Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief Build – Basic Vocation (Class)

This build guide focuses on the key aspects of a Basic Vocation (Class) Thief in Dragon’s Dogma 2, including skills, augmentations, and tips.

Best Thief Build – Basic Vocation (Class)

The Thief Vocation is for players who value burst damage with dual daggers at the expense of survivability and range. Thief gameplay revolves around quick strikes in melee range while peeling back when taking pressure. The Thief vocation will not have high survivability, but when paired with a Fighter tank, you can do massive damage without taking damage.

The downside of the Thief Vocation is its dependency on melee and stamina-heavy skills. However, the basic light and heavy attacks from the Thief’s core skills do significant damage and do not require stamina. Thus, you can learn to weave in and out damage and help your team jump on giant monsters.

Thief Vocation Pro	Thief Vocation Cons
Speed	Melee Only
Burst Damage	Stamina Dependent
Climbing Bosses	Lower Survivability

Thief Build Features

The following list presents all the essential Thief Build Mechanics and Features in Dragon’s Dogma 2:

• Skills: Cutting Wind, Shadow Cloak, Helm Splitter, Enkindled Blades
• Augmentations: Verve, Vigor
• Best Pawns: Fighter (main pawn), Mage, Archer
• Primary Stat: Strength
• Weapons: Dual Daggers
• Armor: Leather
• Rings: Skullduggery, Quickening
• Race: Human

Weapon Skills

The best skills for the Thief Vocation in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are Cutting Wind, Shadow Cloak, Helm Splitter, and Enkindled Blades. This combines mobility, burst damage, and cloak to keep you alive and produce significant damage. Your skills aim to stay alive, strike fast, and take down large enemies with weak points. The Thief vocation is highly effective at attaching and damaging giant monsters.

The Following List presents the best Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief Build Basic Vocation Class Weapon Skills:

• Biting Wind (Cutting Wind): gap closer mobility tool to initiate combat.
• Shadow Cloak (Shadow Veil): stealth ability.
• Helm Splitter (Skull Splitter): mid-air skill and large enemies.
• Enkindled Blades (Ignited Blades): buffs your dagger damage.

Biting Wind (Cutting Wind)

The skill Biting Wind (Cutting Wind advanced Version) acts as a mobility tool that helps you jump into combat. The range is significant, and you can follow up immediately with an additional attack. For the Thief class and vocation, look to attack vulnerable targets facing another direction. Your goal is to always “backstab” or hit the rear or any enemy for possibly more damage. This is why having a Fighter with a taunt is valuable: You can burst behind and slip out after a kill.

Biting Wind – Dashes past the target with blades extended. Followed by further slashes when using the same attack on contact.

Shadow Cloak (Shadow Veil)

Thieves have the unique skill to cloak or become invisible. Shadow Cloak is a potent skill because of invisibility; however, it drains your stamina while maintaining stealth. The ideal usage for this is before combat or when trying to flee. Use the cloak skill to infiltrate the back lines and remove spell casters and archers before they can unload on your party.

Shadow Cloak – Enables the user to blend into their surroundings, rendering them more difficult for hostile targets to detect. Less effective when attacking or dashing. Consumes Stamina while active.

Helm Splitter (Skull Splitter)

The Helm Splitter skill is designed to attack large monsters or creatures in mid-air. Your thief vocation has the advantage of using this skill to gain the mounted position and quickly look for weak points. The weak points are typically the head or a discolored part of the monster. Await your tank fighter to engage first, then leap on the enemy and attack.

Helm Splitter: It leaps up and then dives through the air while spinning, blades extended. It is more powerful when performed from high places and is also employable in mid-air.

Enkindled Blades (Ignited Blades)

To gain increased dagger damage, take the Enkindled Blades spell. This can be somewhat redundant with a Mage in your party providing fire damage to your weapons. However, a Mage pawn doesn’t maintain this skill 100% of the time and should be used to keep your weapon damage high. You can save stamina by not recasting this and relying heavily on basic attacks for damage.

