Why the hell did nobody tell me Dragon's Dogma was so awesome?

[Arcanum]

Because it's really fucking awesome. I would be playing it right now if Xbox Live wasn't acting screwy.

I was put off by the demo, but I gave it another try the other day, and then watched a few Let's Play videos of it. And now I can't put the game down.

First off, this game is massive. I've spent over 12 hours in it already, and I've uncovered a tiny bit of the map. And I've been spending most of my time randomly exploring.

Also, the class and combat systems are both amazing. You have three basic classes (Fighter, Strider, Mage), three advanced classes that are more offense oriented versions of the basic ones (Warrior, Ranger, Sorcerer), and then three hybrid classes that combine aspects of two classes (Mystic Knight, Magick Archer, Assassin).

You can switch between classes at will (as long as you have the "Discipline" (i.e. skill) points to buy a new class, which you only have to do once and then you can switch back to any unlocked class for free), and classes have nine levels that are separate from eachother and your own level progression. Levelling up a class gives you access to new abilities and passives that you can unlock with Discipline Points.

What I just learned recently is that when you level up your stats increase depending on what your current vocation is. Fighters and Warriors get more HP and offensive power, Striders and Rangers get more stamina but are otherwise pretty balanced, and Mages and Sorcerers get more magick power and defense. And of course Hybrid classes have their own stat progressions.

Anyway enough of that, let's talk about combat. Oh boy the combat. The demo seemed kind of lackluster but now I'm blaming that on the lack of customization and the lame foe variation. Fighting weak golbins things quickly degrade into button mashing, but if you're against a group of bandits that out-level you, then things get interesting. And it gets even better when you have a group of abilities that you love and that compliment your play style.

But where the game truly shines is against large enemies, the ones you can climb on. It is by far my favorite part of the game. And once again the demo doesn't really do it justice. The chimera is one of the lamer fights, where you just cling and slash away like a mad man. Ogres are much more interesting, because they're stronger, faster, and if you climb onto their back they will jump and slam their back against the ground to get you off.

Another great fight I had was against a Golem. I stumbled onto him as the sun was starting to set, and I wanted to explore some strange looking stones sticking out of a hill before heading back to a camp. I was horribly underleveled for the fight, but I refused to run away. I grabbed onto him and started slashing away at the glowing disks that were his only weakpoint. The battle lasted until nightfall, where the only light was from my lantern, and the few remaining glowing discs on the golem, who had fallen to the ground for a few moments. Then the Golem stands up, glowing red instead of purple-blue, and kills me instantly with a single punch. I wasn't even mad. The fight and the progression from day to night with the amazing lighting effects made it all worth it.

Of course the game does have its flaws. For one, there's no fast travel, so getting places can take a while. Also, while travelling, your pawns never shut up. Sure the knowledge system is great, but there are points in the map, regardless of if you're heading towards or away from something, where your pawn will spout the same nonsense about something that he or she has said a thousand times before. Yes, I get it, this encampment is a great fucking bulwark against monsters, now shut up. And lipsyncing outside of cinematics is terrible. Yet despite all that, I still love this game.

Anyway I think that's enough rambling from me. I know there's some of you on here that have played this game (since the few recent posts about it in the Boycott Atlus and ME3 threads convinced me to give it a second look), so feel free to brag about how awesome your character is. Also if your Pawn is around level 25 and on the 360, let me know so I can send you some rotten meat.

[Bells]

it's really a game i'm hoping it comes out for the PC at one point cause i really want to play it. From everywhere i look the idea seems that this is a game worth support just so they can make a sequel that fixes all the problems

[Magus]

Hmm, it looks pretty fun, not sure if I want to pay full-price for it, though, seems a bit hack-and-slashy for me (or does it play more like Demon/Dark Souls? That would be fun)...plus I'd be buying it for PS3 so not sure how many people I'd be able to play it with (I assume it is more fun with multiplayer? Or is it not really multiplayer?). It does sound pretty fun, though.

[Krylo]

Hmm, it looks pretty fun, not sure if I want to pay full-price for it, though, seems a bit hack-and-slashy for me (or does it play more like Demon/Dark Souls? That would be fun)...plus I'd be buying it for PS3 so not sure how many people I'd be able to play it with (I assume it is more fun with multiplayer? Or is it not really multiplayer?). It does sound pretty fun, though.

It plays like Devil May Cry meets Shadow of Colossus. There's combos and timing and blocking and parrying and roman cancels and all kinds of crazy shit, but it's really nothing like Demon/Dark Souls other than in that it's got a very deep RPG system that doesn't really tell you what the fuck is going on and figures you can figure it out.

