(+++) Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below (+++)

(+) Any% - New Game+ (+)

Legend / Abbreviations

• CF : Cold Fission (Auroras Square spell)
• FS : Frost Slash (Auroras Triangle spell)
• RoP: Rain of Pain (Biancas Triangle spell)
• TC : Tension Charge (Hold Circle to build up Tension while standing still)

GENEREAL HINTS / PRELIMINARIES

• Before you start the game, enter the game configuration and disable FMV cutscenes.
• To effectively spam through the story text, mash Cancel and Down respectively, both auto-complete the current textbox and make them disappear.
• Pickup as many random item drops as you can (without altering your path too much) to reduce the amount of time to automatically gather them after the stage ends.
• If you pickup monster medaillons, for every "unknown" new monster you lose a few seconds to watching how the monster works. So pickup as few as possible. However, after you clear a stage and hear the winning chime (and all the time it auto-pickups the remaining items) you can pickup monster medals without that interruption. So pickup as many as you can during that time. Picking up item drops should have priority though !
• Auroras Buzz spell stuns mechanical enemies (so does Terrys Falcon Slash) causing them to receive extra damage from attacks. After recovering from the stun, they are immune to further stuns for a few seconds.
• Charging Auroras FS attack has a good chance of freezing enemies, including bosses. Comes in great handy against annoying bosses like Marquis de Leon or the Light Guardian.
• Crafting good meteorite bracers before doing a run can save a lot of time. They can grant up to +13% movement speed each, stacking up to 39% for a single character.
• If you use Tension Mode to travel faster, remember to swap to another character right before it runs out to not waste time on the tension attack !

Mission #1: Tutorial

• Self explanatory. You can save a few seconds by not approaching the vases right of the final door and not approaching the chest to the left of the final door (use CF right before the crate heap to reach the bats.

• After the cutscene just CF two times to the left and right, Move forward and CF three more times (center, left right), that should kill everything. (Try to grab item drops to save time)

Mission #2: Protect Healix

• Keep away from the red line to keep enemies coming. If you're too close they will do their animations and stop moving forward (e.g. the skeletons taking their heads off and back on...)

Mission #3: Dragon / Tension

• To kill the Dragon quickly, just walk towards him and as soon as he starts his fire breath attack, use CF (to not get knocked back), followed by a FS and some air slashes. Killing the Dragon quickly is important because it skips quite a bit of dialogue from Healix.
• Hide in the corner at the castle gates and TC as soon as the tension bar appears. Just use the tension attack asap, you dont even need to turn around to the monsters. Everything will die by script.

[---Caliburgh Camp---]

• Time to equip Aurora
  • Weapon: Falcon blade
  • Shield: Metal King Shield
  • Orb: Metal King Orb
  • Accessory 1: Meteorite Bracer +3 (+Movement Speed)
  • Accessory 2: Meteorite Bracer +3 (+Movement Speed)
  • Accessory 3: Fishnet stockings +3 (+Movement Speed)

(Note: The Fishnet Stockings will come in handy for the later mission "Colissea Outpost", you can equip another meteorite bracer now and reequip the stockings later, but i think it's not worth it since most of the Caliburgh missions are on a global timer anyways.)

Mission #4: Caliburgh Outpost

• Your goal is to defeat all maw keepers that will spawn and also collect the guaranteed Gold nuglet drops before moving to the next maw keeper location. Just charge Kazap in front of the maw spawn spot and release as soon as he appears.
• 3 Maw Keepers
  • 1st one right in front (use CF from a distance)
  • 2nd behind the blue slime group (visual cue is the small fissure in the ground)
  • 3rd in front of the skeletons before the main gate
• Standing in front of the gate makes the monsters flee

Mission #5: Caliburgh Town

• Defeat all (!) monsters, don't let anyone alive on accident. Make your way up and defeat 3 maw keepers on the go.
• Go to the cannon asap (otherwise a long streak of extra dialogue queues up !)
• While you wait for the dialogue to finish, charge up tension to 99,9% (not fully but almost).
• As soon as Isla tells you to "give it a try", hop on the cannon and shoot the mob outside the town. You can do it with two shots, but I didnt find a consistent way to do it yet. Most likely will take all three shots. If you let any monsters live, you gotta wait until they flee.
• As soon as you fired your last shot, hop off the cannon and finish your tension charge and go into Tension mode. This should skip the instructions of how to use tension and it will never pop up again either.

