Beginner’s Guide#

The First Berserker: Khazan is a hardcore action RPG built entirely around stamina — attacks, defense and dodges all cost it, and draining it triggers a stagger. For beginners, more important than memorizing combos is settling three decisions early: which weapon to pick, where stat points go, and which combat rules to watch. This page covers all of them in one pass.

Choosing Your Starting Weapon#

The game offers three weapons with no class requirements, and a wrong pick can be fixed through skill resets and stat adjustments — but a comfortable starting weapon saves a lot of suffering:

The Spear’s core skill is the Moonlight stance; building around it is the foundation of the Spear archetype. Dual Wield’s value is teaching you enemy attack rhythms fast; the Greatsword can wait until you can budget stamina precisely.

Verdict: pure beginners should pick Dual Wield for safety, pick the Spear to play the meta from day one, and leave the Greatsword until the stamina system clicks.

The Five Stats and Where They Go#

Your character has five base stats, upgraded at Blade Nexus points with Lacrima:

How each weapon scales:

Whichever weapon you use, Endurance deserves priority — your stamina cap directly decides how many actions you get per exchange. Spend the rest along your weapon’s scaling above; no need to spread evenly.

The Stamina System: The Pulse of Combat#

Attacks, defense and dodges all cost stamina — the precondition of every combat decision:

Those 2 seconds of exhaustion stagger routinely gift the enemy an entire combo. In a game like this, emptying your stamina is often more lethal than losing health — at low health you can still run; at empty stamina you can only take hits. Before every action, ask: after this string, how much stamina do I have left to answer the next attack?

Exhausting Enemies and Brutal Attacks#

The stamina system cuts both ways — enemies have stamina too, and they empty it too. When an enemy’s stamina is drained, it enters the exhausted state — your damage window:

• Exhausted enemies can be hit with a Brutal Attack;
• Timing decides damage: press the attack when the exhaustion circle is almost fully drained for maximum damage;
• Landing it also restores your own stamina — offense and defense paid off in one move.

The most common beginner waste is smashing Brutal Attack the instant exhaustion appears — pressing early forfeits the max-damage tier. Hold your nerve, watch the circle drain most of the way, then collect the hit.

Perfect Guard and Brink Dodge#

Two “timing-hugging” actions are the core of the game’s stamina economy, and the line separating it from ordinary action games:

Ordinary blocks and dodges both pay stamina; the timed versions either save it or restore it. In other words, this game rewards defending and dodging glued to the enemy’s rhythm — done right, your stamina doesn’t drain, it grows. Practice is simple: watch for the frame the enemy commits, press block on the instant of impact, and stop holding the shield up in advance.

Blade Nexus#

Blade Nexus points are the map’s save points and upgrade points, functional from start to finish:

• Resting at a point saves the game and fully restores you;
• Spending Lacrima to upgrade your five stats happens right at the node;
• Consumables auto-refill when you rest, so potion stock is never a worry;
• Equipping Phantoms also happens at Blade Nexus points.

Build the habit: every time you pass a node, spend your Lacrima — banked Lacrima earns no interest; converted into power it’s real growth.

The Skill System#

The skill system’s unlock pacing matters:

• The skill tree only unlocks after you defeat the first boss, Yetuga;
• Once unlocked, skill points reset at any time with zero penalty.

Don’t agonize over “where do skill points go” in the opening — before Yetuga you can’t allocate anyway, and after Yetuga everything resets freely at no cost. Real skill building starts after the first boss; before that, just drill stamina management.

The Phantom System#

Phantoms are passive assistants — they don’t fight for you, but their passive buffs are genuinely useful in the early game. Unlock flow:

1. Take the side quest “The Battle Ghost of Stumpas”;
2. Defeat its boss, Keshta the Unyielding;
3. Once unlocked, return to a Blade Nexus point and equip the Phantom.

Push this side quest early — the sooner Phantoms unlock, the longer their passive buffs cover your opening hours.

Difficulty Selection#

Difficulty has one irreversible rule and one reversible one — tell them apart before starting:

• The initial difficulty is locked in at the start and cannot be changed afterward;
• After beating the first boss, you can toggle Easy Mode on, and toggle it off again at any time.

So the pressure of the initial pick is smaller than it feels — the real escape hatch sits after the first boss. If you’re stuck on a fight dying repeatedly, first check whether Easy Mode is on; don’t white-knuckle it out of stubbornness.

Common Beginner Mistakes#

Opening Priority Checklist#

Everything on this page compressed into an executable order:

1. Pick Dual Wield or Spear at the start — Dual Wield has the best error margin, the Spear is the meta pick;
2. Spend early Lacrima on Endurance first, then fill Strength, Proficiency or Willpower along your weapon’s scaling;
3. Fight the first boss, Yetuga, watching the stamina bar the whole way — never drain it;
4. Past Yetuga: unlock the skill tree, allocate as needed — it resets freely anyway;
5. Stuck? Toggle Easy Mode — that right exists after the first boss and can be switched at will;
6. Take the “The Battle Ghost of Stumpas” side quest, defeat Keshta the Unyielding, unlock and equip your Phantom;
7. From then on, at every Blade Nexus point: spend Lacrima, adjust Phantoms, rest to refill consumables, then head out.

Follow this rhythm and most unnecessary early deaths disappear. One piece of homework remains: drill Perfect Guard and Brink Dodge into muscle memory — master the stamina economy and this game truly opens up to you.