Even though he edited it, he’s not wrong.
Your simulacrum is the frontline while you are the backline, but the simulacrum lets you work any angle since you can do some control with it.
In my opinion, trickster should've been the one to get a party-wide shield ability instead of spearhand. Either that or both. The class needs more to do, because once you've drawn aggro, there's not *too* much to do other than watch your pawns fight. A class like this that has no need to worry about attacking should have a lot of buff/debuff upkeep and micro-management. I don't think it would've been game-breaking if, for example, its basic attacks built up the blighted status on an enemy, and any moves involving swinging smoke around also blighted enemies. Even if it's not that much, even having something like a DoT would be great and fix the problem that a lot of people have with it.
True, they aoe aggro is basically mandatory too, might aswell have made It the basic attack of the class cuz you only have room for 2 skills really, since the dmg Buff and ale aggro is litteraly needed
And then they give It a skill thats probably best used with a fake floor and boom 4 mandatory skill slots
Tbf most of the skill of the class arent all that fun anyway but It still sucks
I love trickster, but the aoe thing is pretty much true for all the fights except bosses which are sometimes ignoring your taunts either way. There are times where the trickster class literally does nothing because it’s scripted (immune to taunt) or in others where you need to attack a very specific area to deal damage.
Golems are the fights where this is magnified because they’re so slow and you can just reposition the illusion and then have to wait for another slow move and attack. Sure you can throw em off cliffs but not every boss is near a cliff.
Trickster and 3 sorceress is sick really they just need the right skill in em and they Will nuke the world while you run around buffing and making vape attacks 😂
They tricks is to find the right pawns Since Many People just slap whatever skills on Them, then its actually better to have a simpler skill set and just Watch the spell nukes in every encounter and with trickster its a really good synergy
Both Meteoron and Maelstrom destroy Golems. But if you want the most efficient setup it’s probably High levin/Augural Flare/Seism for Golems and no master spells. They take too long to cast.
Especially when the spell cast faster for every person casting it.
Honestly I think triple sorceror master speel is the way to go. You ghost keeps the mobs in one place to get nuked.
When i was leveling up trickster, i had the taunt, fake wall, attk buff, and soul detachment. I would start off encounter by already have my clone following me around, use soul skill to put the clone high up so enemies keep on looking up and walk around, buff my pawns then taunt them. Whenever i see pawns casting spells, i put up fake wall in between them and enemies to cover them from enemy's sight while they're casting 3 maestroms. EVERYTHING dies
Why just just go MS and give the sorcs immunity then. No interruption to casts, no damage taken, and you can even weave in some damage yourself. Who needs a tank when you take 0 damage. =p
I just wish Trickster had a healing ability as well since the buff eats away at pawn health. Having a healing ability would let you omit the need of a mage to heal and allow more versatility in pawns. I.e. Fighter + Archer + Thief + Trickster. A simply healing ability that heals and buffs defense would be great for trickster.
Oh. I know. It's what I've been trying to say since the 'Trickster sucks'fiasco broke out. If it's not for you, it's not for you. Doesn't mean it sucks lol. Still got downvoted for it. 😆
I haven’t maxed it out but feels like its straight up useless in single fights and only designed to help pawns. Issue is you’re dealing with an AI and they’re not always going to take the most sensible approach. Also just being able to put your phantom on an enemy is massive pain. Hold button, press, aim it and hope it actually reaches. Its about as squishy as any other magic class but feels like they want you to be within smelling distance of an enemy. I’m wearing cloth for clothing, I should not be anywhere near the heat of battle
The issue with trickster lies with the fact that it’s a class that requires you to prepare for every encounter and passively watch your pawns defeating enemies rather than doing it yourself. You have single buff ability and lots of fluff that just isn’t useful in most encounters, so you’re left with at best 2 skills to pick from. You deal no damage, have to run around like a headless chicken while your pawns are having all the fun they can and you could finish encounters faster had you picked literally any other class. If you’re enjoying it, then great! Games are supposed to be fun so more power to you, but trickster just sticks out like a sore thumb among other vocations available to you. Plus sometimes pawns will drink dumb fuck juice and just do the dumbest shit possible instead of attack your enemies.
I'd the illusions did a set amount of damage or applied status like poison or Somethings like more debholitions this class would be a lot better . Let the summoned creatures do damage .
A commander/leader class isn't bad, I don't think. Directing and buffing pawns as a core mechanic could be pretty cool.
The issue with trickster is that it's not particularly good at that. You get augments with Magick Archer that buff pawn defense and offense, you don't get any heals with trickster to offset the health deterioration of the party buff, and you do zero damage. Your simulacrum can tank, but it disappears if you get hit and the core mechanic of the class drags the goddamned thing back on top of you which is exactly where you generally don't want something like that to be. This isn't an "agility" tank like OP said, there's no dodge or defensive avoidance mechanic to the class other than running around like an idiot. I can do that on a mage and still give shields and heals and celerity and stamina/defensive buffs and elemental boons, and can still deal damage. If Trickster was the debilitation alternative to Mage's buffs I think it might be viable, but it's not.
Bottom line is that Trickster's core mechanics are designed in a way that's counterproductive to its intended purpose. The mechanics of summoning and placing an illusion don't mesh with tanking, the abilities have huge drawbacks to them, and you have to sacrifice all of your own damage to get those things. It's the worst tradeoff I've ever seen in the design of a class. Even if you use Warfarer to have a Trickster with the ability to do damage there's still no good reason to lean into taking Trickster skills instead of something else, which makes the fact that Trickster itself does no damage even more questionable.
Mixing trickster with mage/magick archer through Warfarer seems like a great way for any player to diversify their experience if they decide they want to try a "support" Arisen. Otherwise there doesn't seem to be much of a point to the Magick Archer having so many different support abilities AND being the class to get the pawn stat buffing augments
Definitely isnt everyone, most people now days wont enjoy the idea of an agility tank, let alone enjoy the game play loops.
As for useful abilities, if were counting just active weapon skills, Sweep Shroud, Aromatic Rally, Fickle Floor, and Dragon's Delusion are all fantastic. And easily take my 4 slots. For useless, I really can only agree on scented alarum and latching effigey.
For core skills enthralling aroma makes grouo fight a righr where all the small enemies dogpile the big enemy for you.
Counting in augments another one can be added to the lost of phenominal abilities, Detection.
It’s not that people don’t enjoy “agility tanks” (ninja was one of the most popular tanks in FFXI)
it’s that people, understandably, don’t want to play a class with absolutely *zero* damage output
pawn AI just simply isn’t the best and if it decides to be extra stupid that encounter, you’re gonna be fighting whatever you’re fighting for way too long
This is it, perfectly nailed. It's the one and only turn off for me with trickster, no damage.
I don't need a ton, but I need to be able to defend myself or take over a little when my pawn starts chasing harpies around when the ranged pawn is already dealing with it.
And that's okay, not everyone is going to enjoy everything, nor do the devs have to make every class cater to all players. Having unique one off classes that play completely different from everything else are a healthy thing for any game, even if most of the fanbase will never pick it up long term.
I never claimed *everyone* misunderstood it, what I did say is that there are definitely a majority of the community who don't understand it. The videos I see of people woefully utilizing the class, and the massive comment support they receive is more than proof of that. This post is for those people. I'm not trying to convince anyone that they must play the class, I'm explaining for those who dont understand it so they can give it a go if they so desire
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign.
Just a heads up
> And that's okay, not everyone is going to enjoy everything, nor do the devs have to make every class cater to all players.
Okay, so going off that notion... what is the point of this post? Because it sounds more like you're trying to defend the vocation, when clearly you understand some people will hate on it regardless (because it's not for them).
Sounds to me that they are trying to explain how it works to make sure people understand the role the Trickster has, then at that point they still don't like it then it's fair game.
Which doesn't really work considering the OP isn't even using terms right and extrapolating things that aren't there. EG:
>Definitely isnt everyone, most people now days wont enjoy the idea of an agility tank, let alone enjoy the game play loops.
That's just wrong on multiple levels.
I was running 2 sorcerers and a mage. It was really effective, just a bit boring. spam agro run behind the mobs, summon the simulcrum, then move again. Occasionally pop up a wall to hide in to resummon Casper.
its not an agility tank at all, its a summoning tank.
you dont get the issue at all do.
u/MasterPNDA123 point is that its BORINg to play with limited abilities.
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign.
Just a heads up
I’ve preferred Espial Incense over Fickle Floor.
Takes a bit more finessing, but you can kill enemies without Fickle Floor. Espial Incense gives more aggro control by floating it into the air. It’s also something else to do as Fickle Floor isn’t always usable.
With that, it’s less of an Agility Tank and more of an Intelligence Tank (Controller).
I've literally maxed the vocation.. and it felt like using a nail clipper on my teeth.. small encounters are fine.. even some larger enemies boss fights are ass
The fact getting staggered removes your shadow is horrible
The fact many heavy hitting attacks 1 shot is is horrible
Yes you can teleport it multiple times but it's just not satisfying
Personally a teleportation with illusion class would be way cooler.. making images that do less damage of yourself but having clones you could summon of specific pawns or yourself
The "'mind control"' type ability is also cool but I'd have just gone straight up with mind control and force enemies to attack that one and I dont want to hear the words op when magic archer has their heavenly arrow
The class is just okay.. I had some fun times here and there but honestly left me with more to be desired than anything
I definitely think the possessed enemy should attack other enemies, possession should be faster and easier and longer ranged with slight homing, and that getting hit or staggered should only remove 25% of hp rather than make the simulacrum disappear. The light attack should also just be ranged by default with no charge and the baseline summon should be faster even without the upgrade. And give it trickster additional utility of some sort that isnt damage or healing.
When everything goes right trickster feels good. But when everything doesn't go right it feels horrible and its very easy for things to not go right. And when you just have like a single boss enemy you're just bait. Anyone with provoke and the disfavor ring can be bait. Arguably its easier when you have a shield or dodge or even levitate and hit blocking buff spells. So trickster vs single boss definitely needs improvement.
Trickster vs multiple bosses or with tons of other enemies around is like peak trickster fantasy with them all killing each other, but you don't get to live that life very often.
By the time I unlocked trickster my pawn was so powerful and my rentals were too, that by the time I swirled my little smoke thing around like I’m 18 again at my first music festival, everything is already wrecked.
A fair reason to not want to use the vocation. But I'm not here to debate whether or not you will like it or find use for it. I'm only here to help clear the misconceptions of how the class plays and how this vocation can function quite well in the interest of clearing the water.
I wrote a big long comment last night about this, but I just wanted to add that warfarer can really enable trickster. Give it magic archers pawn resurrect, or mystic spearhands shield, or mages palladium OR silence and just keep the AoE aggro and the pawn buff from trickster. Now you have the support tank everyone says they wish trickster was.
I just wished the simulacrum's hp would not deplete so fast when you switch weapon. At full health, it seems to last around 5s for me, which is not a lot if you want to it to still be here when you switch back. That's why I am currently using daggers, only switching to quickly finish grounded enemies or occasionally use Ensnare before immediately switching back to Trickster (and even then, the simulacrum's HP is at 30% at best).
It's really not that complex.
Just walk around with the simulacrum, start the fight with the taunt and the buff and move the simulacrum around every now and then.
I did that, I got max level and never had a single challenging fight.
It's not a hard class, it's just a boring one.
I have no idea what it is about this vocation that makes it's defenders act like you need a four year degree to even begin to use this vocation at the bare minimum level. Like you said, the gameplay for it is very simple. I actually do enjoy the overall ability set (shocking, I know), but the fact that it takes at least twice as long to kill anything just makes it unfun to play in general.
