SENGOKU MUSOU/SAMURAI WARRIORS
ATTRIBUTE/SKILL MAXING GUIDE
v1.2 (6-2-04)
by Edward Chang (
[email protected])
Revision History
v1.2 (6-2-04)
Moved notes on Life/Musou to a separate section, and added much more
detail on maxing these attributes. More details on Attribute Maxing as
well.
v1.1 (5-31-04)
Added some input from Heretic; added more notes on Life/Musou up skills
(Kasshin and Shinkaku).
v1.0 (5-23-04)
First version.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Before You Begin
3. Attribute Maxing
4. Life/Musou Maxing
5. Skill Maxing
6. Credits
1. INTRODUCTION
This is an FAQ for Sengoku Musou, released abroad as Samurai Warriors. This
game is different from its Shin Sangoku Musou/Dynasty Warriors predecessors
in that character growth is much more variable, and maximizing attributes and
skills much trickier than before. This FAQ is a guide on maximizing attributes
and skills in the most effective manner possible.
Please note that I am working with the original (import Japanese) version of
the game. While as far as I know everything in this guide works identically
to the US release, I can't be 100% sure. Also, in places where I do not know
the US name of certain terms (particularly stage names and skill names), I've
used the Japanese name, and have tried my best to describe it so you will
know exactly what I'm talking about even if you're playing the US release.
2. BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Unlike the Dynasty Warriors games, it's entirely possible to 'screw over' a
character and fail to maximize your attributes/skills when you get to the
maximum level, which is 20. Because of this, the developers included a handy
dandy character-reset function in the Options. Using this option, you can
return any character to their original base attributes, skills, experience,
and level, although you keep their weapons, stages you've unlocked, and
mission completion ratings. You'll probably want to take advantage of this
fact.
Before maximizing your characters, it would be very prudent to get that
character's 5th weapon (or in some cases, a very good 4th weapon would be
more useful). It would also be useful to unlock all of the stages in the game,
as many of the methods in this FAQ involve using Free Mode to play certain
stages over and over again. It's possible to do all of this, max your
attributes, and still not have reached Level 20; at this point you can
use the "Slow" method of skill maxing (see below) to get as many skills as
you want without maximizing your experience. Otherwise, you can reset your
character and use the "Fast" method (relatively speaking) to get all the
skills that you want.
3. ATTRIBUTE MAXING
Each character has 9 primary attributes: Attack, Defense, Ranged Attack,
Ranged Defense, Mounted Attack, Mounted Defense, Speed, Jump, and Evade.
Each character has different starting values for these attributes, and
different maximum values as well. The absolute maximum value is 200 (see
my Character Statistics guide for details). Thus, a character like
Kunoichi might have a max speed of 200, but a max attack of only 148,
whereas a character like Maeda Keiji might have a max attack of 200 but
a max speed of only 180.
Every time you clear a stage, you'll be rated in four different areas:
Clear Time, Experience Items, Mission Completion and Ougi Rating. What
you've done during the stage will give you a number of points in each
of these areas, and then based on how many poitns you got you'll
receive a letter grade (S being the best, then from A, B, and so on
down to E). Depending on your grade, you'll then get a certain amount
of experience and skill points; you'll also be assigned an 'overall'
grade that is a composite of your other scores. Normally the amount of
experience you get is the same as the number of points you got in each
area, but if you learn the skill Kachidoki (Acclaim) a small multiplier
will be applied to each.
The number of points you need for each rating appears to be:
S - 950 and above
A - 800-949
B - 600-799
C - 400-599
D - 200-399
E - 0-199
Now the method to get points in each category:
Clear Time: Finishing the stage as fast as possible. As more time elapses,
the amount of points you get goes down; however exactly how much
time can pass before you no longer get "S" (and so on...) differs
by each stage.
Experience Items: Collecting those gold/medal items that are dropped by
Gate Captains and some generals. The number of points you get
is exactly equal to the amount of experience you get from these
items, so for instance if you pick up three EXP+200 items, you'll
get a B rating.
Mission Completion: Finishing missions assigned to you. The amount of points
you get is exactly equal to the amount of experience you're
assigned for finishing those missions. Thus if you complete two
missions for 200 and 250 experience, you will get a C rating.