As for the multiplayer, it's not really multiplayer. You create an AI companion and that AI companion can be hired by other people (friends or not), and it gets knowledge on quests (which it can then help you with) knowledge on monsters (making it less dumbtarded when fighting monsters) and knowledge on areas (allowing it to give you useful hints as to how to get around some places, like how there's some places in Gran Soren you can only get to from roof tops). And sometimes players will give you presents.

You can also hire other people's.

Grimpond, Greed, and I all have it on PS3.

[Marc v4.0]

I have it on 360, just hit Endgame and holy shit this cranked things up to 11

[Aldurin]

Gonna consider getting it now, I am very intrigued by this sudden turn of "it sounded like crap, but it turns out it's up there on the Awesome Ladder."

[greed]

The end game is the greatest thing, it's part of what I love about it so much. Soooo many games front load the content so that the best part of the game is the bit after the intro, the second 20% or so of the game. Then have things drop in quality a bit, plateau, then crash into Xen or some random jungle planet after talking to a space midget in the endgame. DD though? Nails the fucking landing, the ending and post game are the best part of a otherwise pretty great game. Games with great endings, let alone endings that stand out as the best part of the game are so rare, it's like finding a goddamned unicorn.

It plays like Devil May Cry meets Shadow of Colossus. There's combos and timing and blocking and parrying and roman cancels and all kinds of crazy shit, but it's really nothing like Demon/Dark Souls other than in that it's got a very deep RPG system that doesn't really tell you what the fuck is going on and figures you can figure it out.

As for the multiplayer, it's not really multiplayer. You create an AI companion and that AI companion can be hired by other people (friends or not), and it gets knowledge on quests (which it can then help you with) knowledge on monsters (making it less dumbtarded when fighting monsters) and knowledge on areas (allowing it to give you useful hints as to how to get around some places, like how there's some places in Gran Soren you can only get to from roof tops). And sometimes players will give you presents.

You can also hire other people's.

Grimpond, Greed, and I all have it on PS3.

Also worth noting that higher level pawns than you cost the rare rift crystals. Unless they're a friends.


Edit: Also Bells forget where I saw it, but a recent Capcom shareholders thing had them confirm DD met expectations and is getting a sequel (sequels from Capcom? Who knew?)

[Marc v4.0]

Some Screenshots

http://i.imgur.com/ITiag.png
http://i.imgur.com/DHDPf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ReeMh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pKT9g.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/RNIyy.jpg

http://i.minus.com/iPsg6vj37v3Ej.gifhttp://i.minus.com/idg26HLEkZmTw.gif

[Bells]

did that guy just set himself on fire and then tossed himself at a Manticore?

[Krylo]

did that guy just set himself on fire and then tossed himself at a Manticore?

Yes.

Yes he did.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

I'd love to look into getting this for the 360, as its the only console I currently own, but I'm not sure how many people I'd be able to enjoy it with, as that seems to be, if not an important element of gameplay then at least an entertaining one.

[greed]

Shyria, it's not that big a deal. Multiplayer is the ability to hire pawns. Pawns your level or lower are free, ones higher cost rift crystals. Friends pawns are always free regardless of level (so anyone starting this on the PS3 could get me or Krylo's post game pawns and just play the game on easy mode as the pawns not only kill everything but also lead them on the optimum path through every quest, cause the pawns remember the solutuions to quests they've done). You are also limited to two hired pawns at a time (plus your own personal one you make yourself).

There is at least two other NPFers with 360s and this so if you friend them you should be able to have a complete multiplayer experience with only fellow forumites. It's also completely fun to hire random peoples pawns that's what me and Krylo did for our playthroughs. Hell even if you can't get online the game is still really fun using the 100s of pre made pawns on the disc.

[Aerozord]

anyone knows what happens with your two other pawns if you have no internet connection? Just curious

did that guy just set himself on fire and then tossed himself at a Manticore?

clearly studies from the black mage school of blue magic

[Marc v4.0]

Yes.

Yes he did.

Except it is a Chimera, not a Manticore.

Shy, you should totes get this. My pawn can show you around and shoot things in the face.

[Krylo]

anyone knows what happens with your two other pawns if you have no internet connection? Just curiousAs Greed mentioned, very briefly, above, there's hundreds of pre-made pawns available for offline play. I played the first like 10 levels offline because I didn't realize my ethernet cable wasn't plugged in and didn't even realize it.

