The First Berserker: Khazan Beginner's Guide

The First Berserker: Khazan is a brutally challenging game, and if you don’t play carefully, you’ll die more often in the game. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about the game and some of the most important features that make it stand out. 

So here are a number of different aspects that will help you understand how things work and which strategies you need to succeed.

Upgrading Your Stats and Weapons

You are introduced to the weapons in the game, starting with the dual-wielding weapons, followed by the Greatsword, and then the spear. As the game progresses, you will choose to pick these three weapons, upgrades, and skills.

There are a couple of differences between these: the dual-wielding weapons are ideally close and personal, rapid-attacking weapons that work and scale well with your ability to dodge quickly while dishing out tons of quick, medium-damage strikes. 

The Greatsword is great for dealing huge, high-damage hits that take a bit longer but are very punishing once you become skilled with it, and the spear provides a great balance of both, allowing you to attack for pretty high damage fairly quickly while also staying at a distance to hit enemies from the range at a rapid speed. 

Another thing to note regarding weapons is that as you acquire new ones, each weapon will essentially scale with a specific skill. You can see the scaling for a weapon's damage, which is based on a number or letter grade, scaled by stats such as willpower and strength for the dual-wielding weapons, strength, and proficiency for the Greatsword, and proficiency and willpower for the spear. 

You want to remember this when upgrading your stats at the Blade Nexus, because if your primary weapon scales with willpower and proficiency, ideally, you may want to invest more points there if you plan on upgrading the weapon to its maximum potential.

Understand Your Attack Types

In The First Berserker: Khazan, combat is not just familiar but also uniquely diverse. There are several distinct systems that you need to learn and master. For instance, the regular attack is your basic square or quick attack, while the heavy attack is executed with the triangle button; keep in mind that this can be charged to deal extra damage to enemies. 

You also have the breakfall attack, where you can jump down on enemies in midair and slam the ground, dealing tons of damage to them, and one of your most important moves—the brutal attack. The brutal attack occurs when you exhaust an enemy or completely deplete their stamina or focus gauge. 

This allows you to perform a strike by hitting a circle and dealing tons of damage to that enemy while they are vulnerable. This is generally the highest power attack in the game, and you need to focus on depleting the enemy's stamina or focus gauge.

Don’t Ignore Defensive Mechanics

Along with your different kinds of attacks, you will also have specific defensive actions. Mastering these is crucial for your survival in the game. You use the regular dodge with the X button to evade enemy attacks, and you employ a guard using L1 to block an enemy's attack; this will cost you stamina but can negate a large majority of the damage. 

There is also a perfect version of each defensive move, known as the Brink version. The Brink version of the dodge is a perfect dodge, meaning you dodge right as an enemy is about to hit you, which reduces the amount of stamina your character uses, allowing you to perform more dodges or actions while keeping the enemy using more of their stamina and lowering their stamina gauge for you to exhaust them. 

Additionally, you can perform a Brink guard, or perfect guard, by blocking at the exact moment an enemy is going to hit you; this not only deals stamina damage to the enemy—further lowering their stamina gauge—but also negates the attack completely and uses much less stamina on your guard, enabling you to chain multiple Brink guards or multiple Brink dodges without using much stamina.

Pay Attention To Weapon Skill Trees

Your skill tree is split into five sections that are the same for all three weapons. This makes it easy for you to understand if you are a new player. You need to know about these skill trees in order to plan how your character will grow. 

The first category for each weapon is the swift attack; you can see that the Greatsword and the spear also have a swift attack option, which represents your basic, normal square, or X attacks that occur quickly in succession. 

These can all be upgraded into individual skills, such as whirlwind for the dual-wielding weapons, and they enhance your overall damage and allow for additional strikes in swift attack combos. Next, each weapon has the potent blow category—your heavy attack that can be chained with other heavy or swift attacks, which can also be charged to deal extra damage to enemies as well as extra stamina or guard damage. 

