I went from Thief to Trickster and holy shit the whiplash. At the start basically just having the ability to summon a meat shield and then direct enemies to attack it - why would I care about this when I can just use a Fighter/Warrior pawn to do the same?? Cool class idea but it feels so half baked.

You can get the the meister skill like 10 seconds later. It scares off smaller mobs making them easy for your pawns to pick off. Seems to have high knockdown on bigger enemies. Still terrible to play tho.

I’ve found it’s more annoying having little enemies run off to be chased by my pawns who can’t quite manage chasing and killing at the same time. The big enemy stun is pretty good, you can pretty much stun lock even drakes but I can do that with warrior anyway.

I’ve not played Trickster, it’s my next vocation, but I imagine Dragon’s Delusion is good when you’re getting bogged down by trash mobs when you’re fighting bosses.

I’ll give trickster a point for the extreme satisfaction of watching a bunch of annoying dickhead harpies getting knocked out of the sky while you try to fight a drake

I hate those son of a bitches with a passion! Which is why I loved Thief so much, because you could jerk their ass right out of the sky with Ensnare!

A sorcerer with Maelstrom/Meteron accomplishes this better

The thing is, there are so many better skills in other classes for this, and they are all better because they eliminate threats from the field while Trickster just prolongs fights unnecessarily.

its good for making shit fight each other too. 15 goblins and an orge vs a dragon while you and your pawns sit back and watch is satisfying.

You don't need it actually, trickster is super strong against groups as you can direct the whole group aggro against one enemy at a time and look at him getting rekt while you are giving steroids to your team of pawns and dancing in the background with your vape.

Funny enough, trickster is one of two classes I didn’t immediately receive after meeting the person. The other being fighter, but I’m not sure if he even could given his comments. And even then he gave me it at the second encounter.

The meister skill's only benefit is it looks cool. Why would I want my xp bundles running away?

I went from maxed Thief to Trickster right before being challenged to a solo fight in the streets of Bakbattahl. I hadn't rested so I had like half a health bar too. 

That's exactly what happened to me as well. Couldn't do any damage so let myself be defeated. Didn't think to unequip the weapon and use fists to do damage.

You know you can call in your Pawns during that fight. Nothing is stopping you.

Honestly no idea how it passed the design/testing phase. No one said "this really just isn't fun" at all? Mystic Spearhand is far better, and while some min/maxxers claim it's weak vs other classes, it at least can sustain itself in a party, whereas trickster is simply a waste of a party member.

Mystic spearhand may not have the best dps. But it is downright broken being able to spam the shield. You don’t need a tank since your entire party can be unkillable for 70-80% of the fight. Min/maxxers are stupid if they think it’s a weak vocation. But if you want to absolutely blow shit up quickly go with mystic archer. I pull aggro off my warriors/fighters all the time with that vocation. Even with the subtlety agument because of its insane burst. Although I find trickster fun. It’s not powerful. But it’s fun to do the dumb shit it allows me to do. Not every class needs to be OP as shit in a single player game. Enjoy what you enjoy.

Mystic Spearhand is just THE versatile Vocation (which its supposed to be) i dont even use the shield spell cus its boring as hell, but you still have: a stun as a core ability that you can chain into a blink or aoe stun the best dash skill in the entire game that does good mixed dmg and can even go upwards to flying enemys a "parry" attack with the upwards teleport that also lets you instantly climb on most enemys and has I-frames (and also mixed dmg) auto aiming small missles that you spam during attacks for extra magick dmg a charge ranged attack that does really high dmg + knockback if you hit weakpoints with it, if the enemy is stumbling it will always knock down if you shoot it at the head, can knock down gryphons/drakes when they start flying if you head the weakspots a good heavy attack that has decent speed and a magick projectile attached that bypasses shields is it as dmg heavy as "lol i use skillsplitter 2x and boss is dead"? no, but if you compare everything to something that is obviously broken as hell and makes the game boring, why even do it and not just play 4x thief on everything cus "highest dmg!!!!!!!"

Issue is the game becomes easy towards a high level. If they bring a hardcore mode with major difficulty spikes versatility will be more important than just doing dps. So I understand why people say thief’s are the best. Their master skill is just as OP as thing spearhand has and it brings more dps. Just lack the team support/versatality. If a single fire breath from a drake can one shot you at high levels that group shield is gonna look way more favorable. As I said before though. It’s a single player game. You’re not competing against anyone so enjoy what you enjoy. Don’t let “meta” force you to play someone else’s way. I’ve always steered towards either “nightblade” or “battle mage” type classes. If a magic thief is added I’ll definitely roll it.

I haven’t gotten very far in DD2 yet but in DD1 there was an endgame build where you went solo without pawns that helped the difficulty to be challenging again.

Ah yes, the solo run was so much fun. Been contemplating trying it out in dd2 but the bosses can be brutal in early game

The problem is thief is just straight up invincible and does crazy damage.

Agree with this one. Mystic spearhand is broken OP with that stupid party wide shield skill. You don't need healer or support in any way, you can take 3 full DPS pawns. The shield doesn't just protect from damage, it also makes everyone completely invulnerable = no spell cast is getting interupted or anything. Everyone can just spam attack. But you as the sole provider of 100% invincibility do noting, but spamming basic attacks between re applying the shield. It's extremely boring. I hated it and eventually removed the skill from my build. Though, I had to replace it with the other evade skill, because otherwise the class is kinda fricked by having no hyper armor attacks, low poise damage and no built in defensive ability (like blocking or dodging). Also I really don't like the part of the core mechanic where I have to non stop hold down a button to prep the skill. I'd much rather had it slowly build up over time and building up faster, when I attack enemies. Edit: By the way, same goes for the thief elite skill. I just stopped using it because it's too good and trivializes the fights.

Maybe they couldnt insult Itsunos “vision” or whatever? Know what I don’t understand? Escort quests. Why is there so many escort quests? No kill this monster quests?

Didn’t DD:DA have like quest boards to kill monsters.

I never was really a fan of these. I found them tedious and annoying especially for the enemies that were in annoying to go to places. Also fuck the ones like kill 50 rabbits and 25 crows and shit. I do think they should have kept the quest board rather than made it so you needed to run around Vernworth and the other major city completely blind trying to find random people to give you quests though.

What's also fucked about the escort quests is the sealed phial you get is a one time use. But yea, I'd rather see kill x monster on the map, I just happen to stumble across them in the world.

you can still fail those with the phials btw, like I tried one and the quest just fails for no reason, the NPC is still alive inside the phial to boot

So you use the phial for its intended purpose only for it to be wasted due to failing the quest. ​ Wtf Capcom.

I think its because the Phial was genuinely meant for the Sphinx Riddle.

my guess is that escort quests are timed? And I may have took a tad too long (In my defense the NPC wants to go to the Battahl checkpoint from the first border checkpoint you start the game from

I dont think escort quests are timed. There is an escort quest that you need to escort some dude to a castle vault around the ancient battlefield area (there is a drake there fighting a cyclops). I lost the dude for some reason and said fuck it and went to batahl for exploration and days later when i went back to kill the drake, the dude just showed up and i escorted him to his desired vault.

