The Best Archer Builds In Dragon’s Dogma 2

There are many ranged Vocations to choose from in Dragon’s Dogma 2. From magick casters to more traditional archers, there is no shortage of good ranged options. The Archer seems to be the weakest of the bunch at first glance, lacking the utility or raw damage of its competition, yet its unique toolkit more than makes up for this.

A skilled Archer can stunlock larger enemies, light targets aflame, or inflict the strongest poison debuff in the game. Archers reward game knowledge and strategy with potent damage-over-time effects and powerful group synergies. Today, we’ll show you two builds for the Archer that make it one of the strongest Vocations in Dragon’s Dogma 2.

Build Overview

Inflict powerful debilitations from the safety of your party’s backline with this powerful Archer build. You will be able to inflict the strongest damage-over-time effects in the game without any assistance from your party, igniting targets with Torch or debuffing foes with Fulminate Poison. Throw in an Ice Mage into the mix, and you can stunlock bosses with the Drenched debuff and ice attacks.

While the Archer might not have the raw DPS of the Magick Archer or certain Warfarer combos, this Vocation is well-suited for players who want to inject a little strategy into combat. Learn of your enemy’s greatest weakness, exploit it, and you’ll come out on top every time.

Skills And Augments

The Archer’s main job is to inflict advanced debilitations. They are the only class in the game that can inflict Torched and Fulminated Poison without the assistance of other Vocations. Damage-over-time skills are what the Archer specializes in, so be sure that you’re stocked up on debilitation arrows before you leave town.

Pawns don’t require ammunition to use any Archer skill, including debilitation skills like Erupting Shot.

Since the Archer’s role remains the same between the Arisen and Pawns, we will recommend two skill configurations that work well with both characters. Torched is ideal for the earlier portions of your journey, while the Fulminated Poison setup becomes much more appealing when you reach the endgame and have a good Mage in your party.

Torched Archer Build

Weapon Skills
Manifold Shot	Fires a barrage of arrows with great accuracy.
Tempest Shot	Enter a crouched stance before unleashing a volley of arrows. Repeated activations will fire more arrows at the cost of stamina.
Incendiary Shot	Fires an arrow that sticks to targets. Detonate the arrow to inflict Tar.
Erupting Shot	Fires an arrow that sticks to targets. Detonate the arrow to inflict Burn. Using this skill on a Tarred foe will inflict Torched instead, a much stronger DoT effect.
Augments
Zeal	Skills cost 5% less Stamina.
Dynamism	Lowers your weight class by one tier.
Thew	Increases your carry weight by 10kg.
Athleticism	Sprinting drains 10% less Stamina.
Lethality	Attacks against enemy weakpoints deal 5% more damage.
Subtlety	Decreases the likelihood of being targeted by foes.

This build uses
Manifold Shot
and
Tempest Shot
to take care of smaller enemies. Aim for the head, and most enemies will become staggered or die outright. For larger enemies like Griffons, we use
Incendiary Shot
to inflict Tarred, making them more susceptible to flame. Fire an
Erupting Shot
right after, and you’ll set the target ablaze with the potent
Torched
debilitation.

Large monsters weak to fire, notably Griffons, will take immense damage from this combo.
You can’t inflict Tar on Dragons
, so this combo is ill-suited for the endgame, but it’s quite effective for defeating larger monsters throughout Vernmund and Bakbattahl. If you end up fighting a tough Drake, you can always rely on Tempest Shot to get the job done. Just keep an eye on your stamina.

As for Augments, there’s nothing too surprising here.
Dynamism
and
Zeal
are S-tier passives from the Warfarer Vocation, reducing your character’s equip load by one tier while lowering the stamina cost of all skills. We then use
Subtlety
to lower our chances of getting targeted by enemies,
Athleticism
to sprint for longer,
Thew
to carry more weight, and
Lethality
to increase our damage against critical weakpoints on targets.

