Topic: Dragons Dogma 2

I believe high palladium might be a cheat code too. I always assumed it was just for the mage's own defence, but it buffs the whole party.

I've switched Timmy to a Sorcerer for a bit and hired a dedicated healer for that role though, just for some change up.

As a fighter I now have Riotous Fury and Counter Slash, and another major defensive shield skill i've not got activated at the moment, but I don't feel i'm lacking from no dodges now as I'm getting hit a lot less and the counters are devistating and set up follor up moves. The shield is basically pointless until you unlock the special blocks and counters I think, but now it is sweeeeeet.

I mentioned 'Dead Ringer' for mystic spearhand before. I thought its stats looked insane compared to all my fighter swords. Just heard its a late game weapon. It must have dropped from one of the big monsters I'd been fighting. I definitely didn't pay for it 😁 maybe the

Did anyone else get the drop anywhere?

@Ravix your cruising through the game. Sounds like some exciting adventures. I'm still running my second run of bg3 now with my daughter for most of my game time. Only dabbling in DD2. Enjoying my first 5 hours so far.

Anyone want to share pawn names or codes? Mine is quite low so I'll wait a bit, but could be fun to share the stories from our pawns with each other

I found the Trickster Vocation. A really cool concept and I'm sure someone smarter than me will do incredible things with it, but I found it personally completely useless. I am almost maxed on my Thief Vocation and this game really is kinda built around swapping Vocations, rather than just mainlining one, so I have gone back to Mystic Spearhand to try and give it another go. I still think it feels so weird to have no movement ability for this class.

Like, you can unlock a teleport thing, but the timing on that feels weird. You do also unlock a forcefield so maybe I'll lean into that instead. I dunno, still feels very clunky to me compared to how fast and fluid the Thief feels. But I'll give it more time.

Likewise, my Main Pawn maxed out the Mage Vocation, so I have been levelling them as a Fighter, trying to make them like a frontline tank to draw agro and then soak up hits. Seems to be working well so far, but it does mean I have to keep hiring new Healer pawns so they keep up with the rest of the party, as you don't want your main Healer to become underlevelled and constantly go down. Something you don't need to worry about when it is your Main Pawn as the healer. But again, there seems to be no benefit sitting around on a maxed Vocation, so we push on.

@Elodin oh, I'm definitely not cruising, but I played a good deal over the weekend and mostly just freeform explore while ignoring the actual main quest. And the 'endgame weapon' i'm sure just dropped from a fairly early explore in a very early area, so I'm no where near the actual end game.

I was surprised how wrapped up in everything some sidequests got though, so I'm glad I'm doing it this way. And some of the first main quest parts had callbacks and uses for some of the stuff i'd been getting up to away from the main quest, which is cool.

Last night though I had a basic sidequest that required waiting for a while, but instead of going to the Inn and skipping time I decided to just wander for a bit to see any areas I might have missed that were nearby...

And this is how my session ended:

Again, I have no idea how I managed it, and again I used a wakestone to stay in it, which I must stop doing and focus on running away until I've levelled up more. But I couldn't resist trying to put the Drake down first time, just in case it dropped* something nice 🫢😬😁

*It dropped stuff I have no idea how to use yet, so it's just been sent to storage haha.

I don't mind checking out people's pawns at some point. I sometimes end up with underlevelled pawns if I'm enjoying their chatter and fighting styles anyway. Although one said something suspicious at one point so I booted them ASAP. Like the "slow down" when your running dialogue seemed very harsh from one of the pawns I had. It was more like "i'm not doing thatz b****" in tone. Maybe I imagined it, but you can't be too careful 🫢

@Pizzamorg I think for mystic spearhand it's designed to stay ranged and then move in on every stun, maybe. There is a cool jump up evade move that I unlocked, though. So when someone swipes at you, you leap 10 foot in the air and come back down with the blade. So that works as a vertical dodge and follow up attack.

Maybe try what I did in switching to it for going exploring at night, and level it up vs the undead and skellies.

Or you know, take on a Drake 😬 If you supplement your squad with an insane thief and archer, and have your Pawn healing and with maybe one big weapon buff it could be a good way to unlock more moves for your arisen

Ooo I don't think I have unlocked that yet @Ravix - what level of the vocation does that open up?

I hope they patch out Pawns automatically stopping you when you walk by wanting to be hired. It's very annoying.

@Pizzamorg I think 4 and 6 for regular and advanced. It is called something Fangtooth 😅

There's also Devout Offringe, which is the Jedi lift and toss move which can help defensively if you get overwhelmed by a pack of enemies in a tight space.

I found some cool daggers last night, so I'm tempted to start putting some points into Thief sooner rather than later.

