Dragon's Dogma (Series)

[Moonface]

Yes, you will be able to do some magic with that vocation, however the healing Anodyne is restricted to the Mage only which is kinda annoying. Magick Archer does have a spell that can heal only the Arisen, so you'll/your pawns have to rely on health items while you have no Mage unfortunately. The Sorcerer does have a spell to help stop certain debilitations at least, just not heal.

Meh, I'll just continue without having a healer on the team then. My character is mostly ranged so I don't tend to take many hits nowadays, and so I just let my pawns take whatever hits they take and if they happen to go down I just run in and revive them which puts them back to half health anyway. I find pawns won't heal unless they enter red health anyway, and any item I give them will likely just be those that heal them enough back into the green which is generally the same as if I revived them myself, so it feels a waste to give them a healing item in battle unless it looks like I won't safely get to revive them. I generally just give them an item after a fight ends if they exit a battle in red health since I don't need the hassle of a pawn going down while I'm sprinting about the overworld and then I have to backtrack to pick them up. Learned that the hard way with Rook going down at the bottom of a cliff while I was at the top of it.

So, if I Sony bothered to make the PS App actually work, I'd have a picture to share of my first victory over a Drake, but I don't so I'll just tell my tale without it. I was roaming about outside near the Shadow Fortress at night hunting down boar for a side quest, and barely made out something big resting in the darkness amongst the trees which I thought was probably a Chimera, so I aimed my bow and shot it. Cue a boss bar appearing with 8 purple dots and instant regret setting in as I wondered what on earth I had just pissed off. Took maybe another 30 seconds to get a good enough view safely to see it was a Drake, and I honestly expected to get my arse kicked back to the time the prologue takes place in. XD However, after going through an entire day cycle I managed to take it down on my first try, and took a picture standing next to its corpse to celebrate.

Right now I'm just trying to clear all my side quests before talking to the Duke, since the game warned me that any open quests will be cancelled if I progress further and I don't want that to happen.

[Mr EliteL]

Haha, nice on the Drake kill. Similar to what my first experience was that it being night, don't think I was in an active quest or doing one, just exploring that part of the map. Moved further down from the Fort and fought some Goblins when I heard something, then all of a sudden a burst of flames came at me, and was like "HOLY S***!" Took me a while to take it down too. All the dragons in this game are fun to fight.

[Moonface]

I'm curious, how does one deal with a Drake if they aren't playing a ranged class and maybe don't have a pawn with them in that class either? From my fight it seemed it only landed when I shot it down and my pawns wouldn't be able to do anything to it until that point; unless you can just wait for it to land by itself but it didn't give the impression it would do that.

[Mr EliteL]

It should have an attack where it tries to slam itself on top of you, or another one where it breathes fire in the air while passing, then crashes down similar to a Griffin going after it's target. I guess it didn't do either of those attacks in the air then. Enough magic attacks like fire and lightning should also bring it down too, but again I guess you didn't have a mage either. For melee, you've got try and grab hold of it, climb it then attack it in a vulnerable spot which would be the head or it's chest, but jump off when it comes crashing down or you'll sustain fall damage.

[Moonface]

I saw it breathing fire while flying at my group but I'd shoot it down before it would get close enough to hit anyone with the attack. I don't have a mage in the group since I haven't felt it necessary yet so I'm just waiting until DL's pawn isn't going to be vastly overpowered in comparison to everyone and everything else.

Just had my first actual pawn death about an hour ago. I went into the Soulflayer Canyon West Entrance and fought a troll on a rock bridge, and it hit a home run on Shira and sent her flying off and into the endless abyss below where she instantly died because there was no way to revive her. I was going to keep going further in but opted to leave and get her back because I felt bad not having my main pawn along for what I expect is the Hydra boss lurking somewhere in there, judging by the 5th Journal Entry I found.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah that probably won't be until you're in the level 100's when you can safely use DL's pawn, or when you've seen most of the game or get stuck somewhere. Level infinite is essentially level 200, but basically somewhere beyond 100 but definitely 150+ should be able to deal with anything in the game easily enough. Earlier than that for experienced players of course, for crazy people much much earlier.

Oof, poor Shira. Ah, Soulflayer Canyon There will be a boss in there but after a specific quest is done but still good to explore beforehand, I've done that before.

