Dynasty Warriors (often abbreviated DW) is a hack 'n slash game series created by Omega Force and published by Koei (now Koei Tecmo). It is based on the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history and have most of its events based off the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

DW series has long being one of the hallmarks of the hack 'n slash genre, from the sheer number of soldiers on the field to player character's total domination over everything. The latest entry to the series is no different.

There is one miscallaneous clarification to make: the Japanese series numbers the games exactly one number BELOW the western releases, thus Dynasty Warriors 8 is actually Shin Sangoku Musou 7 in Asia. This was due to the original Dynasty Warriors (Sangoku Musou) being considered part of the series but numbered separately in Japan when the "Shin" prefix was adapted in the second game, and the western release did not add "True" (the literally translation) and just incremented the numbering instead.

To start off the guide, the next section will introduce some DW terminologies.

IMPORTANT TRICK: This is a Warriors series feature that's quite hidden yet useful (especially with how Ambition Mode works in this game). On the controller (haven't discovered the keyboard equivalent yet), pressing Select and Start (Back and Start on XB360 controllers) will reset you to the title screen, no matter where you are (as long as it's not mid-loading). One of the important use for this is during an Ambition Mode run, after you save between two battles, there actually isn't a button to return to menu, you can use this shortcut to return to menu while maintaining that run's data (useful if you want to cut your runs for the legendary horses into multiple parts).

There are many terminologies in DW8, and the built-in tutorial is not exactly the best at explaining them. For the rest of the guide, I will use these terminologies to refer to things that come up.

Light Attacks:
Attacks triggered by pressing the Light Attack key, which is J on the keyboard and Square/X on the controller by default. After reaching certain levels with an officer, you will be able to chain more Light Attacks together, thus allowing more Strong Attacks to be unleashed. You can chain together a maximum of 6 Light Attacks, with the last one guarenteed to trigger a weapon's elemental effects.

Strong Attacks:
These are attacks triggered by pressing the Strong Attack key (sometimes after a certain number of Light Attack), which is I on the keyboard and Triangle/Y on the controller by default. After every Light Attack, a different Strong Attack will be unleashed, with significantly different effects and uses. Commonly referred to as C attacks by the community, with numbers attatched to the C indicating how many Light Attack is required to unleash the Strong Attack. For example C1 refers to pressing the Strong Attack key directly without any Light Attack, C2 refers to Light Attack once and then Strong Attack, and so on. Most strong attacks have a chance to trigger a weapon's elemental effects, some more than others, usually the more Light Attack prior to the Strong Attack, the more likely it is to trigger elemental effects.

EX Attacks:
These were introduced in DW7 along with the ability to equip any weapon on any officer. An officer's "favorite weapon" or "preferred weapon" is called his/her EX weapon, from which EX Attacks can be triggered. Each officer has 2 EX attacks, triggered by pressing the Strong Attack button again after a certain Strong Attack has finished. For details as to which Strong Attack can be followed by EX Attack, check each character's move list in game.

Musou Attacks:
These are trigger by pressing the Musou Attack key (when you have at least one full bar of Musou), which is L on the keyboard and Circle/B on the controller by default. These are incredibly powerful attacks, although most of them's damage can be blocked by guarding (the same Musous usually will break said guard). Musou bars are filled by attacking enemies, or picking up jars of wine (1 bar each) or the Imperial Seal (fill to full) randomly dropped by defeated enemies. Each officer can use 3 different Musous, one on the ground by pressing the key, one on the ground by pressing the weapon switch key with the Musou Attack key, and one from the air by pressing the kay. Some Musous are grabs that will ignore guards (Zhang Liao's weapon switch Musou for example), some will cause your officer to attack from the back of the enemy thus negating guards (Wang Yi's weapon switch Musou for example). Note that your officer is completely invulnerable during Musou Attacks.

Weapon Affinity:
New system introduced in DW8. Each weapon is assigned an affinity: Heaven, Earth, or Man. The affinities counter each other in a Rock Paper Scissors fashion: Heaven beats Earth, Earth beats Man, and Man beats Heaven. When attacking with a weapon that has advantage over your opponent's, you will gain bonus attack and eat away the opponent's Storm Rush gauge displayed over his/her head in a hexagon. When attacking with a weapon that has the same affinity as your opponent's, no specially effects occur. When attacking with a weapon that is at a disadvantage, your attacks do not stagger the enemy (much like how Throwing Knives naturally attack) and will deal less damage.

Switch Counter:
New system introduced along side the weapon affinity system. When an opponent that has advantage over your current weapon attempts to use a Strong Attack (identified by the blue glow around his/her hands) press weapon switch immediately executes a switch counter, where your officer performs a short back step, attacks the opponent (detailed attack varies depending on the weapon), and then switch to your other equipped weapon. This attack is guarenteed to land and will launch the opponent into the air, opening up potential comboing.
Enemies will never attempt to Switch Counter you when you have advantage over them, instead they will simply attempt to do a weapon switch.