Ougi Rating: Defeating as many people as possible with your Ougi. It doesn't
matter whether you use the character's unique Ougi, or a custom
Ougi (i.e., tapping the O button, then attacking normally while
in the 'bullet-time'-like mode.) The number of points you get
is equal to (Number of Musou Killsx4) + (Max Number of Kills
in One Ougix25), with a cap of 600 for the first area and 400
for the second. Thus if you kill 100 people with an ougi, and
the most you killed in one ougi is 10, you'll get 400+250 = 650
points and thus a B rating.
Each area is linked to a different set of attributes. Clear Time is
linked to Mounted Attack, Mounted Defense, and Speed; Experience Items
is linked to Ranged Attack and Ranged Defense; Mission Completion is
linked to Jump and Evade; and finally Ougi Rating is linked to normal
Attack and Defense. The higher your ranking in these areas, the more your
linked attributes will rise. Finally, your overall rating will give a
bonus to all of your stats as well.
For instance, finishing with an Ougi Rating of E might raise your attack
and defense by a measly two points, whereas finishing with an S can easily
raise your attack and defense by 20 points or more.
In any case, attribute maxing is clearly not the bottleneck in maximizing
your character, as you should be able to max every single stat well before
you reach Level 20. Still, it IS possible to not reach a maximum if you
do poorly (for instance, if you NEVER get a good Ougi Rating, your attack
and defense are in danger of not being maxed). Thus, pay attention to
what areas need raised, keeping in mind what each character's max attributes
in those areas are (again see my Character Statistics guide for details);
then focus your efforts on such. You probably won't be able to get all S's
too easily, so it's probably best to focus on two areas at a time.
4. LIFE/MUSOU MAXING
Next a word on two skills, "Kasshin" and "Shinkaku". These skills
raise the amount of Life/Musou, respectively, that you get on levelling
up. They are retroactive; however, depending on your character, if you
learn a skill too late you might not be able to get to your character's
individual life/musou max.
The game does not provide numerical life/musou numbers for your characters,
so it can be rather hard to max your life/musou effectively. A full bar
on the character select screen for life/musou is 300 points; however,
each character has their own individual life/musou maximums, so even
maxed you won't get a full bar on the select screen, with only two
exceptions: Ishikawa Goemon, whose life maximum is 300, and Okuni, whose
musou maximum is 300.
Here is a list of each character's initial and final life/musou values.
Init. Life Init. Musou Max Life Max Musou
Sanada Yukimura 150 170 270 295
Akechi Mitsuhide 160 160 280 285
Oichi 130 160 245 280
Uesugi Kenshin 165 140 290 255
Hattori Hanzou 130 145 245 265
Takeda Shingen 170 130 295 245
Kunoichi 125 140 240 260
Mori Ranmaru 140 155 255 275
Nouhime 155 165 275 290
Oda Nobunaga 150 170 270 295
Maeda Keiji 170 155 295 270
Okuni 160 185 285 300
Ishikawa Goemon 175 135 300 250
Saika Magoichi 150 165 270 290
Date Masamune 135 145 250 265
The differences between the initial and maximum life and musou are therefore
calculable. The Power Type characters (Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen, Maeda
Keiji, Okuni, and Ishikawa Goemon) have 125 life difference, and 115 musou
difference. Balance Type (Sanada Yukimura, Akechi Mitsuhide, Nouhime, Oda
Nobunaga, and Saika Magoichi) have 120 life difference and 125 musou
difference. Finally Speed Type (Oichi, Hattori Hanzou, Kunoichi, Mori Ranmaru,
and Date Masamune) have 115 life difference, and 120 musou difference.
Power type characters gain 7 points of life and 5 points of musou on
level up. Balance type get 6 points of life and musou on level up. Speed
type get 5 points of life and 7 points of musou on level up. However, the
Kasshin and Shinkaku skills add to each of these. So if you have a power
type character who has level 3 Kasshin, you get 7+3 = 10 points of life
on level up.
Thus, knowing these facts and the values that each character needs, you can
come to a conclusion on when the latest you can learn each skill and still
reach your character's maximum is:
--Power Type characters (Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen, Maeda Keiji,
Okuni, Ishikawa Goemon) are fine not learning Kasshin (life up) at all,
though learning it gives you more life faster, but they must learn Shinkaku
(musou up) up to 3 before they reach level 13.
