Great Gamble

Great Gamble is a skill available in Dragon's Dogma.

Description[]

"An advanced form of Gamble Draw that exhaust the entirety of the user's Stamina to fire a stronger seeking shot that can be steered for a longer time."

An advanced version of Gamble Draw, with increased damage and 3-4 additional seconds of guided slow motion control.

Usage, Damage, and Tactics[]

Both skills fire a steerable arrow, that uses up all of the ranger's stamina - damage scales directly with the stamina consumed to fire the gamble arrow. Thus shooting Great Gamble with a depleted stamina pool results in reduced damage.

The shot consists of two parts combined :

A basic arrow shot, similar in strength to a Loosed arrow. This arrow may carry enchantments and debilitations.
An additional physical power element, scaling with the amount of stamina consumed. Generally this part consists of the main strength of the shot.

Damage[]

	Gamble Draw	Great Gamble
Power per Stamina spent	4.2 - 3.8 †	6
Steerable Distance	~50m	~75m
† Depends on range. Mid range optimal

Due to the usual larger contribution from the consumption of stamina, a shot from a ranger with full stamina shows little dependence on longbow power, or character strength, and so is not significantly boosted by augments such as clout. If the longbow is enchanted a minor magickal component is also added.

The arrow from Great Gamble is approximately 50% more powerful than that from Gamble Draw, and additionally the arrow loses the range dependence of the lower tier spell. For Gamble Draw the optimal range is mid-distance. For both skills, after around 25m out the shot will tend to 'fluff' and will not cause a critical strike, only minor damage.

Stamina boosting items such as Month-Dried Harspud or Decade-Dried Harspud can be used to temporarily boost stamina, and are most effective in boosting damage. The invigoration Strength Boosted is effective at increasing damage.

Just as with other arrow shots, hitting a weakspot, or other otherwise weakened or vulnerable enemy will multiply damage.

Stamina use[]

This skill will drain all of the Ranger's stamina, therefore maintaining stamina curatives such as Mushroom Potage, Large Mushrooms, Staminal Drench in the Ranger's inventory are essential for repeated rapid use of this deadly skill in battle.

When charging the shot with Liquid Vim in use, Great Gamble's damage reduces to near zero since no stamina is used. (damage similar to a single Loosed arrow is still inflicted)
The Grit augment will slightly shorten the length of vulnerability from exhaustion.
Wearing stamina restoring equipment such as Trophy Bracers, Gauntlets of Shadow or Gauntlets of Oblivion (the latter two with the appropriate stamina-refreshing permanent bonus) will mitigate but not entirely eliminate the exhaustion vulnerability of Great Gamble.
By giving a Great Gamble Ranger pawn Mushroom Potages (+1550 stamina to each party member) the Ranger will refuel the entire party's stamina after a Great Gamble shot.

Pawn use[]

Ranger pawns are fearsomely accurate shooters, unless they are up against an extremely mobile enemy. They will reliably use this skill, with the caveat that they may waste it on minor foes.

In the hands of a high level Ranger pawn, this skill can reduce lesser Dragons's health to 1 health. Keep in mind that for all dragons other than the Ur-Dragon and Cursed Dragon, the Arisen must complete the kill by his or her own hand.

Whenever a pawn is firing Great Gamble at a Dragon, be aware that a Dragon has four critical hit objectives the pawn will randomly target if it does not have 100% Bestiary knowledge of that enemy: destroying both Dragon Horns, disabling the wings, and shooting the heart.

Notes[]

It takes around 7 seconds to charge Great Gamble.
Though fire enchantment does not greatly increase damage, when a fire enchanted arrow is used to strike a creature that has been tarred the large damage increase will also be transferred to the gamble shot.
- It is likely that other elemental effects will also multiply damage - i.e. using a lightning enchanted bow on a drenched foe should double the damage from Great Gamble.
With maximum stamina (~5000), boosted by rings (+500 x2) and dried harspuds (+1000 temporarily) this skill has a potential power of over 40,000.
Using equipment with the "Restores Stamina when you deliver the killing blow to the enemy." Bonus Enhancement will, provided this skill kills the target, completely negate the exhaustion animation.
- If the shot kills a target outside of its maximum effective range, the exhaustion animation is no longer negated.
Not only Great Gamble allows to control arrow for longer but also has better steering.
Both skills are useful for taking aerial screenshots.

Gallery[]

Great Gamble vs Griffin (demonstration)