DDON guide

LAST UPDATED: 6/26/25

This pastebin contains tips to make your Dragon's Dogma Online journey generally more enjoyable, it will contain some general gameplay/progression "spoilers", if you're the kind of player that wants to figure out things/game systems on your own, you might want to avoid reading this, story related stuff will not be mentioned or spoiled anywhere on this guide.

For the most part, these tips should apply to any server, but it's very likely that different servers will have very different progression.

At the bottom of this pastebin you can find the server info to be used in the launcher if you want to try another server, each server needs its own account.




>GENERAL TIPS/GETTING STARTED

- to learn about a few of the game's basic features and unlock several important functions, you'll need to do several tutorial quests in the early game, the Adventure Guide option in the pause menu will inform you of what tutorial quests you should be doing to unlock more game features.

- when you create your Arisen, you'll be limited to a few vocations but as soon as the intro mission is over, you can freely select any vocation (with the exception of High Scepter, that one is unlocked a little later), this also applies to pawns.

- there is an NPC called Ophelia at the WDT central area, she'll give you daily rewards, and restock your revives.

- you can store your Arisen and pawns' appearance on whichever server you're currently playing on, and have them be available on another server, appearance data is stored locally and would be available to use on any server you try.

- you can assign most items in the consumables bag to your hotkeys.

- you'll find portcrystals in many locations as you explore, in towns, but out in the wilds too, remember to activate them to be able to teleport to them later.

- you can teleport to any portcrystal from the "pause" menu, just select "Rift Teleport" from the options, you can do it from any location as long as you aren't in combat.

- you can set up "favorite" port crystals to teleport to them without having to spend RC.

- you can set any of the pause menu options to your hotkeys, so you can set Teleport to any of the hotkeys to instantly open the teleport menu, for example.

- there's an Arisen Room, you can interact with your partner pawn there and make use of a blue storage box for additional storage.

- you can teleport to any of the Temple locations for free.

- by paying 100G at any inn you can fully restore your and your pawns' HP, useful mostly in the early game.

- if you run out of revives and die, you'll be forced to revive somewhere safe and will suffer from the temporary "Weakness" debuff, you can pay 1,000G to cure it at any inn, or just relog.

- you may only change vocations at WDT's relay station and certain other special hubs, but you can change/enhance your skills/augments at any inn.




>PAWNS

- you'll be able to create your first pawn after a few main quests.

- after you get your first pawn after the first few main quests, you can immediately get a second pawn by buying 10 Riftstone shards at a few vendors in the Temple, the chick near the Temple's front gate sells them, take these shards to the White Dragon and choose "Myrmidon's pledge"

- once you get your first pawn and do certain tutorial quest you'll unlock the ability to craft/enhance items.

- at a Riftstone you can set any of your pawns as a "partner" pawn, once you do, you can increase their affinity and receive certain rewards and unlocks.

>Player gets credit once per day for:
	>Delivering 2 Riftstone Shards to the pawn
	>Performing 1 craft with the pawn as the craft master
	>Adventuring with the pawn for 30 minutes.
	>Reset occurs every day at 5:00am local server time.

- you can use the bell in the Arisen Room to customize your pawn(s) behavior in combat, and set special skills that have a chance to trigger in combat.

- you can hire other player's pawns from a Riftstone, you can search an Arisen and look at said Arisen's pawns or go through the list of all pawns on the server.

- at a Riftstone, you can choose specific reactions (emotes) for your pawns to use during certain events.

- if your pawn(s) become lost, you'll have to go to the Pawn Cathedral, enter the dungeon and rescue them.

- you can also recover your pawns from a Riftstone by paying RC.

- if more than one of your pawns are lost, you'll have to do a run per each pawn you need to rescue.

- you can also use your revivals on your pawns at the Pawn Cathedral dungeon's final area to bring them back.

- in the pause menu, there's a "Pawn Order" menu, the commands in these menu are used to give order to your pawn(s), make sure to take a look at these and assign them to the shortcuts, elemental attribute, stamina regen and expose core orders are generally good to have on your shortcuts.




>JOB TRAINING

- You will have to do Job Training (JT) orders to be able to level up skills past LV5 and augs past LV4, you'll need to first find the Job Master for the vocation you're trying to improve further, Renton, the NPC next to Archibald at WDT's Relay Station will guide you.