Mission #6: Caliburgh Generator 1

• Right off the start, walk a bit forward, then use CF after like 2 seconds. It will instantly hit the spawning maw keeper and probably kill it. If not, just slash it once.
• clear the rest of the monsters with CF. Take care of obstacles that could kinda block the CF and cause it to be cast way more in front as you liked it to be cast ! (e.g. staircases, doors, wall edges).

Mission #7: Caliburgh Generator 2

• Clear Top, Left, Right to make the next ones spawn in a specific order
• Maw Spawn Top
• Maw Spawn Left (right back corner). If you take out the maw keeper quick enough, you skip him spawning a golem and also skip the final maw keeper from ever spawning !

Mission #8: Caliburgh Giant (Boss)

• clear monsters asap, then go to the destroyed wall to queue up the dialogue which spawns the giant. While you wait, do TC.

[---Obtain Stormcloud---]

• Advancing story triggers
  • Isla right behind you (just press down and press X)
  • Engineer in the middle
  • Talk to Luceus
  • Postal Office
    • Read letter from Raw Recruit, then spam cancel.
    • DON'T read any other letters, especially not from Gragwort !

Mission #9: Across the Shifting Sands

• Due to wearing the Fishnet stockings, you're not slowed by the muddy ground.
• Turn left and kill the maw keepers and the Zombies.
• Turn 180 and go forward, killing the group of imps. Get the golem and the next 2 maw keepers.
• The ideal stage would be to kill every monster before the last maw keeper (and before the "final wave" spawns out of it) so you skip one of the slow-mo animations. But this is pretty hard.

Mission #10: Meeting the Mayor (Protect)

• Take left path, take the staircase to crossover and take out the other 2 maw keepers. Killing all stone golems, most of the zombies and the imp / poison slime / skeleton bundles should make the monsters flee.

Mission #11: Colissea's Leafy Lifeline (Root)

• Enemy flee trigger threshold is low, also dont let any monsters occupy the circled area around the leaf since that prevents the flee trigger as well.

Mission #12: The Arena of Conflict (Boss)

• Run forward and channel Kazap to hit all three Automatons with it to stun them, follow up with CF and channel another Kazap.

[---Stonecloud---]

• Exchange Doric for Terry
• Equip Terry
  • Weapon: Thunderbolt Blade
  • Shield: Ogre Shield
  • Orb: Metal King Orb
  • Accessory 1: Dogged Collar
  • Accessory 2: Mighty Armlet
  • Accessory 3: Raging Ruby
• Read Letter from Mayor
• Talk to Isla

Mission #13: You're Sure of a Big Surprise

• After clearing, Maw Spawn at Gates

Mission #14: Gruesome Gatecrashers

• After clearing, Maw spawns UpLeft. Killing him quickly prevents Automaton spawn and triggers monster fleeing. There can be up to 10 monsters alive for the flee to trigger.

[Talk to Dorik]

Mission #15: Until We Meet Again

• After clearing, Maw spawns Right of left house

Mission #16: Uninvited Guests

• Use Terry for this fight. Use Falcon Slash to generate clones, then Gust Slash followed by midair slashes until you land, then repeat Gust Slash and midair slashes. It should already kill the Troll Boss, then head straight for the Chimaera. If it's shielded, wait until she charges, run to the point where she will be after the fire breath charge and execute Terrys combo again

[Talk to Dorik]

Mission #17: Fight at the End of the Tunnel

• Just clear, use Terry for Troll and for triggered Knights who block all of Auroras attacks. Thanks to his dogged collar, he ignores blocking enemies.

Mission #18: Grannet's Leafy Lifeline

• Head right for the first maw, then head towards the leaf and further to the other end of the chamber, "zigzaging" to clear all monsters. If you don't miss any you skip the fleeing (few seconds only so don't waste too much time chasing for them).

Mission #19: The Chamber of Danger

• Maw Spawnpoints
  • UpLeft + DownRight (2nd from right)
  • Left (before entrance)
  • DownRight (2nd from Bottom)
  • Right + DownLeft
  • UpRight (Use Tension to get there)

Mission #20: Looking for Love

• Charge Tension while dialog is going on
• kill the Troll, take the Troll medal
• 1st part
  • 3 Maw Spawns
    • Kill first maw keeper south of Beryl with Kazap
    • Kill second how you want
    • Head to third one, bypass the golem and use the Troll medal from a moderate distance to kill the maw keeper and all mobs at once
• 2nd part
  • 1 Maw right before door (Use Terry)
• 3rd part
  • 1 Maw right at the door (Use Terry)
• At final door, Use Tension to get to the very end and kill both Maw keepers asap. Collect the Nuglets and hug the wall until monsters flee.

