------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Castlevania: Harmony of Despair Levelling Guide by Becquerel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VERSION HISTORY December 10 2010: Version 1.0 January 4 2011: Version 1.1; Changes according to the title update in December. January 15 2011: Version 1.2; Changes with chapter 8 DLC. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INDEX 0. About this Guide [ABT] 1. General Techniques and Information [GTI] 2. Survival Etiquette [SVT] 3. Jonathan Morris [JNM] 4. Julius Belmont [JLB] 5. Richter Belmont [RCB] 6. Shanoa [SHN] 7. Yoko Belnades [YKB] 8. Maria Renard [MRR] 9. Thanks and Copyright stuff [TCS] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. ABOUT THIS GUIDE [ABT] This guide is written for the Xbox Live Arcade game, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, or Castlevania HD/CVHD for short. This game is a multiplayer-geared game featuring different characters from the famous platforming series. There has also been a lot of downloadable content (or DLC) released for this game already, including a new level and a whopping 4 characters! These characters all have different abilities, and all of them can be made stronger. While there are some characters who become stronger with each copy of a spell they find, 2 of the 5 original and all 4 of the DLC characters become stronger by levelling up their weapons through using them. Thus, so called "grinding" has been born, playing the game purposely only to power up your weaponry. This guide has been written since many people do not know how to level up their weaponry properly, and highlights the current best ways to do so. I do not claim to be completely right about everything, however, I am writing this to the best of my knowledge and will try to give you pointers at how it's done at least now. Should I get my hands on new information, I will include that into this guide. For now, though, I think this guide should suffice if you are new to the game or using a character requiring this type of levelling up. I will also provide you with a general overview of the 6 characters and the location of each of their skills should you still need them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. GENERAL TECHNIQUES AND INFORMATION [GTI] If you are reading this guide, I assume you know how the basic controls work, so this part of the FAQ will introduce you to the different techniques and strategies to level up. Note that I will always assume standard controller layout. If you have changed your controls, this will obviously not be reflected by my button inputs. 1.1. HOW LEVELLING WORKS The characters who are able to level up their skills through using them are Jonathan and Shanoa in the base game, and all 4 DLC characters who have been released to date, so that means Julius, Richter, Yoko and Maria. The other 3 characters (Soma, Alucard, Charlotte) level their skills up by getting more copies of the respective spell or soul. However, except for Yoko and Maria, who start out with all of their spells, the use-based characters have to get extra copies of their skills. I will detail this further in the section about the characters themselves. Now onto how levelling for the use-based characters ACTUALLY works. It's easy. For every hit your sub-weapon or spell makes, you gain an experience point. The more experience points you gather with that skill, the fuller the bar with the different sections becomes, which you can see when assigning skills on your character. One of these sections equals 1 level, and the more experience you gain with that skill, the more it grows towards the next section, so you can see about how long it'll take you to reach a certain level. As for the hit, this is counted through the amount of damage digits you deal to your enemies. This also includes the GUARD hits on Dullahans or Axe Knights with shields. So if your weapon touches an enemy but does not deal visible damage, it does not count as a hit towards your experience. It is still ambiguous as to how exactly damage per hit influences your progress, and it seems that this even depends on which skill you are actually using, so this is pretty much the only part I am not sure about. Hence I will tell you the most widely accepted way. Your characters' will also increase their attack power, both physical and magical, as you level up their skills. Or, for a tl;dr version: Hit, gain experience. Don't hit, don't get experience. 1.2. BACKDASH CANCELLING This is probably one of the most, if not THE most important thing to know when levelling up, and one of the most vital things in the game, anyway. When it comes to sub-weapons/spells, it's actually not that difficult to do. You assign the spell you want to backdash cancel (BDC for short) onto the slot for Down+B. If you want to BDC, you then hold down or diagonally down into the direction you want to use on your D-pad or control stick and start alternately mashing the B button and the LB button (backdash button). If you do it correctly, your character will start throwing out the spell in very rapid succession. It might take you a little bit to get used to it, but it's very easy to get the hang of, and you should be able to learn it quickly. 