Stats (Dynasty Warriors)

Stats or Statistics in the Dynasty Warriors games use a wide variety of items and weapon abilities to affect how well a particular character performs in certain areas. This article will help clarify and define what these statistics are for in each of the games. These stats then diverge into other boosts in later titles both within and outside of the series.

Stats
This section contains a list of each statistic and how they affect the player's performance in battle. One way or another, all of these can be increased up to a certain amount depending on the character's own innate stats.

Life
Represents the amount of health a character has and how much damage they can take before being killed. While health is replenished by consuming food items, it only increases by finding dim sum usually hidden in urns throughout the battlefield. Normal health bars leave little room for damage once a character's life is in a critical state, but large quantities of life may extend it to a safer amount even in higher difficulty settings (or for some, shorter life bars allow for an easier time to make use of critical state advantages).

Musou
Represents the amount of Musou a character has and how much time it can last before ending. It replenishes by hitting foes, getting hit, or picking up wine jars found in battle. The overall amount increases by locating special Musou wine hidden in urns throughout the area. Depending on the player's chosen character and their own fighting style, this stat can be useful in high or low amounts. A longer Musou attack can be devastating against stronger foes, but it takes more time to refill them afterwards. Can be used in conjunction with the fill stat, especially in titles that no longer have varying lengths in Musou gauges.

Fury
Replacing the Musou stat in Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, it represents a character's efficiency in using their fury form and how much time the transformation lasts before it wears off.

Defense
Determines the character's overall endurance against attacks. Synergizes well with the life stat due to their health preserving effects, though as of the introduction of Chaos difficulty, this stat increase is ignored then taking into consideration the damage calculation of enemy attacks. This can effect guarding durability where having too low of a defense stats against a high-attack-stat attacker can allow for various moves to guard break easily (mainly if they are not dedicated guard breaks like the 2nd or 3rd installment C1), which can also result in high-powered-attacks instead become completely unblockable against a target with too low of a defense stat.

However, solely in the third installment, increases to this stat solely for a solo player or player 1 causes the enemy AI in trade to scale all forms of their attack in accordance, resulting in other forms of damage doing more than expected to both the player(s) and their allies regardless (such as mounted or bow attacks).

Attack
Determines the character's overall attack power. An essential stat that allows players to defeat opponents more easily by determining the damage inflicted on enemies. For most characters, a good offense makes a great defense. Tying in with power, this is the stat practically all weapons will naturally provide no matter the random chance of other stats as mentioned below. As aforementioned, having a high-enough attack stat allows a high-powered attack to either guard-break a unit with too low of a defense stat, or with even further multipliers (such as elements and/or other items) result in being unblockable outright.

Speed
Determines the character's overall speed on foot. Increased mobility may help players escape incoming attacks or reach their destination at a much quicker pace. This stat is somehow removed in the eigth installment however, forcing the player to rely much more on mounts or any natural temporary boosts (such as the battlefield item or Rage Mode).

Jump
Used in Dynasty Warriors 3, 4 and 5, it determines the character's jumping ability. The more this stat increases, the higher a character can jump. Can be useful in traversing certain areas of the battlefield.

Horse
Previously divided between mounted attack and defense, this stat determines the character's fighting abilities on horseback. In earlier titles, it does not protect players from being knocked off of mounts in the case of Horse/Mounted Defense (though it still reduces damage taken on horseback).

Bow
Once divided between bow attack and defense, this stat determines the character's proficiency with the bow. Also affects the damage output caused by charge attacks/non-bow moveset attacks involving arrows. In most games, having a high enough bow stat will cause any normal arrow shots (especially in Dynasty Warriors 4) to inflict crashing knockback on any targets, which also applies to arrow-based charge attacks as well (any lower merely allows targets to get knocked back). That, and the victim's bow defense stat must be taken into consideration as well, given that especially in Dynasty Warriors 3 as mentioned with defense, player 1's defense stat if raised causes all forms of other damage against them and their allies to escalate as well. As a result, bow defense can be just as important rather than base defense in older titles.

Fill
Originally called the "Musou Charge" stat in Dynasty Warriors 3, this stat enhances the player's ability to regenerate Musou by charging or attacking foes. It also increases the amount of Musou gained while in critical condition, making it an ideal stat for hit-and-run fights. However, while it was notable for its benefits in Dynasty Warriors 3, the overall stat was then severely nerfed in the fourth installment on top of energy-based moves no longer filling up the musou gauge until the fifth installment allows for it once more.

Charge
This stat boosts the player's damage output when using charge attacks. Synergizes well with any stat that increases overall attack power. This stat was originally also provided by the Herbal Remedy item before it was reworked in later games.

Luck
Increases the character's probability in finding better items and weapons. While the effects of this stat are ambiguous at best, it may prove useful for players who wish to find the maximum level of every item available.

Power
Represents a weapon's base attack power. All weapons have a fixed amount of this stat for each level and cannot be modified except in certain spin-off titles. This ties in with attack power since that stat is technically a stat all weapons will always have. In Dynasty Warriors 4, all weapons provided only this stat and no other bonuses save for Level 11 Weapons in the Xtreme Legends expansion (where the said level 11 weapons also all provide the maximum power base of 60; Lu Bu's fourth weapons across installments tend to be the highest in terms of base power compared to the rest of the cast).

Weight
A new stat featured in Dynasty Warriors 5, it alters the attack speed and damage modifier of a character's weapon. Light weight weapons hit incredibly fast and are much easier to chain attacks with. However, they can only inflict about 75% of normal damage. Medium weight weapons have average weapon speed and damage output. Heavy weight weapons are slow to swing and can leave characters wide open to incoming attacks. Fortunately, they are capable of inflicting 125% of normal weapon damage and benefit the most from the effects of Musou Rage. In the game's Xtreme Legends expansion, users of heavy weapons cannot be flinched by regular attack strings. Eventually, this evolves into the attack speed stat (that does not directly affect damage like with weight), which increases attack speed either on charge attacks only, or overall attack speed on any non-Musou Attacks.

Evolution
Introduced in Dynasty Warriors 5, evolution attacks are extra attacks added onto the end of a basic combo when a general has a full Musou bar and the evolution stat on their current weapon. These are sometimes available in third weapons but are always present in fourth weapons.

Break
Exclusive to Dynasty Warriors Next, this particular stat increases the amount of Break points gained from performing combo attacks. When the Break gauge is full, players can activate a Direct Break to instantly capture lesser bases.