Dark Arisen Trophy Guide • PSNProfiles.com (2024)

• Day & Night Cycle: During daytime you can see perfectly and there are fewer monsters and other enemies. However, during nighttime you can hardly see anything and more and new monsters spawn. When you are first starting the game, do not roam the land at night, unless you've hired a strong pawn. To navigate during the night you must equip a lantern and carry flasks filled with oil to refill the lantern. Do not give these flasks to pawns, because during fights they will throw them at enemies to slow them down and increase fire damage. Pawns will automatically equip and unequip lanterns and these never seem to run out of oil.
• Fast Traveling:When you reach Gran Soren you can use the fast travel. To do this you must use a ferry stone to teleport between port crystals. There is 1 fixed port crystal in Gran Soren and 1 outside Cassardis (and another one on Bitterblack Isle if you have the Dark Arisen content). You can place up to 10 other portcrystals anywhere on the map and they will remain there on any subsequent NG+. You can buy portcrystals at The Black Cat on NG+ and find 4 during the main quests if you have Dark Arisen. Ferry stones can be bought at The Black Cat and from Fournival in Gran Soren. For my portcrystal set up see The Explorer.
• Hiring Pawns:When you play online and rest at an inn, your Arisen and pawn stats are uploaded to a server. This will allow other players to hire your main pawn. When your pawn is hired, (s)he will get riftcrystals based on the amount of xp received when hired and the price another paid to hire your pawn. The exact amount is not known, but is estimated to be 10% of the xp received when traveling with other players. Whether or not your pawn is hired, is determined by your pawn's behaviour, vocation and level. Pawns whose level are equal or lower to yours, will be free and taking underleveled pawns will give you a small xp bonus. Likewise, pawns whose level are higher than yours cost rift crystals and will decrease the amount of xp received a little. However, pawns from people on your PSN friendlist are always free. If you want lvl 200 pawns for free, take a look here.
• Increase Rare Drop Chances:Keep a Drake Tear, Wyrm Tear and Wyvern Tear in your Arisen's inventory to get rare items more often. You can get these from Drakes, Wyrms, and Wyverns. The easiest way I got these is by first destroying both horns. After that attack each wing, until they drop items and attack the eyes until the health bar reaches zero. Attack the heart to kill the Drake, Wyrm and Wyvern. I used a Ranger vocation with the Tenfold Arrow to perfectly aim at the different parts. With this method I got 2 Drake Tears, 3 Wyrm Tears and 7 Wyvern Tears.
• Duplicating Materials:Materials for upgrading equipment can be duplicated at the Black Cat in Gran Soren for a price. If you are in need of materials and cannot find it yourself, place a request here. Note that you most likely have to give something in return.
• Reviving Pawns:When the pawn's health bar is depleted (shown as a skull on the mini map), you can revive them by running to them and pressing . Should you fail to do that in time, the pawn will be sent back to the rift. Hired pawns will have to be purchased again.
• Instant Death:Stay away from the sea and rivers, because you'll die and wash up on the shore by an invisible creature called 'The Brine'. Any pawns thrown in deep waters will die and be sent back to the rift. Hired pawns will have to be purchased again. It's ok to cross shallow waters.

These are the playable classes. There are 9 available for the Arisen and 6 for the pawns. Vocations are divided in 3 categories (basic, advanced and hybrid). To change to a new vocation you need to buy them once with Discipline Points (DP). Learning skills also requires DP. The amount of DP that you receive depends on how much experience points you get (see table below).

Basic vocations have balanced attack and defense stats. Advanced vocations have reduced defense stats, but increased attack stats. You cannot switch to advanced vocations until you reach level 10. Hybrid vocations are only available to the Arisen and you also have to be at least level 10.

Pawn behaviour is decided with inclinations. You can select 2 inclinations for your main pawn. The pawn will always follow the rules of the primary inclination and when those conditions aren't available, move on to the secondary inclination. Inclinations can change during the course of the game, because of your own playstyle. For example if you loot an area during combat first without killing every enemy attacking you, the pawn will copy this.

