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Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

Hints & Tips

By
Nathan Garvin
  • Mind your encumbrance; the more crap you carry around, the slower you’ll move. A full pack makes for poor looting and tedious adventuring.
  • Characters who weigh more use Stamina slower, but regain it slower, as well.
  • Keep an eye on your experience-it might be more fun to play as a Magick Archer in the short-run, but getting Sorcerer levels will make you better in the long run.
  • Strength and Magick are the most important attributes-level up as Vocations that gain the most in those two attributes.
  • It can get pretty dark at night-be sure to bring a lantern and a few flasks of oil, especially if you’re going to be exploring… oh… say an ancient, undead-infested catacomb?
  • If you go in water, you’ll get wet. Novel idea, right? If you’re all wet, your lantern won’t work. Dry it off by un-equipping and re-equpping it.
  • Pawns reduce the amount of experience (but not Discipline) you earn from killing foes. The more Pawns you have around - and the higher level these Pawns are - the less experience you’ll gain.
  • Experience values and Discipline values do not scale proportionally. Killing a few big foes might level you up, but killing lots of weaker foes will earn you Vocation ranks faster.
  • Need some money? Kill some Oxen and let their meat sour. Sour meat sells for much more than normal meat.
  • Standing near a Riftstone will heal your Pawns for free. If your Main Pawn dies, touching a Riftstone will bring them back, good as new.
  • Give characters gifts to raise their affinity-certain character are fond of certain items, so check item descriptions. Characters with a high affinity might ask you to perform escort quests, or become your romantic interest later in the game.
  • Hands off the duke! Most characters only get a little angry if you carry them about, but if you touch the duke, you’ll be spending some time in the dungeon.
  • Monsters respawn much quicker than the loot they-guard, especially since there are rotating encounters for day and night. Simply put, if you have to run back to town, don’t expect the way back to be clear. Weaker monsters take less time to respawn than stronger ones.
  • Every monster has a weak spot… it’s usually-but not always-the head.
  • Once you’re high enough level (30~) consider playing an Assassin to learn skills like Autonomy and Bloodlust. Once done, ditch your Pawns and see what your attack value does…
  • Don’t have enough of some rare material? Visit Mountebank at the Black Cat and he’ll duplicate it for you-for a small fee, of course…
  • Carry Wakestones around with you-if you die, you can use one immediately to come back to life. It’s not like anybody else will be looking at your statistics anyways.
  • Ferrystones makes traveling around Gransys much easier. Always bring a few along, and you’ll find trips back to town much easier to make.
  • If your Main Pawn somehow finds itself far below your Arisen’s level (say, you accidentally throw them off a cliff to get some peace and quiet) they’ll gain experience at a massively increased rate until they catch up… like going from level 40 to 100 in about an hour fast.
  • Need free healing while out on the field? Take a dip in a Healing Spring.
  • You can heal your Pawns by standing near a Riftstone. Sadly, this will not work for the Arisen, but that’s what healing items are for.
  • Be careful what items you give your Pawns-they’re shameless when it comes to consuming items in their inventory. Certainly you can find a better use for various Materials than restoring a bit of your Pawn’s Health and/or Stamina? Point is-if your Pawns get injured, they’ll immediately start consuming restoratives in their inventory-don’t give them any to prevent this.
  • The Vocations of your Arisen and Main Pawn determine what items you’ll get when purifying Bitterblack weapons and armor. If you want, say, Strider gear, change the Vocations of both your Arisen and Main Pawn to a Strider-type Vocation before you purify anything. Hybrid Vocations count as both major Vocation types that make up the Hybrid Vocation-for example, the Assassin counts as both a Fighter and a Strider, the Magick Archer counts as both a Mage and a Strider, and the Mystic Knight counts as both a Fighter and a Mage.
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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Capcom
  • Platforms,
    PC, PS3, PS4, XB 360, XB One
  • Genre
    Action RPG
  • Guide Release
    18 January 2016
  • Last Updated
    12 March 2021
  • Guide Author
    Nathan Garvin

Share this free guide:

You live the tranquil life of a fisherman in the small, quiet village of Cassardis, at the edge of the sleepy duchy of Gran Soren. This peaceful life of mundane obscurity is shattered one morning with the Dragon, Grigori, a beast of legend, attacks your town and you fall in its defense. Now reborn as an Arisen, you must lead the Pawn Legion into battle as you deal with court politics, combat apocalyptic cultists, and chase down the enigmatic Dragon. But beware, there could be more to the Dragon’s challenge than it originally seems…

  • Full sequential walkthrough of all main quests, side quests and notice board quests.
  • Each area painstakingly described, including enemy encounters and notable loot drops.
  • How to get the best gear out of the Everfall and Bitterblack Isle.
  • Descriptions and tactics of every beast, large and small, that you’ll face in the game.
  • Character creation information, so you can build the mightiest Arisen and Pawn possible.
  • New Game +, Hard Mode and Speed Run Mode fully explained.
  • Portcrystal and fast-travel system fully explained.
  • Romance information and affection-boosting guide: never accidentally romance the wrong NPC again!

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