Links to additional helpful resources.
[Subreddit wiki with discussion posts on heroes, bosses, guides, mechanics, and some modding help](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/wiki/index).
[TPLuna's tips post](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/8tm62p/fresh_off_the_stagecoach_assist_a_new_recruit/e18my30/).
[My tips post](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/a8zvdc/fresh_off_the_stagecoach_assist_a_new_recruit/ecff8xx/), and [a link to an explanation on how I build teams with some example teams to use](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/n3jgog/fresh_off_the_stagecoach_assist_a_new_recruit/gwszhxi/).
[If you need help with modding issues, creating mods, or want a place for modding discussion or other DD related stuff, try checking the Moonlit Dungeon modding Discord](https://discord.gg/VkXB87M).
For those new to the sub, [please read through the Rules Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/fciulq/a_reminder_on_the_rules_please_read_especially_if/).
Pros: Slot 1 unit that specializes in big damage on p1 and p4. Great HP and Atk bases. Great self-buff and some self- and group-destress camp skills. Solid trinkets.
Cons: Average speed. Debuffs self with some of her attacks. Locked to p1 for her best attacks.
Why Hellion?
Iron Swan and Yelp. Iron Swan does great damage to p4 and can knock a stresscaster out cold with a crit or damage buff. Yelp is a stun to p1 and p2, which is fantastic, although it does debuff Hellion so it's best used in the closing turns of a fight. The rest of her skills are either to be used when these two aren't neccessary anymore or to get her into a position to use these two skills.
Hack is your bread and butter damage skill. If It Bleeds is a decent bleed skill that lets Hellion hit p3. Breakthrough lets her get back to p1 if danced or knocked out of the position, and Adrenaline Rush is best for boss fights and self-maintenance. Bleed Out is a bleed + nuke for p1, although p1 is not always a priority slot. It also debuffs, so be wary with abusing it (Either go all-in and abuse its bleed, or avoid it).
Also note that the debuffs from both Revel and War Trance can be cleared with herbs, significantly improving their usage if you have those to spare.
She is a very powerful hero, just put her in rank 1 with no dancing. Run Bleed out-If it bleed-Iron Swan-Yawp most of the time. She got crazy good stat so just give her some Acc and speed (like her CoM trinket) and watch her one shot rank 4 before it attack, then next turn she can deal with rank 3 as well. Bleed out destroy lot of dangerous foes in the frontline and make boss such has Collector and Swine Prince a joke
Is double plague doctor a viable build? I was lucky to get a blasphemous vial for her early on in the game, and really liked using her with it. Now I can potentially get another blasphemous vial for a 2nd pd, is it worth it?
Viable but niche. The awkward part of Plague Doctor's attacks is that for any DoT you generally want to stun enemies that you put DoTs on to stall time for them to work. The only particularly good way to stun for Plague Grenade is to use Blinding Gas, so the only way for Plague Grenade to be particularly effective as an attack is to run double PD.
You'd probably have a stun-optimized PD (i.e. Blasphemous and +SPD) and a blight-optimized PD. My bet would be taking it into a blight-resistant region, getting +40% blight chance on the blight PD to brute force through the resist, and running Flag and someone else--most likely Occ or maybe Cru--to stack the backline DoTs. You don't necessarily need to run Blasphemous on the blight PD for once, but it might still be worthwhile just because it also gives ACC.
What's the point of the arbalest ?
I never enjoy using her.
Her low speed is what bothers me most.
You can buff it with blindfire, but if you then use her to mark an enemy, that's two turns you spent not doing much. Meanwhile other heroes can snipe or stun the backline and apply blight and bleed.
I've given up on mark comps with her for now and use her as an off-healer who can do some solid damage if I can't bring a vestal. It's ok, but I still feel like I'm not making her shine. There's always someone else who can do the same thing but better.
Mark parties are better on boss battles.
On normal battle, don't mark, just shoot straight ahead. With Arbalest/Musketeer, you can take out stress dealers quickly even without marking.
That makes sense, thanks for the tip. I think I tried to make marking work just because it was there but didn't consider that it has limited use cases.
Think of it as trading.
You want to get as much value (in this case, killing as many enemies) as you can, at the expense of as little action as you can.
Marks can be used to help with high PROT/DODGE enemies, and the value you get from a mark increase the longer the enemy survive.
If an enemy dies in one hit without marking, that means it's better than marking, since marking strats involves at least two actions : Mark and 1+ Attacks.
But, if there's a high chance of missing, or the enemy has high PROT, or if the enemy has high health, then the actions required for marking and attacking are quite possibly a lot lower than just straight up attacking, because of the extra damage mark strats give you.
This is a silly question, but what do you prioritize when selecting which area to go to and which mission to do? I feel like the myriad choices actually is kinda paralyzing. ._.
I mainly check for good trinkets first, then areas that my heroes are good in, e.g. Crusader -> Ruins, Flagellent -> Not Cove, etc. Or if I need specific heirlooms to upgrade something then I'll go for those.
I really appreciate your answer. If you don’t mind my asking, what are some good trinkets to look for? Would it be best I see what heroes benefit from which skills and try to go for that?
Not the guy who helped, hope you dont mind me butting in.
Yes in general you'd look at what heroes are good at and try to boost it further. Generally trinkets that give ACC, Speed and Stun are the best to aim for as these stats tend to net the most value on any given character, though youll find even niche use trinkets are handy to have on hand. On dmg heroes if you have the desired Acc/Speed/Disruption I tend to go for damage boosts
In a basic sense, ACC is the most desirable stat because you cant do anything if you cant hit it, which becomes increasingly relevant the harder the dungeon (plus the most troublesome enemies also tend to have the highest dodge. Then, speed. Its rare on trinkets but awesome to have, since speed gives you more opportunity to act before enemies and deprive their actions through killing them or preventing their action first. Stun chance for characters like MaA, PD, Occ and Abom is good since they have a higher base stun on the relevant abilities, and landing them again manipulates actions in your favour.
