Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Achievement Guide & Road Map (2024)

Notice Boards can be found in Cassardis, The Encampment, and four are found in Gran Soren at the Inn, Alehouse, and two in the Pawn Guild (one upstairs, and one downstairs).

You can hold (I think) six quests from each board at the same time, so whenever you complete one, return to grab another (if you can remember which board your got it from). Most of the quests are simple tasks of killing specific enemies, though some are long and require finding many hidden items. Others are for escorting various NPCs to specific locations. If you have a portcrystal at the requested destination, you can simply accept the quest, teleport there and it will complete immediately.

The board downstairs in the Pawn Guild will have the easiest ones to complete, which are all from the DLC included with this version of the game. You simply need to head to the marked location (when tracking the quest) and pick up a small item.

For this achievement, refer to this page on the wiki. You will want to complete the quests in this exact order, and read up on each one before doing the next. Many quests will auto-fail if you move the main story along too far, so be very careful with doing anything before you know how it will affect the side-quests.

The biggest spot I think that could cause you to mess up this achievement (which I did on my first playthrough on the 360 version) happens during the quest "Come to Court" when exiting the Duke's mansion. You will see a short cutscene where the camera pans over to a lady in the garden. You must immediately go speak with her. If you don't and exit the mansion grounds, a quest that her servant offers later on will not trigger. This is by far the most sensitive quest in the game, while most simply need to be done after one main story quest but before completing another (in other words, follow the order on the wiki).

For this achievement, you do not need to have all 350 pieces on hand at the same time. However, keeping them in your storage at the Inn will help you to not purchase the same thing multiple times. I'd also suggest not worrying about this until after you've done almost every other achievement. You'll get a lot of money and unique equipment from defeating the various bosses and selling their materials, as well as doing Bitterblack Isle. You'll likely only get about 100-150 pieces of gear playing normally (just be sure to loot everything you can find!), so you'll need to empty out some stores for the rest.

With a few million gold on hand, head to any of the game's stores. The best one would be Caxton in Grand Soren (especially if you give him the Gold Idol, which expands his inventory). Purchase one of everything with "0(0)" listed in one section (such as weapons). This means you do not have any in your possession (the first number being items you're holding, and the one in parentheses being your storage), and the item will count toward your 350. Now sell them all back and do the same for the next item (such as helmets). Rinse and repeat until you've possessed every item he sells at least once. If that doesn't get you to 350, head to the next shop you can find.

Other shops to try would be Madeleine and Mountebank (both in Gran Soren), Astella (Cassardis), and Alon (Ancient Quarry). This should be more than enough to hit 350 in total.

Death is an extremely difficult and annoying boss located in Bitterblack Isle. On your first trip, you will see scripted spawns of him in a few locations. Much like the Ur-Dragon, this boss is meant to be fought over multiple encounters. You will likely do very little damage unless you are a super-high level, but there is a way to cheese him quite easily.

For legitimate strategies, see this wiki entry for tips. Otherwise, watch this short video for how to kill him in one shot when he spawns over an abyss. Make sure you always set the difficult to Hard and use Veteran's Periapt or Pilgrim's Charm to double the experience gained (about 1.6 million).

Daimon is the main boss of Bitterblack Isle. You will need to get through the Gazer and Dark Bishop fights and make your way all the way to the end, the Bitterblack Sanctum. He is actually a somewhat easy battle except for one move: his void vortex. This move is forewarned by him flying up in the air and his hands glowing green. When you see him do this, run as far away as possible and use to call your pawns to you. Once he slams his hands to the ground, he creates a vortex that will send anyone caught in it back to the rift, aka kill them - and this includes you. If you're counting on your pawns to help with this fight and they get stuck, just let him kill you and try again.

The easiest way to damage him is with melee attacks, so if you are using any mage pawns, it may be worth switching them out. I noticed my mage even climbing on him and trying to do melee damage during the fight, so even they know they're not that great with his high magic defense. Basically, climb onto his head and hack him to death.

Completing all the other achievements in Dragon's Dogma will likely only bring you to Level 80-90, so you're going to have a hell of a grind to finish this out. However, with the right setup, it's not so bad. First and foremost, make sure you are grinding on Hard difficulty for +100% experience. Also, if possible, grind by yourself, since you get +25% for each pawn you get rid of (throw your main pawn off a bridge and simply release the other two). Finally, always try to have Weal active for another +100% whenever possible, especially when killing a boss. There are numerous ways to get this buff, with the Blessed Flower lasting the longest and being the most profitable. Otherwise pop one of the charms you can buy.

