Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate general speedrunning guide

Aggiornato 4 months ago di AKheon

Introduction

Hello and welcome to my Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate speedrunning guide. So... why this game in particular?

This may very well be my favorite out of all the Musou-games. It has a great roster, fun glitches and a lot of content. It's absurd and intense. I find it so good that I even forgive some of its grindiness. Sadly, these games are not very popular as speed games, but I hope that will change one day.

Important note

I've hit the character limit for this guide on Speedrun.com. Since I still have so much information to add, I decided to move the whole thing on Github instead. Please see here for the latest version.

The guide on this website is not actively updated any longer, so some of the information below may be obsolete.

About Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate as a speed game

The game is overall rather stable, and I've only seen it crash a few times in the years I've played it.
The game doesn't have a lot of downtime. All cutscenes can be skipped and loading times aren't too long.
It has a bunch of stylish looking time saving glitch tactics.
Full-game runs which aim for the first ending are under 90 minutes long, which isn't too bad.
Running other, shorter categories is also an option. For instance, individual levels are a lot of fun.
For individual level runs or other type of NG+ runs, you have to grind to get good characters first.
Some of the fastest tactics are RNG-heavy, although less so on the PC-version.
Several levels contain escort missions, which are fairly slow.

Version info

v.1.3c Fixed formatting around the file a bit.
v.1.3b Added observations about the PC version. Added more info about TTA-related mechanics glitch. Added more info about sloped floor clip. Added a bunch of lesser speed tactics. Rewrote some sections.
v. 1.2 Added Xu Shu speed tactics and horse high jump. Updated some descriptions.
v. 1.1 Added many new tactics. Listings at the end still not completed.

Known glitches and exploits

First, a note about terminology. On PS3 and PS4, the internal frame rate of the game fluctuates at random. This is important to note because certain glitch effects can only happen - or work better - when frame rate is lower. In the past, I've called this effect "lag" or "background lag", and these terms may still crop up here and there in this guide.

The PC version allows the user to set their own frame rate. Setting vsync to 30 forces the game to always be in slower frame rate. In other words, PC is the more reliable platform for running any kind of glitched categories in WO3U. I will make a specific note about which glitches are influenced by vsync in the sections below.

Infinite jump

Infinite jumping means aerial movement where you chain together air specials and jumps to gain, effectively, infinite height or horizontal movement. It's not too difficult to do once you learn the timing.

Normally you can only use an air special once while airborne, but you can bypass that limitation by switching characters in air. If you're using Speed-type characters, it's pretty easy to chain together air specials with two or even three characters since you can also use double jump in between specials.

Naturally, some characters are better at infinite jumping than others. It largely depends on what kind of an air special a character has, and also whether they are Speed-type to take advantage of double jumping. Some characters like Yukimura Sanada are especially effective at moving horizontally through air, some like Hanzo Hattori are better at gaining pure height.

There's a tier list further below detailing which characters are the best for infinite jumping.

This glitch didn't exist in original Warriors Orochi 3 since it did not have air specials.

Videos:
1, AKheon's demonstration of wallzip and infinite jumping in Battle of Odawara Castle:

Save & Quit infinite jump

If you save & quit in air, upon reloading you end up at the same aerial coordinates but with a completely neutral character. In other words, if you have some air attack that gives your character positive height, you can keep saving & loading while performing the attack to gain infinite height.

This is the only way to infinite jump with only a single character. On PS3 and PS4 the loading times are slow enough that it's generally not worth using in runs, but on PC it might be a different story.

It's untested whether this glitch works in the original Warriors Orochi 3. It probably does, though, and there's a good chance it's the only way to do an infinite jump in that game.

Videos:
1, AKheon's vid:

Angled glitch

This is a glitch that impacts your character's z-axis so that they gain a slight forward angle. As a side effect, your character sinks into the ground while doing attacks, especially attacks with lengthy, non-looping animations that feature a lot of forward movement.

This can be a faster alternative to infinite jumping, and it comes in handy in many places around the game. However, you need a ladder to start this glitch, so you can't do it in every level.

Not every character has attacks that are suitable for going under walls. Besides that, some walls are "thicker" than others and harder to breach. Thin garrison gates are the easiest walls to go under, whereas regular garrison walls are usually considered thick, and can only be breached by a handful of characters.

Having more Agility on your weapon apparently makes it slightly harder to go under walls.

There are two ways to start this glitch, but both require at the very least a ladder. First setup has you breaking out of the ladder with a Samurai-style musou. First, bring a Samurai-style character near a ladder. Start their Musou, get on a ladder and then let the timer of the Musou run out. At the end, the character will break out of the ladder climb, keeping the angle that they had while on the ladder.

Another way to do a ladder break-out is to activate TTA while on a ladder. This allows you to use angled glitch with a larger variety of different teams, since you don't need to worry about having a Samurai-style character with you at all times.

In some circumstances the TTA-setup might even be faster than a Samurai-musou setup, since certain characters like Wang Yuanji with a Confluence-weapon can get a full TTA-bar in just under a second by hitting a large crowd of enemies. However, as a drawback, when you use TTA on ladder, the TTA mode becomes active and you then need to find a way to end TTA early (with water, angled floor or a cutscene) or suffer a huge time loss when the TTA-timer runs out and you get that big flashy finishing blow cutscene.

