Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

I leveled something like this:

Strider 1-13
Warrior 13-15
Assassin 15-26

Thinking of speccing to MA or even Ranger cause I really enjoy shooting my BOW, should I take some levels of another vocation for some stat growth/augmentations first?

 

The stat augments are pretty damned nice to have (10% and 20% more magick, and they are multiplactive so it works out to 32% more) but they can be a pain to grind for unless you use some infinitely respawning enemies and let your pawns farm discipline for you.

 

Level 40, still nowhere near good enough against a drake on hard mode since his grab just one shots me. I also completely forgot I should make my mage a sorcerer.

 

You mean like, say,

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in front of the castle gates after the Duke turns on you?

 

That's definitely the best spot to do it, yeah. Though you won't have a healing fountain to rely on, I'm sure you can find a good spot to stand.

 

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On top of the Church's little wall. Guards won't reach you.

 

Is there anything cool you can do with a giant gorecyclops? Besides removing the head armor. As far as I can tell they're a cyclops with 95% of the cool/funny cyclops behaviors and stuns removed, plus enough HP/armor to let you shoot them directly in the eye with a 1000 strength bow for minutes. The only ways I know to fight them are to whack their high armor foot while they rage attack a wall or to stand someplace they can't reach and slowly and boringly snipe them to death. They move around so violently and their "grab this dude off my weak spot" is such huge fast hitbox that climbing them seems hopeless even if I torpor them first.

 

They're actually susceptable to most of the same shit, just have WAY higher stats. You'll probably need something like blast arrow spam (at legs obviously) to knock them over for example, really good equipment/spells to stagger one with lightning, make it drop it's weapon, etc.

If you want some cheesy strats you could consult the wiki (they have a blind spot for melee eye-gouging for example), but generally speaking they're just not meant to be fought when you only have ~1000 attack power. The one you encounter early on is mostly there to troll people I think and be a hint of things to come. It's one of the most powerful enemies in the entire game, so yeah, not a lot of weaknesses/easy kills.

 

I have enough attack at this point to kill (one) in a somewhat reasonable amount of time by hacking on a foot (like... 4-5 little normal attack combos takes off a lifebar), it just seems like a really boring fight. It's nothing like all the stuff you can do with regular cyclopes before you outlevel them. Although I guess part of that is that they completely mulch pawns that don't have anything close to the AI they need to do shit to them. You never really have a great reason to fight them (small gorecyclops drop the same shit I think) so I guess they're basically an environmental hazard.

 

Pretty sure the big masked ones drop better loot actually, but I've always found cursed dragons and a lot of the smaller enemies encountered later in BBI to give much more reward for your efforts. The main problem with them is that they're always in rooms where you can get way above them, so I think they weren't balanced properly because they took that flaw (easily cheesed by ranged attacks) into account.

 

All those acquisitor/guardian sorcerers

I'm playing as an Assassin atm and enjoing it a lot! I actually got this feeling, reminescent of the first time I played Gothic II as a warrior. Having reached Lv8 and Lv9 as fighter and warrior respectively really makes you apreciate having a ranged attack...
I've never tried Strider, are there any must have augments to be had? I love climbing atop monsters but have no need for the one weight-class reduction high level passive, I'm medium and my move/stamina ratio is gud enough for my tastes.

I made my pawn a healbot/support mage utilitarian/mitigator/medicant (Hidden, but if I undersand it correctly it should work as tertiary. I'm sure it's there because she akways asks about swapping miti for medi when I sit her)
I levelled her as a sorcerer up to Lv 9 for acuity and articulacy, as for spells I have both high heals (status + HP), High Comestion, Fire Affinity (to be swapped with watever is best for the situation), Grapnel (gud? she casts it rarely and I haven't noticed yet, new addition...) and as a personal favourite, high Brontide. Looks cool as fuck and I'm under the impression that due to her large-ish stamina pool (she's been a Mage for 34 out of 43 levels) she can keep it up far longer than the sorcerers I usually hire.

Never tried Blearing, Silentium or Spellscreen, they look situational to me atm, can someone vouch for their usefulness? Should I swap something for frigor to cover more weaknesses as I progress?

 

Grapnel is actually pretty awesome as a support spell, it either paralyzes things completely or slows them down a ton if they're too strong. Spellscreen is actually awesome, major defensive boost. Silence is mostly trash, if you have the time to silence something you can just kill it instead, with the exception of some super late game stuff and even then you can probably stunlock them.

 

Oh, I see, spellscreen raises a lot of defenses... I was under the impression it only affected magical attacks, I should have checked the wiki, thanks!

 

The Arm-Strength augment halves stamina consumption from clinging to creatures, invaluable when climbing large monsters, but requires rank 7 to obtain and thus probably isn't worth the time if you don't want to play as a Strider. There's a Leg-Strength augment that eases encumbrance limitations, but it requires rank 9, and since you already have access to the Fighter augment Sinew that eases encumbrance limitations in a different way, you don't need it. The lower-rank Strider augments are trivial.

 

Okay what is with these mage pawns not casting affinities. I switched my own pawn to be a sorcerer so I figured I'd get a support mage pawn with plenty of affinity spells but they seem really hesitant at casting them. I don't want to be spamming help all the time.

 

Elemental enchantments? They need to know that the buff in question is useful in the situation. Holy against undead, fire against foes weak with fire etc. Generally it is a good thing that they don't randomly spam them (once you have your perma-enchanted weapons or own weapon buffs active)

 

Check their behavior protocols. Most likely you've hired pawns with idiot masters who train them for melee or some shit.

 

Well I'm fighting Grigori at the moment and could use all the extra damage I can get but my support mage is very hesitant. She did cast some affinities earlier so she's better than the one I had before her who flat out refused. Just wondering because my own mage actively cast fire affinity when he still had it.
Also came across some pawns with 3 affinities but lacking the perk that makes them last longer. Christ.

 

Christ. I figured I'd go back to down to pick a wakestone and some periapts for Grigori. Well, like I said, Fournival and gone and you guessed it Madeleine is my beloved, so I have no way of buying them at the moment. Just my luck.

 

Puukko I wasn't kidding about behavior protocols. If your pawns are acting like assholes, go to the Status menu and check their Profile pages. You should see something like this. Check out those Inclinations. They are defined here. If your support Mage likes Guardian or various attack behaviors, they're not going to buff you as much. Find a Utilitarian. Even a weaker, smart pawn is better than a strong idiot.

 

Well.

I on the other hand went full homo

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(I used a wakestone on Julien ang got his shield).

Fucking dragon :z

 

Haha. Grigori went down in two minutes on hard mode thanks to a regular dark boon.

 

Make sure to check if the pawns are set for 'Guardian'. It's the worst affinity to have, since they do nothing except stand there until the Arisen gets hit. They are also more likely to cast healing spells when you are only a little hurt.

 

It's kind of baffling how easy it is to acquire Guardian or Medicant just by using the "Go", "Come" and "Help" commands frequently during battle, as does running out of stamina. Literally every other pawn has at least one of those if not both, and they are among the worst inclinations to have with Guardian certainly being absolutely fucking garbage. They really need an inclination tutorial so people don't complain about shitty pawn AI when it is actually the shitty inclinations they get from their master that fucks them up that hard. There should also be an inclination filter when looking for pawns, its one of the most important characteristics when looking for a pawn that fits your playstyle/party.

 

I am so wary of Guardian that I don't use commands. At all. Ever.