User blog:Ghostly Owns/Hard Difficulty Warrior Guide

Overview

Get gear that has lots of Strength and Vitality.

Do math and see whether dual wielding or using a two handed weapon gets better stats, as well as compare armor and weigh the advantages of a set.

Do quests for rewards. Keep gear that has the Lucky buff on for as long as possible unless a boss/miniboss is hard enough to force you to use better gear.

If you're concerned about money there are various wells where you can fill Empty Bottles to make foods/potions to sell for a profit.

Right before the enemy casts a linear projectile, crouch and you'll dodge the skill probably. Fast homing ones can hit you in the back, slow homing can be occasionally dodged by jumping and forcing it to turn and waste time.

At least up to Shogun's Palace I've brute forced the game with raw tankiness and power.

Skills

Keep in mind skills are as effective as the stats that they use. Good gear makes for powerful skills.

Concentrated Brew is a staple for long fights and healing lots. That plus Brutal Advantage and Iron Displine will basically make you unkillable by anything that lacks the dps/nuke power to outdamage your healing power. With the Dark Glass Armor set in the second town, the Venomwoods becomes a absolute joke.

Your basic combo is Brutal Advantage stun -> get behind the enemy -> Slam + Heavy Strike. Eventually you'll get Doom Blade to replace Heavy Strike.

Heavy Armor. For 1 Skill point, you take 30% less damage. Enough said.

Doom Blade: great for putting down the pesky enemies that can heal.

Bandit Hill

Nothing much to say. Concentrated Brew and Brutal Advantage are great. Iron Displine should only be gotten after unlocking Brutal Advantage.

The White Forest

See above. I think you can make infinite money by selling the better water you get here. Kabuki Mask is a excellent helm thanks to its passive, effectively making it give at least 10 Strength by itself before your own Intellect.

Burial Grounds

Muscle through. Warlord Niroshi's summons may be annoying, kill them, ignore them, or farm them for EXP.

Dai'Jin Mines

Might want to get Heavy Armor. The spikes WILL kill you, at least with the gear and skills you currently have.

The Berserkers are more threatening than the miniboss/boss themselves because they get stronger over time and have decent bulk. Stuns will help slow their powercreep.

As a Warrior, you can probably survive at least 1 hit from Lady Akari thanks to your gear, skills or both. Lord Dai'Jin is easy but makes for a long fight - poke him with a skill whenever his passive stops.

IIRC there's a chest that requires Kunai Sting. Respecing for it shouldn't be a problem if you're patient enough to farm money.

The Venomwoods

The first roadblock in the game, for me anyways - the miniboss/boss are enough to force me to actually buy gear and respec. Here you'll want to buy the Dark Glass Armor set from the Emerald Temple for the stats. Ryota the Sly can be killed by blocking his poison attack at point blank range, stunning him with Brutal Advantage while he's in the cloud, and escaping the cloud. If you didn't get Ice you can get Venom Fury (61 Damage, 14 Defense, 14 Strength) by doing the poison quest.

Lord Takeshi likely requires a respec - at lvl 14 I used Iron Displine 2, Brutal Advantage 2, Concentrated Brew 2, Heavy Armor 1, Doom Blade 3, Aggression 3. I noted that with the gear I had, I could've easily discarded brew and heavy armor. Just use Doom Blade whenever off cooldown (note that Doom Blade 3 should replace Slam for the basic combo), and Slam only when he's casting his poison cloud, otherwise whack him with Heavy Strike. Avoid the stunning poison cloud. The armor set should provide enough bulk that you can muscle through otherwise.

The Shogun Palace

Haven't used respec yet. Got to lvl 15 here. If you don't like challenges, bring an Invisibility Potion (buy from the foreign merchant in the Emerald Temple).

The Warriors's Blood Mirror will punish recklessness, though with your bulk you will have more leeway to make mistakes. It may be wise to stop attacking when their Blood Mirror is up.

Haddaku the Swift isn't much.

The mages here are threatening because they can instantly deplete your focus with a linear spell (dark crescent), heal each other/themselves relatively fast compared to past mages, and do decent damage with their fast homing fireballs. Any fight that involves more than 1 enemy and has a mage should not be taken lightly.

Challenge/Fun Room

There's a room here that heavily suggests you bring an Invisibility Potion to get 2 chests. You can probably brute force it, but it will be hard and requires some luck as well as food buffs.

Lvl 16, Deadly Charge, using All Stats and Hydration buff. Keep in mind the mage's spells, tap the warrior and withdraw. Your goal is to whittle down and kill the Warrior. Deadly Charge provides a much needed damage spike here. Then be patient and block/dodge the mage's spells while potioning up. When at near full HP and your Potion is nearly ready, run up and hit the mage, drawing the Assassin's attention. Rinse and repeat - but try to burst down the Assassin faster because he has higher DPS. Then repeat with the last warrior, and kill the mage.

Apparently you can intimidate the mage by getting close enough to make him naturally back away. Immediately retreat to the leftmost area of the room, and he will lose his aggro.

The 2 rewards in the chests are the Shogun Flame Bo (replace Venom Fury with this) and the Fancy Robes.

A similar fight later on has the advantage of space - attack the warrior then run all the way back to the beginning of the room, deactivating the mage and making it 2 1v1 battles rather than 1 1v2 battle. After this fight's room is the Boss room, and it doesn't save before the fight begins. Save before entering the room.

Warlord Asura is less of a challenge than the fun room. Avoid his charge attack and Doom Blade whenever he does the trance heal.

Haruki Residence

A walk in the park compared to the Shogun's Palace. Pick up the Old Imperial Might armor set before you go though.