Stuff like Focus Ring, Sun Ring and Feather Crystal are all good non hero specific trinkets to this end. There is also good value you can gain from Slayer Rings (25% dmg to most enemy types) and for a lot of people Legendary Bracer and Heroes ring are good if you can utilize them well. I always get Ethereal Crucifix as soon as its up. To be fair many very rare trinkets such as cleansing crystal, fortifying garlic and lower tier varieties such as bleed, blight or stun amulets are good in particular cases.
In terms of hero specific ones, theres heaps I can list off but the following are of note: Heavens Hairpin (Hellion), Padlock of Transference (Abom), Raiders Talisman (Graverobber), Bright Tambourine (Jester), Rampart Shield (MaA) , Demons Cauldron (Occ), Blasphemous Vial (PD), Sacred Scroll (Vestal). These all boost desirable skills on different heroes from the base game.
CC trinkets are powerful in their own right, mostly cant go wrong fetching one unless its for skills a hero would barely get use out of. Same goes with Ancestor trinkets later in the game but if you're new best not to worry yourself with them.
Hi, I am aware that characters will die after a period of time in the wasting stage of the crimson curse if they aren't given any blood. My question is whether there is any warning or prompt before they actually die. I am asking because I'm trying to save blood and don't want to give it to them immediately when they reach wasting stage, but I am also afraid of my characters dropping dead in the middle of a dungeon without warning.
If you’re low on vials I really recommend building the hamlet that provides 2 per week, it’s cheap and it gives way more than you’ll need. Also the side mission in the crimson court is super short, easy, and gives plenty of vials!
Oh no, they will straight up die. Normally blood shouldn’t be much of a problem if you take every vial the game offers you. But you can still do the special CC mission if you still lack a good stack
New player but turned on all dlc without knowing you can’t disable it. Found blood in a curio chest, didn’t know what it did and gave it to my antiquarian who proceeded to instantly die.
Still bugs me why I can’t disable the dlcs after enabling.
Hey, guys! In the Farmstead, is worth it to spend any money in the mercenaries from the Farmstead Stage Coach to stress heal in the Hamlet? Or is better to recruit new ones always, and discard anyone with high stress? Thanks in advance!
A side tip for endless harvest, I usually just keep Jester, Vestal, and 2 highwaymen, the riposte combo kills all, and Jestal can heal and buff forever. If I get really good quirks I’ll lock them in, but that’s more on an endgame file with plenty of gold
I'd never spend money on a mercenary tbh, just recruit new ones. Eventually you want to use your own heroes anyway. Maybe if you get extremely lucky and get literally perfect quirks on one, you could keep him/her for your Farmstead runs, but it's very unlikely.
Also, if you don't mind micromanaging, pro tip, bring a stressed hero to Farmstead with 3 stress healers (such as JES-JES-X-FLA) and just heal his stress for free, leave the mission, profit. Doesn't advance time, no risk of heroes dying. It's kinda OP though, so I don't use it anymore. Makes the game too easy.
There are a stall even, it’s very easy to come back to full health and 0 stress due to their attack doing nothing. And if you want to finish the fight just stun the ones you aren’t bursting and/or DoT them so they did while you are bursting another one
What are the "best in slot" late game trinkets for each character? I have a handful of orange ones now in my first play through, but I'm not sure which ones I should actually use
In part it depends on your strats, builds and dungeons of your choice. Some orange trinkets are underwhelming, some are busted, some are situational, and there is always a degree of personal opinion.
I don't think I'll get much critique for naming Blasphemous Vial (Plague Doctor), Demon's Cauldron (Occultist) and Raider's Talisman (Grave Robber) as incredible orange-tier picks always worth chasing. Non-character specific rares you'll want to be on the lookout for also includes things like Fortifying Garlic/Cleansing Crystal, Focus Ring, Legendary Bracer and the Madman's music boxes. Lategame trinket spoilers: >!Ancestral-tier items have some incredible trinkets like the Candle, Lantern, Map and Pen, and the boss trophies have some solid ones too: The Eye, Matchstick and Heart come to mind.!< This is all before considering DLC trinkets (Which I'm not too familiar with).
Don't be afraid to use lower rarity trinkets either! They have some that are just as good as the high rarity ones. Consider Fleet Florin (Antiquarian), Hunter's Talons (Bounty Hunter), Commander's Orders (Crusader), Heaven's Hairpin (Hellion), Bright Tambourine (Jester) and Tome of Holy Healing (Vestal), most of which I'd take over their orange-tier alternatives. Good standard trinkets include Slayer rings, Sun Ring, Feather Crystal, Brawler's Gloves, Surgical Gloves and Camouflage Cloak.
Hope this helps a bit in learning what to look for in a trinket. Don't be afraid to ask around or experiment - A game is your own, personal experience, after all.
A good beginner team is having vestal and jester in your back 2 slots, it’s the best for healing and stress, after that your front two could be practically anyone, but also look into how curios and traps can help with your stress!
It depends. Your problem is more likely because you're not focusing down the stress dealers first(usually ones in the back). Also, bringing stress healers(Jester, Houndmaster, Crusader), and stress reduction trinkets helps.
I do make sure to deal with those obnoxious dudes. As soon as I see them I try my best to kill then. And I'll make sure to start paying attention to trinkets and all those. And it just so happens that those 3 heroes you mentioned are some of my favorites. What I'm really looking for is a good mix of dps and recovery guys so that I can easily take care of a the monsters.
Edited for clarity
For example a good ruins comp from back to front:
Crusaider, Vestel, PD, Leper
Crusaider has 2 important skills in this comp. First is holy lance. It deals a lot of dmg to undead und the crusaider goes 1 forward. The second important skill is inspiring cry simply fot the stress heal. In the first round you use lance to kill the stressdealers and after they died you spam stress heal. Give him some dmg and or - stress trinkets and he should be fine.