- Pawns will point out nearby JT targets and these targets will show up as a triangle on the map.

- when you kill a Job Training target when your partner pawn is in the party it counts twice.

- Once you find a Job Master, you do not have to report progress by going to the NPC, you can just open the Job Training Log from the menu.

- high Level JT for the High Scepter and Spirit Lancer might require enemies that show up very late in the game, in Season 3 areas.




>PROGRESSION/ECONOMY TIPS

- there's a small penalty when fighting enemies whose LV is higher than yours, they'll do extra damage to you and you'll do less damage to them, the penalty goes away if your level is equal to the enemy's, the penalty caps at a difference of 5 LVs.

- There's a small bonus for fighting enemies below your LV, you do extra damage to them and take less damage from them, the bonus caps at a difference of 5 LVs.

- the main quest will provide you with decent XP and some decent gear to help you progress smoothly, specially for your first vocation and that of your pawns.

- there will be "gaps" in the recommended LV of the main quests, meaning that you cannot progress to the endgame solely with the main story quests, you'll have to do some side content here and there.

- Job Masters are locked behind main quests or area rank progression.

- JP are somewhat limited at first, you will not be able to get all of vocation's skills and augments just by reaching max level, so choose carefully until you reach the endgame, JP can be freely farmed in the late game by doing Extreme Missions.

- you'll want to craft gear whenever you can in the early game, buying gear can be quite expensive.

- enhancing is (sometimes) a good idea, for the High Scepter vocation, it is essentially mandatory.

- the High Scepter and Spirit Lancer vocations were added late (Season 2 and Season 3 respectively) to the game, and as such to craft their weapons you'll need materials that might be obtained somewhat later compared to other vocations' gear.

- always take a look at quest boards, usually there's at least one per settlement, each settlement's quest boards will be different, they're a good way to get even more XP, RC and gold.

- gear that you won't use anymore can be disassembled for Gold, RC, BO, materials and crests, there's a daily limit to how many items you can disassemble, enhanced gear (at least 1 star) yields more rewards.




>QUEST TIPS

- main quests (red quests) are not repeatable, but you can rewatch any main quest cutscene from your Arisen's Room.

- world quests (blue quests) are repeatable.

- board quests (green quests) are repeatable.

- there are some special green quests (personal quests) which are not repeatable.

- once you're part of a clan, you can take on additional board quests from the clan quest board at the WDT Tavern and, once unlocked, from the Clan Hall, the main purpose of these clan quests it to earn CP to level up your Clan LV but they offer XP, Gold and RC as well.

- main quests have (some) checkpoints that save your progress, so you can quit and continue them later, most other quest types will have their progress reset upon quitting/relogging.

- board hunt quests should probably be always picked up as you'll complete them as you play normally and explore, delivery quests should only really be picked up once you're actually ready to deliver them.

- Delivery quests are some of the better ways to level up quickly, the items you can deliver can be taken from your storage box, so you don't need to have them on your bag to deliver them.




>AREA RANK

- look for Area Masters whenever you reach a new area, they'll often be at safe areas within those zones, usually at inns.

- you need to speak to an Area Master before you're able to receive Area Points. (AP)

- you'll earn AP from World/Blue quests and Board/Green quests.

- you'll unlock areas, dungeons, caution spots and improved support goods as you level up an Area's Rank. (AR)

- sometimes you'll need to do trial quests to be able to level up AR.

- beware of main quests or world quests, they might interfere with trial quests' spawns, complete main/world quests and then come back to an area if the trial enemies do not show up.

- higher AP means better support goods rewards, CURRENT week's AP affect NEXT week's support goods rewards, the rewards reset every Monday.




>BOSS RAGE

When the boss' HP reaches certain thresholds, they'll enter rage mode, overall they become more aggressive and take less damage, and their stamina bar will become visible, attacking the boss will cause their stamina to drop slightly.

You can also see a small icon next to the boss' HP bar that fills up and becomes blue, when it's completely blue, they'll be staggered for brief moment, and their stamina bar will also become blue, you should take this opportunity to climb the enemy and pull on them to deplete their stamina faster, attacks that do large amounts of stamina damage are also helpful here, the Blow Power stat indicates how fast your attacks fill up the blue bar.