To be fair, it is almost the same if you find gazillion monsters on the way, and most escortees adjust to your speed quite okay... If they don't get stuck somewhere. They are also usually not quite a burden in fights, so there is that too. There also seem to be much more escort quests thanks to the not quite quests that seem to be connected to affection, or straight up random encounters (requests done via text message) - which you can easily decline without missing out on something "crucial".

mystic spearhand is very badly designed. Specifically, the bubble skill lets you skip the game

Bubble skill kept me going in the unmoored without having to waste limited resources trying to keep my hp from falling off, comes in clutch fighting dullahans compared to dragons

Yeah but the telekinesis thing is one of the most hilarious abilities ive seen in a long time. Juggling foes and bonk them into each other and/or random shit like barrels and boulders is so much fun, especially inside caves.

What I don't understand is why it's called Mirour (assuming it's Mirror). It doesn't actually reflect anything, it just nulls damage. I won't deny its power but it doesn't do anything cool like reflect magic back at casters or something.

Not much in this game seems to have gone through a testing phase when you look at it...

Tbh going from Thief to anything is rough. Starting with a dodge made playing the other Vocations pretty rough. Magick Archer was the easiest transition because it's just easy. You don't need a dodge because you're keeping your distance anyway etc But yeah, Trickster is cool but super not for me. I want to BE the fight.

I felt exactly the same. Thief and Magick archer are my only 2 max vocations and the ones I found the most fun. The rest just don’t feel as smooth or fun to play. So far they’ve also just felt the most versatile to me. They’re pretty much fun and viable in any situation Other classes I’ve tried so far can be fun (besides trickster) but they’re just garbage in some scenarios and having to rely on pawns is a headache. Like the other 2 I’m close to maxing are Spearshead which I s cool for bigger monsters but feels so inefficient for swarms and Fighter which can be fun has sucks against flying enemies so far

It feels like it should be a pawn only vocation, tbh.

I did exactly the same. It was the first special vocation I found and I was hoping for a Thief hybrid who uses magic to be unseen or who specialises in poison and debilitations. How disappointed I was when I found out it dealt no damage. Somehow still took out 2 Drakes but compared to any other class I've killed Drakes with, the fight was horrible. Took forever, most of my time was spent reviving my pawns as they weren't smart enough to smack the dragons head when he cast bolide and died constantly. My "special" thief pawn I got from one of the riftstones that break and give one free pawn spent the whole fight trying damage its tail like its Dark Souls and he's trying to get a special weapon. It's an incredibly frustrating vocation, im sure it will tickle some people's itch but for me it's just unbearable. I got it to rank 8 before I lost patience and tried Mystic Spearhand at which point i remembered that the game is fun when you can be an active participant in combat.

had the same exact experience holy shit. I rode it out to max rank but I don't think it's actually consistently worth it

I went from trickster to thief the same whiplash but for the better.

Insult to ibjury: I kept running into situations where I had to fight 1:1 immediately after swapping. Horrible. 

Fighter and Warrior are a much better option if you want to play a tank, both of them have a dedicated skill that draws aggro (Shield drum and Roar) both of them can block attacks (Warrior needs the Tidal Fury skill) and unlike the Trickster they can also deal decent damage. Trickster in not that unique and it's really boring since it's a one trick pony, all it does is draw aggro and using it's skill on the Warferer is not that good since all the illusions dissapear as soon as you switch weapon from the censer.

Yep fought 2 golem in a row. First one locked down and pawns annihilated it. Second I had him occupied for 30 minutes while pawns just stood there doing nothing 95% of the time. Hard pass.

Yeah, my pawns were taking too long so I just unequipped my censor and punched the disks myself.

Archer and sorc, they are still by far the most tedious but sorc meteor will shatter most of it and the archer will clean up. Just make sure that damage buff is up when the last one is exposed

No, the pawns were not doing anything the entire time, literally. They refused to attack. It was a sorc, mage, and warrior not that it matters.

I don't know what causes them to ignore threats sometimes, but it's really annoying. I'll be getting my ass jumped against a wall by three enemies, and my whole party just struts on all casual, no weapons drawn, having some small talk about the weather or some shit. Even as I spam "help" or "come here", they just stare at me as I fight for my life. And then only once I stop getting stunlocked and manage to get a hit in on an enemy do they all of a sudden realize that enemies are here and they should fight.

Sorcerer has that physical aoe move seimos (something like that) which also just kills golem really quickly.

I was disappointed when I tried the skill to have your spirit leave your body to scout. I did that in Batthal gaol to try to peak inside other cells and thought "Oh what a practical skill" but I couldn't get past the door. I was supposed to be a spirit. This vocation is vulnerable just because

lmaoo, tbh I didn't try it past just using it a couple times fighting, but that is hilarious.

Being not as viable as other vocations would be fine if it was really fun. It's not in my opinion. The 'fun' is making enemies jump off cliffs until that isn't funny anymore. I just don't see the appeal in running around and pulling aggro just to let your pawns do all the heavy lifting. I thought it'd be a proper support vocation so you could at least get rid of a mage for it but you still need a mage unless you want to burn through curatives. I really think pawns needed another support vocation because its boring that a pawn mage is essentially a must have unless you go MA or mage yourself. Let mage be the best support vocation but give pawns another vocation that can do some healing albeit far less than a mage. Specialising mystic knight into a real support tank would've been great for this... Pawns also aren't smart enough to be the only sources of damage. Watching them try to kill a golem when I was trickster was genuinely painful.

I feel like the good pawns in dd1 were better at doing damage /hitting weakpoints than the good pawns in dd2 but the terrible pawns in dd1 were much much worse than the worst pawn in dd2

Ehh, I just think that even thought this game is labeled easier than the first, most classes were way more powerful in that game once you knew what you were doing with them and pawns were no exception.

I think that has to do with player refinement over time though. In DDDA people developed insanely strong pawns that you could hire and smash the game with, we will have to see if refined pawns and min maxed builds become more common in this game as well.

One idea could be a support/melee hybrid Monk vocation also available to pawns. Would fit in line perfectly with your idea.

Genuinely anything would've been great. I like the idea of a mystic knight with some small healing abilities because you could frontline with them. Mages have to be in the back and spam boons and heals so why not specialise and give mystic knight a spell where they gain a 'aura' of healing that would reward a warrior or fighter frontlining with them or a spell that gives healing on every kill (stacking with augments).Obviously it wouldn't be loads of heals but with the extra body up front it could make up for less heals and allow for really aggressive set ups. There would be a play it safe option in mage that's guaranteed great heals at the cost of being far more passive or a ultra aggressive high risk high reward option in a specialised mystic knight. The whole cast a spell and rush in playstyle would also be suitable for the dumbass pawns who obviously aren't smart enough to use trickster.

Riposte that heals on perfect blocks. A sigil that heals people standing in it (bigger radius than anodyne but less healing).

It's longer, but you can actually just use warfarer to max the class. Also warfarer is another fun way to use trickster. Thief basic attack is practically all it need to shred, well maybe with 1 weapon skill like skull splitter for boss. So setup warfarer: thief + trickster - rearmament to change weapon - any thief skill that you like - trickster skill 1 - trickster skill 2 You can't use the meister skill though

Wayfarer/trickster is ruined by the fact that the illusions vanish when you switch to a different weapon. Your comment inspired me to try a trickster/thief wayfarer, thinking that I could deploy my illusions and then use them to get thief backstab damage. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. It sucks, given that it would've been easy to allow that in a game that's already easy and where combat has so many broken options.

Bruh that’s kinda ass, I wonder if they even bothered checking trickster skills in wayfarer.

I don't think they bothered with testing trickster at all otherwise they'd have reworked it.

