The First Berserker: Khazanis already picking up quite the reputation for being an extra-difficultSoulslikeexperience,especially in the early hours. Sure, few games in the genre are cakewalks, butKhazan’s mix of influence and ideas from theDark SoulsandNiohseries has resulted in a title that’s got a steeper barrier of entry than usual.
Whether you’re a veteran of the genre or are jumping intoKhazanfor yourfirst-ever Soulslike experience, odds are, you’re going to need some extra guidance to get started with this one.
How to Unlock the Blacksmith in The First Berserker: Khazan
This guide explains how to unlock the Blacksmith in The First Berserker: Khazan.
The game does, thankfully, have an easier difficulty setting for those that are feeling especially pummeled by all it throws at you, but there’s still plenty of heart-pounding action standing in your way, regardless of the options you ultimately decide upon for yourself.
This collection of tips will feature some ideas and mechanics that you may already know from previous genre entries, but it doesn’t hurt to have a refresher when tackling a game this unforgiving in the early hours, andKhazandoes still have some fresh and unique mechanics and spin on the Souls formula that you’ll want to know about going in, too.
Let’s get you on your way to some nice victories to start your time withThe First Berserker: Khazanon the right foot.
10Blocking Is Your Best Friend
Constant Dodge Rolls Won’t Work
As Souls players, many of us vary greatly in how we actually approach combat. Sure, games likeSekirogenuinely force you to get good at parries quickly, butDark SoulsandElden Ringcan be completed without ever becoming proficient with shields or proper blocking mechanic utilization.
InKhazan, if you don’t learn how to block early, you’re going to be pretty much screwed. The good news is that this process is a lot more forgiving in this game than it is in aSekiro, for example. Your window to time perfect blocks is pretty generous.
As long as your stamina bar allows it, blocking enemy attacks at the right time typically negatesallincoming damage, so it’s absolutely pivotal to block to succeed. Sure, dodge rolls work, but they’ll also take you away from the action and drain your stamina faster.
Blocking keeps your health bar up and ensures you stay close to the action so you’re primed to punish enemies as soon as possible.
9Pay Attention To Weapon Scaling
A Point Worth Reiterating
This idea won’t be new or surprising if you’ve played any FromSoftware title or many other similar games in the genre, but it’s still something you’ll want to make sure you’re aware of from the very beginning ofKhazan.
The damage of any weapon you choose to use directly scales with certain stats you can level up. Here, the relevant stats are called strength, willpower, and proficiency. Vitality and endurance are two other stats you can level, but neither of these relate to weapon scaling at all.
If you’re ever unsure what stat to level up, it’s never a bad idea to opt for the stat that scales best with your preferred weapon. The higher the weapon scaling of a certain stat, the more damage your weapon deals when this same stat is leveled up.
Keep in mind that soft level caps still exist here, so eventually, you’ll get diminishing returns on leveling up the stat that best scales with your weapon. In the early game, however, you won’t need to worry about this.
8Don’t Get Exhausted
Sitting Duck Simulator
Very similar to theNiohseries,Khazanhas an exhaustion mechanic that isn’t typically present in actual Souls games. In basic terms, if you deplete your stamina bar completely and take damage, Khazan will be frozen in place until the stamina barcompletelyregenerates.
If you’re bad at managing your stamina, you’re going to be a completely wide-open target for your opponent far too often.
It can be tempting to spam-attack an enemy and try to pummel them onto the ground before they even have a second to react, but each attack costs a chunk of stamina, so becoming too aggressive and leaving yourself open to a counter-attack once your stamina runs out can easily spell your doom.
10 Best AA Soulslikes You Need To Play
Mid-tier budgets, top-tier punishment
Sprinting, attacking, dodging, and blocking all deplete stamina, so it’s a finely tuned balance to leverage all of these actions in a battle without the risk of exhaustion.
Early on, it’s better to hang back in fights a bit until you start to internalize how many actions you can burn through before your stamina runs out, lest you tire Khazan out and get one-shotted by a particularly strong foe. Leveling endurance for more stamina is never a bad idea, either.
7Leveled Stats Raise Multiple Things
Everything Raises Health
This is another idea that is present in other games, but it works a bit differently inKhazan. Typically, you may expect raising your strength stat for more weapon damage to also help bump up your equip load and certain resistances.
Here, every single levelable stat raises your maximum health a bit too, which is a super handy feature. You may be tempted early on to dump a ton of levels into vitality simply to give you a buffer of extra HP for safety, but you may find this isn’t quite as necessary as it seems.
Sure, leveling vitality gives youmoreof an HP boost (50 points), but every other stat gives a 10 point bonus to your health, too. For this reason, you can be a little more gung-ho about dumping levels into endurance for extra stamina or anything else for extra weapon damage without worrying that your health iscompletelysuffering as a result.
Still, vitality is the only stat that raises your specific damage resistances inKhazan, so you won’t want to ignore it completely. You’re just a little more flexible in this area than usual.
6Switch Your Control Scheme
Souls-Style Is In The Options
This one is down to personal preference, butKhazanwill default your controls to a button configuration that will immediately feel out of place if you’ve played any other Soulslikes in recent memory.
There are only two control schemes to choose from, and neither allow specific button mapping. No option is a one-to-one match with any other game, but one is definitely closer than the others.
At the end of the day, most players will likely want to switch to Control Scheme B inKhazan. This puts your light and heavy melee attacks on the right triggers instead of on the face buttons, as well as placing the dodge roll back to its appropriate position in comparison to FromSoftware games.
This switch-up is an easy change to make in order to get the game feeling more natural and approachable instantly.
5Don’t Spend Skill Points Till You’ve Tried All Weapons
Your Favorite Weapon-Type Could Be Forthcoming
Partway through your first mission, you’ll start accumulating skill points that can be spent to unlock perks and attacks for your weapons, as well as give Khazan various general buffs and moves that are applicable regardless of current weapon or gear selection.