Green vocations can expose an enemy's "core" during their rage phase by using healing skills (even core skills will do it), this core will have a certain color, and the color indicates the elemental weakness of the boss, this is how you find out about a boss' elemental weakness besides trial and error.

Striking the exposed core deals more damage and extra stamina damage to the enraged boss, even better if you strike the core with the element the boss is weak to, so it's the ideal way of ending a boss' rage phase and knock them down quickly.

The core is often separate from the more visually obvious weak point of the enemy, for example with a cyclops, its core it's not located on its head/face, and you cannot hit a core if it's not exposed, so you need a green vocation to expose and be able to exploit that weakness.

If you don't have a green pawn/player with you then you'll have to focus on the boss "normal" weak point.

Attacking the weakness cores does affect stamina damage and is boosted by one of two stats, chance attack and exhaust attack. A light blue core means no weakness so having high chance attack will do more stamina damage while the rest of the colored elemental cores are affected by exhaust attack.





>BLOOD ORBS/DRAGON FORCE AUGMENTATION (SEASON 1)

- you can spend BO on Dragon Force Augmentation (Season 1 Blood Orb tree) by talking to the White Dragon at the Audience Chamber.

- BO can be earned from enemies with purple HP bars, EXMs will also give you BO upon completion.

- you can get permanent, vocation-independent stats increases, additional augment capacity, additional jewelry slots and some very situational augments through Dragon Force Augmentation.

- you unlock the higher Dragon Force Augmentation tiers by doing main story quests.

- you do not have to fully complete a Dragon Force Augmentation tier to be able to use the next one.

- the 3rd tier of the Arisen's tree unlocks your third pawn when fully completed.

- make sure to activate the orbs in the middle of each tier, the final orb of each tier usually unlocks something significant and it requires you to fully complete a tier.

- Your pawns have their own trees which you might want to upgrade as well.





>SKILL AUGMENTATION (SEASON 2)

- you spend BO on this tree to further enhance your Arisen and Pawns.

- starting with this Season 2 BO feature, there's 1 tree per vocation, however each tree has both vocation specific AND vocation independent attribute boosts.

- you unlock the higher Skill Augmentation tiers by doing trial quests which you receive from each Job Master, there's 4 trials in total per vocation.

- everything you unlock on these trees applies to your pawns as well.

- On this tree you'll also unlock extra skills and augments.





>HIGH ORBS/SPECIAL SKILL AUGMENTATION (SEASON 3)

- you spend BO and High Orbs (HO) on this tree to further enhance your Arisen and Pawns.

- Just like Season's 2 Skill Augmentation tree, there's 1 tree per vocation and each tree also has both vocation specific AND vocation independent attribute boosts.

- you unlock the higher Special Skill Augmentation tiers by completing trials within Epitaph Dungeons on Acre Selund.

- also like Season's 2 tree, everything you unlock on these trees applies to your pawns as well.

- On this tree you'll unlock Special Skills. (EX Skills)





>PLAY POINTS/EMBLEM STONES

- When you reach LV70 with a vocation you can switch that vocation to "PP-mode", you'll stop gaining XP from kills and will receive Play Points (PP) instead, usually only LV70+ enemies will drop PP, it is up to you when you want to switch to PP mode, it might be a good idea to only switch once you've reached max LV.

- You can spend PP at Renton, the NPC next to Archibald at the Relay Station, there's some useful items in there, such as Unappraised Dragon Trinkets (Jewelry with Augs for your current vocation) and special custom dungeon tickets.

- Once your current Vocation hits LV70, you'll be able to accept a Personal Quest from the White Dragon. "Seeking the Vocation Stone" (You will also need to have completed ‘Road to Mastery’)

- Completing "Seeking the Vocation Stone", unlocks a quest for each of your vocations to get access to their Emblem Stone, once you've done this quest, you need to receive your Emblem Stone as a quest reward.

- Emblem Stone is equipped as jewelry and you can upgrade it at Renton with a new dialogue option, you'll need to spend PP to enhance your Emblem Stone.

- Emblem Stones are the most important Jewelry you can get for your Arisen.

- Emblem Stones have slots and you can place any kind of Jewelry's crest effect in these slots, base attributes from jewelry do not transfer over to the Emblem Stones, only the "crest" effect.

- You'll have the maximun number of slots when you've leveled up your Emblem Stone to LV16.