[greed]

Also if you play offline after recruiting online pawns then they stick around no problems. The only issue is when you dismiss them you can't send a gift to their creator unless you're back online when you do it.

[Arcanum]

So I beat the game. Well "beat" as in went to NG+. I probably could have spent more time farming and killing bosses in Everfall, but I wanted to see the game's ending. So first off, the "end-game/post-game" content is awesome. Besides Everfall, the environment changes were great (the sky, the general lighting, the whole feeling of despair). I also went hunting for the "smart" dragons, the ones that speak english and say interesting things, and grabbed their tears even though the internet's best guess is "they raise the item drop rates, maybe, we're not sure it's hard to test this."

As for the ending itself, pretty awesome. Probably one of the most interesting endings I've seen in a game. And I love how much foreshadowing exists in the game, from beginning to end, all pointing towards what's going to happen.

I also took a stab at the Ur-Dragon, once before NG+ and a few more times afterwards. I caught him during his grace period earlier today, but not during the "easy" grace period so I only managed to destroy three of his hearts before he flew off and then it was too late. Still, got a bunch of gold, some wakestones, and a ferrystone.

Anyway, I'm curious to know what vocations those of you who have the game played as. I started off as a Strider, then switched to Magick Archer around level 25. I wasn't really a fan of the Magick Archer's skills so I went back to Strider for a while, then Warrior to boost my health and gain access to a few augments. After that I switched to Assassin and that has been my main vocation ever since. I love having both a sword and bow at my disposal, and I can always switch to daggers if I feel like mixing it up.

[Arcanum]

So I finally nailed down why I love this game so much. It puts the cinematic experience of quick time events into your own hands. I never really thought about this during my first playthrough, but thinking back I had some pretty awesome moments that happened spontaneously during combat. Not only that, while QTEs have a preset outcome thanks to preset actions, the free reign of Dragon's Dogma's combat allows these moments to fail spectacularly.

In NG+, since monsters are currently super easy to kill, I decided to kill large monsters in creative and entertaining ways. So when I went up against a cyclops, instead of shooting him in the eye, or filling his hand with arrows until he dropped his club, I hopped onto his hand, shoved my sword in there, and started twisting it around (god I love Dire Gouge). Now I'm sure many of you know this is a silly tactic, of course I'll go flying off when the Cyclops swings his club, either to shake me off or to smack one of my pawns. But when he swung to shake me off I jumped, flew into the air, and managed to land (and grab) onto his face. It's safe to say the cyclops' eye did not like Mr. Dire Gouge.

Now in a game like God of War a sequence like that would have played out with similar button presses, using X/A to jump when he swings, pressing R1/RB to grab, and mashing Triangle/Y (or whatever you assign your skill to). But the beauty of DD is that this chain of events can fail without impeding progress or interrupting combat. I could have been thrown off, I could have missed after I jumped, or landed on an arm, or his chest, or his back.

The dynamic potential of every fight is going to keep me playing this game for quite some time, and eagerly awaiting the sequel.

[Bells]

is the "Fixed Monster Spawns" really a big issue against immersion in the game? That's been one of the major things i see people complaining about this game

[Aerozord]

Ok so while watching gameplay, especially against larger monsters I began thinking. "this reminds me of monster hunter"

How accurate is that, and I mean in the sense that fighting monsters is more about strategizing where and how you attack than just spamming it until its HP is gone

[Krylo]

Anyway, I'm curious to know what vocations those of you who have the game played as. I started off as a Strider, then switched to Magick Archer around level 25. I wasn't really a fan of the Magick Archer's skills so I went back to Strider for a while, then Warrior to boost my health and gain access to a few augments. After that I switched to Assassin and that has been my main vocation ever since. I love having both a sword and bow at my disposal, and I can always switch to daggers if I feel like mixing it up.

Assassin is fantastic. Clairvoyance is excellent against asshole two hander/sword and board skeletons/bandits/skeleton lords that are nigh-impossible to stagger with the rogue move set (other than implicate, but implicate just isn't quite as much fun for me, and unavailable to assassins), Dire Gouge is the best against large enemies, and that still leaves you one open sword slot. Then you can carry a pair of daggers around to switch off to if you need/want double jump for exploration, or dodge roll for some reason. And then there's lycean sight for the bow which is just fantastic in every way. I finish off entire groups of enemies before they even know I'm there, and have been since level 30.