[Dragon Lord]

My Pawn will likely destroy everything in the game until you get into the deeper levels of Bitter Black Isle. At level 200 she's basically going to curbstomp everything the main game can throw at you minus one post-game boss that is designed in a way to where you can't just kill it instantly. I believe I have Maelstrom on her, and if she spams that like she's supposed to (again, her priorities are probably all screwed up by this point), then everything is just going to melt. She'd be able to take out that Drake you came across in no time.

I'd suggest just avoiding my Pawn at all. Even in BBI she's going to make some of the encounters in there a lot easier than they would otherwise be, so I'd say just don't ruin the experience by hauling a max level pawn with you.

[Moonface]

Yeah that probably won't be until you're in the level 100's when you can safely use DL's pawn, or when you've seen most of the game or get stuck somewhere. Level infinite is essentially level 200, but basically somewhere beyond 100 but definitely 150+ should be able to deal with anything in the game easily enough. Earlier than that for experienced players of course, for crazy people much much earlier.

Oof, poor Shira. Ah, Soulflayer Canyon There will be a boss in there but after a specific quest is done but still good to explore beforehand, I've done that before.

Ah, I didn't know how high infinite was. I have a while to reach close to that though; I think I'm somewhere around Level 40? I stopped paying attention to my level ups a while ago. XD

Yeah, I expected to find the Hydra in there from the early part of the game, but I've explored all of it and it never showed so I figured it's intended to be fought when the game gives you a quest to enter Soulflayer.
Also, the second time I went in there after getting Shira back, the same troll smacked your pawn into the abyss instead, and I found out that if I give your pawn anything to carry and it dies, I just lose all that stuff. I'm glad I didn't give your pawn anything too valuable.

My Pawn will likely destroy everything in the game until you get into the deeper levels of Bitter Black Isle. At level 200 she's basically going to curbstomp everything the main game can throw at you minus one post-game boss that is designed in a way to where you can't just kill it instantly. I believe I have Maelstrom on her, and if she spams that like she's supposed to (again, her priorities are probably all screwed up by this point), then everything is just going to melt. She'd be able to take out that Drake you came across in no time.

I'd suggest just avoiding my Pawn at all. Even in BBI she's going to make some of the encounters in there a lot easier than they would otherwise be, so I'd say just don't ruin the experience by hauling a max level pawn with you.

What's Maelstrom supposed to do? If it's an attack I didn't really see your pawn attacking very often; she would usually just enchant the rest of the team with light magic or whatever it is. The status icons in this game don't always convey what they actually do very well.

Based on what you two have said, I'll likely just grab your pawn if I've faced everything in the game without her already and I'm just going around clearing up side content or trophy farming. I'm not fussed about her nuking anything if I've beaten it by myself a lot already.

[Mr EliteL]

Ah, well he's one to go right into the fray, so he was bound to get hit with an attack that sends Pawns flying if there's an abyss nearby. Yes, best not to give them valuable stuff. Hm, I can't remember if that counts on the Main Pawn too, did Shira lose her inventory (but not equipped Equipment of course) as well?

Maelstrom is basically a black tornado of Dark Magic that sucks any enemy close enough into it and destroy it, knocked down if flying. Doesn't affect large enemies as much though, but strong enough to deplete their health if their body's inside.

[Moonface]

Ah, well he's one to go right into the fray, so he was bound to get hit with an attack that sends Pawns flying if there's an abyss nearby. Yes, best not to give them valuable stuff. Hm, I can't remember if that counts on the Main Pawn too, did Shira lose her inventory (but not equipped Equipment of course) as well?

Main pawns don't lose their inventory, likely because you can't actually remove them from the party unlike any other pawns.

Ah, then DL's pawn has used that one time while I had her hired. She mostly stuck with empowering the team with light magic though.

I reached "The Final Battle" quest last night, which I know vaguely is close to the end game. Not too sure whether to keep going or go and do Bitterblack before I hit some point of no return moment.
Also, for the love of god the sequel needs better quest design. I accepted a quest called "Parcel Service" from the Gran Soren alehouse, only to find it is impossible to complete because I didn't speak to Fedel for his quest before activating the "Griffin's Bane" quest. Not a fan of having to scour areas for the one random NPC who has a quest to do, and without an Eternal Ferrystone checking every town and notice board every other main quest to check for new side stuff sounds like torture.

