Dragon's Dogma II - "They’re masterworks, all – you can’t go wrong"

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Archer is weak even having godlike aim (in this game easily accomplished by using a mouse). You're only a forced to be reckoned with if you haven't played classes that actually do damage.

I don't know what to tell ya. I'll have most mobs wiped out before my pawns even get a chance to take a swing. You're mistaking not being OP for being useless. Not having an awesome button like Skull Splitter that makes health bars instantly disappear doesn't = weak.

And buffing it could be a slippery slope. Buff it too much and it would destroy most of the other classes. Like I said earlier heavenly shot needs beefed up and the kick needs more knockback/knockdown power and it's good to go.

Which moves are you using?

None really. Still using Warfarer and all Thief skills but mostly using the Medusa bow to speed level. Archer skills are worthless with Medusa bow.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Finished!

Overall, a great game. I think I prefer it to the original, going to reinstall DDDA for a fresh playthrough before going New Game+ on this to make sure.

My beloved was Sara the blacksmith. Probably because I had to keep carrying the lazy **** back to work because she kept skiving off around town and I needed my stuff upgrading!

Top 3 Friends:
1) Sara the Lazy Skiver
2) Gay Elf's Fairly Hot Sister
3) The Forger

Level 110? Holy hell.
Were you farming mobs or just exploring?

Both... I managed to get 182 Seeker Tokens and thoroughly explored most of the normal world and pretty much all of the Unmoored World. I also did all the Pawn badges except for: Gorechimera (8), Sphynx (2, someone hired my Pawn with a 'kill the Sphynx' quest, which might save me a NG+ playthrough later if I decide to do absolutely everything), Lesser Dragon (5), Warg (9). I also have to camp 7 more times in West Vern. for the last camping badge.

Ended up changing from Warfarer to Warrior in the lead up to the final sequence of the game, then stayed with it through the unmoored world. Warrior is so much better with the two Warfarer augments it's unreal. The movement one means you basically feel totally unencumbered if you keep your load at light, while the stamina cost reduction lets you go wild on Drakes and Lesser Dragons. I had 450 Wyrmslife Crystals saved up before I spent them all at the end of the unmoored world, and already had a couple of fully dragonforged equipment sets and 5 (I think?) Dragonforged Weapons, so I killed a lot of Drakes (I think 40 or so?) most of them before hitting the unmoored world.


Hardest fights by far are the Dullahans in the unmoored world. My god. One of the Wakestones I had to use is when one jumped me when I was already in combat with a bunch of skeleton warriors and mages. It stunlocked my character with its yell, picked him up and shredded him, then 2 Wargs joined in and kept picking him up and munching on him while my pawns were being reputedly stunned. Those Dullahans are worth 12k XP each and I can see why. They're like kryptonite for Warriors, you can only use basic attacks because they teleport all over the place when you charge anything, interrupt you when you're about to strike, and stunlock you for fun.


I killed 6 of them in the end :D

 

[Grampy_Bone]

One lucky break was a pawn at level 2 offering a Ring of Endeavor (the 220 token reward) for a fruit roborant. 50% discipline boost the entire game.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I played an archer to max rank and it was excruciating. Even pumping arrows into a cyclops eye did pathetic damage.

I take back some of my spearhand criticism. The upgraded Magicke Spooge-on attack with an elven forged spear actually does respectable damage.

I'm curious, what bow are you using and which upgrade path did you use? A dwarven Medusa bow is p fierce and it's not even a endgame weapon. I stagger a Cyclops with a single regular arrow.

I haven't used Hydra Husk much yet (supposedly the best bow in the game). The XP boost from Medusa Bow is too good to pass up.

 

[Stoned Ape]

I'm curious, what bow are you using and which upgrade path did you use? A dwarven Medusa bow is p fierce and it's not even a endgame weapon. I stagger a Cyclops with a single regular arrow.

I haven't used Hydra Husk much yet (supposedly the best bow in the game). The XP boost from Medusa Bow is too good to pass up.

Meduasn Spellbow has about 13% less damage output than the Hydra Husk, but seems to have the same knockback power.

I wouldn't think there would be that much difference between the two if you're just using normal shots. Hydra Husk is lighter and drains much less stamina so has a big advantage in boss fights when using abilities. The Medusan Spellbow's XP boost is really nice and it's great for tearing through mobs when you don't need to use skills.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I'm curious, what bow are you using and which upgrade path did you use? A dwarven Medusa bow is p fierce and it's not even a endgame weapon. I stagger a Cyclops with a single regular arrow.

I haven't used Hydra Husk much yet (supposedly the best bow in the game). The XP boost from Medusa Bow is too good to pass up.

