******************************************************************************* Pang De FAQ - Ver 1.07 Warriors Orochi 2 By Elainah A. Contributor recognition: The Dark Paladin ******************************************************************************* Table of Contents: ------------------ 1. Introduction 2. Legal Notes 3. Why A Pang De FAQ? 4. About Pang De 5. Playing As Pang De a) How To Unlock b) Moveset c) Weapons d) Abilities e) Strategy f) Customizing Pang De g) Investing Pang De 6. Pang De On The Solo Chaos Tier List 7. Quotes -COMING SOON!- 8. Contact Me 9. Credits 10. Version History ******************************************************************************* 1. Introduction --------------- Hello and welcome to another Warriors Orochi 2 related guide. This character FAQ will focus on the Wei officer Pang De, a tall bearded powerful warrior whose weapon of choice is a dual halberd. Oh, and he's got a cool armor, which is always a bonus. Anyway, Pang De was introduced for the first time by KOEI as a playable officer in Dynasty Warriors 5, but was removed in their next release, Dynasty Warriors 6. Shame on you KOEI!!!! Shame on you. By your deeds you've provoked and incurred the wrath of Pang De's fan base, and you will soon be doomed to oblivion because of your .... Hey.. Wait a minute! This isn't the right time or place to be bashing KOEI. Not to mention that Dynasty Warriors 6 turned out to be a good game anyway. Alright, back to the track. As I was trying to say, I will be doing my best to present you with the most helpful information, setup and strategy on how to use Pang De most effectively. As I always made it my motto: A guide is never complete or limited by the notes of its author. Consider this guide a chance to exchange information with me about various setups, strategies, and if needed, corrections. Alright then, pick up your twin halberds, and follow me! ******************************************************************************* 2. Legal Notes -------------- This document shall not be ripped,restructured,reproduced or resubmitted on any other website than gamefaqs.com without having my permission first. Also, please don't print this FAQ for any other purpose than personal use. Should this document magically appear on any other website without my permission, I will haunt you. Trust me, I can. And in a very annoying manner, too. Copyright 2008 Elainah A UPDATE 11/04/08: The following sites are currently allowed to host this guide and all my upcoming guides in the future (if there was any): www.gamefaqs.com www.neoseekers.com www.supercheats.com www.cheatplanet.com www.gamesradar.com www.supercheats.com www.CheatMasters.com I accepted that the guide be puplished on several sites in the first place because the purpose of writing a guide is the benefit of as much users as possible. However, I will only be posting the updates on GameFAQs alone, so all the other permitted sites will have to get the updated version themselves. It's hard as it is to find time for the internet in my life these days, let alone following up on so many sites. I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. ******************************************************************************* 3. Why A Pang De FAQ? --------------------- While might seem to be a relatively boring character to use at first, Pang De is, in fact, one of the most fun characters to pull out combos if you adapted to his style, which you will easily. He is also without a doubt one of the most overpowered characters in the series, with comparatively high health, attack and defense stats. The only set back I can think of regarding Pang De, is him being incredibly slow (Slow as in slow, not stupid. No pun intended). But that's why God created mounts (and Impulse X 20) anyway. Being a dual weilder, he is a great character for crowed clearing, and his weapons range makes him a very devastating character when dealing with enemy officers even on CHAOS difficulty. Add to all that the fact that KOEI made him to be a PWR (Power) type character in the Warriors Orochi series and you get the following formula: A character with dual weapons, good reach, powerful attacking potential and can't be interrupted while performing a combo. Seriously, could a character be any more broken? In fact, Pang De can. He is also arguabely the second best Dynasty Warriors character to use on a mount. What the hell were they thinking when they were designing this guy? Stress-relief? ******************************************************************************* 4.About Pang De --------------- //SPOILERS ALERT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!