Dragon’s Dogma Vocation Tips: Fighter

Dragon’s Dogma was released in late May of 2012.  It has  been compared to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Shadow of the Colossus, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry.  It is an action rpg that follows the a character whom you create using the pretty detailed Character Creation interface, and their quest to slay the Dragon.  This will take you all across Gransys, with plenty of adventures and fun along the way.

The game is purely a single player experience.  However, each player creates a “pawn” that will follow them throughout their adventures.  They control this pawn’s development as well as its equipment and skills.  This brings forth the only real online interaction within the game.  A player is able to have three pawns in his party.  To get to three, the player is able to recruit pawns that other people have made.  These pawns aren’t taken away from the player who made them and the creator can receive items and rift crystals (which can be used to recruit higher level pawns) in return.

Each member of the party will have a vocation.  This vocation determines that character’s stat growth, skill set, and weapons.  For example, a mage will have low health, attack, and defense, though they will have high magic and magic defense.  While they will be able to use magic, they will not be able to use, say daggers and a bow like a strider or a sword and shield like a fighter.  There are nine vocations in total, though pawns can only become one of the first six.  Each vocation plays extremely different from the others, and out of all the ones I’ve played, they’ve all been enjoyable (though the ranger and warrior are my favorites).

The fighter is a front line warrior, who has high health gains, medium attack gains, high defense gains, and low magic attack and defense gains.  The fighter uses a sword and shield, allowing for powerful attacking ability and powerful defense abilities.  I do suggest using the fighter and then switching to the mystic knight, who is much like the fighter but with better shield skills.

The fighter is a very good vocation for pawns, as it has skills that draws enemies to them, as well as being able to take a lot of damage.  Having fighters allows you to use a ranged class, which can make a lot of fights a lot easier.  However, fighters are pretty fun to play.  Whenever I blocked an opponent’s attack with my shield, I got a great sense of fulfillment.

When playing as a fighter, get Legion’s Bite and then upgrade it to Dragon’s Maw as soon as possible.  Getting the augment prescience is also a good idea.  Antler Toss is another very good skill.  Dragon’s Maw is one of the best offensive skills in the game as it can be used while under attack, is very fast, does a lot of damage, and hits all enemies around you.  For example, you can do massive damage to a dragon if you knock it down and unleash this technique on its heart.  Antler Toss throws launches the opponent into the air while doing a lot of damage.  It sets the enemy up to be hit again.

The fighter’s shield skills aren’t quite as useful as you’d think.  The divine defense, which is supposed to defend against any attack, doesn’t work (at least in my experience).  The other attacks can be useful, but there isn’t anything amazing.  I found myself only using my shield to block attacks.

The fighter has to get close to attack and do the damage it needs to do.  Just like the other melee classes, it runs into trouble against aerial enemies like Liches, Wyverns, and Sirens.  Using the fighter requires perfecting the use of the shield to block enemy attacks, otherwise using the warrior is a much better option.  The fighter’s strength comes from using the shield to be able to continue attacking when other classes would be knocked back or have to run.  If you can master blocking enemy attacks and counterattacking quickly then you can become an incredibly powerful fighter.

However, the fighter is just a basic class, and it certainly isn’t the best in the game.  It’s definitely the best class to start out as unless you’re set on being a mage, (though mages aren’t very fun to play in this game due to spellcasting times).  But once you reach level ten and can switch your vocation to one of the advanced vocations, there are much better choices.  If you really enjoy using the sword and shield, I recommend using the fighter, warrior, and ranger (maybe even the Assassin), getting the augments and attack gains that you need and then switching over to the mystic knight.  Refer to my article on the mystic knight class for more information.

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