Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief Build Guide

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief Build Guide

In this Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief build guide, we’ll discuss all there is to know about the Thief in Dragon’s Dogma 2. The Thief in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a recreation of the original game’s vocation, the Assassin.

It takes many powerful skills from its original design in the first game and adds a plethora of new skills. Capcom has really gone out of its way to flesh out the vocation. We’ll look over some of the vocation’s strengths and weaknesses and figure out the best way to build the Thief.

The Thief lost much of its range potential in Dragon’s Dogma 2, which is arguably one of its weaknesses. It does have some ways to deal with range, with skills like Implicate, but you’ll mostly be relying on Pawns here. Its over-the-top melee DPS is where it performs best, and its ability to deal consistently high damage against large foes safely is virtually unparalleled.

See where the Thief ranks in our Dragon’s Dogma 2 vocation tier list.

The Build

The Thief is an S+ tier vocation and is playable right from the start of the game. I’d highly recommend doing so, as it’s powerful right from the beginning. Its main playstyle, especially early, is grappling and scaling large foes, and this is, without a doubt, where Dragons Dogma shines.

The Thief is primarily a DPS-focused vocation, although it does have ways to help crowd control in fights and even self-buff, with skills like Enkindled Blades if you want them. Due to our heavy focus on damage, you’ll want to pick up a lot of damage-oriented skills like Skull Splitter, which does incredible damage. Typically, the downside to a vocation like this would be taking damage, in other words, the Glass Cannon. This is not the case for the Thief, though, as his Maister skill, Formless Feint it, makes the Thief virtually unkillable, making it easily the strongest vocation.

Formless Feint also allows for a unique interaction with Thiefs’ secondary Maister skill, Blades of the Pyre. When Blades of the Pyre is used, it buffs your weapons with fire while also inflicting some AOE self-burn damage. This damage can also be avoided with Formless Feint. This leads to a scenario where you can use Formless Feint and then spam Blades of the Pyre for serious AOE damage.

Weapon Skills

It’s worth noting that when you’re grappling with mobs, slamming your attack button activates your Core Skill, Carve, allowing you to unleash a flurry of dagger attacks. This is essentially all you need while grappling.

Helm Splitter (Skull Splitter)

It is great for mid to large-sized enemies. In most cases, it’s easier to just spam this, especially against weak spots, as it does a lot of damage. If it can’t reach a weak spot, typically, it’s better to grapple, but you’ll find that Skull Splitter is sometimes just easier to use.

Gut and Run (Draw and Quarter) – Replaceable

This is a nice finisher when grappling. It has the added bonus of detaching certain body parts from certain creatures. A good example of this is Medusa. If you down Medusa and use Gut and Run on her head, a pristine head will drop. It is replaceable for another skill if you don’t intend to use it.

Formless Feint

Use this at the start of most fights. It makes you immortal vs. anything physical. You can still be hit by certain magical attacks, I believe. If you have a Mage pawn with Celestial Paean, it will allow you to use Formless Feint while spamming any other damage ability and become immortal during its duration. This is great in prolonged fights.

Blades of the Pyre – Replaceable

Blades of Pyre is a decent boon. It shines when combined with Formless Feint, you can spam Blades while Formless Feint is active to negate the self-damage and just use it as an AOE damage-dealing skill. I’d also consider it replaceable, as Skull Splitter works just as well, but Blades is definitely stronger, if not also gimmicky.

Augments

This Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief build will be taking augments for some knockdown resistance with Constancy, with a slight emphasis on being able to reach, then stick to, those unreachable places. Vigor, Poise, and Avidity all help in this area. Vigor and Poise helping with the Stamina costs. Avidity for the 10% movement gain while climbing.

• Constancy (Sorcerer)
• Vigor (Thief)
• Poise (Thief)
• Lethality (Archer) (Thew, or Dynamism)
• Avidity (Archer)
• Subtlety (Thief)

Thew or Dynamism could also replace Lethality, as Lethality is only a 5-10% damage increase. Mettle could also be used but with Formless Feint, Mettle feels a little redundant.

Playstyle

This Dragon’s Dogma 2 Thief build can be played as a climber who seeks weak spots to exploit or a melee burst mage with Blades of the Pyre. Both are equally strong. You can easily play both, as both rely on Formless Feint anyway and Carve is a core skill.