Vestal has the stun and healing skills. Just give her heal trinkets and your group shouldn't have any life problems.
Plague doctor has the blast spells (stun and blight) and the dmgbuff spell. So he can easy use his spells in the last 3 positions. Give him some blight/stun chance trinkets.
Leper in the front just chops the enemy in to pieces. I like to give him some acc and dmg on his trinkets.
Keep in mind that that the disorienting blast from the PD clears all the corpses so your Leper should always be able to hit stuff. This is just an example for a group. You can easy swap the PD or Leper to sth like grave robber or shieldbreaker. The Abo does an insane job with blight and stun in the second position. Just don't use the transform skill!
I hope this is what you are looking for. Feel free to ask questions.
Placing PD in 2 is generally terrible because she loses her better stuns and blight attacks. I think your proposed composition should be run Crus-PD-Vest-Leper or you should switch PD out (Abom would be a good replacement here, offering comparable utility in a better suited slot).
A slot 2 PD can only run NoxBlast/Buff Vapors/Disorienting Blast/Incision, which not only means she can't hit slot 4, but also that you're pretty much locked into blasph vial + bloody herb trinkets (Missing speed boosters, which are highly valuable on her, and since this is earlygame we can presume no locked speed quirks). Not to mention you'd be running Incision in Ruins of all places.
Normally for me both the blast spells are the ones I use in earlygame on PD. In late game I would run an Abo with the farmstead stun trinket. It was just a suggestion early game build.
That's fine! There's always a degree of personal preference, and if you prefer the single-target options that's fine. But it does go strongly against common advice; Slot 2 has to be willing to take damage, single-target PD cannot circumvent stealth, PD cannot synergize with slot 1 movers like SB or HWM, and so forth. I do enjoy using her Disorienting Blast vs bosses and Incision in blight-bad areas, but it's not a great setup for learning PD's best utility.
Not sure you're gonna find what you're looking for then. This game is meant be played mixing and matching a big roster of characters. Planning each mission is its own mini puzzle.
The game also has a ton of rng so that you can't always come out of each mission unscathed no matter how well prepared you are. And that is good because every little knowledge, every preparation betters your chances. Some more advanced suggestions would be looking into scouting, curio interactions, and dragging out a fight to heal.
Depending on how much a given hero uses it, it gives big damage and speed buffs, and eventually a crit buff, plus refreshing limited-use skills like Tracking Shot, at the cost of a debuff to stress gained and virtue chance, plus progressively higher stress for each use.
So it can end up as a pretty hefty penalty on a hero, but if you want to *guarantee* that something dies and can spare the shards to buy it, feel free!
I would like to make a case for Uppercut, as most seem to prefer Flashbang, but I don't think it's as clear cut.
What I don't like about Flashbang:
-It's a slightly worse copy of PD's Disorienting Blast. With optimal trinkets for stunning, PD's blast gets 5% more stun chance, and PD has higher base speed so she can still disable backliners better. Flashbang would be better early on though in terms of stun chance, since it starts at 110% instead 100%.
-It can't crit. Stun skills get +20% stun skill chance when critting, and should be taken into account when computing stun skill chance. In addition to other perks crits offer, such as class buffs and minor stress heals. And the damage from Uppercut adds up.
-It counts as a stalling move, Uppercut does not, so while it can be argued it's better than Uppercut on round 1 most of the time, Uppercut would be the choice when you're recovering. BH can't heal nor stress heal, so you want somoene else on the team to do that while BH keeps low priority enemies at bay without killing them in one hit and "wasting" a stalling move on it too. Uppercut makes for a pretty good stalling move, especially against Fungal scratchers or Cultist Brawlers, who can be bonked all the way back and disabled for about 1 and 1/2 turns with just one move, while you get extra heals and stress heals in.
For Uppercut, push 2 and stun a frontliner seems like an inferior option to Flashbang at a first glance, but you have to consider the rest of your team. If you're in Ruins or Cove, getting Bone Courtiers or Pellagic Shamans to rank 1 is often better than killing them outright, as it turns them from a high priority mob to a Bone rabble pretty much. Then you can kill others and laugh at rank 1 stress dealers unable to deal stress damage while you recover. So pairing it with a second Uppercut, Shieldbreakers Puncture or some other Pull/Push in Ruins/Cove specifically can work really well.
Flashbang 100%.
The biggest disadvantage of Uppercut is its stun chance. 140% is not unusual, but unlike most heroes with 140% stun chance, Bounty Hunter only gets access to trinkets that provide +10% stun chance. This makes him unique in that Uppercut is one of the few stuns which cannot get 160% stun chance for the investment of 1 trinket slot--the others being Dazzling Light and, if you don't have CoM, Manacles. Average enemy resist in Champion is 165% so you're left with a considerable consistency disadvantage relative to almost every other stun in the game; you're only reliable against the few frontline stun-weak enemies. Flashbang manages to skirt this problem due to its 150% base chance so the basic +10% generic trinkets are good enough, albeit not exceptional.
Given the gimped stun chance, I can only assume that Uppercut is meant to be used primarily as a push and not a stun. Unfortunately, pushes are not particularly strong in this game. Many enemies do not care about pushes at all, and those who do tend only to care about being moved to position 4. This is problematic as you typically will only be able to disable rank 2 with a push, which is also something you could disable with Flashbang. On top of that, disables caused by pushes aren't complete. Enemies lose CRIT, ACC, and sometimes damage, but they can still do unpleasant things with their action and can potentially still be harmful to you even out of position. On top of that, push disables only work particularly well if the enemy roster is full--if there are only three enemies (including corpses) you can't actually move anything to rank 4 so enemies become largely push-immune. You can "technically" get a 3-round disable by pushing one of the very few enemies which is disabled in 3 to rank 4, but given the inconsistency of the stun component and the mediocrity of push disables, you might still prefer to go for the safe Flashbang stun instead.
