Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Guides

What is dragonsplague in Dragon’s Dogma 2 and how is it cured?

Jesse Lennox
By

Dragon’s Dogma 2 likes to keep many of its mechanics and systems a secret until you discover them. You will learn quickly that you can’t fast travel around the map freely, but there’s one mechanic that is far more detrimental to your game. This is called dragonsplague and it is a disease that can’t be cured with a simple tonic. In fact, you may not even realize if you have it in your game because it isn’t something that affects your character at all; instead, it affects your Pawns. Failing to recognize you have dragonsplague and deal with it in a timely manner can ruin your entire playthrough if you’re not careful. To avoid such a catastrophe, here are all the details about this cruel disease.

What is dragonsplague?

A black dragon in Dragon's Dogma 2.
Capcom

Dragonsplague is a special kind of disease that Pawns can contract seemingly by interacting with either Drakes or Dragons. That part isn’t fully clear yet, however, we do know that Pawns with dragonsplague can spread the disease to other Pawns. Since Pawns are able to pass between worlds to join other players, you are never fully safe from being infected if you’re playing online. Unlike a real sickness, though, dragonsplague actually transfers between Pawns rather than spreads, meaning it won’t fully run rampant through the game.

Recommended Videos

A couple of things will happen when a Pawn is infected in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Initially, they will stop obeying your orders, but that’s not the problem. If you either don’t know you have a Pawn with dragonsplague, or don’t know the real danger, then you will be in for a rude awakening after resting at an inn. If you do, you will get a cutscene of your Pawn turning into a monster in the night. Upon waking up, you will find that most, if not all, NPCs in whatever town you had rested in have been killed. Shopkeepers, quest givers, everyone is at risk of being slaughtered. This can have massive ramifications on your game if vital characters are killed and you don’t have the resources to bring them back to life.

Related

How to tell if a Pawn has dragonsplague

A shadowy pawn with red eyes in Dragon's Dogma 2.
Capcom

What are the symptoms of dragonsplague so you can make sure not to rest at an inn and put everyone in danger? There are a few signs:

  • If you get a tutorial message about dragonsplague, your Pawn was just infected with it. The prompt will only appear the first time a Pawn gets the disease, and it won’t tell you which one has it either.
  • Second, a Pawn stops obeying orders. This is harder to detect, but pay attention to if they stop assisting you in battle.
  • Also pay attention to your Pawn’s idle animation. If they are infected, they will grip their head and appear unwell.
  • Finally, check their eyes. A Pawn with dragonsplague will have glowing red eyes.

How to cure dragonsplauge

The tutorial for dragonsplauge in Dragon's Dogma 2
Capcom

If you’ve spotted a Pawn with dragonsplague, there are a few options to deal with it. The first is to just dismiss a Pawn with it at a Rift Stone to get them out of your party.

However, if it is your main Pawn with the curse, your only recourse is to kill them. The easiest way is to pick them up and throw them into any body of water. You can also go into battle and let them get downed, then refuse to revive them until their health fully depletes. So long as they fully die, the disease will be “cured.” Once you recall them from a Rift Stone, they will be free and clear of the disease.

Editors' Recommendations

Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…
How long is Dragon’s Dogma 2?
A sphinx in Dragon's Dogma 2.

Open-world RPGs can be anywhere from around a dozen hours long to well over 100. Dragon's Dogma 2 is very unique, even among others in the genre, for not adhering to a lot of traditional design philosophies, such as how it handles fast travel. If anything, that will only add to your total playtime, plus there are all the optional quests to do, Vocations to try out and level up, and more if you're a completionist. If you're wondering if you have the time to fit Dragon's Dogma 2 into your schedule among all the other games releasing, here's how long you can expect this adventure to last.
How long is Dragon's Dogma 2?

