Dynasty Warriors 9/Weapon Movesets

Weapons
In addition, many of the NPCs in the game use a modified variant of the movesets of some of the weapons from the previous two games. These are:
 * Sword
 * Spear
 * Great Sword
 * Throwing Knives
 * Club
 * Shaman Rod
 * Iron Fan
 * Axe
 * Great Axe

In Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires, many of the named NPCs were made playable and thus were given the movesets of other playable characters. This means that they share the same weapon and unique attacks as those characters. In general the change goes like this:
 * Sword users were given Cao Cao's moveset.
 * Spear users were given Ma Chao's moveset.
 * Great Sword users were given Guan Ping's moveset.
 * Throwing Knives users were given Zhuge Dan's moveset.
 * Club users were given Xu Zhu's moveset.
 * Axe users were given Dian Wei's moveset.
 * Great Axe users were given Xu Huang's moveset.

Not every NPC follows this trend, however. For example, Gongsun Zan—who used the throwing knives in Dynasty Warriors 9—uses Ma Chao's moveset in Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires. In addition, a few NPCs were given the movesets of other characters:


 * Sima Yi: Ding Yi, He Miao, and Zhang Dang
 * Lu Meng: Meng Da, and Zhang Hu
 * Yu Jin: Ji Ling
 * Yuan Shu: Xiahou En

Reactive Attacks

 * Separating Attack: This attack occurs when none of the conditions below are met. Creates some distance between the enemy and the player.
 * Smash Attack: Occurs when both the player and the enemy are airborne. Smashes the enemy down to the ground.
 * Dash Attack: Occurs when the enemy is far away from the player. The player dashes towards the enemy before performing the attack.
 * Guard Break: Occurs when the enemy is guarding. As the name suggests, it breaks the enemy's guard.
 * Counter Attack: undefined appears over the enemy's head when the enemy does a powerful attack. When pressed, the player interrupts that attack and does one of two different attacks in response.
 * Assault Attack: If the enemy has not yet noticed the player, undefined appears over their head. The player will dash over towards them and do an attack that deals massive damage.
 * Finishing Attack: undefined will appear over the enemy's head when their health is low, allowing the player to instantly finish them off. Can be done both on the ground and in mid-air.
 * Guard Counter Attack: undefined will appear over the player's head for a short time if they've successfully guarded an attack. Stuns the enemy.