新・三国無双５ - Japanese PC Version Shin Sangoku Musou 5 / Dynasty Warriors 6 小喬(Shou Kyou; Xiao Qiao) Advance Technic Guide - FAQ version 1.1 Formating edits as well as some omitted info added. (Long Hold Strong Attack). - FAQ Version 1.0 Initiated the Guide 7/28/2008 mellowsea[at]hotmail.com errorrrr on gamefaqs.com IMPORTANT: Please enable UTF-8 Unicode in encoding option of your browser to view the Japanese. For use and distribution ONLY ON: GAMEFAQS **************************************** Table of Contents - You can use find function of you browser. Just enter the [] tag for each section. - [FOR]Foreword [GEN]General Information about Shou Kyou - Please read the general section Quick Summary - [MOV]Move Set Analysis [M10]Movements [M20]Renbu/Ranbu/True Ranbu [M30]Strong Attack [M30]Musou [M40]Horse Attack [M50]Guard and Counter [M60]Grab Attack [M70]Specials [M80]Dash Attacks [M90]Jump Attack [WEP]Weapon Analysis [W10]Standard Type [W20]Technic Type [W30]Power Type [W40]Element [W50]Weapon Abilities [SKL]Skill Analysis [COT]Combat Analysis **************************************** ///////////////////[FOR]Foreword This guide is based on the Japanese PC version of the game. Attack frame, and such may differ for other console variations of the game. However, most of the stuff should not been changed drastically. Since this is based on the Japanese version (I only have the Japanese PS3 and PC version of the game... I can't stand the English voice lol...) some terms may seem foreign to you. I'll try my best to explain what it is. In addition, this is for intermediate users which means you know what counters, grabs, and renbu systems are; as such, I will not be explaining the game system at all. ///////////////////[GEN]General Information Unlocking Shou Kyou: In Battle of Shi Ting on WU side, fullfill the condition where 7 or more allies survive, and Xiao Qiao must be one of them. Shou Kyou is one of the harder character to use in this game, but when you really learn to use her, she can be a quick killer. Unlike many other characters, she recieves a movesets that's unique to her, which is a plus after many hours of seeing the same moveset over and over again. Shou Kyou is not everyone's character especially if you are into dropping waves of paeons in single attacks. Shou Kyou excels in evasive and counter maneuvers and best played as one. Pros: Unique moveset. Above normal attack speed. Great Evasion. Awesome true ranbu (Infinite Rank Renbu) Cute(?) Alot of movement/luck traits. Great Counters. Cons: Incredibly tiny range in Renbu stages (Rank 1-2). Musou is just O.K. Weak in offensive/defensive. Tossing fans in circle AOE is crappy for AoE because the fans aren't big enough to hit a lot of people... ///////////////////[MOV]Move Set Analysis [M10]Movements Shou Kyou runs in small steps, movement speed is about normal. Jumps aren't too high, recovery time after droping on the ground isn't too bad, but still prone from attacks from behind. [M20]Renbu/Ranbu/True Ranbu Note: Shou Kyou's renbu... how should I say... is like a little girl wacking people with 2 fans... I guess it is... The frame that actually hits the enemies are quite bazarr. She alternates left and right hand swings but the number of hits are quite hard to grasp. She has very little coverage at lower rank none the less, so I highly recommend you train yourself a bit with evasion, guard, and counters. Before hitting Rank 3, Shou Kyou's back coverage is almost non existent, and her coverage is only about 120 degress in front of her... Rank 1: Consists of 3 quick wacks of fans altering right hand and left hand. One of the crappier rank 1 set... short range, small coverage; just about nothing is good at this rank, and leaves a lot to be desired... Only thing is the speed is not too shaby. I recommend avoid usings the Rank 1 sets, until you build up your renbu meter. However, the first 2 swing of the set have pretty good priority and can be canceled into a evasive maneuver (which you will have to master with Shou Kyou). Even though she seems to swing past her front side of body when she retracts her swing to alternate, it rarely hits more than one enemy because of her incredibly short range... Rank 2: Connects 3 more quick wacks of fan altering right hand and left hand by a spin after the Rank 1 set. This adds bit more coverage around her as she swings a little bit wider. Don't be fooled by her spinning animation because it hardly hits anyone; on the contrary, the spin actually leaves her kind of open since she loses a lot of attack triggering frames during the spin