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Dragon's Dogma 2 tips and tricks are what's needed by most, as while DD2 is a fascinating, complex game, it's not especially welcoming to newcomers, with divergent information on Pawns, vocations, combat, exploration, equipment fantasy rules and why you absolutely shouldn't go swimming if you can avoid it. We can't blame anybody for being a bit confused and overwhelmed by Dragon's Dogma 2, but our top ten pieces of advice will help smooth things out and make the whole process a lot more digestable - so you can thank us when you're riding a griffin and stabbing it in the neck along the way. Here's the ten most important tips and tricks for Dragon's Dogma 2, and what you need to know as the Arisen.
1. Use support pawns to fill gaps in your party's abilities
There are loads of different vocations in Dragon's Dogma 2, each providing their own skills and fighting styles, and you and your main pawn can only cover a fraction of them. That's why it's always good to make sure you recruit two support pawns from riftstones to fill any gaps in your party's roles and swap them out when they start becoming too under-levelled for the fights you're picking. At the very least, you'll want a melee fighter, spellcaster, and ranged fighter, to cover all bases in combat and ensure you have plenty of support. Having a Mage is particularly important - they're your healers, usually.
When choosing support pawns, it can also be important to consider their inclination too as this determines their behaviour, especially in combat. For example, a party of purely Straightforward pawns means you'll be getting in a lot of fights and won't have much direct support.
2. Check in at Guild halls often to unlock new skills and upgrades
As you battle enemies, you'll earn Discipline that goes towards improving your chosen vocation's rank. Each time you do this, you'll usually unlock new weapon skills, core skills, or augments that will improve your vocation's power even more. It's whenever you're in a town, make sure you check in with the local Guild master to spend your Discipline on new abilities, and think about which of your skills are useful in combat and which aren't. Rearranging your weapon skills might be necessary to ensure you've got a well-rounded build that's also fun to use. As you play the game, you'll unlock new Vocations to try out, like the Dragon's Dogma 2 Mystic Spearhand.
3. Check your map and note down quest locations
Dragon's Dogma 2 has an annoying habit of providing map markers to important quest locations and then removing them when you get close, sometimes making it difficult to know where you're now meant to be going. Placing in-game markers – or even making a physical note – on important quest locations will help you reach roughly where you need to go with minimal confusion - the quest to find Rodge in Dragon's Dogma 2 is a good example of this. If you're really lost, make sure you read through the quest notes in the menu to check for any objectives and hints.
4. Explore thoroughly to make sure you uncover everything needed for a quest
If the map being a bit unhelpful at times wasn't enough, sometimes even the quest notes and descriptions aren't either, giving you a vague instruction to find someone or something. Sometimes, you can seemingly have all your objectives crossed off but still not complete a quest, leaving you at a dead end - we found this for both the Dragon's Dogma 2 Saint of the Slums quest and the Dragon's Dogma 2 Stolen Throne party.
This is usually because there's an extra step that you haven't found yet, and unfortunately, the only way to help this is to explore areas as thoroughly as possible. Talk to NPCs, try every door, and look for things out of place. I got stuck on one quest for a while because I didn't notice a hole in the ground behind a house that led into a cave that was crucial to quest progress.
5. Remember to use oxcarts
Traveling on foot in Dragon's Dogma 2 is hard going with all the monsters, goblins, raiders, and more. The map is also huge and limited stamina means walking is not ideal. Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of rapid travel as true Dragon's Dogma 2 fast travel it's limited to portcystals and ferrystones, so the best compromise is using an oxcart.
You can find at least one of these in most major settlements, and each one will ferry you to a particular destination. Once you've paid the low gold cost, you can follow the button prompt to doze off skipping the journey. However, the attacks on the cart are quite common, so you might suddenly be awakened by a troll or raider attack. If this happens, kill the attackers, get back on the cart, and doze off again to reach your destination.
6. Rest at campfires stay healthy and cook up stat buffing meals
Finding a campfire or resting at an inn after a long boss and tough boss fight or several small encounters out in the wild is important as it'll let you regenerate your health, including your loss gauge, and is one way to save your game in Dragon's Dogma 2. You'll notice that when you take damage, be it from combat or slipping off a cliff, your maximum health limit will also be reduced – this is visible on your health bar and is known as your loss gauge.
Of course, you'll need use a camping kit at a campfire to set up your tents to rest if you're not near an inn, so make sure you don't leave town without at least one – since they're heavy, giving them to a pawn is a good idea. While camping, you can also cook one food item that your whole party gets to eat, providing temporary stat buffs for when you wake up.
7. Climb on larger enemies to topple and stun them
One of Dragon's Dogma 2's core mechanics is the ability to grab enemies and it's important that you don't forget to use it! You can pick up and lob smaller foes, but when you're fighting larger creatures, you can grab on and try to shove them or even climb them to attack weak points. Doing so gives you a chance of knocking down these enemies, letting you and your pawns wail on them while they're out of action. Climbing does continuously drain stamina, however, so don't start climbing unless you've got full stamina to make the most of it.
8. Check your pawns' inventories, and your own, often
Dragon's Dogma 2 is full of materials and resources to collect, whether they're on enemies, in chests, or out in the wild, and your pawns can collect some of these items too. That means it's important to check your inventory for useful materials that you may have picked up on your travels, but you should also check the inventories of all your pawns too. They may pick up useful potions, essential materials for weapon enhancements, or valuables worth selling. Get into the habit of having a look through everyone's inventory when you go to sell or store items, and definitely empty their pockets before you dismiss them as they keep whatever they have on them when they leave.
9. Items in storage are always readily available for upgrades
Speaking of storing things, you don't have to worry about lugging around everything you own at all times in case you need it to craft or enhance something as your entire inventory and storage are considered when doing so. That means you can dump all your crafting materials off at inns or your home and can still use them when you visit a shop with a forge to enhance gear. Furthermore, your home and all inns share the same storage, so you don't have to worry about your things getting split between multiple chests across the map.
10. The first upgrade for all weapons and armor is incredibly cheap
Finally, the first upgrade of three for all weapons and armor is always incredibly cheap, costing usually a few hundred gold pieces. That means whenever you equip a new weapon or piece of armor, you should enhance it as soon as possible to give it a little boost right off the bat. Obviously if you've got the necessary enhancement materials already in storage for the next upgrade, or even the one after, then you may as well fully upgrade your gear in one go for a big improvement.
That being said, you want to keep in mind that not all smithing and upgrades are the same, as different blacksmiths offer different kinds of upgrades to your weapons that boost different stats. The especially rare Dragon's Dogma 2 Dwarven Smithing, for example, specialises in boosting knockback damage to send enemies flying.
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