Enkindled Blades – Brings the daggers together to ignite, wreathing them in flame for a short time. It can also be employed while clinging to or pinning down a foe.

Alternative skill (Smoke Screen) – if you are still struggling with survivability, consider swapping to Smoke Screen. You can blind targets with the grenade and use it to escape. The Thief isn’t meant to take a lot of pressure; Smoke Screen is an alternative if you find yourself dying frequently.

Core Skills

In Dragon’s Dogma 2, Core Skills act as passive perks or basic attacks for your Thief Class. The Carve skill is your “light attack,” while Twin Fangs is your “heavy attack.” These don’t cost stamina and can be used repeatedly without running out of stamina. Twin Fangs are perfect to use after crowd control or vulnerable targets because they dramatically increase the damage. Moreover, the Thief class emphasizes basic attacks over skills spam, so keep using them!

• Carve – Unleashes a flurry of dagger attacks. Your light attack does small damage, though it doesn’t consume stamina.
• Twin Fangs – Performs a deadly double strike forward, followed by a powerful successive strike if the target is knocked off balance. Hold down to cling to larger targets or to pin down smaller flinching targets. Your heavy attack has longer animation and more damage without consuming stamina.
• Swift Step—Lowers stance and renders movement swift and light. Effective as an evasive maneuver, it allows you to dodge slightly.
• Scarlet Kisses – Unleashes a flurry of forward slashes.
• Footpad – Kicks off a wall, allowing the user to launch themselves a great distance.
• Controlled Fall – Tucks the body into a tight roll when hitting the ground after being knocked down, allowing the user to regain their feet quickly. Reduces damage taken upon impact.
• Bump and Lift – Robs the target of an item when an attack connects. It activates when using Carve, but has a low success rate.

Maister Skills

In Dragon’s Dogma 2 there are vocation Maisters you can learn ultimate abilities from. Acquiring these abilities can take a good deal of extra effort, but are often worth it for the powerful effect they can produce.

Additionally, you do not have to any any specific Vocation Rank before you can unlock ultimate abilities. However, you must have unlocked the Vocation itself. With the Thief, this is a non-issue as the vocation is immediately available at the start of the game.

Finally, the Thief Vocation is fortunate in that it can unlock two different ultimate abilities. At first one of these ultimate Thief abilities might not seem useful, because of the damage it deals to the caster. However, when combined with the second, they can pack a powerful punch!

Go to a Vocation Guild and equip both abilities to your keybinds. Then, when fighting a boss monster, first use Formless Feint, then you can trigger Blades of the Pyre. The auto-dodge buff from Formless Feint should help you escape the fire damage from Blades of Pyre!

Check out our Thief Maister Vocation guide for a full step-by-step walkthrough.

The Following Lists presents the Thief Ultimate Ability and How to Unlock:

• Maister: Flaude the Fraud
• Location: Nameless Village
• Required Quest: ‘The Nameless Village’. You will receive this quest from Brant as he directs you to find out more about the false Sovran.
• Quest Timer: There doesn’t appear to be a timer on this quest, given that it is a part of the main story.
• Ultimate Ability – Blades of the Pyre: Brings daggers together to ignite, wreathing them in a blazing inferno so potent that the user cannot escape from being burned.

• Maister: Srail
• Location: Nameless Village, Thief Guild in tunnels below the manor
• Required Quest: ‘The Nameless Village’. You will receive this quest from Brant as he directs you to find out more about the false Sovran.
• Quest Timer: There doesn’t appear to be a timer on this quest, given that it is a part of the main story.
• Ultimate Ability – Formless Feint: Accelerates the user’s reactions to an ungodly degree, enabling them to evade all manner of attacks from hostile targets; consumes stamina while active.