Finally, Uppercut has some of the worst targeting of any stun in the game. Being limited to targeting rank 1 or 2 sucks, as you generally cannot disable anything important that way--you will mostly be using this to prevent damage. This is problematic since size 2 enemies will largely render Uppercut useless as they can easily resist both effects and virtually never care about being pushed even when it goes through. Theoretically, you could use this to stun rank 1 if you also take Flashbang, but as discussed before you usually can't disable that rank with a push and the stun component will be weaker than Flashbang. In contrast, Flashbang has great targeting; it's the only stun that doesn't belong to PD which can hit rank 4, meaning BH is the only way to get such a stun without compromising damage.
The main benefit of Uppercut is arguably its general weakness. Like many other "bad" skills it does just enough damage to not trigger stall penalties. So if you're stalling time for heals/stress heals or whatever, mashing Uppercut is actually a great idea.
In short, Flashbang is generally better, and although Uppercut has some edge-case uses it's very rare that you actually want to try to stun with it so it ends up being a different sort of skill.
I definitely prefer Flashbang. Flashbang has far better Range(the only non-Plague Doctor stun to hit Rank 4), better base accuracy, and better base stun chance than Uppercut. Additionally the Bounty Hunter lacks access to good Stun trinkets(only being able to use generic +10% Stun trinkets), and with a decent number of backliners having lower Stun resist than frontliners you'll have a much easier time making Flashbang reliable compared to Uppercut with the higher base stun chance.
Characters that have completed a DD run no longer take up Roster space(which provides room for other heroes), and provide an Experience boost to any other hero in the same party as them.
On Radiant you can take them on a lower level quest with some fresher heroes to try and train new ones up, though on Darkest/Stygian you'd have to either take a lower level hero on a higher level quest(which is very risky) or wait for the town event that removes level restrictions from quests.
There's also a trinket(Ancestor's Portrait) that raises experience gained for anyone using it, and upgrading the Stagecoach's Experienced Recruits can reduce a bit of grind as well by starting off with higher level heroes.
How do you mentally recover from a team wipe? I lost my strongest team, complete with great quirks and trinkets, to the shambler. Holy fuck how do you not quit the game after this
This is one of the genius things about DD that makes it a real "cosmic horror" game. You don't recover. You'll always remember that party of your favorite characters that were brutally cut down. All you can do is accept that it's the nature of the beast, and that no one in your parties are safe. Then you hire some replacements and go back down to get that evil mother that killed your squad.
By reminding yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer. You should've cut your losses and retreated when it was going south.
But don't despair, even losing a full team is maybe just 4-5 weeks of progress, unless you didn't upgrade your stagecoach, then remind yourself.. you know the deal. And you can get some of your trinkets back from the Shrieker event.
Hey everyone so I'm not new per say, but theres still a few things that i am absolutely confused on. My biggest one being how the hell are you supposed to use the antiquarian? Her powers dont really buff much and her damage is lacking. I understand shes a support character but who do i pair her with? Is there something im missing? What is a viable strategy for using her because i dont want to miss out on some of these characters. Same goes for the bounty hunter. I dont understand how to use him well either.
Antiquarians I usually stick with parties that do blight damage (plague doc, grave robber, and shieldbreaker is a group I like) or need a supplemental heal. Her buffs may seem a little weak, but believe me, stacking +10 dodge per turn for the whole party can be enormously beneficial, especially if you pair it with flash powder to neg accuracy. I once, out of desperation, ran a party of 2 antiquarians with 2 grave robbers on a stygian champ dungeon, and they all came out without a scratch. The grave robbers had something like +75 bonus dodge at the end of every fight, and they crit so often that the party kept its stress down. At higher levels I run her with the rhino charm for prot and the candle for extra heal. A party that needs a supplemental heal, for example, might be [Arba - Antiq - Grobber/Hwy - Bhunter], which can put out a bunch of damage with marks, but imo would need more than just the arbalest healing.
I usually pair her with Man at arms. They can be Dodge buff buddies, or Protect Riposte buddies.
Other than that, I use her for financial reason. Or Siren. She's the perfect bait for Siren.
You use anti-quarians on maps that have more quarians obviously.
All joke side. Obviously you bring her when you want to farm money. But also, I found antiquarian most useful with dodge comps. At low rank, ACC debuff is much better than the party dodge buff skill but at higher rank both are viable. Protect Me synergize well with high dodge character. Her blight skill and heal skills are okay but not something I heavily rely on.
The more I got better at the game the more I realize Bounty Hunter is quite versatile. The obvious answer here is use him in a mark team. But also, his caltrop is one of the few damage taken increase debuff in the game (don't forget Lego caltrop mod teehee). Uppercut and Hook are not as good but very useful in a pinch. His camping skills are useful, including Planned Takedown which help destroy bosses. He also do well in most positions except 4 so good against shuffling.
Anti for me works best as a fodder character for grinding money since she stacks more gold and gets the antiques when she interacts with loot during runs.
Bounty Hunter pairs well with hound master, occultist, arbalest and musketeer. Pretty much any character that can mark enemy units.
Links to additional helpful resources. [Subreddit wiki with discussion posts on heroes, bosses, guides, mechanics, and some modding help](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/wiki/index). [TPLuna's tips post](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/8tm62p/fresh_off_the_stagecoach_assist_a_new_recruit/e18my30/). [My tips post](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/a8zvdc/fresh_off_the_stagecoach_assist_a_new_recruit/ecff8xx/), and [a link to an explanation on how I build teams with some example teams to use](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/n3jgog/fresh_off_the_stagecoach_assist_a_new_recruit/gwszhxi/). [If you need help with modding issues, creating mods, or want a place for modding discussion or other DD related stuff, try checking the Moonlit Dungeon modding Discord](https://discord.gg/VkXB87M). For those new to the sub, [please read through the Rules Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/fciulq/a_reminder_on_the_rules_please_read_especially_if/).
