Dragon's Dogma 2 Best Starting Vocation Character Class (2024)

Wondering what is the best startingvocation (character class) in Dragon’s Dogma 2? This guide explains what starting classes there are, what they do, what’s best for beginners. There are4 different starting classes in total.The starting class affects what weapons, skills, and armor you can use. It also affects the automatic statallocations on level-ups. Each class has a unique playstyle. You can change your vocation class at any time, this can be done at the Melve Inn or at any Guild Hall in the major cities.

For a list of all 10 unlockable classes refer to How to Unlock allVocationsand for the Guild Halls refer to Where to Change Vocations.

What Starting Classes are in Dragon’s Dogma 2?

1. Fighter – The “tank” melee class with a shield and sword. This is your classic melee fighter for close range combat. Good as a frontline combatant.
2. Archer – A ranged fighter using only bows and nothing else.
3. Mage – A magician who can cast offensive spells of various elements as well as healing spells and other support spells.
4. Thief – The melee “damage dealer”, wielding two daggers. The Thief is a close-range melee fighter and damage dealer, has light armor and no shield but can dodge.

What is the Best Starting Class in Dragon’s Dogma 2?

The best starting class is theMage. Whether you select a human or beastrenor male/female comes down to personal preference so pick whichever youwant.

The mageis simply the easiest to control and play. There is no mana gauge, his spells can beused infinitely without a cooldown. They only consume stamina which recharges immediately. While the mage has very low armor, he makes up forit with an unlockable spell “Palladium”which renders him invincible for 3 hits. His default skill “Anodyne” creates a green healing bubble that quickly recharges the health of yourself and your pawns (allies). He has spells of all element types to exploit enemy’s weaknesses, though initially only starts with Fire Magic. You can use a Flamethrower spell “Flagration” by holding L1/LB + the assigned shortbutton. This kills smaller enemies almost instantly within seconds. Don’t bother attacking with the Magick Bolt, it does little damage and spamming the same button will just make your hands hurt. The powerful magic spells that get slotted to the shortbuttons arethe only ones you should use.

The mage’s damage output is superior to other starting classes, coupled withthe healing spell “Anodyne”.This makes him the top choice. Later on your can unlock more powerful spells at Guild Halls. As soon as you arrive in Vernworth buy the skill “Levin” which casts lightning strikesm and “Quickspell” which lets you cast magic faster by holding R1, and “Palladium” which absorbs 3 hits so you never take damage.

Your default battle strategy will be this: At the very start of the game simply cast Flagration to burn all enemies. If you or teammates are hurt cast “Anodyne” to create a green bubble and stand in it to recharge health (the default spell that’s always equipped). Note that when you take damage your max recoverable health is reduced, only the gray part of your health bar can be healed. To regain max health you must rest at a campfire or an inn.

After unlocking more spells, start every battle by casting “Palladium” (protection spell, it absorbs 3 hits) > attack enemy with “Levin” (keep pressing the buttons displayed in bottom right to cast more lightning strikes). Refresh “Palladium” whenever it cools off. HoldR1/RBto cast magic faster after buying the skill “Quickspell” from the Guild Hall. By keeping Palladium on at all times you will never take any damage.

Downsides of playing a Mage: The mage has a lower inventory capacity than the fighter, due to his lower strength stat. This means you can’t carry as much yourself. But you can circumvent this by making your main pawn a fighter and dumping all items on the fighter. Try to stay at light weight to run faster. As you level up your max inventory weight increases so it becomes less of an issue (you can also consume gold bugs to increase the carry capacity, they are found in the wild on trees). Stow any unused gear in the Storage, which you can access at some inns in major towns.

What is the Best Starting Pawn in Dragon’s Dogma 2?

If you play as Mage, make your starting pawn a Fighter with Calm Inclination. This will act as a tank and frontline fighter to draw the enemy’s attention away from you. Then you can hang back and attack from a safe distance. The Fighter has the best survivability thanks to the shield. The Calm Inclination makes the Fighter more defensive. The Fighter’s job is primarily to defend you and keep enemies away so that you can deal the big damage with magic spells.

BestMage Build

At the Inn in Melve or the Guild Hall in Vernworth you can buy new skills using “DEP”, which are experience points earned for every enemy you defeat. Rank up your vocation by defeating enemies. With each rank yougain access to more spells. You can equip 4 spells, they can be changed at the guild and at campfires. Here is the best loadout:

• Flagration/Frigor –Use Flagration for the early game in the northern half of the map. It’s the Flamethrower attack spell. Use Frigor (ice spell) when going to the southern half of the map past the border. Upgrade these to High Flagration / High Frigor after ranking up your vocation.
• Levin/High Levin – This is the lightning strike attack spell. This will be your default go-to attack for the rest of the game, except for a few enemies that have high resistance to lightning. It can be casted from a long distance and also hits flying enemies easily. Keep tapping the button to keep doing more lightning strikes until your stamina runs out.
• Palladium/High Palladium – Cast this before every battle. It lets you take 3 hits without taking damage. After ranking up you can upgrade it to High Palladium which also protects your pawns for 3 hits, refresh this whenever it cools off. This effectively absorbs all incoming damage for your entire team, so you’ll never take any damage. The only annoyance is that it doesn’t last very long so you’ll have to refresh it quite often during long fights.
• Argent Tonic or a spell of your choice – Argent Tonic is a healing spell that can be cast at distance (rather than the green bubble that Anodyne makes). If a pawn is at red health this can be a lifesaver. But you can just use Anodyne to keep everyone at good health and replace this with one of the other elemental attack spells (Flagration or Frigor). Then you always have something to match enemies’ weaknesses.

Also buy the 3 core skills from the Guild Hall: Focused Bolt, Quickspell, Levitate. The important one here is Quickspell which lets you hold R1/RB to incant spells much faster.

Best Dragon’s Dogma 2 Starting Classes Ranked

Below the best starting classes are ranked from 1st (best) to 4th (worst).

1. Mage – the best all-rounder, high damage output while also having healing abilities.
2. Thief – an aggressive melee damage dealer,while this class has lighter armor it does have far better damage output than the Fighter and can dodge with R1/RB. If you pick this then make your main pawn a mage.
3. Fighter –a classic defensive melee build with a sword and shield. Can withstand the most damage but cannot dodge and has lower damage output than Thief/Mage. If you pick this then make your main pawn a Mage.
4. Archer – a rangedunit but not as good as the mage.

For the other 6 classes check outDragon’s Dogma 2 – How to Unlock allVocations.

More Guides:

• Dragon’s Dogma 2 – 100% Completion Wiki
• Full World Map
• How to Unlock all Vocations (Character Classes)
• Best Starting Vocation (Character Class)
• How to Change Vocation (Character Class)