I'm still not entirely certain how levelling each vocation works in terms of levelling your regular stats/atts, as it seems like weapons are what make your strength and magic go up and it seems like health changes to fit whatever vocation you pick anyway 🤔

And I had done no magic, but as a spearhand my magic just starts decent anyway

The main quests have been when I'm having the least amount of fun. All the Captain Brant quests felt like a chore. I'm going back to exploring which is fantastic.

Has anyone’s pawn contracted the plague yet? I got the notification when I got a new hire and I instantly dismissed that pawn. So now I am watching to see if my team starts complaining about their head or has red eyes. Not trying to have an accidental murder vessel hanging with me. And I don’t wanna toss my pawn in the ocean. She was forfeit once early game and it still bothers her sometimes.

Also anyone aware if it is still best to vocation camp for growth rates? I plan on playing through at least twice so it isn’t pressing currently but the original game trained me not to waste levels in poor growth vocations.

@Splat I've a friend who is new to DD, only has 12 hours and is more advanced on the story than me. I've just been, like you, uncovering the map and battering every bugger that I come across and it's just amazing! (PS, thanks for the pawn hire, I reciprocated!)

@Ryu_Niiyama the plague terrifies me. I make sure to have a good chat with every pawn before I sleep, and as I'm levelling a little slower now I use campsites more and more, don't care to update my pawn's status as much. I've read that it's clear that a pawn has the plague long in advance, and I think it'll make for really interesting NG+ experiences, but first time around it has really spooked me out.

I just played for three hours and didn't do a single quest. This game is 100% at it's best when you just pick a direction you haven't been and start walking.

I have really started to push how long I can stay out without camping or headed back to a town. It really helps with the sense of adventure.

For the most part I would agree with you here, but I think there are limits. When I first unlocked the quest to go across the border. This whole thing took probably over two real world hours to actually complete. I had to go to the main city to get an oxcart, to then get so far of the way to the town I needed to go to but we didn't get all the way there cause we were attacked and the cart got destroyed. The final stretch to the town I am getting attacked what feels like every thirty seconds. We get to the town then have to work out a way to actually cross the border. Then once I did that, there is a second even longer trek to get to the actual destination, and again I am being attacked what feels like every thirty seconds. I was so exhausted by this (in the bad way). I was longing for some quests to break up this journey.

So last night I mostly just did exploring to check some areas out before going to do the last couple of Brandt quests, one of which is marked on an area I have chosen to ignore, for now, to give me more to do when I do head there.

But there was also something bugging me from earlier exploration where I'd visited a house and the inhabitants dialogue seemed like it was supposed to be a quest, but nothing happened. It wasn't regular chatter, it was about magic and very specific. Visited again, nothing. So I had to look it up, and it turns out one of the associated characters often ends up in the morgue because of a monster. So I checked it out, and revived them, to their great thanks before they vanished on their way. Then eventually I headed back to their house, and still nothing happened and she wasn't back. I don't really want to check the morgue again, and if it is the case then I have no idea why she'd be there after I'd just revived her, and it would cost me another wake stone if she is 😅😅😅

So, confused by that, I thought i'd check out where the

got to. The area looked really quite nice, though I only explored some caves and decided I will respec to check out their quest next time and have a good look around that part of the map.

I got to level 9 fighter, and I think both level 5 Theif and Mystic Spearhand. Theif to me seemed a bit button mashy, and levelled up really quickly in one journey, but it could be okay in some big fights. But I prefer the struggle of my fighter getting all the aggro with 3 support pawns, as I'm a sadist 😆 going to test the limits of parry at some point, as I hear you can actually parry large monsters with a shield, which I hadn't been attempting.

I guess I'm spoilt for choice now with two areas to properly get stuck into, but I do wish I could definitively find what is uo with that woman to trigger the damn quest, and then I can ignore that early game area for a while and not have to trek back to see if she is ever going to be there periodically 😅

Hi everyone. I was thinking of picking this up earlier, there is a weapon in the first game that looks like Guts' sword from Berserk, the 'Saving Grace' is what I believe it's called. Is this weapon in DD2 as well or only in the first game? If it's not present, is there anything similar in DD2?

@Black_Swordsman
https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Greatswords

You can get lifetaker fairly early. Ogresbane is possibly what you are looking for (I googled saving grace' and it looks similar.

Take it you are looking towards the warrior class?

@SJH I love that it adds a risk/reward factor to the pawn system plus it is a nice lore addition. Not trying to catch it though. Lol.

I avoid all Kratos Pawns. He's clearly carrying something after his past life. If you know what I'm saying.

Man, I'd love an Elven game like this one. The Elf quests are properly chill. Do Capcom usually do DLC's or not? Because there is great spin off DLC potential if this game does well.

Archer seems pretty fun as a class too, especially when you can jump off things shooting in mid air, and because you can actually aim for weak points while a warrior distracts enemies, but I mostly changed just to start this quest and I'm already back to levelling Spearhand 😆