and anyone charging at her will knock her flying. Rank 3 (Ranbu): again connects 3 more attack poses but finally focus on crowd control. The rank 3 set begins to get a little bit better with the final fan spin that clears a small crowd 360 around her. However, the first 2 swing of the rank 3 set focus enemys infront of her only, and leaves her vulnerable to back attacks so use this with caution. I recommend starting your set from the edge of the enemy crowd to avoid getting suprised from the back. Rank Infinity (True Ranbu): This adds a fan whirlwind sort of attack to the rank 3 set after finishing the rank 3 set. The effective animation lasts about 2 seconds long... This is one of the best crowd clearing move in the game if you manage to pull it off, and usually kills any diffculty boss with ease if you manage to not get interrupted while building up to this stage... the range is decent and with a standard weapon it becomes amazingly huge 360 degree attack... the effective attack triggering frame in this 2 second mode is also incredibly and makes you nearly impossible to be knocked out of it. The only downside to this move is the fact that from the end of Rank 3 to begin this whirl there is about half a second of charge up time which leaves her completely vulnerable. I strongly suggest just wiff the Rank 1-2 sets quickly from the edge of a crowd and swirl into the mob with this 360 degree whirlwind and seem them get destroyed. [M30]Strong Attack Shou Kyou's strong attack can only be described with one word - crappy. The crappy range and coverage and power doesn't make up at all for the charge time for the attack and leaves her completely vulnerable. I'd recommend avoiding her strong attacks all together. Rank 1-2: A 1 second charge up for a fan uppercut that hits like -- 1 amazing enemy in front of Shou Kyou follow by a barrage of fan wack to the enemy. In all of this, she is vulnerable from all sides except right in front of her. In short, it sucks, and you should never use it... Rank 3: After the barrage of fan wacks from previous ranks, she will do a frontal flip while tossing her fans in opposite direction that will glide in a circle back to her other hand. This set is all right as she has quite a bit of invulnerable frames and decent range but to even get here you have to go through the horrible Rank 1-2 set which is just completely not worth it.... Rank 4: To finish her windmill, Shou Kyou will rise up with a vortex of air around her hitting anyone within its hit radius. The radius isn't very big - about the seize of her 360 spin in Rank 3 Ranbu. Not worth it at all... Holding the Strong Attack Button: Shou Kyou will charge up for about half a sec in which she is vulnerable and then creates a vortex of air around her that will knock/damage enemies around her in 360 degree fashion. The area it covers is rather small... about 2 enemy worth of radius at most. [M30]Musou Basically performs 3 Ranks of Renbu/Ranbu in invulnerable state follow by a windmill (breakdance move) while tossing her fans in opposite direction that will glide in a circle back to her other hand. Her musou isn't a great crowd clear at higher difficulty because 2 Ranks of her renbu set hardly hits anyone. With a maxed out mssou gauge she can probably peform about 3 Rank 3 spins then follow by the musou finisher that hits enemies once and do little damage other than knocking them back... True musou adds innate fire element to each of the attacks. [M40]Horse Attack Renbu hits: swings fan to the right of her... very little coverage. Increasing renbu adds hits but nothing special. Strong hits: charge up for about half a second and then throws one of her fans that will circle around her. Again, the probelm is the fan is too smal and the area between the fan and the horse are often left oepn. Although the range is like that of a stick or whip, but the fact is, her fan doesn't cover a lot of area. [M50]Guard and Counter This is very Shou Kyou shines - counter attacks. Guard Stance: She bends her body forward with her two hand fanned out. She somtimes blocks attacks or hops to evade attacks and quickly after she does either (about half a second worth), you may press the renbu attack button or strong attack button to perform a parry or counter. Parry (Renbu Attack Button): She quickly parries with her two fans and the enemy will be in a dazed status recovering from the parry. The length of the dazed status is about 1 - 1.5 seconds depending on how hard was your parry. (The severity of your to some extend is affected on how far you are from the enemy