--Balance Type characters (Sanada Yukimura, Akechi Mitsuhide, Nouhime,
Oda Nobunaga, Saika Magoichi) must learn Kasshin by level 18 and
Shinkaku by level 16.
--Speed Type characters (Hattori Hanzou, Oichi, Kunoichi, Mori Ranmaru,
Date Masamune) are fine not learning Shinkaku, though learning it give you
more musou faster, but they must learn Kasshin by the time they reach level
13.
You need 650 skill points apiece to get level three in Kasshin and Shinkaku.
See my Skills FAQ for a description of where these skills are in each
character's skill tree, and the prerequisite attribute values for learning
them. Kasshin has a life and attack attribute requirement; Shinkaku has a
musou and speed attribute requirement. Thus when you're building up a
character, you should focus on getting Ss in Clear Time and Ougi Rating
first before anything else.
5. SKILL MAXING
Now we get to the tricky part. Based on your ratings at the end of the stage,
you'll earn a certain amount of skill points. Each letter rank gives you a
certain number of skill points as follows:
Letter Rank Easy Normal Difficult Hell/Chaos
S 200 200 300 400
A 100 100 150 200
B 60 60 90 120
C 40 40 60 80
D 20 20 30 40
E 10 10 15 20
As you can see, the first point is that what difficulty you are playing on
impacts how many skill points you get. Playing on Difficult gives you 1.5x
the number of skill points you'd get normally; playing on Hell/Chaos gives
you 2.0x the number of skill points. Thus, if you get all Cs, on Difficult,
you will get 60x4 = 240 skill points for that stage.
See my Skills FAQ for a list of different skills and how many skill points
it takes to level each one of them up. Each normal skill has 3 levels; each
'rare' skill has only one level, but it costs 1000 points to purchase such
a skill.
NECESSARY SKILL POINTS
----------------------
Now the bottleneck in getting skill points is that once you reach 99999
Experience, you will cease to get any skill points. (Level 20 is attainable
at 95000 Experience, so for a few battles after reaching Level 20 you'll still
get some skill points). If you wanted to get every normal skill up to level 3,
including elemental skills, and every rare skill, you would need 30500 skill
points. This means that you would have to get a skill point-to-experience
ratio of 30500/95000 = 0.305.
However, certain skills in my humble opinion are quite useless. The rare skill
"Tonbogaeri" allows you to recover automatically when you're blown into the
air. However, recovering on your own is pretty easy; also, if you do recover,
you won't be able to activate the other skills that give you bonuses when
getting up when near-death (Celerity, Frenzy, and the like)! Thus, it's
probably in your best interest not to learn this skill. Since it's a rare skill
you're saving 1000 skill points, taking down the total necessary to 29500.
Another skill to watch out for is "Kachidoki" (Acclaim). This skill raises
the amount of experience you get per category at the end of each battle. Thus,
it can be easier to get S's. However, since you're raising the amount of
experience you get as well, this in general is NOT good for your SP-to-EXP
ratio.
For instance, if I do Kunoichi's 4th Stage (Infiltration of Ueda Castle) on
the hardest difficulty and simply run to the bottom as fast as possible,
then let Yukimura get defeated by Hanzou, I would get:
200 Experience on reaching the 2nd Floor
250 Experience on reaching the 3rd Floor
200 Experience on reaching the 4th Floor
150 Experience on reaching the 5th Floor
1000 Experience (S rank) for Clear Time
0 Experience (E rank) for Experience Items
800 Experience (A rank) for Mission Completion
0 Experience (E rank) for Ougi Rating)
---
2600 Experience, 640 Skill Points
This is an SP-to-EXP ratio of 640/2600 = 0.246
However, if I performed the same stage with Kachidoki Level 3 doing the
exact same thing, I would get:
200 Experience on reaching the 2nd Floor
250 Experience on reaching the 3rd Floor
200 Experience on reaching the 4th Floor
150 Experience on reaching the 5th Floor
1150 Experience (S rank) for Clear Time
0 Experience (E rank) for Experience Items
920 Experience (A rank) for Mission Completion
0 Experience (E rank) for Ougi Rating)
---
2870 Experience, 640 Skill Points
This is an SP-to-EXP ratio of 640/2870 = 0.223!