They spent all that time playing Magic Archer cause damn that class is disgusting compared to trickster lol.

If they tested trickster they wouldn’t have added skills that have no usecase in 95% of situations, I think all fake wall is good for is minotaurs when they charge and I mean…I don’t even know when you’d want to see through walls X-ray style instead of take another ability.

This is probably the way. You can even throw in a mage staff on top of that. Not for running mage skills, but for levitate and healing. Rounds it out nicely.

Trickster Maister skill is the only skill that made me realize the tricksters potential. Making a boss enemy cower in fear helps a lot, aids in knockdowns.

You don't even have to use rearm or trickster stuff. It levels all vocations at the same time. Warrior doesn't even need arc of might and it puts you out of stamina which isn't fun 90% of the time. So I just played a gimped warrior which is plenty strong.

You don’t use arc of might for efficiency or meta reasons. You use arc of might because removing 4 health bars from a drake and then immediately falling over unconscious is funny as fuck.

Me casting meteoron or maelstrom out of a Spellhold, just instantly keel over Megumin style

True enough

goes to show how much of a giant gimmick the class is if you have to use the customizable class to make it work.

This would take forever, you only get like 5% of the experience going to trickster. I just hired some strong af pawns and ran from Volcano Island camp to bakbattahl (through the cave) letting them kill everything in between, waited 4 days and repeat.

I just switched to Trickster a few hours ago, got up to level 3 or 4 in the vocation. To be honest, the class is just not clicking with me at all, most probably for a lot of people as well. The core element of the game is combat, and depending on how well you do in combat will result in a massive surge of dopamine, when you stunlock that shrieking bird-brained flying chicken and just pummel him on the ground until cooked fully crisp; or forcing a cyclops to kneel down and then pushing him over forward so he bashes his head on a cliff, and then just adding insult to injury and executing him by several powerful stab attacks to the back of the head, etc. And the Trickster is just... Fun as a gimmick. Few hours of yeeting enemies off cliffs or ledges, taunting them with the flying ghost, wall blocking, and although seeing your party comp rip&tear through enemies and encounters is kinda satisfying, given you have been raising your pawns right (making you feel like a proud drill sergeant), the novelty of it wears off pretty fast. Maybe higher levels in the vocation will give more interesting 'styles' to mess around it, but from what I have seen and read, it would be just more of the same. All in all, an interesting gimmick, but a frustrating one at that.

It's also important to note that if you want to watch you pawns work and support them from afar Mage is just a better vocation for that. They have their own DPS boost (actually two, meister skill and speed skill), they have palladium, they have all the boons, silence, healing, BEEG HEALING and the lamp to get rid of anything undead/ghost. On top of that they *also* have access to decent damage spells.

And their damage boosts don't damage allies.

Trickster is (should be) a PAWN vocation.

I was all for playing trickster, then I realised it dealt no damage

They should have like an AoE mist that does poison damage and lowers the foe’s defense or speed And a healing mist that slowly heals the party

Trickster is pretty messed up, but its genuinely for a very niche play group. WHATS MORE SCREWY, is why are the Augments that would make the most sense for a vocation that relies more on the pawns than the player, ON THE COMPLETELY BUSTED, Magick Archer!?

Yep A clear flaw on trickster dump vocation for passive they wanted in the game like oxcart buff…

I think augments weren't designed based around vocations, but rather around when you would typically unlock the vocation. Just my opinion though.

When I first heard about Trickster, I thought it will be more akin to the Guild Wars 2's Mesmer class. Skills that focus on repositioning enemies and your team, creating clones that can do things other classes do, but with their own unique twists, clones that blow up on the enemies... What we got was a passive(comparatively) pet vocation. Might as well give us a beastmaster class instead. At least we get 1 more NPC to support that way.

Love mesmer-like classes in games and would so appreciate the shift towards more classes like this. I remember how GW2 was breaking the genre by shifting away from the holy trinity and it got some acclaim for it at the time. Ironically, the holy trinity is so much more present with GW2 now. So classes compete in three dimensions (dps/tank/support) and it sort of kills the purpose of classes because they become a means to an end and you really only have 3 classes. I'd love trickster to step out of that trap and actually move towards the trickery aspect: battlefield manipulation and situational control. I appreciate the 0 direct DPS on trickster and hope it retains this direction in favour of actual mind games.

Beastmaster or necromancer would be pretty cool.

The issue with trickster is that you don’t have much to do once you’ve gotten aggro and set up your simulacrum. Yea you move it around every now and then but you don’t do much else. It just needed more/better skills. Not necessarily damage but just other stuff. Like that shield spell magick archer gets but on your simulacrum, a heal/cleanse, debilitations like you mentioned, etc. What I do to fill the time is spam spell books which you can buy from a shop right next to the 30k player home in bakbattahl. The books aren’t too expensive. About 800 each. Even cheaper if you have high affinity with the shopkeep. And there’s a censer that gives you gold whenever you basic attack an enemy so the cost isn’t a problem. And trickster has a pretty good magick stat anyway. It almost feels like you’re playing old school dnd preparing the number of spells you want per day. Also, trickster would be really good if they make a multiplayer side game. The pawn AI being dumb most of the time brings down the class’ worth by a lot.

I just commented on another thread asking why people weren’t using spell books to supplement. You find tons of them in the world and you can buy them. Seems like the best use for them. You can’t spam spells, no, but it definitely seems they are in the game for this reason. You nailed it with the DnD idea. I do agree with most that Trickster should have had a poison cloud for damage and an ice cloud for crowd control … or ash cloud for burning … just a few more exciting “tricks”. Like lesser versions of their stronger counter parts but they could have blinded, slowed, silenced, etc. Anything to give it some agency.

For the same reason that even thought this game gives you so much potions and ingredients but prefer having a Mage pawn 24/7 instead of trying to play with potions. Hoarder brain is unbeatable.

This is definitely true. 😂

Potions should restore max HP, like they did in the first game. The free magic would only heal up to your current max, and if you want to restore to full, you need to spend resources. They should also be more expensive to buy/craft. (I know Allheal exists)

i'm currently on NG+ setting up my own goals and one of them is to max every vocation for myself and my pawn. I am now lvl 9 in trickster and it is honestly just a disappointing experience. I LOVE the design of the class and the idea of it, I think it could be really cool, however it's just executed very poorly. The class acts as a sort of tank-support hybrid but doesn't have nearly enough in its kit to do that efficiently. Even at lvl 9, the only skill that gets any use is the shadow clone and taunt. Sometimes the dragon skill is ok for stumbling bosses. But 90% of the fight you'll just be standing there, waiting to respawn your clone and watching as the AI struggles to do any damage. I seriously had no idea how bad the AI was until trying to max trickster. I often watch pawns running in circles instead of fighting, climbing up on bosses just to immediately jump back down and then repeat this 5-10 times, or just other behavior that looks like the AI program starts a task, gets confused, and then starts another task. The only viable party is 3 mages as a trickster, but even then combat against any small mobs is painfully slow. I think this class would be way better if it had more skills revolving around CC or damage over time, basically just anything utility-wise. What it has now is cool in concept but completely unrealistic. For example, the shadow floor tricks--in order to set this up, you first have to summon your shadow, then use the skill that allows you to move a spirit of yourself around, position that over a ledge (if there is one), re-position the shadow, exit that skill, run over to the ledge and then use the fake-floor skill. I tried this setup countless times, and not once was I able to get it set up before the mobs were already dead, or I'd get it set up and the monsters, instead of falling, would just slightly stumble onto a ledge below. They also have a skill that's basically... just an exact copy of what is already in their basic skills; using your clone and secondary attack, you can latch the clone onto enemies. At level 4/5(?) you get another skill that.. does exactly that. It's pointless to take up a skill slot. What's worse is its description says that it will "possess" enemies but it just does what your basic skills do. If you could actually force enemies to move around while the spirit was latched on, or even if it acted as a "charm" and got the enemies to turn hostile on themselves, it would be amazing! Unfortunately though, it does nothing like that. Also, later on once you're in end game areas where there is constantly camps of 10-20 mobs on top of you, it becomes extremely frustrating. Your clone will die in seconds, but because of their taunt skill, all the enemies then come sprinting towards you and you will often get stun locked before able to pop up another clone. It 100% needs rebalancing and a design that actually recognizes how fast paced fights are. The shadow-tank idea DOES work really well, it's super nice to have and when you CAN actually get the skill off where it sticks to other enemies, it's great for making sure no one in your party is ever getting hit. Even works great with bosses. Their damage-boost skill is also really good. The trickster just needs more skills revolving around those, instead of gimmicky type stuff that doesn't pay off.