when the parry happened. If you parry a close up attack, the daze status will be much stronger). Be warned though there is couple recovery frames in which Shou Kyou will be vulnerable to attacks. It's not a problem in a small crowd, but in a big crowd you might just get stabbed in the back by this. Counter-Attack (Strong Attack Button): This is the beauty of using Shou Kyou. Her counter-attack is truely amazing. After you block/evade an attack, quickly press the strong attack button and Shou Kyou will immediately spin 360 degrees with her fans in full arm's length. There is almost little to no start up time so you will NEVER be interrupted trying to counter-attack. The recovery is almost non-existant either, which allows Shou Kyou to perform strings of counter attacks in waves of enemy's weak attacks. Not to mention, counter-attack CAn carry elements!!! Freezing or Shocking enemies is very awesome with this. I will go in-depth in the combat analysis part of the guide about using counter-attacks as there are several things you need to watch out in real combat situation. [M60]Grab Attack Like any other character, benefit of using grab attack is to build the renbu guage faster. Each succesive grab-attack weak or strong will increase your renbu/ranbu gauge by one bar no matter what your chains are. Combine this with quick Rank 1 swings and you'll easily get to Rank 3 easily with Shou Kyou. With crappy Rank 1-2 set like Shou Kyou, it's essential that you master Grab Attacks because you'll relly heavily upon it to build you renbu using minimal amount of horrible Rank 1-2 sets. Another reason to use Grab Attack often with Shou Kyou is that you needto be in Guard status which perfectly suits Shou Kyou's play style because she has an awesome counter. I'll go in-depth in the combat analysis section. Renbu Grab Attack (Weak Grab): Blockable grab. She will start the attempt with a quick jab with the fan. The recovery time is pretty low so it's all right if you miss a couple. But be warned, she does have recovery time so in harder modes, it can mean death if the enemy general decides to chain on you when you miss a grab. After she successfully locks the enemy, she will follow with 2 fan hits with a total of 3 hits (the initial counts as a hit. Bulk of the damage usually comes from the last hit unless something like "Flash" attribute from the weapon kicking in during other hits. Strong Grab Attack (Strong Grab): Start up time is nothing spectacular however it's not blockable so it'll hit enemies none the less if you succesfully initiate the combo attacks. She will initae the strong grab attack with a hard wack from the right fan following with a forward roll kick, and ending with a small AoE sping of her fans (She holds the fan tilted upwards). The final hits can actually hit by-standers around the target. [M70]Specials God Speed: Substantially increased movement speed. Pressing the Renbu attack button will cause Shou Kyou to swing her arms like she is doing free-style swimming... Don't be fooled by her wild swinging arms, the amount of hits is very lowunlike Chou Sen (Diao Chan). Her average swing is probably about the same Chou Sens' but each individual arm is VERY LOW on the hits. My Suggestion is to use this sparingly, this is not a killer move, but it can save you from sticky situations such as crowded by enemy grunts at higher difficutly. Be warned, that she can be easily knocked out ofher momemtum. [M80]Dash Attacks When Shou Kyou gains enough momemtum when running (either having the special motion blur affect after running a short distance, or in God Speed mode) you can perform dash attacks; there are two types of dash attacks: Weak Dash Attack (Renbu Attack Button): Just a quick chop with her right fan, may stun an enemy. It actually chains quite well into her renbu despite the 2 attack comes from the same hand. Strong Dash Attack (Strong Attack Button): She puts her two hand out with her truste fans and slides forward standing up. This is more comical than useful... the slide doesn't carry her too far to be a crowd clear... the recovery time is quite horrible... use very very sparingly... [M90]Jump Attacks Shou Kyou will wack while in the air if you use renbu attack. She will drop to the floor and creating a vortex that damages enemies around her landing point if you use strong attack while in the air. ///////////////////[WEP]Weapon Analysis Shou Kyou is best with Standard or Technic weapons depending on your preference. Although power can help on Shou Kyou's weak attack stats but it still doesn't make up in higher