[Dragon Lord]

Ah, so my pawn's priorities are indeed messed up. If they were how they are supposed to be, she'd be spamming the ever loving crap out of Maelstrom.

You can finish the game if you want to. You'll enter NG+ and can just go to BBI whenever you want from there. Though you might also want to farm the Ur-Dragon (offline version) for some of the gear it drops. It drops the strongest main-game weapons you can get, which can be pretty helpful getting through the earlier parts of BBI. Especially important if you're playing on Hard mode.

I 100% recommend using a quest guide through NG+ to clean up whatever you have left. There are several quests with stupidly small windows that require you to backtrack to a previous location at the most random of times.

[Moonface]

You can finish the game if you want to. You'll enter NG+ and can just go to BBI whenever you want from there. Though you might also want to farm the Ur-Dragon (offline version) for some of the gear it drops. It drops the strongest main-game weapons you can get, which can be pretty helpful getting through the earlier parts of BBI. Especially important if you're playing on Hard mode.

Is it a bad idea to go for the online version of the Ur-Dragon? I don't know much of it other than it becomes a collaborative effort between multiple players or something along those lines.

Also, does NG+ also carry into the Speedrun mode too?

[Mr EliteL]

I can confirm you can do The Final Battle quest, you go into the Post-Game first then once completed then go into NG+. Bitterblack can be done PG or NG+. I've done BBI fully on my first ever playthrough on PS3, just not actually finishing the PG even though I could right now if I wanted to as I should be set up for it.

I believe the online Ur-Dragon's health increased every time it is defeated, so that could be countless times by now. Checking on the wiki it stopped increasing health after 100 generations so it sits at around 3 billion HP, holy--. So it can show up with some health already gone, but be incredibly difficult to take down because of that, unless you happen to show up when it's almost dead or during a 'Grace' period, but everyone who damages the Ur-Dragon gets rewards. It doesn't stay though so it'll flee after a set time then you'll need to wait for a while before returning to continue fighting. Only the latter part of that occurs with the offline version, luckily not the health increase, for comparison the offline Dragon's health is 1.47mil.

[Moonface]

I can confirm you can do The Final Battle quest, you go into the Post-Game first then once completed then go into NG+. Bitterblack can be done PG or NG+. I've done BBI fully on my first ever playthrough on PS3, just not actually finishing the PG even though I could right now if I wanted to as I should be set up for it.

I assume you didn't see my post in Last Game Played before making this post, but I did the Final Battle and defeated the Dragon a few days ago. I wasn't sure why there was a random human in the cutscene before the fight at first, and then realized that was the beloved you can choose instead of fighting the Dragon. I got quite possibly the worst person I could get for the beloved; Valmiro. I hate that fucking guy so much and I end up being beloved to him?!

I went and fought the Cockatrice in the Soulflayer Canyon and defeated the Hydra at the Shadow Fort. I'm probably gonna do Bitterblack before finishing this current playthrough.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah, didn't realise you posted that the day before me, thought it was still on the day and you'd see the post later.

Also darn, I was meant to try and warn you before then about the beloved so you don't get someone you'd rather not have. Eh, Valmiro's OK if the player's a female character or they swing that way. Better than getting Fournival, the innkeepers, Caxton, the little twerp Feste, any of the child or elderly NPCs (unless playing a kid or elderly Arisen respectively) at least. Still terrible you got him though.
You can in a way alter your beloved before the post-game ending actually which will be for one ending (there's two). Just find whoever you like or can tolerate and start gifting them stuff, better if you find out their favourite item, and if you didn't use the Arisen's Bond ring, shove that on them. If you did use that earlier however it's gone for good, and since you got Valmiro which I assume you didn't use the ring on him but someone else. Although it doesn't guarantee the beloved just maxes affinity. That's the bummer, the Bond should set the Beloved to avoid accidentally maxing affinity to someone else afterwards as the last character interacted with max affinity takes priority (or high enough affinity).

Good luck with BBI! Expect a bit of a difficulty spike depending on your level.