Fulminant Poison Archer Build

Weapon Skills
Manifold Shot	Fires a barrage of arrows with great accuracy.
Tempest Shot	Enter a crouched stance before unleashing a volley of arrows. Repeated activations will fire more arrows at the cost of stamina.
Deluging Shot	Fires an arrow that sticks to targets. Detonate the arrow to inflict Drenched. Ice attacks will immediately freeze the target. Lightning will leave the target dazed for a few seconds.
Nocuous Shot	Fires an arrow that sticks to targets. Detonate the arrow to inflict Poison. Use this skill twice in quick succession to inflict Fulminant Poison, a stronger DoT effect.
Augments
Zeal	Skills cost 5% less Stamina.
Dynamism	Lowers your weight class by one tier.
Thew	Increases your carry weight by 10kg.
Athleticism	Sprinting drains 10% less Stamina.
Lethality	Attacks against enemy weakpoints deal 5% more damage.
Subtlety	Decreases the likelihood of being targeted by foes.

Similar to the Torched setup, this skill configuration is meant to inflict
Fulminate Poison
on the target. Hitting a target with
Nocuous Shot
will inflict a single stack of Poison, dealing a small amount of damage over time (DoT for short). Hit them with a second Nocuous Shot, and they’ll be debuffed with Fulminate Poison, which deals
significantly
more damage. Dragons will lose an entire health bar before the poison goes away.

Since you don’t need a primer arrow for this to work, we use the fourth slot to socket
Deluging Shot.
This inflicts Drenched on the target, a powerful debuff that makes the target far more susceptible to ice and lightning ailments.
If your mage is using Ice Affinity, your default attack can freeze the target in seconds
, effectively stunlocking the enemy. Dragon, Griffon, it doesn’t matter. They’ll freeze all the same.

Our Augment selection remains the same as before, although you might consider swapping
Lethality for Asperity
(R2 Sorcerer) to make your arrows more likely to freeze Drenched targets. Once again, you’ll need a Mage with Ice Affinity for this to work, but the free crowd control this gives you cannot be understated.

Equipment

Most of the items above can be obtained from the Volcanic Island vendor. The Ring of Triumph is tied to collecting Seeker’s Tokens, and the Ring of Proximity can be found in the Mountain Ruins dungeon. Once you unlock Bakbattahl, we recommend you book it southwest towards the Caliginous Depths dungeon. This is the only dungeon in the game that spawns the Medusa enemy. Kill it, and you have a small chance of earning the Medusan Spellbow.

This build should ideally use

Dwarven Upgrades

for weapons and armor. This will increase your bow’s damage and knockdown power, making it easier to knock bosses off-balance. Your armor will gain knockdown resistance. Throw on the Constancy Augment, and your character will seldom get staggered.

Unlike most weapons, the Medusan Spellbow quadruples your XP gains from kills. This makes it much easier to level past Level 50. If you can’t get the bow to drop, purchase Revenant’s Wail from the Volcanic Island vendor. This will serve you until the endgame, at which point you’ll want to upgrade all of your gear to prepare for NG+.

Once you unlock the Unmoored World
, you’ll want to purchase the
Hydra Husk
from any weapon vendor as soon as possible. For some strange reason, it deals more damage than the Dragon’s Rancor bow, which costs WLC.

As for armor,
the entire Archer set that costs WLC
is ideal here.
Cavalier Hat, Heroic Coat, and the Ealge-Eye Cuisses
will greatly improve your Archer’s survivability. Throw on some Dwarven upgrades, and you’ll be nigh-immune to knockdowns as well.

Archer Tips

• Aim for the head. Precision hits deal massive posture damage to the target, causing most smaller foes to stumble.
• Inflict debilitations. Archer is the only Vocation that can inflict Torch, Drenched, Dazed, and Fulminate Poison by itself.
• Craft stamina consumables. The Archer burns through stamina during combat. Pair the Archer with stamina consumables to get back in the fight faster.
• Alternatively, hire a Mage Pawn with the Celestial Paean skill. This gives your party infinite stamina for a short time.
• Pawns do not require ammunition to use debilitation skills like Erupting Shot. Only the Arisen requires ammo.
• Press the heavy attack button while moving to perform acrobatic actions.
• A running jump will make your character kick the target closest to them.
• Sprinting will cause you to slide before firing.