difficulties. In addition, you really want Flash on your weapons anyways... The weapon's special inclination usually kicks in on renbu rank 2 or higher. [W10]Standard Type (Green) Standard Type weapons will increase Shou Kyou's attack range. With her infinite renbu rank, it will turn a weak crowd controller such as Shou Kyou into a monster on that Rank. In addition, the increased range works on all ranks of renbu above level 1 which means her seemingly wiffed fan wacks actually hits enemies off to the side. This is a recommended weapon type for crowd control Shou Kyou. [W20]Technic Type (Blue) Technic Type weapons will increase Shou Kyou's already fast attack speed allowing Shou Kyou to reach the True Ranbu (Infinite Rank) portion of her attacks more quickly while having less chance of being interrupted in between. Increased speed also mean more chance to activate weapon attributes such as drain and flash. Technic weapons also have increased renbu building affect. This weapon is better for MVP killer Shou Kyou. [W30]Power Type (Red) While it sounds good to boost Shou Kyou's weak attack but in reality Flash does bulk of the damage on higher difficutlties anyways... there is really no use for this weapon type on Shou Kyou. Higher renbu also increase activation rate of skills and elements. [W40]Element Fire: 100% activation rate, and burn damage over time. Ice: about 80~90% activation rate, freezes enemies. Shock: initial shock damage, and stuns enemies for short period of time. About 40~50% activation rate. Recommendation: Ice or Shock Both acts about the same way -- immobilize the enemy. While Shock is bit stronger on the elemental damage, Ice will increase enemies' damage taken while frozen. It's up to you. [W50]Weapon Ability Weapon Abilities comes attached permanently to weapon as you find them on the battlefield or complete side objectives during the battle. Affinity for different types of weapons shows which ability has higher chance of appearing on certain types of weapons. 真乱舞 (shinranbu; True Ranbu) Affinity: Power Type Affect: Makws all your musou attacks true musou version regard- less of your health. Not too bad for Shou Kyou at higher levels as she can sustain the musou longer. Her musou finisher is weak to begin with, so not much use at lower level. 真空波 (Shinkuha; Air Waves) Affinity: Standard Type Affect: Shoots out random air-waves that damages enemies. Stacks with Flash. Great for crowd control. Great add-on for shou kyou's crowd control. 連舞心 (Renbushin; Renbu Spirit) Affinity: Technic Type Affect: Increase renbu gauge gain; increases idol time before renbu decreases. Not a must have for Shou Kyou, but defintely helps her build renbu faster. 精霊印 (seireijiroshi; Spirit Seal) Affinity: Standard Type Affect: Increases strength of your elemental attacks or increase chance of freezing enemy for ice attributed weapons. 弾矢眼 (tamayagan; Arrow Deflection) Affinity: Technic Type Affect: Allows the reflection of arrows. Only really useful in higher levels with a lot of long range arrows, as they can do a lot of damage on shura difficulty. 一 閃 (issen; Flash) Affinity: Technic Type Affect: Occasionally instant kill grunts, or inflcit major damage to enemy generals. MUST HAVE for high level playing. 剛柔法 (goujyuhou; Goujyu Art) Affinity: Power Type Affect: Easier to win dead-lock. Useless. 背水陣 (haisuijin; Last Stand) Affinity: Power Type Affect: Substantially increase attack power while substantially decrease defensive power. 吸 奪 (Suudatsu; Drain) Affinity: N/A Affect: Restores HP equal to the amount of major damage inflicted on enemy... 一気呵成 (kyuudatsu; Focus Attack) Affinity: Standard Type Affect: Increase musou damage while increasing musou cost. Not too bad for Shou Kyou at higher levels as she can sustain the musou longer. Her musou finisher is weak to begin with, so not worth it to use at lower level. Recommendation: Standard Ice Type Shou Kyou: Flash, Renbu Spirit, Spirit Seal, Focus Attack, True Ranbu. Standard Shock Type Shou Kyou: Flash, Renbu Spirit, Focus Attack, True Ranbu, Air Waves. Technic Ice Type shou Kyou: Flash, Spirit Seal, Focus Attack, Air Waves, True Ranbu. Technic Shock Type Shou Kyou: Flash, Focus Attack, Air Waves, True Ranbu, Last Stand. (This one is really just made for boss killing and not much crowd control). ///////////////////[SKL]Skill Analysis Because I am a horrible ASCII artist I'll use the ASCII chart from Smusou5 Wiki with modification to fit gamefaqs standard: Source: http://smusou5.wikiwiki.jp/?