1.3. SLOT ROTATING That's my personal name for it. It doesn't have an actual name, but I think this suits it pretty much the best. This works only if you have more than one copy of a spell or sub-weapon. The problem with some of these skills is that BDC'ing does not work because their hit detection is different from that of those that can be BDC'd. If you BDC them, you will see that you will get only 1 hit for, say, 7 axes of any of the whip wielders. Of course this is not what we want when going for levels. We want every axe to hit. The first thing that comes to mind is to throw only one axe at a time. However,there's a little tidbit of knowledge that makes levelling these skills soooooo much easier. Every slot's attack is counted individually. So the axe thrown with Up+B is not counted as the same attack as the axe thrown with Down+B. So what you do is to assign one of the skills you want to level into one of your skill slots and rotate throwing them out. You can, for instance, roll the control stick, thus finding a rhythm. This will speed up your progression with these weapons a LOT. Note that not all skills are good to be used with either of these techniques, but I will specify them in the character sections. 1.4. SURVIVAL GRINDING This is probably one of the most common ways to level up your characters' skills. Get a partner and host a survival game. There's only Chapter 1, but in both Normal and Hard. Choose ONLY HARD. Do NOT use Normal. Normal will gain you absolutely nothing when survival grinding. Now, the difference is that in Hard Survival, aside from the players, there's also Gergoth. You have two options to go here - either hit another player or Gergoth. Your player will gain your skills no experience, but hitting Gergoth does - even in Survival. The second thing is: You cannot die in Survival. Well, you can, but you will respawn almost instantly. Now, if you are in possession of an Astral Ring, you can pretty much already start going to grind in Survival. You can grab one of those in Hard Chapter 6 from Green chests and when going Single Player, Blue chests. They're pretty common, so you'll get one very quickly even when not killing Dracula. What the Astral Ring does is that instead of using your MP, you will use your HP. You can spam the hell out of your spells or subs and then jump into Gergoth or the other player's attacks and you will respawn with your full HP again. Hooray! The whole process speeds up if you equip a Master Ring. Every character who levels skills through using then can gain those from the shop after clearing Normal. Now, what is helping your survival grinding out a lot as well is keeping your INT stat as low as possible, and your HP stat as high as possible. Low INT is more important than higher HP, so if the highest HP-raising equipment also raises INT, just use the next best one. Higher INT makes the damage of your sub-weapons and spells grow, so lower INT means less damage which, in turn, means more hits you can get! Comprende? I know that not everyone has this gear, but the best gear for the characters to equip for Survival grinding is easy to summarize. Jonathan should equip: Head: Simon's Bandanna Chest: Simon's Plate Legs: Simon's Sandals (technically, but I prefer Winged Boots) Cape: Simon's Cloak (Paludamentum if you don't have Chapter 8) Accessory 1: Astral Ring Accessory 2: Master Ring Julius and Richter should equip: Head: Shogun Helmet Chest: Simon's Plate Legs: Simon's Sandals (technically, but I prefer Winged Boots) Cape: Simon's Cloak (Paludamentum if you don't have Chapter 8) Accessory 1: Astral Ring Accessory 2: Master Ring Shanoa should equip: Head: Fedora/Velvet Hat Chest: Minerva Mail or Demon's Mail Legs: - (there are no HP-boosting shoes for the girls) Cape: Paludamentum Accessory 1: Astral Ring Accessory 2: Master Ring Yoko and Maria should equip: Head: Fedora/Velvet Hat Chest: God's Garb or Wedding Dress Legs: - (there are no HP-boosting shoes for the girls) Cape: Paludamentum Accessory 1: Astral Ring Accessory 2: Master Ring Remember that this only works for Survival! 1.5. OTHER WAYS OF GRINDING For those who don't have a player to grind with readily available, or no other XBox LIVE Gold members to play online with, you can level up your gear through means other than Survival, albeit they seem to be less effective and slower. There's pretty much 2 of them. First is to use them "legitimately" during normal gameplay. This is obviously ridiculously slow, especially on higher levels, for your skills, and you wouldn't read this guide if you wanted to do it that way, obviously. Second way is to sit next to a Dullahan or Menace (Chapter 3's boss) and use them repeatedly in a similar way to Survival grinding. In this second case, make sure that you don't hit the Dullahan's head or Menace's weakspots so you only do GUARD on Dullahan or 1 damage per hit on Menace. The equipment here depends on how you want to do that - do you just want to use your MP and have yourself regenerating slowly and use Mind Ups or so, then go for gear that gives you more MP. If you want to use HP and use potions, use stuff that boosts your HP and the Astral Ring, but remember that once you die, you're dead and have to restart the stage. Note that when using the MP version, you can equip 2 Master Rings. I don't have too much experience with doing it this way, to be honest. Survival still is the best way to grind your characters' skills, so only go for this method if you don't have any other choice. Another great way to level up your weaponry is doing some Chapter 8 runs. If you have purchased it, Legion is an awesome boss to use multihit skills like Axe or Holy Lightning on. Just equip one or two Master Rings and you'll be maxed out in no time. I personally prefer this far more than fighting against Menace and using stuff on his foot. Legion won't survive as long, but you'll hit insanely often