Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[Damned Registrations]

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.

 

[Mozg]

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.

 

[Damned Registrations]

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.

 

[Matalarata]

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?

 

[Damned Registrations]

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.

 

[Matalarata]

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!

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

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.

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.

 

[Puukko]

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.

 

[Haba]

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)

 

[Zombra]

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.

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

 

[Puukko]

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.

 

[Puukko]

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.

 

[Zombra]

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.

 

[Haba]

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.

Well.

I on the other hand went full homo

Spoiler

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

Fucking dragon :z

 

[Puukko]

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

 

[Fug]

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.

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

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.

 

[Saark]

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.

 

[Delterius]

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

 

[DDZ]

My pawn is also like that, had het in the knowledge chair yesterday and I had the otipn guardian and medicant.

Didnt know the elixers were for sale in the encampment

 

[Damned Registrations]

What they really need is a mod or update that simply stops giving pawns inclinations based on your actions. It was a neat idea, but it works very poorly, because it means a melee character with a ranged support pawn shouldn't climb on monsters, you shouldn't ever run out of stamina or give orders (even if the orders are for the hired pawns and not your own) etc. Even if you know how the system works in restricts your behaviour way too much to actually play the game properly.

 

[Saark]

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

The amusing part is that if the pawns are set up properly either through careful gameplay or just using the elixirs from the encampment, you don't really have to use any of the commands. Watched some streams the other day and one guy was literally stuck in a maneater for close to a minute while his pawns watched, healed and buffed him and tried to shoot it with arrows. He was spamming the "Help" and "Come" commands while he was in there, probably confusing the pawns even more while constantly complaining about the awful pawn AI. Meanwhile my pawns get me out of the maneater in less then 2 seconds every single time without me having to give any commands whatsoever. The difference between a pawn with full bestiary knowledge and good inclinations compared to a relatively new one with shitty ones is just too big in my opinion.

 

[Damned Registrations]

That's actually another problem- the requirements for bestiary knowledge are often insane, requiring you to kill a rare monster 50 times and observe all sorts of obscure things it can react to.

 

[Matalarata]

Apparently, left and right d-pad commands (both labelled "help") are different, the right one calls for healing while the left one calls for buffs and reinforces utilitarian.
That said, simply use elixirs. I just bought 40 or so utilitarian and half that amount of mitigator and medicant, they should last me the whole game. I always bring a single util elixir with me, in case my pawn changes inclination mid-quest.
Remember that the third inclination, not shown, also influences pawn behaviour. From my experience, eg medicant starts casting heals at 90% health if primary, at 75% if secondary and at 50% health if tertiary.
According to the wiki pushing it down to the fourth place means casting healing at 25% health but I can't confirm that.

 

[Heresiarch]

WARNING: DO NOT KILL THE GRIFFIN BEFORE IT FLEES TO THE TOWER!

I am not using the spoiler tag because personally I have killed the thing so fast that I completely missed the supposedly epic sequences afterwards. So I hope other people will not suffer the same fate.

In fact I thought that there will be another Griffin to fight at the tower, until I read in the Wiki that the tower part is second stage of the fight.

Right now I am going to the tower again for another quest. Did I miss anything because I could not go there for the first time?

 

[Matalarata]

Heresiarch

Spoiler

You're right, epic sequence lost. Since you're doing the second quest, if you are a caster or use a caster pawn, remember to make a forgery of what you need to bring back. It's very good...