The mages are annoying as hell to kill between their slows and their stuns. Luckily the don't have heals so you can slaughter them or whoever they're supporting first.

Daisuke the Noble is a knockoff Warrior without heals. He has an ability that negates damage a few times.

Lord Tetsuo has some threats in his Blood Mirror and his projectile (which you should avoid rather than block since it's powerful and he doesn't spam heals).

Ichisan Castle

The mages here can teleport and can create an aura that massively boosts their damage but stuns them on hit. Beware this.

Generic enemies have more skills, but are still easy to kill, if tedious. 

Ichisan Retainer isn't too special. Has a buff that makes him give and take more damage. 

There is a chest here that requires Kunai Sting. Wall jump, immediately turn around and Kunai Sting, and immediately wall jump again to get it. Residual pull from Kunai will negate the knockback from wall jump. 

Kasumi has a variety of skills, but you can outtank her DPS and burst her down.

Shiroda Fortress

Enemies are threatening and have skills that make them decent 1v1 threats. Treat every fight like a boss fight and end things quickly - don't hesitate to use Deadly Charge.

Assassins have decently powerful bursts.

Warriors have Deadly Charge and are a bit like you, if less tanky, no heals, and decent burst damage.

The Priests are worthy of being considered a miniboss. They have a powerful spell that can oneshot you if not blocked which is slow but homing - jump often to wait it out, simply running away is too slow. They can spawn allies every few seconds which can get in your way and should be ignored. They can heal themselves. They have a spell that is linear and depletes Focus.

My burst is Heavy Strike (Brutal Advantage stun) -> Doom Blade (Doom Thirst) -> Deadly Charge. Kill the Priest before she kills you, and be prepared to die a few times.

Lady Shiori is far easier. Her Baskilisk gaze just requires you to turn around to avoid heavy damage. When she flies into the air and sends a series of blasts at you you only need to tap forward every time she sends one. Use the above burst and she falls easily.

Mistwalkers are also easy. Their famed poison shouldn't be lethal the first time if you're at high hp, but at low HP it's a death sentence. They're also fragile so a burst should allow you to kill them before they can poison you a second time. Wait for your skills to come off cooldown before fighting a mistwalker.

Kazuro

Kazuro has 29,300 HP and 100 Focus. You might want to consult his page as well.

Abilities

• Puppet Master: Summon a clone of you (with your skills, stats and gear) while he floats in the air, out of your reach.

• • Blackout Stun will mostly negate your clone if you don't interrupt the stun.
  • This skill has a sizable cooldown, about 1 minute.

• Frost Bolt: Sends out a fast homing bolt that will slow you. This can be used while using Puppet Master.

• Freeze Stun: Channels before releasing a short ranged shockwave that stuns you for a few seconds.
• ???: Similar to Warlord Asura's stun-heal, Kazuro stuns himself while healing rapidly.
  • Stun him or interrupt him with Slam when you see him charging this up.
  • Doom Blade him when he gets this off, then run your combos on him while he's helpless. Adjust where necessary (no need to stun when he's already stunned).

Fighting Kazuro is a cycle of whittling him down and fighting your own clone.

Warrior Build used to beat Kazuro on Hard Difficulty

I beat Kazuro at Level 20 with Iron Displine 2, Brutal Advantage 3, Concentrated Brew 2, Kunai Sting 1(not really used), Heavy Armor 1, Avenger 1, Doom Blade 3, Blood Thirst 2, Agression 3 and Deadly Charge 1.

My gear: Visage of Might (Excellent), Honored Vambraces (Excellent), Bastion of Might (Excellent), Legplates of Might (Excellent), Lucky Cat Amulet (Excellent), Sabatons of Might (Excellent), Viper Kusari (Good), Obsidian Kunai (Good).

Statline: 304 Strength, 53 Intellect, 140 Agility, 240 Vitality.

Combos

Heavy Strike (Brutal Advantage) => Move behind to Doom Blade => Deadly Charge => Kunai Sting and/or Slam, then spam your other abilities | The most powerful burst/combo in your arsenal, probably.

Heavy Strike (Brutal Advantage) => Move behind to Doom Blade => Slam | Use when Deadly Charge is on cooldown.

Strategies

• Use your combos to keep the damage on Kazuro, and eventually kill him.
• Puppet Master:
  • Your clones are exact copies of you but controlled by the AI. The general plan to them is to stun and run away.
    • Avoid trying to heal while you're affected by Doom Blade.
  • Keep in mind Kazuro's timer while he waits out you fighting your clone. Be nearby when the timer is almost out.
  • Kazuro's Puppet Master also has a decent cooldown, ~1m. 
• Frost Bolt:
  • Cripples your move speed, preventing you from getting behind Kazuro while stunned, and in general, from running away.
• Freeze Stun:
  • Move out of the way if you can't stun Kazuro or otherwise interrupt the ability.
  • It may be wiser to just avoid rather than interrupt Kazuro - saving your stuns/interrupts for when he's trying to heal himself.
• Heal-Stun
  • Ideally you'll prevent Kazuro from using this. Time between attempted uses is probably greater than Slam's CD, so just keep Slam on hand when Kazuro goes below half.
  • If Kazuro gets this off, immediately Doom Blade him to gimp his recovery before running your damage combos. Keep Doom Blade on Kazuro while he's healing.
• Use your Potion when needed, or when you can get the full benefits while retreating (say, from Kazuro's Freeze Stun, rather than while you're attacking him).
• Keep in mind Doom Blade's Blood Thirst passive. You can be patient and run away while both gimping Kazuro's healing AND healing yourself. 
• In general, pair Doom Blade with other skills to use the increased damage.