[Talk to Dorik]

Mission #21: The Statuesque Sanctum

• Use Terry to annihilate the Statue. Try to time the second Gust Slash when the Statue initiates his ground pound attack. If Terrys in the air he won't get stunned by it.

[Talk to Dorik, Then to Alena]

[Exchange Luceus for Bianca]

• Equip Bianca
  • Weapon: Great Bow
  • Shield: -
  • Orb: Metal King Orb
  • Accessory 1: Raging Ruby
  • Accessory 2: Meteorite Bracer
  • Accessory 3: Meteorite Bracer

Mission #22: Tussle in the Treetops

• You have to clear the monsters which are mostly Zombies with huge HP values. You can try to throw them off the tree with Auroras CF but it's not very reliable. Instead use Bianca's RoP like crazy.
• Maw Spawns
  • Left (after all monsters except 2 have been killed)
  • Right (after King Slime spawn)
  • Right leaf + UpRight
  • UpLeft

Mission #23: Showdown in the Crown - First kill all monsters using Terry to beat the Trolls and King slime, and Bianca for the rest. Pick up at least one Troll medal - Maw Spawns - Middle - Right lower leaf - Mid top end (x2) - Very top, in front of door - You can skip the Hell Gladiator spawn if you kill the maw keeper very quickly after he spawns at the gate. Use one of the Troll medals you picked up earlier. Keep a moderate distance from him since the Troll might spawn weirdly otherwise and miss the target.

Mission #24: Running into a Brick Wall

• (Safe Strat)
  • Beat down the first phase with Terry as usual. Watch out for Grim Golems charge attack. Dodge behind you where he heads towards so you can quickly continue your combo.
  • When 1st phase ends, Terry should be at ~60-80% tension. While the dialog is going on, charge it to full. Activate tension mode on Alenas dialogue line (but do not use the attack!).
  • As soon as 2nd phase starts, use Tension attack to stun the Golem and use three single attacks towards the edge to knock him off.
• There is a faster way to do it, but since the 2nd phase is not damage based, but rather just the amount of hits, I've not found a consistent way of pulling it off.

[Talk to Yangus and Doric]

Mission #25: The Ascent Begins

• All monsters must be slain so don't overlook any. Bianca's RoP usually is pretty reliable on clearing but it can miss one every once in a while.
• In the room with the Stone Golem, there is a maw keeper around the corner. You dont need to travel all way around, just shoot RoP through the wall.

Mission #26: An Elevating Experience

• This is the ResidentSleeper mission of the game :/
• Though the ascension seems to be totally autoscrolling, the trigger for the elevation to the next floor depends on the monster clear rate, so the faster you kill them the faster the elevation triggers.
• Bianca can shoot through the walls, so make constant use of RoP
• For the Hell Gladiators, just use Terry

Mission #27: A Furicitous Trespasser

• Terry is your man. The Marquis de Leon has some annoying moves, he can jump forward, jump away or use a frost breath that freezes everybody for several seconds if get caught. Try to predict his actions depending of the animation being shown.

[Talk to Yangus and Doric]

Mission #28: Guarding the Gatekeeper

• First, use RoP to kill both Stone Golems from a distance.
• Maw Spawns (Use Bianca for the distant ones and Terry for close spawns)
  • DownRight
  • UpLeft
  • Down (central crossing)
  • Down + DownLeft Crossing
  • DownLeft + UpLeft
  • Down

Mission #29: Strangers in the Shrine

• Maw Spawns
  • DownLeft
  • UpRight
  • UpLeft
  • DownRight
  • UpRight
  • DownLeft
  • DownRight + UpLeft
    • You can use Biancas Tension attack to take out the DownRight mawkeeper instantly before he spawns an ArchDemon but getting the tension filled is extremely close. Otherwise use her tension to clear the last waves fast.

Mission #30 - The Maze of Scales

• Maw Spawns
  • DownRight
  • UpRight
  • Left x2
  • MidTop + DownLeft + UpRight + DownRight (in that order)
  • Very Right corners x2 + Left
    • You can take out the left mawkeeper before it spawns the Stone Statue, saves one Terry fight.