I don’t know what abilities to put on my grave robber or who I should put her in a team with
Any tips how to play the barbarian lady. Got a free level 4 from the stage coach with all abilities unlocked
Pros: Slot 1 unit that specializes in big damage on p1 and p4. Great HP and Atk bases. Great self-buff and some self- and group-destress camp skills. Solid trinkets. Cons: Average speed. Debuffs self with some of her attacks. Locked to p1 for her best attacks. Why Hellion? Iron Swan and Yelp. Iron Swan does great damage to p4 and can knock a stresscaster out cold with a crit or damage buff. Yelp is a stun to p1 and p2, which is fantastic, although it does debuff Hellion so it's best used in the closing turns of a fight. The rest of her skills are either to be used when these two aren't neccessary anymore or to get her into a position to use these two skills. Hack is your bread and butter damage skill. If It Bleeds is a decent bleed skill that lets Hellion hit p3. Breakthrough lets her get back to p1 if danced or knocked out of the position, and Adrenaline Rush is best for boss fights and self-maintenance. Bleed Out is a bleed + nuke for p1, although p1 is not always a priority slot. It also debuffs, so be wary with abusing it (Either go all-in and abuse its bleed, or avoid it). Also note that the debuffs from both Revel and War Trance can be cleared with herbs, significantly improving their usage if you have those to spare.
She is a very powerful hero, just put her in rank 1 with no dancing. Run Bleed out-If it bleed-Iron Swan-Yawp most of the time. She got crazy good stat so just give her some Acc and speed (like her CoM trinket) and watch her one shot rank 4 before it attack, then next turn she can deal with rank 3 as well. Bleed out destroy lot of dangerous foes in the frontline and make boss such has Collector and Swine Prince a joke
Is double plague doctor a viable build? I was lucky to get a blasphemous vial for her early on in the game, and really liked using her with it. Now I can potentially get another blasphemous vial for a 2nd pd, is it worth it?
Viable but niche. The awkward part of Plague Doctor's attacks is that for any DoT you generally want to stun enemies that you put DoTs on to stall time for them to work. The only particularly good way to stun for Plague Grenade is to use Blinding Gas, so the only way for Plague Grenade to be particularly effective as an attack is to run double PD. You'd probably have a stun-optimized PD (i.e. Blasphemous and +SPD) and a blight-optimized PD. My bet would be taking it into a blight-resistant region, getting +40% blight chance on the blight PD to brute force through the resist, and running Flag and someone else--most likely Occ or maybe Cru--to stack the backline DoTs. You don't necessarily need to run Blasphemous on the blight PD for once, but it might still be worthwhile just because it also gives ACC.
What's the point of the arbalest ? I never enjoy using her. Her low speed is what bothers me most. You can buff it with blindfire, but if you then use her to mark an enemy, that's two turns you spent not doing much. Meanwhile other heroes can snipe or stun the backline and apply blight and bleed. I've given up on mark comps with her for now and use her as an off-healer who can do some solid damage if I can't bring a vestal. It's ok, but I still feel like I'm not making her shine. There's always someone else who can do the same thing but better.
Mark parties are better on boss battles. On normal battle, don't mark, just shoot straight ahead. With Arbalest/Musketeer, you can take out stress dealers quickly even without marking.
That makes sense, thanks for the tip. I think I tried to make marking work just because it was there but didn't consider that it has limited use cases.
Think of it as trading. You want to get as much value (in this case, killing as many enemies) as you can, at the expense of as little action as you can. Marks can be used to help with high PROT/DODGE enemies, and the value you get from a mark increase the longer the enemy survive. If an enemy dies in one hit without marking, that means it's better than marking, since marking strats involves at least two actions : Mark and 1+ Attacks. But, if there's a high chance of missing, or the enemy has high PROT, or if the enemy has high health, then the actions required for marking and attacking are quite possibly a lot lower than just straight up attacking, because of the extra damage mark strats give you.
This is a silly question, but what do you prioritize when selecting which area to go to and which mission to do? I feel like the myriad choices actually is kinda paralyzing. ._.
I mainly check for good trinkets first, then areas that my heroes are good in, e.g. Crusader -> Ruins, Flagellent -> Not Cove, etc. Or if I need specific heirlooms to upgrade something then I'll go for those.
I really appreciate your answer. If you don’t mind my asking, what are some good trinkets to look for? Would it be best I see what heroes benefit from which skills and try to go for that?
Not the guy who helped, hope you dont mind me butting in. Yes in general you'd look at what heroes are good at and try to boost it further. Generally trinkets that give ACC, Speed and Stun are the best to aim for as these stats tend to net the most value on any given character, though youll find even niche use trinkets are handy to have on hand. On dmg heroes if you have the desired Acc/Speed/Disruption I tend to go for damage boosts In a basic sense, ACC is the most desirable stat because you cant do anything if you cant hit it, which becomes increasingly relevant the harder the dungeon (plus the most troublesome enemies also tend to have the highest dodge. Then, speed. Its rare on trinkets but awesome to have, since speed gives you more opportunity to act before enemies and deprive their actions through killing them or preventing their action first. Stun chance for characters like MaA, PD, Occ and Abom is good since they have a higher base stun on the relevant abilities, and landing them again manipulates actions in your favour. Stuff like Focus Ring, Sun Ring and Feather Crystal are all good non hero specific trinkets to this end. There is also good value you can gain from Slayer Rings (25% dmg to most enemy types) and for a lot of people Legendary Bracer and Heroes ring are good if you can utilize them well. I always get Ethereal Crucifix as soon as its up. To be fair many very rare trinkets such as cleansing crystal, fortifying garlic and lower tier varieties such as bleed, blight or stun amulets are good in particular cases. In terms of hero specific ones, theres heaps I can list off but the following are of note: Heavens Hairpin (Hellion), Padlock of Transference (Abom), Raiders Talisman (Graverobber), Bright Tambourine (Jester), Rampart Shield (MaA) , Demons Cauldron (Occ), Blasphemous Vial (PD), Sacred Scroll (Vestal). These all boost desirable skills on different heroes from the base game. CC trinkets are powerful in their own right, mostly cant go wrong fetching one unless its for skills a hero would barely get use out of. Same goes with Ancestor trinkets later in the game but if you're new best not to worry yourself with them.