The commonly accepted practice for leveling is farming Daimon in Bitterblack Isle for the remainder of your experience. However, I'll say I could personally never get this to work. Even when I hit Level 130 through other means, I was still doing no damage to his True form. There are multiple tips and strategy sections on his wiki page here, including videos of extremely fast kills though if you want to give this a try. Once you have killed him for the second time to unlock "True Conqueror" the shortcuts remain unlocked, so you can start at the beginning of the third section (after the Dark Bishop fight), then just run past all the enemies straight to Daimon to kill him again.

You could also use The Black Abbey to farm easier enemies. This location respawns a random group of enemies every time you enter/exit, so you can get constant experience. Again, be on Hard with Weal active. The best enemies to fight are the Eleminators or Gorecyclops since they go down fairly quickly with good Pawns. The Living Armors can be good if you can pull one at a time. If the entire group gets activated, they'll tear through you.

So, the method I used? Farming Death. There is a scripted appearance of Death above the abyss in the Fortress of Remembrance, and using a Strider you can fire one or two simple shots of Fivefold Flurry while equipped with Blast Arrows and two Barbed Nails, you'll stun death and she will fall to her death. Assuming you are on Hard difficulty with no pawns and a Weal, you'll be getting about 2.5 million experience each kill for her, and 500k for the Gazer before that. Now, the caveat to this is that you only get this scripted appearance on each new game you start. So, you'll want to take these steps:

1. Start a new game on Hard. If you were already on Hard difficulty, you'll need to switch to Normal first for the option to become available at the Main Menu.
2. Get through the scripted sections of the prologue, then grab all your gear out of storage and complete the Encampment section.
3. Go back to Cassardis, sleep until night, and grab the ferry from the dock to Bitterblack Isle. Grab the Blessed Flower out of storage (or whatever you're using to get Weal).
4. Run past all enemies, get Void Key, kill Pawns, and solo the Gazer. Use a few Conqueror's Periapt to increase your damage, but just climb into its "mouth" and hack at its eye for a quick kill.
5. Once you're done with the Gazer, the next area is the Fortress of Remembrance, so equip your Blast Arrows and once Death appears, knock her into the abyss for a bunch of levels.
6. Repeat steps 1-5.

The first time I did this, I was Level 80 and jumped to 107 just from the Death kill. The second time I was Level 130 (I had tried some other leveling methods first) and went to 145 from the Gazer and Death kills combined. Obviously it will slow down as you level up, since each level will take more to complete, but this run can be done in about 20 minutes easily, especially the more you do it. I recorded myself doing just that, which I've included below.

The Gazer is the first main boss in Bitterblack Isle. This is a gigantic version of the Evil Eye we fought in the Everfall, and its eyeball is located inside of a giant ocular cavity that resembles a mouth this time. However, you can still climb on it, inside the mouth, and right onto that annoying eye to deal out some serious damage. You should fight this battle on the ground floor (rather than any of the ramps) though when he starts to spew out the green poison, head for higher ground.

If you can't seem to do enough damage to the eye on your own, at some point during the fight the Gazer will begin to summon a "light cannon" of sorts to try and use against you. If you destroy the tentacles that are working on the summoning, you can then attack the cannon and it will backfire against the Gazer for massive damage. This is how I killed it the first time before realizing I could climb into its mouth the second time.

Speedrun mode is a one-life, no-save run through of the game. You can pause, but if you close the game or die without a Wakestone in your inventory, you will need to start over. Try to always have a wakestone in your inventory just in case you mess up and get killed. This is automatically set to Normal difficulty in Offline mode, with no Online pawns available. It will use whatever save data you have in your main slot, so this is best done after you've maxed out your character, especially since you can't cheese it with maxed Online pawns from your friends list. Even after just one playthrough though, you should be Level 50-60 and the free Offline pawns at this level can hold their own as well.

Since it will use your save data from your complete game, you should have portcrystals in the important locations, and if you followed my suggestion in the Road Map, you made copies of a few important quest items. I'd also suggest buying the Maker's Finger from Fournier which will one-shot the dragon. You only need to complete the main quest, so skip everything else and follow the quick steps below and you should knock this out in about an hour.