As you progress through the skill line, the third category for each weapon will be a specific type unique to that weapon; for instance, dual wielding has the frenzy category, which unlocks specific attacks when you sprint, as well as different spirit attacks that are special for that weapon. 

The fourth category is essentially the dodging category for that weapon, meaning you can decrease the stamina cost for dodging with that given weapon, acquire spirit skills associated with perfect dodges, gain recovery upon executing a perfect dodge, and chain attacks after dodging, allowing you to counterattack the enemy. 

The fifth and final category is the guard skill category, where you can deal damage to enemies by performing a Brink guard or a perfect guard, as well as chaining different attacks after guarding and reducing the stamina consumed on a successful guard. When you look at it this way, you can see that all three weapon types have similar skill categories with different skills within.

Stamina Damage is Vital, So Pay Attention

Stamina is your ultimate resource in this game, and your main job is to ensure that it never reaches zero, regardless of whether you are running or getting hit. Every action consumes stamina, and once your stamina bar drops to the very bottom or zero, you become vulnerable and exhausted, meaning you can no longer move until your stamina bar fully regenerates or you are hit and broken out of your exhaustion. 

Being exhausted can result in you getting struck by many enemies, so you must manage your stamina correctly and ensure it does not deplete completely, as this will lead to taking big hits and possibly dying. Just like you have stamina, enemies also have stamina, and if you lower an enemy's stamina bar, you can exhaust that enemy and then perform a brutal attack on them for tons of damage. 

Most enemies can perform dodges and guards on you if they have stamina, so they lower their stamina meter. When their stamina meter is reduced, you can hit them more easily and exhaust them even further, allowing you to charge them and deal the maximum amount of stamina damage possible. 

Some enemies using guard, such as those with a shield or armor, will require you to use charge attacks to break their guard before you can damage them. Remember that exhaustion occurs when an enemy's stamina or fortitude meter drops to zero, leaving them stunned and vulnerable to your attacks.

Don't Exhaust Wrong

Before performing your brutal attack, you must ensure that you land a couple of regular attacks—whether potent blows or normal attacks—to maximize your damage output and get in a ton of free hits before executing your brutal attack, which almost doubles your damage. Managing your stamina before pushing an enemy to exhaustion is also essential. 

For example, if you exhaust an enemy and are left with no stamina, you would have to recover most of your stamina before attacking them again and then performing a brutal attack, which will cost you a lot of damage. Instead, you should wait until the enemy is almost completely worn out while your own stamina meter is still mostly full. This way, you can chain your moves right away and start doing more damage right away. 

Stagger Enemies in Lengthy Fights

You will come across the "staggered" state, where an enemy isn't completely worn out but isn't able to defend themselves, so you can keep hitting them. If your attack is stronger than the enemy's defense, you can knock them out over time with enough hits. 

Different attacks vary in the amount of stagger they inflict, but remember that enemies typically have more poise while attacking. If you attack an enemy while they are striking you directly, you will not stagger them as quickly as if you dodge or block their attack first and then counterattack. 

Once you do it enough times, most enemies will be stunned, letting you hit them a lot without them being able to fight back. Attacking an enemy from behind does more damage than attacking them from the front, so you can even make the effect last longer. 

Spirit Skills Are Useful

Spirit skills are activated by using your left trigger and can deal a huge amount of damage to enemies. For instance, one of the early spirit skills you will start with is the spear throw; once you throw it at enemies, it does a ton of damage.

Most spirit skills use one spirit unit to cast, and while different skill trees, such as the common skill tree, have specific spirit skills, each weapon set also has its unique spirit skills. These are identified by showing that the resource used is one spirit, meaning you can perform a spirit attack or spirit combo with the weapon of your choosing by speaking into this category. 

Additionally, as you attack enemies over time, your spirit gauge naturally replenishes, giving you more spirit gauge units to perform more attacks. You can slowly get back more spirit gauge units with some skills in the skill tree for each weapon. This means that you can repair and stack these skills a lot faster as you level them up. 