Meduasn Spellbow has about 13% less damage output than the Hydra Husk, but seems to have the same knockback power.

I wouldn't think there would be that much difference between the two if you're just using normal shots. Hydra Husk is lighter and drains much less stamina so has a big advantage in boss fights when using abilities. The Medusan Spellbow's XP boost is really nice and it's great for tearing through mobs when you don't need to use skills.

Oh for sure. I'm several levels higher than my pawn. I'd let her use the bow but something tells me she would do jackshit with it. Pawns can't into archery.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Ooooo I forgot to mention if you're gonna kill Sphinx

Spoiler

and you have the unmaking arrow, you make damn sure you equip the Medusa Spellbow first.

That shit netted me over 70 thousand experience points.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

I know this sounds crazy, but I think my pawn actually managed to inflict fulminant poison, on a Drake!

I finally switched her back to Archer and gave her a stack of about 30 Blighting Arrows. Drake stayed blighted most of the fight, and then all of a sudden after a topple from heart damage, he immediately toppled again and started taking multiple large ticks of damage very fast. I only had a Sorcerer in the party so I know it wasn't them dealing the damage. It wasn't anything huge, I think only about 2/3s of a healthbar if I remember correctly, so I definitely wouldn't rely on it. But it is a free topple, on top of the free topple you can already get by silencing them while they're flying (thanks again for that tip, Anonona ).

Still haven't spent a single Wyrmslife Crystal.

 

[Stoned Ape]

So, I thought a bit about DDDA in relation to DD2 after loading it up again.

Light is more important in DDDA. In DD2 you can kind of get around without your lantern if you have to, and in misty places at night it can actually be easier to see without the glare. Additionally there are more environmental light sources and even distant light offers some small degree of visibility. Campsites are generally around if you've properly explored locations in DD2, so being out at night never felt much of a problem to me. This makes the dark much more threatening in DDDA, which I think is a big plus point.

The animations are much more fluid and look much better in DD2, however movement is more precise and the controls feel more direct in DD1, mostly because it has simpler animations. This is a problem with pretty much all newer 3rd person perspective action games; as the animations get better, they take longer to play and add dead spots where the player can't easily exit an animation that has started which leads to input delay. This doesn't effect DD2 that badly but it is still a small issue.

DD2 obviously looks a long way ahead in character models and faces, and the character creator is an incredible step forward. The lip flap animations in both games look a bit janky in most conversations.

As for vocations, I'm playing Strider at the moment in DDDA and its as fun as I remember it. Having 6 active skills instead of 4 offers a good degree of build customization and the playstyle is fun. However, DD2 having moved a lot of active skills into the vocation's core set means a Warfarer Thief/Archer has as many skills to play with as a Strider (and more if additional weapons are equipped) but a number of them are locked in. Even taking Warfarer out of the equation, I think there are a greater number of viable melee/ranged builds in DD2, but the extra slots make spellcasters more versatile in DDDA. I doubt I'll ever play Trickster for any length of time as it seems like a lot of messing around for very little benefit, but it does offer a proper illusionist playstyle for the three people in the world who are looking for that kind of experience.

Enemy variety is a big issue with DD2 compared to DDDA. However compared to DD1 before the expansion I think DD2 has the edge. At the moment I have to give this to DDDA, but after an expansion is released I hope this will equal out.

Encounters/challenge. Once you've levelled up sufficiently in DD2 (which doesn't take that long) everything in the game aside from Green Drakes and Dullahans are very easy to kill as long as you're careful with resource management and don't get dogpiled by multiple groups of enemies (especially in Battahl). Having the loss gauge only refill at rests makes the Unmoored World a much more challenging place to visit due to its mechanics and I really enjoyed exploring it and having to be really careful with my resources. For me, DDDA kept the challenge level higher for much more of the game.

World variety is greater in DD2, and the environments look much better. I miss some of the unique locations in DDDA (particularly BBI, Soulflayer Canyon, and the Witchwood). Similarly, I think I prefer the Catacombs in DDDA to any one dungeon in DD2, and Gran Soren is a more interesting place to explore than Vermont. However for me the overall variety of locations and environments in DD2 offer a superior overall experience (multiple towns/camps, a greater number of biomes, places that feel different to explore, the Unmoored World).

Combat. I massively prefer fighting big monsters with a Warrior in DD2 to anything in DDDA. It just feels so satisfying to smash huge enemies to the ground with a big sword/hammer. Due to animations DDDA had the edge on responsiveness, but I felt combat felt less spammy/repetitive in DD2 and there were more ways to deal with problems.

Sound/Music preference is quite subjective. Environmental sounds are great in both games, I prefer the music in DDDA.