You can change inclinations by purchasing elixirs from the merchant in The Encampment (with rift crystals instead of money) and modify the the secondary inclination at Knowledge Chairs. Note that you probably need at least 5 of the same elixers to make an inclination at least a secondary inclination and about 10 to make it a primary inclination. The Knowledge Chairs are located in inns and sometimes at rest camps in the wild. When you sit in the Knowledge Chairs, the pawn will ask you 3 questions. The first question allows you to change the secondary inclination. You can only choose between the #2 and #3 most used inclination. You can check your pawn's inclinations at the status page.

The inclinations and their effects are listed below:

Inclination	Effect	How to learn an inclination to your pawn
Scather	Rushes into battle and attacks the strongest enemy first	Attack enemies when they appear
Medicant	Heals often and avoids direct combat	Heal allies and remove status ailments, also press or to call a pawn to come to you.
Mitigator	Attacks the weakest enemy first	Kill weak(er) enemies first
Challenger	Attacks enemies with ranged weapons or magic skills first	Kill long-range and support enemies first
Utilitarian	Focus on strategies to help allies and uses bestiary knowledge against monsters	Use support skills and enchantments
Guardian	Protects the Arisen	Pressorto call a pawn to come to you or to request a pawn's help. Do not use the 'Go' command with .
Nexus	Protects Arisen and other pawns (not recommended because the pawn will not know what to do and will run between each pawn and the Arisen)	Quickly heal your pawns and remove status ailments during combat
Pioneer	Scout ahead in different directions	use the 'Go' command withwhen not in combat
Acquisitor	Pick up and loot items (even during a battle)	pick up items

General information

There are 2 versions of this game: Dragon's Dogma and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. The Dark Arisen version is a re-release that contains all the previously released DLC and a brand new island to explore (Bitterblack Isle) with new enemies, equipment, items and so on. There are also a few changes in the Dragon's Dogma part. For example you can find 4 port crystals during the main quests and ferrystones now cost 1,000 gold instead of 10,000. Since the Dark Arisen version has the same trophy list as Dragon's Dogma, I've included tips and hints for the Dark Arisen exclusive content as well.

Bitterblack Isle

This area is substantially harder than the main game, so unless you manage to get 2 lvl 100+ pawns it's advised to play it after at least completing the game twice and beating the offline Ur-Dragon yourself. In this area it's always dark and you'll need a lantern. The deeper you go, the darker it'll be. Corpses from killed enemies decompose much, much slower. They serve as bait for other enemies (most notable are Death and Cursed Dragons). So even though you may have killed all the enemies in an area, new enemies can spawn at any time. One chest in every area can also be a Mimic, this is a monster that pretends to be a treasure chest and will attempt to swallow the Arisen/pawn opening the chest. It's best to let pawns open all the chest and be ready to attack the Mimic to free the pawn. After defeating the final boss Daimon and completing Bitterblack Isle, things change a bit: Daimon gets a second form to fight, new enemies spawn, Death can spawn anywhere, and every area can have a Mimic. If you've played Demon's/Dark Souls, Bitterblack Isle should feel familiar. This all sounds very hard, but once you've leveled up and acquired some decent equipment (lvl 2 and lvl 3 cursed Bitterblack armor, weapons, and gear) it'll be easy. After the boss fight against the Gazer and Dark Bishop, you can descend lower into Bitterblack Isle or open a shortcut to Olra.