// Taken directly from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pang_De Pang De (170 – 219) was a prominent general under the powerful warlord Cao Cao during the late Eastern Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms era of China. He was noted for his loyalty when he refused to surrender after he was captured by the enemy general Guan Yu at the Battle of Fancheng. Pang De initially served under Ma Teng, a warlord occupying northwestern China. He participated in many campaigns, during which he displayed extraordinary valor. After Ma Teng was summoned to Xuchang, his son Ma Chao launched an offensive against Cao Cao, but ultimately lost. Pang De then followed Ma Chao to Hanzhong, where the latter submitted to the governor Zhang Lu. After Cao Cao took down Hanzhong, Ma Chao left to seek service under Liu Bei. Pang De, however, surrendered to Cao Cao together with many others. Well aware of Pang De's valour in battle, Cao Cao made him Liyi General. In the first Warriors Orochi game, Pang De is portrayed as an honorable warrior who is torn between his duty to his Lord and his own sense of integrity. At first, he worked under Orochi as his resistence quelling force commander when his Lord Cao Pi and Orochi signed a pact of alliance. Soon enough though, he started to resent his deeds and was brought back to his senses when Yukimura Sanada, seeing the true warrior inside him, convinced him to fight Orochi as a part of the Shu resistence eventually. When Pang De left Orochi's service, he stated that he has to break his ties with Wei this time, if he ever wanted to find them once more. In Warriors Orochi 2 however, no interesting background story was bestowed upon Pang De's character. This time around, he comes back as a loyal officer under the service of Cao Pi, and along with Xu Zhu they both gave a helping hand to Huang Gai of Wu when he was battling with the Date forces in Okehazama. He joins Huang Gai afterwards, and remains with Wu till the end of the battle with Shin Orochi. ******************************************************************************* 5. Playing As Pang De --------------------- 5.a How To Unlock ----------------- To unlock the killing machine that is Pang De, beat chapter 5 in Wu story, Battle of Okehazama, on story mode(And you get Xu Zhu as a bonus too!). 5.b Moveset ----------- Since Pang De is a Dynasty Warriors character, he gets the DW moveset. (NO!!!!) The general layout of this moveset is as follows: (S = SQUARE button, T = TRIANGLE button) S > S > S > S > S > S > S > S > S T > T > T > T > T > T > T > T Errr.. Sorry. Couldn't help but to post the crappy sketch again. Now for the real thing; this time with the useful stuff: Normal attacks: S Slashes with right hand weapon (right to left, up to down) SS Slashes with left hand weapon (left to right, down to up) SSS Swings right hand weapon in a demi circle form SSSS Swings right hand weapon in reverse SSSSS Swings both weapons horizontally (left to right) SSSSSS Swings both weapons horizontally (right to left) SSSSSSS Swings right hand weapon in reverse SSSSSSSS Spins around and hit with both weapons SSSSSSSSS Double hammering like attack, covers front and both sides Dash attack: S + Direction A wide range dual attack, covers 270 degrees Charge attacks: Element activation: C3,C4,C5,C6** T Puffs body muscles to knock nearby enemies. Also, can knock enemies by simply running into them for a short while ST Spreads weapons to knock enemies fly (juggles) SST (TTTTTT) Quick hammer-like hits, ends with a R to L horizontal slash (each T adds one hammer hit, up to six) SSST Quick wide range demi circle slash SSSST Bounds the ground with both weapons, knocks enemy fly SSSSST Spreads both weapons and charge, knocks enemies left and right **for the players that are unfamiliar with the concept of "Cx", "x" represents the position of a "TRIANGLE" button press while pulling out a combo. e.g: C4 = SSST, because "4" is the position of the "T" button in the combo. Jump attacks: XS Spreads both weapons for a single hit XT Flips forward and hits enemies right beneath Musou attacks: C Waves weapons left and right in place, finishes with a tackle C (Red Health) True Musou, same but finishes with a powerful ground shock Mounted attacks: SSSSSS Hits with both weapons on the mount's right side T Raises and lands both weapons on both sides Special attack: R1 Thrusting tackle attack (invincible for the duration) 5.c Weapons ----------- Pang De has got four weapons, like every other character does. (P.S: This is getting old.) Number in brackets represents the weapon's base power: War Pick (10) Sturdy Halberd (21) Pole Axe (43) Heavenly Halberd (87) A good and easy way to obtain the 4th weapon (Heavenly Halberd): Play Free Mode, Orochi story: Battle of Cheng Du on Chaos difficulty. This stage is relatively short, even for beginners. 5.d Abilities ------------- Pang De can unlock the following abilities: Potence: Increases attack strength. Conditions: Defeat 3 officers. Power: Increases the abilities of Power category warriors. Conditions: Defeat 70 enemies, including 3 officers. Acclaim: Increases EXP obtained. Conditions: Defeat 110 enemies while maintaining 50% of health. Awakening: Strengthen Musou attack. Conditions: Defeat 5 officers within 8 minutes of the start of the battle, without performing any attack using the Musou Gauge. Yeah, he's one of the characters that have Acclaim. Good luck finding the rest of'em. 5.e Strategy: ------------- Pang De enables the following strategy: Shield: Raises the defense of the allied commander. In other words: It raises the defense of the allied commander. Seriously, how much more explanation did you expect? Conditions: Defeat 100 enemies. P.S: Playing as this guy, you will be able to initiate this strategy before you can spell N-O-N-E-S-H-A-L-L-P-A-S-S-!. 