NPCs: In DD2 I didn't care about Ulrika. Wilhelmina just left. The dude in the bar game me some quests. Empress' cat guard woman really liked taking baths. Gay Elf's Fairly Hot Sister's attempts at speaking English were quite endearing. Sara was a lazy, annoying stalker. Gay Elf kept trying to find excuses to give me flowers. Dwarf smith was a bro before he retired. His wife was antisocial. Sven was sort of there and I might try romancing his mum in a NG+ sometime.
Mercedes was interesting then left. Madeleine was fun. Selene was quiet. The duke's wife had a weird face. I wanted to kick the Jester off the top of the castle tower. The duke was a douchebag. Evil wizard gollum thing was there for a bit then died. The Dragonforged said some things.

The billboard quests in DDDA were terrible, but the main questline was very good. The sidequests in DD2 are more interesting than in DDDA but the main quest only really gets good towards the end. There was nothing that gave me 'lack of reactivity' whiplash in DD2 the way that getting caught in the duke's wife's tower did in DDDA.

Pawn AI seems vastly better in DD2 and Dragon's Plague gives you something else to worry about (especially if you spend a lot of time hunting Drakes like I did). My DD2 pawn was the best NPC in the game for me and felt many times more interesting than my pawn in DDDA did. I even kept rehiring a couple of pawns that were around level 60 when I surpassed them because I liked the party balance with their AI and higher level pawns I tried didn't fit the party as well.

tl;dr: Both are great games and looking at a lot of the individual parts DDDA should be better, but for me DD2 is the superior game. The interaction with pawns and the way that combat works is more entertaining and those are the most important parts of the series for me.

Tellingly, after restarting DDDA yesterday what I really want to do is play a NG+ run of DD2.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Archer--
+You can attack things at range
+Not as terrible as the Trickster
-No defensive abilities of note
-Underpowered
-Weak
-Dumb
-Looks stupid
-Virgin

What happened here? The split of strider into Thief/Archer really shafted this class. Takes forever to kill things and that's if you main them and play aggressive. Only class that requires ammo for some moves is bullshit. Archer pawns are a straight up liability. Only worth it for the lethality augment.

I will say, if you're playing a Warrior and make your main pawn an archer and customise her correctly she becomes an incredible asset. Mine was Kindhearted and I gave her no charge skills (I think she had manifold shot, cascade shot, spiral arrow, and tempest shot). It's much easier to hire a good mage than it is a decent archer, and a Warrior needs a decent archer to deal with annoying shit while he kills the big stuff.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I can't accept that shit. Pawns as archers are fuckin worthless bro. Maybe I'm overly critical because I spent the majority of the game playing as an archer but those MFers are useless in that vocation. They don't use the skills right and they don't take advantage of the accuracy, which is absolutely crucial involving that class.

 

[Stoned Ape]

I can't accept that shit. Pawns as archers are fuckin worthless bro. Maybe I'm overly critical because I spent the majority of the game playing as an archer but those MFers are useless in that vocation. They don't use the skills right and they don't take advantage of the accuracy, which is absolutely crucial involving that class.

As a Warrior, I needed some kind of archer to deal with annoying crap, particularly Harpies. My pawn reliably shot them down if they were aggro'd, which is what I needed from her. The only other option was to have her as a Thief, but she bled heath as one (as most pawn thieves do) and that was absolutely unacceptable during the unmoored world.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I can't accept that shit. Pawns as archers are fuckin worthless bro. Maybe I'm overly critical because I spent the majority of the game playing as an archer but those MFers are useless in that vocation. They don't use the skills right and they don't take advantage of the accuracy, which is absolutely crucial involving that class.

As a Warrior, I needed some kind of archer to deal with annoying crap, particularly Harpies. My pawn reliably shot them down if they were aggro'd, which is what I needed from her. The only other option was to have her as a Thief, but she bled heath as one (as most pawn thieves do) and that was absolutely unacceptable during the unmoored world.

Herpes are a problem for everyone but an archer pawn is not the solution. I hired one to see how she would deal with her Herpes and she spent more time staring at her toes than shooting the MFers. I'd recommend any type of pawn over an archer. It requires too much precise shit that only a human player can do. AI still ain't up to the task. There's no sense in hiring an archer pawn unless you want to intentionally nerf yourself.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Herpes are a problem for everyone but an archer pawn is not the solution. I hired one to see how she would deal with her Herpes and she spent more time staring at her toes than shooting the MFers. I'd recommend any type of pawn over an archer. It requires too much precise shit that only a human player can do. AI still ain't up to the task. There's no sense in hiring an archer pawn unless you want to intentionally nerf yourself.