There's a tier list further below detailing which characters are best at angled wall breaching.

This glitch DOES work in the original Warriors Orochi 3.

Videos:
1, AKheon's video:

Wallclimb (or wallzip)

If you do air attacks as soon as possible after a jump while adjacent to certain walls or objects, your character may zip upwards at a fast speed. This is the single fastest way to gain height in this game, but getting a zip to happen can be quite random. Good positioning and certain arrangements of level objects help a lot in getting a wallclimb. For instance, there's a nearly guaranteed wallclimb location in Luoyang if you position your character next to the opened palace and the nearby large pot.

This glitch is much more likely to occur at a lower frame rate. Although still useful, this means it's somewhat more situational on PS4. If you want to try it out on PC, keep vsync at 30.

Another way to increase the likelihood of this glitch is to use characters who can buff their own animation speed. Zhang He is the best wallzipper in the game because his air special is fast to setup and gives all his animations a significant speed buff; Xiahou Ba is a close second. Other characters who have a lesser speed buff like Zhang Liao or Zhenji also theoretically have an small advantage in this regard.

This glitch works in the original WO3 too, but it's more difficult to take advantage of since there are no air specials (i.e. you can only do a limited height wallzip that can't be chained into further air attacks).

Videos:
1, AKheon's video:

Horse high jump

One small quality-of-life improvement the developers added in WO3U is being able to sprint off with your horse immediately as you begin mounting it instead of having to wait for your character's mounting animation to complete. However, it turns out that this innocuous detail actually allows a unique high jump tactic.

If you immediately try doing a horse jump as you are mounting your horse, your character gains to access some inputs that are normally disabled in air. The most obvious use for this is being able to dismount mid-air to gain some unintended height. This can be done with any character to universally gain a fair amount of height with only a simple setup. It seems you gain slightly more height if you do this trick with the special horses (e.g. Red Hare) since they are taller and jump higher.

You can also use the exploit to switch characters, block or do horseback attacks during the horse jump, but so far I haven't noticed any particularly devastating effects from any of this. Any horseback attacks appear to cancel upon landing from the jump. Using TTA during this time is not possible. Doing a Samurai-style musou in air works normally, but a Dynasty-style musou interrupts the jump and immediately returns the horse back to the ground level. If done over water surface, you actually clip under it temporarily, which looks funny.

This trick doesn't work in the original WO3 since you can't run or jump with your horse as you are mounting it.

Videos:
1, AKheon's video:

TTA-related mechanics glitch

This is an esoteric mechanics glitch that is fairly hard to put into words. It seems to split character model & data into two separate entities whenever you do attacks, causing various odd side effects.

To start this glitch, you need a full TTA-bar, your horse and either deep water or slippery floor that is available at ground level. Getting a full TTA-bar is not a problem if you can just use a Confluence-weapon, but the second requirement makes the setup for this glitch quite specialized. It also doesn't help that the timing for the glitch is nearly frame-precise, so it's not exactly effortless to pull off like angled glitch.

Instructions: get a full TTA-bar. Get on your horse. Ride into deep water or slippery floor and activate TTA at precisely the correct time. This should start the glitch.

This trick has a number of very peculiar effects, although sadly, most of them are quite fringe and I'm not sure how useful they could be in speedruns:

characters with lengthy "dash" attacks (f.e. Yukimura Sanada) can propel themselves backwards near walls, in the process becoming able to damage targets or hit triggers through walls.
every character can start doing sloped floor clipping completely effortlessly, especially characters with lengthy "dash" attacks. The effect is particularly unique at tall cliffs that are covered in slippery collision, as you can project your character through them and then zip upwards to ground level for super fast "mountain climbing". The same mechanism probably also allows you to go under walls that are near a downwards incline.
Yukimura Sanada's air special seemingly teleports him from point A to point B, which might allow him to teleport past triggers.
every character can generate an immense amount of speed by jumping frame-precisely after most of their attacks. Lengthy "dash" type attacks give more speed. You can fly from one side of the level to the other with a proper setup, but sadly, the walls are made of such sturdy stuff that even a speed as high as this hasn't helped in wall clipping.
you can clip through non-sloped floor if there's a ledge right next to it behind a wall. Might be helpful in some elevated indoors area somewhere?

This glitch didn't exist in the original Warriors Orochi 3 since you couldn't use TTA on horseback in it.

Videos:
1, AKheon's video:

Attacking through walls

Some characters have attacks that can reach enemies from behind the walls. In case breaching into some enemy stronghold early is not an option, simply sniping enemies through the walls can be a good alternative in speedruns. So far, the best characters to do this with are Nezha (Human) and Xiahou Dun.

Some characters like Xiahou Yuan, Guo Jia and Gyuki have an air special that shoots a downwards aerial projectile at a fairly steep angle. This projectile goes through walls and has an effectively near-infinite range, only exploding upon hitting the ground. Although potentially powerful, you need a lot of height if you plan on using these attacks for hitting targets through walls at long distance.

It's untested if this glitch works in original WO3. If it does, it's bound to be less effective as a tactic since the best methods of attacking through walls don't exist in that version.