with just one hit, at least when his shell is still on. He also still has a ton of HP, so he won't die that quickly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. SURVIVAL ETIQUETTE [SVT] When playing in Survival to grind, there are a few things that should be common sense, but I still see a lot of people ignoring these little things and essentially looking like douches. If you have a microphone and your partner does too, this makes things a lot easier, of course. - Tell your partner which way of Survival Grinding you want to do, and which weapon you want to grind. Do you want to take turns or are you alright with both players attacking Gergoth at the same time? - If you settle on the second option, do not use skills that can hurt your partner or that get into his way. For instance, if your partner would like to level the Axe, don't level the Bible, but instead use the Knife or the Holy Water. If your partner levels a close-range weapon like the Holy Water, then don't use the Bible or Cross, because they couldn't do anything since your sub-weapons would block their way. - Use spells that home or cover a lot of space only if your partner is aware of them. This includes Shanoa's Fulgur, Yoko's Holy Lightning, the whip users' Ricochet Rock and all of Maria's spells but Hymn. - Don't attack Gergoth with your normal weapon. Nobody will complain about an accidental hit or you jumpkicking off of him to avoid him killing you right away, but purposely causing damage that doesn't level your character up is extremely impolite. Unless your partner is fine with it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. JONATHAN MORRIS [JNM] Jonathan is one of the 5 base characters and the only whip user, unless you get DLC. He is from Portrait of Ruin and is one of its main characters, alongside Charlotte. In CVHD, Jonathan is a great user of both whip and sub-weapons, and has a pool of martial arts to use. He has a total of 12 sub-weapons to use, and the most things he has to level up. His playstyle revolves around his versatility with both sub-weapons and martial arts, despite the fact his whip is the shortest and weakest out of the 3 whip wielders. The sub-weapons he can get are: Axe: Drops from the Axe Knight enemies. Bible: Drops from Chapters 2 and 7. Boomerang: Drops from Chapters 2-4 and Gurkha Master enemies. Cross: Drops from Chapters 5-7. Grenade: Drops from Chapters 1-4 and The Creature enemies. Holy Water: Drops from Chapters 4-6. Knife: You start out with this. Kunai: Drops from Chapter 4. Paper Airplane: Drops from Chapter 1 and Fleaman enemies. Ricochet Rock: Drops from the Lerajie enemies. Shuriken: Drops from Chapters 5 and 7. Wrecking Ball: Drops from Chapter 3. DLC Powers: Javelin: Drops from Chapter 8. All of these sub-weapons will drop on both difficulties and from chests of the colors Green, Blue (if playing Single Player), Purple and Gold (Boss). Weapons that are BDC-able: Knife, Kunai, Paper Airplane, Ricochet Rock, Shuriken Weapons that need Slot Rotating: Axe, Bible, Boomerang, Cross, Grenade, Holy Water, Javelin When levelling Cross in Survival, it's best to not stand on the ground while using it, but rather jump into the air so the attack hits more Gergoth's body rather than his feet only, getting in more hits. Javelin is best used against Gergoth's foot as it will hit 3 times when sticking there. Wrecking Ball is a special case because there are several things you can go for with that one in order to level it. The weapon requires only the use of 15 MP only once, and as long as you hold the button and not get hit, Jonathan will swing the chain. So there are 2 better solutions than using the general setup with Astral Ring. Solution 1 works best if your Jonathan is not levelled up yet, and if you equip low-INT gear. For this, you don't use Survival at all. Instead, you go to Single player and then Chapter 1 Hard. Equip the Wrecking Ball and make a few steps forward and turn around so that if Jonathan swings the chain, the ball will hit the Zombies in the corridor, but the guys won't bump into Jonathan. Then put some duct tape onto your button or find some other way to hold down the button and leave the thing running for 30 minutes. The fun thing is that Zombies will recover their health if they slide back into the ground. And Wrecking Ball will not power up until you break off the current swinging and restart it. So you will have a Level 1 Wrecking Ball still attacking the Zombies even if the weapon is already of a higher level. This results in the guys surviving and recovering their health. Obviously, this will only work once, so definitely use 2 Master Rings for this. After that round, you will go for Solution 2, which goes back to Survival. Equip another Master Ring instead of the Astral Ring and put a few High Mind Ups into your item slot instead of leaving it empty. Then use the Wrecking Ball until Gergoth is about to damage you, then restart Wrecking Ball when you're placed again. Since it only takes 15 MP once, you will not constantly lose MP except when restarting Wrecking Ball, and 2 Master Rings will obviously speed up the levelling process quite a bit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. JULIUS BELMONT [JLB] Julius hails from Aria and Dawn of Sorrow. In both games, he was playable through a hidden "Julius Mode." He is the one Belmont to truly kill Dracula in 1999. In CVHD, Julius is similar to Jonathan, however, he has quite a few differences in his gameplay. Instead of having 12 sub-weapons, he only has 6 (the classic "Belmont arsenal"), and he also does not