%BE%AE%B6%AC 01 02 03 04-05 06 07 ／ ／ ／ ／ ／ ＼／＼ 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 ＼ ＼ ＼ ／ ＼ ／ ＼ 15 16 17 18 19 20 ／ ＼ ／ ＼ / 21 22 23 24 25 / ／ ＼ ／ ＼ ／ / \ ＼ / 26 27 28 29 30 \ 31 32 ／ ＼ ／ / \ ＼／ ＼ / 33 34 35 36 \ 37 38 \ / \ ／ \/ 39 40―41 42 43 ＼ ／ \ ＼ / 44―45―46 47―48―49 Sort with 4 numbers per row. 01. Escape 02. Luck Up 03. Tame 04. Musou + 05. Renbu Infinite 06. Affect Time Up 07. Pouch 08. Musou + 09. Attack + 10. Defense + 11. Speed Up 12. All Stats + 13. Attack ++ 14. All Stats + 15. Musou + 16. Attack + 17. Defense + 18. Musou + 19. Start Scroll 20. Scroll Get 21. Defense ++ 22. Defense ++ 23. Musou + 24. Attack ++ 25. HP ++ 26. HP ++ 27. All Stats + 28. Attack + 29. Musou + 30. Rampage 31. Musou ++ 32. Musou ++ 33. Attack ++ 34. Renbu 3 35. Attack ++ 36. Defense ++ 37. Quick Swim 38. Duration Up 39. Defense ++ 40. All Stats + 41. HP + 42. Dash 43. Defense ++ 44. HP ++ 45. Attack ++ 46. HP ++ 47. God Speed Command 48. Musou + 49. Attack + As you can see, Shou Kyou is buffed with a lot of movement traits and other luck related traits. You should definitely take the fastest route to unlocking higher renbu ranks as they are essential to Shou Kyou. With Speed Up and Dash, it's possible that running to places may be even faster than calling your horse and ride. Priority of Stats: Attack Defense HP Musou ///////////////////[COT]Combat Analysis This section is dedicated to game play tips and strategies for using Shou Kyou effectively on difficulty hard or above. General Strategie for generic generals/crowds. 1. USE DEFENSE STANCE WHENVER POSSIBLE. Whenever you are engaging the enemy large group or small, use defense stance. Shou Kyou isn't really an active crowd controller like Chou Sen. Wait and your oppertunity for counter-attack will eventually open. When in Defensive Stance there are two things you can do: 1) When enemies are not attacking, use Grab Attack to effectively build Renbu. Grab Attack is essential for any Shou Kyou player to efficiently perform at will. There is nothing more punishing then missing a grab attack on Shura difficulty and then get chained from the back from a enemy commander causing a K.O. Combine grab attack and normal attacks to build up your renbu gauge fast. Use weak grab attack most of the time in crowds because it has shorter start up and recovery and leaves you with much less room to be killed. 2) When enemies are attacking, perform counter attack and... follow by a grab attack, or quick swing then guard, or another counter-attack when guarded against another attack. This is especially important in large groups of enemies. When in higher renbu status, you can start your renbu chain if the ring of soldiers are disabled by ice or shock. 2. Using Grab Attack to evade enemy charge attacks. You may have already notice, while you are in grab attack animations, you have some invulnerablitliy. Use this effectively and you can avoid most charge attacks. The ligh grab attack is also very effective at interrupting enemy's charge up attack by hitting them during their charge animations. 3. Alternative Shou Kyou - Evasive type. This is probably what more people familiar with. Roll canceling. Since the first two swing of Rank 1 renbu is pretty fast, and is cancelable, you can just hop around the crowd taking pot shots at the enemies while building your gauge. Shou Kyou's evasive maneuver actually gives her a lot of protection, and has a good distance and start up time. Don't waste such a good part of Shou Kyou~ HOp a lot! 4. Entering into crowds, be safe! The first two ranks of Shou Kyou's renbu have terrible reach and coverage even on higher level, so it's safer to just wiff the first two rank on the outskirt of enemy crowd and move in during the last part where you start to whirlwind. 5. Don't be tempted with Shou Kyou's true ranbu... Even though Shou Kyou's true ranbu (infinite rank renbu), is awesome for crowd clearing do not be tempted to start your renbu combo in the middle of crowdds. There is a high probability you will be interrupted by the enemy and may even die... In crowds of higher difficutly be defensive with counter attacks and guards and move in once you have the enemies frozen/shocked/under con- trol. 6. Take advantage of Shou Kyou's movement speed. Shou Kyou's biggest advantage is speed so use it! Especially against enemy generals, if you think you are going to get comboed get out, and retaliate when you have the crowd under control. In 1v1s, you can run out of most charge attack's range if you started to run when they charge up. 7. Have fun while using Shou Kyou! She is an awesome character. Will Update if I have more strategies/tips.