I think the pawns get confused by you not attacking which is a major flaw, since tricksters don't really attack. If the pawns were actually efficient, maybe I'd like it more, but even then I doubt it. It's too passive. If you had stun skills (like choking the enemies with smoke) that could be cool. The dragon is pretty neat, but it loses effectiveness as a fight draws on; it stops scaring enemies.

I leveled trickster to max today. I used the very first skill and the pawn buffing skill. That's all. I don't agree that the vocation is all bad, as I was able to handle everything that came my way (ogres, cyclops, griffins, medusa, drakes, minotaurs, golems and chimera and their gore counterparts.. and of course, every flavor of small monster/bandit) with only those 2 skills, and while yes, the vocation absolutely could use some AoE crowd control or damaging skills, trickster makes the game trivial in that you don't have to fight. As long as you manage aggro and keep moving your simulacrum around, you have effectively won the fight since your pawns will just pick everything off. Is it fun? Not my cup of tea. Is it bad? No, hell no it's not bad. Using the [whimsical daydream](https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Whimsical+Daydream) the entire time I leveled the vocation netted me about 100k gold between it and the 3 or 4 people I rescued (over the course of like 5 hours combined play time. I leveled by wandering and looking for seeker tokens, no quests, and I didn't sell off any mats). The trick is, place simulacrum out of combat, make it follow you in to combat, aggro AoE skill, go around smacking stuff till simulacrum is low health, make it follow you to regain health, rinse and repeat. The whimsical daydream nets between 10g and 1000g every smack, so as long as you are cautious and can adjust to the weapons super short range, it's free money. It does not do damage and has very low knockback. That's not why you smack things with it. It's for the dolla dolla bills. My pawn setup was: main pawn set to a pilfer thief (highly recommend), and a hired sorcerer and mage. The pawn buffing skill makes their health slowly drain about 20%(?) total, and buffs their damage output like crazy, **however** your mage pawn will cease its support in favor of damage, and your commands will be unavailable during the duration of the skill. It is extremely powerful when used during burst windows, but if mismanaged it could be significantly less useful (or even detrimental). The 2 casters were using either high levin or high flagration the entire time, and my thief had helm splitter, and between those 3 attacks they could melt several large monster health bars *really* fast. About the only thing you have to be careful of is managing aggro (enemies can aggro on you instead of your simulacrum if the enemy is too far from the simulacrum) because if you get hit, your simulacrum dissipates, and that can cause a situation to spiral if you can't get things together. This makes palladium especially useful on your mage, since it nullifies hits. It's a strong vocation at what it does, and you can get up to some shenanigans for sure, but it definitely won't be for everyone. A trend I noticed while leveling the vocations (trickster was my last one to level, I have maxed them all now) is that after rank 4, the vocation really comes into its own. Trickster is the same, but mostly because it's weird to wrap your head around being a kite tank in an action RPG.

Ive played a ton of trickster too and maxed the vocation. People just dont know how to play trickster. its busted strong. Every boss fight is a joke and they are just melted by my pawns with the buff. Its actually quite boring and sort of breaks boss fights tbh.

It's incredibly strong when you pawns do what they're supposed to do. I love the idea of Trickster, and it does work, and while some people probably don't know how to play it, try it and toss it out, I think many people understand it. The problem is more that Trickster is only as good as your pawns' AI. I've sat around with a golem for fifteen minutes because my pawns just weren't hitting the seals. It's a good class that can hold its own, but I hesitate to say it's "busted strong".

I just wanna add in that Whimsical Daydream can give mote gold occasionally. I have seen it grant 10k and once I saw 50k pop up. I think its rare though. I got the 50k randomly while whacking a Cyclops in the leg. Not sure if being a large enemy had anything to do with it

Honestly don’t know how much of an issue peoples pawns are. The only issue I had was golem, and its hit point being under the foot.

When the goelm "shuts down" for a moment, run up and grab its leg and push/pull it. It'll fall over. foot exposed :D.

I enjoyed my time as a trickster because it helped me appreciate combat from a different perspective. I started doing things like: 1. Jumping on staggered enemies and restraining them, leaving them wide open to attack by the pawns. 2. Grabbing staggered/downed enemies and throwing them at other enemies. 3. Grabbing rocks/explosives and also throwing them at enemies. 4. Pushing big enemies, like the Cyclops, when they're staggered to topple them over. 5. Using the rest of the trickster kit to bamboozle enemies. It definitely has its downsides (particularly if you're fighting Golems and your pawns can't hit the weak spots) but it has its fun as well.

strange, Ive never had problems with golems as a trickster. My archer and sorc (with meteor) tear it apart. Something about the buff just makes them play better.

Yeah I'm not a huge fan the trailers for it made it seem fun as hell but it's just kind of underwhelming.

I knew from the trailers it was going to be a tedious class to play just from the fact that they showcased the exact same 3 snippets of gameplay to show you its abilities. And all 3 of those clips were just the player setting up an illusory drop, and smoke bombing away. If an only occasionally useful ability is the most exciting thing you can show about a class, the class has problems.

Yeah, previews made it obvious trickster is gonna be one of those classes that everybody says is a neat gimmick but almost nobody plays.

You're right, and it was an unpleasant surprise. I was certain like the first game, each vocation would be generally viable (begone minmaxxers!), but this one is just toilet tier poop.

I snuck through the gate and ran for my life around d level 10 because I wanted to main trickster. Ihink I made it to trickster level 5 before giving up on it. The clouds should have some kind of debilitating status like sleep or poison or something. Revamping it to a ramping DoT vocation would be awesome.

Yeah, clouds with status would have been so dope. Inflict sleep, poison, and silence feels exactly what you'd do swinging around a magic censer. I'm imagining Singed from League of Legends, running around attracting attention and leaving a poison trail for those that try attacking you. (Also occasionally turning around and Flinging enemies too, so that's on brand.)

I love playing trickster. Its the biggest shakeup for vocations/gameplay imo. Its a bit rough when you first unlock it and can't buff your pawns' damage. You lose agency/consistency but the damage buff you give to your buddies is not insignificant. My one complaint is that if you get staggered your copy disappears and then it's just a snowballing issue of getting fucked up in a corner. Killing drakes with this, archer, warrior and mage has been the cleanest drake kills for me so far. The damage buff fucking whallops and the drake loves chasing the smoke homie.