Sorcerer is pretty great too, but only if you have at least one other sorcerer pawn and/or forged the wyrmking ring and then gave back the forgery instead of the original. It will reduce your casting times. And having the other pawn means that if you start casting the same spell next to them (or they next to you) that whomever started casting second starts their cast at the point where the earlier was. So if you see a pawn about to drop bolide you can run next to them, start casting, and cast almost immediately and drop two bolides, one from the pawn, one from you.

This was great against the dragon in NG+ as it was just dual gicel over and over again with me and my main pawn stun locking the dragon to death, once we managed to get one off.

However, it doesn't really fit my playstyle with all the casting times and stuff even with it shortened/dual'd up. So I stick with assassin for the most part.

So I finally nailed down why I love this game so much. It puts the cinematic experience of quick time events into your own hands.

[. . .]

The dynamic potential of every fight is going to keep me playing this game for quite some time, and eagerly awaiting the sequel.

Oh man, yes. Let me tell you all a story, though I believe Grim and Greed already heard it.

See, I was exploring the lands just north of bloodwater beach/west of of the bandit stronghold over there. The sun had set and I was far enough away from any camp that I had decided to just forge ahead on what I was doing, as I found myself in this pitch black forest, unable to see anything beyond the small ring of my lantern light.

Then in the top right corner of my screen appears "AMBUSH! Slay your enemies!"

I start looking around, and can't see anything at all. Not even hear anything. Then as I turn to my left I see this giant lion head slowly come into the light of my lantern, and then it roared. My pawn, behind me, yells out "CHIMERA!" and then the monster jumped at me and I dodge rolled to the side (I was strider at the time), before jumping onto its back as it charged past. I managed to climb onto its tail, and started hacking away until I cut it off, unable to see where it was running as it dashed around, and then finished it off in similar fashion with the goat and lion heads.

When the fight was over I had no idea where I was. Had to check the map.

is the "Fixed Monster Spawns" really a big issue against immersion in the game? That's been one of the major things i see people complaining about this game

There's a few goblin spawns you'll see a LOT that get annoying, but for the most part the fixed spawns are actually kind of a good thing, as it makes it easy/possible to hunt down large monsters or groups of smaller monsters that you want to fight for fun and profit.

It didn't really hurt immersion for me until really late into the game, and that's more than made up for by moments like the one above.

Ok so while watching gameplay, especially against larger monsters I began thinking. "this reminds me of monster hunter"

How accurate is that, and I mean in the sense that fighting monsters is more about strategizing where and how you attack than just spamming it until its HP is gone

I've never played monster hunter but it's definitely more strategy than hack and slash. For instance, Ogres can only REALLY be hurt by attacks to their head. Even at ridiculously high levels body shots do next to nothing to them (I'm sitting at about 1.7k strength and using dire gouge on their torsos still doesn't do very much), so you have to either try to climb up to their heads, arrow their heads, or hack their legs out and then attack their heads. And they're one of the simpler enemies as far as strategy goes.

Cockatrice are a pain because you really can't just "PEW PEW PEW" them, or they will kill the shit out of you, and Griffins are likewise a pain, not because they'll kill you but because if you don't find a way to lock them down they'll run away as soon as you start doing decent damage (or they find their lunch).

[Arcanum]

is the "Fixed Monster Spawns" really a big issue against immersion in the game? That's been one of the major things i see people complaining about this game

Not really. A lot of the fixed spawns actually make a lot of sense, like harpies nesting in the mountains, or Saurians (lizard men) chilling near rivers or lounging on rocks in the open sun (there are actually quite a few spots where they do this, and it kicked up the immersion a notch for me when I saw it) or bandits chilling at a camp or acting as scouts near their strongholds. Yet, like Krylo said, there are some things that are annoying like goblins or bandits always in the same "ambush" spots but it is a really minor thing.

Also, while most monsters respawn in a (ingame) day's time, certain ambush events and larger monsters take more so they are less frequent which helps you avoid thinking "oh great the goblins destroyed another wagon in the exact same spot."

Ok so while watching gameplay, especially against larger monsters I began thinking. "this reminds me of monster hunter"

How accurate is that, and I mean in the sense that fighting monsters is more about strategizing where and how you attack than just spamming it until its HP is gone

There is definitely more strategy. Every large monster has a weakness or weak spot. A Hydra's scales are much tougher than it's squishy underbelly, but climbing up one of its necks brings the risk of that head smashing down to the ground to flatten you. You can also shoot one of its heads until it gets severed, but it takes less time for a head to regenerate than an entire neck, and if you cut off all of the Hydra's heads it collapses for a moment and your attacks ignore the Hydra's armor before all of its heads regrow at once.

