Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[Damned Registrations]

Note that just because a weapon does split damage (like sorceror staves) doesn't mean all the attacks do as well (lightning spells do full magic, while meteors and the bigger ice spells are partly physical) so if you find something you're not hurting, experiment with all your spells/skills, not just the different elements. I'm not familiar with the mystic knight skillset, but I'm pretty sure they're similar to sorcerors in the phys/magic split regard.

 

[Great Deceiver]

My main pawn is a sorcerer, but it doesn't seem very effective - I actually preferred when it was a mage. Does it know how to prioritize spells according to enemy types? I'm not sure if I should de-slot certain skills to emphasize others. Right now I have the level 2 meteor as primary, flame wall and some debuffs/buffs as secondary. Any tips?

 

[Damned Registrations]

The AI won't know how to prioritize spells unless it gets taught by watching you (or someone renting it, or another pawn) use those spells on those enemies. There are basically 2 things sorceror pawns are really good for- multi sorceror groups where they back up your own spellcasting with the synched casting thing, or as reliable artillery with one or two specific spells + the status healing spell they get. I'd suggest avoiding the meteor spell, since pawns aren't that great at really long casts like that- they're as likely to start it up on a goblin as a cyclops, and might cancel it at 95% to move around or help another pawn or something. I'd go for flame wall, the tornado if you don't mind getting blinded (long cast but the spell is OP as fuck so it's worth it) and whatever support spells you like.

Mage pawns are really good as well though, especially if you're not abusing healing items. But as a mystic knight you get some good buffs of your own iirc.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

My main pawn is a sorcerer, but it doesn't seem very effective - I actually preferred when it was a mage. Does it know how to prioritize spells according to enemy types? I'm not sure if I should de-slot certain skills to emphasize others. Right now I have the level 2 meteor as primary, flame wall and some debuffs/buffs as secondary. Any tips?

The Pawns should learn about elemental resistances & weaknesses from experience with enemies. For a Sorcerer try Lassitude, Miasma, Ingle (weak fire), Comestion (fire wall), Maelstrom (dark whirlwind), and Gicel (strong ice) spells. Since you're playing a Mystic Knight, you can cast elemental weapon enchantments yourself, so you don't need the Sorcerer to have those, but you might want him to have Voidspell for curing a few debilitations (especially petrification), and Fulmination (strong lightning) can be extremely effective against certain enemies with a vulnerability against lightning. Also, make sure your Main Pawn has a good weapon, enhanced as much as possible (even better Dragonforged, of course, but you shouldn't need that yet).

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Odd, my warrior's not having too many problems and he's probably underlevelled too. Then again, Arc of deliverance.

 

[Hyperion]

Having a Mage Pawn for Holy Weapons as your default enchant is a good idea. Heal, physical Status Restore, Flame Wall, Magical Status Restore are all great additions. 6th spell is a bit of a wild card imo.

As for Sorcerer, if s/he doesn't have Fulmination I will not hire him / her. Miasma is a bonus spell, since it's a fast cast and fights can get pretty hectic, especially if extra enemies get summoned to ths fight.

If you're Mystic Knight, go with Thunder Enchant to override Holy for specific monsters - Garms, Elder Ogres, Gorecyclopes, Death, and Living Armor. Eliminators are weak to Ice and Thunder both, but magic in general obliterates them.

Abyssal Anguish is another must if you attack physically at all and should kept up at all costs.

3rd Shield Spell is your wildcard. Holy Furor is an option, but the slowest spell in the game to charge fully. You can go with one of the Riposte spells, again, either Holy or Thunder, or a 2nd Enchant (Ice), for more flexibility against Banshees and Firedrakes, who are, in my opinion one of the most frustrating enemies in the game.

For sword skills, Full Moon Slash is a must because of its gratuituous iframes. From there you can mix and match as you like, but Great Cannon is considered one of the best skills in the game, for good reason. Blitz Strike is a good 3rd for mobility. Ruinous Sigil combined with Great Cannon can be absolutely devastating against enemies like Condemned Gorecyclopes and Living Armor, but require good positioning.

I'm rather partial to Stone Forest because when combined with Impact its ability to Topple enemies is second to none and it gives you a source of Fire Damage for Dragon Zombies, though it is a bit of a long charge.

Mystic Knight, particularly Great Cannon, is a bit weird. It's 2/3 Magical, 1/3 Physical. The twist is, your base strength has no bearing on the physical portion, it is based entirely on the strength of your weapon.