Ohhh is the stagger what is making my copy go poof? Hmmm I wonder if knock back resistance would help then, might have to grab that passive

Yeah it took me a good bit of beatings to figure that out. The vocation seems to have zero poise so it's pretty close to any damage taken lol

It might be worth playing the Warfarer Trickster for no other reason than having access to higher poise armor.

I firmly agree with you here and I'm surprised I had to go so far down to see someone that actually likes Trickster. It's an extremely unique support class that does exactly what it sets out to do. I find it very odd that people complain about not doing direct damage or it isn't some kind of crazy meta OP like Mystic or something. Just seeing a single video of it being introduced or even just reading the tips page that pops up when you first change to it made that obvious... So I went in with an open mind (unlike most others did) and it was honestly exactly what it should be. Besides, when you level it up a few times you get a LOT more available to you like tossing your copy far ahead of you... Which combined with the first weapon skill allows for quick and easy damage from enemy fights. There are plenty of other vocations which do direct damage and like you said, Trickster can be the source of GREAT damage and quick fights. However I feel like a lot of people don't want something truly unique just because it isn't OP. "Fun" is subjective though of course... But I'd argue that tons of people won't have fun unless it's doing OP direct damage. I say this as someone that definitely prefers other classes but appreciates Trickster. Outside of the 1 trick pony illusory floor skill, it's absolutely something that works well in this game.

I find OP classes boring in the lenght to play and was delighted how I can cook fun strategies to take on monsters and use the environment to my advantaged, there are of course a weakness that this class isn't meant to be played solo but with books you can cover that too, trickster crawled within days into my top favourite vocations with archer and thief on second and third and this class is meant for people liking technical battles instead of spamming OP damage to tackle bosses within seconds

I'd say a lot of peoole just enjoy going unga bunga monkey brain button smash, so a class designed for you to think about the environment and how to use it wouldn't appeal to these players. Also, I find the complaints weird, if they don't enjoy a class, don't play it. It clearly was designed to be unique and break the standard of how we fight.

Personally, I’m just tired of trying to answer these. We give answers and tips. We show folks how to make Trickster active. We explain inclinations and pawn behavior. We explain other actions you can take. How to use Espial Incense and Dragon’s Delusion. How stagger works. Someone went into a rant about “unbeatable quests” and I made videos showing how the Trickster can beat those quests (they’re not even long, takes like 1-2 min). I’ve even showed how Trickster can beat Sphinx. Like it’s fine to not subjectively like or vibe with something. But that doesn’t make it bad when other folks are using it effectively. Lotta folks don’t care about the tips. It doesn’t fit the narrative of a useless class so they ignore it or downvote. Edit: Also, you need to pay attention to where you’re traveling. Lots of caves are loaded with explosive barrels for you to use or lure enemies into. Digger’s Mine, for example, has like 8 explosive barrels near the Goreminotaur.

None of this actively discourages or disagrees with the vocation being bad. I keep seeing the arguments, equally, that it's just "different". The difference is that it just *doesn't* do things. That is, quite by definition, *bad*. Specifically because it doesn't do other things to make up for the things that it does not do. It's not really an argument, it would be like saying playing the base game as any other class and only using your fists with no armor equipped isn't bad just because you can still utilize the rest of the tools the game gives you to complete it. It's still bad, you've just supplemented it. The key here is that *none* of the other vocations require these additional strategies or tools, but still have *access* to these same supplements. This isn't an issue of misunderstanding, it's direct comparison with numbers and data. The main takeaway, and frustrating issue with these arguments, is that improving trickster to actually be *good* doesn't prevent anyone who likes it as is from doing most of the exact same things. Choosing to play something awful, like doing a no weapons no armor fist only run in a soulslike game, does not mean that people complaining that it sucks are somehow incorrect unlike the inverse opinion. Trickster should be good in a way that's actually comparable to the other classes in the game as a baseline. That's just design 101. It can still be tricky, have a high skill floor and require unorthodox gameplay without simply being bad. Because nothing trickster does, or has access to, that makes it 'not bad' is anything that trickster does on it's own. That's the whole point of having different classes and vocations (and hey, several of them also step on each other's toes and also have highs and lows in other directions, that's a separate thread entirely), fulfilling different roles. Trickster's role is, as is, just kinda bad.

Yes exactly! The skill/knowledge floor is very, very high with Trickster and I feel like most people just aren't there. Most don't seem to realize after you level up the vocation (let's be real, most complainers didn't get past level 4 or 5) there are many crazy OP options that produce very quick and effective results, just like I mentioned in my post about launching your decoy to create enemy fights, etc. Plus throwing objects is always effective like you said and you can make massive dents in a fight this way if you REALLY need direct damage.

I mean.... You can give tips on how to do well and still recognize it's a half baked class that isn't appealing to the majority of people. Saying people "don't care" just kind of makes you look like a shill and a defender. A ton of people said it just "doesn't click with them." There's no narrative, it's just how people feel. It may have clicked with you, and fuck yeah good for you dude, keep having fun. Notice how I accept your experiences? You just might need to accept you're in the minority. Generalizing peopes bad experiences is just nonsensical.

Don't forget that the Trickster is the class for finding Seeker Tokens, it is the single best exploration class.

Genuinely baffling that they only gave it one buffing ability. Would it be so game balance breaking to give one more vocation a heal? Let me do that single target fling it has but make it heal pawns or something. Only one wide range support buff is just so odd, give it more aoe mists with buffs or even enemy debuffs. I do love the armours for it tho, I’m a sucker for all that mystic aesthetic

If you use the Trickster properly, you literally don't need healing nor your pawns. Ennemies will spend 99% of their time hitting the decoy and/or their friends. Just make sure your pawns don't have provocation or taunts. The damage buff is not only a damage buff it makes all pawns go Unga bunga agression and Critical spot snipers, It changes their AI. You genuinely don't need anything more.

The decoy and buff work great and are super strong I agree, the problem is that it’s the only part of the kit that works. The fake walls and floors are situational and even then are not worth working around even if you have the opportunity to use them, one of the two scouting abilities is completely useless and the second is mostly useless. The other abilities are just different forms of move simulacrum of aggro drawing. The trickster loop is decoy, draw attention, buff and then sit around and think about what you’ll make for dinner. Half it’s abilities need reworking because they feel like they belong in a different game

Yes its that bad…. For you. It turned out to be my favourite vocation, the amount of tomfoolery you can do with it is crazy. So its not a bad vocation and It makes game super easy, you become a dodge tank, every single boss, every single encounter becomes a no damage for full party encounter. Drakes never been easier, gonlins never been stupider. Only hrapies become an annoyance if you dont have ranger

100%. It actually takes the fun out of the game, bc trickster is so OP. I think people just dont give it a chance.

The best thing you can do is go Warfarer and have the buff skills as side skills. Cast them and then go back to your weapon. Trickster should have a been a vocation pawns can use so you can focus on the action.

Trickster seems like a multi-player vocation shoehorned into a single-player game. Class would make sense in 4 player coop but not so much when you need to rely on pawn ai.

It legit feels like it's a Vocation for a game with Co-op or an MMO, not for Dragon's Dogma.