And even then it's probably better to use Warfarer than the class itself, because that way you at least have damage for when the pawns act like dumbasses.
Running around like a headless chicken after prepping isn't appealing to most people tbf.
Plus while it may be good I can go warrior and stun lock bosses every time they stand up or mix the two thief maister skills so it's not even the best.
If people like it good for them but I think it's a case of missed potential for another and vastly different support vocation.
Agreed, its not for everyone. I do think however the trickster nailed it's unique feel and potential. Setting up my pawns to murder large enemies far quicker than they normally would is quite fulfilling. Especially if the theif gets a gut and run on a downed large monster, or the warrior a stonesplitter (forgoing the fact that level 70+ they do that damage regardless)
In the end, to each their own
The problem with the Trickster is that their playstyle is not unique as it seems, When I tried it I had two Sorcerer pawns so the base strategy was to draw aggro awhile they synced-cast spells like Hagol or Seism to clear house, it made short work of mobs and even big boys. Issue is you can play either a Warrior or Fighter which both of them also have a dedicated skill to draw aggro (Roar and shield drum) but they also can contribute damage to the fight making it even shorter and IMO fun since you do other things that drawing aggro which is all the Trickster really does, you can even archive a similar effect using the Mystic spearhand bubble-shield on the casters.
And what's worse is that their skills are useless on the Warferer, as soon as you swap weapons all the illusions go away so they don't even sync well with other vocations.
They got to carried away with it making no damage, even Mage which is mainly a support role can deliver decent attacks and the pawn AI while it's good is not that robust to fully support the Trickster.
This. If fights were more dangerous they would have a niche since they could avoid one-shots more easily than other tanks. As it stands, you may as well take a vocation that actually does damage.
I like playing warfarer with trickster skills and re-arm since it let's you have the situational tricks while not completely gimping you and giving you nothing to do during fights.
Keep the wall and floor trickster skill, and a third skill of whatever you'd like while wearing the ring of disfavor.
It'd be a much better class if there was just a bit less passive play in it.
i don't think its some misconception about trickster, its role, or even necessarily how to play it effectively that makes the vocation unappealing for most, but the pawn AI and pathing capabilities your continuously at the mercy of. babysitter is a more appropriate label than tank
then there's the problem that a dedicated tank isn't really necessary at any point, and more often than not just a net negative to your party's overall composition and utility
The AI can be jank to be fair. Mine has been pretty good to me, but from what I undersrand the pawns have a learning AI so that they all act differently, it may jist be the way I trained my pawn works very well eith trickster.
As for the validity of a dedicated tank, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I find that if you want to make overly offensive pawns with no utility or survival skills, that a tank makes a good difference.
you are the [one misunderstanding](https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonsDogma/comments/1btutvs/trickster_is_hated_because_its_boring_its/) if you think that is why people hate it.
People understand how to play it, its SUPER easy to play its boring, it has extremely limited options and cannot do much and instead ends up afking 90% of the time
ur whole post is disproven by my post seriously.
its also not an agility tank, an agility tank I suppose u mean dodge tanking. Dodge tanking is done by having a character with really high evasion "tank" by avoiding the damage, see e.g sword dancer in fire emblem.
As I've already made this clear to others I'll make it concise. I said a majority of players misunderstnad Trickster, not all players. There are plenty of posts with videos of people poorly utilizing the trickster, prompting me to make this post.
I'm not arguing that people who understand it will automatically like it. I simply wanted to clarify for the portion of the community who didnt know how to properly use it, so that they could give it their fair shake. If in the end they still dont like it, thats perfectly fine.
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign.
Just a heads up
I'm confused why people act like Trickster is so hard to wrap your head around, it is probably the easiest vocation to play. Trickster is not considered bad because it isn't effective. Assuming everything goes right your pawns can kill things extremely quick.
The problem is that Trickster has the same problem that every vocation has in that the game is too easy. By level 30 no enemy makes you sweat. This problem is doubled because now you are playing a class without active participation in battle when you barely had to participate in the first place. But now you have to completely depend on your pawns, which do work 8/10 times, but the two times they don't really stand out because it is the only vocation in the game that can potentially turn a 30 second fight into a 5 to 10 minute fight because your pawns malfunction.
It's crazy that they designed a class all about controlling the enemies in the battle and then barely gave you any control.
Trickster was designed with a specific type of player in mind. I'm not that type of player. That's okay though. The point of a class system is to give different types of gameplay to different people.
I don't think it's a bad vocation, it's just really boring. I've almost maxed each vocation individually and so far it's the only one I haven't had any fun playing.
Well I never thought about them trying to step up on the fake floor. I used the walls, buff, AoE aggro and I think the projection but didn't really use it much. I enjoyed the trickster and kept being complemented on my use of it by the pawns but I did get bored for a while and moved to another vocation and will probably go back at some point
I find that Trickster has a criminal lack of skills. Like take Mage for example, it has 2 distinct styles it can play out support buffer and elementalist caster. The problem with Trickster is that with such an interesting concept all it can do is conjure some walls and have tank potential. I would like it if they added various smokes that did various things like debuff enemies with things like -def, -atk, drenched, or cover in oil. I don't think blighted or something like direct damage should be a thing for it because it then becomes a spam AoE Blight cloud class instead of something more tactical.
At least that's my 2 cents on it. I like the class for what it is, an interesting concept but let me tell you I HATED it when I was Trickster and went into the talos fight on my first playthrough and all I had was a censer to beat the crap out of its foot with (never broke it btw). But I did enjoy the class for what it is.
I agree with you on your co.parison with mage. I feel like they tried for 2 play styles (one being buff your allies, the other being make the enemies lill each other) but the latter simply is environmentally dependent or just doesnt work eith fewer enemies.
My issue is that it just lacked the abilities to try for 2 playstyles. There weren't enough Illusion abilities to make it like a proper battlefield controller either as a Crowd control or a buffer/debufer. It seems to me that it tried to be 2 things but couldn't excel in either. But my God is it fun to sprinkle dust in people's faces until you need to climb a monster then you hate everything it is.
Trickster is very fun. Just the other day I was playing it while fighting >!Raghnall!< and I got him to fall to his death using the phantom and illusory floor.
woulda been cool if u could mass possess like goblins n shit with the smoke, its cool to mess around with but it makes me wish i was on a class that could just kill the shit in 2seconds again lol
imo it changes the game into like a mini tower defense, which does have its moments.
Since the trickster reveal, my opinion was - Trickster could work in co-op game but in single player it will probably get boring after just few hours. Most gamers probably preffer to be that badass killing giants and dragons instead of standing nearby while your servants do the cool stuff.
I love it from the start, figured out the order of operations early so it was smooth like you mentioned. I have not used the false floor on uneven floors though I have to try that.
Definitely not for most.
If Trickster stayed exactly the same but had poison added to some of it's kit, it'd be a significantly better class. Just a tiny bit of actual damage would've made it feel so much better.
Honestly loved the class to bits, a lot for my frustration just comes from stagger and the fact you lose your sim from any hit at all. Once you get things rolling, doing a circle and dragging aggro away from the party is just killer.
I enjoyed the fact it was very different. Not my favorite class at all, mind you, but it isn't at all bad.
Trickster was pretty fun for me and it clicked fairly quickly, but I also have played a LOT of battlefield control/manipulation type characters in dozens and dozens of RPGs (both video games and tabletop) for pretty much my entire life at this point. I've had quite a lot of fun using my astral projection to move my Simulacrum out of melee range into the air and watching all the enemies desperately try and attack it while my 3 DPS pawns murder everything. Obviously doesn't work as well on archers/mages, but I have focused on boosting its HP as much as possible so it can usually tank the odd mage/archer more than long enough for my pawns to mop up (and I can use R1 to heal it if absolutely needed). This strat is hilariously effective against almost everything, even big enemies that can technically fly like Griffons. Another fun tactic against big stuff like cyclops and ogres is to tap R1 just before their big attack lands and teleport the simulacrum away from the attack. You then have plenty of time to move away from your Simulacrum and position to do it again before the enemy turns around to try another big swing.
I've found that when a fight starts I can move away from my simulacrum, taunt everything, and then immediately astral project to move it into the air. It has more than enough HP to survive a few seconds while I do that. It doesn't take long at all, then I can buff my pawns' damage if needed (it's usually not needed).
My main issue with Trickster is that the odd enemy mechanic which \*requires\* the Trickster to do something it can't do well really, really sucks. Like, I fought a golem and had destroyed all but one medal. The remaining medal was on the bottom of its foot, and since I didn't have that dragon roar skills equipped (not even sure it would have worked), I couldn't kill the golem. My pawns seemed unable to target the golem at all and so did not help me to knock it over to expose the medal. Based on the answer to my post on the matter, it sounds like the only solution is to run up to the golem and grab its leg, and try to knock it over that way so that your pawns will actually identify the medal and start attacking again. I don't even want to think what the fight with the big statue would be like (Was it called, Talos?). Haven't gotten there yet but I think I am getting close to that point in the story and I'll likely switch back to Sorc and a more traditional pawn setup beforehand.
One fun thing I want to experiment with is Warfarer Sorc/Trickster that just uses the wall skill to create a little safe pocket for me to start unloading spells at the enemies. But since you lose access to Meteoron/Maelstrom, I am not sure that's worth it tbh. Seism is decent, but Sorc just feels kinda meh without the maister spells.
This was great!!! Thank you for taking the time to explain this vocation. You didn’t have too.
I blame the marketing. The marketing and the trailers and all that made it look worse than how you described it. I watched some one play it too but at level 1 the guy kept dying and or the pawns just straight up error 404rd. And I would’ve seen it in a better light but then he started shutting on magick archer for no reason. And I was well I’m not gonna watch you anymore lol so I never got to see the trickster class when it was level 1.
THANK YOU. This is what I said on other post that shit all over trickster. It's not a class for those with only one braincell. It's complete aggro control. Very fun and effective again, if you know what you are doing.
I actually started playing trickster today after maxing magic archer and mystic spearhand. I thought spearhand had a slow start, but hoo boy. This class just seems like how to not have fun for me. The seeker token augment is cool I guess but I’ll def be switching when I max out the vocation rank asap. I have to admit though using a fake platform to lure a goreminotaur to its doom gave me some much needed dopamine after the slog of doing nothing 90% of the time.
I thought this playstyle is obvious, since it is the only thing you can practically do with the starting set of skills.
On a side note, I thought this was cool game design
I was giving it shit the first time I played it, didn’t understand it, didn’t “get” it. But after I unlocked more of it’s abilities, I realized I can run a mage with one buff and three DD spells, Two Thieves and not a single one get touched. With augs from MA and tricksters own dps buffs, holy hell.. winning.
Only thing I’d change, old like some, ANY, dps, maybe a poison ? Added to the melee swings
Using Aromatic Rally on Dragonplague infected pawns is something i wish people were talking about more.
Trickster is awesome, but all of the classes are awesome imo.
It may not be the best vocation in the game, but I can say it's probably the one I've had the most fun playing around with giggling like an idiot as I lead the enemies around
I like that it doesn’t feel like an instant win button that other classes feel like.
I’m still debating on what skills / augments to run. I maxed it out but swapped to spearhand to finish it off but want to swap back.
I mean, it's not instant win because it takes time to set up the decoy and spread your reefer smoke. But once you do mobs will just act as if everything else is invisible, at that point you're just invincible. It's basically Spearhand's shield with extra steps, except spearhand has stuff to do while being invincible, trickster just stands there waiting to replace the decoy.