Abyssal Anguish is Dark Elemental damage that is based entirely on your Magick + Shield Magick. But since you're going to be attacking with it, Physical Attack is still very important.

If you're going to spam Great Cannon, level entirely as a Sorcerer. If you wanna mix melee and magic, balanced leveling is your best bet. The MK has good, balanced stats but tends to favor defense. After Level 100, Ranger or Strider are probably your best bet for balanced offense.

 

[Grimlorn]

My main pawn is a sorcerer, but it doesn't seem very effective - I actually preferred when it was a mage. Does it know how to prioritize spells according to enemy types? I'm not sure if I should de-slot certain skills to emphasize others. Right now I have the level 2 meteor as primary, flame wall and some debuffs/buffs as secondary. Any tips?

Those high tier spells take too long to cast, especially after you upgrade them to level 2, there is an extra lvl of charge. So if you do want to experiment with them it's better to keep them at lvl 1 on your pawns. Keep Seism and Maelstorm at lvl 1 on your pawns. They'll generally get hit before they can get a full charged spell in or the battle will be over. Even experimenting with Seism and Maelstorm at lvl 1 they rarely cast them successfully.

Spells that are good to use

Spoiler

Levin, Ingle, Fulmination (this spell is great for BBI and did most damage for me early on), Gicel is good for ice, Miasma is good for Dark. Those are mainly the attack spells I stuck with.
Comestion and Frigor always seemed to miss on my pawn, but ingle is kind of weak so if Comestion hits for you great. The lightning spell with a whip is good if you're a sorcerer, but usually the AI doesn't use it well.

You want to get your inclinations right as well. Utilitarian is supposedly great for knowing weaknesses of mobs and using appropriate attacks against them and dual casting between two sorcerers. Then Challenger and Mitigator. Some combination of those 3 is usually good.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

In my experience pawns are close to useless in BBI unless they have 3 stars in bestiary knowledge, perfect skills and inclinations and are max level, so I prefer running solo. All you need are a some consumables depending on your vocation. I'm not that familiar with Mystic Knight, but I think the vocation is quite capable of dealing with almost everything in BBI solo. A couple of damage boosting periapts should suffice.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Thanks everyone for the tips. My skill setup when I wrote was (main hand): Blitz Strike (augmented with the Swordsman ring), Full Moon Slash (for extra procs on Great Cannon and it's just a great skill with instant activation) and Great Cannon. For shield: Holy riposte (forgot the name), Abyssal Anguish and the Fire Enchant (most stuff in the base game was vulnerable to fire, I'm learning now that it's much less effective in BBI so I'll swap it for another elemental enchant, maybe lightning).

I leveled up as a fighter so my magic skills are shit. I think the hybrid nature of MK damage calculations is hurting me in this respect. Great Cannon seemed op as fuck in the base game, but it's doing zero damage to BBI stuff, I realize now it's because I have no magic stats. My Grigori reward hammer has around 900 physical damage but it's not very effective either.

I'll respec my main pawn into shorter casting time spells, while keeping some debuffs up. Inclinations are fine. I have a secondary Mage pawn with a holy enchant that seems a lot more useful in BBI than in the base game. I don't really feel like going back to Everfall so I guess grinding is the only option. I'm kind of strapped for cash too, and the postgame quest rewards haven't been great.

 

[Hirato]

Pawns are very useful in BBI - I mean, someone has to open those booby trapped chests!

 

[Damned Registrations]

I forget if it's the mage or sorc that gets the defensive buff spell, but make sure you have it on a pawn. It's far more useful than it sounds.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

This is awesome. My gear is shit as I have no patience to grind Everfall, is BBI doable on regular Dragonforged gear?

Yes. Also grinding Everfall is shit and boring. Just skip it and grind the DLC. Grinding the DLC is infinitely fun and it has way better gear than Everfall.

 

[Delterius]

You can always not grind chests and suicide roulette instead.

That said I only care for weapons. Rest is just for Fashion's Dogma.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've readjusted my main pawn (turns out Fulmination is pretty great) and I'm mostly running with a lightning enchant now; making slow progress. Killed the Gazer (pretty easy) and the minotaur-like dude (pawns kept getting slaughtered in the narrow tower), but the zombie dragon raped me.

Drops have been very underwhelming so far, but I did get a decent weapon upgrade for my main pawn.