Storm Rush:
New system introduced along side the weapon affinity system. When you attack an oppoent with an advantagous weapon, you will remove sections of his/her Storm Rush gauge, positioned above the head. Once the gauge is depleted, your next attack will automatically (by default, if set to manual then trigger by pressing Strong + Musou) trigger a Storm Rush, during which your officer rapidly attacks anything near him/her. You can mash Light Attack to get a few more hits in during a Storm Rush.
Note that an enemy will Storm Rush you if you attack it while at a disadvantage too many times, instead of how the player triggers Storm Rush.

Weapon Type:
Exapanded and clarified upon the DW7 weapon type system. DW8 has 4 types of weapons: Shadow Sprint, Dash, Whrilwind, and Dive. At 4 star compatability (or with the weapon's master skill equipped), an officer can perform the weapon type's special move.
Shadow Sprint: Press Light Attack during any Strong Attack (but not EX Attack) to animation cancel and dash forward while dealing damage
Dash: Press Jump again in mid air to quickly dash forward in air, effectively a jump range extender (does not provide more height). Your jumps also become animation cancellers: you can jump during any non-EX non-Musou attacks to cancel the rest of the animation. If damage has already being dealt by that attack, then you will cancel its entire back swing; if damage has not being dealt yet, that attack will be canceled
Whirlwind: Any Light Attack and every damage tick from Strong attacks (most officer's C3 has multiple damage ticks) trigger a whirlwind around your officer, damaging and staggering all enemies around
Dive: Press Light Attack or Jump after hit by an attack (while not being juggled) to perform a back flip, completely immune to damage for the entire duration

Weapon Compatability:
Each officer has a 4-star compatability with their EX weapon's weapon type, and some have 3 star compatability with another weapon type. Weapon compatability grants bonus damage and the ability to execute special move a 4 stars.

Rage (Awakening in Japan):
Press the Rage key, which is R on the keyboard and right stick on the controller, to trigger. For the duration, weapon affinity is disabled and your overall attribute is increase. Your musou bars are combined into one, and you are granted a full bar of it.

Rage Attack:
Using Musou Attack (hold the Musou button) while in Rage mode excecutes the Rage Attack, in which your officer attacks with a more or less Light Attack pattern while moving forward, and if you managed to KO a certain number of enemies during the attack you will enter Rampage, which have your officer dash forward quickly, carrying all enemies hit with him/her, and dealing a significant amount of damage every second to those enemies. After the musou bar has been depleted or you let go of the Musou key(regardless of your Rage bar's depletion), your officer will stop and execute a finishing move (which does an immense amount of damage to anyone hit) that usually hits either all around or in front.
Tip: With 3 bars of musou, your Rage Attack should last around the same length as your Rage state, so it is the most efficient if the Rage Attack is triggered near the end of a Rage activation.

Most of the time, your strong attacks are the primary source of damage, Light Attacks are just there so you can trigger each Strong Attack when you need to. Despite having different forms, the Strong Attacks of each weapon follow the same general principle as to their functions.

C1:
Every weapon's C1 is a quick and dirty stagger, nothing more, nothing less. It will do practically no damage, but will stagger enemies for a longer duration than most Light Attacks. This attack used to guarentee guard break in previous entries of the series, but it seems that this is no longer the case. Unless this attack or the weapon has innate element it will not trigger elemental effects.

C2:
Without any exception, this attack will lift one or more enemies into the air, what happens after depends on the weapon. Some air-heavy weapons (Zhao Yun's Dragon Spear and Jiang Wei's Double-Edged Trident) will launch and leave you in air as well so you can chain more attacks, most weapons will not launch you into the air, and as such only allowing you to chain other attacks. This attack does not trigger elemental effects unless it has innate element.

C3:
This attack always stuns, but how the stun is achieved varies from weapon to weapon. Most weapon will allow a sequence of smaller attacks before the stunning blow (mash the Strong Attack key to get more small attacks in this case), while some others ones (War Fan comes to mind) will have one attack that directly stuns. The small attack chain will not trigger elemental effects, while the final strike has a chance of triggering elemental effects.

C4:
This attack originally (in DW4 and 5) was designed to be a cone AoE that can clear a large number of soldiers in front of your officer quickly, most weapons still retain this kind of C4, but some got changed over the years. For example, War Fan's C4 is a front laser that penetrates everything it hits, but have very small side AoE. Depending on the nature of the attack, it can trigger elemental effects usually on a final blow if the attack is multi-hit.

C5:
An enhanced launcher, deals a substantial amount of damage, and potentially triggering elemental effects. As with C2, air-heavy weapons will possibly launch you into the air for more chaining.

C6:
Varies largely across weapons, but mostly designed as a guarenteed elemental effect trigger. For multi-hit C6, multiple hits might trigger elemental effects (for example, Halberd's C6 will trigger elemental effects in one of the last slashes and the roar in the end).

JC (Jump Strong Attack):
Re-introduced after absence in DW7. Often a very simple stomp from the air, some weapons will carry your officer forward a distance before landing or excute a forward downward dash.

EX:
EX attacks will not trigger weapon elements, and most of the time they are not designed to deal a lot of damage either. Their big use in DW8 is to prevent enemy weapon switch and also quickly drain Storm Rush meter, since no other attacks (aside from Musous and grabs) can stagger an enemy while weapon switching. Some EX contain innate elemental effects and/or buffs your officer with an elemental effect for a short duration that can trigger on every attack. (For example Guan Yu's C1 EX)