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Dragon Dogma 2‘s Vocation system is one of the game’s best features. Essentially a play on the classic “Class” concept, Vocations help determine your player character, Pawns, and Main Pawn’s abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Choosing the right vocation requires you to carefully consider your preferences, gear, situation, and supporting cast. Even then, the game encourages you to experiment by allowing you to easily change your Vocations throughout the adventure.
If you’re looking for a little more guidance than “Play which Vocation you love most,” though, then here is a slightly more comprehensive look at every Vocation in Dragon’s Dogma 2 and which are the best of the best.
Dragon’s Dogma 2: Best Starting Vocation
At the moment, the best overall starting vocation in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is the Archer.
The Archer’s ability to effectively operate at safe distances makes them the safest choice for the early part of the game when your top priority is simply staying alive. However, “safe” isn’t the best way to describe the Archer class. They are also capable of dealing tremendous amounts of ranged damage right from the start, and they quickly unlock some devastating skills that allow them to effectively manage most early threats (especially if you pair them with an easy-to-find melee Pawn). Unless you hate ranged characters, you can’t go wrong with the Archer.
If you do hate ranged characters, then definitely go with the Thief. Like the Archer, the Thief excels at avoiding damage due to their various evasive abilities. You may think those evasive abilities come at the cost of their raw damage, but that’s not really the case. The Thief’s high melee attack rate and ability to zip between enemies make them one of the highest DPS options at the start of the game. Just watch out for flying enemies or other ranged foes.
Mages offer the ranged attack benefits of Archers and even bring a few valuable defensive and healing spells to the party. Unfortunately, their versatility can be a bit of a hindrance early on. You’ll sometimes find yourself playing more of a support role than you’d probably like to at that point in the game, and Mage’s long attack times often put them in a bad position. They are viable, but they often depend on powerful Pawns at a time when you’re still building your party.
Fighters are the worst starting vocation in Dragon’s Dogma 2. They are certainly viable, but they rely too much on sticking to the frontlines at a time when you just won’t have the gear or stats needed to effectively utilize that style of play. Perhaps more importantly, it’s easier to rely on a Fighter Pawn to run into battle and soak up the damage than it is for a Fighter to rely on early Archer, Thief, and Mage Pawns to do their respective duties. Even if you love melee, I still recommend the Thief over the Fighter early on.
Dragon’s Dogma 2: Every Advanced Vocation and Hybrid Vocation
As you play Dragon’s Dogma 2, you will eventually gain access to Advanced Vocations and Hybrid Vocations. The biggest difference between those two Vocations is that Advanced Vocations can be assigned to your Main Pawn and player character while Hybrid Vocations are limited to your player character.
Generally speaking, these Vocations are more powerful than the ones that are available to you at the start of the game. However, that isn’t always strictly true. Before we dive into all that, though, let’s take a look at the Vocations themselves.
Warrior – Advanced Vocation
As the name suggests, Warriors are massive melee fighters that typically rely on the biggest weapons to deal the most damage. More importantly, their comically large weapons allow them to deal incredible amounts of AOE damage at close ranges. That makes them the perfect choice for dealing with larger groups of enemies as well as priority single targets.
Just note that those massive attacks come at the cost of equally sizeable attack animations that can sometimes leave Warriors vulnerable. While their slightly higher defenses help make up for that drawback, their slower movement speeds and lack of effective ranged attacks can sometimes make them a bit more reliant on good support Pawns.
Sorcerer – Advanced Vocation
Try to be surprised, but Sorcerers are masters of magic. They are capable of unleashing the most powerful spells in the game. As if their absurd damage potential wasn’t enough, they also have access to one of the best self-healing abilities in the game and can operate from safe distances that even Archers can’t rival.
However, those spells are also the source of the Sorcerer’s biggest drawback: their long cast times. It takes quite a while to cast this Vocation’s best abilities, and those cast times can quickly expose the Sorcerer’s lack of close-range damage options and raw defenses. You really have to think ahead as a Sorcerer.
Magick Archer – Hybrid Vocation
Yes, the Magick Archer is essentially the base Archer class with a magical twist. You may think that would make them strictly more powerful than the Archer, but that’s not really the case. Instead, that magical influence grants them access to an array of additional support spells. A Magick Archer can even revive an ally from a great distance, which is certainly one of the most useful support abilities in the game.
Unfortunately, those new support spells do come at the cost of the Archer’s base raw damage output. A Magick Archer is more than capable of defending itself at a distance, but they naturally tend to focus less on pure damage than their base Vocation counterparts. It can be a worthy trade-off, but it is a trade-off.
Mystic Spearhand – Hybrid Vocation
Think of the Mystic Spearhand as a twist on the classic “Spellblade” concept. They not only have access to a variety of melee and magical abilities, but they typically utilize both at the same time. That combination of skills makes them some of the most reliable damage dealers in the game. There are no combat situations they don’t have some kind of answer to. They also possess exceptional evasion abilities and a few tricks that grant them access to sneakily powerful ranged attacks that aren’t dependent on long cast times.
However, the Mystic Spearhand just doesn’t have access to the high-end support/healing abilities that other classes bring to the party. Futhermore, while the Mystic Spearhand brings both magic and melee to the table, it’s certainly not the best at either. That may leave those who prefer a specialized class like Warrior or Sorcerer feeling slightly underpowered.