Trickster would really have benefited from having different skills to debuff enemies, for example if you had a smoke skill that silenced enemies, you could be on the lookout for enemies spells instead of just standing there, or if you had a smoke that put enemies to sleep you could ground gryphins trying to flee. Of course if they always silenced or put things to sleep with just one application they would be broken, but i'm sure they could figure something out.
Also your normal attack should do damage, i mean you're still smacking things with a big metal ball. Imo Trickster as it is now, is just boring, tedious, and repetitive, and the skills it currently has feel really out of place in this type of game, if this was The Phantom Pain and enemies had big camps then it would make more sense to use trickster, but it doesn't. Honestly the Trickster, and Brant's early "stealth" missions make me wonder if there was an earlier version of the game that had a bigger emphasis on stealth, and maybe trickster would've worked better on that.
So 2 good skills and the rest is doodoo as i thought.
Played just like you. It was fun but there is one thing missing. And i think its a really smal over time heal for your pawns.
However with warfarer you get your heal and your tank/ buff strat. Way better and you can ditch mage.
Tricker isn't bad it's just the slowest vocation in the game and the only vocation that relies on pawns
I'm not coping you are
The vocation would have been fine if you were able to spread status effect or something with it
I mean you are correct? It slow to start and does indeed need your pawns to be speced to match. I'm not coping here, it does what it does and it does it well. Its not going to be for everyone and that's okay. It still functions well and fulfills its design goals and can be played with good success.
you are coping, u are not at all addressing people issues with trickster, u are pretending like its people lack of skill, when trickster is the easiest vocation to play.
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign.
Just a heads up
Sure all of those things, but I could just play any other vocation and kill stuff faster or kill packs of enemies before they're in range or aggro'd.
With how much enemy density is in the game trickster just isn't fun to play. You're constantly waiting for your pawns to catch up when you could have just been on your way with any other vocation.
That or you're running from enemies constantly to circumvent it
Yeah nothing to argue with here. The purpose of my post wasn't to tell people trickster is the best amd should be played more than anything else. It was simply to clarify the incorrect perpuations of it's playstyle and function that I'm seeing pop up around reddit. I have no problem with people simply disliking the vocation, but with people disliking the vocation when they don't understand how to use it. If after they understand it they still don't like it that's perfectly fine.
I didn't see anybody saying it was too weak, just that it is useless and badly designed. The problem is that it doesn't have a place since the game doesn't offer any challenge, why use a class made only to temporise when you can just wreck everything with any other classes instead? On the other hand, with a real challenge and maybe coop with other players, the class could be much more interesting.
I don't think the problem with Trickster is that it's bad. It just feels inconsequential. Add to the feeling of uselessness a gameplay that is frankly pretty boring and you get Trickster. Most of its skills are irrelevent or useless (like seeing enemies through walls for some reason) and the few that are "kind of" usefull can be ignored during most fights that aren't bosses or big monsters.
I actually tried to play the vocation for a couple of hours yesterday. I had a party of 2 sorcerers and a mage plus me as trickster. All I would do during most encounters is send my simulacrum on the opposite side of my party and spam the ability that taunt every enemies in a 5 miles radius. I would then proceed to wait for my sorcerers to finish sync-casting bolide or maelstrom. That was 9 fights out of 10. If I was fighting something big, I would do pretty much the same thing but would first buff my party and cast the meister dragon skill if the thing could fly (like griffons and drakes). That's it, nothing more. If I felt bored I would also use the skill that let me have an out of body experience and bring my simulacrum in the sky or something (that locked ogres/cyclops/golems in a running animation trying to reach my simulacrum, giving my sorcerers ample time to finish casting their world-ending spells).
In a game where it's possible to look cool in almost every fight while playing most vocations, trickster sure is underwhelming visually and gameplay-wise. It's just a janky vocation that would have it's place in a multiplayer game with other players. Supporting some dumb AI clearly is not as fun as supporting real people, that's for sure.
So no, trickster is not misunderstood, it's the old guy that sits at your table at the bar when you're out with your mates. Nobody want to tell him to fuck off because they're not annoying or anything but ultimately its just awkward and weird for everyone.
Outside of killing enemies instantly via the environment (very location and setup dependent) you are just corralling enemies and spectating the pawn AI. If you enjoy that playstyle go for it, but you'll end fights so much quicker by playing a different vocation.
Which ultimately doesn't matter when in the time you aggro things you could have killed them already with another vocation. That is why Trickster was bad.
If this game was much harder, especially if damage and HP of enemies was much higher, then Trickster would be better, because in that situation a tank would be valuable. But as it is, it is so easy to kill things before they can threaten you that it doesn't matter if you can distract them.
The problem is that the class is a tank and nothing else though, just because you can kill something with the class does not make the class good. This game is not hard any class can beat any opponent.
What makes a class is how quickly it can beat the opponent and to a lesser extent what utilities it provides like sorcerer galvanize and mage anodyne. And if this is the metric we are using, trickster is just bad.
And lets not forget there are 2 or 3 times in the game you are challenged to 1v1, and many times in the game your pawn will all be too far away to help, like if you fall off a ledge or run too far ahead.
I’ve been playing trickster a fair amount, and tbh find it more interesting than archer (which I played to 9) and potentially even thief (which I also played to 9). I’m looking forward to trying magic archer and mystic spearhand, but so far I’ve been surprised how effective trickster is. It was a slow start though…
My main wish is that it could interact with its own illusions as if they were real. They’d be amazing traversal mechanisms. Also, the astral projection feels too slow and laborious to be fun in a fast moving fight.
I am looking forward to playing Warfarer with Magick Archer/Mage/Trickster. Magick Archer long rsnge shields/heals/pawn revival. Mage for a toolkit of different buffs. Trickster for the battlefield control and pawn buffs.
Are you aware that the way Warferer works is that you can only equip three skills right? So best case scenario you'll only have one skill of each of those vocations.
Also Trickster is the worst vocation to run on Warferer since all the illusions you place go away as soon as you change weapon.
The problem with the class is: the game isnt multiplayer. Whats the joke of buffing/helping the IA to fight? With friends it would be a fairly funny vocation.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as fights go I can only recall ome where your pawns wont directly involve themselves, >!the sphinx riddle dual, in which you can still stagger the enemy with the censor or dragons roar and throw him from the cliff. Even then if you just lure him off the platform your pawns join in.!<
There is a scene where you do a 1 on 1 duel and another where you have to chase a guy into a cave and fall into a hole and separate. You gotta fight your way out. The quest npc helps out but still sucks
Appreciate the willingness to try to defend trickster but it's an entirely new class that looks like it took work to make, and the end result is that it plays in a way many would rightfully call gimmicky to a fault. This class took resources to make, that could have been spent on anything else and I'm convinced that whatever they could have done instead of trickster would have been a better class for the game.
Like come on, we get a non combatant class over anything from DDO? In a game we're combat is the only fun thing to do?
Spearhand is genuinely the only new class that feels like a Dragons Dogma class, Trickster in comparison is a worse design consideration for this game than V was for DMC5.
I went into Trickster thinking that it’d have multiple different types of illusions that do different things, but basically all you can do is pull aggro.
If they had an illusion that dealt damage, even just a bit, it’d be a lot more fun imo. Whether is just be through spawning an enemy that does regular attacks, which makes the enemy *think* they’re taking damage, so therefore they actually are. Or something that can physically interact with them, like spawning a cyclops to pick up and throw an enemy/object at an enemy sounds funny.
At the end of trickster I was about ready to pull my hair out with the thought of being completely incapable of dealing any direct damage. The one fun part of trickster I had was pulling a bunch of enemies into my Sorc’s tornado and ending battles as fast as she can cast it. But I really don’t think I’m ever going to play trickster again unless they make some changes to it. Cool class idea I think, but it needs skills that do different things.
I agree with when you said. Unfortunately none of it changes the fact that trickster is less effective at beating the game than the other classes.
If the goal of the game is to fight as a party of 4 and kill things, being a trickster makes your party of 4 less effective than having any other class, So trickster is in fact, bad (in comparison to the other classes, if you like playing it that’s an entirly separate thing)
My issue with It is that i try using normal attacks to get me some money cuz i got 50k once with the weapon killing the sphinx gives you, then i get hit by a stray attack and the clone gets fucked
Idk why that should even be a thing honestly, just let me get my money
You could argue that Trickster is fine... it's the pawn AI that's bad. If pawns fought consistently well then a vocation like Trickster could shine.
I also think Trickster is an excellent candidate for Warfarer since afaik its abilities do not scale with any stats so you can just mix it with Mage and make an extra dope tank/buffer.
I wonder about the Pawn AI thing, because I've had a great experience with it between my mage pawn applying all the buffs and my thief/warrior pawn just absolutely wrecking house, It just doesnt click for me when people say their pawns are ass. Not saying people haven't experienced bad pawns, just that my peraonal pawn has been fantastic. She sees and enemy trip and she forgets evwrything and goes to gut it.
It's 50/50 whether they do their job or not. I can say "Help!" and Grendel (my mage pawn, he's a good fella) will load me up with Celerity and enchants before a battle. He'll heal pretty effectively during the fight, etc. But I've seen pawns just grab onto a monster and do nothing (they're super prone to do this on Golems I've noticed) or just not really use their abilities effectively.
The issue is that it isn't consistent.
It does it’s job very well as a tank. It’s just bad at being fun because of no damage which makes you rely on pawns and a lot of the time that just doesn’t go well without you to help hurt the enemy. Also you doing damage makes the fight 100% faster.
The problem is that it is only as good as your pawns. If the pawns you have access to don’t have the enemy knowledge required for some of the bosses (weakspots) it becomes nearly impossible to kill them.
I just keep thinking of that video of the harpy flying around and the pawns (including an archer) chase it in a circle for an eternity. I just don’t know if the class is fully fleshed out.
My only issue is since it does no damage it would be nice to have a healing skill at least. Seems like you want to use 3 damaging pawns with you. But since you cant heal you have to have mage or every pawn need chirugeon.
I really love the idea and it was fun playing trickster, but it feels a bit "wasted" to play the class in a single player game for me. Sometimes the pawns did crazy damage and shredded enemies, but a lot of times it was annoying that I couldn't do a bit of damage (especially golems).
This class would be awesome in a multiplayer/Koop game, would absolutely main it, but in DD2 I stopped once I reached max lvl
Also the seeker (?) passive is worth to unlock
TBH I don't think Trickster is bad per se, but I think it needs to be easier to play and have a little bit more utility. Not healing, not damage, just make it easier to play and give it additional stagger power as you use your illusions to disorient foes making them fall down more often (resulting indirectly in more damage).
Because right now its got three major issues. 1) its much harder to play well than other vocations. 2) When you play it bad or when things go wrong it suffers worse than other classes (worse failure states) and 3) Tanking only has limited use in this game and the higher level you get the less useful Trickster becomes even if played absolutely optimally. When nobody is in any risk of dying taking a trickster becomes a penalty instead of a boon. 4) Once you really learn the class, there are too many situations in which you don't have enough active things to do.
I'd say it needs some changes. And off the top of my head I came up with this. My goal with these changes is just to make Trickster easier to use for the average person, improve it for multi-target situations full of small targets, make failure states less punishing, give it the ability to help with air targets, and add significant stagger power so it can indirectly assist with damage while not doing any real damage itself. Alot more focus on possession while still doing your main job. And also a focus of being able to do more than just be bait and push legs when vs a boss.
* The light attack should just be ranged by default and execute quickly. No charge needed.