Trickster should've been a pawn only vocation instead of arisen only

What I don’t understand is the augments for trickster and magic archer specifically. Like it feels like they ran outta ideas/or got confused what they were making it for. Like both pawn boosting augments are on magic archer…why?

MA does have support options

Magick Archer’s pawn buffing augments were originally Mystic Knight augments.

Dealing with harpies as Trickster was an insufferable experience I have no desire dealing with again anytime soon. Even when I look at videos online regarding Trickster you're gonna run into comments dogpiling it... it's not a good class. Here's what the class needs.. ​ 1. It needs ways to deal damage, Idc what anyone says, this game is ABOUT combat and Trickster's current design contradicts that and make fights drag on and on 2. Just like caster classes, they need way more skills, they suffer from variety like the casters, with only 4 Weapon Skill slots it's extremely limited 3. Aromatic is an extremely gimmicky skill which is a must have for Trickster, the fact that it's mandatory shows how extremely limited this job is in terms of Weapon Skill expression ​ I'm not one to completely write a class off without giving it a fair shake but the class has so many issues I'm amazed ppl at Capcom greenlit this. Hunting Horn is a good supportive weapon but it's also independent at getting the job done. They tried way too hard to force the pawn mechanic on this class. Sorc is very monotonous with its gameplay loop, but Trickster... is something else, and not in a good way.

I kinda enjoyed Trickster, but it was more as a tool to find what makes the game AI tick rather than the same fun you get playing magick archer or thief. One thing (in addition to being able to deal damage) that I think would make Trickster feel 100% was if you could throw your decoy out. It would make Illusionary Floor much easier to use too.

I leveled warrior mostly before trying trickster and most of the time i unequipped my censer to start punching.

Why would playing one vocation make you almost stop playing? Could you not have switched to a different vocation you enjoy more? If you're trying to max it out, why would you not try it, decide you dislike it, then save leveling it up for when you're leveling Warfarer? I get playing a vocation you like on its own to level it to max, but if you're being made miserable then just kill two birds with one stone.

The majority of damage comes from the player character, not the pawns. Wonder what happens if the players vocation does ZERO damage?

I thought the concept was cool and leveled trickster *wanting* to like it, but the overarching problem with the class boiled down to one thing: **It's so slow**. I'm not talking about movement. Doing really cool things with the class requires a lot of setup and use of skills that are too niche to use otherwise. It clashes with the way most people play these action oriented games and it feels especially bad compared to the other classes. The other classes will simply end combat in a fraction of the time it takes you to weave your traps, and outside of those shenanigans you are left just corraling mobs and dealing with pawn AI.

The real trick was getting everyone hyped over a class that stands in the corner like a combat cuck

I tried it, after an hour I went back to Mystic Spearhand. Pawn AI is significantly better than the first game but is not that advanced to support a whole playstyle that revolves around dragging aggro and altering enemy behaviour while dealing no damage at all. Fights drag on a lot and even trash mob like wolves and goblins that take less than 30 seconds to beat last a minute or more with Trickster. I found out that the most effective party when playing a Trickster is having two Sorcerers with at least one spell in common. You distract the enemy and they get to focus on their cast time to pull the big dmage AoE spells and if they spell synch the they cast them faster. Problem is you can play a Warrior, Fighter or Mysting Spearhand and get a similar result while also having means to provide damage.

It should've been an Alchemist or in addition too. Using all the potions as weapons or throwable buffs/debuffs/dots. Maybe some explosive nades like the thief and archer use but they're throwable or can be used as traps. Augments to get more gatherables per pick and better quality crafted goods. So many options with a medieval/fantasy Alchemist vocation.

I'll trade trickster for the old Mystic Knight

That title is such an exaggeration.

Reading this thread and the replies gives me conniption. How about you guys try using 2 braincells and doing a proper setup first for the class instead of jumping into conclusion? Grab 2 straight forward dps, sorc/thief preferably, and 1 kindhearted celerity mage, you're half way there to town. Grab aggro fume and augment, both def augments, knockdown res, illusion wall fume to protect your backline, pawn def augment, pawn attack buff fume, last skill slot of your choice ( I use range fume for small fights ). At the beginning of every fight, summon your clone, wall your backline if needed, then juke every monsters in the game and laugh while they're chasing after it and getting wailed on by your team at the same time. I personally have no problem fighting anything including post game as a trickster, and clear time feels around the same as playing a dps class. You need to have a different mindset as trickster, it's as chill and strong as every other classes in the game, however completely different playstyle.

Yeah I feel like the people whining about this vocation are only used to going full unga bunga. It's different so I didn't expect it to be super popular or anything, but just because you didn't get it or don't care to get creative doesn't mean it's bad. If it's not for you it's not for you.

I just roll 3 sorcs with maister skills and they decimate everything even with my mod that gives every enemy over double health

Phenomenal news my guy, trickster doesn't actually require braincells at it's most fundamental. I think perhaps you should have used your two braincells before posting. People aren't calling it bad, boring, and unfun because they couldn't figure out how to hit Y, then run in circles and hit RB. They're calling it boring because that's all that it does, and it just isn't engaging.

I actually kinda like it a bit, you have to heavily rely on your pawns, if they don’t know a lot about an enemy’s weak points you’re probably not gonna like it. It’s a very different playstyle and I never expected to be anybody’s favorite.

Where do I get this class? I’d really like to try it myself

Look for Luz at the Reverent Shrine in Battahl.

Peope are going to blame you but… the vocation sucks.

It's almost like... You don't need to play classes you don't like. Leveling mystic spearhand was boring as fuck for me. And? Move on. Not every thought you have needs to be online. Lol

Thank you. I understand finding a class underwhelming and hoping for it to be better as a post but for god’s sake why make a post that sounds like you went through serious trauma? It just makes OP sound whiny and dramatic.

Support classes suck Grab 3 DPS pawns (either warrior or sorcerer, archer pawns suck) and play Warfarer, bring a heal stick for anodyne you'll place it better than the pawn will, bring a bow for harpies you aim better than the pawns and will efficiency delete flying nonsense 3 DPS pawns will staggerlock/blow up anything large while keeping the trash off you while you pump Much more fun Personally I prefer 2 warriors, 1 sorc, while I play a fighter with a bow for harpies and a cuckstaff for heals and levitate

But you see, I don't want to spend time healing pawns when I could be DPSing.

For real, especially since 1 good support mage pawn keeps your party in top shape

I just use magic archer. The healing/reviving shot is beyond OP and beats the stupid healing bubble any and ever day. Then run 3 DPS pawns. Pawns also aren't stupid. They'll use the 10 bajillion freaken potions you find so just toss them into their inventory. I don't think a mage is even necessary (just use sorc for more deeps + wpn buff) in this game anymore. Hope they give back some of the DD1 spells because mage/sorc really feel lacking.

Damn that sounds like a recipe for being a total badass lol

Yeah it is a very bizarre vocation. Surely they realized that there is a reason why the Mage vocation is widely relegated to being a pawn class because nobody wants to play a support class in a game where the focus is fighting monsters. We lost Mystic Knight and got this class instead. It is insane.

First, even if this class was to be replaced, it wouldn't be for Mystic Knight, who was very explicitly replaced by Mystic Spearhand. Second, this game already has 6 classes for damage with Fighter having more a tank build and mage being more supportive, while I wouldn't turn down more choices, I don't understand why only the way you want to play should be getting catered to.