- Depending on your vocation, you'll want either very good BBM Earrings, Bracelets or Dragon Trinkets I or II, it's up to you in the end what kind of crests you want to slot in your Emblem Stone.

- You can destroy a crest you've socketed into any of the Emblem Stone's slots.

- There is a chance of success when transfering over effecs to your Emblem Stone, in the case of failure the original jewelry will be lost unless you use Golden Gemstones.

- The more Emblem Stone's slots you've used the harder it is for the transfer to be successful.

- You can increase the odds of a successful transfer if you spend White Dragon Defense Rocks.

- Emblem Stones have base attributes that can be enhanced as you level it up. You can pay 1k PP to respec these points.





>ENDGAME GENERAL STUFF

- At LV80+, some EXMs become a pretty good source of XP, BO and JP, some of the materials might also be useful, if part of a clan you can deliver many material rewards from EXMs at the Tavern/Clan boards to gain CP and level up your clan.

- You can use the limit break feature at the Crafting room to enhance gear that's grade 4 (4 stars), you pay RC to roll for helpful effects on armor, clothing, overwear and weapons. On armor, clothing and overwear, the effects go from 3 to 30, for weapons, the effects go from 5 to 100.

- You can use Custom-made tickets and Golden Gemstones when limit breaking to roll an effect with very high numbers, usually max or close to a max roll, Custom-made tickets and Golden Gemstones are not easily obtainable.

- Disassembling IR90+ gear that's at least grade 1 (1 Star) often yields very powerful crests for your weapons.






>MISCELLANEOUS TIPS

- you can use the mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in/out to switch between a "normal" and "cinematic" camera, on a controller, you have to double click in the right  stick.

- there's an auto run feature, by default it's the (V) key, once activated, you can switch between jogging/sprinting with the use (E) key, on a controller, you'd use LT + clicking in the left stick to trigger auto-run, and the B button to switch between sprinting and jogging.

- you can freely change your Arisen's and pawns' appearance at any time by visiting the Beauty Saloon, it is free despite asking for "Golden Gemstones" or "Silver Tickets", you can change everything except for your Arisen's name.

- to light your lantern, you need to use/consume one "kindling" item, you can turn it off by un-equipping your lantern, you can also wait for it to run out of fuel or become "Drenched"

- storage boxes are the most convenient way to change your and your pawn's equipment, but you may also do it from "pause" menu anywhere, as long as you have the gear you want to change on your inventory.

- (normal/red) storage boxes can be used at any inn.

- it's a good idea to store materials and unnecessary curatives whenever you get the chance to keep your bag free.




>SERVER DIFFERENCES

- No server is truly accurate to the original game's experience.

- DDON.org is the oldest server while Legacy is the newest server.

- DDON.org has the largest amount of players of all current private servers.

- DDON.org is considered to be the grindiest server, it's got more grind that even the original game, every currency is considerably harder to get on DDON.org compared to the other servers.

- Dogma Rising and Legacy have more custom/QoL features available to them.




>SERVER INFO/DESCRIPTIONS



DDON.org:

"DDON server that keeps its progress. Custom shops, QOL custom features, more than 300+ players online per day, latest updates, new balancing fixes and updates every Friday, progression server currently means max level is 85, Season 2 is currently active. enjoy Lestania and S2 maps with more than 850+ active players per week! join us and let's play together!"

https://discord.gg/B5fxjnUGUg

Server IP: ddon.org				Server Port: 52100
    DL IP: ddon.org					DL Port: 52099




Dogma Rising:

"Dogma Rising is a DDON server that currently puts polish and progression as its highest priority! This means that we are constantly working on enemy spawns in the world and in dungeons, treasure chests and loot."
"We also have more easily obtained gold from bosses and formidable enemies to more easily equip yourself and your pawns!"

https://discord.gg/BQeJqmsa6x

Server IP: dogmarising.org		Server Port: 52100
    DL IP: dogmarising.org			DL Port: 52099




Legacy:

"The first NA server for Dragon's Dogma Online."
"Weekly updates, custom tiered cosmetic shops, bosses drop premium currency, starter armor set, QoL enhancements, increased enemy spawns and zero High Scepters."

https://legacyddon.com/

Server IP: 	legacyddon.com      Server Port: 52100
	DL IP: 	legacyddon.com			DL Port: 52099