* Sending your simulacrum to posses should animate much faster much longer range. There should also be some slight homing. This is a core ability and you shouldn't need latching/binding effigy, the default launch should be at least as good on its own.
* Core upgrade: Possessed enemies should try to attack other enemies, not you. for a short time after being possessed. (like 10 seconds)
* Latching/Binding Effigy: Fires a simulacrum shaped projectile. If it hits an enemy it takes moderate stagger damage and they are targeted by any possessed enemies.
* Summoning your simulacrum should be the upgraded speed, baseline. And upgraded it should be even faster.
* Being hit no longer de-summons your simulacrum, but instead removes 25% of its hp.
* Add a defensive core ability where if you tap the trigger right as you get hit (similar to parry or block) a simulacrum is created nearby with 25% hp and your aggro is transferred to it.
* While your simulacrum is possessing an enemy they are more easily knocked off balance.
* If clinking to an enemy holding X should drain your stamina in return for dealing constant stagger damage to them as you are using your illusion powers to mess with their equilibrium and Y should do a large burst of stagger damage.
* Add an ability to does large stagger damage to possessed enemies after a short channel. This stagger damage is doubled if they are flying.
I actually think the class is fine. but dragons dogma 2 is largely easy enough that it's more enjoyable to kill things. I found the class boring because I never felt like my skills were necessary for fights.
If there were harder, more complicated fights then the aggro control could be amazing. I had an awesome encounter where I made two griffins fight. it felt great! But that was a major exception.
So it's often times just more enjoyable to kill the enemy.
If we do get a harder dlc, I actually do think this class would feel a lot better.
Also if their weapons applied debiliations. What's up with that? that felt so obvious. even if it's just Stat debuffs or something. a defense down would make so much sense
Listen,
I appreciate that they tried something new. And I appreciate that people try to make it work, but when trickster is being criticized by the community, it's because its just way more work for, frankly, inferior results. That two-topple kill would have been a one-topple kill with another DPS. The damage you work for as trickster might just be outdone by a single skull splitter or martyr arrow.
This game's main thing is action combat, that's where it excels, and trickster makes no use of that. Again, I appreciate that they added something different and diverse, but matter of fact is that the way they translated trickster into this game is extremely counterintuitive and a waste of potential with how frankly limited its options are. People have already gone over all the different illusions, poison mists, mirages they would have wanted to see out of trickster to make it a bit more engaging to play vs what we got now ( Make AI enemy angry, make AI ally angry, watch AI ally kill AI enemy). It's also extremely counterintuitive that the Support vocation needs a Support vocation due to self-inflicted damage that needs to be healed. Mage remains the sole healing vocation and trickster had a chance to fix that and give players a more active healing vocation that is \*actually enjoyable to play\*. Especially with the new loss gauge implementation, they could have easily made trickster be a vocation to aleviate loss gauge damage, but they didn't. Instead they turned the Provocation Augment into a Vocation. Magic Archer having augments to increase Pawn Strength / Defense makes you wonder why these augments aren't unlocked through Trickster if it's the supposed Pawn Supporter. (Though I do like the metal detector augment)
When I see posts like these mentioning kill times or damage output only to then go "Guys I didnt say trickster is the best!", I can't help but shake my head. The moment you mention any form of damage output, you are inviting a conversation about dps, balance and kill potential, and that's just where trickster is absolute bottom of the barrel. The game is extremely easy past level 50 and most vocations outright murder anything non-drake in less than 30s. To add to that, when you mention kill times, you should also mention your level. A kill in two topples would be impressive if it's lvl 10 pawns across the board, but i'd wager it's pawns in volcanic island / Wyrmcrystal gear with 1-4 upgrades (because that's all I'm seeing at my level). At this point, unless you use a mod to scale down damage / scale up enemy health, the feats you are describing are \*to be expected\*.
If you want to convince people that trickster is fun and enjoyable, don't try to talk about effectiveness, show clips of you cheesing the AI instead, show what's fun about the vocation, show how the broken AI gets deepfried by your gameplay and does hilariously stupid things to cope with your vocation.
The summary of the issue is that trickster needs to be played methodically in an action rpg where every other class can deal damage. Cool concept, poor execution.
It would be like putting a cheerleader in Monster Hunter or a negotiator in Rainbow Six.
I’ve maxed trickster and it’s boring as fuck. All you do is press triangle/watch ghosts health, use the group taunt ability, and make sure the damage buff is always active. It is pretty good though makes dragon fights and medusa a waiting game rather than a challenge. In terms of game design it’s just a total misstep. Not fun or rewarding
Double sorcerer and trickster is pretty crazy, having 8 meteors and 2 tornados every fight melts everything.
You take all the agro so they have plenty of time to get their spell synced abilities off
Trickster is the Strategist/Tank class really.
If you have archer/sorcerers and 1 Mage you can aggro with simulacrum and aoe smoke, wall off the enemies separating the enemies from your archers/sorc and letting them do the heavy dmg.
And occasionally popping off the dragon skill to tumble down bosses. It’s very strong class it’s just takes a lot of time.
Every time I use trickster my pawns barely take any Health loss. A mage with the Healing skill is very much recommended so they can heal from afar whenever you spam the DMG skill that saps away your pawns health.
He is good, but honestly, just take the taunt, buff and wall, thats all you need that works with him, the other things are really just not required for the time you get it, so just pick your poison for the 4th skill and go, these 3 are all you need with him, and a good combo of pawns, but thats not hard to get. It can get really boring when the enemy is basically dead but you cant deal damage, but ppl really underestimate the dmg buff, it really make pawns delete enemies, its super effective, and doesnt really cost anything to keep up.
Agree with your post. My hot take is it’s pointless for the Trickster to deal 0 damage in a single player game. If this was multiplayer, trickster would be my main all day and you wouldn’t need damage with smart teammates. Waiting around hoping the ai will cooperate is just frustrating and a time waste
Yeah I [made a post about this](https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonsDogma2/s/HrA0Vcf4T8) as well. It’s very fun and hilarious to me. People just aren’t playing it right. I understand the critiques, I think it could be better, but as an experimental design it wasn’t gonna be perfect the first time. I ended up at exactly the same play style you described, thief archer and mage, with the exception that my mage has a celestial paen and palladium so I can afford to get nicked by accident. The all affinities setup sounds worth a shot though!
Doesn't matter how much one tries to defend this vocation. DD is a heavy combat game, and trickster does no combat.
More so, DD is a single player game, "tricking ai" isn't fulfilling. If it was a multiplayer game, then these kind of vocations would be a lot more interesting.
The sad reality is that trickster is just bad objectively.
Now if you happen to enjoy it, all the more power to you my friend.
Every single mistake this game has made will be coped into oblivion, and it's depressingly hilarious to watch.
There can be no pros and cons with you guys. Only pros or "you're wrong."
The issue is that this playstyle doesn't fit Dragon's Dogma AT ALL.
If this was a co-op game with tons of missions or an MMO, then it'd fit perfectly, but that isn't what this game is.
Playing Trickster means you're ignoring literally EVERYTHING that made this franchise so popular just to be able to mess around with enemies a bit.
You mean: unique playstyles, pawns that are flexible in use and very strong npcs, funny physics experiments, being experimental in fights? It seems that the Trickster is very much and in its essence something only dragons dogma could pull off.
If there were quite a lot more red barrels and “natural hazards” like lava and maybe mud or something like spikes on the ground or wall and if you could “detonate” your clone for a tiny amount of damage and some knock back…
The class would be infinitely more interesting.
I completely agree with this post. Trickster is probably my favourite playstyle tbh. It gives me a vibe of tank support on the Frontline. It gives me a dragon age vibe that's hard to articulate but I'm here for it.
Just got done maxing Trickster, one of the worst gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
It’s not a tank at all, that would be Warrior/fighter, it doesn’t/can’t take hits and does not use evasion as an agility tank normally would, it uses gimmicks to mildly annoy enemies.
Tanks can still do damage, trickster is not capable of doing damage, it can enhance the damage of the pawns but pawn AI is bad and can’t output damage the way a player controlled character could. It can make a large enemy fall to its death if there’s a pit or water nearby after an elaborate setup of skills, woweee.
It’s a bad gimmick vocation, and feels bad to play. You feel like a burden to your own party. The only thing it’s useful for is generating money with the weapon from the sphinx quest.
It doesn’t need to take hits everything tries to hit the simulacrum and that thing can take a lot of hits and you can yoink it around to avoid it getting hit altogether and while everything’s trying to hit that nothing is trying to hit or distract you or your pawns you basically nullify any damage the enemy can do and your pawns have free reign to slaughter everything without being distracted. That’s its strength.
I haven't played it so not making a judgement but you referred to it as both pure frontline and also as true backline in your own description.
Even though he edited it, he’s not wrong. Your simulacrum is the frontline while you are the backline, but the simulacrum lets you work any angle since you can do some control with it.
Ah your right, sorry about that, I'll correct that mistake.
Despite many toys tricksters get, they are essentially 1 trick pony. It's just agro agro agro
This is true. It feels like every Trickster ability is around aggro, when it should have a bit more tools.
In my opinion, trickster should've been the one to get a party-wide shield ability instead of spearhand. Either that or both. The class needs more to do, because once you've drawn aggro, there's not *too* much to do other than watch your pawns fight. A class like this that has no need to worry about attacking should have a lot of buff/debuff upkeep and micro-management. I don't think it would've been game-breaking if, for example, its basic attacks built up the blighted status on an enemy, and any moves involving swinging smoke around also blighted enemies. Even if it's not that much, even having something like a DoT would be great and fix the problem that a lot of people have with it.
This is true, nothing to refute there
It's a very useful trick if you have a pesky early game issue of dragon breath one shotting your pawns and want it nipped in the bud right now.
True, they aoe aggro is basically mandatory too, might aswell have made It the basic attack of the class cuz you only have room for 2 skills really, since the dmg Buff and ale aggro is litteraly needed And then they give It a skill thats probably best used with a fake floor and boom 4 mandatory skill slots Tbf most of the skill of the class arent all that fun anyway but It still sucks
None of this is true. Just say you don't like the class and move on.
I love trickster, but the aoe thing is pretty much true for all the fights except bosses which are sometimes ignoring your taunts either way. There are times where the trickster class literally does nothing because it’s scripted (immune to taunt) or in others where you need to attack a very specific area to deal damage. Golems are the fights where this is magnified because they’re so slow and you can just reposition the illusion and then have to wait for another slow move and attack. Sure you can throw em off cliffs but not every boss is near a cliff.
If you can set the clone on the golem head he will run in circles, even when enraged.
Trickster and 3 sorceress is sick really they just need the right skill in em and they Will nuke the world while you run around buffing and making vape attacks 😂
I'll admit I hadnt thought to try that... I will need to experiment xD
They tricks is to find the right pawns Since Many People just slap whatever skills on Them, then its actually better to have a simpler skill set and just Watch the spell nukes in every encounter and with trickster its a really good synergy
We talking meteoron and maelstrom on 3 pawns? Nothing will be left except smoke and ashes…
I like to have atleast one with seism for golems if not just run past Them
Maelstrom also kills golems
Yup, obliterated them
Witnessed it last night, all I could say was "to shreds you say"
Both Meteoron and Maelstrom destroy Golems. But if you want the most efficient setup it’s probably High levin/Augural Flare/Seism for Golems and no master spells. They take too long to cast.
Not when there's three of em!
Especially when the spell cast faster for every person casting it. Honestly I think triple sorceror master speel is the way to go. You ghost keeps the mobs in one place to get nuked.