5.f Customizing Pang De: ------------------------ * Before we start, I want to confirm that we agree on the following 2 points: - Costumizing any character in general usually must follow the player's own preference and experience. - Costumizing Pang De like mentioned bellow is the way I found him to be most effictive for my style. Therefore, you might, no. You PROBABLY can come out with a better setup for your Pang De. However, there is something I can guarantee for you: My own setup works out nearly-flawless on Chaos mode, any stage. I made the above point a very strict rule that I stand by. In fact, it became one of my most treasured principles and values in life. Nah. Just in video games. Alright then, let's start with the basics. * First, let's level the big guy up, and max his proficiency. To gain levels easily, breeze through any story line on easy difficulty with Pang De solo. You will reach lv99 and Profic50 in less than one run. It's how I usually do my favorite characters. However, any stage that has a big count of officers involved works as good. For example, if you started Wu-4 (Battle of Itsukushima) with a lv1 character, playing this stage 10 times on easy will cost you less than an hour of your life, and you will max the character completely. * With big guy all buffed up now and in top shape, let's move on to the team abilities. I usually pick the following maxed out abilities for all my teams: Vitality, Fortitude, SPD/PWR/TEC, Boost, Awakening, Adrenalin, Recover. As usual, I tend to be more of a defensive player. As you might have guessed, I usually occupy the third ability slot in the aforementioned setup with one of the three SPD/PWR/TEC abilities, depending on which character I am using. A credit here is due to me for stating out the damn obvious. Regardless, we will assume that we occupied this slot with "Power" this time around because we are talking a PWR type character. Is it only me or I just let out a useless remark again? I can't help but to feel that I am getting smarter each passing day, but we will discuss my superb Intelligence on our own time. Let's move to weapons. Refer to section 5.c for more details on how to get a pair of his cool Heavenly Halberds. Remember: Using Karma as a team ability boost your chance to get an even better fourth weapon even on easier stages like Cheng Du. * Now after we have obtained the Heavenly Halberds, it's up and notched for attributes setup. For Pang De, I used the following setup: Flame 10, Flash 10, Slay 10, Air 10, Brave 10, Multi 10, Agility 10, Might 10 Flame: One of the elements that has the most potential for damage. With Pang De it looks very cool and damn effective on his weapon. Replace with Bolt for even more damage. Flash: Recently KOEI had this bad habit of making their enemy AI abuse the use of blocking. They can get really annoying so you might as well whack some sense into them. Flash is a MUST. Slay: With maxed out stats, Slay has the potential of taking out a very big portion of any enemy officer's health, on all difficulties. Air: Effective on Pang De in particular because a good deal of his combos tend to send his enemies up flying. A good strategy is to use his C2 and C5 against enemy officers, and then enjoy the bloodshed. Brave: Brave is almost a must-have in every weapon setup on CHAOS difficulty since it boost the attack strength against the enemy officers. Make sure to have it added. Multi: Produces a doubleganger to join the attack with each charge, for additional damage and even more scattering effect with his C3 and C4. Agility: By using Agility on Pang De, you are simply eleminating the only potential weakness he has, because as said before he is a very slow character. (Stop thinking that am saying he's stupid!!!) Might: For making up in the lack of offensive potential in the party abilities setup. Of course, even if you're on the more offensive style, Might proves to be useful than most other attributes you can place on this slot. * Finally, I think it's about time we upgrade the Heavenly Halberds! (Since upgrades require treasure hunting stuff, make sure you have the right items for them first. Rydain's Weapon FAQ provided a great deal of help for me, and I ended up obtaining all the treasures in one go. Way to go girl!) I used the following upgrades on my weapon setup: Resolve: This works the same way as the item called "Musou Armor" in DW5. It prevents Pang De from flinching when hit by arrows or shotguns. More "broken-ness", and fitting for the big guy too. Revival: In the rare occassion that you will even die while using this tank character, he recovers health by 100% for one time when your health reaches zero in battle. Again, Final Fantasy Auto- Life feature on the job! (this time, pun is intended.) Evasion: It basically increase the already broken high defense of Pang De even further. To be honest, this slot can be replaced by any other upgrade of your choice, since none of the availables other than Resolve or Revival will add any momen-TUM to Pang De's stats or setup. At last, it is always fun to have a substitute weapon with Almighty. It's not that I prefer to make things easier than they already are, but it's cool to turn Pang De into a flame spoofing wizard with every hit every now and then. