Dragon’s Dogma 2 combat tips for new players

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is mostly a game about combat with big, big monsters that you’ll find yourself spider-crawling all over. And while those fights are a ton of fun, the game’s combat can feel a little fiddly before you fully understand it. But we’re here to help.

In this Dragon’s Dogma 2 guide, we’re going to break down some great tips to help you master combat early on — regardless of your vocation.

Death is a little odd in Dragon’s Dogma 2, because even when you get hit really hard and it looks like you’re out of health, you can chug a healing potion or eat an apple and recover a little bit before you die. This is because your health doesn’t disappear immediately, so you have a (narrow) window to do something about it.

This tip makes dealing with big monsters that hit very hard much simpler. So make sure you travel around with lots of useful healing items to stop yourself from going down and potentially needing to waste a Wakestone to revive yourself.

Everything in Dragon’s Dogma 2 can drop useful resources for you to use, even the wildlife. And you’ll need a surprising number of rabbit pelts to upgrade your beginner gear in the game. But that’s not the real reason that you should kill every creature that moves out in the open world. What you’re really looking for here is XP and Discipline, which will help you increase your level (and therefore your stats) and purchase skills for your vocation.

Harpies, skeletons, pigs, rabbits, deer, dragons, the list goes on. If it isn’t a villager or a quest-giver: Kill it! Bigger things will certainly be more worth your time, but when a little rabbit only takes a quick swing of your blade, why not take it down?

At the start, it can be tempting to play Dragon’s Dogma 2 like a hack-n-slash game, alternating between your light and heavy hits all the time. But what you should really be doing is peppering in your unique vocation skills as you go. These skills do cost stamina to perform, but some of them are extremely powerful.

Take the Gut and Run skill for the Thief vocation, for example. Sure, you can just stab a monster over and over again to deal damage. But if you use Gut and Run, you’ll do more damage than 20 hits in a fraction of the time.

Just keep in mind what your ability’s limitations are. For example, Gut and Run is a finisher, so it also causes you to dismount the creature. Some other abilities take time to set up, but offer a big reward, like the Thief’s bomb ability. Experiment with skills and learn the delicate dance between mashing attack and using your abilities.

Grabbing and climbing a monster is one of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s big selling points, and one aspect that helps it stand apart from competitors. So, naturally, you might be very tempted to jump on top of a big cyclops and climb around every time. Resist this urge!

Crawling around on a monster takes up a ton of stamina and, until you know what that monster can do, a miscalculation can be lethal. For example, flying monsters love to fly you high into the sky when your stamina is getting low. And monsters like ogres love to flop on their ass and try to squish you. Don’t let yourself fall victim to these kinds of deaths.

Instead, watch the monster, learn what it does, and take some slashes at its feet and other reachable areas. If you’re a heavier vocation like a Fighter, maybe try to push the monster over instead of climbing it at all.

All that being said...

Climbing (on monsters) is one of your most powerful tools in Dragon’s Dogma 2, but only if you do it cautiously.

As previously mentioned, monsters can get really mad when you climb them. But many enemies have special weak spots that you need to climb all over to find. And some vocations are better at climbing monsters than others.

If you’re fighting a dragon with a bunch of sores on it, hopping on and stabbing the sores with a flaming sword is a great idea, even if you’re a fighter that usually feels more comfortable on the ground. Just be sure to let go before it flies away. On the other hand, jumping on top of a griffin and planting a bomb on its head as a Thief can help you bring it down to the ground over and over again.

As you’re learning Dragon’s Dogma 2, try not to get overzealous about climbing. But, as you get more comfortable, make sure to ease climbing back into your combat repertoire when dealing with big bads.

Healing items are very useful for staying alive — as we mentioned before — but running out of stamina is probably the thing that’s killed me most when playing Dragon’s Dogma 2. So how do you remedy that? Bring lots of stamina improvement items like harspuds, dried spuds, or harspud roborants (or even mighty roborants).

Just like potions, you can eat stamina items at any time. That means if a monster unexpectedly takes to the sky with you on its back, you can pop a stamina item to keep yourself from getting bucked off as it flies around.

From climbing around and hitting their weak point, to sniping them from afar, to just pushing their feet over, there are a lot of ways to briefly knock enemies out in Dragon’s Dogma 2.

KOing enemies like this is your primary goal when fighting anything bigger than you. Once a cyclops, ogre, griffin, or whatever hits the ground and is stunned, you can walk up to it and deliver a powerful finishing attack to its weak point (usually the head, unless there’s something more obvious like a glowing rune or pulsing wound). These finisher attacks deal very high damage, and can help you make quick work of most monsters. So when you see a monster start to look wobbly or unsure on its feet, keep the pressure up!

Ranged vocations can be very powerful in Dragon’s Dogma 2, as they keep you out of reach of the massive monsters that want to pick you up and crush you between their fists. However, you’re also much more likely to take lethal damage if a monster makes its way over to you. This is where pawns come in.

When you’re hiring pawns as a ranged player, try and pick up some beefy frontliners to eat up monsters’ time and HP. You can even look for pawns with abilities like Shield Summons for fighters, which essentially taunts enemies to them and away from you.

As a ranged player, you’re extremely dangerous to the monster from a distance. So play to that strength and build yourself a wall of (mostly) disposable pawns.

Combat isn’t just about stabbing with the best weapon you have. There’s also a lot of offensive magic in Dragon’s Dogma 2 — and you don’t have to be a Mage to use it against your enemies.

A Mage in your party will sometimes cast spells that imbue your weapons with elemental magic. (Alternatively, if you play as a Mage, you can cast these spells on your pawns.) You can also find various grimoires in your adventures that cast spells. Some of these add elemental damage to your weapons.

This elemental damage can turn the tide of a fight. Saurians, for example, are incredibly weak to ice damage (and immune to fire damage). Big monsters like minotaurs and ogres are covered in oh-so-flammable hair and weak to fire damage.

Speaking of grimoires, they’re a great way to deal massive elemental and magic damage, even when you’re not playing as a caster (a Mage or a Sorcerer). You can pause at any time — even in the middle of a fight — and pick a grimoire out of your inventory. When you use it, you’ll cast a spell. Some of them, like Governing Soul, cast healing magic; books like Winter’s Path cast an offensive ice spell; and others, like Thunderous Concord, grant all lightning damage to weapons.

Getting started in Dragon’s Dogma 2? Check out our beginners guide, and read our explainers on what vocation to pick, how to fast travel, and how to increase inventory size.