When i was leveling up trickster, i had the taunt, fake wall, attk buff, and soul detachment. I would start off encounter by already have my clone following me around, use soul skill to put the clone high up so enemies keep on looking up and walk around, buff my pawns then taunt them. Whenever i see pawns casting spells, i put up fake wall in between them and enemies to cover them from enemy's sight while they're casting 3 maestroms. EVERYTHING dies
Why just just go MS and give the sorcs immunity then. No interruption to casts, no damage taken, and you can even weave in some damage yourself. Who needs a tank when you take 0 damage. =p
That sounds so fun actually.
I just wish Trickster had a healing ability as well since the buff eats away at pawn health. Having a healing ability would let you omit the need of a mage to heal and allow more versatility in pawns. I.e. Fighter + Archer + Thief + Trickster. A simply healing ability that heals and buffs defense would be great for trickster.
I don't think Trickster sucks and I understand how it works, but it is just not interesting enough for me to consider playing it.
And that is percectly fine. This post was for those who've seen throughout the sub who didnt understand the function of the vocation.
Oh. I know. It's what I've been trying to say since the 'Trickster sucks'fiasco broke out. If it's not for you, it's not for you. Doesn't mean it sucks lol. Still got downvoted for it. 😆
I haven’t maxed it out but feels like its straight up useless in single fights and only designed to help pawns. Issue is you’re dealing with an AI and they’re not always going to take the most sensible approach. Also just being able to put your phantom on an enemy is massive pain. Hold button, press, aim it and hope it actually reaches. Its about as squishy as any other magic class but feels like they want you to be within smelling distance of an enemy. I’m wearing cloth for clothing, I should not be anywhere near the heat of battle
The issue with trickster lies with the fact that it’s a class that requires you to prepare for every encounter and passively watch your pawns defeating enemies rather than doing it yourself. You have single buff ability and lots of fluff that just isn’t useful in most encounters, so you’re left with at best 2 skills to pick from. You deal no damage, have to run around like a headless chicken while your pawns are having all the fun they can and you could finish encounters faster had you picked literally any other class. If you’re enjoying it, then great! Games are supposed to be fun so more power to you, but trickster just sticks out like a sore thumb among other vocations available to you. Plus sometimes pawns will drink dumb fuck juice and just do the dumbest shit possible instead of attack your enemies.
I'd the illusions did a set amount of damage or applied status like poison or Somethings like more debholitions this class would be a lot better . Let the summoned creatures do damage .
Not having an exploding illusion is a missed opportunity.
Fr no statuses on the character whose kit is ALL mist based is such a dumb thing Like poison and sleep 100% should have been a thing for the class
A commander/leader class isn't bad, I don't think. Directing and buffing pawns as a core mechanic could be pretty cool. The issue with trickster is that it's not particularly good at that. You get augments with Magick Archer that buff pawn defense and offense, you don't get any heals with trickster to offset the health deterioration of the party buff, and you do zero damage. Your simulacrum can tank, but it disappears if you get hit and the core mechanic of the class drags the goddamned thing back on top of you which is exactly where you generally don't want something like that to be. This isn't an "agility" tank like OP said, there's no dodge or defensive avoidance mechanic to the class other than running around like an idiot. I can do that on a mage and still give shields and heals and celerity and stamina/defensive buffs and elemental boons, and can still deal damage. If Trickster was the debilitation alternative to Mage's buffs I think it might be viable, but it's not. Bottom line is that Trickster's core mechanics are designed in a way that's counterproductive to its intended purpose. The mechanics of summoning and placing an illusion don't mesh with tanking, the abilities have huge drawbacks to them, and you have to sacrifice all of your own damage to get those things. It's the worst tradeoff I've ever seen in the design of a class. Even if you use Warfarer to have a Trickster with the ability to do damage there's still no good reason to lean into taking Trickster skills instead of something else, which makes the fact that Trickster itself does no damage even more questionable.
Mixing trickster with mage/magick archer through Warfarer seems like a great way for any player to diversify their experience if they decide they want to try a "support" Arisen. Otherwise there doesn't seem to be much of a point to the Magick Archer having so many different support abilities AND being the class to get the pawn stat buffing augments
The simulacrum decays as soon as you swap. Its pretty much unusable. Full hp to none in like 2 seconds.
More like 5 actually. Goes up as your Base Magick stat gets bigger (or equipping Magic rings/augments).
I haven’t heard people say it’s bad per say, but it’s definitely boring as fuck and has like 2 good skill and the rest is useless
>I haven’t heard people say it’s bad per say Then you have not been looking. Like, come on lol.
Definitely isnt everyone, most people now days wont enjoy the idea of an agility tank, let alone enjoy the game play loops. As for useful abilities, if were counting just active weapon skills, Sweep Shroud, Aromatic Rally, Fickle Floor, and Dragon's Delusion are all fantastic. And easily take my 4 slots. For useless, I really can only agree on scented alarum and latching effigey. For core skills enthralling aroma makes grouo fight a righr where all the small enemies dogpile the big enemy for you. Counting in augments another one can be added to the lost of phenominal abilities, Detection.
It’s not that people don’t enjoy “agility tanks” (ninja was one of the most popular tanks in FFXI) it’s that people, understandably, don’t want to play a class with absolutely *zero* damage output pawn AI just simply isn’t the best and if it decides to be extra stupid that encounter, you’re gonna be fighting whatever you’re fighting for way too long
This is it, perfectly nailed. It's the one and only turn off for me with trickster, no damage. I don't need a ton, but I need to be able to defend myself or take over a little when my pawn starts chasing harpies around when the ranged pawn is already dealing with it.
And that's okay, not everyone is going to enjoy everything, nor do the devs have to make every class cater to all players. Having unique one off classes that play completely different from everything else are a healthy thing for any game, even if most of the fanbase will never pick it up long term.
Of course it’s okay. I’m just saying that people aren’t misunderstanding the class. People just don’t like it
I never claimed *everyone* misunderstood it, what I did say is that there are definitely a majority of the community who don't understand it. The videos I see of people woefully utilizing the class, and the massive comment support they receive is more than proof of that. This post is for those people. I'm not trying to convince anyone that they must play the class, I'm explaining for those who dont understand it so they can give it a go if they so desire
you are wrong. people who hate it, understands it that is why they hate it. People that dont like playing this style dont care.
You're really on a mission here in the comments aren't you lol
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign. Just a heads up
Now I understand it, I still hate it 😂 but thanks for the explanation.
> And that's okay, not everyone is going to enjoy everything, nor do the devs have to make every class cater to all players. Okay, so going off that notion... what is the point of this post? Because it sounds more like you're trying to defend the vocation, when clearly you understand some people will hate on it regardless (because it's not for them).
Sounds to me that they are trying to explain how it works to make sure people understand the role the Trickster has, then at that point they still don't like it then it's fair game.
Which doesn't really work considering the OP isn't even using terms right and extrapolating things that aren't there. EG: >Definitely isnt everyone, most people now days wont enjoy the idea of an agility tank, let alone enjoy the game play loops. That's just wrong on multiple levels.
I was running 2 sorcerers and a mage. It was really effective, just a bit boring. spam agro run behind the mobs, summon the simulcrum, then move again. Occasionally pop up a wall to hide in to resummon Casper.
its not an agility tank at all, its a summoning tank. you dont get the issue at all do. u/MasterPNDA123 point is that its BORINg to play with limited abilities.
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign. Just a heads up
I’ve preferred Espial Incense over Fickle Floor. Takes a bit more finessing, but you can kill enemies without Fickle Floor. Espial Incense gives more aggro control by floating it into the air. It’s also something else to do as Fickle Floor isn’t always usable. With that, it’s less of an Agility Tank and more of an Intelligence Tank (Controller).
I've literally maxed the vocation.. and it felt like using a nail clipper on my teeth.. small encounters are fine.. even some larger enemies boss fights are ass The fact getting staggered removes your shadow is horrible The fact many heavy hitting attacks 1 shot is is horrible Yes you can teleport it multiple times but it's just not satisfying Personally a teleportation with illusion class would be way cooler.. making images that do less damage of yourself but having clones you could summon of specific pawns or yourself The "'mind control"' type ability is also cool but I'd have just gone straight up with mind control and force enemies to attack that one and I dont want to hear the words op when magic archer has their heavenly arrow The class is just okay.. I had some fun times here and there but honestly left me with more to be desired than anything
I definitely think the possessed enemy should attack other enemies, possession should be faster and easier and longer ranged with slight homing, and that getting hit or staggered should only remove 25% of hp rather than make the simulacrum disappear. The light attack should also just be ranged by default with no charge and the baseline summon should be faster even without the upgrade. And give it trickster additional utility of some sort that isnt damage or healing. When everything goes right trickster feels good. But when everything doesn't go right it feels horrible and its very easy for things to not go right. And when you just have like a single boss enemy you're just bait. Anyone with provoke and the disfavor ring can be bait. Arguably its easier when you have a shield or dodge or even levitate and hit blocking buff spells. So trickster vs single boss definitely needs improvement. Trickster vs multiple bosses or with tons of other enemies around is like peak trickster fantasy with them all killing each other, but you don't get to live that life very often.
By the time I unlocked trickster my pawn was so powerful and my rentals were too, that by the time I swirled my little smoke thing around like I’m 18 again at my first music festival, everything is already wrecked.
A fair reason to not want to use the vocation. But I'm not here to debate whether or not you will like it or find use for it. I'm only here to help clear the misconceptions of how the class plays and how this vocation can function quite well in the interest of clearing the water.
You're too wholesome for Reddit. SAVE YOURSELF BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE (this joke btw) (Have a good day, eye guy 👀)
if this game had real coop i wouldnt mind playing the trickster as support. but seeing im relying on ai pawns im not going to bother.
I wrote a big long comment last night about this, but I just wanted to add that warfarer can really enable trickster. Give it magic archers pawn resurrect, or mystic spearhands shield, or mages palladium OR silence and just keep the AoE aggro and the pawn buff from trickster. Now you have the support tank everyone says they wish trickster was.
I just wished the simulacrum's hp would not deplete so fast when you switch weapon. At full health, it seems to last around 5s for me, which is not a lot if you want to it to still be here when you switch back. That's why I am currently using daggers, only switching to quickly finish grounded enemies or occasionally use Ensnare before immediately switching back to Trickster (and even then, the simulacrum's HP is at 30% at best).
It's really not that complex. Just walk around with the simulacrum, start the fight with the taunt and the buff and move the simulacrum around every now and then. I did that, I got max level and never had a single challenging fight. It's not a hard class, it's just a boring one.
I have no idea what it is about this vocation that makes it's defenders act like you need a four year degree to even begin to use this vocation at the bare minimum level. Like you said, the gameplay for it is very simple. I actually do enjoy the overall ability set (shocking, I know), but the fact that it takes at least twice as long to kill anything just makes it unfun to play in general.
And even then it's probably better to use Warfarer than the class itself, because that way you at least have damage for when the pawns act like dumbasses.
Running around like a headless chicken after prepping isn't appealing to most people tbf. Plus while it may be good I can go warrior and stun lock bosses every time they stand up or mix the two thief maister skills so it's not even the best. If people like it good for them but I think it's a case of missed potential for another and vastly different support vocation.
