = gate captain and large mob of people I = item box Close the gate, that way you can trample Sima Yi's morale to only 1 star, or nothing. At this point, almost everyone (SSX, Xiao Qiao, and other nameless generals) should be helping you. The most annoying part is when their horses get into the mix. The horses push you around all over the place, and it gets quite annoying when you're beating the crap out of Sima Yi, and suddenly a horse pushes you out of the way and he replies with a devastating and far-reaching musou attack, which nearly kills you. So do the same with every other general, except this time, generals on foot will help. (Not the ones on horse.) XXXY until it does a negligible amount of damage, then do XXXXXXY. After you're done, congrats! You've just got 6 high quality items in a matter of 15 minutes or so. Just repeat this many times and you'll have maxed out items in no time. =============================================================================== IV. Moving On =============================================================================== These strategies can be applied almost anywhere: Any Character + Any Map could potentially equal maxed out items. A harder level, that is, Wu Zhang Plains (since no items are dropped on Siege of He Fei), would be preferable. This guide is meant as a starter, since you can potentially get six good items in 15 or 20 minutes. For more information on what officers drop, please see the "Enemy General Drop List." Alternatively, see the "Hard Mode Dropped Item List." For more information on where item bags are on the maps, please visit: http://www.kongming.net/dw3/maps/ You could also use a two player method to gain items more easily: though the split-screen bothers me. Whatever floats your boat. =============================================================================== V. Conclusion =============================================================================== I appreciate all questions, comments, suggestions, and concerns. Please direct them to shoecreamll at gmail.com. VERSION HISTORY Version 1.1 - 8/18/04 Added pretty ASCII art maps in places that I thought needed them. Version 1.0 - 9/15/03 First version. Added You Ting item strategy, as well as the basics.