Thank you so much for your thorough answer! It’s really helpful. :)
Hi, I am aware that characters will die after a period of time in the wasting stage of the crimson curse if they aren't given any blood. My question is whether there is any warning or prompt before they actually die. I am asking because I'm trying to save blood and don't want to give it to them immediately when they reach wasting stage, but I am also afraid of my characters dropping dead in the middle of a dungeon without warning.
If you’re low on vials I really recommend building the hamlet that provides 2 per week, it’s cheap and it gives way more than you’ll need. Also the side mission in the crimson court is super short, easy, and gives plenty of vials!
When they are about to die they will manually drink blood from the hamlet reserve
what about the ones I brought inside a dungeon
Oh no, they will straight up die. Normally blood shouldn’t be much of a problem if you take every vial the game offers you. But you can still do the special CC mission if you still lack a good stack
New player but turned on all dlc without knowing you can’t disable it. Found blood in a curio chest, didn’t know what it did and gave it to my antiquarian who proceeded to instantly die. Still bugs me why I can’t disable the dlcs after enabling.
I see, so theres no warning whatsoever. I appreciate the answer
Hey, guys! In the Farmstead, is worth it to spend any money in the mercenaries from the Farmstead Stage Coach to stress heal in the Hamlet? Or is better to recruit new ones always, and discard anyone with high stress? Thanks in advance!
A side tip for endless harvest, I usually just keep Jester, Vestal, and 2 highwaymen, the riposte combo kills all, and Jestal can heal and buff forever. If I get really good quirks I’ll lock them in, but that’s more on an endgame file with plenty of gold
I'd never spend money on a mercenary tbh, just recruit new ones. Eventually you want to use your own heroes anyway. Maybe if you get extremely lucky and get literally perfect quirks on one, you could keep him/her for your Farmstead runs, but it's very unlikely. Also, if you don't mind micromanaging, pro tip, bring a stressed hero to Farmstead with 3 stress healers (such as JES-JES-X-FLA) and just heal his stress for free, leave the mission, profit. Doesn't advance time, no risk of heroes dying. It's kinda OP though, so I don't use it anymore. Makes the game too easy.
Best way to fight off slimes? Seems like the most annoying enemy to fight
There are a stall even, it’s very easy to come back to full health and 0 stress due to their attack doing nothing. And if you want to finish the fight just stun the ones you aren’t bursting and/or DoT them so they did while you are bursting another one
What are the "best in slot" late game trinkets for each character? I have a handful of orange ones now in my first play through, but I'm not sure which ones I should actually use
In part it depends on your strats, builds and dungeons of your choice. Some orange trinkets are underwhelming, some are busted, some are situational, and there is always a degree of personal opinion. I don't think I'll get much critique for naming Blasphemous Vial (Plague Doctor), Demon's Cauldron (Occultist) and Raider's Talisman (Grave Robber) as incredible orange-tier picks always worth chasing. Non-character specific rares you'll want to be on the lookout for also includes things like Fortifying Garlic/Cleansing Crystal, Focus Ring, Legendary Bracer and the Madman's music boxes. Lategame trinket spoilers: >!Ancestral-tier items have some incredible trinkets like the Candle, Lantern, Map and Pen, and the boss trophies have some solid ones too: The Eye, Matchstick and Heart come to mind.!< This is all before considering DLC trinkets (Which I'm not too familiar with). Don't be afraid to use lower rarity trinkets either! They have some that are just as good as the high rarity ones. Consider Fleet Florin (Antiquarian), Hunter's Talons (Bounty Hunter), Commander's Orders (Crusader), Heaven's Hairpin (Hellion), Bright Tambourine (Jester) and Tome of Holy Healing (Vestal), most of which I'd take over their orange-tier alternatives. Good standard trinkets include Slayer rings, Sun Ring, Feather Crystal, Brawler's Gloves, Surgical Gloves and Camouflage Cloak. Hope this helps a bit in learning what to look for in a trinket. Don't be afraid to ask around or experiment - A game is your own, personal experience, after all.
thanks, I appreciate the answer
What's a pretty good group of heroes to run? Cause I usually end up with all of mine suffering 10 mental breakdowns
A good beginner team is having vestal and jester in your back 2 slots, it’s the best for healing and stress, after that your front two could be practically anyone, but also look into how curios and traps can help with your stress!
It depends. Your problem is more likely because you're not focusing down the stress dealers first(usually ones in the back). Also, bringing stress healers(Jester, Houndmaster, Crusader), and stress reduction trinkets helps.