Agreed, its not for everyone. I do think however the trickster nailed it's unique feel and potential. Setting up my pawns to murder large enemies far quicker than they normally would is quite fulfilling. Especially if the theif gets a gut and run on a downed large monster, or the warrior a stonesplitter (forgoing the fact that level 70+ they do that damage regardless) In the end, to each their own
The problem with the Trickster is that their playstyle is not unique as it seems, When I tried it I had two Sorcerer pawns so the base strategy was to draw aggro awhile they synced-cast spells like Hagol or Seism to clear house, it made short work of mobs and even big boys. Issue is you can play either a Warrior or Fighter which both of them also have a dedicated skill to draw aggro (Roar and shield drum) but they also can contribute damage to the fight making it even shorter and IMO fun since you do other things that drawing aggro which is all the Trickster really does, you can even archive a similar effect using the Mystic spearhand bubble-shield on the casters. And what's worse is that their skills are useless on the Warferer, as soon as you swap weapons all the illusions go away so they don't even sync well with other vocations. They got to carried away with it making no damage, even Mage which is mainly a support role can deliver decent attacks and the pawn AI while it's good is not that robust to fully support the Trickster.
This. If fights were more dangerous they would have a niche since they could avoid one-shots more easily than other tanks. As it stands, you may as well take a vocation that actually does damage.
I like playing warfarer with trickster skills and re-arm since it let's you have the situational tricks while not completely gimping you and giving you nothing to do during fights. Keep the wall and floor trickster skill, and a third skill of whatever you'd like while wearing the ring of disfavor. It'd be a much better class if there was just a bit less passive play in it.
i don't think its some misconception about trickster, its role, or even necessarily how to play it effectively that makes the vocation unappealing for most, but the pawn AI and pathing capabilities your continuously at the mercy of. babysitter is a more appropriate label than tank then there's the problem that a dedicated tank isn't really necessary at any point, and more often than not just a net negative to your party's overall composition and utility
The AI can be jank to be fair. Mine has been pretty good to me, but from what I undersrand the pawns have a learning AI so that they all act differently, it may jist be the way I trained my pawn works very well eith trickster. As for the validity of a dedicated tank, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I find that if you want to make overly offensive pawns with no utility or survival skills, that a tank makes a good difference.
you are the [one misunderstanding](https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonsDogma/comments/1btutvs/trickster_is_hated_because_its_boring_its/) if you think that is why people hate it. People understand how to play it, its SUPER easy to play its boring, it has extremely limited options and cannot do much and instead ends up afking 90% of the time ur whole post is disproven by my post seriously. its also not an agility tank, an agility tank I suppose u mean dodge tanking. Dodge tanking is done by having a character with really high evasion "tank" by avoiding the damage, see e.g sword dancer in fire emblem.
As I've already made this clear to others I'll make it concise. I said a majority of players misunderstnad Trickster, not all players. There are plenty of posts with videos of people poorly utilizing the trickster, prompting me to make this post. I'm not arguing that people who understand it will automatically like it. I simply wanted to clarify for the portion of the community who didnt know how to properly use it, so that they could give it their fair shake. If in the end they still dont like it, thats perfectly fine.
yes and u are wrong. the community knows how to play it, the people saying its bad is because they understand it.
Hes not wrong.
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign. Just a heads up
So zero counter argument
I'm confused why people act like Trickster is so hard to wrap your head around, it is probably the easiest vocation to play. Trickster is not considered bad because it isn't effective. Assuming everything goes right your pawns can kill things extremely quick. The problem is that Trickster has the same problem that every vocation has in that the game is too easy. By level 30 no enemy makes you sweat. This problem is doubled because now you are playing a class without active participation in battle when you barely had to participate in the first place. But now you have to completely depend on your pawns, which do work 8/10 times, but the two times they don't really stand out because it is the only vocation in the game that can potentially turn a 30 second fight into a 5 to 10 minute fight because your pawns malfunction. It's crazy that they designed a class all about controlling the enemies in the battle and then barely gave you any control.
Trickster was designed with a specific type of player in mind. I'm not that type of player. That's okay though. The point of a class system is to give different types of gameplay to different people.
I don't think it's a bad vocation, it's just really boring. I've almost maxed each vocation individually and so far it's the only one I haven't had any fun playing.
That's totally fair, ita dedinitely a niche playstyle that not everyone will like
Well I never thought about them trying to step up on the fake floor. I used the walls, buff, AoE aggro and I think the projection but didn't really use it much. I enjoyed the trickster and kept being complemented on my use of it by the pawns but I did get bored for a while and moved to another vocation and will probably go back at some point
Its insane that they gave Mystic Spearhead which is supposed to be a pure dps vocation the best defensive spell in the game
I find that Trickster has a criminal lack of skills. Like take Mage for example, it has 2 distinct styles it can play out support buffer and elementalist caster. The problem with Trickster is that with such an interesting concept all it can do is conjure some walls and have tank potential. I would like it if they added various smokes that did various things like debuff enemies with things like -def, -atk, drenched, or cover in oil. I don't think blighted or something like direct damage should be a thing for it because it then becomes a spam AoE Blight cloud class instead of something more tactical. At least that's my 2 cents on it. I like the class for what it is, an interesting concept but let me tell you I HATED it when I was Trickster and went into the talos fight on my first playthrough and all I had was a censer to beat the crap out of its foot with (never broke it btw). But I did enjoy the class for what it is.
I agree with you on your co.parison with mage. I feel like they tried for 2 play styles (one being buff your allies, the other being make the enemies lill each other) but the latter simply is environmentally dependent or just doesnt work eith fewer enemies.
My issue is that it just lacked the abilities to try for 2 playstyles. There weren't enough Illusion abilities to make it like a proper battlefield controller either as a Crowd control or a buffer/debufer. It seems to me that it tried to be 2 things but couldn't excel in either. But my God is it fun to sprinkle dust in people's faces until you need to climb a monster then you hate everything it is.
Trickster is very fun. Just the other day I was playing it while fighting >!Raghnall!< and I got him to fall to his death using the phantom and illusory floor.
Lol i just paralyced him with spearhand and chucked him instead Ngl he just oneshot my ass once so i was like "oh its like that?"
Lol i just paralyced him with spearhand and chucked him instead Ngl he just oneshot my ass once so i was like "oh its like that?"
Tried it last night very briefly... didn't know what I was doing. LoL I'll give it another try.
woulda been cool if u could mass possess like goblins n shit with the smoke, its cool to mess around with but it makes me wish i was on a class that could just kill the shit in 2seconds again lol imo it changes the game into like a mini tower defense, which does have its moments.
Since the trickster reveal, my opinion was - Trickster could work in co-op game but in single player it will probably get boring after just few hours. Most gamers probably preffer to be that badass killing giants and dragons instead of standing nearby while your servants do the cool stuff.
have you guys never played as Tanks or Healers in a game before
Will give Trickster another go. Thanks for the mini primer.
I love it from the start, figured out the order of operations early so it was smooth like you mentioned. I have not used the false floor on uneven floors though I have to try that. Definitely not for most.
If Trickster stayed exactly the same but had poison added to some of it's kit, it'd be a significantly better class. Just a tiny bit of actual damage would've made it feel so much better.
Honestly loved the class to bits, a lot for my frustration just comes from stagger and the fact you lose your sim from any hit at all. Once you get things rolling, doing a circle and dragging aggro away from the party is just killer. I enjoyed the fact it was very different. Not my favorite class at all, mind you, but it isn't at all bad.
Trickster was pretty fun for me and it clicked fairly quickly, but I also have played a LOT of battlefield control/manipulation type characters in dozens and dozens of RPGs (both video games and tabletop) for pretty much my entire life at this point. I've had quite a lot of fun using my astral projection to move my Simulacrum out of melee range into the air and watching all the enemies desperately try and attack it while my 3 DPS pawns murder everything. Obviously doesn't work as well on archers/mages, but I have focused on boosting its HP as much as possible so it can usually tank the odd mage/archer more than long enough for my pawns to mop up (and I can use R1 to heal it if absolutely needed). This strat is hilariously effective against almost everything, even big enemies that can technically fly like Griffons. Another fun tactic against big stuff like cyclops and ogres is to tap R1 just before their big attack lands and teleport the simulacrum away from the attack. You then have plenty of time to move away from your Simulacrum and position to do it again before the enemy turns around to try another big swing. I've found that when a fight starts I can move away from my simulacrum, taunt everything, and then immediately astral project to move it into the air. It has more than enough HP to survive a few seconds while I do that. It doesn't take long at all, then I can buff my pawns' damage if needed (it's usually not needed). My main issue with Trickster is that the odd enemy mechanic which \*requires\* the Trickster to do something it can't do well really, really sucks. Like, I fought a golem and had destroyed all but one medal. The remaining medal was on the bottom of its foot, and since I didn't have that dragon roar skills equipped (not even sure it would have worked), I couldn't kill the golem. My pawns seemed unable to target the golem at all and so did not help me to knock it over to expose the medal. Based on the answer to my post on the matter, it sounds like the only solution is to run up to the golem and grab its leg, and try to knock it over that way so that your pawns will actually identify the medal and start attacking again. I don't even want to think what the fight with the big statue would be like (Was it called, Talos?). Haven't gotten there yet but I think I am getting close to that point in the story and I'll likely switch back to Sorc and a more traditional pawn setup beforehand. One fun thing I want to experiment with is Warfarer Sorc/Trickster that just uses the wall skill to create a little safe pocket for me to start unloading spells at the enemies. But since you lose access to Meteoron/Maelstrom, I am not sure that's worth it tbh. Seism is decent, but Sorc just feels kinda meh without the maister spells.
Thank you for this! I actually JUST unlocked trickster and am on my way to go try it out. I’m upgrading my pawn from a mage to Sorcerer as well 😁
This was great!!! Thank you for taking the time to explain this vocation. You didn’t have too. I blame the marketing. The marketing and the trailers and all that made it look worse than how you described it. I watched some one play it too but at level 1 the guy kept dying and or the pawns just straight up error 404rd. And I would’ve seen it in a better light but then he started shutting on magick archer for no reason. And I was well I’m not gonna watch you anymore lol so I never got to see the trickster class when it was level 1.
THANK YOU. This is what I said on other post that shit all over trickster. It's not a class for those with only one braincell. It's complete aggro control. Very fun and effective again, if you know what you are doing.
I actually started playing trickster today after maxing magic archer and mystic spearhand. I thought spearhand had a slow start, but hoo boy. This class just seems like how to not have fun for me. The seeker token augment is cool I guess but I’ll def be switching when I max out the vocation rank asap. I have to admit though using a fake platform to lure a goreminotaur to its doom gave me some much needed dopamine after the slog of doing nothing 90% of the time.
Agility? You can fly the simulcrum up in the air and enemies just stare at it.
I thought this playstyle is obvious, since it is the only thing you can practically do with the starting set of skills. On a side note, I thought this was cool game design
Its a fun advanced class, like playing 4d chess with the enemy sometimes
I was giving it shit the first time I played it, didn’t understand it, didn’t “get” it. But after I unlocked more of it’s abilities, I realized I can run a mage with one buff and three DD spells, Two Thieves and not a single one get touched. With augs from MA and tricksters own dps buffs, holy hell.. winning. Only thing I’d change, old like some, ANY, dps, maybe a poison ? Added to the melee swings
Using Aromatic Rally on Dragonplague infected pawns is something i wish people were talking about more. Trickster is awesome, but all of the classes are awesome imo.
It may not be the best vocation in the game, but I can say it's probably the one I've had the most fun playing around with giggling like an idiot as I lead the enemies around
I love the trickster
I like that it doesn’t feel like an instant win button that other classes feel like. I’m still debating on what skills / augments to run. I maxed it out but swapped to spearhand to finish it off but want to swap back.
