In Dragon’s Dogma 2, Pawns serve as valuable allies, assisting players in combat and exploration and enriching the gameplay. You can tailor your party for a well-rounded gaming experience by leveraging the six diverse Vocations available to pawns, with each Vocation offering unique abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
Following the tutorial, you can choose from four Starter Vocations for your main Pawn. As the game advances, you can unlock two Advanced Vocations via a Vocation Maister or by completing quests. Selecting or changing your Pawn’s Vocation demands a strategic approach to complement your playstyle, focusing on skills, weapon types, and combat roles. Below is a ranking of Pawn Vocations based on effective support and overall combat efficiency.
The Thief Vocation stands out as a dynamic melee starter class that focuses on dexterity, speed, and agility. Thieves excel in dodging attacks and executing quick, successive dagger strikes and thrive in fast-paced, close-range combat. Their ability to capitalize on staggered or incapacitated enemies underscores their opportunistic fighting style, making them highly effective.
Thieves are less suited as pawns than other Vocations due to the AI’s struggle with their intricate and rapid maneuvers. Their ability to climb onto larger creatures for critical hits, which demands tremendous stamina, often exceeds the AI’s tactical planning, leading to imprudent stamina use and increased vulnerability. However, in a player’s hands, the Thief’s skill set offers significant potential and utility, showcasing its true effectiveness when directly controlled.
Archers excel in long-range combat, wielding their bows to strike enemies from afar. Capable of firing on the move, they deliver quick arrows and pinpoint enemy weak spots with accuracy. Additionally, Archers can debilitate adversaries, making them more vulnerable to subsequent attacks. Their repertoire of special arrows and skills significantly boosts their tactical edge in combat.
While Archers boast agility and excel in ranged combat in DD2, their limited defense requires strategic support from allies and continuous movement to stay out of harm’s way. Given that pawns are meant to support the player rather than require protection, the vulnerabilities inherent to the Archer Vocation render them less effective than pawns. Players who prefer a ranged approach to combat may find this Vocation more rewarding when directly controlled.
The Fighter Vocation is a cornerstone melee class in Dragon’s Dogma 2. It focuses on close-quarters combat and strong defense. Armed with one-handed weapons and shields, Fighters are adept at confronting enemies directly, absorbing and parrying attacks, and delivering potent counterstrikes. Their effectiveness is highlighted when they capitalize on staggered enemies or exploit the weaknesses of disabled monsters, demonstrating their combat mastery.
Fighter pawns excel as tanks, supporting playable characters by absorbing enemy attacks and protecting allies. Their strategic positioning and advanced shield techniques, developed as the game progresses, enhance the party’s defense. With skills like enemy taunting, Fighter pawns effectively draw aggression away, enabling players to concentrate on offensive strategies. This makes them invaluable for maintaining party balance and focusing on damage delivery.
Unlocking the Sorcerer Vocation requires traversing Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s map to Vernworth and completing the ‘Vocation Frustration’ quest. When chosen for your central pawn, it enables using offensive magick. As advanced spellcasters, Sorcerers wield architraves to cast potent area-effect spells from afar, demanding precise timing and significant stamina.
Despite their formidable offensive power, sorcerers face challenges like low defense and susceptibility to spell interruption by enemy strikes. Much like Archers, they rely on a supportive team and careful positioning to mitigate these risks, allowing them to safely cast their stamina-intensive, long-charge spells. These vulnerabilities are a minor trade-off for their ability to significantly boost damage output in combat, making a Sorcerer pawn a valuable asset to your party.
Choosing a Sorcerer as your main Pawn is ideal for long-range support, offering complete customization of their skills, loadout, and equipment. Unlike extra pawns hired from the Rift, whose augments you can’t select, your main Pawn can be tailored precisely to your strategy. This control ensures your main Sorcerer Pawn aligns perfectly with your needs, avoiding the uncertainty of relying on a randomly found Sorcerer whose optimization by their creator might not meet your requirements.
Optimize your Sorcerer Pawn by selecting Salamander as a critical Weapon Skill. This spell casts a snake-like flame trail that burns everything in its path, lingering to inflict ongoing damage. It’s a powerful choice for consistent damage, and upgrading to its advanced form, High Salamander, enhances its effectiveness.
The Mage Vocation is a versatile option for Pawns in Dragon’s Dogma 2, excelling in support and offense from a distance. Wielding staves, Mages master magick to heal allies and unleash substantial elemental damage over broad areas. Their ability to levitate and bestow elemental enhancements on allies’ weapons highlights their critical role in enhancing a party’s overall effectiveness and adaptability.
Having a Pawn as a Mage is essential for any party due to its invaluable utility. Their healing abilities allow players to concentrate on attacking while their protective shields can absorb significant damage. Additionally, Mages can enchant weapons with elemental properties, exploiting enemy vulnerabilities to enhance your team’s damage output. Without a Mage, surviving challenging encounters becomes a greater struggle, making the game’s challenges more daunting.
Opting for a Mage as an extra Pawn rather than a main one is recommended, given their primary role in protective support over damage output. Mages demand less customization, making allocating a main Pawn slot for a Mage less efficient. A tank-based character benefits more select customization and is a superior main Pawn choice.
Additionally, Mages equipped with essential skills are readily available at the Rift, making it easy to integrate their supportive capabilities into your party without dedicating your main Pawn to this role.
In Dragon’s Dogma 2, completing the ‘Vocation Frustration’ quest unlocks the Warrior Vocation for your Pawns, offering an advanced melee option beyond the Fighter class. Warriors handle massive two-handed greatswords and hammers, trading speed for powerful, sweeping attacks that excel in crowd control by plowing through enemy ranks with formidable force.
Warriors set aside the Fighter’s shield in favor of heavy armor and resilience, offering a more offensive stance with the ability to taunt and confront multiple adversaries. This Vocation enhances the Fighter, blending tank-like durability with significant offensive prowess, allowing players to concentrate on dealing damage.
With a skill set that combines powerful attacks with tactical advantages, Warriors stand out as an ideal choice for a main Pawn, providing customizable control akin to a Sorcerer’s.
Customizing your Warrior Pawn to include Skyward/Heavensward Slash is crucial for its high damage output and strong stagger capabilities. Due to its quick charge and efficient parrying tactics, Skyward Slash is more stamina-efficient, faster, and generally more effective than Knoll Breaker.