The problem with this skill is that it is guaranteed to raise your Experience,
but it is NOT guaranteed to raise your letter ranking (Mission Completion went
from 800 to 920, for instance, not enough to bump it up from A rank to S
rank). Since it's easy enough to get Experience normally, and since you want
to maximize the amount of skill points you get per Experience, I recommend
not learning this skill. This skill takes 950 skill points to get to Level 3,
and so if you don't learn it you'll save another 950 SP and only need
28550 skill points maximum. However some characters will have to put at
least one point into this skill because it comes early on their skill tree.
Here's the info on who needs to learn Kachidoki.
Sanada Yukimura: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kobu, the skill that ups musou
damage.
Akechi Mitsuhide: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kaiden, the rare skill that makes
musou always true musou.
Oichi: Needs Kachidoki to learn Mutoudori, the rare skill that lets you auto-
block.
Uesugi Kenshin: Does not need Kachidoki.
Hattori Hanzou: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kaiden.
Takeda Shingen: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kyoudan, the rare skill that makes
projectiles pass through enemies.
Kunoichi: Does not need Kachidoki.
Mori Ranmaru: Needs Kachidoki to learn Renki, the skill that ups charge
attack damage.
Nouhime: Needs Kachidoki to learn Norikuzushi, the skill that ups horse
charge damage, and Mutoudori.
Oda Nobunaga: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kyoudan.
Maeda Keiji: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kobu.
Okuni: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kaiden.
Ishikawa Goemon: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kaiden.
Saika Magoichi: Needs Kachidoki to learn Kaiden.
Date Masamune: Does not need Kachidoki.
Another skill I personally don't like is Kaiden, the Rare skill that always
makes your Ougi the version that you perform when near-death. Whether you
learn this skill is up to you, but it saves another 1000 skill points.
Other skills I would dispose of are Shindan (makes your projectiles elemental
when you have a full musou bar, 900 SP for level 3) and Kyoudan (rare skill
that makes your ranged attacks pass through opponents; 1000 SP), unless
you are playing Ishikawa Goemon or Saika Magoichi.
If you refrain from learning all of these skills, you'll only need 25650 SP,
meaning that the SP-to-EXP ratio you'll have to shoot for drops to 25650/
99999 = 0.257, which is much easier to achieve.
However if you're not a stingy/lazy person like me and only refrain from
learning Tonbogaeri and Kachidoki (Acclaim), you'll need 28550 skill points
for an SP-to-EXP ratio of 28550/99999 = .286.
Now let's look at some easy methods to get these skill points in good amount.
"FAST" METHOD
-------------
This method involves using two stages, Uesugi Kenshin's Battle of Kawanakajima
(his first stage) and Kunoichi's Infiltration of Ueda Castle (her fourth
stage). Of course, both of these stages should be played on Hell/Chaos
difficulty in order to get as many skill points as possible.
When playing Kenshin's stage, simply run up to Takeda Shingen as fast as
possible and beat him. To make your job easier, you'll probably want a
good horse (either a normal saddle in the +40 range, or the Matsukaze
Saddle), an attack +40, defense +40, and preferably your 5th weapon or
a 4th with high attack +.
If you do this fast enough, and make a point of not killing anybody but
Shingen, you'll get 1220 Experience (1000 for an S ranking in Clear Time,
and 220 for defeating Shingen). This will then net you 460 skill points
on Hell/Chaos difficulty (400 for Clear Time S, 20 for Experience Items E,
20 for Mission Completion E, and 20 for Ougi Rating E). This is an SP-to-
EXP ratio of 460/1220 = 0.377, which is more than sufficient for whatever
you need.
However, this method does involve running into an enemy camp all by your
lonesome and taking out the commander on the hardest difficulty level
available. This isn't always so easy, so if you're willing to sacrifice
on the SP-to-EXP ratio some, you can use Kunoichi's 4th stage as described
above.