Trickster – Hybrid Vocation
The Trickster is certainly Dragon Dogma 2’s most unique Vocation. An evolution of the Thief concept, Tricksters rely on magical illusions to generate chaos in battle. Yes, that means they are capable of doing things like conjuring a double of themselves to serve as a taunting target dummy. However, they can also turn enemies against each other, generating defensive barriers, and supporting their Pawns with powerful buff abilities.
For as fun as Tricksters can be, though, all those abilities mean that they end up sacrificing quite a lot of raw damage output. They can effectively deal with enemies in their own ways, but if you just want to walk up to a monster and get rid of it as quickly as possible, you may find that a Trickster is not for you. They’re actually more of a support class than they first appear to be.
Warfarer – Hybrid Vocation
The Warfarer is likely the last Vocation that you will unlock in Dragon’s Dogma 2 and with good reason. They are essentially the “everything” class. They can wield any weapons, can learn any spells, and generally allow you to create a custom class over a long enough period of time. Yes, they are quite ridiculous in a lot of ways.
So what’s the downside? Well, Warfarers are not unlocked until late in the game, so you won’t be able to use one for quite some time. More importantly, Warfarers have lower stats across the board than most other Vocations. In other words, they can launch powerful spells, buff their allies, and then go in for the melee kill. However, they’ll never be able to do any of those things better than other Vocations specifically built for those purposes.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 – Every Vocation Ranked Worst to Best
Again, ranking the Vocations in Dragon’s Dogma 2 requires you to consider things like your preferences, gear, available Pawns, and current combat situation. However, here is a rough breakdown of where every Vocation currently stands:
10. Thief
9. Magick Archer
8. Fighter
7. Mage
6. Archer
5. Warrior
4. Trickster
3. Sorcerer
2. Warfarer
1. Mystic Spearhand
Mystic Spearhand is the most powerful Vocation in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Yes, their hybrid style means they have natural disadvantages, but they’re pretty close to that dream combination of magic and melee. Their damage output is absurd, they are blessed with powerful defensive options, and they can even launch enemies across the map for ranged damage and fun. They’re just highlight reel factories at the moment.
Warfarers aren’t far behind, though it’s really a matter of when you unlock them and how you build them. I’d argue that a well-built Warfarer ultimately plays close enough to a Mystic Spearhand to give the latter Vocation the slight nod in terms of rankings. However, a Warfarer’s unrivaled versatility has to be accounted for.
Sorcerers may just be the best raw damage class in Dragon’s Dogma 2 when it’s all said and done. That makes them quite a draw as a player character Vocation option. I don’t love needing to constantly compensate for their longer spell cast times, but that ultimately proves to be a pretty minor annoyance compared to the devastation they can unleash.
Trickster is an appropriately tricky Vocation to rank. Yes, they are more dependent on their Pawns than many players will probably like. However, a properly played Trickster in a party of well-geared Pawns is a sight to behold. They feel unkillable at times, they can make some truly crazy things happen, and they’re just a lot of fun to play. If you don’t mind the idea of your Pawns doing more of the work (or prefer to play that way), then Tricksters are the obvious choice.
I actually love the Warrior class despite what these rankings may suggest. Their damage output is absurd, and they are a ton of fun to play. The “problem” is that Warrior is arguably the best overall Main Pawn Vocation. It suits their…enthusiasm for charging into battle, and assigning this Vocation to a Pawn allows you to explore so many other options. Still, Warriors are fantastic if you love an aggressive melee style of play.
The Archer earns some bonus points for their early-game viability, but they actually stand surprisingly tall in the long run. Since it’s generally recommended to allow your Pawns to do the melee work when possible, Archer’s biggest inherent weakness (their lack of close-range combat abilities) is remarkably easy to compensate for. They have a hard time competing against some of the late-game Vocation options you’ll unlock in terms of both support abilities and raw damage, but they are viable throughout the adventure due to the versatility of their various arrows.
Mages prove to be a fascinating class in the long run. They can never be the raw damage dealers Sorcerers are, but their ability to utilize powerful support skills alongside their strong offensive abilities makes them shockingly versatile once you have a proper party of Pawns available to you. They certainly shine brighter as the game goes on even if there are slightly better options available to you in specific categories.
Fighters are interesting. They definitely become more viable as you acquire better gear and improve their raw stats, but I imagine many players will struggle to pick them over Warriors if they want to go that route. Yes, Fighters are slightly more versatile and offer some additional tanking options, but those abilities also make them more dependent on their Pawns. If you’re going that route, I tend to recommend considering other support-oriented classes.
Magick Archer is a tough sell at the moment. They aren’t strictly a support class, but they trade a ton of damage in for their expanded support abilities. The problem is that they are not nearly as powerful as Tricksters as a support option, and I’d argue that they’re not quite as good as Mages when it comes to bouncing between support and damage on the fly. They have a role to play and play it well, but their lack of damage and survivability makes them a slightly weaker main character option.
Finally, we have the Thief. For as powerful as Thiefs are in the early part of the game, they quickly lose their way as things go on. By the time you unlock the Mystic Spearhand, you’ve really got to ask yourself what the Thief is bringing to the table that an often obvious superior option is not. I can see players simply growing to love them and sticking with them because of that, but they are definitely a personal preference in most cases.
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