1. Go to the Encampment, use the Rift Stone and get Pawns, kill the Hydra, then escort it to Gran Soren. If you're a mage with a heal spell or you have some Spring Water, you can kick the ox to make it run a short distance, then heal it and repeat to speed this section up.
2. Speak to the Innkeeper and grab your Eternal Ferrystone and Wakestones, go to Pawn Guild, and then jump to the bottom of the Everfall (you'll die, resurrect with Wakestone), interact with the blue cracks in the ground, then Ferrystone back up top.
3. Go to the Noble Quarter to accept the quests "The Cypher" (decipher a text) and "The Watergod's Altar" (aid a research team) and complete them. Since we have portcrystals at both these locations and copies of the altar slates, these will only take a few minutes.
4. Return to Gran Soren to turn both quests in and go see the Duke. Grab "Griffin's Bane" and "Trial and Tribulations" and complete those. You have a portcrystal at Bluemoon if the Griffin gets away, and you can simply sleep four days at the Inn to skip the other quest (make sure you buy the Maker's Finger first because Fournier will die since you ignore him).
5. Return to Gran Soren again to turn the last two quests in and grab "The Wyrmking's Ring" and "Pride Before a Fall" quests. Assuming you made a copy of the ring during your first playthrough like I suggested, that one's done. Teleport to Hillfigure Knoll then run to Windbluff Tower to quickly complete the other.
6. Back to Gran Soren one more time to turn in the above two quests. You'll be sent to the Waycastle which was a fake-out, so teleport back to Gran Soren and fight the co*ckatrice in the field, then head to the Duke and follow him for your reward.
7. The next two quests both take place at the Greatwall. Both times, run past as many enemies as you can, only killing what's necessary. The second time, use the Maker's Finger on the dragon during his monologue to skip that whole battle.
8. Now you'll want to make sure you have the 20 Wakestones that you should have kept from your first playthrough. Turn those in to activate the portal in the Everfall, kill the final boss, then stab yourself to complete the game.

The easiest way to unlock this achievement is by killing the hydra that challenges you via the notice board in the Gran Soren Pawn Guild during the post-game. If the quest isn't there (it's called "A Challenge"), you may need to complete another quest first and then it will be available. Alternatively, you can fight one in Bitterblack Isle's Rotunda of Dread at any time (though the enemies spawn randomly so you may need to reset it multiple times until you get it). As for the archydra, that can be found in the Chamber of Hesitation in the Everfall at any time in the post-game (after beating the dragon).

The best way to kill the hydras is to have large AOE spells from a powerful mage, or have a fighter climb their necks and cut their heads off. They don't have too many dangerous attacks though.

Evil Eyes can only be found in the Everfall (Chamber of Confusion and Chamber of Sorrow) or the Rotunda of Dread on Bitterblack Isle (again, may need to reset it to get the right monster to spawn).

These enemies are much harder than hydras. They are immune to attack unless they themselves are attacking, so when it prepares an eye beam, rush in and take a shot. Once you staggar it, you can get a good deal of damage in. If your mage can use a Holy enchant on your weapons, this helps as well.

For this achievement, you need to defeat at least one of each of these enemies. It doesn't matter which order or which type of the monsters you kill. All three of these enemies are killed in much the same manner as the dragon from the main quest (or see the Ur-Dragon strategy). Basically, find the hearts (glowing weak spots) and hammer them to deal damage. Large AOE attacks and strong fighters climbing on them are your best bets at quick damage.

• A Drake is present in Devilfire Grove all throughout the game. You can try to kill it the first time you see it or wait until later when you're stronger, depending on your pawn situation. Post-game, you can find one in the Estan Plains, one in the Conqueror's Sanctuary, one in the Chamber of fate (Everfall), and one in the Rotunda of Dread (Bitterblack Isle).
• Wyrms can only be found in the post-game. The first and easiest (because it can't fly away) is found at the Watergod's Altar. Others can be found in the Chamber of Distress (Everfall) or the Rotunda of Dread (Bitterblack Isle).
• Wyverns are also only found post-game. The easiest to get to is at the top of Bluemoon Tower. Others are found roaming Estan Plains and Conquest Road, or in the Rotunda of Dread (Bitterblack Isle).

The Ur-Dragon is a more powerful version of the dragon you fight during the main story. You will find it in the Everfall, Chamber of Lament. There are two versions of this boss, an online version and an offline version. The basic strategy will be the same for both: find the glowing spots and attack them. Unlike the story dragon who only has one spot, this dragon has THIRTY of them. They start hidden under his skin, but will start glowing as you do damage to the various parts of his body. Anywhere there is grey skin, a heart is hiding. When a heart is destroyed, the skin turns black. You'll know you're hitting a good spot if purple blood spews out with each hit. Dead spots will have no effect and a metallic sound when you make contact. The two spots on the tips of either wing are the hardest to hit, and will require a ranged character.

Online: This dragon has an insanely high health pool, which is shared with everyone who is playing the game online. You will do almost no damage unless you're in the high 100's for your character level, and it will take many, many attempts before it is killed - unless there are a lot of people coordinating to kill it at the same time as you. I would very much not suggest going for this method to unlock the achievement, despite the rewards being better.

Offline: This dragon will be manageable solo if your character level is in the high 40's or more. If you're lower than that, it may take 3-4 trips to fully kill the dragon, as it runs away after about 10-15 minutes. This dragon will award 20 Wakestones, which is exactly what you need for the final story mission. You can kill it a second time to have an extra 20 available for your speedrun. You can also farm this boss to sell Wakestones at 30k a pop, a large chunk for all the materials it drops, plus the weapon it rewards is worth 500k - usually around 2 million total for each kill.