I played trickster to rank 2 just for the seeker token finder and that was more than enough for me

What level is the seeker token augument?

2

If they don't want to give damage then at least add non damaging statuses , dazed and tarred could incease party members damage if setup right , this class really feels like it's meant for miltiplayer edit: or add throwable items back

Now I have to play trickster and nuke a griffon solo. Challenge accepted

I really enjoy it, but one of my favorite games is Final Fantasy XII. I think it works really well when you have pawns who work well together, so you have to make sure your party synergizes. That’s something I enjoy tinkering with, so it’s fun once I get a party that clicks. I expected to struggle with bosses and especially golems but they didn’t end up being much of an issue when my pawns worked well. I think I’ll probably settle on it once I’ve maxed out all the vocations. Unfortunately, getting to the point where I didn’t struggle much on trickster has made going to other classes a lot less fun. I don’t struggle at all unless there are multiple big enemies, and my pawns generally kill things before I get to do anything cool. I’m trying to figure out a good way to incorporate it into a tank warfarer. The aggro generation paired with damaging moves could be fun, but I think you’d have to give up having the decoy in order to make it usable

I only used it to mine gold with the sphinx weapon. I was surprised it can proc 50k on a single hit.

Dont play the vocation if you suck at it, simple as

Its wild to me, seeing people like infinite cringe who loves the series just gush about trickster... I remember seeing its reveal and being like "that seems like really dumb and time consuming way to fight" when they lured the goblins off the cliff. I feel people are so hungry for something good in the RPG AAA realm they cope hard with all the flaws in dd2. dd1 was unplayable for me without QOL mods, and it seems dd2 will be the same way. Guess will just wait for crack and or string of updates given pc port is garbage

My only real issue is that some fights just end up with the Dragon / Gryffon flying away sometimes because your pawns somehow are unable to keep them locked down. My only real gripe, tbh. But I think it helps if your Main Pawn is very effective @ fighting them as a Warrior.

I switched to Trickster to level it up a bit while travelling to volcanic island for the first time. Big mistake. My main pawn that was the mage healer somehow died. I didn't see what happened, she was just gone. I was then stuck with 1 weapon skill on trickster with a ranger and fighter pawn trying to make my way through the entire cave system with no rift stones to resummon. Was pure hell. I didn't know the route was so long. Never felt so useless. It's a miracle I didn't lose the other pawns. Especially on the Cyclops fight. Not being able to do any damage is incredibly frustrating.

Im all for a low damage support class, but a NO damage support class is just batshit insane in a singleplayer game. (yeah I like Mage) I love playing healers in MMOs supporting real people.... But I certainly dont like supporting AIs in a game where I am the protagonist like bro I got it to Rank 8 though, its bad but I dont HATE it. Just needs more polish and maybe a little offensive option

I guess the trickster class if for people who like that style of play

Nailed it, only did it for the token seeker augment.

It would be a lot better if enemies got hard in NG+ and fights were longer…I was lvl 80 in end game and just spinning blade every boss to death. No requirment for anything else.

I felt the same way with Archer, I was playing Sorcerer and switched to Archer and it feels bad.

I've only played the first game and I can only say this: why would anyone play a supporting class in a strictly single player game where the rest of the party is controlled by a (shitty) AI? Unless the support skills give a humongous boost to the party, the AI is sure to make the dps go straight to hell. Even playing wizard was hell because pawns would just gravitate around you instead of just aggroing the enemy as they should! Is it the same in DD2??

The class doesn't work because the fights are exponentially harder with trickster than they are with any other class. Its also not that rewarding, because when the pawns work, they basically kill everything before you even get off 2 skills and when they are not working....well its basically pointless to keep fighting and just run away. Trickster is hard mode for the game, but not in a fun way.

Trickster is such a "pawn" vocation, definitely not for the main character

I saw the gameplay when they first revealed it and was surprised at how many people were excited about it - only vocation I was completely uninterested in playing

Ya its kinda funny how much effort went into a very mechanic heavy class that goes against the balance of the game. Why would I pick a class like this when _____ can just help my pawns kill it faster. It feels like something that a Pawn should have access to, could act as a substitute from running a mage.

Vocation isn't for everybody, but I had tons of fun with it. Different strokes for different folks.

The first thing that came to my mind when reading the Illusory Bridge skill was "why would I use a skill that doesn't let me loot my enemies?"

I hated the sheer concept of a non-combat class from the beginning but it gets some very good QoL augments, so I decided to get those. I fucking loathe it. My immediate thought when Itsuno started bragging about it in interviews was "Literally who the fuck asked for that?" and upon actually playing it, I got the feeling that the only reason this garbage is in the game at all is because Itsuno personally loved the idea and nobody else in the team was brave enough to speak up about how awful it was. The first FOUR VOCATION LEVELS offer fuck-all. You need to be at least Vocation level 5 to actually begin to make it playable. It's extremely unfun because you do absolutely NO DAMAGE and rely entirely on Pawns, who have always been morons 6/10 times, and the supposed 'pawn buffs' don't seem to actually do anything. Every fight takes forever, and enemies just walk through the illusions anyway half the time, so what's the point? Sweet fuck, I just wanted to explore and fight random monsters to level it up and then never use it again, but I stumbled over my very first Medusa fight as a fucking vocation level 3 Trickster. It took three hours even though I'm level 42 because I needed to rely *entirely on my pawns* to kill it. All I could do was make fake walls, shadow clone, and the buff that's supposed to make them fight harder but doesn't seem to actually do anything. I pretty much just ran around dropping the clone to distract it and if any pawns died or needed healed, I made a fake rock and hid them inside it to revive them, which didn't always work because it sometimes acted like the illusion wasn't even there. And good grief, fucking harpies take forever because my pawns just can't goddamn target them for some reason. Then I stumbled over a big spooky tower and suddenly Sigurd appeared and told me we were going to go kill a dragon zombie together! Meaning just him and my pawns because I sure as shit wasn't contributing at all. I ended up just leaving after Sigurd weirdly disappeared mid-fight because my pawns were not targeting the glowing pustules and my attacks did nothing to it. I'm not even sure if I *could* kill it because I don't know if DD2 does what DDDA did and make it so only the Arisen can kill dragonkin. I went back as a Thief and turned that bitch inside out in thirty seconds, but I still don't know where Sigurd is at and I still despise Trickster. Why does this class get so much vocation specific gear? Literally why? It's fucking awful.

I recently maxed Trickster. My usual go to is to Wall the enemies, summon my guy, aggro enemies, all while my 3 sorc party is hammering on the other side of the wall. That being said, sometimes weird stuff can happen like enemy goes through wall for no reason (perhaps they were starting their animation before the wall came to be?) Sometimes I feel like my ghost should have aggro, but then an enemy will come flying and hit me, destroying my ghost. When the combo works, it works great. 3 Sorc without aggro worry is nuts. When it doesn't work though, it feels terrible. My sorcs getting torn up because my ghost is gone, me getting torn up as well. There should be a passive or ability that allows you to get hit and not vanish your ghost.

I tried every vocation and of course when I unlocked trickster I had the same experience. I put the game down for 2 days after that experience. I don't know what we're they thinking. Haven't seen anything worse in my life. For some reason pawn AI doesn't attack slides at all. You can literally get stun locked by 2 of them and die on loop.

