Stats or Statistics in the Dynasty Warriors games influence how effective characters perform in certain areas. They are affected by a wide range of items, weapons, attributes, and skills. The purpose of this article is to both clarify and define what each of them do in the different games. Some stats diverge into different parameters for various reasons while others are combined together for pragmatic reasons.
Standard Stats
Contains a list of common stats that are highly essential for surviving battles. In earlier titles, players could only increase these stats by picking up certain items. However, later installments eschew this in favor of utilizing a leveling system like in Samurai Warriors.
Life
Indicates the amount of health a character has and how much damage they can endure before being killed. While health is replenished by consuming food items or activating certain skills, earlier games force players to find dim sum hidden within urns to permanently increase the stat.
Normal health bars leave little room for damage once a character is in critical condition, but large quantities of it can stave off death even in higher difficulty settings. That being said, some players prefer shorter life bars in order to take advantage of being in low HP range sooner for Musou regeneration and/or access to True Musou Attacks. Some status debuffs like fire or poison may gradually eat away the player's health, forcing them to take action before succumbing to the effects.
Musou
Represents the amount of Musou a character has and how long their Musou Attacks can last. It gets filled up by attacking foes, receiving damage, or picking up wine jars found in battle. Earlier games allow players to permanently raise their Musou in small increments by locating special wine hidden in urns scattered across the battlefield.
Depending on the player's character of choice and their own fighting style, this stat is useful in high or low amounts. A longer Musou Attack is devastating against stronger foes especially if combined with fire, but it takes more time to refill them afterwards. Meanwhile, a shorter Musou gauge enables the player to sooner access to their Musou Attack to quickly clear crowds and/or escape dangerous situations instantly. Musou also works in conjunction with the fill stat which has an even greater impact in titles where characters all have the same Musou bar length.
While the usage of Musou Attacks is the only way to exhaust Musou in most games, some titles have specific items or effects that can deplete this stat. In the fifth game, the Shadow Orb can wipe away the user's Musou in exchange for being able to instantly kill foes or heavily damage officers. Rare debuffs in Shin Sangoku Musou Multi Raid 2 also have this effect.
Attack
Determines the character's ability to deal damage against foes. For most players, a good offense makes for a great defense. As such, this stat is often prioritized above all else when it comes to collecting weapons or attributes that affect it. It also influences the amount of damage one can inflict through horseback riding or archery even though many titles have separate stats for those actions.
In some games, having a high attack power enables the player to pierce through an enemy's defenses. When combined with multipliers like elements or items, it can even allow for hefty damage dealt to particularly strong officers. Before the implementation of leveling systems in later installments, the series would have players increase their attack power by picking up stat-boosting swords dropped by generals.
In the third game, the enemy AI can scale their defense with the player's attack slot if they are in the player 1 slot, which can make enemies take a while to defeat without access to strong hits or defense-ignoring damage.
Even the base damage output of a character's weapon contributes to increasing attack power. Its amount is usually fixed and cannot be modified except in certain spin-off titles. The fourth game allows players to increase their weapon's power by leveling them up through repeated usage. Later installments introduce blacksmiths that can strengthen a weapon beyond its current power level.
Defense
Determines the character's overall tolerance against damage. It synergizes quite well with the life stat due to their health preserving effects. However, higher difficulty settings in later titles render defense useless as enemies usually inflict damage far beyond what the player can normally endure, mainly with the introduction of Chaos Difficulty making all damage taken ignore the player's current defense stat calculations, though the temporary Battle Armor x2 defense up still negates a majority of the damage.
In the third game, it can sometimes be a double-edged quality as the player's defense in the player 1 slot influences how much overall damage the enemy AI can inflict. Because it scales accordingly, it may potentially endanger allies in harder battles who are not scaled against such scenarios.
Nonetheless, the advantages of defense power are too good to pass up. A high defense means being able to not only guard non-piercing attacks with relative ease, but to also power through minor hits without flinching. In earlier games, the only way to permanently boost defense power is to pick up stat-boosting shields left by defeated officers.