Videos:
1, AKheon's video example of doing this in Battle of Nanjun:

Benkei's fast movement

Benkei's air special is quite an unique attack. It utilizes Benkei's base speed PLUS it also gains a percentage-based speed bonus from Agility weapon property. This means Benkei can move significantly faster than the usual speed cap if he has both max speed and Agility 10 on his weapon.

The air special has a bit of a cooldown when it ends, but you can skip most of it by switching characters. It's a bit of a bother, but this saves a second or two per use.

Benkei's air special has some other uses too that increase his versatility as a character. When you use the air special, you gain a quick burst of height, making it a decent high jump finisher. While digging underground, Benkei is also immune to water or slippery collision, so you can speed through zones with water without being hindered at all.

I first learnt about this trick from GameFAQs, but unfortunately I don't remember who the poster was.

This movement tactic is useful but somewhat situational on PS4 because it only happens at low frame rate. On PC, you can get it to happen 100% consistently with vsync 30.

This glitch does not exist in the original WO3 since it didn't have air specials.

Videos:
1, AKheon's example of using this trick at Battle of Tong Gate:

Xiahou Yuan's fast movement

Xiahou Yuan can move nearly as fast or potentially even faster than Benkei with his regular air attack that has a neutral L-stick bug. To try this out, do a running jump, then quickly let go of L-stick and do his regular air attack. Xiahou Yuan will build up some glitchy momentum as long as he stays in air and you don't touch L-stick.

It's nearly impossible to get the optimal timing for this movement tactic all the time because of its strange input. It doesn't help that most Dynasty-characters have a run cycle oddity that makes them gain a lot of speed during the first few frames after they start running. If you jump during these few frames, the movement tactic will also be more potent, but as established, the precise timing makes it very tricky to get consistently.

Having a maxed out base Speed and Agility 10 on weapon makes this movement tactic more potent, but it works surprisingly well even with a completely vanilla Xiahou Yuan. This makes it increasingly worthwhile in many run categories, especially in the original WO3, where this may very well be the fastest way to move on foot in the absence of Benkei's speed digging. Plus it doesn't cost any musou to use either.

This movement tactic suffers from the same inconsistency as Benkei speed digging - it only works when the frame rate is low. It works 100% consistently on PC with vsync 30.

Videos:
1, AKheon's example:

Triple Thrift fast movement / Horse boosting

If you have three Thrift-characters on your team and you equip your team leader with Belt of Concentration which continuously regenerates your Musou, you can endlessly spam Musou while on horse and move at a speed that nearly equals Benkei.

One positive to this movement tactic on PS4 is that it doesn't rely on frame rate and is therefore more consistent overall than Benkei's speed movement. As a drawback, this character setup limits your ability to do other glitches like infinite jumping, angled glitch or wallzipping since most Thrift-characters are not optimal choices for doing these tricks.

You should unlock Red Hare or Matsukaze for horse boosting since these horses have a slightly higher base speed, increasing the effectiveness of their boost. Horse boosting also becomes more powerful if you can get winged boots from enemies first.

This tactic works and is incredibly useful in the original WO3. However, since you don't have Belt of Concentration in it, you have to take the extra step of switching characters between each musou to continue doing this movement tactic.

Videos:
1, AKheon's example of using this at Battle of Shizugatake:

Wang Yi zipping

Wang Yi's regular air attack has a neutral L-stick bug. If you do it high enough in air and let L-stick go neutral, the character's air momentum starts building exponentially. Eventually she will zip around uncontrollably, potentially going even outside the map boundaries.

As for this trick's uses in a speedrun, you can either move a long stretch forward almost immediately or teleport past walls by using the zipping. However, it's hard to get the most useful results on purpose, so this trick might be best saved for individual level runs.

The results of this glitch seems to be tied to vsync. You only get the weirder zipping effects on vsync 30. On vsync 60, the glitch seems to be somewhat more controllable and it only grants you near-instantaneous movement between two locations.

This trick DOES work in the original Warriors Orochi 3, although it's a bit harder to get started since you can't get height as easily.

Videos:
1, AKheon's video of using this trick at Battle of Yiling:

Xu Shu speed tactic and high jump

Xu Shu's first charge attack (C1) causes an unique dash towards any enemy on contact. This is quite an unique attack that gives you a very high speed and then automatically cancels into a double jump. It turns out that, although double jump speed is normally capped, if you quickly perform air charge attack and keep L-stick neutral as Xu Shu begins his jump, you are able to avoid the speed cap and perform an air attack which uses the extremely high speed of the preceding dash.

This trick doesn't seem entirely consistent because C1 itself is not entirely consistent. Possibly because of level geometry-related reasons, sometimes the double jump doesn't happen as expected at the end of the attack. Even besides that, doing air charge attack at just the right time to get the carried over momentum may be frame precise. You can't steer during the speedy movement and you also lose your speed if you bump into any enemies on the way, so although the speed this trick gives you is extremely high - even exceeding Benkei's speed movement - it is quite situational to use.

I'm not certain if this tactic also requires a low frame rate (like Benkei's and Xiahou Yuan's speed movements) to work.

Xu Shu's launcher (C2) is also potentially quite buggy. If it misses contact with an enemy because of distance, Xu Shu will glide upwards a fairly long distance. This is potentially an even faster way to gain height than zipping with Zhang He, but it always requires an enemy to perform and seems somewhat inconsistent. The height you receive also seems a little bit random? Having some height difference between you and the enemy may make doing it slightly easier.