I didn't expect BBI to be such a well-developed dungeon, I thought it would be something lazy like Everfall. This place is great. Makes me wish for an entire Dragon's Dogma in a huge dungeon like this.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Fulmination is indeed great (especially if you like climbing on shit) but I could never get my pawns to use it properly. They'd turn in on for like 3 seconds and start casting something else.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Turns out I had fiend-luring incense in my inventory while exploring BBI, making places like Rotunda of Dread and Black Abbey impossible for me at this point in time - I thought you had to use the item for it to have an effect, haha. That, and the fact that I wasn't letting Abyssal Anguish channel for the whole 2 bars (it makes a huge difference). I suspect that was making things a lot harder than they should (elder ogres randomly spawning after I kill a trash pack, 3 garms randomly, impossible arenas, etc.)

 

[Hyperion]

Don't feel ashamed! You just (unintentionally) went full manmode!

 

[Delterius]

I thought you had to use the item for it to have an effect, haha

yes

I still remember learning this after finishing the dungeon

it was like rating the universe :informative:

 

[Anthedon]

I'll start my second run soon. Probably with a strider main character and a mage pawn. I vaguely remember BBI kicking my ass pretty badly when the game was first released on PC. Is there anything specific I should be doing during the main story/previous to BBI to prepare?

 

[Shackleton]

Goddam, this thread is pushing me towards another DD playthrough. I got burnt out last time after 50 hours, just as I was starting BBI. Think it's going to be installed right after I finish ELEX though.

Are there still plenty of Pawns to rent?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I'll start my second run soon. Probably with a strider main character and a mage pawn. I vaguely remember BBI kicking my ass pretty badly when the game was first released on PC. Is there anything specific I should be doing during the main story/previous to BBI to prepare?

How far into BBI did you venture last time? You don't really need to prepare for BBI other than making sure you have good weapons, which in the final stage of the game means

Spoiler

having switched to your final vocation before the battle with the Dragon so that at the conclusion of the fight you receive weapons for this vocation (there are better weapons found in BBI but not until you've reached deep into the dungeon), and perhaps also purchasing weapons for your Main Pawn from the two merchants in the Everfall.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've gained about 10 levels since starting BBI (I'm around 57 now) and things are noticeably easier since I've switched to lightning enchant and equipped my main archmage pawn with some quick casting spells and fulmination (it's rare that she gets it off properly, but when she does it's awesome). Elder Ogres and Eliminators are very easy now, as well as Garms. Gorecyclopes still take too long to kill. The evil pope dude with a zombie dragon summon is kicking my ass but I'll get him next time.

It's a great place to level, I haven't left BBI at all since I started it. Progress is real, and much more as a result of you adapting your tactics and learning enemy patterns than purely from leveling up. That's how action RPGs should all be, IMO.

It's a shame that so many areas inside BBI are recycled, but that's a minor complaint.

 

[Anthedon]

I'll start my second run soon. Probably with a strider main character and a mage pawn. I vaguely remember BBI kicking my ass pretty badly when the game was first released on PC. Is there anything specific I should be doing during the main story/previous to BBI to prepare?

How far into BBI did you venture last time? You don't really need to prepare for BBI other than making sure you have good weapons, which in the final stage of the game means

Spoiler

having switched to your final vocation before the battle with the Dragon so that at the conclusion of the fight you receive weapons for this vocation (there are better weapons found in BBI but not until you've reached deep into the dungeon), and perhaps also purchasing weapons for your Main Pawn from the two merchants in the Everfall.

I made it to the lich/undead dragon fight. But they fucked my shit up hard. I don't remember my exact stats, might've just been too weak.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I made it to the lich/undead dragon fight. But they fucked my shit up hard. I don't remember my exact stats, might've just been too weak.

That's the point at which most players will need to take some time for leveling up and dragonforging weapons (and armor, but especially weapons).

The fast way to dragonforge equipment is to

Spoiler

return to the Duskmoon Tower zone where you first encounter Barroch, then place a Rancid Bait Meat (purchasable from Barroch, and also occasionally found in chests) to summon a Cursed Dragon, which has a 40%-75% of Dragonforging each piece of weapon/armor/clothing you have equipped when it is defeated, depending on how enhanced they are. After killing the Cursed Dragon, leaving the zone and re-entering will summon another one if you were fast enough in defeating the first one.

Leveling can be accomplished fairly quickly by using BBI's second arena-like zone.

Strategy also matters quite a lot in that battle.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Strategy also matters quite a lot in that battle.

Unless you play a Magick Archer. Then just take explosive rivets for certain battles like the spoilered one and ricochet hunter for everything else and laugh.