Dragon's Dogma - Dark Arisen

[Tyrath]

Man I've seen some level 13 (my current level) pawns with like Gryphic armor and shit. My pawn is never going to compete to people who know all about the game and get shit early, never gonna get rented

[Souj]

If its any consolation, it probably wouldn't get rented even if it was the best.
Most people are probably renting pawns from people who havn't touched this game in a year.

[AoE]

Last time I played on my second account, my healing pawn got tons of invites for awhile because I modeled her moveset based on the number 1 healing pawn on the ranks. As soon as I switched her job (and her look), people stopped using her. I switched her back to that vocatio

[Souj]

so, in the Dark Arisen section, you;ll get loading screens that say "just because you clear an area of enemies, doesn't mean its safe."
And I just disregarded it as something like "watch out for pitfalls or boobytraps"
Well, I think I just found out the real meaning.
I went back into the BlackIsle and went in from the beginning. theres a courtyard with some regular goblins and a cyclops that I've been through a few times and no problem.
So I clear it out this time and as soon as I kill the last enemy, everything turns brown for a second and then in comes charging this big rat dog thing and starts devastating me. Well, outlasting me is a better choice of words. It can take out me or my pawns in two hits, but my ranged attacks werent doing shit and it is freaking fast.
I die, reload, go back and clear the area again and he didnt spawn this time.

yay random spawning big enemies

[Charismatic]

Oh man, I really like the sound of that.
I might actually have to pick up Dark Arisen sometime. I've been on the fence about it since I really don't want to have bought the same game twice. (Even though I willingly did it with Dark Souls)

[Souj]

scratch that. ratdog can show up whenever the fuck it feels like apparently. I was fighting a cockatrice when all of a sudden it just spawned itself in

but yeah, Charismatic, Dark Arisen stuff has all been pretty great so far.
I'm comparing it to Dark Souls. Not in the way of deaths, but with trial and error and just how viscous some of the fights can be.


scratch that; quite similar in the way of deaths sometimes.

[Edelweiss]

Looks like Masterful Kill was also nerfed on Assassin; I didn't use it much because of Gale Harness and Invisibility taking the other two slots... but christ on a bike, they went overboard with the huge Autonomy and Masterful Kill nerfs. At this point, you're just going to level on Assassin and change to Ranger at 200.

[Souj]

Pics spoiler'd for size

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I've taken like a dozen pictures on various enemies with this pose.
Cutting Wind is so much fun. Can't believe I never used it when I first played the game


Bird seemed pretty photogenic, so I took a bunch of pics




fuck Ratdog





I haven't been able to kill any of these things yet. There's like 5 in a room and I haven't been able to even damage them. And they aren't even blocking a different area, you can go around them.


This last one is a little bit of a spoiler. not a storyline spoiler, but an "oh shit, I have to fight that?" kind of spoiler

Spoiler: show

This thing is fucking massive. Didn't kill it yet, though I'm pretty sure I've figured out how.

[Edelweiss]

For those curious about the Maker's Finger and

Spoiler: show

Daimon 2.0

, it only takes off a single bar of HP. Useful, but you have to deal with 9 more.

Actually, on that subject; best strategy seems to be:

Spoiler: show

Taking along around 24-32 Conqueror's Periapts, 2-3 Liquid Vims, and powerful single-hit ranged skills. I've changed to Ranger from Assassin, and i'm doing excellent damage: each Comet Shot is ripping big chunks of HP (about 1/3rd a bar per shot) off and staggering it in place almost consistently. I've managed to thus avoid alot of the multi-cast bullshit and other things as well (though i'm hiding behind a fallen pillar near the exit door for insurance). It also hasn't been able to X-Zone my Pawns as a result.

Every kill (counting the two battles together) now averages about 3 minutes, in comparison to 30-40 minute ones people were intitially getting. The first form is a joke; Tenfold Flurry with those Periapts up will tear through it like wet toilet paper.

[Edelweiss]

I'm going to have to test this more, but:

Spoiler: show

Daimon 2.0's vulnerability and defenses might to be tied to the number of pillars left standing/intact in the Sanctum at the start of Round 2. Anon in the /vg/ thread mentioned it, and i've noticed on the past 5 Daimons when 1-3 pillars were taken out by AoEs, my Tenfold Flurry did damage - with all of them down on the first few runs, it was doing nothing. Then again, perhaps its coincidence.

If anyone else can post their experiences, maybe we'll figure this out.

[Charismatic]

http://i.minus.com/ilSdv2tl5Vt65.gif


rofl

[Souj]

Ed, judging by this thread, I'm assuming you and I are the only ones who've touched the Dark arisen stuff. and I'm not very far into it as I started a completely fresh character.

[Viq]

If I was still back in the States, this would have been a day one purchase, no questions asked. As it is, I can't justify buying a TV and importing a copy. It's bugging me, though. DD was my favorite game last year, by far.

[Tyrath]

Ed, judging by this thread, I'm assuming you and I are the only ones who've touched the Dark arisen stuff. and I'm not very far into it as I started a completely fresh character.

I'm scared to go in because I'm completely new to the game and am still trying to do some of the original content. I see a cyclops in the field and I run away so I feel like I'm not ready for expansion stuff yet lol.

[Edelweiss]

Ed, judging by this thread, I'm assuming you and I are the only ones who've touched the Dark arisen stuff. and I'm not very far into it as I started a completely fresh character.

I think you're gonna be at it for a long ass time then; some of the enemy setups are difficult even for Lv. 200s.

And if there's only a few, that is definitely a shame; DD is a great game and DA is a fantastic addition to it. If (or is that more like when) Capcom ruins this series, that will be the last straw. Them nigs can't even get my money for Poison when that happens.

[Tyrath]

Also is it just me or does the expansion version of this game have the slowest start screen?

*Loads trophy info*
Hit Start screen
*Checking downloadable content*
Game News screen
Hit Main menu Screen
Finally get to load your damn game.

[Edelweiss]

Also is it just me or does the expansion version of this game have the slowest start screen?

*Loads trophy info*
Hit Start screen
*Checking downloadable content*
Game News screen
Hit Main menu Screen
Finally get to load your damn game.

^Can't Fly into Free to that.

By the way, if anyone hasn't yet dealt with Living Armors, you do not know rage. Definitely the worst enemy in DA. Fuck; at least in the Lost City I can push them off the entrance cliff for 2 bars of damage. Maelstrom is also great for this too; it doesn't do fuck directly to them but rather it (if you pound on them abit too to up their stagger percentage) sucks them up into the vortex and drops them - for unblockable physical damage. They do not handle drops well (even tiny things in the sewers practically stun them for 5 seconds).

[Tyrath]

Was the main game's intro song different from Dark Arisens?

[Charismatic]

Was the main game's intro song different from Dark Arisens?

Yes.
It was godlike.

[Souj]

Yeah, the original music was crazy out of place. at first it sounds like music you'd expect for a medieval rpg game but out of nowhere it changed into some weird pop-like song.