Auxiliary Stats
Contains a list of uncommon stats that support characters in some way, but are likely to be deemed unnecessary for clearing stages. Depending on the player's preferred fighting style, they may opt to elevate these stats as essential or even more so than their standard counterparts.
Speed
Indicates the character's overall movement speed when on foot. Increased mobility can help players escape incoming attacks or reach their destination much faster. The stat also affects the speed of guard walking or strafing. It may be invaluable for characters who move at a slow pace, but that can always be remedied through fast mounts like Red Hare.
The eighth installment removes the stat entirely, forcing players to rely more on mounts or speed-boosting power-ups in battle. In Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers, its substitute is mobility which determines how many tiles a character can move to.
Indicates how high a character can jump into the air. While this stat is common in both the third and fourth titles, it has since been omitted in later installments due to its lack of overall utility and unreliability as an escape maneuver. During the third game, its main use is to traverse hard-to-reach areas where dim sum and special wine may be found. It makes a reappearance in Dynasty Warriors: Online.
Horse
Previously divided between mounted attack and defense, this stat determines how well a character fights on horseback. In the case of mounted defense, it only reduces the amount of damage taken from mounted enemies and does not prevent players from being knocked off from their mounts. Those with powerful mounted attacks are more likely to make full use of this stat.
In early installments, a character's innate horsemanship is classified as a stat entirely separate from the aforementioned values. It dictates what type of horse they use when controlled by the AI in battle.
Bow
Once divided between bow attack and defense, this particular stat serves to measure a character's proficiency with the bow. It also affects the damage output of charge attacks that utilize arrows. In earlier titles, a high bow attack power can cause normal shots to knock down targets very easily. Meanwhile, a strong bow defense can mean the difference between life and death when dealing with archers in the third game. It may also lessen the impact caused by that particular title's damage scaling issues when deploying a character with high defense power vs. scenarios with many deadly archers.
Having been omitted in more recent titles, it finally reappears in the ninth game as the bow skill stat. The higher it is, the more potent and accurate the player's shots become.
Fill
Originally referred to as the Musou Charge stat in Dynasty Warriors 3, it enhances the player's ability to recover Musou via charging or hitting enemies. It also increases the amount of Musou gained while in critical condition, making it ideal for hit-and-run fights. Despite being a favored stat for characters who heavily rely on their Musou Attacks, the fourth game nerfed it for balancing purposes.
Charge
This stat boosts the player's damage output when performing charge attacks. Synergizes well with any stat that increases overall attack power, especially with certain elements (with high base affinity and/or overall damage increase) to have charge attacks on their own deal enough raw damage to bypass lower-defense-stats units trying to guard such moves. However, characters who benefit more from utilizing normal combos and Musou Attacks will not find much use for it.
Reach
Represents the character's own attack range. While individuals with crowd control capabilities fully benefit from this stat being amplified, those whose attacks are innately narrow in range only receive minimal gains from it. Reach used to be commonly found in random weapons for the third game, but has since been downgraded into a fixed effect provided by the Wind Scroll.
Luck
Raises the character's probability of finding better items and weapons. This stat is invaluable for players looking to upgrade their set of tools early on. However, it is rendered obsolete once the player's characters have been fully maximized.
Morale
Though this particular stat has no effect on the player, it does impact the combat performance of their allies when not within their line of sight/minimap range. While the effects are not noticeable at first glance, they do become apparent over time especially in higher difficulty settings.
High army morale means that allied officers are more likely to win battles on their own with even or higher independent-unit morale over opposing units', while a low army morale in tandem with units' low independent morale of their own may force players to intervene in order to reduce casualties. Morale increases each time characters inflict a set amount of kills with 1,000 KOs fully maximizing it for everyone else.
Rare Stats
Contains a list of stats exclusive to one or two titles. Their importance varies depending on the nature of the game introducing them. Each one is listed down in chronological order.
Control
Introduced in the PSP ports of the fourth and fifth games, this stat determines how much sub-officers a character can deploy as bodyguards. It varies between different characters and can make a key difference in more difficult scenarios. Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 renames it as the command stat and enables it to grow after clearing battles. This lets players take control of more powerful officers with superior stats and abilities.
