A Few Tips for Dragon Quest Builders 2

There are several useful things to know in Dragon Quest Builders 2 that the game doesn’t really hint at so you wouldn’t even know to try to look them up. I’ve collected a few that I stumbled on here. I expect there are more.

Apart from the first one, they are mostly for the late-game or post-game so they include some structural/mechanical spoilers. Consider yourself warned.

1. The Echo Flute and Explorer’s Shores
   While you receive the Echo Flute as part of the story, the game doesn’t tell you that using it on the Explorer’s Shores islands will point you to the nearest scavenger hunt item that you haven’t yet checked off. This can be a godsend when you’re searching for that one last lousy item.
2. Farming Mythril and Orichalcum
   These are the rarest minerals and only occur in hard-to-find places on specific Explorer’s Shores (in deep caves on Sunny Sands and in poison pools on Defiled Isle, respectively). You don’t need much of either one, but it can be a pain seeking them out. The fastest strategy I found was to check off every scavenger hunt item except the mineral, then use the Echo Flute to find every piece of it on the island and mine them without checking them off. When the flute stops echoing, you’ve got them all, and you can leave and return to regenerate the island and do it again. Do this a few times and you should be good to go, and can go ahead and complete the scavenger hunt. If you’ve got the Ultimallet, you can pick up one of the nodes instead of breaking it, so that once the flute stops echoing you can just put it back down and check it off before breaking it and leaving.
3. The Mirror and the Dog
   Once you have the mirror item, you can take it back to Furrowfield and use it on the dog for a surprise.
4. Collecting Every Job for the Tablet Target
   The story will get you most of them, but at the end you are likely to still be missing Singer and Elder. They can be found randomly at the Builder’s Best buildings on Defiled Isle and Laguna Perfuma respectively, though you may have to try several times to find them. You can also easily get a Singer by using the mirror on the Furrowfield dog as mentioned above.
5. The Best Sword
   Apparently this is a reference to a glitch in the original Dragon Quest II? I never would have thought to try this. You need to make both a Falcon Blade (recipe unlocked by defeating the super strong Hunter Mech on Rimey Reef) and a Sword of Ruin (recipe unlocked by defeating the super strong Boss Troll on Defiled Isle). Equip the Sword of Ruin (which will get you the Unwary Wearer trophy if you don’t already have it and are playing on PS4) and then go to a dressing table and pick the Falcon Blade as your weapon to display. This will replace the Sword of Ruin with an upgraded Falcon Blade with a really high attack stat and the double attack ability.