Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[Damned Registrations]

I'm still mad that you can get an extremely strong greatsword at the beginning of the game (it out-damages anything I can buy from Caxton even after giving him the Gold Idol, for example), but only shit-tier bows until well past mid-game, unless you get lucky; you can get a Hunter's Bow from the Tumblr bandits fort as I've since discovered. Pretty sure you're fucked on longbows, though.

While this is more or less true, you can also get stupidly powerful arrows extremely early in the game. Blast arrows will wreck the shit out of pretty much anything before BBI, and sleep arrows are amazing vs anything they work on, basically letting you chain stun them to death. Nevermind petrification arrows, which can let you murder garms right off the bat and jump ahead 50 levels at once. Or the maker's finger if you want to be REALLY cheesy.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Helpfulness:

You just couldn't handle her "true Codexer" attitude.

 

[Blaine]

Looking through them now that I've maxed the vocation, literally every single Assassin augment is shit. Preemption (basically sneak attack) might not be shit, except actually it is, because it's reportedly bugged. Toxicity might not be shit if it increased the lethality of poisons, but despite its description it insteadly vastly increases the odds of inflicting poison... but poison would take seven years to tickle something to death past mid-game.

Also, Gale Harness is fun and useful, but the six-second cast time is ridiculous because I could have killed six enemies in that time. It's good if you see stuff a ways off, though.

 

[Invictus]

Blaine you should switch for a couple of levels to warrior and fighter, they have some pretty good choices to carry over staring with the warriors +50 armor, I even got that for my sorcerer and it gives a bit on extra protection especially for start mid game because good protection for the assassin is a bit rare, as well as some extra damage and health boosts

 

[mediocrepoet]

It took me awhile to figure out what to do with low level friend pawns. Finally, I found an adversary worthy of their contributions!

Spoiler

 

[Blaine]

I played for 25 levels as a fighter and about 15 as a warrior, 10+ as Assassin so far, so I have pretty nice balance going on except for Stamina which is a bit low... although Stamina doesn't seem to regenerate any faster when you have a lot of it, requiring consumables during any tough fight. God bless Liquid Vim.

I'm probably going to play Strider for a while to get the augments and a bit of extra Stamina. I don't think Ranger has much of anything I can use elsewhere, and Lyncean Eye is more than adequate for sniping (Assassin really can do everything except magic/AoE).

mediocrepoet
There's an entire system in place to determine how many rift crystals the rented pawn's owner receives, outlined in the rift crystals article on the Wiki. It's all based on character level and the XP received from slaying monsters, and yours will probably get a lot of bonuses since it's the highest-level character in my party.

Mine will probably get a lot of penalties since it's being "carried," so if you could just go ahead and farm some Gorecyclops, that would be great.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I played for 25 levels as a fighter and about 15 as a warrior, 10+ as Assassin so far, so I have pretty nice balance going on except for Stamina which is a bit low... although Stamina doesn't seem to regenerate any faster when you have a lot of it, requiring consumables during any tough fight. God bless Liquid Vim.

I'm probably going to play Strider for a while to get the augments and a bit of extra Stamina. I don't think Ranger has much of anything I can use elsewhere, and Lyncean Eye is more than adequate for sniping (Assassin really can do everything except magic/AoE).

Ranger augments are fairly self contained. The magic boosting ones (attunement and acuity) can actually be useful, depending on what you're using/fighting, since the magic stat will boost your permanently enchanted weapons, even as an assassin. Otherwise, you pretty much just want stuff from fighter, warrior and strider. It requires an investment in mage and sorceror though, but magic boosts aren't terrible to have, especially if you want to vocation flip without starting over later.

 

[Perkel]

I played for 25 levels as a fighter and about 15 as a warrior, 10+ as Assassin so far, so I have pretty nice balance going on except for Stamina which is a bit low... although Stamina doesn't seem to regenerate any faster when you have a lot of it, requiring consumables during any tough fight. God bless Liquid Vim.

This is a reason why you can equip "worse" version of previous skills. Usually upgraded ones quickly takes out your stamina unless you are low level.

 

[Blaine]

Friendzoned by Mercedes

 

[Invictus]

Hahaha your fault Blaine for falling for the foreign girl, I am thinking of giving it to someone more deserving of beign my waifu

 

[Blaine]

That's all right, because soon after she lost a duel to a faggot; then I rescued m'lady in distress from a dank castle and tasted of her charms like a true medieval patriarch.

 

[Invictus]

More of the witchy underage looking waifu myself

 

[The Decline]

I fucked up and got Julien as my beloved.

Suffice it to say he was forced to try cliff diving soon afterwards.