Growth
Growth influences how much stat boosts a character receives during battle in the PSP ports of the series. A high amount of growth means the player is more likely to gain the upper hand by leveling up.
Weight
Featured in Dynasty Warriors 5, the weight stat alters the hit speed and damage modifier of a character's own weapon. Medium weight weapons have average hit speed and damage output, light weight weapons emphasize more on speed over power, and heavy weight weapons deal more damage while hitting slower.
Jugglers benefit greatly from the speed provided by a lighter weapon while those who already hit fast and hard can make better use of a heavier weapon. Some players may find heavy weapons more preferable if they happen to be reliant on Musou Rage. The Xtreme Legends expansion even provides heavy weapons with anti-flinching properties against normal attack strings.
Evolution
Introduced in Dynasty Warriors 5, the evolution stat indicates that a weapon can allow characters to perform extra attacks at the end of their combo string. Aptly referred to as evolution attacks, they are activated so long as the user has a full Musou bar. This stat is sometimes present in random third-tier weapons and always available in fourth-tier ones.
Damage
In Dynasty Warriors: Online, this offshoot of the attack stat determines how much damage the player can inflict on objects and siege weapons. It is very useful when dealing with dangerous constructions like Juggernauts.
Fury
Replacing the Musou stat in Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, it represents how proficient a character is in fighting within their fury form and how much time the transformation lasts before wearing off. The sequel renders fury forms permanent unless the character is defeated or has been afflicted with the seal ailment.
Resistance
In Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, the resistance stat measures how much hits a character can take over being knocked over. The higher it is, the more likely one can endure enemy attacks with general ease. This helps players build up combos without being interrupted too much.
Power (Weapon Proficiency)
Introduced in Dynasty Warriors 7, the power stat enables characters to wield weapons that require ample strength.
Speed (Weapon Proficiency)
In Dynasty Warriors 7, this stat allows characters to utilize weapons geared more towards agility and finesse. Not to be confused with the speed stat used in other titles.
Break
Exclusive to Dynasty Warriors Next, this stat helps increase the amount of break points gained from performing combo attacks. When the break gauge is filled up, players can activate a Direct Break to instantly capture lesser bases. This makes it very valuable for quickly invading territories.
Critical
Appearing in the more recent spin-off titles, the critical stat is actually comprised of two different values: critical chance and critical dodge. The former influences how likely it is for attacks to inflict critical damage while the latter affects the player's chances of blunting said damage against them.
Dexterity
Exclusive to Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers, this stat raises the chances of being able to hit enemies with attacks. Synergizes well with the attack stat.
Agility
Exclusive to Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers, this stat raises the chances of being able to avoid an enemy's attacks. Complements the defense stat in helping keep characters alive.
Spirit
Exclusive to Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers, spirit provides characters with a boost in their attack power provided they face enemies with low morale.
Stamina
Introduced in Dynasty Warriors 9, stamina dictates how much energy the player has in sprinting, evading, dashing, or performing wall jumps. It gradually recovers on its own over time. In Shin Sangoku Musou Apuri, this stat indicates the amount of stamina the player's character can deplete from an enemy officer, enabling them to be subjected to a one-hit kill.
Strength
Introduced in Dynasty Warriors 9, this stat has an effect on the player's innate attack power.
Toughness
Introduced in Dynasty Warriors 9, this stat has an effect on the player's innate defense power.
The numeral values presented in parentheses is used to indicate character stats when under the AI's control. Also, AI type for playable officers is divided into normal, grappler, and sniper. Characters utilizing the normal AI tend to attack with their full hit string, those that have the grappler AI will often prioritize on breaking the enemy's guard with their first charge attack, and the officers under the sniper AI prefer keeping their distance in order to launch projectile moves.
The numeral values presented in parentheses is used to indicate character stats when under the AI's control. Also, AI type for playable officers is divided into normal and sniper. Characters utilizing the normal AI tend to attack with their full hit string while officers under the sniper AI prefer keeping their distance in order to launch projectile moves.
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