Dragon's Dogma

Right now I'm grinding on skeletons summoned by the Wight for Gold, Disciple Points, and most importantly EXP. I'm sitting at level 54 and currently have 1,457,184 Gold and 36,083 DP. I'm also doing this in the Assassin Vocation so my final build will be exactly the way I want it.

Edited by VeryMelon on Oct 30th 2019 at 10:59:06 AM

I walked by the drake in the grove and realized I was a strider, which is so not my preferred way of fighting him. I walked all the way back to gran soren, switched to warrior, then went back and destroyed him lol. Fighting a drake with the warrior is the most satisfying way to do so, due to how a well timed/aimed arc of deliverance just wrecks the dude. At one point he couldn't even get up because I kept AOD him down.

Fighting against them as an Assassin is pretty fun; Tempest Harness with Thousand Kisses absolutely rips apart any of the Dragonkin. Good times were had farming the Undead Dragon for Dragonforging.

Edited by ITNW1989 on Oct 30th 2019 at 3:24:32 AM

Majick Archer's pretty good too. I one-shot a drake once with a Ninefold Bolt when I got lucky and had all the projectiles hit it's heart.

Magick Archer is fantastic when fighting the Condemned Goreclopes. "It's over! I have the high ground!" has never been truer.

Are you sure? I'm not familiar with Berserk, but I got the Dark Arisen version of the game on PS 3 and I'm pretty sure it had that gear in it.

The license hadn't run out when Dark Arisen was released for PS3, if I recall correctly. The Berserk armor sets aren't in the PC version, which was released later.

This playthrough was the first time I did the Arousing Suspicion quest.

Made me hate aelinore lol. It did make me like Festus more though haha.

I on the otherhand like Aelinore. I actually know her full backstory and feel nothing but sympathy from her, especially who's she married too.

Online players are so damn generous when they want to be it's hilarious. My Pawn Dante came back deck in full Dragonforged Armor with a blessed daggers and a Dragonforged Rusty Bow, which causes poison and torpor nearly each use. She was also given a Wyrmking's Ring and a Portcrystal that I haven't used yet. To top it all off, she earned 195,628 Rift Crystals from her journey.

BTW, I'm level 79 and my Pawn is level 71. I only just completed Pride Before a Fall and The Wyrmking's Ring. I'm about to do another leveling session so I can get to 100 and change from Assassin back to Sorcerer and finally become a Mystic Knight.

Edited by VeryMelon on Nov 1st 2019 at 12:05:04 PM

I had a friend, someone I might even have only known through PSN thinking about it, I can't remember who they were now, who took my pawn through a full run of the game and sent her back with top-level gear and all that exp. Felt good :)

It's weird. By all rights, this is the kind of game I should love and want to play. The atmosphere, the enemy designs, the music, the story, the way you can climb on enemies to attack them...

But I just don't find the whole Pawn system appealing.

What do you find wrong with it?

I'm just generally not all that into AI partners in games like this.

You can always do it solo but I honestly find pawns cool and I'm someone who never co opts anyway so AI parties are nice for me.

Fighting grigori overlevelled makes him a hilariously anticlimactic fight, We ended up killing him in like 20 seconds. It's a bit of a shame since it's actually an enjoyable battle. Great music, grigori's sublime voice acting and dialogue, and it's pretty fun if you're not overpowered.

If you know what you're doing, the Pawns are great party member s.

AI partners in general I could take or leave, but Pawns are among the best I've seen. They generally act appropriately to the situation, and I really like how they'll tell you stuff about enemy weaknesses if they've encountered them and you haven't.

They don't always work, acknowledged, but in my experience those are notable exceptions.

They learn, which is the key thing. Pawns suck right out of the gate but as you or who ever is using them finds weaknesses and exploits various tricks the Pawns become beasts.

Heh, well, I think I might as well relate one of those notable exceptions I mentioned; I knew I'd be fighting a monster that was weak against fire, so I specifically chose a pawn that was equipped with a spell to buff our weapons with fire damage... and then the pawn did nothing but shout about how the monster was weak against fire and never actually cast the spell XD

So yeah, sometimes they do suck even if they shouldn't.

You did set her personality as support, right? I don't know if an aggressive personality affects the rate at which they buff you as opposed to attacking (though I'd expect an aggressive personality would do more than shout anyway.) but it helps if you match their personality to their role. My own Alexandra is a mage and I set her completely on the support path.

I don't remember that mechanic at all. It wasn't my pawn, if that helps.

Pawn Inclinations are the most important thing about their AI. A bad set of inclinations will cause them to unperformed in battle, especially if they don't match their Vocation. For example, the Pawn is talking about sounds like they lacked the Utilitarian inclination, which dictates when the Pawn will use support moves like spell buffs against the proper opponents.

You can check inclinations in the rift, after summoning the Pawn. Oh, and it also matter what the primary and secondary inclination is. This determines what the Pawn prioritizes in battle. The best Sorcerers roll with Utilitarian/Mitigator.

I actually prefer Utilitarian/Challenger for my Sorcerers myself, while my primary Fighter Pawn is a Challenger/Scather. I find that putting Scather as her primary inclination makes her climb enemies much too often, which is entirely unnecessary considering that I'm the Assassin with the stabby stabs.

I find it annoying my pawn keeps slipping back into scather as she tends not to use her archery skills as much with it on.

Also screw Garm. That head toss attack is borked and can OHKO even characters who are like in their 100s on normal mode. They aren't hard to cheese since they can't hit anything above them but it's ridiculous how hard they hit.

Living armor are also annoying if you're not a magic mix class since the AI just has all sorts of trouble fighting them. Spell casters don't finish their spells since they're getting stabbed or hopping around like frogs and physical pawns just get their butts handed to them when trying to throw down with them. The one missions where you have to kill two of them in the catacombs is annoying since there's hardly any room so magic pawns are always getting killed lol.

Bitterblack Isle is an awesome piece of DLC. The structure of the place reminds me of Dark Souls, with having to unlock shortcuts and use landmarks to memories where to get to get what you need. The enemy encounters are great as well. I don't mind having Cursed Dragons and Elder Orges show up at random.