If you are playing Dynasty Warriors 3 Complete Edition Remastered, weapon fusion is one of the most useful new systems you can take advantage of. Unlike the original game, where weapon stats were fixed, the remaster lets you modify weapons and add different stats and elements to make your Officers much stronger.
In this guide, I’ll go through some of the most useful weapon fusion tips, including how elements work, which element I recommend, how to farm weapons, and what you should consider when choosing weapons to fuse together. If you are trying to build a powerful Officer, understanding this system can make a huge difference.
There is quite a lot you can experiment with, so you don’t necessarily have to follow the strongest setup. You can also create weapons around the playstyle you enjoy. However, if you want to get the most out of weapon fusion, these are some of the things I recommend keeping in mind.
Dynasty Warriors 3 Remastered Weapon Fusion Guide
Weapon fusion is a new feature in Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered that allows you to modify your Officers’ weapons using other weapons as ingredients.
In the original Dynasty Warriors 3, weapon stats were fixed. Once you obtained a weapon, you generally used it as it was or replaced it with a better weapon later.
The remaster changes this by allowing you to use existing weapons as a base and fuse them together to create a weapon with additional stats and effects.
This gives you much more control over how your Officers perform.
Weapon Fusion Tips
You Can Modify 4th and 5th Weapons
One of the best uses for weapon fusion is modifying 4th and 5th weapons.
Some of these weapons can be disappointing in certain areas or may not have the stats you want. Weapon fusion lets you improve them instead of simply accepting their default stats.
If you experiment with a weapon and don’t like the result, you can also fully reset it back to its default stats.
So don’t be afraid to experiment with your valuable weapons.
Any Character Can Use Any Element
Another important part of weapon fusion is that elements can be transferred between weapons.
This means you are not permanently restricted to the element that originally belongs to a particular character or weapon.
With weapon fusion, you can give different characters different elemental effects and create some very powerful combinations.
Steel Is One of the Best Elements
If you are looking for the strongest option rather than simply experimenting, I recommend trying Steel, which was originally known as Death.
Steel is extremely powerful because it can instantly kill normal peons regardless of how much health they have.
Against enemy Officers, it removes 25% of their current health.
For example, if an enemy Officer currently has 80% of their health remaining and you hit them with a Steel attack, they will be left with 60%.
This makes Steel particularly useful against powerful Officers and can dramatically speed up difficult battles.
Other Elements Are Still Fun
Steel may be one of the strongest choices, but the other elements can still be very useful depending on how you like to play.
Fire
Fire deals full damage even when the target is airborne.
This makes it particularly useful when you want to focus on a single target and continue dealing damage regardless of whether they are in the air.
Electricity
Electricity electrifies the target.
When the affected enemy hits the ground, both that enemy and nearby enemies can take damage.
Because of this, Electricity can be a fun choice if you want additional AoE damage.
Wind
Wind does not directly deal damage, but it can help with crowd control.
I don’t use Wind as much myself, but it can be useful if you are having trouble with large groups of peons surrounding you.
How Elemental Attacks Work
Elemental attacks are activated through specific charge attacks.
When you perform a charge attack that is affected by your weapon’s element, any enemies hit by that attack will suffer the elemental effect.
However, there is an important detail here.
Not every character activates their elemental effect with the same attack combination.
Elemental Charge Attacks Differ Between Characters
The charge attack that activates an element depends on the character.
For example, Cao Cao’s 4th weapon activates its elemental attack with:
SSSSST
Here, S represents a normal/simple attack and T represents a charged attack.
On the other hand, Xiahou Dun’s elemental attack occurs with:
ST
So, if you are trying to build an elemental weapon, you need to know which charge attack actually activates the element for your character.
4th and 5th Weapons Can Have Different Elemental Attacks
You also need to remember that the elemental charge attack can change between a character’s 4th and 5th weapons.
For example, Diao Chan’s:
- 4th weapon: SSSSST
- 5th weapon: SSST
That means simply knowing a character’s elemental attack isn’t always enough. You should check which weapon you are using.
For detailed weapon information, you can also check dedicated 4th and 5th weapon guides before deciding which weapon you want to fuse.
Choose Your Weapon Carefully
Certain charge attacks work much better with elemental effects than others.
Because of this, don’t automatically assume that a 5th weapon will be better just because it is a higher-level weapon.
Before fusing, compare the 4th and 5th weapons and see which charge attack you prefer.
Sometimes a weapon with a more convenient elemental attack will be much more useful in actual combat.
What About Lower-Level Weapons?
There is some uncertainty around whether lower-level weapons should match the elemental attack pattern of the 4th weapon.
For example, the idea is that Xiahou Dun’s lower-level weapons might use the same ST elemental attack pattern as his 4th weapon.
However, this is not something I would treat as confirmed without testing it yourself.
If you are experimenting with lower-level weapons, it is worth checking the actual charge attacks in-game before spending valuable fusion materials.
Best Place to Farm Weapons
If you need weapons for fusion, one stage I personally recommend is Battle of Wan Castle on the Dong Zhuo’s Forces side.
Play it on Xtreme and use Chaos difficulty if you are farming for strong weapon ingredients.
There are other short stages that can work too, but Wan Castle is a convenient option.
Battle of Wan Castle Farming Route
If you want to farm quickly, you can follow this general procedure:
- Kill Hu Che Er and his Vice General.
- Kill Zhang Xiu only.
- Kill Zhao Yun and his Vice General.
- Kill Liu Bei and both of his Vice Generals.
Following this route should give you five weapons in total.
These weapons can then be used as ingredients for your fusion experiments.
Getting Better Weapon Stats
Elements aren’t the only thing that matters when creating a powerful weapon.
If you want the best possible stats, you will need good-quality weapon ingredients.
This means playing on Chaos difficulty, especially on harder maps, and achieving multiple perfect combos before collecting your weapons.
The better the ingredients you obtain, the more potential you have when creating a powerful final weapon.
Another Weapon Farming Method
Another method is to play Battle of Shi Ting on the Wu side.
The idea is to build up 10 perfect combos and then collect all the weapons you can find on the map.
You can also collect items from the map if you need them.
I haven’t personally tested this method extensively in the remaster, but it was a useful weapon-farming method in the original version, so it is worth experimenting with if you want to build up a large stockpile of fusion materials.
Diao Chan Weapon Fusion Example
One particularly crazy example is Diao Chan’s 4th weapon combined with Steel.
The combination can be extremely powerful because of how the Steel element works alongside her attack pattern.
If you are looking for an example of just how strong weapon fusion can make a character, Diao Chan is definitely one of the combinations worth trying.
Weapon fusion is one of the most interesting additions in Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered because it gives you much more freedom than the original weapon system.
You can take weapons that aren’t quite perfect and modify them into something that better suits your character and playstyle. Elements are especially important, with Steel being one of the strongest choices if you are looking for maximum effectiveness.
At the same time, don’t feel like you always have to chase the meta. Fire, Electricity, and Wind can all be fun to experiment with, and sometimes a weapon that feels good to use is more valuable than one that simply has the strongest stats.
If you want to build the most powerful Officers possible, start farming good weapon ingredients, learn which charge attacks activate each element, and carefully compare your 4th and 5th weapons before fusing them.