Death

This grim reaper stalks a few areas in Bitterblack Isle and can spawn anywhere after beating Daimon for the first time. Death can spawn in areas while fighting other enemies or can already roam an area when you enter it. It can also be attracted by Saurian corpses or using a Rancid Meat as bait (but this can also attract Elder Ogres and Garms). When Death is already in an area, you'll hear an eerie music or whispers in the background (normally you don't hear any music or sound when not in combat in Bitterblack Isle). Death can kill any pawn and Arisen instantly with his scythe attack. Pawns will immediately be send back to the Rift and have to hired again. Death can also inflict Sleep. After inflicting a set amount of damage, it will flee but retain any damage you've done until it's defeated. Needless to say defeating Death yields a ton of experience, rare materials, and cursed Bitterblack loot. After defeating it, Death will respawn again after a while and the hunt will start again.

Fastest way to level up

Farming Death and Daimon are the fasted way to level up and these bosses drop very rare materials that are needed to gold rarify lvl 3 cursed weapons and armor. There is a way to stunlock them (and kill Death during every encounter). There are a few requirements:

• use the Ranger vocation and have the Tenfold Arrow skill unlocked and equipped
• have 3 pawns that can't equip a bow and can carry a lot of items (taller pawns can carry more stuff)
• give the 3 pawns as many Blast Arrows as they can carry
• stock up on Liquid Vims (grants unlimited stamina for a short while)
• stock up on Conqueror's Periapt (these are used in groups of 4 to maximize your damage)
• carry a few healing items and Wakestones just in case
• use the rest of your inventory to stock up on Blast Arrows

Blast Arrows are sold at the apothecary shop near the inn in Gran Soren and are expensive (680 gold each). Liquid Vim can be found in the shelf near the guy in the tent with the Riftstone in the Encampment. You can also create it by combining Pickled Mushroom (sold in Cassardis) with a Giant Fish (commonly found in the sea at Bloodwater Beach, see The Explorerfor the location). Conqueror's Periapt are sold by Fournival in Gran Soren (if he's found guilty during the main quest 'Trials and Tribulation' he'll be killed, see The Message for more information). Carry the Liquid Vim, Conqueror's Periapt, healing items, and wakestones yourself. Otherwise pawns will use them (except Wakestones) or you can't use it when Death kills your pawns. Should that happen and the pawns are send back to the rift, anything in their inventory will be send to your storage (it's accessible from innkeepers and Olra).

When you encounter Death, immediately equip the Blast Arrows, use 4 Conqueror's Periapt and 1 Liquid Vim on the Arisen. Now activate the Tenfold Arrow skill and aim for Death's head. Every time you attack, you'll shoot 10 Blast Arrows that inflict massive damage. Every second attack will knock Death back and effectively stunlock it. Keep an eye on the amount of Blast Arrows left in your inventory and when you have less than 10, transfer as many Blast Arrows from the pawn's inventory to your own to restock them. You'll likely need a few hundred Blast Arrows at first, but this amount will decrease once you level up and gold rarify lvl 3 cursed Bitterblack longbow. The same method can be used against Daimon's first and second form. The only difference is that Daimon will be knocked back with every attack. When Daimon is in his second form, you'll deal more damage if you aim for the face on his chest.

Rarify equipment

silver / gold rarified

In the Dark Arisen content you can farm Firedrakes, Frostwyrms, Thunderwyverns and Cursed Dragons to dragonforge unupgraded equipment. Cursed Dragons have the highest possible chance to dragonforge equipment besides Grigori and the online Ur-Dragon (see Dragon Forged for a table with all the chances to dragonforge equipment). In this content you can also upgrade dragonforged equipment which is called rarifying. To rarify equipment you need riftcrystals and materials and the equipment must first be dragonforged. Unlike upgrading, you must rarify dragon forged equipment to the silver level, before being able to gold rarify it. Silver rarified equipment is indicated by a silver dragon symboland gold rarified with a gold dragon,which is the highest upgrade available. Gold rarifying lvl 3 cursed armor sets will grant 100% immunity to various status ailments.Materials for rarifying equipment can be duplicated at the Black Cat in Gran Soren. If you are in need of materials and cannot find it yourself, place a request here. Note that you most likely have to give something in return.