 

[Delterius]

You know not what is true pain. In vanilla, odds were the blacksmith became your beloved.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

In the epilogue Symone (the fatass noble's little daughter) was treated as the beloved of my character

 

[The Decline]

You know not what is true pain. In vanilla, odds were the blacksmith became your beloved.

I had Fournival in vanilla.

 

[Invictus]

All worth biowarian options, medieval wood dildos for everybody!

 

[polo]

So, i have a question. Im in bitterblack, have unlocked 2 shortcuts, and reached Demon looking guy which looks like the final boss in the bitterblack sanctum. And here goes my question, i can't do shit to him right now, is there a shortcut or something near? The last shortcut i opened was like 3 floors above i dunno.

 

[Blaine]

The one and only time I forgot to bring eyedroppers, I was blinded by goblins while advancing to battle the drake in Devilfire Grove.

Of course the support mage had High Halidom, but she has Scather primary like every other support mage in the Rift, and there were seven hundred and fifty thousand goblins there (and a drake) so she couldn't get a cast off. Bros, I'm so tired of fighting wolves, harpies, and goblins.

Doesn't matter, killed the drake with little difficulty.

 

[Invictus]

The blinding effect is so awesome, the first time it hit me I didnt know what was going on while my pawns ran around screaming their usual shit "they hate fire" :p
And yeah Blaine most pawns suck big time, maybe that is why I have not changed my healing pawn because he has very good setup of spells and actually knows how to use them plus he always begins combat by casting holy on my sorcerer and magic defense on everybody
Right now my group of main pawn warrior, strider, healing mage and my sorcerer kick so much ass I just killed Salome with a meteor while he was screaming some shit after the cutscene :D

 

[Anthony Davis]

You know not what is true pain. In vanilla, odds were the blacksmith became your beloved.

Blacksmith of the Innkeeper. I used to unsheathe my weapons at them every time they made that ringy noise and had the pink blur. Sometimes I would even pick them and throw them - but that would sometimes get me thrown in prison.


Worth it.

 

[Anthony Davis]

The blinding effect is so awesome, the first time it hit me I didnt know what was going on while my pawns ran around screaming their usual shit "they hate fire" :p
And yeah Blaine most pawns suck big time, maybe that is why I have not changed my healing pawn because he has very good setup of spells and actually knows how to use them plus he always begins combat by casting holy on my sorcerer and magic defense on everybody
Right now my group of main pawn warrior, strider, healing mage and my sorcerer kick so much ass I just killed Salome with a meteor while he was screaming some shit after the cutscene :D

I agree.

I don't know if they changed it or not - because I'm too careful to get blinded now, but in the original getting blinded meant you could accidentally melee your own pawns. I gotta go check they Wiki to see if that's still the case.

Petrification and Blindness, my two top resist priorities.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So, i have a question. Im in bitterblack, have unlocked 2 shortcuts, and reached Demon looking guy which looks like the final boss in the bitterblack sanctum. And here goes my question, i can't do shit to him right now, is there a shortcut or something near? The last shortcut i opened was like 3 floors above i dunno.

Use a liftstone, the only other shortcut is behind Daimon. If you need to hurt him, use the stat boosting items or level up. Also taking wakestones is recommended.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Blacksmith of the Innkeeper. I used to unsheathe my weapons at them every time they made that ringy noise and had the pink blur. Sometimes I would even pick them and throw them - but that would sometimes get me thrown in prison.

Worth it.

If you use a ferrystone to teleport away before the Gran Soren guards reach you, they won't remember you've committed a crime, even if your teleport destination is Gran Soren itself. I'd rather spend 2,000 gold on another ferrystone than suffer the indignity of being jailed simply because I needed to lower someone's affinity.

 

[Blaine]

I strongly feel that I earned the Eternal Ferrystone after walking to the same fucking places 20 times during my last playthrough.

I'm starting to remember one of the downsides of Dragon's Dogma and, I suspect, one of the reasons it's not as popular as it could be: The backtracking. There'll be a main quest, or two, in a given area, as well as two or three side quests in that area. If doing the Badge of Vows quests, add 2-3+ to that number. These backtrack quests often don't become available in a way that allows you to group them together, either.

Yes, they'll make you go to the Catacombs for one badge, then to Gran Soren, then to the Shadow Fort, then to Soulflayer Canyon, then back to the Catacombs, then to Gran Soren, then back to the Shadow Fort, etc., often for one badge at a time. It's absolutely unreal. All I can think is that Capcom was saying, "Fuck you, buy riftstones." All of the badges in one area should be available as consecutive quests.

Once you have the badges you can turn them in again in subsequent playthroughs for quick crystals, so you're strongly compelled to do them.