The Fighter vocation is essentially about sticking to the basics in Dragon’s Dogma 2, casting you as a reliable, burly sword-wielder.
The Fighter is the most cookie-cutter of the starting vocations, with the perfect blend of offensive and defensive skills, all of which are focused on melee combat, and is a solid choice for anyone who is new to RPGs of this ilk. You can change vocations at any Vocation Guild throughout the game, though, so don’t feel like you’re locked into your choice.
Once you’ve ranked up your Fighter a few times, you’ll need to choose between weapon skills, core skills, and augments, along with different equipment to improve your stats. Here’s a breakdown of the best Fighter build for beginners in Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Best Fighter weapon skills to get first in Dragon’s Dogma 2
Once you’ve used the Fighter vocation for a little while, more weapon skills will become available to you. Our Fighter build is designed with offense in mind, but is still capable of solid defense where necessary, because after all, you will be wielding a shield. If there are any weapon skills listed here that you haven’t unlocked yet, just keep ranking the Fighter up until they become available. Also, upgrade each of these to the High variant of the skill as soon as you can as that simply makes them more powerful.
- Blink Strike
- Airward Slash
- Shield Bash
- Counter Slash
There’s nothing too complex here, so don’t worry about learning combos or anything like that. Blink Strike is an excellent combat traversal skill that makes you charge at your target before delivering a stab attack forwards. It’s especially useful at the start of fighting a new enemy when there’s some ground to cover before you’re in melee range.
Airward Slash is vital when fighting airborne — or humongous — enemies, as it allows you to swing your sword into the air while jumping. Harpies can be found all over Vermund and while Mages and Archers are capable of ranged attacks, Airward Slash allows you to join in the fun too without having to wait for those enemies to be knocked down. You can also use this skill on Ogres, Cyclops, and the like, as you can effectively hit them in the head rather than scrapping with their lower torso this way.
As you’d expect by the name, Shield Bash lets you use your shield to bash a target. What this means is you charge forward a few steps and put all your weight behind the shield, which will send smaller enemies flying and cause them to be knocked over. If you want to put distance between yourself and the danger, this is a great skill to use before following up with another Blink Strike.
Finally, there’s Counter Slash, which is essentially the skill version of a timed parry from a Soulslike. You don’t need to worry about timing it though as your character will block until the enemy attacks before repelling it and following up with a quick horizontal slash. An excellent choice against enemies that block your attacks and can be hard to break.
Best Fighter core skills and augments in Dragon’s Dogma 2
The Fighter has four core skills available to it and as with all the classes, you should obtain all of them, along with the three augments. Tusk Toss and Steeled Foundation are the two most useful core skills, with the former sending lightweight enemies flying into the sky and the latter protecting you from taking as much fall damage by using your shield to ease the impact.
Being a Fighter means accepting you’ll often be receiving a lot of the aggro from enemies too, so the Provocation augment stops your pawns from dying as frequently. Meanwhile, Mettle and Thew are both no-brainers, increasing your defense stat and the amount of weight you can carry respectively.
Best Fighter equipment in Dragon’s Dogma 2
Recommending specific equipment in the early game in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is tough because your options are very limited. You’ll find the odd piece here and there through looting, but most armor and weapons are locked to specific classes. However, in Vernworth, you’ll find Bjorn’s Armory and Roderick’s Smithy, selling armor and weapons respectively. There isn’t a huge amount of choice for each class, but it is worth buying (and enhancing!) the following for the Fighter vocation.
For the head, you can opt for either the Soldier’s Helm (2,250 gold) or the Iron Helm (4,400 gold). The Soldier’s Helm is lighter and cheaper, but has very slightly weaker defensive stats. Make sure you grab the Guardian Plate Armor (12,800 gold) though, as this has the best defensive and resistance stats out of any armor piece at this stage of the game. Then there’s the Guardian Leg Plates (11,550 gold) which are expensive and heavy, but worth it for the extra protection.
The best weapon for the Fighter you can buy here is the Vermundian Brand (13,800 gold), which is worth picking up if you’ve nothing better. However, at some point during the early stages of the game, we found the Steeled Virtue somewhere on our travels, so if you’ve also encountered and acquired this, it has better stats than any of the weapons you can buy right now.
For more Dragon’s Dogma 2 guides, see our suggestions for the best Thief build and best Mage build for beginners. We also have explainers on how to unlock the Warrior and Sorcerer vocations, how to change your vocation, and a list of all vocations.