Purify cursed loot

On Bitterblack Isle you'll find cursed loot and Olra can purify these if you pay her Rift Crystals. These items range from lvl 1 to 3 and the higher the level, the better the item you get. Cursed loot is divided in 4 categories:

Novelties can give you potions, secret augments or better lanterns and pick axes and are not vocation-related. Gears give you rings that increase stats and even upgrade skills when equipped. Lvl 3 cursed weapons and armor are extremely rare and give you a random piece of equipment. The received gears, weapons and armor depends on the vocation of your Arisen and main pawn. If you both have a vocation with a red color, you will get weapons, armor and gear for the Warrior and Fighter vocation. Yellow color gives equipment for Striders and Rangers and blue gives equipment for Mages and Sorcerers. Hybrid vocations always have 2 colors and can give equipment for both colors. See the table below for the colors of each vocation.

What kind of armor and weapon you get is decided by the game once you pick up the cursed lvl 3 loot. Save your game before purifying lvl 3 armor and weapons. Because if you get something you already have, you can use the Godsbane blade on yourself and continue from last save (don't use a wakestone). Change your vocation and you'll get an armor piece for a different vocation. For example if you get a chest armor for a red vocation, using the godsbane, reloading and changing your vocation to a yellow color will give you a chest armor for Striders and Rangers.

Rare lvl 3 cursed armor

Lvl 3 cursed armor can give you one piece of a set. There are 3 common sets (one for each color) and 3 rare sets with better stats (these rare armor sets are the best in the game). The armor sets are:

• Warriors and Fighters: Sin armor (common) and Hellfire armor (rare)
• Striders and Rangers: Shadow armor (common) and Oblivion armor (rare)
• Mages and Sorcerers: Grave armor (common) and Carrion armor (rare)

You can also get a Blasphemer's Cloak (common) or a Hellfire Cloak (rare), which can be used by any vocation. When gold rarified, the Hellfire cloak gives 100% immunity to possession among other things.

The chance to get a rare armor piece seems completely random, but there's a hidden mechanism that will save you dozens of hours of farming. This mechanism can be exploited to get rare pieces at a steady rate. The trick starts when you have zero lvl 3 cursed armor in your stash and inventory. After you pick up your first lvl 3 cursed armor, the hidden mechanism will randomly generate a number. That number will determine how many cursed armor you have to purify in order to get a rare armor piece. This number resets once you have no more lvl 3 cursed armor. Collect a few lvl 3 cursed armor and save the game. Purify them and keep 1 unpurified. If you get a rare armor piece at the third attempt, you're lucky and can start farming cursed armor. If not, purify everything and start collecting again. In my experience this number can range from 3 to 9. If you get a rare armor piece you already have, use Godsbane on yourself, reload and change the vocation to get armor pieces for a different vocation.

Note: You cannot trade purified cursed loot and rarified equipment. Only unpurified loot can be given as a gift to pawns from other players and when you do that, the game randomly changes the loot to something else. For example if you get a Hellfire cloak and use Godsbane on yourself and give that cursed lvl 3 armor piece as a gift, it will not be a Hellfire Cloak anymore. Also the item you receive from purifying a lvl 3 armor or weapon is determined by an in-game list. If you drop or gift a lvl 3 weapon or armor, you'll still get the same item the next time you purify it. If you're below lvl 51 you cannot use lvl 3 weapons normally. Doing so will consume an insane amount of stamina for every action, by simply having them equipped (even when you're using a different weapon) and you have a severe penalty to stamina regeneration.

The four chests after defeating Daimon is the fastest way to farm lvl 3 cursed armor, weapons and gear. 1 chest will always contain a Moonlight Gem. The other 3 contain a cursed weapon, armor and gear or they could give Rift Crystals. It's best to save before opening the chests and open 1 at a time. If you get cursed loot, save the game. If you get Rift crystals, use Godsbane on yourself, unless you need Rift Crystals to purify and rarify equipment.