Pawns are Dragon’s Dogma 2’s unique way of building a party. You get to build your main pawn, but the other two slots in your party are filled by adopting other pawns through Rift Stones. They way you build your party is up to you.
You can choose pawns of your desired vocation to build out a party and fill certain roles that you and your pawn do not cover. There is no untenable way to build your party, make no mistake. However, there are, at least, safer ways to do so.
Best Pawn vocation combinations in Dragon’s Dogma 2
Part of putting together a great party is based on preference, which also comes down to what you, the player, enjoy playing as. For example, if you’re taking a magic role, you’re going to need a frontline of melee pawns to protect your fragile scholar.
When you begin, there are only four vocations, and my advice is to use them all. If you’re playing a thief, you want a fighter, mage, and archer. If you’re an Archer, you want a thief, fighter, and mage. So on, and so forth. It’s balanced by design, so you don’t have to think too hard.
As time goes on, new vocations will become available that make things a bit more complicated. The sorcerer and warrior are first, and pawns can take on those roles. More become accessible afterward, but only for The Arisen.
The safest party will always have a mage. The mage is handy for doing ranged and elemental attacks, but their real strength is their healing abilities. Some players also set them to provide elemental buffs, which I tend to prefer. Mages will always tend to hang back, but if they’re using that time at the back to help your party be more effective, then they’re helpful.
It’s always good to have some sort of tank. Fighters are decent for this and can be built for the role, but Warriors are my favorite. Warriors can also be fitted with skills specifically for the role of drawing damage, so that’s what I tend to lean toward.
If you want to swap out safety for damage, you have a lot of options. Thieves are great at exploiting enemy weaknesses and making them vulnerable. My main pawn is a thief, and she’s a beast. However, as I play sorcerer, I found the best supplement to my DPS was another sorcerer. If the warrior is taking damage, the thief is knocking the enemy down, then the two sorcerers just rain down destruction from afar. However, this does mean that your only source of healing is curative items.
So, in that sense, I’d say the best party make-up would be something like this:
- Warrior-Thief-Mage
- Warrior-Archer-Mage
- Figher-Thief-Mage
Or something to that effect. But the main takeaway here is that being ready for pain will get you furthest. Keeping your party going is perhaps the most important part of combat and a mage and tank are the best at doing that. However, never be afraid to experiment.
