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.

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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.