Assassin is fantastic. Clairvoyance is excellent against asshole two hander/sword and board skeletons/bandits/skeleton lords that are nigh-impossible to stagger with the rogue move set (other than implicate, but implicate just isn't quite as much fun for me, and unavailable to assassins), Dire Gouge is the best against large enemies, and that still leaves you one open sword slot. Then you can carry a pair of daggers around to switch off to if you need/want double jump for exploration, or dodge roll for some reason. And then there's lycean sight for the bow which is just fantastic in every way. I finish off entire groups of enemies before they even know I'm there, and have been since level 30.

I've been using Burst Strike (to close distance), Dire Gouge, and Clairvoyance :D. I never really tried Lycean Sight because I figured with the shortbow's relatively short range (and the fact that the bow does more damage the closer you are), it wouldn't be as effective compared to if it were on a longbow. But then again I've tried nearly every other shortbow skill and found them lackluster (with the exception of fivefold flurry, which is absolutely amazing) so I guess I'll give it a try.

Sorcerer

[...]

However, it doesn't really fit my playstyle with all the casting times and stuff even with it shortened/dual'd up. So I stick with assassin for the most part.

Yeah I avoided mage/sorcerer for this reason. Usually I love magic classes, especially when there is no traditional mana bar involved, but the whole casting time thing turned me off. I will end up levelling my Sorcerer vocation once at least, if only to get the Suasion augment (I'm pretty sure that's sorcerer, it's one of the magic vocations, I know that much) so I can make a killer selling the shower of wakestones that you get in Everfall.

[Arcanum]

Just killed the Ur-Dragon for the second time in offline mode. The first time I got Ascalon (the holy sword), and this time I got Heaven's Key (the holy daggers) so I'm really happy. Plus 20 freaking wakestones per kill means 600K (or 800K when I finally switch to sorcerer long enough to unlock Suasion) in gold, so I can't complain. Currently using those funds to buy portcrystals so I can set up my fast travel network :dance:

[Krylo]

I never really tried Lycean Sight because I figured with the shortbow's relatively short range (and the fact that the bow does more damage the closer you are), it wouldn't be as effective compared to if it were on a longbow

It basically reverses the distance to damage thing so you do more damage at long range than at close, and it has ridiculous range on it once you buy the upgrade. If something's in draw distance (other than a few flying enemies) it's in shoot in the face distance.

[Arcanum]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I grabbed it the other day and I totally regret not using it sooner.

[Solid Snake]

Grimpond, Greed, and I all have it on PS3.

...Shit, I'm going to have to buy this.

[Krylo]

And use my massively over-leveled sorcerer pawn.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Alright, I'm convinced. Once I get some things squared with my bank account I'm picking this up.

[Krylo]

Shyria, you'll love it if for no other reason than the fact that the Dragon is the best character in the game.

[Arcanum]

Dragon > Mercedes > Everyone else.

Shyria, you'll love it if for no other reason than the fact that the Dragon is the best character in the game.

They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all.

[Marc v4.0]

They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all.

C-Dawg gives no fucks at all about the gaping maw 3 feet from his shop

[Krylo]

They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all. They're masterworks all.

The rantings of an upjumped shop keep make for tedious listening.

[Aldurin]

Man, I just love this game the more I play it. I made the mistake of trying the quest to regain the Shadowfort when I was level 22 (Strider with Fighter, Strider and Mage as my pawns). Which basically came down to running the fuck away from ogres, and then taking the last stretch to the fort in the middle of the night, which meant promptly running the fuck away from the dragon when it showed up. I then went into the fort quest and basically ran all around doing shit to open the gate while going "oh shit oh shit" since half of my pawns were dead between the two cyclops. After those guys were downed I spent several times running up and down the stairs of the main section because the third ogre kept knocking my pawns off the edge.

After that I upgraded my personal pawn to warrior, swapped my strider pawn for a warrior, got a better mage and switched to ranger. The next ogre we saw suddenly got piledrived by my pawns for a battle that made me question if it was the same monster that would have forced me to run in other scenarios.

My only real issue with the game is travel, since a lot of time is spent walking way too far to get to locations, then using expensive ferry stones to get back to the capital to avoid the shit I straight-ran ran past earlier.

[Arcanum]

The more things you run past, the less you level up, the more you have to run past things. Plus the truly great fights are the ones that take a while and have a significant risk of death.