[Preparing the Trials]

• Equip Aurora

  • Accessory 1: Stimulation Specs
    • This accessory let's you begin the encounter with 40% pre-charged Tension which will be useful for the Training.
  • Accessory 2: Garter
    • Helps you to land a stun on the Guardian of Light to skip both of his invulnerability phases
  • Accessory 3: Sock-It-Locket
    • Grants you bonus damage to kill the Guardian of Light and the ??? faster

• Go to the mission lady and take mission #2: "Intensity Training"

• Go to the Isle of Trials and speak to Gragwort

Mission #31: Intensity Training

• You can either run away from the monsters and charge Tension up or you can slash the big monsters. Slashing is faster if done efficiently.
• Once Tension is full, use it asap. While Gragwort talks, charge it up again until it fades to the 2nd part.
• Use the Automaton to slash your Tension up again. Stun him with Buzz if he uses distracting attacks. A few combinations of CF, FS, Jump + 4 Midair Slashes should be enough. Use Tension attack asap to end the fight.

Mission #32: The Trial

• Take the Tension Charge out of the DownRight Jar. It gives you instant 100% Tension !
• Try to get a stun on the Dragon by attacking his weak spot as many times as possible. You can also use Frost Slash to freeze him. Use the focus if no stun comes out to try to finish him anyways before he leaps away. After he lost about ~40% of his HP he tries to leap away the first time. If you're unlucky with the Frost / Stun attempts, use the Tension attack to stun him and hope you can kill him with two combos afterwards.
• Even if he leaps away, this strategy pretty much guarantees he only does it once, never twice.

[Talk to Healix once and to Isla Twice(!)]

• Equip Aurora
  • Accessory 1: Meteorite Bracer +3 (+Movement Speed)
  • Accessory 2: Meteorite Bracer +3 (+Movement Speed)
  • Accessory 2: Meteorite Bracer +3 (+Movement Speed)

Mission #33: The Path to Dawnsholm

• Important note: Though Isla is with you, she is not a playable character in this mission so while switching through characters, keep in mind that the party size is only 3 here ! Also take care to always stay in the circled area around Isla when you gotta progress to the next door. Otherwise she will not move !
• Try to gain all three Tension bars charged up for the final door to instakill the wizard maw keeper and position yourself to also hit some of the other monsters !
• After Isla opened the first gate, use Biancas mid-air Triangle move to get up to the platform with the archdemon and use a Plasma Dome and RoP to kill him, after that kill the maw keeper and the other mobs.

Mission #34: The Siege of Dawnsholm

• Approach forward and let the cutscene trigger asap. Any attacks queued will be canceled otherwise.
• Use Biancas Plasma Dome at the corner with the Ballista to knock out the cannon minion. This is the only time you need to do this. Even after it respawns, the damage to the doors will be small enough.
• Maw Keepers
  • Left (Bottom crossing end)
  • Up Right + Right (swamp)
    • Up right first, then stand on the ledge with the treasure chest and wait for the maw keeper to appear in the corner of the swamp, kill it from a distance with RoP, don't get into the swamp.
  • Bottom Right part of the big space right
  • Up Right + Up Left
  • Up Left (takes a while..)
  • Left (Central crossing)

Mission #35: Dawnsholmers in Distress

• While waiting for Dialogue and the two vollagers to move, charge up Terrys Tension.
• Trigger granny dialogue asap
• Maw Keepers
  • Most Top map point + Mid section down right corners
  • After long dialogue.. Left branch entrance
  • After another dialogue (Terry) Bottom x2
  • Final one nearby spawns green dragon

Mission #36: The Tree of Life

• Use Terry to beat down the Arms Demon. Watch out for his AoE frost attack, dodge out of it. If Terry gets frozen anyways, switch to Bianca and use two RoP until Terry is unfrozen again.
• After you beat the Demon, Tension should be full. Skip the cutscene, immediately activate Tension mode and use Lightning Slash to stun the Überkilling Machine. Three more combos should do it. Remember, if you can't kill the enemy during the Tension mode, switch to another character before it completely runs out to skip the lengthy tension attack animation.

Mission #37: The Benighted Branches

• Kind of a rematch of Mission 22, but now you face Death Knights who are way more annoying to kill. Use Bianca to kill them from a distance since they block attacks while you're facing them close.