This trick doesn't work in the original WO3 since Xu Shu was only added as a playable character in WO3U.

I first saw this trick in gmptdgtm's runs on Twitter; the credits probably go to him.

Videos:
1, AKheon's demo:

Zhang He / Xiahou Ba speed boost

Both of these characters have a special move that significantly buffs the speed of all their actions for a short time, including swimming, climbing and jumping. This makes both combat and navigation faster, which is great in a speedrun.

Unfortunately, the normal run cycle of your character is limited by the speed cap - 360 Speed - even while speed-boosted. You can kind of bypass this limitation by jumping everywhere, since the speed cap is not enforced the same way while in air. Although constant jumping can make navigation feel a bit bumpy and inconvenient, it still helps get a bit of extra mileage out of each speed boost.

Speed boosting has some situational uses as well. Since it affects non-combat animations, it could sometimes be useful for climbing a long ladder faster than normal. Speed boosting also makes wallclimbing easier to do.

Zhang He is the better choice for speed boosting since he has a higher base speed and his air special is also faster to do than Xiahou Ba's ground special, plus it costs less musou too. But in the original Warriors Orochi 3, you'll have to use Xiahou Ba instead.

Zuo Ci fast movement

Another instance of a neutral L-stick bug. If you do Zuo Ci's air special with a neutral L-stick, you get far more speed than intended and move at a velocity that easily breaks the speed cap as long as you stay in air. Having Agility 10 on your weapon makes the tactic even more powerful. This is likely the second fastest aerial movement in the entire game (second only to Wang Yi's near-instantaneous zipping).

You stop getting super speed if you at any point touch the L-stick or Zuo Ci brushes any walls, so you can't steer very well during this attack and it's not really practical to use in tight spaces either. This tactic is mostly useful when used down slopes in wide open spaces, but there's a chance that it may even exceed the average speed of Benkei or Xiahou Yuan speed movement when used optimally.

Getting super speed requires a low frame rate. Therefore, it's inconsistent on PS4 but can be done reliably on PC with vsync 30. Even on vsync 60, you get a bit of extra speed to this attack by keeping L-stick neutral, but it's not quite as high.

This movement tactic does not exist in regular WO3 because it doesn't have air specials.

Yoshitsune Minamoto fast movement

Imagine Zuo Ci's fast movement tech, except with Yoshitsune's air special. This one doesn't require keeping L-stick neutral, though. Agility on weapon makes it more effective.

It's harder to move long distances with this attack since it descends faster than Zuo Ci's air special, even if the speed is equally impressive. The attack is also less flexible than Zuo Ci's air special since you can't steer at all during it.

Getting super speed requires a low frame rate. Therefore, it's inconsistent on PS4 but can be done reliably on PC with vsync 30.

This movement tactic does not exist in regular WO3 because it doesn't have air specials.

Pang Tong fast movement

Pang Tong has a very mobile air special that lets him propel through the air at a high speed. This is likely the fourth fastest way to move through air, almost certainly exceeding the speed cap. Agility helps make it even more effective.

This movement tactic's main advantage is maneuverability, since you can steer quite freely while doing Pang Tong's air special.

This movement tactic does not exist in regular WO3 because it doesn't have air specials.

Seimei Abe / Sanzang fast movement

Seimei Abe and Sanzang have an air charge attack that turns them into a glider for a time. This is likely the fifth fastest way to move in air. Both Agility and maxed out base speed make it more effective.

The main advantages of this movement tactic are its floatiness and maneuverability. These two characters descend really slow, so this tactic can be useful if you need to preserve your height over a long distance while f.e. navigating a specific path.

Seimei Abe can get a bit more height to his glide by doing jump -> regular air attack -> charge air attack. He also falls down faster after you are done gliding. Both of these things in my opinion make him the better choice in speedruns.

Seimei Abe was only added in WO3U, which means Sanzang is the only character you can do this tactic with in the original WO3.

Garrison gate clip

There is a recurring garrison gate asset in WO3U that has a gap to its side, allowing you to clip through it from either side. The difficulty of doing this varies depending on the area, but it's usually not too hard.

To go from outside to inside, you usually have to be on foot. Get a character with a high base speed, then repeatedly attempt to run through the side of the gate. Press L1 repeatedly at a certain rhythm to stop and start running again and again, this should work. Most attacks that move your character at a high speed also work for doing this clip, but those are more situational and hard to use in my opinion.

To go from inside to outside, you need a horse. Direct a horse to the corner of the gate, get a good angle and use a horse musou boost.

Some applications of the garrison clip do not work in the original WO3, for whatever reason. I've never seen the version where you go from outside to inside work, although inside to outside using horse musou boosting can work. Perhaps the collision of the gate is different?

Videos:
1, AKheon's demonstration:

Sloped floor clip pt. 1 - special attack bug

There are a few ways to go through sloped floor (like staircases) in this game. One of the easiest yet at the same time most elusive methods is an esoteric bug present in a few of this game's special attacks. Interrupting an ongoing action with a buggy special attack, your character will immediately "zip" to the direction opposite to where they were travelling, essentially quite close to their original starting location. This lets you move your character up to 3 meters in only a frame or two, although to get a full benefit from this glitch, you need a long "dash"-type attack (longer projected movement means a larger zip) as well as good timing.