Different pawns are good at different things. My main pawn has max rank in every vocation that is open to her, and the two she is worst at are Thief and Warrior. She was a mage for absolutely ages and while she was very competent she still won't levitate, while I've hired lower-level pawns which do as soon as there is trouble and only cast long-initiation spells when they are in the air.

There are multiple layers to pawn learning, and my pawn is a competent archer. Is she as good as a human? No way. Is she good enough for the job I need her to do? Absolutely yes.

She also does some things as an archer way more often than she does as other vocations, for example she has toppled so many unbalanced golems while an archer that she normally just attacks as other vocations. I have no idea why, she just does.

tl;dr I agree, most pawns are shitty archers, either due to bad skill selections, not having the correct temprament for the role, or not learning good behaviour. For some reason my pawn is decent at the job and I'm very glad she is.

 

[Haplo]

Is it possible to actually aim Thief Ensnare / Implicate?

Its a great ability, but I'm always just shooting the rope forward (and missing enemies who are for example, below me). Meanwhile I though it could be used to aim upwards/downwards at harpies and shiiiet.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Is it possible to actually aim Thief Ensnare / Implicate?

Its a great ability, but I'm always just shooting the rope forward (and missing enemies who are for example, below me). Meanwhile I though it could be used to aim upwards/downwards at harpies and shiiiet.

You can target harpies with it (it normally needs 2 hits to drag them to the ground), but the aim is a bit wonky sometimes. I think it's to do with range and how far the camera is elevated.

 

[Haplo]

Is it possible to actually aim Thief Ensnare / Implicate?

Its a great ability, but I'm always just shooting the rope forward (and missing enemies who are for example, below me). Meanwhile I though it could be used to aim upwards/downwards at harpies and shiiiet.

You can target harpies with it (it normally needs 2 hits to drag them to the ground), but the aim is a bit wonky sometimes. I think it's to do with range and how far the camera is elevated.

Thank you, but how do you even start targetting it? Oh maybe I need some kind of target lock? Never used it in DD so far....

 

[mediocrepoet]

Is it possible to actually aim Thief Ensnare / Implicate?

Its a great ability, but I'm always just shooting the rope forward (and missing enemies who are for example, below me). Meanwhile I though it could be used to aim upwards/downwards at harpies and shiiiet.

You can target harpies with it (it normally needs 2 hits to drag them to the ground), but the aim is a bit wonky sometimes. I think it's to do with range and how far the camera is elevated.

Thank you, but how do you even start targetting it? Oh maybe I need some kind of target lock? Never used it in DD so far....

A lot of it seems to have to do with facing in the right direction. Like if you're looking off to the side a bit, it'll generally miss, but if you're facing the target's direction (elevation aside), it'll usually grab stuff above anyway. Not sure about targets below, but I've found the skill very useful in general.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Implicate is busted since it opens up targets to a finisher. It's just pull, kill, pull, kill. Effective but kinda boring. I also like planting a powder charge then pulling mobs into that.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Implicate is busted since it opens up targets to a finisher. It's just pull, kill, pull, kill. Effective but kinda boring. I also like planting a powder charge then pulling mobs into that.

Smoke bomb is even worse for that.

Thief is pretty busted all around.

 

[Haplo]

Well, smoke Bomba at least has limited range and short duration.
Smokescreen on the other hand...

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS I GOT HUNDREDS OF GAMES TO PLAY

PLEASE SUMMARIZE IS THIS WORTH A PURCHASE!! M.?

DRAGONS DOGMA ONE IS ONE OF MY FAV GAMES MANY TIMES

JUST CURIOUS BROS THE MOST ENTERTAIN THING IN MY LIFE NOTE IS REPLAYING THE SHIT OUT OF SEKIRO MY WIFE GETS SO HOT WHEN I TELL HER MY BIG AND THICK NINJA STORIES

Ya know I always wondered, did your caps lock button break on your keyboard?

BRO I WAS DRINK ENOUGH TO INSULT YOU IN A REPLY

THEN I TOHINK YOU ARE A TRU BRO AND I WILL NOT TELL A STORY ABOUT HOW MY CAPS LOCK NOT BREAK BUT MY DICK ALMOST DID ON YOUR MOM

AND NOW WE JUST BECAME AN INTERACIAL FRIENDSHIP LOLLOLOL

 

[HoboForEternity]

So anyone's game keep crashing after the latest patch? Like every 10 minutes or so.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

So anyone's game keep crashing after the latest patch? Like every 10 minutes or so.

It's been a couple days since I last played. I've been a drunken wreck wishing for death. Which platform you on? I can boot it up and test it. All of gaming has gone to shit so this isn't news to me.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

. I've been a drunken wreck wishing for death

That's nothing new