Master Reflection if You Want To Survive

In The First Berserker: Khazan, you will need to master both reflection and counterattack mechanics. Reflection is activated by hitting L1 and the triangle together, reflecting the enemy's attack. Reflecting an attack is one of the more complicated parts of the game, but it's fun to do. It blocks the enemy's attack and does a lot of damage to their energy, quickly wearing them out. 

It also stuns or stops the enemy's protective moves for a short time so that you can deal a lot of damage and then hit them again. You are encouraged to practice this mechanic, as it is one of the game's best and most overpowered features. 

A quick tip for reflections is to hold down your guard button while targeting the enemy and then get ready to attack, meeting their attack directly while hitting the triangle from a guarding position. A standard heavy strike can happen if you try to hit L1 and triangle at the same time. 

This is easier most of the time. But remember that you can't block all regular hits or burst attacks. That's why it's so important to fight back. 

Use Counterattack to stagger Enemies

Counterattacks are primarily meant for timing with burst attacks from enemies. If you can time a counterattack successfully during a burst attack, it will break the enemy's stance and stagger them, rendering them incapacitated. 

When you do this move, your energy is restored, and you can hit enemies hard for free while they can't defend themselves. When reflection isn't a choice, use counterattacks instead. 

Attack Patterns

You must learn the attack patterns of your enemies, especially during boss fights, which can get very difficult. When fighting enemies, do more than trade blows; focus on learning their attack patterns. This will help you effectively time your reflections and deflections and your Brink guards and dodges. 

Small attacks, like grab attacks, may look like any other attack, but they have small changes that are hard to see unless you are looking for them. This could cause you to take a lot of damage or even be killed by some bosses in one hit. 

Armor Sets & Items

You are introduced to various gear sets very early in the game, which are extremely important. For example, the hound gear set becomes available early on and, with just three pieces equipped, provides a 5% damage increase and a 10% stamina recovery rate. 

This bonus is significant, especially considering that upgrading your endurance by one point only gives you a 1% increase in stamina recovery rate. 

The same principle applies to weapons, which you can collect as a set, and even your hotkey items. Items such as the tier summon stone allow you to retrieve the lacrimal loss from your most recent death (which is essentially the experience you drop upon dying), a vitality shard temporarily increases your stamina recovery rate (which is excellent against bosses), and soul tier dust restores your health and grants you free experience. 

You also have options that reduce effects or ailments imposed on you, as well as items like the fire enhancer and other ailment items that allow you to apply extra damage to your weapon, giving you a ton of extra DPS.

Soulstones Will Increase Healing Potions

As you start to complete different missions, you will encounter red rocks that you can find and break. You must ensure you see and break every red rock in each area. Later in the game, these red rocks upgrade the number of healing potions you can carry. 

While you may only be able to take three initially, eventually, you will be able to take many more, and upgrading this capacity is completely important for your progress in the game.

Upgrading Your Character

Upgrading your character is similar to a Souls game. As you fight enemies, you accumulate gold, which you can spend to buy things, and you also gather lacrimal, which are essentially your experience points. Over time, you build enough currency to upgrade your stats at a Blade Nexus. 

You want to invest your upgradeable currency when it becomes available; if you die and lose your lacrimal XP and then die again without retrieving it, that experience will disappear forever. 

Therefore, spending your upgradeable currency each time you visit a blade is essential. Later in the game, you will also be able to find rare materials that allow you to respec your passive points whenever you want.

Also, check our The First Berserker: Khazan Review and other guides below:

• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | How To Find The Hound Set
• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | Best Spear Build and Ways To Play
• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | Best Greatsword Build and Ways To Play
• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | How To Level Up Fast
• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | How To Beat Yetuga (First Boss)
• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | How To Beat Blade Phantom (Second Boss)
• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | How To Beat Viper (Third Boss)
• The First Berserker: Khazan Guide | How To Beat Volbaino (Fourth Boss)