All the known attacks for this purpose are Taigong Wang's ground special, Motonari Mori's air special, Kotaru Fuma's air special and the horse Musou. Taigong Wang is the easiest to utilize. For instance, do his sprint attack but interrupt it before it's over with ground special. This makes Taigong Wang zip backwards maybe a length of 2 meters. If you do this while running down stairs, you will sink into floor while at it.

Motonari Mori and Kotaru Fuma are slightly different and arguably harder to use since all of their zip-compatible ground moves have to cancel into their air special. So, while f.e. Motonari Mori can overall zip a longer distance than Taigong Wang, he also rises a little higher in air while zipping, thus making it harder to actually pass through floor. This also means you cannot use Motonari Mori or Kotaru Fuma to zip in the original WO3, since it didn't have air specials.

As for doing this trick with the horse: the animation in which the horse gradually slows down after a sprint can be used for backwards zipping if you use Musou during it. Although it's quite easy to clip through sloped floor by doing this, staying out of bounds can be hard because the horse will soon sprint forward, leaving its spot under the sloped floor. To prevent this, save & quit lets you keep your coordinates out of bounds, and the horse stays there as well.

Most attacks in the game project forward, and thus interrupting them with a buggy special attack zips your character backwards. However, Motonari Mori is able to project backwards and thus zip forward with his C3 combo. Categorically it seems to be almost the same thing, however.

In rare situations, like if you're squeezed between an open gate and a wall, it's possible to use a buggy special zip to breach the gate. Perhaps this tactic would work as a general gate clip in some rare situations, but so far it doesn't seem to work very consistently, and it doesn't seem like you can use a horse to create an artificial cramped space for clipping through gates either. At any rate, this potential application needs a bit more research.

Videos:
1, Akheon's vid

Sloped floor clip part 2 - high velocity

Any character who can acquire a high enough velocity is able to sink into and eventually breach sloped floor. The number of characters who are able to do this is actually fairly large! Having Agility on your weapon makes it more consistent and easier, as Agility increases the effective speed your character has during attacks.

Jia Xu's C1 makes him almost immediately zip forward over 2 meters. Especially with Agility 10, this becomes an incredibly useful tool for sloped floor clipping of most types. He can breach your typical steep sloped floor like the stairs at Nanzhong as well as shorter and less steep stairs like the ones at Anegawa or Honnoji. The fact that he projects a decent distance forward while doing this also means that he can potentially zip under smaller gates that are uphill.

Xiahou Yuan has a rather unique sloped floor clipping utility. His bugged regular air attack allows him to easily get a huge speed while flying forward near ground level. This lets him clip through even just very mildly sloped floor that no other character is able to clip, f.e. the various mildly inclined walkways in Escape from the Mirror Realm. However, it should be noted that this game has an esoteric mechanism where certain aspects of your character's speed become capped to around 150 when over staircases or slippery floor. This affects Xiahou Yuan's regular air attack as well, which means that although he is masterful at sloped floor clipping in general, he can't clip through actual staircases particularly well. C5 can help with clipping steep staircases, but that's about it.

You can also breach sloped floor using Ryu Hayabusa and Ayane. Both of these characters have a slightly glitchy air charge attack where they sink inside the floor a little bit upon landing. Simply run towards the stairs, do an air charge attack close to ground level and hope you clip through. A high base Speed and having Agility on your weapon seems to help.

Other characters who are able to achieve high enough speed to sloped floor clip include Hanzo Hattori (air special), Liu Shan (C3 combo), Sima Shi (C3 combo), Kasumi (C1 combo) and Zhao Yun (ground special). There are possibly more.

Sloped floor clip part 3 - clipping with mounts

Simply leaving your mount standing on sloped floor and then pushing against it from below at high speed can give you additional leverage for clipping through. The "ceiling" provided by the collision of your mount lets you to clip sloped floor without needing such a high velocity as you normally would, this giving new characters access to sloped floor clips. This can be done with any of your mounts, but elephant and bear are easier than the horse in my opinion.

The bear is particularly unique. With some setups, all you need to do to clip through steep sloped floor is to run against the bear at a high speed. This means that essentially any character with a high enough running speed can now do sloped floor clip, making this rather esoteric trick much more accessible for a larger variety of different teams.

With bear or elephant, dismounting while the mount's back-left side is against some collision like a railing can also create a sloped floor breach. You can use the repelling force of the railing and the mount to "zip" you at a high enough speed upstairs that you clip through the floor. The positioning is easier to do with characters like Momiji and Hundun who leap a maximally long distance away from the mount when dismounting. Bear is much easier for this kind of a clip than elephant since elephant is a much taller mount.

2, AKheon's vid of sloped floor clipping with a mount:

Sloped floor clip part 4 - general info

Although quite a rich and storied glitch, the sloped floor clip unfortunately has a rather selective use in speedruns. You need to find the correct type of geometry for it, for instance a floor with a 45 degree angle. For certain types of clips like Taigong Wang's backward zips, there also needs to be a second layer of floor underneath. Otherwise, your character is simply returned back on ground level after the clip, and nothing is gained from the clip.