It can be tempting at this moment to start upgrading your dual-wield weapon in the skill tree to start getting some new abilities, but hold off on this for now. A little further down the path in this intro mission, you’ll also gain the ability to wield greatswords and lances, and each of these weapon types will have their own separate skill trees and movesets.
For me, after trying everything else out, the dual-wield weapon types became my personal least favorite of the three weapon classes, so I was thankful that I didn’t pour multiple points into a skill tree that I won’t really use for the rest of my playthrough.
The better option is to either hoard your skill points for a bit, or simply spend them on different skill trees that aren’t tied to a single weapon until you decide what weapons you want to main for the rest of the game. It won’t be the end of the world if you spend points you don’t really end up using, but it can still feel bad knowing you wasted some precious resources regardless.
4The Javelin Is More Useful Than You Think
Long Range Stun Action
Another thing you’ll earn a bit into the first mission is the javelin. This is a long-range projectile that Khazan can summon in order to snipe enemies from a distance. The main use of the javelin is immediately obvious, allowing you to keep some distance between you and an enemy as you preemptively remove a chunk of their health.
Something you may not notice organically, however, is that the javelin can be extra handy for dealing with some larger enemies in the world up close, too.
10 Best Soulslike Games, Ranked
There are several Soulslike games that recapture the same magic while also introducing some innovative gameplay elements.
For example, shortly after gaining the javelin, you’ll reach a section where a giant wild boar charges straight at you. A well-timed javelin throw to its face won’t kill it, but itwilltemporarily stun the boar and send it sliding unconscious, giving you time to quickly run up and punish it with a critical attack.
In short, experiment with the javelin, and you’ll begin to find that it comes in even handier than you may think in many a sticky situation. Low on health in a boss fight and just need to chip away a little more damage? Javelin. Being charged by a yeti? Javelin. Can’t land a hit on a pesky monkey? Javelin.
Oh, and aim for the head.
3Match Your Armor Sets
More Fashionable Anyway
Lots of times, selecting armor in Soulslikes really just comes down to mixing and matching your various pieces with the best stats without going over your weight limit.
I’m not afashion-Soulsguy typically, opting instead to simply have the best stats possible, aesthetics be damned. I’ve looked like a giant, half onion-man, half pirate more times than I can count just because the stats were high.
While you may be tempted to do the same thing inKhazan, mixing and matching random gear in order to simply have the highest defense rating possible, you have some other things to consider.
While not a new idea to RPGs, it is still worth mentioning early that wearing multiple items from the same armor set in this title can give you someinsanelyuseful perks and buffs the more coordinated you become.
Every Soulsborne Final Boss, Ranked
Seven games, seven memorable encounters.
You may have armor pieces with a higher damage rating overall, but if they aren’t part of an armor set you have multiple armor pieces, it’s likely not worth the trade-off. Take note that certain weapons belong to complete armor sets as well, adding more perks if you match your blade with your drip.
The Ashen Wolf gear set is the perfect example of this idea. Wear two pieces from this set, and dodging requires 10% less stamina. Add a third piece, and your healing items replenish 20% more HP. Five pieces, and you earn an entire extra healing item at each rest. These all stack, so you can get some truly awesome builds if you’re an outfit coordinator.
2Unlock Phantoms ASAP
More Perks Are A Good Thing
After defeating the second boss, the formidableBlade Phantom, Khazan will be taken to The Crevice for the first time, the area that serves as theFirelink Shrine-like hub-worldof the game. From here, you’ll be able to jump right into the next mission to simply keep progressing the story, but there’s one immediate detour worth taking.
Blade Phantom, now working in tandem with Khazan, will also loop you in on some additional boss action you can get busy with. First, he’ll tell you about Keshta, The Unyielding, another worthy foe who is sure to be worth your time to seek out and battle.
After taking this optional duty and defeating Keshta (who has a nearly identical moveset to Blade Phantom), Khazan will earn the ability to equip a phantom version of certain specific bosses and now use their souls as allies.
These phantom souls can be leveled up and grant Khazan a collection of additional perks that will make your journey easier throughout. Keshta’s equippable phantom immediately gives Khazan boosts to his stamina recovery, and his endurance-related rewards only get better with each level as well.
1Take Time ToReallyLearn Bosses
Don’t Worry About Runbacks
Boss fights in Soulslikes are notoriously challengingin general, andKhazan’s will more than likely be some of the toughest you’ve ever encountered. This might all sound fairly obvious and easier said than done, but being patient with these encounters is absolutelycrucialin this game.
Like anygood game in the genre,Khazan’s boss fights are all extremely learnable. In other titles, this is nice, but it doesn’t always matter.
Often, if you simply learn how to leverage your i-frames or go into a fight sufficiently leveled and geared up, you may bulldoze a boss in a different game and neverreallyhave to deal with learning the ins and outs of their entire moveset.
InKhazan, this approach will be much less likely to succeed, and you’ll need multiple doomed attempts in order to really get a grasp on how to go into a boss fight and come out victorious. Thankfully, checkpointing is extremely generous, and you’ll typically be able to immediately jump back into a boss room without a painful runback.
This makes being able to learn and memorize a particular boss much more manageable, much less frustrating, and ultimately low pressure if you go into it with the right mindset.
Accept that you aren’t going to win on your initial attempt, and that’s okay. First, you’re here to study. Once you feel confident you understand how a boss is going to attack you, then it’s time to get more aggressive and attempt to go in for the kill.
How to Farm Lacrima of Circulation in The First Berserker: Khazan
This guide covers the best way to farm Lacrima of Circulation in The First Berserker: Khazan.