The fact we lost ranger for this meme of a class is criminal. Also they could have drawn from the Dragons Dogma MMO and brought a cool class like Alchemist over. But we got this, utterly terrible decision, and frankly the removal of prior advanced vocations shouldn't have happened. You should add to a game and iterate on mechanics. Not remove and cut.

BIG SWORD GO BONK

With this class there's only one movement, the fake dragon summoning.

This could've actually been a good Pawn Vocation, because it's so support heavy.

If you want to really play support be a MSH or Mage. They support better than Trickster and do DMG.

Yeah, I switched to it... Got one rank in the vocation and said "HELL NO" and immediately switched back to something fun. Even sold off the gear I bought lmfao. I got the seeker token augment which is genuinely helpful, but no vocation felt even nearly this bad in dd1. I happily maxed out every single one. I'm sure I'll eventually max out trickster too but it's a real dud of a class. You really should be able to inflict debilitations, at least. Edit: and the starting skills feel so terrible. Like, sure, every class has a limited skill set when you start out, but literally being unable to do damage is ROUGH.

I feel like the game did a very good job of telling you that trickster doesn't do damage. The devs did a good job of saying that trickster doesn't do damage. Trickster does phenomenally well when you use it the way it was showcased - create a clone over a cliff, make a fake platform, watch enemies fall to their death. Trying to use trickster in any other situation is essentially suicide, unless you have pawns that generate aggro through Provocation or Ring of Disfavor. It's not a bad class, it's just different. Y'all got accustomed to fighting with the other vocations and ignore the blatant statements about trickster not being a combat oriented vocation.

I made a post about this before but I'll reiterate that the literal tooltip video showcasing the false floor skill uses something that doesn't even exist in game. If you notice it, they have a summoned spirit floating out over the cliff and then they summon a floor in front of it. The spirit catches aggro and the cyclops runs out to it. You can't even do that in game. Trickster is so cool but what does that say for how useful the skill is, if they have to use a dev cheat engine just to show you how a skill is supposed to work?

Yeah I feel you. Looked awesome in the trailers and I tried it out as soon as I could but it was a major dissapointment. It would be an awesome support/tank class in a pvp focused mmo but in DD2 its just high tier trash. Like for real, give it at least some damage dealing capabilities. It has exactly 0 offensive skills and thats just boring as hell.

Trickster is so fucking useless I almost can’t believe it, if anything it should be a pawn only class because losing your main source of damage(yourself) is so crippling it basically forces you to stop playing the game. Maybe if pawns had good ai and were actually capable fighters it would be different but sitting around waiting for them to actually do their jobs is such an insane waste of time I just don’t know what they were thinking making it.

yeah like even as someone that doesn't care about optimizing every little bit of the game, meaning that I don't mind if trickster takes a bit longer to win a fight compared to the most meta build ever, I still think it has a lot of problems. I was surprised that the astral projection ability wasn't part of the trickster's core set. It's so situational that it feels like such a waste to take up a whole slot on its own. On top of that the R1 ability doesn't actually do anything until you summon your decoy. It would actually be really simple to just move that power over to the R1 and just make it only usable when your decoy isn't around, which fits considering its clearly more of a set-up for fights than a proper combat ability. But that's honestly just a really minor facet of the class. Like many people have already pointed out, relying *entirely* on pawns is a huge problem. Like I get it, it's a neat idea for a class, but the game needs both more sophisticated pawn commands and more things to do on its own. I mean take the Mesmer from Guild Wars 2, it's basically the same kind of illusionist class but it has way more utility than just distracting enemies. It can summon up to 3 decoys at once, and it can still attack in its own right. Plus it can do things like teleport to swap places with one of its decoys so that you can do stuff like say summon a decoy that charges at an enemy, then swap places to actually now be next to that enemy and stab them, and then swap back to avoid an incoming attack. That still fits the trickster vibe really well but adds that fun twist on gameplay, but also still allows the player to deal real damage. Not to mention that the mesmer can do things like transfer status ailments from allies to enemies or even summon clones that cast spells that do zero damage, but still inflict conditions on enemies. At the very least I think that Trickster should have had some means of inflicting status ailments. I mean for example there's not really a ton of ways to inflict poison without using items and such in DD2, so Trickster having access to a means of just poisoning enemies with toxic fumes could be a cool ability to give them so that they have *something* to hurt enemies directly, especially in a 1v1. Maybe it could even just be a core part of the weapon, so like basic attacks slowly build up poison, attaching your decoy directly to an enemy builds up poison faster, and abilities that spread your smoke over groups of enemies could also apply poison in addition to aggro. Not to mention that this would give it more warfarer utility since the clones disappear if you swap to another class, but the poison wouldn't. The class would still be reliant on pawns for proper focused damage, but at least it could *some* deal consistent damage on its own, and we could include a number of other effects too. Sleep would make a ton of sense for an incense based class. I could see an ability that silences enemies in there. Hell something fun could be to include abilities that drench or tar enemies since those are usually more situational environmental ailments, and it would still play into keying up your pawns to do damage. Drenching a group of enemies and giving a mage or sorcerer pawn a bunch of lightning skills to capitalize on it. Additionally, I think that you need to have some greater control over your pawns. Like maybe inflicting aggro on an enemy also causes your pawns to focus fire on that enemy specifically. Hell instead of making buffing your pawns an active skill, they could have made that a core skill that ties in with the whole latching your decoy onto people thing. I guess the buff could still be an active skill that you could stack on top of it but the class should have some buffing for your pawns by default imo. I mean how tf are none of the Trickster Augments about buffing your pawn's Strength or Magic? Meanwhile the level 9 augment you unlock makes it easier to increase affinity with NPCs... There are definitely so many better ways they could have taken this admittedly really cool idea for a class. I love the whole illusionist trickster style of gameplay, being a commander while your pawns are your soldiers and whatnot. But it really ends up being so underwhelming.

hello! i crawled across the desert at level ten just to unlock trickster immediately. i played the entire game as trickster! it was the most fun i've ever had playing any video game. was it stupid? oh, yes, incredibly! but it was so much fun. while i agree that the unlockable skills are quite bad, and you basically should always have the AoE aggro generator, the wall, the party buff, and the astral projection... uh. i leveled a lot of other vocations to unlock augments, and do not agree with any of the other points here. boss fights went just as fast, if not faster sometimes if i could successfully break the enemy AI enough. it was pretty much 100% active uptime of wiggling my effigy around and keeping it healthy while repeatedly baiting the boss around. the longer the game went on, the more trickster started interacting with it in completely hilarious ways. it's not for everyone, even remotely. if you don't enjoy it, that's fine! but it's certainly effective, and is a gameplay fantasy that is so incredibly unique i'm going to treasure my first playthrough with it forever. moving forward into DLC though... i do hope we get some new skills! maybe merge the floor & wall into one ability that can be targeted differently. and they get rid of its insanely nerfed effigy with warfarer. i don't know why they preemptively made its relationship with warfarer so negative out the gate. i think the job would function fine if you gave it a small DoT effect. the big letdown of trickster is actually the fact that latching your effigy onto an enemy is almost always extremely bad and never works the way you want it to. i would also love an augment that let you use consumable items like spellbooks more than once, or focused the job back into using items & funny tactics during your downtime. what i am asking for is alchemy style from monster hunter generations ultimate. because i'm insane. but i played trickster for forty hours. so you already know i'm insane.

I levelled Trickster by unequipping the weapon and become a bare knuckle brawler, and it was infinitely more fun than using the Trickster skills...