Dynasty Warriors: Origins

Learning to level up, use, and equip pyroxene gems is a vital part of your character build in Dynasty Warriors: Origins. Unlike previous games in the series, there's only one playable character in Origins: the player-named protagonist, nicknamed Ziluan by his brothers-in-arms. Ziluan is an army of one in every sense of the word, not only in his ability to fend off massive enemy forces, but also in his customizability. Players can select Ziluan's weapons, skills, tactics, and more, but one of the most flexible types of character customization comes from his pyroxene gems.

You'll unlock the ability to start crafting and equipping pyroxene gems fairly early on in Dynasty Warriors: Origins. There are only a handful of possible gem types, but they have a wide variety of effects, and they can greatly change your character's abilities if properly leveled and put to good use. Here's how to use pyroxene gems to the fullest, and a few suggestions for which ones to focus on first, depending on your preferred playstyle.

How Pyroxene Gems Work

Unlocking Pyroxene Gems & Finding Pyroxene

Shortly after you unlock the ability to visit inns within the main story quest of Dynasty Warriors: Origins, you'll be able to start crafting gems. After meeting Zhuhe, you'll receive a small starting stack of pyroxene, an item you'll need to craft and upgrade your gems throughout the game. However, you'll need to make a point of getting more pyroxene whenever you want to improve your gems.

You'll find pyroxene throughout the overworld map; it appears at orange gathering nodes, consisting of small clusters of orange, rocky spikes jutting out of the ground. Simply approach one of these and press the indicated button to collect the pyroxene. When you unlock the Eyes of the Sacred Bird ability, which allows you to see unseen things from a distance, you can also use it to make pyroxene deposits glow on the map and simplify the process. You may also obtain pyroxene by completing certain side content, opening letters, or defeating thieves.

If you need a lot of pyroxene quickly, note that pyroxene nodes respawn after you gather from them. Once you've unlocked fast travel, a surefire way to farm pyroxene is to gather as much as you can in a specific map area, then travel to another and repeat the process there. Continue doing this, revisiting the same regions multiple times if you have to, until you have the amount you need.

Crafting & Upgrading Gems

You can only craft pyroxene gems by visiting inns; most towns in Dynasty Warriors: Origins have one. Simply approach the town from the world map and interact with it, then select "Inn" from the menu. Select the "Create Gems" option to open the crafting screen. Once you have gems, you can equip them from the Battle Preparation screen, or on the world map - in other words, anywhere but in the heat of battle.

While at an inn, you should also take the time to read any letters you may have received (many contain gifts, including more pyroxene), and take a moment to reconfigure your equipment if you so desire.

On the crafting screen, you'll see five different types of gems, along with a counter displaying how much pyroxene you have available. The process is simple: choose how many pieces of pyroxene you want to convert into gems, and the game does the rest. Each piece of pyroxene you use is converted directly into one gem, chosen at random. If you already have that particular gem, then the pyroxene will go towards leveling it up. You'll also sometimes activate a "satisfying result" at random during the crafting process, which will create three Gems instead of one.

That's right - you can level up all your gems throughout the game, increasing their efficacy over time. At higher levels, you'll need to make more duplicates for each level up. Unfortunately, there's no way to affect which gems your pyroxene goes towards - at least, not without gaming the system. Occasionally, you'll receive a message upon opening the crafting window that reads, "You saw a light in the pyroxene." This will highlight certain gems in the crafting menu - usually three out of five - and all the pyroxene you use will go towards them.

Ultimately, there's no reason to save your pyroxene unless you're trying to level up a very specific gem, and are waiting for it to be highlighted. Just use it all as you get it to increase the odds of crafting better gems. Although some are clearly better than others, all of them have their uses.

Best Pyroxene Gems To Level First

Wellspring Gem

The gem crafting screen from Dynasty Warriors Origins, showing all five possible gems with six pyroxene available.

The Wellspring Gem is a handy little accessory for almost any build. It's especially useful in the late game, when you'll be facing lots of tough bosses in quick succession, and running low on meat bun supplies. It restores a certain amount of HP for every 100 enemies you defeat - the amount of HP restored increases over time, but the enemy requirement remains static.

Oblivion Gem

Some of the best weapons in Dynasty Warriors: Origins suffer from devastatingly short reach. They may deal devastating amounts of damage, or have access to incredible combos, but they can't do any of that unless you risk life and limb by getting up close and personal to enemy forces. That's where the Oblivion Gem comes in: it increases the reach of your equipped weapon by an amount depending on its level, and the number of pyroxene pieces you've poured into it.

Vortex Gem

One of the most effective (and satisfying) tactics available to you in Dynasty Warriors is the ability to launch hundreds of enemies into the air. It's an important part of crowd control: these knockbacks not only push enemies well out of your way, but also deal a lot of damage, and they're a lot of fun to pull off. To boost their efficacy, you'll want to equip the Vortex Gem, which increases the damage dealt to enemies when thrown into the air by an amount that increases each time you level it up.

The following table lists every gem you can craft in Dynasty Warriors: Origins, along with their effects. Although the three listed above should be your main focus, every gem has its use, so it's worth investing at least a few pieces of pyroxene in all of them to improve your versatility.

Gem	Effect
Oblivion Gem	Expands attack range
Vortex Gem	Boosts damage to enemies launched into the air
Scorch Gem	Boosts damage dealt to enemies with parries
Wellspring Gem	Restores HP for every 100 enemies defeated
Ascendance Gem	Activates a chance to automatically block an attack from an enemy officer

With all that in mind, you should be prepared to go out and craft gems, using them to bolster your build and swapping them out as needed. Just don't forget to gather and use pyroxene as often as possible in order to reap the maximum benefits of your gems in Dynasty Warriors: Origins.

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