Best Thief skills and augments in Dragon’s Dogma 2
Interested in the best Thief skills and augments in Dragon’s Dogma 2?The Thief inDragon’s Dogma 2perfectly fills the niche of the agile rogue with short blades at the ready, always capable of stabbing you in the dark and running off with a bit of your coin. They might be more vulnerable than other melee vocations and feature a trickier skillset, but a good Thief will pack a punch that won’t soon be forgotten.
With a plentiful array of attacks that can eviscerate enemies, there’s a lot to choose from when narrowing down the Thief’s focus. In this guide, we’ve delved into the best Thief skills and augments, giving you the rundown on what you need to know to make your daggers strike true.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief best weapon skills
The Thief relies on dual-wielded daggers, which are small but mighty when it comes to chaining attacks and meting out punishment with one blow after another. The up close and personal nature of these weapons - along with the Thief’s tendency to make fast strikes that can often miss - requires careful coordination and practice.
Biting Windsends the Thief darting forwards, daggers spinning in vicious arcs primed to rip through the tendons of enemies. Biting Wind can be used multiple times in a row, causing the Thief to dash back and forth through the enemy, slashing them each time.
This is an excellent, powerful attack with one caveat - it can feel unpredictable. The Thief moves so quickly and so far that beginners are likely to miss their targets unless they practice. Comboing this move into successful attacks is also tricky, and fans ofDevil May Cryand similar Capcom action games might find their muscle memory coming in handy to land a successful hit. There’s also a higher version of this skill dubbedCutting Windthat extends the Thief’s attack range even farther, but you’d best master Biting Wind first before giving it a go.
The Thief will clash their daggers together upon activatingEnkindled Blades, igniting them with flames for a short period of time. This stellar ability is similar to the Mage’s Fire Boon skill, but the Thief is so cool that they don’t need magick to set their weapons blazing.
Enkindled Blades comes in especially handy when you’ve got a target pinned down using your Twin Fangs core skill (described below) or if you’re climbing on a monster and want to slash its head open to deal that extra bit of fire damage.
Helm Splitteris another big move in the same manner as Biting Wind. The Thief jumps up in a flurry of flips with this skill, slamming down both daggers upon impact. This skill can be used in mid-air or from high places, and as you might expect from the name, really has the potential to deliver one splitting headache.
Just as Biting Wind can feel a tad unpredictable, Helm Splitter - along with its ranked up version,Skull Splittertakes practice to use well. Utilising it against big foes is fairly consistent, but small or medium enemies can sidestep you during the long windup in the air. When Helm Splitter hits, though, the damage is staggeringly awesome, so it’s worth practicing until you nail this skill down.
The Thief employs a wide variety of gimmick moves that consist of laying down explosive traps and smoke screens. These are fine and flavourful, but I’ve found that I prefer basic dagger tactics above all else. The exception isEnsnare, which causes the Thief to throw out cords that grab hold of enemies.
Against a small foe, Ensnare is perfect for pulling them closer for some sweet dagger action. Against a bigger creature, Ensnare can knock them off balance or topple them. This is a perfect segue into our next weapon skill, described below…
All vocations inDragon’s Dogma 2can scale massive monsters and enjoy the thrills that come with hanging onto a cyclops as it rampages through the forest. But Thieves are the best at this job due to their fast nature and superb damage. (After all, twin daggers make for good handholds in the back of a giant beast!)
Gut and Runcan only be used when pinning down a monster or climbing it. This deadly skill unleashes a nasty gouging strike that’ll totally wipe out a weak point and is perfect for that final stab right before you jump off the cyclops' back to safety.
Core skills in Dragon’s Dogma 2 represent the defining abilities of each vocation. For the Thief, you’ll probably be starting withCarve, which is your initial flurry of basic dagger strikes. Aside from Carve, the following three skills are ones that I personally enjoyed the most. (Honourable mention goes toBump and Lift, which lets you actually rob items from enemies with a successful attack. It doesn’t work half of the time, but it’s certainly amusing.)
Twin Fangscauses the Thief to double strike forward, followed by one more strike if their target is off balance. You can hold this skill to cling to larger targets or pin smaller ones down to the ground.
As previously mentioned, the Thief is great at scaling big opponents. But this vocation is just as capable when it comes to wrestling smaller opponents, so be sure to use Twin Fangs all the time against foes who need to be trapped to the ground right before you stab them in the head.
The Thief can’t wear the heavy armour employed by Fighters or Warriors, and a few well-placed stomps from an ogre’s foot can knock off huge sections of their health bar. To prevent this, you should always be dodging, andSwift Stepis the skill you need to master to do so well. It’s a lot less fancy than most Thief skills, but it’s the best when it comes to simply getting out of the way.
Scarlet Kissesis a pure berserker barrage that sees the Thief letting loose with a stream of forward slashes, over and over again. For a nonstop assault against a staggered opponent, Scarlet Kisses will show no mercy and quickly deplete their health bit by bit.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 features passive boosts for each vocation called augments. The build we’ve listed here for the Thief will benefit nicely from the following two choices:
As a Thief, there’s a high chance that you’ll be the one to deliver the final blow more often than not.Gratificationcomplements this by slightly restoring your health whenever you get a kill.
Climbing up monsters or pinning them down is great fun, but also uses up much Stamina.Vigorreduces this Stamina consumption, letting you engage in reckless Thief manoeuvres longer and harder.
That concludes our study of the cloak and dagger artistry that make up the Thief’s skills and augments. For more on tackling the wild world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 and becoming the legendary Arisen that all your pawns praise you as, keep your eyes on Rock Paper Shotgun as we delve into all the other Vocations of this epic adventure. You can start with our deep dive into the magickal ways of theMage, the smooth firing of theArcher, or the sword and shield tactics of theFighter. For more advanced vocations, check out our guide to the greatsword swings of theWarrior, the extreme magick of theSorcerer, the Duospear slices of theMystic Spearhand, the crafty illusions of theTrickster, the bow spell combos of theMagick Archer, or the many weapon skills of theWarfarer.