Also, tip for Ogres: Hit their head. Everywhere else is very resistant to practically all types of damage. Technically this tip is true for basically any monster, but the Ogre's lack of elemental weaknesses makes it especially crucial.

[Solid Snake]

Just decided to spend the last $60 I have on gaming for some time on Dragon's Dogma over (a used copy of) Persona 4 Arena.

NOTE: I will hold you assholes directly responsible if P4: Arena is amazing and Dragon's Dogma is not.

NOTE 2: I guess it won't be entirely your fault as I read on Kotaku that apparently the designers of P4: Arena have a horrible reputation for releasing subsequent 'upgrades' to their games yet not releasing the new versions as DLC, effectively requiring you to purchase newer versions of their titles to get the new add-ons.
...That's kind of weird.

NOTE 3: Also, Atlus' sheer stupidity in managing criticism on their forums has me so irate Gamestop doesn't even deserve my used sales purchase monies.

[Aldurin]

Quit whining about Atlus and get back to stabbin' ogres, Snake.

Now that I think about it, you will probably flip your shit when you find out one of the special details about ogres.

I don't know about you other veteran dudes, but I am loving Ranger, if only for how horribly OP Ten-fold Flurry is (especially with elemental imbuement on). I'd still be using him right now, but I gotta play one of the redder classes for a bit so I can get the Sinew augment.

Like, Ten-fold is so nuts that I was fighting two ogres at the same time in the middle of the night using the ogres as impromptu torches as I spammed their faces out with fire arrows. Basically anything bigger than me is royally fucked, and my only real worry is around things like bandit swarms and actual dragons.

[Arcanum]

I'm content with fivefold flurry that my assassin gets, with the added bonus of still being able to use daggers in addition to swords and shields.

e- also if you care about min-maxing, look up "Stat Growths" on the DD wiki. Depending on what class you are when you level up (an actual level, not a vocation rank level thing) your stats (hp, stamina, phys attack, mag attack, phys defense, mag defense) increase by different amounts.

But don't feel obliged to play as a certain class, because everything dies the same in the end-game and NG+, and it's mostly for min-maxing (i.e. people who want to kill the Ur-Dragon online nonstop, or one-shot everything, which makes the game lame in my opinion).

[PhoenixFlame]

I don't know about you other veteran dudes, but I am loving Ranger, if only for how horribly OP Ten-fold Flurry is (especially with elemental imbuement on).

Yeah, it's definately one of the more enjoyable classes rapetrain-wise. Rangers are weaker than they feel though simply because using any of your actually damaging abilities drains your stamina like you wouldn't believe. Although I do remember a certain point in the storyline where I met a cockatrice rampaging the city, and basically shot it a few times in the head with tenfold and it died before it could attack.

I almost, in the same voice, said Lilith's "That's it, it's dead?" quote from borderlands when you curbstomp a boss.

I'm loving strider at endgame, though, simply because you get the best weapons (Daggers) along with the double-speed grappling. Cloudburst Volley is hideously damaging and up there with tenfold arrow but is a shortbow manuver and costs less stamina. Definately helps vs the Ur Dragon to climb around like mad with your heaven's keys and use raining arrows on the wings.

[Marc v4.0]

Dire Gouge or bust, losers

[PhoenixFlame]

I want to like dire gouge, but it's just strictly inferior to hundred kisses when grappling.

[Arcanum]

I want to like dire gouge, but it's just strictly inferior to hundred kisses when grappling.

Except for the fact that it's 100 times better.

[Aldurin]

I am pretty tempted to do a solo run on my second time around, since Assassin has stuff built just for that.

Mainly, I'd need the Sinew and Autonomy augments with some other things, riding on Lycean Sight to snipe from a distance or Invisibility as a straight "fuck you" to whatever I'm fighting.

I'm sure it will feel satisfying to throw my main pawn off of the Cassardis dock.

[Arcanum]

Man, you are putting wayyyy too much strategy into the NG+ playthrough. Basically, sword lunge stab skill everything, and Dire Gouge everything else. I'm just too lazy to ditch my current pawns, and I like the heals. But I'm pretty sure with autonomy, the one warrior skill that boosts phys damage, and the other skill that boosts night damage, you will be killing every normal enemy in one hit, and every large enemy in two or three.

e- Pretty much what I'm saying is the jump to NG+ is minimal, and practically non-existant. Like, compared to the NG+ difficulty jump in Demon's/Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma is a walk in the park. With free ice-cream.