In many fights, you can purely run in with Formless Feint active and spam Blades of the Pyre/Skull Splitter and win. This can lead to a really one-dimensional playstyle pattern and might become boring for many people, so I wouldn’t recommend it always.

Instead, use Blades or a Mage pawn to buff and then climb monsters, deal damage with Carve, and use cut-and-run when you’re low on Stamina.

While climbing, it’s best not to use Formless Feint as it doubles your Stamina usage, but you can do it to avoid damage. Formless Feint is best utilized with blades for Pyre/Skull Splitter spamming just to avoid being stopped. It’s also great vs smaller mobs, as you can be hit from a blind spot, which Formless will just negate.

Weapon Skills

Biting Wind (Cutting Wind)

Great skill, both early and late, for dealing with small mobs. Looks neat, too.

Enkindled Blades (Ignited Blades)

This is great if you don’t have a mage pawn with a boon. It’s basically a way to self-buff yourself, and it works great against anything with Fur, though the buff doesn’t last that long.

Shadow Cloak (Shadow Veil)

Great if you don’t want to be the focus, but typically, with a Fighter Pawn, you won’t be. I didn’t personally see much use in this.

Helm Splitter (Skull Splitter)

This ability deals great damage throughout the game. It’s spammable and hits multiple times. It’s hard not to like this ability, which coincidentally was also just as disgusting in Dragon’s Dogma 1.

Powder Charge (Powder Blast)

It is great for toppling foes and knocking enemies off balance. Climb, place it on a large foe’s head, and detonate it as you jump off. It can also be used in conjunction with the Concussive Step for increased traversal range.

Ensnare (Implicate)

Allows you to grapple foes with rope. Great vs. flying foes to pull them down, and also will enable you to grapple the feet of larger foes who are knocked off balance, allowing you to pull them to the ground.

Concussive Step (Concussive Leap)

Essentially, it is just a traversal skill. It disorientates smaller foes, but that’s typically not needed. If you want a way to get to hard-to-reach places, you should consider using this.

Smoke Screen (Smoke Shroud)

I guess it does what you’d expect: It cloaks you from the enemy’s view. It drops aggro really well and has potential, but it isn’t really needed with our degenerate playstyle.

Pilfer (Plunder)

This is actually great on Pawns, the player, as well, but typically, you could be doing better things, like dealing damage. It basically just allows you to pilfer loot from the enemies; it’s a good way to collect Ferrystones.

Gut and Run (Draw and Quarter)

I think this is a great ability. It is satisfying and does great damage. It allows you to cut off body parts on larger foes where that’s possible. Medusa is a good boss to use this against.

Easy Kill (Masterful Kill)

Great if you’re looking to time and parry attacks. I didn’t personally use this much, so I’m not confident about what it can and can’t parry. It’s likely more for Dark Souls enjoyers.

Blades of the Pyre

It’s a Terrible skill without Formless Feint and is likely given by the Thief Maister to bait you into leaving. Combined with Formless Feint, it’s devastating, allowing you to deal huge AOE damage; it’s also spammable.

Formless Feint

The skill that turns the Thief into an unkillable, killing machine, assuming you have stamina. You should have this up as often as you can, typically when you know you’re likely to be hit. It’s best turned off when climbing foes, but we have a lot of Augments to help if you decide to use it while climbing.

Augments

• Subtlety: Decreases the likelihood of being targeted by foes.
  • Great Augment; it appears to work as intended. There are no numbers on how well, but it does seem to work, which is good.
• Gratification: Slightly restores Health when you deliver the killing blow.
  • This is typically not necessary, especially if you have a Mage pawn. When fighting larger foes, it has no real value and is mostly constrained to small-fry enemies. It is obsolete with Formless Feint.
• Poise: Reduces the Stamina consumed when struggling in a foe’s grip.
  • It’s been reported to reduce the cost by roughly 20%. Situational to those that climb foes.
• Vigor: Reduces the Stamina consumed when climbing to or pinning down foes.
  • Great when climbing. Reported to reduce stamina consumption by 15%. Amazing when combined with Avidity.
• Verve: Augments your Strength.
  • It only gives you a flat 30-strength increase, so it’s basically useless. It’s assumed to be a bug and is meant to provide 30%, but because it’s a flat 30-strength increase, it’s worthless.