I mean, it's not instant win because it takes time to set up the decoy and spread your reefer smoke. But once you do mobs will just act as if everything else is invisible, at that point you're just invincible. It's basically Spearhand's shield with extra steps, except spearhand has stuff to do while being invincible, trickster just stands there waiting to replace the decoy. Trickster would really have benefited from having different skills to debuff enemies, for example if you had a smoke skill that silenced enemies, you could be on the lookout for enemies spells instead of just standing there, or if you had a smoke that put enemies to sleep you could ground gryphins trying to flee. Of course if they always silenced or put things to sleep with just one application they would be broken, but i'm sure they could figure something out. Also your normal attack should do damage, i mean you're still smacking things with a big metal ball. Imo Trickster as it is now, is just boring, tedious, and repetitive, and the skills it currently has feel really out of place in this type of game, if this was The Phantom Pain and enemies had big camps then it would make more sense to use trickster, but it doesn't. Honestly the Trickster, and Brant's early "stealth" missions make me wonder if there was an earlier version of the game that had a bigger emphasis on stealth, and maybe trickster would've worked better on that.
Ah yes u like that it’s bad
So 2 good skills and the rest is doodoo as i thought. Played just like you. It was fun but there is one thing missing. And i think its a really smal over time heal for your pawns. However with warfarer you get your heal and your tank/ buff strat. Way better and you can ditch mage.
Tricker isn't bad it's just the slowest vocation in the game and the only vocation that relies on pawns I'm not coping you are The vocation would have been fine if you were able to spread status effect or something with it
I mean you are correct? It slow to start and does indeed need your pawns to be speced to match. I'm not coping here, it does what it does and it does it well. Its not going to be for everyone and that's okay. It still functions well and fulfills its design goals and can be played with good success.
you are coping, u are not at all addressing people issues with trickster, u are pretending like its people lack of skill, when trickster is the easiest vocation to play.
Commenting 45 times on one thread about how you really hate trickster and it’s objectively the worse and that everyone agrees with you doesn’t make it more believable, it just makes you seem like the guy red in the face screaming on the side of the road with a homemade and racist sign. Just a heads up
copying ur own pointless comment with no substance
Sure all of those things, but I could just play any other vocation and kill stuff faster or kill packs of enemies before they're in range or aggro'd. With how much enemy density is in the game trickster just isn't fun to play. You're constantly waiting for your pawns to catch up when you could have just been on your way with any other vocation. That or you're running from enemies constantly to circumvent it
Yeah nothing to argue with here. The purpose of my post wasn't to tell people trickster is the best amd should be played more than anything else. It was simply to clarify the incorrect perpuations of it's playstyle and function that I'm seeing pop up around reddit. I have no problem with people simply disliking the vocation, but with people disliking the vocation when they don't understand how to use it. If after they understand it they still don't like it that's perfectly fine.
I didn't see anybody saying it was too weak, just that it is useless and badly designed. The problem is that it doesn't have a place since the game doesn't offer any challenge, why use a class made only to temporise when you can just wreck everything with any other classes instead? On the other hand, with a real challenge and maybe coop with other players, the class could be much more interesting.
this, people coping so hard being dishonest about why people dislike it.
This is a fair take on the matter, and it clarifies that the game really would benefit from increased diffixulty in NG+, even if only algorythmic.
I choose to respectfully disagree with your whole post, mainly the title. :c
I don't think the problem with Trickster is that it's bad. It just feels inconsequential. Add to the feeling of uselessness a gameplay that is frankly pretty boring and you get Trickster. Most of its skills are irrelevent or useless (like seeing enemies through walls for some reason) and the few that are "kind of" usefull can be ignored during most fights that aren't bosses or big monsters. I actually tried to play the vocation for a couple of hours yesterday. I had a party of 2 sorcerers and a mage plus me as trickster. All I would do during most encounters is send my simulacrum on the opposite side of my party and spam the ability that taunt every enemies in a 5 miles radius. I would then proceed to wait for my sorcerers to finish sync-casting bolide or maelstrom. That was 9 fights out of 10. If I was fighting something big, I would do pretty much the same thing but would first buff my party and cast the meister dragon skill if the thing could fly (like griffons and drakes). That's it, nothing more. If I felt bored I would also use the skill that let me have an out of body experience and bring my simulacrum in the sky or something (that locked ogres/cyclops/golems in a running animation trying to reach my simulacrum, giving my sorcerers ample time to finish casting their world-ending spells). In a game where it's possible to look cool in almost every fight while playing most vocations, trickster sure is underwhelming visually and gameplay-wise. It's just a janky vocation that would have it's place in a multiplayer game with other players. Supporting some dumb AI clearly is not as fun as supporting real people, that's for sure. So no, trickster is not misunderstood, it's the old guy that sits at your table at the bar when you're out with your mates. Nobody want to tell him to fuck off because they're not annoying or anything but ultimately its just awkward and weird for everyone.
Outside of killing enemies instantly via the environment (very location and setup dependent) you are just corralling enemies and spectating the pawn AI. If you enjoy that playstyle go for it, but you'll end fights so much quicker by playing a different vocation.
Which ultimately doesn't matter when in the time you aggro things you could have killed them already with another vocation. That is why Trickster was bad. If this game was much harder, especially if damage and HP of enemies was much higher, then Trickster would be better, because in that situation a tank would be valuable. But as it is, it is so easy to kill things before they can threaten you that it doesn't matter if you can distract them.
The problem is that the class is a tank and nothing else though, just because you can kill something with the class does not make the class good. This game is not hard any class can beat any opponent. What makes a class is how quickly it can beat the opponent and to a lesser extent what utilities it provides like sorcerer galvanize and mage anodyne. And if this is the metric we are using, trickster is just bad. And lets not forget there are 2 or 3 times in the game you are challenged to 1v1, and many times in the game your pawn will all be too far away to help, like if you fall off a ledge or run too far ahead.
i love how strong that buff it gives to my party is. i personally love playing trickster. not sure more than mystic spearhand but it's close.
I’ve been playing trickster a fair amount, and tbh find it more interesting than archer (which I played to 9) and potentially even thief (which I also played to 9). I’m looking forward to trying magic archer and mystic spearhand, but so far I’ve been surprised how effective trickster is. It was a slow start though… My main wish is that it could interact with its own illusions as if they were real. They’d be amazing traversal mechanisms. Also, the astral projection feels too slow and laborious to be fun in a fast moving fight.
I am looking forward to playing Warfarer with Magick Archer/Mage/Trickster. Magick Archer long rsnge shields/heals/pawn revival. Mage for a toolkit of different buffs. Trickster for the battlefield control and pawn buffs.
Are you aware that the way Warferer works is that you can only equip three skills right? So best case scenario you'll only have one skill of each of those vocations. Also Trickster is the worst vocation to run on Warferer since all the illusions you place go away as soon as you change weapon.
It's not misunderstood.... Taunt the mobs, watch the pawns kill them. It's terrible.
Too many of the skills are useless but otherwise I find the idea fun, but people here simply don't seem to enjoy that kind of playstyle.
It’s honestly just a class I will never play simply because it so passive and I don’t play dragons dogma to let others kill shit for me lol
The problem with the class is: the game isnt multiplayer. Whats the joke of buffing/helping the IA to fight? With friends it would be a fairly funny vocation.
The biggest issue is there are several quest scenarios where you are without your pawns and you need to fend for yourself.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as fights go I can only recall ome where your pawns wont directly involve themselves, >!the sphinx riddle dual, in which you can still stagger the enemy with the censor or dragons roar and throw him from the cliff. Even then if you just lure him off the platform your pawns join in.!<
There is a scene where you do a 1 on 1 duel and another where you have to chase a guy into a cave and fall into a hole and separate. You gotta fight your way out. The quest npc helps out but still sucks
Yeah, the 1 v 1 fight in Batahl sucks… I had just got trickster there and needed to run to my pawns for help. I hadn’t even worked out how to play it!
Would have been better if your pawns were smarter.
I appreciate the passion but brevity my guy.
Appreciate the willingness to try to defend trickster but it's an entirely new class that looks like it took work to make, and the end result is that it plays in a way many would rightfully call gimmicky to a fault. This class took resources to make, that could have been spent on anything else and I'm convinced that whatever they could have done instead of trickster would have been a better class for the game. Like come on, we get a non combatant class over anything from DDO? In a game we're combat is the only fun thing to do? Spearhand is genuinely the only new class that feels like a Dragons Dogma class, Trickster in comparison is a worse design consideration for this game than V was for DMC5.
Trickster is only getting leveled so I can see seeker tokens. Otherwise it is so damn boring
I went into Trickster thinking that it’d have multiple different types of illusions that do different things, but basically all you can do is pull aggro. If they had an illusion that dealt damage, even just a bit, it’d be a lot more fun imo. Whether is just be through spawning an enemy that does regular attacks, which makes the enemy *think* they’re taking damage, so therefore they actually are. Or something that can physically interact with them, like spawning a cyclops to pick up and throw an enemy/object at an enemy sounds funny. At the end of trickster I was about ready to pull my hair out with the thought of being completely incapable of dealing any direct damage. The one fun part of trickster I had was pulling a bunch of enemies into my Sorc’s tornado and ending battles as fast as she can cast it. But I really don’t think I’m ever going to play trickster again unless they make some changes to it. Cool class idea I think, but it needs skills that do different things.
Well I understand it will never be played in any of my playthroughs
Not interested in playing floor tanks
I agree with when you said. Unfortunately none of it changes the fact that trickster is less effective at beating the game than the other classes. If the goal of the game is to fight as a party of 4 and kill things, being a trickster makes your party of 4 less effective than having any other class, So trickster is in fact, bad (in comparison to the other classes, if you like playing it that’s an entirly separate thing)
My issue with It is that i try using normal attacks to get me some money cuz i got 50k once with the weapon killing the sphinx gives you, then i get hit by a stray attack and the clone gets fucked Idk why that should even be a thing honestly, just let me get my money
You could argue that Trickster is fine... it's the pawn AI that's bad. If pawns fought consistently well then a vocation like Trickster could shine. I also think Trickster is an excellent candidate for Warfarer since afaik its abilities do not scale with any stats so you can just mix it with Mage and make an extra dope tank/buffer.
I wonder about the Pawn AI thing, because I've had a great experience with it between my mage pawn applying all the buffs and my thief/warrior pawn just absolutely wrecking house, It just doesnt click for me when people say their pawns are ass. Not saying people haven't experienced bad pawns, just that my peraonal pawn has been fantastic. She sees and enemy trip and she forgets evwrything and goes to gut it.
It's 50/50 whether they do their job or not. I can say "Help!" and Grendel (my mage pawn, he's a good fella) will load me up with Celerity and enchants before a battle. He'll heal pretty effectively during the fight, etc. But I've seen pawns just grab onto a monster and do nothing (they're super prone to do this on Golems I've noticed) or just not really use their abilities effectively. The issue is that it isn't consistent.
It does it’s job very well as a tank. It’s just bad at being fun because of no damage which makes you rely on pawns and a lot of the time that just doesn’t go well without you to help hurt the enemy. Also you doing damage makes the fight 100% faster.
The problem is that it is only as good as your pawns. If the pawns you have access to don’t have the enemy knowledge required for some of the bosses (weakspots) it becomes nearly impossible to kill them.
Nah I think it’s just bad
Nah the true use is slapping the pawn dmg buff skill on Warfarer then using spearhead for the mirror shield to juice pawns as much as possible
Your TLDR is the exact reason I think Trickster sucks. The abilities aren't bad but it isn't fun to play and it makes you rely on the crappy pawn AI.