acquire as many martial arts as Jonathan (or Richter, for that matter). His whip is the longest out of the 3 current whip users, however, and the second-strongest in terms of raw damage. He can also use it to whip into all 8 directions and swing from certain points in the stages. The sub-weapons he can get are: Axe: Drops from the Axe Knight enemies. Bible: Drops from Chapters 2. Cross: Drops from Chapters 5-7. Holy Water: Drops from Chapters 4-6. Knife: You start out with this. Ricochet Rock: Drops from the Lerajie enemies. DLC powers: Javelin: Drops from Chapter 8. All of these sub-weapons will drop on both difficulties and from chests of the colors Green, Blue (if playing Single Player), Purple and Gold (Boss). Weapons that are BDC-able: Knife, Ricochet Rock Weapons that need Slot Alternating: Axe, Bible, Cross, Holy Water, Javelin When levelling Cross in Survival, it's best to not stand on the ground while using it, but rather jump into the air so the attack hits more Gergoth's body rather than his feet only, getting in more hits. Javelin is best used against Gergoth's foot as it will hit 3 times when sticking there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. RICHTER BELMONT [RCB] Richter is from Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. He was the main character in Rondo and a hidden character in Symphony. He was said to be the strongest of all Belmonts (at least at the time) and is father of the legendary "Die, monster!" quote. He is also unlockable in Portrait or Ruin. In CVHD, he is similar to Jonathan, but he uses different martial arts gearing far more towards offense than defense. He has the second-longest and strongest whip of all 3 whip users. His sub-weapons are exactly the same as Julius', so refer to his section for this part. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. SHANOA [SHN] Shanoa is the main character from Order of Ecclesia, and is a very powerful mage wielding glyphs into battle. While she doesn't have as big of an arsenal in CVHD, she is a very competent mix between fighter and mage, and her spells get the job done pretty well. The spells she can get are: Ignis: You start out with 1 copy, more copies can be absorbed from the Aliorumnas enemies Fulgur, Grando: Absorbed from the Aliorumnas enemies Nitesco: Absorbed from the Nova Skeleton enemies DLC powers: Globus: Drops from Chapter 8 purple and gold (boss) chests. To get the copies of Shanoa's glyphs, you have to wait for the enemies to prepare their spells. You can see that when they start having some blue mass above their heads. Hold Up as soon as you see that and until you have absorbed the glyph, and with some luck, you'll gain a copy of the spell. Shanoa can BDC Ignis, Grando and Fulgur. Remember that Fulgur homes into the other player when playing in Survival mode. Nitesco profits the most from Slot Alternating. Try to have all of the 3 possible hits register. Globus you can BDC as well, but don't do it too fast. That doesn't seem to work that well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. YOKO BELNADES [YKB] Yoko is a supporting character in Aria and Dawn of Sorrow, and playable in Dawn of Sorrow's secret "Julius mode." She mimics Sypha from Castlevania 3 with her playstyle. Although she only has 3 spells and no RB skill in CVHD, Yoko's damage output is MASSIVE, and she is easily able to tear through stages without any trouble. Yoko already starts out with 4 copies of her 3 spells. Blue Splash and Holy Flames are BDC-able. Holy Lightning requires Slot Alternating. Like Fulgur, it homes into the other player in Survival mode, so make sure to stay away far enough. Holy Lightning also is amazing to use against Legion and can be levelled very quickly through playing several Chapter 8 runs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. MARIA RENARD [MRR] Maria is a supporting and playable character in many games. The child form she uses in CVHD is most notably playable in Rondo of Blood and alongside Richter, unlockable in Portrait of Ruin. In HD, her playstyle is really hard to determine, but she seems to excel at avoiding damage or minimizing the damage she does recieve. Her spells are very fast and allow her to cover herself easily, except for Hymn, which seems to be her main damage output, but also turns her into a sitting duck. Just like Yoko, Maria already starts out with 4 copies of each of her 4 spells. Hymn is her only BDC-able spell, and the other 3 require Slot Alternating. All of these can easily hit your Survival partner, so with Maria it's best to actually take turns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. THANKS AND COPYRIGHT STUFF [TCS] Konami for this game. The All-Stars for playing, grinding and generally being awesome. ShiitakeWarrior for correcting my spelling (cause I'm foreign y'know). LordKaT for introducing me to this game. Meos for grinding and the Master Ring x2-solution on Wrecking Ball. HOSTED WITH MY PERMISSION AT: www.gamefaqs.com www.neoseeker.com Copyright 2010 - Option (itsoption@gmx.net) My nick on GameFAQs: AuT pBo Romulus This FAQ was created by me, Becquerel. It may freely be saved to your hard drive, or printed, if it is not used for monetary transactions. You may post it on a Website if you e-mail me first to inform me of this, no changes are made, and that I am given credit for this FAQ. I reserve the right to require any website hosting this work to remove it. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair developed by Konami 2010. All Rights Reserved. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------