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// UPDATE 12/14/08: As of 11/29/08, GameFAQs hosted the WARRIORS OROCHI 2 Maximized Weapon Element Guide, created by and copyrighted for BakusaiTenketsu. While I personally not a fan of maximized damage on Chaos difficulty since it takes away the rest of the almost non-existant challenge from the Warriors Orochi series, the data provided by that documents is really helpful -and very fun- if you're interested in having substitute weapons with the mentioned setups, something that ain't gonna hurt to try once in a while. The suggestion setup by that guide for Pang De is like this: Attributes (all at 10): Bolt, Flash, Slay, Air, Brave, Multi, Agility, Might. Upgrades: Highflier, Evasion, Resolve. What to do: C3 > C4, C6 for crowds. One more time: Remember that is not the suitable setup/style for the players who look for a challenge -myself included-. Also, this setup is still up to debate, so in case the info on the source were changed, this section will naturally overcome the same changes. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// It is a shame if you didn't take some time to work on this particular character, as by doing so you will find someone to fill the third slot in your party forma- tion to take care of things when matters get dirty, and Pang De is a very very reliable fellow, I guarantee. 5.g Investing Pang De --------------------- According to some ancient Chinese text I found in the library down the street: Historically, Pang De's father was the founder and owner of the infamous "PangExtermenation, Inc.", so the son turned out good for both area cleaning and rodents extermination. There's also a part about the accounting system in that company that I couldn't fully understand, another part about family fueds, the national manpower strike in 204AD, bankrupcy... I wonder when the game related stuff will show up in this text.. *keeps skimming through the text pages..* Ok,Fine! I admit it! I don't understand a single Chinese character so I will have to actually stop wasting everyone's time looking for the easy way out and try to play the game myself. For starters, let's assume that Pang De's superior abilities in both crowd clearing and officer killing has to do with the game mechanics, and not with his family's buisenss history. Speaking of the game, you know, like because Warriors Orochi 2 is what brought this guide to existence, let's demonstrate by experimenting the way to make use of the most possible potential Pang De can offer. With the very good range Pang De's weapon provides, and with the Agility added on the previous setup to make up for the low attack speed, his normal attack string serves as both a devastating force and a way to avoid being hit by keeping a safe distance from the enemy pawns and officers alike. Let's take a minute to explain a very interesting concept about the weapons range. Generally, I would recommend to replace Air or another element with Range on weapon's setup, even if the character's weapon already provides that. However, since Pang De is a PWR character, his attacks can't be interrupted, therefore, Range is not needed on his setup. It's kind of like a mix of character's traits made in heaven,and bestowed upon Pang De. While his C3 offers a very good crowd control because of the string of quick hammering hits it consists of, I recommend using C3 on officers since it will serve in breaking the officer's block with Flash, and flushing the life bar away quickly with Might, Brave & Slay added. C2 & C5 work as well against officers in lighter crowds since they add the juggling effect, leaving him vuenrable for a second and might cause some casualties. For crowds, I use one of the combos that ends with a swirl to scatter pawns and clean the surrounding, namely C4 & C6. Of course, since his R1 thrust special is Musou consuming, I leave it for the tough situations like dealing with a strong enemy officer or more than one at the same time. It proves worthy on high difficulties especially on stages like Wei5 (Komaki-Nagakute) where enemies tend to gather at one point to "press teh attack". Want to try something fun? Use his C1 when surrounded with a group of pawns, resulting in knocking the nearest of them out and giving your big guy the ability to kill the rest of them by simply running into them. C1 can also knock enemy officers (although not killing them) on the ground. Imagine knocking down Lu Bu or Kiyomori Taira only by pressing the directional button on them. How does that sound for an ownage? I call it crazy bus driver in action. to sum it all up: Normal attacks for making use of the range. C3 for officers in large crowds. C2 & C5 for officers in lighter to no crowd. C4 & C6 for crowd control. C1 for showing off. In the end, I wish I could cover up everything regarding Pang De. Thanks for making it this far; have fun with many more victories on the path of true warriors! :) ******************************************************************************* 