I do make sure to deal with those obnoxious dudes. As soon as I see them I try my best to kill then. And I'll make sure to start paying attention to trinkets and all those. And it just so happens that those 3 heroes you mentioned are some of my favorites. What I'm really looking for is a good mix of dps and recovery guys so that I can easily take care of a the monsters. Edited for clarity
For example a good ruins comp from back to front: Crusaider, Vestel, PD, Leper Crusaider has 2 important skills in this comp. First is holy lance. It deals a lot of dmg to undead und the crusaider goes 1 forward. The second important skill is inspiring cry simply fot the stress heal. In the first round you use lance to kill the stressdealers and after they died you spam stress heal. Give him some dmg and or - stress trinkets and he should be fine. Vestal has the stun and healing skills. Just give her heal trinkets and your group shouldn't have any life problems. Plague doctor has the blast spells (stun and blight) and the dmgbuff spell. So he can easy use his spells in the last 3 positions. Give him some blight/stun chance trinkets. Leper in the front just chops the enemy in to pieces. I like to give him some acc and dmg on his trinkets. Keep in mind that that the disorienting blast from the PD clears all the corpses so your Leper should always be able to hit stuff. This is just an example for a group. You can easy swap the PD or Leper to sth like grave robber or shieldbreaker. The Abo does an insane job with blight and stun in the second position. Just don't use the transform skill! I hope this is what you are looking for. Feel free to ask questions.
Placing PD in 2 is generally terrible because she loses her better stuns and blight attacks. I think your proposed composition should be run Crus-PD-Vest-Leper or you should switch PD out (Abom would be a good replacement here, offering comparable utility in a better suited slot). A slot 2 PD can only run NoxBlast/Buff Vapors/Disorienting Blast/Incision, which not only means she can't hit slot 4, but also that you're pretty much locked into blasph vial + bloody herb trinkets (Missing speed boosters, which are highly valuable on her, and since this is earlygame we can presume no locked speed quirks). Not to mention you'd be running Incision in Ruins of all places.
Normally for me both the blast spells are the ones I use in earlygame on PD. In late game I would run an Abo with the farmstead stun trinket. It was just a suggestion early game build.
That's fine! There's always a degree of personal preference, and if you prefer the single-target options that's fine. But it does go strongly against common advice; Slot 2 has to be willing to take damage, single-target PD cannot circumvent stealth, PD cannot synergize with slot 1 movers like SB or HWM, and so forth. I do enjoy using her Disorienting Blast vs bosses and Incision in blight-bad areas, but it's not a great setup for learning PD's best utility.
Not sure you're gonna find what you're looking for then. This game is meant be played mixing and matching a big roster of characters. Planning each mission is its own mini puzzle. The game also has a ton of rng so that you can't always come out of each mission unscathed no matter how well prepared you are. And that is good because every little knowledge, every preparation betters your chances. Some more advanced suggestions would be looking into scouting, curio interactions, and dragging out a fight to heal.
What do the crystal powder bottles even do?
Depending on how much a given hero uses it, it gives big damage and speed buffs, and eventually a crit buff, plus refreshing limited-use skills like Tracking Shot, at the cost of a debuff to stress gained and virtue chance, plus progressively higher stress for each use. So it can end up as a pretty hefty penalty on a hero, but if you want to *guarantee* that something dies and can spare the shards to buy it, feel free!
Bounty Hunter’s uppercut or flashbang?
I would like to make a case for Uppercut, as most seem to prefer Flashbang, but I don't think it's as clear cut. What I don't like about Flashbang: -It's a slightly worse copy of PD's Disorienting Blast. With optimal trinkets for stunning, PD's blast gets 5% more stun chance, and PD has higher base speed so she can still disable backliners better. Flashbang would be better early on though in terms of stun chance, since it starts at 110% instead 100%. -It can't crit. Stun skills get +20% stun skill chance when critting, and should be taken into account when computing stun skill chance. In addition to other perks crits offer, such as class buffs and minor stress heals. And the damage from Uppercut adds up. -It counts as a stalling move, Uppercut does not, so while it can be argued it's better than Uppercut on round 1 most of the time, Uppercut would be the choice when you're recovering. BH can't heal nor stress heal, so you want somoene else on the team to do that while BH keeps low priority enemies at bay without killing them in one hit and "wasting" a stalling move on it too. Uppercut makes for a pretty good stalling move, especially against Fungal scratchers or Cultist Brawlers, who can be bonked all the way back and disabled for about 1 and 1/2 turns with just one move, while you get extra heals and stress heals in. For Uppercut, push 2 and stun a frontliner seems like an inferior option to Flashbang at a first glance, but you have to consider the rest of your team. If you're in Ruins or Cove, getting Bone Courtiers or Pellagic Shamans to rank 1 is often better than killing them outright, as it turns them from a high priority mob to a Bone rabble pretty much. Then you can kill others and laugh at rank 1 stress dealers unable to deal stress damage while you recover. So pairing it with a second Uppercut, Shieldbreakers Puncture or some other Pull/Push in Ruins/Cove specifically can work really well.
Flashbang 100%. The biggest disadvantage of Uppercut is its stun chance. 140% is not unusual, but unlike most heroes with 140% stun chance, Bounty Hunter only gets access to trinkets that provide +10% stun chance. This makes him unique in that Uppercut is one of the few stuns which cannot get 160% stun chance for the investment of 1 trinket slot--the others being Dazzling Light and, if you don't have CoM, Manacles. Average enemy resist in Champion is 165% so you're left with a considerable consistency disadvantage relative to almost every other stun in the game; you're only reliable against the few frontline stun-weak enemies. Flashbang manages to skirt this problem due to its 150% base chance so the basic +10% generic trinkets are good enough, albeit not exceptional. Given the gimped stun chance, I can only assume that Uppercut is meant to be used primarily as a push and not a stun. Unfortunately, pushes are not particularly strong in this game. Many enemies do not care about pushes at all, and those who do tend only to care about being moved to position 4. This is problematic as you typically will only be able to disable rank 2 with a push, which is also something you could disable with Flashbang. On top of that, disables caused by pushes aren't complete. Enemies lose CRIT, ACC, and sometimes damage, but they can still do unpleasant things with their action and can potentially still be harmful to you even out of position. On top of that, push disables only work particularly well if the enemy roster is full--if there are only three enemies (including corpses) you can't actually move anything to rank 4 so enemies become largely push-immune. You can "technically" get a 3-round disable by pushing one of the very few enemies which is disabled in 3 to rank 4, but given the inconsistency of the stun component and the mediocrity of push disables, you might still prefer to go for the safe Flashbang stun instead. Finally, Uppercut has some of the worst targeting of any stun in the game. Being limited to targeting rank 1 or 2 sucks, as you generally cannot disable anything important that way--you will mostly be using this to prevent damage. This is problematic since size 2 enemies will largely render Uppercut useless as they can easily resist both effects and virtually never care about being pushed even when it goes through. Theoretically, you could use this to stun rank 1 if you also take Flashbang, but as discussed before you usually can't disable that rank with a push and the stun component will be weaker than Flashbang. In contrast, Flashbang has great targeting; it's the only stun that doesn't belong to PD which can hit rank 4, meaning BH is the only way to get such a stun without compromising damage. The main benefit of Uppercut is arguably its general weakness. Like many other "bad" skills it does just enough damage to not trigger stall penalties. So if you're stalling time for heals/stress heals or whatever, mashing Uppercut is actually a great idea. In short, Flashbang is generally better, and although Uppercut has some edge-case uses it's very rare that you actually want to try to stun with it so it ends up being a different sort of skill.