Any velocity-based sloped floor clip becomes easier to use with a lower frame rate. Therefore, if you want to try this stuff out, keep vsync at 30.

Many of the principles here should work in other Warriors-games from this era too. F.e. the horse Musou backwards zip has been proven to exist in Dynasty Warriors 7 as well.

Since the original Warriors Orochi 3 did not have infinite jumping or easily accessible wallclimb, sloped floor clip might be more useful in that game to f.e. do some unique shortcuts in levels like Anegawa or Honnoji.

Escort mission time saves

You can speed up escort missions by pushing the escort NPC around instead of waiting for them to run to their destination. You can do this on foot, but it's generally recommended to use a horse for this purpose since they have a slightly wider collision. Red Hare is bigger and faster than a regular horse, and probably your best option for NPC pushing, although it can be difficult to do an extended push since NPCs tend to slip past your horse quite easily.

This trick only works when the NPC is in "navigation" mode, i.e. they're intentionally trying to head for a specific destination. Stationary NPCs resist attempts to move them, and they soon run back to their original location if you move them more than a few meters.

There are some areas in the game where NPCs have a hard time moving around. They may constantly get stuck on doorways or collision, wasting a lot of time. In a situation like this, it might not be worth it to try pushing the NPC. Better option might be to move away from them and look away - being off-camera makes an NPC move towards their destination without getting stuck as much.

Replacing an escort character with their generic officer variant, f.e. turning Ma Chao into Ma Teng in Breakthrough in Yiling, seems to be a bad idea. It seems generic officers all have an abysmal running speed, probably somewhere in the 100-110 range. At any rate, they always seem to run slower than even the slowest of your playable characters.

Other minor time saves for New Game-runs

Most Dynasty-style characters have a few frames after they start running where they have a very high speed. So, tapping L1 while running at a certain rhythm can speed up naturally slow Dynasty characters a lot. Still, this is a pretty fringe speed tactic, since at that point in the game where knowing this could be useful, you'd preferably ride a horse everywhere.

You can also speed up some naturally slow Technique characters by side- or backstepping everywhere, but again, using a horse should in most cases be more helpful.

Other notes

As a general note, I think the outer boundaries in every level are infinitely high, thus preventing you from going under or over them. However, specific level collision like gates aren't usually any higher than what they look.

Most characters who can buff their own animation speed also become much faster at climbing ladders and swimming. This could be handy to know if using a ladder is necessary in some level.

Preparing for NG+ runs

Getting your characters in a perfect shape requires a lot of grinding, there's just no way around that. However, there are several things you can do to speed up the process.

Gauntlet-Mode is the key

This is an infinitely replayable mode where it's very easy to get experience. There are also a ton of unique resources you can't get in any other modes, such as ingredients from which you can craft orbs and unique 5-star weapons for each character. Doing this mode is the key to building the perfect characters.

Every time you replay Gauntlet-mode, you unlock new type of levels (as indicated by their color in the level select-screen). The only difference between level types is that later levels start with a higher miasma; this can speed up grinding since certain good items drop more frequently (or: can only drop?) on higher miasma levels.

Starting out

It all starts from having decent level characters who can survive for extended periods of time on Gauntlet-mode.

When starting out with weak characters, try to stay inside levels a fairly short amount of time since difficulty escalates quickly as the Miasma level grows. Use a formation that has "Dem. Eye" (or later "Getaway") to find the exit portal quickly when needed.

Search for purple portals to get experience fast. Gaining a lot of experience awards a lot of growth points afterwards too, which is also a big help to leveling up your characters. Focus on getting a single character to lv. 100 first. Lv. 100 is a game changer, because this is when you can promote them and start using upgrade stones.

Out of the regular Gauntlet-mode starting characters, Zhou Yun is the best for grinding experience with. While he runs slower than Hanzo Hattori, he can be a real beast at taking down large groups of enemies. Try spamming the air special (jump cancelling in between uses) to destroy hundreds of troops in seconds.

As an additional tip for survival, try to form a team with a lot of Thrift-type characters, since having them around makes it easier to spam specials or Musou. Stay on the lookout for Thrifty people! For the record, all the characters with Thrift are Liu Shan, Motochika Chosokabe, No, Zhang Jiao, Xu Shu, Dong Zhuo, Nene, Hundun, Yinglong, Ayane, Mitsuhide Akechi, Wei Yan and Liu Bei. Some of them only unlock Thrift after you have promoted them.

After getting your first lv. 100 character

The game has a promotion exploit that allows you to hand out promotions to any character as soon as you just have a single character who can be promoted. To do this, enter the promotion menu, place cursor on your lv. 100 character, then quickly press up or down at the same time as you press 'X' (or equivalent) to affirm. Done correctly, the "are you sure?" sub-menu opens up, but the graphics in the background change to display the wrong character. If you now choose 'yes', the wrong character will get promoted. The original character stays at lv. 100, and so this can be repeated indefinitely.

Videos:
1, AKheon's video:

Meanwhile, upgrade stones are a way to enhance stats beyond the normal limit. The same menu glitch works with upgrade stones as well, allowing you to dupe them at will. Put cursor on a character who has a lot of upgrade stones, then press 'X' (or equivalent) at the same time as you press up or down. This will dupe all the upgrade stones to the other promoted character.