Augmentations

In Dragon’s Dogma 2, Augmentations serve as passive enhancements to bolster your character’s strength and development. These benefits are earned by progressing through various vocations, with the ability to equip up to 6 of them. Moreover, if you’ve advanced far enough in another vocation, you can also mix and match augmentations to further enhance your build. For this Thief build, we recommend focusing on leveling the Archer to unlock three specific Augments. These are the recommended mix of augmentations which will give you the most power and efficiency out of your Thief.

The Following List presents Augmentations for Thief Build:

• Vigor (Thief Vocation): Reduces the Stamina consumed when clinging to or pinning down foes. Requires Thief at Vocation Rank 8 to unlock with 3,000 Discipline.
• Verve (Thief Vocation): Augments your Strength. Requires Thief at Vocation Rank 9 to unlock with 5,000 Discipline.
• Lethality (Archer Vocation): Increases damage dealt when striking a target’s vitals. Requires Archer at Vocation Rank 8 to unlock with 3,000 Discipline.
• Endurance (Archer Vocation): Increases your maximum stamina. Requires Archer at Vocation Rank 4 to unlock with 900 Discipline.
• Avidity (Archer Vocation): Allows you to clamber up cliffs and scale foes and other surfaces more quickly. Requires Archer at Vocation Rank 9 with 5,000 Discipline.
• Exaltation (Mage Vocation): Increases your stamina speed recovery. Requires Mage at Vocation Rank 9 to unlock with 5,000 Discipline.

Best Pawns for Thief Build

The best Pawns for your Thief Build are a Fighter for crowd control, a Mage for support, and an Archer for ranged attacks. In Dragon’s Dogma 2, Pawns act as companion allies. Each Arisen (player) will have one main pawn who can pick vocation and skills and two additional support basic vocations. Below are the best pawns for the Fighter vocation in Dragon’s Dogma 2:

• Fighter – The Fighter’s role is to taunt and crowd control enemies off of your Thief. This frees you up to attack from the rear and do more damage.
• Mage – Your support healer can also do damage. You’ll want the Mage to apply speed and healing and remove harmful effects with the Ice spell for damage.
• Archer – Your Archer is best for range damage and is helpful against large enemies for consistent damage. Make sure to craft and provide arrows to enhance their damage.

Thief Gameplay Tips and Tricks

The best tip for playing the Thief in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is not to use excessive stamina for skills or sprinting. The Thief’s light and heavy attacks are their primary source of damage, and you need to keep a healthy stamina pool for stealth and climbing large monsters. Below are additional tips and tricks for the Thief Gameplay.

Backstab Damage

Always attack from the rear of an enemy when playing the Thief in Dragon’s Dogma 2. This will give you more damage and help you avoid damage. The exception to this is large enemies, who require you to climb on top of them or destroy body parts so they fall down. The Thief can also use a cloak to move into the back lines and take out the highest damage-dealing enemy, like a caster, then flee unseen.

Stamina Sustain

In order to persevere your stamina playing the Thief Vocation Class, limit your sprinting. Moreover, always start combat at full stamina if possible and avoid charging in before regenerating outside combat. Your Stealth ability requires draining of stamina, so come out of stealth and do not linger. The Thief’s light and heavy attack core skills are your primary source of damage and always leave about 10-20% of stamina if you need to use a skill in an emergency.

Stealth

The Thief skill Shadow Cloak allows for near invisibility, which you should use to position yourself before combat. Moreover, command your pawns to attack targets to gain their aggro before you stealth and attack from the rear. The best targets to focus on are spell-casting Mages and Sorcerers or Archers. You want to unload for backstabbing damage behind them and try to pin them down if possible.

Survivability

The best tip for survivability on a Thief is to use swift steps to dodge and avoid attack. Moreover, always focus on gaining a positional advantage in combat by strafing and rotating during fights, so opponents attack you. Unlike the Fighter, you don’t want to square up with an enemy and swing daggers. Peel back and avoid damage, only to return from a better angle and try again.

