I've found the best skill in Dragon's Dogma 2 - an arrow that lets you nearly kill yourself so that you can one-shot a dragon

I, a fool, created my Dragon's Dogma 2 character with the aim of being a wizened wizardly type, focused on the mysterious Trickster build. Since then, however, I've come to the conclusion that I should have been an archer, a decision cemented by the existence of one particular ability - the Martyr's Bolt.

Available to the Magic Archer vocation, Martyr's Bolt is a skill that deals more damage at the cost of the players' health. That might seem reasonable, but once you see it in action it's clear that it's not a tool for the faint of heart - in the clips below, each player drains around 90% of their health as they channel the skill in the face of an unfortunate nearby dragon. 

Giving up that much health transforms the Martyr's Bolt from some simple arrow into a storm of missiles that surround the dragon, smashing through its multiple health bars. One player does have to fire a second bolt, but the other is able to fully one-shot the oversized lizard by draining all but a sliver of HP to power up their bolt.

I'm not getting anything like this kind of power out of my frail sorcerer, and I'm starting to think that I'll be returning to the Magic Archer - the class that I tried out in my Dragon's Dogma 2 preview - earlier than I thought. Getting hold of Martyr's Bolt doesn't seem to be super simple, as it looks like a skill this powerful is somewhat gated behind some vocational mastery, but from these clips, it looks like the grind is worth it.

Get a closer look with our Dragon's Dogma 2 review.