This is also an easy way to get your speed to the maximum speed cap, which is 360. Normally you can't boost your character's speed more than 180 / 200 (depending on their promotion level) with upgrade stones. However, if you put the cursor on a low speed character, then do the same menu glitch again, the game assumes your second character's speed is in fact the first character's low speed, and therefore doesn't restrict you as much.

It's much faster to play Gauntlet-mode with a bunch of maximum speed, maximum stat characters compared to doing things the regular way! Although, having good weapons is actually more significant than having max stats as far as dealing damage goes. On that same note...

Acquiring 5-star weapons

The Gauntlet-mode shop is trash; you'll never unlock decent weapons there. To get good weapons to start with, it's recommended to play Story-mode up to later chapters (like Chapter 4) and use the Story-mode shop to purchase yourself 4-star weapons.

Unlocking 5-star weapons is a painful grind. To get the right ingredients, you have to defeat famous officers at a high miasma level so that they may randomly drop their personal item. You need at least two for any 5-star weapon. You can see the names of the officers who will appear in any given level from the level select-menu if you want to go hunting for these items.

It might be worth it maxing out a big-star weapon for some Thrift-character to get a big early boost to your attack power. Hanging out in high miasma fights tends to drop some weapons that have a boosted innate power; with any luck, you can replace big-star and 4-star weapons pretty soon with a dropped weapon and that way increase your effectiveness while waiting for those 5-star weapons to arrive. Ultimately, there is no alternative to 5-star weapons that you've hand-crafted and set-up yourself.

Try to unlock Mystic Bells so that dropped items are vacuumed towards your character so that you don't miss anything in the heat of fighting.

Useful weapon traits?

In short, anything that boosts damage: Brawn, Might, Frenzy, Blast, Aerial, etc. depending on what type of damage you're planning on doing with the character.

Agility increases all weapon attack speeds. It's a must for speedrunning; not only does it increase your damage-per-second, but it also helps with the speed of any movement technique that is based around attacks, f.e. Benkei's or Pang Tong's air specials.

Osmosis is a life-saver if you decide to break Gauntlet-mode with a Samurai-style Thrift character like No. Start your musou to become invulnerable and keep supplying yourself with infinite energy by doing a charge attack every now and then, simple as that.

Alacrity gives you a health & musou refill at every 500-hit combo, which again completely breaks Gauntlet-mode if you have a Samurai-style character who can generate a lot of combo, f.e. Motonari Mori.

Bombast is similar, giving you some free musou-energy every 500 hits of a combo. If you are playing as a character who has good specials and can generate combo easily, this can make them nearly invulnerable.

Aggression gives the helpful War God's Axe (i.e. attack buff) effect every 200 hits. You won't reach 200 hits in most levels while doing individual level runs, but it's definitely useful when grinding.

Procurement in your weapon duplicates all item drops all of the time, which essentially cuts the grind short by half. Incredibly useful to have.

Building up compatibility

After you have a 5-star weapon, it's only at a third or so of its full power. To get a hefty +99 damage bonus to it, you have to use it in combat. A lot.

The process of building up compatibility is easier with characters who have massive, deadly area of effect attacks, like Xiahou Dun with his air special. Some characters don't have this luxury, making their grind feel that much grindier.

To speed up the accumulation of weapon exp, get Harmony on your weapon. Besides that, there are a few characters who have Expertise as a passive skill - keeping them in your party will also speed up the rate at which you gain weapon exp. These characters are Gyuki, Momiji, Rachel and Da Ji.

But still, even in the best case scenario, building up weapon exp is very, very slow indeed... Plan ahead on who you're going to use in individual level runs and upgrade selectively to save some time.

Building up skills

Developing your characters' passive skills such as Thrift is similar but somewhat faster than building up weapon experience. You should generally get S-rank skills by the time you've finished building up your 5-star weapon too. If you got problems with building up skills, you could always try putting Industry on your weapon or getting characters with Aptitude (i.e. Dodomeki or Gyuki) on your team.

Anything else?

You can also get some unique gear from Gauntlet-mode. You might not strictly need these items for NG+ speedruns, but they can't hurt. Belt of Concentration (continuous Musou regen) helps with some tactics, for instance.

Playing through Story-mode is necessary to unlock all the levels. Some individual levels also can make use of Matsukaze or Red Hare, so those are helpful to unlock as well.

Selecting your team

Helpful skills

Efficacy

Efficacy increases damage inflicted upon enemy officers. This skill doesn't influence character stats; rather, it just seems to increase your raw damage output against officers. This means it works even if your characters already have max stats, and is therefore very useful in categories where you use maxed out characters.

Vigor

Increases damage inflicted with combo attacks. This is another skill which should influence your raw damage output. Intuitively, I've always thought Efficacy might be more useful in runs since you don't really combo enemies all that much, but I can't say for sure.

Regeneration

Increases passive Musou regeneration. Might help in situations where you use a lot of Musou, like infinite jumping, but with max stats it's generally not that pertinent.

Thrift

Thrift reduces all Musou costs, and it has some specific uses in speedruns. If you have a team with three Thrift-characters, doing Musou on horse is so cheap that you can keep spamming it over and over, which is a good, unique fast movement tactic. Thrift is also the main way to break Gauntlet-mode in half.

