Tips and Tricks - Dragon's Dogma 2 Guide - IGN (2024)

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a sprawling RPG that gives you the freedom to explore the map with little guidance if that’s how you choose to go about your adventure. As you move from place to place taking on quests with your party of pawns, here are a few tips and tricks that you should keep in mind.

There's much to learn on your journey as the Arisen, but we've listed a few tips and tricks you should know from the very beginning.

Jump to a Section:

• General Tips and Tricks
• Exploration Tips and Tricks
• Combat Tips and Tricks

General Tips and Tricks

• Your pawns can guide you through quests. Sometimes, your main pawn – or other players’ pawns – gain knowledge about a quest before you’ve completed it yourself, allowing them to guide you through it. Pawns will only help guide you through quests that are prioritized in your quest menu, so be sure to choose a quest if you’re looking for a bit of help. There will be a hand symbol next to a quest in the menu if a pawn in your party knows about it.
• Keep food fresh in storage. Keeping perishable goods like raw meat, other food items, and plants in the item storage at inns will ensure that they don’t go bad.
• There are several ways to reduce item weight. Combining items in your inventory can often reduce the amount of weight you’re carrying. Usually, two items can be combined to create a lighter, more useful item, which also lightens your load. Weapons and armor can also become lighter when enhanced in Vermund or the Dragonforged cave.
• Help Flora in Melve. Complete the Medicament Predicament quest for Flora – the girl in front of the apothecary in Melve – early on in the game to get a reward when you enter the capital city. The girl’s father rewards you with the Chirurgeon pawn specialization for your pawn and a discount at his store in Vernworth.

• Beware of quests that sound urgent. Sometimes, NPCs will ask you to solve urgent issues, but the world doesn’t wait for you to get to each quest whenever you feel like it. Some quests are timed, and if you accept a quest but spend time doing other things, the quest can progress and lead to unintended consequences. For example, Prey for the Pack tasks you with saving a young boy from a pack of wolves before it’s too late.
• With that said, don’t avoid quests. Try to help NPCs when you can, as this can often lead to unexpected rewards later on – much like the Medicament Predicament quest mentioned above.
• The Warfarer vocation earns EXP for every single vocation at once. When playing as a Warfarer, you’ll automatically level up other vocations at the same time. This is a slow process because only a fraction of your experience goes to other classes, but it’s a viable way to improve the classes you enjoy less than others.

Exploration Tips and Tricks

• Beware of canyons or narrow passageways. Monsters love to attack from above or ambush you in tight spaces. If you're ever walking underneath a cliffside or tall structure, always look up to see if an ambush is waiting. Monsters will also push boulders down slopes to attack your party before an ambush. Some goblins even tend to hide prone in tall grass and jump out at you.
• Certain locked doors will open later on in the story or at different times of the day. Try revisiting any locked doors at different times. Additionally, many locked doors can be opened by destroying whatever is keeping them locked on the other side. Often, you’re able to shoot and destroy barricades on doors leading into homes through a window or opening in the wall.
• Griffins can lead you to treasure. Griffins may attempt to flee combat if they get overwhelmed or lose too much health in battle, which offers you a chance to hitch a ride on them as they fly in the direction of their nest. You can grab on to griffins and hitch a ride to find helpful goodies waiting for you there at the nest. For example, there’s a Portcrystal at the Forested Griffin's Nest.

• You can stand on griffins in flight. When a griffin is soaring steadily, you can release your grip while standing on its back to preserve stamina but be sure to have stamina recovery items on hand when attempting this just in case you need to re-apply your grab if the beast tries to throw you off.
• Avoid fall damage by grabbing a monster. If a griffin falls out of the sky with you on its back, be sure to hold onto it with a grab to improve your chances of surviving the fall. You won’t take any fall damage while holding on to a creature. And if you have no other option, you can jump into your pawn’s arms if they’re below you to avoid fall damage.
• Collectibles are easier to see at night. Golden Trove Beetles and Seeker’s Tokens are the main collectibles in Dragon’s Dogma 2, and they both have a faint glow that’s much easier to see at night. Traveling at night is more dangerous, but it’s a risk you might want to take when collectible hunting.

Combat Tips and Tricks

• Pay attention to how much max HP you lose in each fight. Your max health will permanently decrease as you take damage in fights, thanks to the loss guage feature. You can’t regain this lost health unless you rest at a campsite, an inn, or your home. Try to get a house as early as possible so that you can rest for free. Don’t continue to explore if your party is missing large chunks of their health bars.
• Aim to stagger opponents or knock them off their feet. Melee vocations like Fighter and Thief have high damage follow-ups for skills like Empale and Twin Fangs that can only be used when an enemy leaves itself open. If you’re in the backline, try to create those openings for your frontline party members.
• Aim for weak spots. Attacking weak spots will lead to the staggers mentioned above. For example, Archers can hit weak spots – like a drake’s heart or a cyclops’ eye – from a safe distance, and should almost always be aiming for them. Nimble melee classes like Thief and Fighter should be trying to climb up and reach weak points for most fights. Following this advice, you can even get valuable item drops like Medusa’s Head.
• Listen to pawns in combat. Pawns who have fought certain enemies before – either beyond the rift or in your journey – will remember enemy weaknesses and call them out during a fight.

• Use your environment to your advantage. Weather can add bonus effects to your elemental attacks. For example, drenched enemies will freeze almost instantly, and tarred enemies will catch fire immediately. You can also throw or push foes into bodies of water to kill them instantly with the Brine, no matter their size.
• Ice is often the best element. Ice-based attacks can freeze foes to create openings offensively and defensively. Spells like Hagol for Sorcerers and Ice Boon for Mages are always beneficial. Some of the most powerful monsters in the game are weak to Ice, including drakes and saurians.