For the main quest, Dragon's Dogma 2 can probably be beaten in around 25 hours, give or take. That's assuming you mainline the story as efficiently as possible and don't get stuck on any boss fights being under-leveled. A more realistic playthrough where you explore a bit, do some side content, and maybe go for the true ending will push you into the 30 to 35-hour range, as it did for us.

Read more
The best vocations in Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon's Dogma 2 key art featuring a knight with a fiery hole in their chest.

Your Vocation defines your role in combat in Dragon's Dogma 2. Everything from your skills to what weapons and armor you can use is tied to this class. You will pick from just a handful at the beginning of the game, but can easily change Vocations later on, as well as unlock more than twice as many new options than what you start with. It can take a while to really get a feel for a Vocation and how it performs in combat, as well as to look through all of its skills and augments, before knowing if it's worth sticking with to level up. Personal preference will play a part to some degree, but these Vocations have the most potential to make you the strongest Arisen in history.
The best vocations in Dragon's Dogma 2

You can pick from 4 Vocations at the start of Dragon's Dogma 2, but will end up with a total of 10 by the end of the game if you unlock them all. New Vocations are unlocked by completing quests, but they are almost unmissable. Four Vocations -- the Magick Archer, Mystic Spearhand, Trickster, and Warfarer -- can only be used by your character and not any Pawns.
Warfarer
There's very little downside to being a jack-of-all-trades in Dragon's Dogma 2, which is exactly what the Warfarer is. This is the only Vocation that can use any weapon in the game AND learn any skill from other Vocations. This is the only Vocation that really lets you build whatever class you want and gives you the ability to adapt to any situation you find yourself in. The main downside to this class is it has the lowest base stats, but that is a small price to pay for how versatile you can be.
Mystic Spearhand
Hybrid Vocations are all quite powerful, but we put the Mystic Spearhand at the top of the heap. This class turns you into a fighter that can take advantage of magic to output crazy damage. The two almost overpowered abilities you get here are the ability to slow enemies for a short time and to create a magical mimic that doubles all your actions. It is great for both crowd control and large single targets, but takes a while to unlock and lacks some range.
Warrior
If you're going to be a straight-up melee fighter, you might as well hit with the biggest weapon you can, right? The Warrior swings swords large enough to make Guts blush and is a full-on tank. You won't be doing anything fancy with this vocation beyond charging up and swinging as hard as possible. The obvious drawback is any flying or ranged enemy will counter you, so bring some Pawns in those classes to cover your bases.
Sorcerer
For those who fancy themselves a pure mage, stick to the Sorcerer over the actual Mage vocation. While the Mage is more focused on healing, it is the Sorcerer who gets the best offensive spells you will want to be casting. If you have a second Sorcerer with you, you can even sync up and decrease your casting time. If not, you will need some tanks to take aggro while you deal with some slightly long casting times and low total health.
Thief
As far as the starting Vocations go, the Thief is the one we find the most fun and viable for the entire game. This is a light and speedy build focused on critical hits and being able to climb and hang on to large beasts. Once on, you have a number of great skills to stagger and knock down an enemy so the rest of your squad to gang up on it. Just don't get hit because you're one of the squishier Vocations.

Read more
Capcom responds to negative reception of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s PC port
A beastren in Dragon's Dogma 2.

Dragon's Dogma 2 launched today, and while it had a warm critical reception, players are having a lot of problems with its PC port in particular. Currently, it has an overwhelmingly negative user score on Steam, with over 13,000 reviews as of the writing. Capcom has addressed common criticism of the game in the hopes of quelling the frustration of PC players.

Players are a bit peeved at the inclusion of microtransactions in all versions of the game, as well as the fact that it uses Denuvo anti-cheat software that's known to impact game performance. I already found the game to be poorly optimized on Xbox Series X/S, but the issues get even worse on PC. For a game that already has demanding minimum required PC specs, performance still isn't good for a lot of players, with frame rate drops, crashes, and freezing happening often. Players have had to find odd ways to improve the frame rate by doing things like murdering NPCs.

Read more