Mission #38: Altar Beast

• Terry.. again. If the Barbatos uses his attack which disables Terrys abilities (and he is not cloned atm), use Bianca for the duration

Mission #39: Welcome to Hell

• Use Bianca to take shortcuts, she has by far the best ability to get up high ledges with jump + Triangle attack
• Use Arms Demons Medals to fight off the lesser minions near Healix

Mission #40: Running the Gauntlet

• Terry for all fights. Use Tension for the model G0 to melt it down. Use Lightning Strike on both Model G0 and Überkilling Machine to stun them if they charge for the spinning attack.

Mission #41: Race to the Crater

• immediately switch to Bianca and jump forward over two gaps then use RoP to defeat the Gargyl mawkeeper. Turn around, jump back, then left to reach the other Gargyl mawkeeper
• After defeating both Gargyls, switch to Terry and defeat all mawkeepers and Tyrantosaurus. After the last wave has spawned, use Biancas RoP to clear enough monsters to make them flee.
• Head to the little path in the north

Mission #42: Velascos Last Stand

• move away from Velasco and charge Tension with Terry until he spawns the Pazuzu and Belial. Kill them with Terry, then wait for the dialogue to finish to attack Velasco.
• Use Terrys Tension immediately and pummel Velasco with combos. Also use your tension attack since that should give you enough time to kill him before he can do stupid things like teleporting away.

Mission #43: What Lurks Beneath

• Revisit of mission #1. Use Terry to defeat big enemies and Bianca for the rest.

Mission #44: Clearing out the Castle

• Head left and clear the branch including the upstairs maw, then head back to the cellar doors
• make your way to the garden. There is a Barbatos you gotta kill with Terry. Though he should have Tension ready, you want to save it for the next fight to use the speed boost to get to the final maw keepers. However, if Barbatos disables your abilities, you better use it anyways, too much time lost otherwise.
• Take the stairs up and defeat the next mawkeeper along with the Tyrantosaurus. If Terry has still Tension ready, use it now to get all the way back to the two final maw keepers. If you're quick enough, you can take the first one out before the Demon-of-Arms can spawn. Trollboss will spawn definitely though.

Mission #45: No Citizen Left Behind

• Longest mission in the game. Again, while escorting the citizens to the castle gates, make sure you stay in the circled area around them, otherwise they will stop moving and probably start fights with monsters around them, losing time.
• Rush to the granny with Aurora, leave the monsters alive for now.

[Talk to Doric]

Mission #46: Do or Die in Downtown Arba

• Used to be the longest and most annoying mission, but it has a HUGE timesave potential if executed correctly.
• Start by defeating both Überkilling Machines and the Moosifer. They all drop a medal which you should pickup and place them on the plaza before the castle doors (otherwise the doors will be overrun later !)
• Go forward where the Granny was in the previous mission, killing a Great Healslime and a Tyrantosaurus on your way. Kill maw keeper, then head back and take the other route and clear everything. After everything is dead, head to the big place with the Cannons. Press Select to check the mission timer. You want to arrive at the first cannon before 3:20min since all maw keepers will spawn then. Use the Cannon to kill the maw keeper with 2 shots.
• Head right to the next keeper
• Use Terrys Tension to run the flower street down to the next one.
• Turn left to get two more maw keepers at the end of the bazaar street.
• Turn around, take the stairs up left to the next one.
• Head towards the next one. You can kill the maw keeper from above with Biancas Plasma Cannon and RoP. If you're fast enough, it will not spawn anything else.
• Get the last one at the "Granny spot" and head back to the castle to clear the remaining monsters.
• If you clear every monster before the timer reaches 9:30, the final maw keeper along with the big dragon will not spawn at all and the mission just ends.

Mission #47: Shadroth, Lord of the Night

• First phase is on a global timer (1:45min) so get all chars in front of the castle doors, align the camera to have Shadroth in the background and take some nice selfies. ;)
• as soon as 2nd phase starts, switch to Aurora. Reason is that Shadroth can initiate an attack on your currently controlled char that stuns him and slowly launches him up in the air. You don't want that to happen to Terry so try to bait it out on Aurora (since she's the fastest with all the meteorite bracers).
• combo shadroth until he reaches about 60% health. Then you should start the stunlock by using a Tension attack, executing three good combos to refill the tension back to full and tension attack again. This will permastun Shadroth until he dies. If he manages to launch into the air, this is a ~1:40min timeloss.

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v1.0 by LudwigVonKoopa