6. Pang De On The Solo Chaos Tier List -------------------------------------- I have to admit, I don't really stick to the concept of tier lists. I am one of "those people" who believe that every player can come out with their own tier list. Personally, in every KOEI game I played so far, I always find Zhang Liao to be my most effictive character. He is the character that I happen to find as the easiest to adapt with on any difficulty, but if you think that he is the worst character in the game, then he is. It is your decision, based on your own experience, and your own playing style. (Special thanks is due to Rampidzier for teaching me about this concept). However, there's a group of good ol' Warriors Orochi fans (led by the infamous Rydain and Calbee) came out with the great "Solo Chaos Tier List" for the first Warriors Orochi game. The time that they have spent, the tests that they have performed, the heart they have put on it.. All this dedication mustn't go unmentioned. Great job guys, you won me over as a fan of your work. In the first Warriors Orochi game, Pang De was considered by this legendary group to be treated in the following regards: "Top Tier -Fast and Consistent Offense - Excellent Defense" He was placed right after Ginchiyo Tachibana and right before Nene, who are present on the same tier. Of course, as said before, you are the one in charge for your own list, and you are to shape it according to whom you play better with. Since it is believed that some kind of change in stats and effectivness happe- ned to the characters in Warriors Orochi 2, a list for this game is yet to be released. Until that time, this section will not be updated. ******************************************************************************* 7. Quotes --------- -COMING SOON!- ******************************************************************************* 8. Contact Me ------------- Should you have any comments, notes, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact me by email or by IM on: thedarkpaladin(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot).uk As said, I am up to any email as long as it is sent in a polite manner. I am up to constructive critisim, and I will even credit you should your notes come as help to me. On the other hand, try to mess with me and I can be one real nasty piece of work. ******************************************************************************* 9. Credits ------------ KOEI: For making yet another great game. Please make WO3. Also, for the love of God bring Pang De back to the series. CJayC: For creating GameFAQs. SBAllen: For posting this on the site, and for all the new features he adds every now and then, making GameFAQs an even better place. The "New!" tag is just too awesome to leave unmentioned. Admins/Auditors of: neoseekers.com, supercheats.com, cheatplanet.com, gamesradar.com, supercheats.com, CheatMasters.com For posting my guides on their websites and keeping them up-to-date. My Family: For being the best family anyone can ever has. A special mention here is due to my little sister Farah, for being an amazing gaming partner with her Xiahou Dun's obsession, and for always kicking my butt with Taigong Wang on versus mode. My Gang: For being the most loyal crime partners when it comes to blundering, smuggling, cash laundry and assassination contracts. Also for introducing me to DW3 years ago, which was the first KOEI game I ever played and got me interested in KOEI's work. Matt (madaboutbuffy): For countless reasons. He is the one who inspired me to write in the first place, and even granted me the permission to use his own FAQs' structure in order to achieve that goal. Not to mention that he's a very nice fella. Devin (MythrilWyrm): For countless reasons, too. For starters, he's a very nice guy who writes very good guides, especially Orochi's FAQ for the first game. Also, the chain of emails we exchanged and the encouragements he gave me was what actually had me think about keep writing guides. Pichtt & Kaikuro: For the discussion we had about Pang De's weapon setup and that made me try different stuff up and which led to eventually determining the setup that suited my style the most. Calbee: For his tier list topics on the Warriors Orochi board. That guy is a walking computer. Rydain: The Cao Ren Rapid Fan Girl once again, for the great Weapon FAQ. It provides big help to newbies and more experienced players alike. Rampidzier: For posting all these great guides and for teaching me about the concept of "own tire list". ******************************************************************************* 10. Version History ------------------- Version 1.0 11/16/08 - Document created - Document submitted to GameFAQs Version 1.01 11/22/08 - Corrected some typos/grammar errors Version 1.05 12/14/08 - Added the maximized damage setup on section 5.f Version 1.06 03/22/09 - Updated the Contact Me and Credits sections Version 1.07 05/29/13 - Updated the Contact Me section ******************************************************************************* -END OF GUIDE- *******************************************************************************