Skills that are not useful for NG+ runs:

Fellowship

Increases damage inflicted with Switch Combos. This skill also influences your raw damage output, but so far I haven't really found an use for Switch Combos in a speedrun.

Focus, Fortitude, Impulse, Potence, Power, Speed, Technique, Wonder

If your character has max stats already, then these skills do nothing. Otherwise, they can be helpful.

Bounty, Acclaim

Getting more gems or exp is a part of the grind before the speedrun; no longer pertinent once you have max stats.

Dexterity, Solidarity

These two are defensive skills. You're not supposed to get hit all that much in a speedrun!

Impact, Stamina

These two skills grant health or musou back after every 100 KO. They are pretty useful in casual play, but not necessary at all in speedruns.

Trinity

Building up TTA gauge is generally not useful in runs since using the TTA attack takes so much time. Also, there's no TTA in Gauntlet-mode, so this trait is extra useless there.

Character tier lists

Top 5 characters for chainable horizontal air movement:

Yukimura Sanada, Xingcai, Hundun, Jia Xu, Yueying

Note: Zhou Yu's air special is also fast, chainable horizontal air movement, but it destroys your height.

Note: Huang Zhong gets a honorable mention. However, his air special turns him backwards and is pretty awkward to use for movement.

Top 5 characters for non-chainable horizontal air movement:

Seimei Abe, Sanzang, Pang Tong, Wei Yan, Xu Huang.

Note: Wang Yi's zipping is basically fastest non-chainable aerial movement, but it's quite situational.

Note: Benkei, Zuo Ci and Yoshitsune Minamoto get an honorable mention for their buggy air special speed.

Top 5 characters for chainable vertical air movement:

Hanzo Hattori, Xingcai, Yuan Shao, Wang Yuanji, Ayane

Note: Kai gets a honorable mention for being pretty similar to Ayane.

Note: Guan Ping is trickier to use since he doesn't have double jump, but his air special gives him a ludicrous amount of height fast.

Angled glitch tier list:

Explanation: "A" characters have some attack that is able to breach all or most walls of finite height. "B" characters are able to breach the both light and heavy gates. "C" characters can breach only light gates. "D" characters can't breach anything while angled.

A: Benkei, Cao Pi, Ginchiyo Tachibana, Hundun, Kiyomori Taira, Liu Bei, Lu Bu, Lu Xun, Ma Chao, Muneshige, Tachibana, Nagamasa Azai, Pang Tong, Ranmaru Mori, Sun Shangxiang, Sun Wukong, Xingcai, Yukimura Sanada, Zhang He, Zhang Liao

B: Achilles, Ayane, Bao Sanniang, Cao Cao, Cao Ren, Da Ji, Daqiao, Deng Ai, Dian Wei, Diaochan, Ding Feng, Dodomeki, Dong Zhuo, Gan Ning, Goemon Ichikawa, Gracia, Guan Suo, Guan Yu, Guo Huai, Guo Jia, Gyuki, Hanbei Takenaka, Hanzo Hattori, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Himiko, Huang Gai, Huang Zhong, Ieyasu Tokugawa, Jia Xu, Jiang Wei, Kaguya, Kai, Kanbei Kuroda, Kasumi, Katsuie Shibata, Keiji Maeda, Kenshin Uesugi, Kiyomasa Kato, Kojiro Sasaki, Kotaru Fuma, Kunoichi, Ling Tong, Liu Shan, Lu Meng, Ma Dai, Masamune Date, Masanori Fukushima, Meng Huo, Mitsuhide Akechi, Mitsunari Ishida, Motochika Chosokabe, Motonari Mori, Musashi Miyamoto, Nemea, Nezha, Nezha (Human), Nobunaga Oda, Nuwa, Oichi, Okuni, Orochi, Orochi X, Rachel, Ryu Hayabusa, Sakon Shima, Sanzang, Seimei Abe, Shennong, Shingen Takeda, Sima Shi, Sima Yi, Sima Zhao, Sophitia, Sterkenburg, Sun Ce, Sun Jian, Sun Quan, Tadakatsu Honda, Taigong Wang, Toshiie Maeda, Wang Yi, Wang Yuanji, Xiahou Dun, Xiahou Yuan, Xiaoqiao, Xu Huang, Xu Shu, Xu Zhu, Yinglong, Yoshihiro Shimazu, Yoshimoto Imagawa, Yoshitsune Minamoto, Yuan Shao, Yueying, Zhang Fei, Zhang Jiao, Zhao Yun, Zhenji, Zhong Hui, Zhou Tai, Zhou Yu, Zhuge Dan, Zhuge Liang, Zuo Ci

C: Cai Wenji, Fu Xi, Guan Ping, Ina, Joan of Arc, Lianshi, Momiji, Nene, Pang De, Shuten Doji, Susano’o, Taishi Ci, Ujiyasu Hojo, Wei Yan, Xiahou Ba, Zhurong

D : Aya, Kanetsugu Naoe, Kyubi, Magoichi Saika, No, Tamamo

Simplified wallzipping tier list:

S: Zhang He

A: in theory Gracia, Ranmaru Mori, Sakon Shima and Xiahou Ba, who can all buff their own attack speed and have an air special that is not a downsmash, are a notch better than other characters at wallzipping.

C: all remaining characters who have an air special that is not a downsmash.

D : everyone else.