When doing this stage, you'll just want to run to the bottom of the castle
as fast as possible. To do this, you'll want a speed +40 and probably
the Onmyou Teshoku (rare item that reveals the castle map). While you're
doing this you can also pick up items and weapons, so a luck + item and the
rare item that shows you where treasures are in castles might be to your
taste. Floor 1 has an item and a weapon, floor 2 has an item and a weapon,
floor 3 has an item, floor 4 a weapon, and the final floor a a weapon,
for a grand total of 4 weapons and 3 items. Since you're playing on the
toughest difficulty, and since this is a 4th stage, having luck + (and
Level 3 Senrigan/Discern) can net you some great items indeed.
In any case, once you reach the last floor proceed forward until you see
the cutscene with Hanzou and Yukimura. Ignore the mission and run around
until Yukimura gets down to half health (you'll probably want to just
run back once you trigger the cutscene and avoid Hanzou entirely, so that
he doesn't come after you and ignore Yukimura). At this point Hanzou
will run away, and you will fail the mission, but the stage ends as if
you had won.
This doesn't require you to kill anybody so even a pathetic level 1
character with his 1st weapon can do this successfully. This will give
you a total of 2600 experience and 640 SP (see above for the exact
calculations) and thus a ratio of 0.246. This is worse than Kenshin's 1st,
but once again the advantages are: You don't have to do any fighting,
you can get good items/weapons at the same time, and you're getting a
good grade in both Clear Time AND Mission Completion (thus raising
your attributes more).
Heretic notes the following: If your character IS good enough to kill
people, try getting some musou kills. 15-25 will probably get you C grade,
while 30-50 will get you B grade. This will bump up your experience, but
it will also give you skill points and will raise your Attack/Defense
at the same time.
A normal run: 2600 experience, 640 SP.
Using musou kills: 2900 experience, 680 SP - this is a slightly
lowered ratio (you'll only lost about 50 skill points overall), and you
can max attack and defense while you're at it.
Using these two stages should give you a goodly amount of skill points to
play around with. However, the downside is that since you're pretty
much ignoring Experience Items and Ougi Rating, you're not gaining much
in the way of attributes. What you should try to do then is max your
attributes first, then settle for one of these methods.
"SLOW" METHOD
-------------
If you max your attributes first and then try to max skill points, chances
are that even with a great ratio, you won't be able to get as many skill
points as you need by the time you reach 99999 Experience. This is where
the "Slow" method for gaining skill points comes in. The basic strategy
is that since an "E" rating can give you 20 skill points on Hell/Chaos
difficulty, even if you get 0 experience, you can get an infinite SP-to-
EXP ratio simply by getting all Es.
The best stage to do this is Nobunaga's upper path fourth stage, Revolt
at Honnouji. If you played through Magoichi's Resistance at the Capital
(his fourth stage, which uses the same map), you should remember getting
a mission that involves sniping Nobunaga from a balcony. The importance
of this location is that enemies cannot hurt you while you're on this
balcony.
Start Nobunaga's stage, playing 2P, with Nobunaga as 1P and the character
you want to max as 2P (or, if you want to max Nobunaga, just play 1P).
As soon as the stage starts, head for the balcony from the Magoichi
mission, then stay there. Now simply wait for 25 minutes (basically until
there are less than 5 minutes on the timer). I suggest reading a book,
doing homework, or making yourself lunch. Now once you're below five
minutes, jump off to the south with Nobunaga and head for the escape
point, in the southeast.
This will get you no experience, an E rating on all four areas, and 80
skill points. Thus, even if you have a level 20 character with 95000
Experience, you can just repeat this over and over again to get all the
skills you want without running up against the 99999 barrier. The
downside of course is that it's extremely slow - you need to spend about
half an hour to finish one stage, and you only get 80 skill points.
This means you have to do this stage 13 times just to learn a single rare
skill, or more than 6 hours! This method is definitely NOT recommended
for general use, just for padding up your skill points once you've
maxed out your characters' attributes and have used the "Fast" method
described above.
6. CREDITS
Thanks go to:
Koei and Omega Force for the incredibly addictive game.
This FAQ Copyright 2004 to Edward Chang. Redistribution in any form,
including reprinting in electronic or print media, without express
permission of the author is strictly forbidden.