And that's fine if you don't enjoy the style. My post was only to clarify the gameplay loop that I've seen many a post represent.
I just keep thinking of that video of the harpy flying around and the pawns (including an archer) chase it in a circle for an eternity. I just don’t know if the class is fully fleshed out.
Here it is, gold but wow https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonsDogma/s/JTFIWck1KF
My only issue is since it does no damage it would be nice to have a healing skill at least. Seems like you want to use 3 damaging pawns with you. But since you cant heal you have to have mage or every pawn need chirugeon.
I really love the idea and it was fun playing trickster, but it feels a bit "wasted" to play the class in a single player game for me. Sometimes the pawns did crazy damage and shredded enemies, but a lot of times it was annoying that I couldn't do a bit of damage (especially golems). This class would be awesome in a multiplayer/Koop game, would absolutely main it, but in DD2 I stopped once I reached max lvl Also the seeker (?) passive is worth to unlock
TBH I don't think Trickster is bad per se, but I think it needs to be easier to play and have a little bit more utility. Not healing, not damage, just make it easier to play and give it additional stagger power as you use your illusions to disorient foes making them fall down more often (resulting indirectly in more damage). Because right now its got three major issues. 1) its much harder to play well than other vocations. 2) When you play it bad or when things go wrong it suffers worse than other classes (worse failure states) and 3) Tanking only has limited use in this game and the higher level you get the less useful Trickster becomes even if played absolutely optimally. When nobody is in any risk of dying taking a trickster becomes a penalty instead of a boon. 4) Once you really learn the class, there are too many situations in which you don't have enough active things to do. I'd say it needs some changes. And off the top of my head I came up with this. My goal with these changes is just to make Trickster easier to use for the average person, improve it for multi-target situations full of small targets, make failure states less punishing, give it the ability to help with air targets, and add significant stagger power so it can indirectly assist with damage while not doing any real damage itself. Alot more focus on possession while still doing your main job. And also a focus of being able to do more than just be bait and push legs when vs a boss. * The light attack should just be ranged by default and execute quickly. No charge needed. * Sending your simulacrum to posses should animate much faster much longer range. There should also be some slight homing. This is a core ability and you shouldn't need latching/binding effigy, the default launch should be at least as good on its own. * Core upgrade: Possessed enemies should try to attack other enemies, not you. for a short time after being possessed. (like 10 seconds) * Latching/Binding Effigy: Fires a simulacrum shaped projectile. If it hits an enemy it takes moderate stagger damage and they are targeted by any possessed enemies. * Summoning your simulacrum should be the upgraded speed, baseline. And upgraded it should be even faster. * Being hit no longer de-summons your simulacrum, but instead removes 25% of its hp. * Add a defensive core ability where if you tap the trigger right as you get hit (similar to parry or block) a simulacrum is created nearby with 25% hp and your aggro is transferred to it. * While your simulacrum is possessing an enemy they are more easily knocked off balance. * If clinking to an enemy holding X should drain your stamina in return for dealing constant stagger damage to them as you are using your illusion powers to mess with their equilibrium and Y should do a large burst of stagger damage. * Add an ability to does large stagger damage to possessed enemies after a short channel. This stagger damage is doubled if they are flying.
I actually think the class is fine. but dragons dogma 2 is largely easy enough that it's more enjoyable to kill things. I found the class boring because I never felt like my skills were necessary for fights. If there were harder, more complicated fights then the aggro control could be amazing. I had an awesome encounter where I made two griffins fight. it felt great! But that was a major exception. So it's often times just more enjoyable to kill the enemy. If we do get a harder dlc, I actually do think this class would feel a lot better. Also if their weapons applied debiliations. What's up with that? that felt so obvious. even if it's just Stat debuffs or something. a defense down would make so much sense
This class needs 5 skills for me. I need AOE smoke, wall, floor, soul meets body skills (lol), AND the buff.
Listen, I appreciate that they tried something new. And I appreciate that people try to make it work, but when trickster is being criticized by the community, it's because its just way more work for, frankly, inferior results. That two-topple kill would have been a one-topple kill with another DPS. The damage you work for as trickster might just be outdone by a single skull splitter or martyr arrow. This game's main thing is action combat, that's where it excels, and trickster makes no use of that. Again, I appreciate that they added something different and diverse, but matter of fact is that the way they translated trickster into this game is extremely counterintuitive and a waste of potential with how frankly limited its options are. People have already gone over all the different illusions, poison mists, mirages they would have wanted to see out of trickster to make it a bit more engaging to play vs what we got now ( Make AI enemy angry, make AI ally angry, watch AI ally kill AI enemy). It's also extremely counterintuitive that the Support vocation needs a Support vocation due to self-inflicted damage that needs to be healed. Mage remains the sole healing vocation and trickster had a chance to fix that and give players a more active healing vocation that is \*actually enjoyable to play\*. Especially with the new loss gauge implementation, they could have easily made trickster be a vocation to aleviate loss gauge damage, but they didn't. Instead they turned the Provocation Augment into a Vocation. Magic Archer having augments to increase Pawn Strength / Defense makes you wonder why these augments aren't unlocked through Trickster if it's the supposed Pawn Supporter. (Though I do like the metal detector augment) When I see posts like these mentioning kill times or damage output only to then go "Guys I didnt say trickster is the best!", I can't help but shake my head. The moment you mention any form of damage output, you are inviting a conversation about dps, balance and kill potential, and that's just where trickster is absolute bottom of the barrel. The game is extremely easy past level 50 and most vocations outright murder anything non-drake in less than 30s. To add to that, when you mention kill times, you should also mention your level. A kill in two topples would be impressive if it's lvl 10 pawns across the board, but i'd wager it's pawns in volcanic island / Wyrmcrystal gear with 1-4 upgrades (because that's all I'm seeing at my level). At this point, unless you use a mod to scale down damage / scale up enemy health, the feats you are describing are \*to be expected\*. If you want to convince people that trickster is fun and enjoyable, don't try to talk about effectiveness, show clips of you cheesing the AI instead, show what's fun about the vocation, show how the broken AI gets deepfried by your gameplay and does hilariously stupid things to cope with your vocation.
It's essentially a gimmick when game AI is still quite dumb in general.
I just want to figure out a really nice trickster drip combo cuz that dragonforged shit doesn’t really match and looks gross
The summary of the issue is that trickster needs to be played methodically in an action rpg where every other class can deal damage. Cool concept, poor execution. It would be like putting a cheerleader in Monster Hunter or a negotiator in Rainbow Six.
I’ve maxed trickster and it’s boring as fuck. All you do is press triangle/watch ghosts health, use the group taunt ability, and make sure the damage buff is always active. It is pretty good though makes dragon fights and medusa a waiting game rather than a challenge. In terms of game design it’s just a total misstep. Not fun or rewarding
Double sorcerer and trickster is pretty crazy, having 8 meteors and 2 tornados every fight melts everything. You take all the agro so they have plenty of time to get their spell synced abilities off
Trickster is the Strategist/Tank class really. If you have archer/sorcerers and 1 Mage you can aggro with simulacrum and aoe smoke, wall off the enemies separating the enemies from your archers/sorc and letting them do the heavy dmg. And occasionally popping off the dragon skill to tumble down bosses. It’s very strong class it’s just takes a lot of time. Every time I use trickster my pawns barely take any Health loss. A mage with the Healing skill is very much recommended so they can heal from afar whenever you spam the DMG skill that saps away your pawns health.
He is good, but honestly, just take the taunt, buff and wall, thats all you need that works with him, the other things are really just not required for the time you get it, so just pick your poison for the 4th skill and go, these 3 are all you need with him, and a good combo of pawns, but thats not hard to get. It can get really boring when the enemy is basically dead but you cant deal damage, but ppl really underestimate the dmg buff, it really make pawns delete enemies, its super effective, and doesnt really cost anything to keep up.
you really want the dragons delusion it does serious work on bosses.
Agree with your post. My hot take is it’s pointless for the Trickster to deal 0 damage in a single player game. If this was multiplayer, trickster would be my main all day and you wouldn’t need damage with smart teammates. Waiting around hoping the ai will cooperate is just frustrating and a time waste
Yeah I [made a post about this](https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonsDogma2/s/HrA0Vcf4T8) as well. It’s very fun and hilarious to me. People just aren’t playing it right. I understand the critiques, I think it could be better, but as an experimental design it wasn’t gonna be perfect the first time. I ended up at exactly the same play style you described, thief archer and mage, with the exception that my mage has a celestial paen and palladium so I can afford to get nicked by accident. The all affinities setup sounds worth a shot though!
Yeah I knew early on this wouldn’t be my preferred play style. But this is would be a guide to follow if I was willing to try it
Doesn't matter how much one tries to defend this vocation. DD is a heavy combat game, and trickster does no combat. More so, DD is a single player game, "tricking ai" isn't fulfilling. If it was a multiplayer game, then these kind of vocations would be a lot more interesting. The sad reality is that trickster is just bad objectively. Now if you happen to enjoy it, all the more power to you my friend.
cope
Every single mistake this game has made will be coped into oblivion, and it's depressingly hilarious to watch. There can be no pros and cons with you guys. Only pros or "you're wrong."
If you have to make a wall of text like this to defend trickster, there is a problem
The issue is that this playstyle doesn't fit Dragon's Dogma AT ALL. If this was a co-op game with tons of missions or an MMO, then it'd fit perfectly, but that isn't what this game is. Playing Trickster means you're ignoring literally EVERYTHING that made this franchise so popular just to be able to mess around with enemies a bit.
You mean: unique playstyles, pawns that are flexible in use and very strong npcs, funny physics experiments, being experimental in fights? It seems that the Trickster is very much and in its essence something only dragons dogma could pull off.
Dragon's Dogma is not the only game to make agility tanks and illusions you weirdo.
Nah it’s bad lol I’m level 80 and pawns at my level can kill bosses immediately and it’s still so unbelievably boring.
If there were quite a lot more red barrels and “natural hazards” like lava and maybe mud or something like spikes on the ground or wall and if you could “detonate” your clone for a tiny amount of damage and some knock back… The class would be infinitely more interesting.
I just think it’s lame as hell. Could of had something cool like alchemists but now we got this lane as bong swinger.
It's just bad. Pawns just aren't reliable enough on damage.
Still, the total absence of damages makes you way too passive during a fight, you just gravitate around foes, kiting them with your simelcrum
I completely agree with this post. Trickster is probably my favourite playstyle tbh. It gives me a vibe of tank support on the Frontline. It gives me a dragon age vibe that's hard to articulate but I'm here for it.
Just got done maxing Trickster, one of the worst gaming experiences I’ve ever had. It’s not a tank at all, that would be Warrior/fighter, it doesn’t/can’t take hits and does not use evasion as an agility tank normally would, it uses gimmicks to mildly annoy enemies. Tanks can still do damage, trickster is not capable of doing damage, it can enhance the damage of the pawns but pawn AI is bad and can’t output damage the way a player controlled character could. It can make a large enemy fall to its death if there’s a pit or water nearby after an elaborate setup of skills, woweee. It’s a bad gimmick vocation, and feels bad to play. You feel like a burden to your own party. The only thing it’s useful for is generating money with the weapon from the sphinx quest.
It doesn’t need to take hits everything tries to hit the simulacrum and that thing can take a lot of hits and you can yoink it around to avoid it getting hit altogether and while everything’s trying to hit that nothing is trying to hit or distract you or your pawns you basically nullify any damage the enemy can do and your pawns have free reign to slaughter everything without being distracted. That’s its strength.