Dragons Dogma Dork Arisen

Fuck sake now I'm considering grabbing it for the PS5

Bitterback Isle is a bit of a mixed bag. You can, if you're very careful get quite the way through it if you take your time.

However, there are some nasty buggers in places that may well rip you a new one if you're not careful.

The more balanced your party is, and well equipped, the longer you'll live.

What character is your main?

Thanks for the response, quadfather .

I haven't played DragDog for three years, so I figured I'd boot it up and remind myself where I left off in terms of build, level, gear, etc.; however, I was stymied at the title screen, as attempting to load my last save prompted a warning to pop up.

It seems I can either start a new playthrough from scratch, or commence NG+ - there's no option to go back to where I was before the point of no return in the main questline.

Also, either choice will overwrite my existing save data.

According to dragonsdogma.fandom.com/wiki/New_Game_Plus, there's no real downside to choosing NG+:

Turns out I'd misremembered my character's level!

I'm a level 44 Ranger. My main pawn is a level 44 Strider, while one of my borrowed pawns is a level 44 Warrior; the final pawn in my party is a level 70-something Mage, courtesy of a PSN friend.

Aha, now we're getting somewhere

Ok, cool. I use Ranger too. Odd to have a strider as your main pawn though, but each to their own.

Hm, you probably need a sorcerer in there to do some insane dps damage.

What about swapping your pawns vocation to a mage for healing and buffs? You could pootle around the main land getting used to the controls while your pawn gets up to speed. Wouldn't have thought it'd take long.

That would give you the ranger abilities yourself, the warrior can tank, your pawn can buff everyone and heal, while the sorcerer blasts the fuck out of things?

And where abouts are you in the game?

I may have rolled a char on the PS version I may have bought yesterday. Forgot how mental it is. That first chimera thing and everyone is climbing on it and getting flung about the place. The pawns offering their sage advice in the middle of battle. It's as much Monty Python and the Holy Grail as it is Dark Souls. It's pretty great though.

Yup, it's nuts. There's a death character as well that roams bitterback. You'll fucking know when you encounter it, that's for sure. All I can suggest is run like fuck.

Yeah that sounds familiar territory, bitterback monsters wise. Sometimes you can get a good run, other times, not so much so:)

Well,party wise, the most fun and success I've had is main pawn as healer/buffer (and you need to sit them in a chair of learning to get them to act properly in a fight, otherwise they'll start being offensive and won't heal as effectively), I normally go ranger, then I hire a warrior, and hire an offensive sorcerer. I don't care what level they are as long as its either around my level or above.

It's all a bit weird because sometimes you're fighting a monster with tons of health bars and think you're not getting anywhere, but then once it collectively starts working, you just get through them. You almost see it kind of click when the party is working. There's some tough motherfuckers in the dlc though. I remember using ten fold flurry about 20 times to some guys face, using all my stamina to just drop one!

Assume you have the eternal ferrystone? Bloody hope so.

Have you dragonforged your weapons?

Ah, and don't forget that if you do change you or your main pawns vocation, you won't be able to use their current armour or weapons if they're not compatible with the new class you're changing to, so make sure you have some backup kit ready

Also, your weapons will definitely only chip away at the tougher monsters until your mage starts buffing them. Makes a huge difference

It's strider first, and then ranger. I go strider and pick up the toss and trigger skill (the uppercut one which can drop loads of monsters onto the floor so your warrior can hoover them up easier) and the double jump which might be a ranger skill. Can't remember now. There's a particular strider bow skill that's good too and you can use it as a ranger as well.

Strider = small bows and daggers
Ranger = huge bow with daggers

Right. So I'd be good going with Ranger in a bit then?

I can't remember when you get all the strider skills, but I just take strider to vocation 10, and then swap to ranger. Can change earlier but you'd have to check what strider skills you'd miss

Just fired up my ps version of it. I'm in duskmoon tower, level 3 in bitterblack Isle. Wherever the fuck that is.

Level 53, main pawn same level, and then a 61 warrior and sorcerer.

I can't remember how to play