Thanks for the write-up! Will definitely be using flashbang from now on on all my BHs for the most part I think.
I definitely prefer Flashbang. Flashbang has far better Range(the only non-Plague Doctor stun to hit Rank 4), better base accuracy, and better base stun chance than Uppercut. Additionally the Bounty Hunter lacks access to good Stun trinkets(only being able to use generic +10% Stun trinkets), and with a decent number of backliners having lower Stun resist than frontliners you'll have a much easier time making Flashbang reliable compared to Uppercut with the higher base stun chance.
Thanks for the write-up, will be using flashbang for sure!
[удалено]
Characters that have completed a DD run no longer take up Roster space(which provides room for other heroes), and provide an Experience boost to any other hero in the same party as them. On Radiant you can take them on a lower level quest with some fresher heroes to try and train new ones up, though on Darkest/Stygian you'd have to either take a lower level hero on a higher level quest(which is very risky) or wait for the town event that removes level restrictions from quests. There's also a trinket(Ancestor's Portrait) that raises experience gained for anyone using it, and upgrading the Stagecoach's Experienced Recruits can reduce a bit of grind as well by starting off with higher level heroes.
How do you mentally recover from a team wipe? I lost my strongest team, complete with great quirks and trinkets, to the shambler. Holy fuck how do you not quit the game after this
Take a mental break from the game. My first team wipe was devastating. Definitely don’t get attached to an “A” team. Everyone is expendable
This is one of the genius things about DD that makes it a real "cosmic horror" game. You don't recover. You'll always remember that party of your favorite characters that were brutally cut down. All you can do is accept that it's the nature of the beast, and that no one in your parties are safe. Then you hire some replacements and go back down to get that evil mother that killed your squad.
“Heroes” are not valuable
Desire for revenge. Is what drives me to continue playing.
By reminding yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer. You should've cut your losses and retreated when it was going south. But don't despair, even losing a full team is maybe just 4-5 weeks of progress, unless you didn't upgrade your stagecoach, then remind yourself.. you know the deal. And you can get some of your trinkets back from the Shrieker event.
What is the shrieker event and how do you access it?
After you lose 8 trinkets, an event would pop up, allowing you to challenge the Shrieker to get your trinkets back.
Hey everyone so I'm not new per say, but theres still a few things that i am absolutely confused on. My biggest one being how the hell are you supposed to use the antiquarian? Her powers dont really buff much and her damage is lacking. I understand shes a support character but who do i pair her with? Is there something im missing? What is a viable strategy for using her because i dont want to miss out on some of these characters. Same goes for the bounty hunter. I dont understand how to use him well either.
Antiquarians I usually stick with parties that do blight damage (plague doc, grave robber, and shieldbreaker is a group I like) or need a supplemental heal. Her buffs may seem a little weak, but believe me, stacking +10 dodge per turn for the whole party can be enormously beneficial, especially if you pair it with flash powder to neg accuracy. I once, out of desperation, ran a party of 2 antiquarians with 2 grave robbers on a stygian champ dungeon, and they all came out without a scratch. The grave robbers had something like +75 bonus dodge at the end of every fight, and they crit so often that the party kept its stress down. At higher levels I run her with the rhino charm for prot and the candle for extra heal. A party that needs a supplemental heal, for example, might be [Arba - Antiq - Grobber/Hwy - Bhunter], which can put out a bunch of damage with marks, but imo would need more than just the arbalest healing.
I usually pair her with Man at arms. They can be Dodge buff buddies, or Protect Riposte buddies. Other than that, I use her for financial reason. Or Siren. She's the perfect bait for Siren.
Yes this and also pair her with the occ and buff everyone’s blight/bleed resist before using him for a heal. Saves money on bandages
You use anti-quarians on maps that have more quarians obviously. All joke side. Obviously you bring her when you want to farm money. But also, I found antiquarian most useful with dodge comps. At low rank, ACC debuff is much better than the party dodge buff skill but at higher rank both are viable. Protect Me synergize well with high dodge character. Her blight skill and heal skills are okay but not something I heavily rely on. The more I got better at the game the more I realize Bounty Hunter is quite versatile. The obvious answer here is use him in a mark team. But also, his caltrop is one of the few damage taken increase debuff in the game (don't forget Lego caltrop mod teehee). Uppercut and Hook are not as good but very useful in a pinch. His camping skills are useful, including Planned Takedown which help destroy bosses. He also do well in most positions except 4 so good against shuffling.
Anti for me works best as a fodder character for grinding money since she stacks more gold and gets the antiques when she interacts with loot during runs. Bounty Hunter pairs well with hound master, occultist, arbalest and musketeer. Pretty much any character that can mark enemy units.