Weak Points

In Dragon’s Dogma, enemies typically have weak points that, when hit, do more damage. The Thief especially can help attack weak points during large monster fighting. Using your mid-air skill helm splitter, jump and grab a large enemy. You want to attack either the head or a discolored part of their body. Your companions will also describe their weak points. You will consume stamina as you climb and hold on, and not regain stamina.

Therefore, time your attacks and latch onto an enemy when you have over 75%. That way, you can climb to the weak point and still have enough stamina for multiple attacks.

Equipment for Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief Build

Not all equipment is known for Dragon’s Dogma 2, but the best equipment increases your strength and stamina. For Rings, look to increase health early on. While you progress, upgrade gear with raw materials to gain additional stat increases. Even one level that only costs gold can increase your survivability.

Additionally, prioritize weapon purchases over armor for the Thief Build. You want higher offensive capabilities rather than damage using the Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief Build Basic Vocation (Class).

Best Archer Beginner Gear

Gear Slot	Gear Item	Effect
Head	Dyed-Cloth Mask	Slight Defense
Body	Brigand’s Vest	Minor Defense
Leg	Explorer’s Boots	Slight Defense
Cloak	None
Weapon	Criteria	Basic starting weapon
Ring	Ring of Exultation	Increases maximum health
Ring	Ring of Acclamation	Increases maximum health

Below is the location for the best Archer Beginner Gear:

• Dyed-Cloth Mask: Purchase at Borderwatch Outpost for 283 gold.
• Brigand’s Vest: Purchase at Borderwatch Outpost for 735 gold.
• Explorer’s Boots: Purchase at Borderwatch Outpost for 220 gold.
• Criteria: Given to you at start of game. Can also be purchased at Borderwatch Outpost for 830 gold.
• Ring of Exultation: Reward for completing the quest ‘Medicament Predicament’ in Melve.
• Ring of Acclamation: Purchase at Philbert’s Sundries in Vernworth for 8,000 gold. Also rare drop from Minotaur.

Best Archer Advanced Gear

We are working towards finding all possible equipment in new game plus, and testing different pieces and combinations on our builds. We’ll update this space with relevant advanced gear for the Archer as soon as it’s available.

Gear Slot	Gear Item	Effect
Head	Confidant’s Hood	Defense 88/Magick Defense 73/KD Res 18
Body	Elegant Petticoat	Defense 160/Magick Defense 160/KD Res 23
Leg	Arena Breeches	Defense 103/Magick Defense 63/KD Res 18
Cloak	Commander’s Mantle	Cold Resist and Debilitation Resist
Weapon	Frosted Edges	Strength 206/Magick 350/KD Power 145
Ring	Ring of Skullduggery	Increases damage attacking from behind
Ring	Ring of Quickening	Increases Stamina recovery speed

Below is the location for the best Archer Advanced Gear:

• Confidant’s Hood: Purchase at Volcanic Island Armory (Volcanic Island Camp) for 55,900 gold.
• Elegant Petticoat: Purchase from Zachary at the Excavation Site for 43,050 gold.
  • The Vanquisher’s Armor is not as protective, but can be bought at Bodas’s Armory (Bakbattahl) if you’re looking for something less frilly.
• Arena Breeches: Purchase at Volcanic Island Armory (Volcanic Island Camp) for 33,100 gold.
• Commander’s Mantle: Purchase at Celeste’s Smithy (Checkpoint Rest Town) for 12,000.
• Frosted Edges: Looted from a chest in Coral Snakes’ Hideout (mostly west and a bit north of Bakbattahl).
• Ring of Skullduggery: Give Everard the Jadeite Orb in the Hunt for the Jadeite Orb quest. Also can purchase from a wandering merchant named Folkes in the Ancient Battleground for 10,000 gold.
• Ring of Quickening: Purchase at Volcanic Island Armory (Volcanic Island Camp) for 10,000 gold.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Archer Build Summary Guide

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