Darkest Dungeon

Very much enjoying the game but, hey, a **little** strong on the fuck-you elements for me perhaps.

I mean, running no spoilers... the first boss pig fight was somewhat abusive when I took the usually obvious choice and lost a whole party for developer giggles. That's beyond the level of Dark Souls and-now-you-all-die and into the look-shit-up-or-suffer territory. Meh, rogue-likes I guess but still, FUCK THAT.

Northerner_sl said:

Very much enjoying the game but, hey, a **little** strong on the fuck-you elements for me perhaps.

I mean, running no spoilers... the first boss pig fight was somewhat abusive when I took the usually obvious choice and lost a whole party for developer giggles. That's beyond the level of Dark Souls and-now-you-all-die and into the look-shit-up-or-suffer territory. Meh, rogue-likes I guess but still, FUCK THAT.

Click to expand...

Swine Prince, while not difficult, is also not the easiest boss. As one may probably assume as it is the easiest dungeon, the Ruins has the easiest bosses. Necromancer is pretty much a glorified trash mob, Gibbering Prophet is just an RNGfest (insta death's door or you may not take any fucking damage at all, especially on Novice).

Edit: Some bosses do not actually become difficult at all on any difficulty (Necromancer, Brigand Cannon) some go from easy to oh this sucks (Gibbering Prophet, Swine Lord gets more annoying for sure) some go from fucking annoying to jesus christ I hate everyone (both Cove bosses).

Yeah, I like a good range of classes really.

Favs so far are, Vestal, houndmaster, highwayman, I suppose. then, crusader, man at arms, BH, and arb.

Vestal for the well duh..
targeted heal, aoe heal, damage+heal, and damage+stun.

houndmaster.
hounds rush, hits pretty hard.+bleed.
aoe stress heal.
aoe damage+bleed.
dog treats take up a space, but are a large damage boost.
40% trap

highwayman.
pistol shot. 10-12% crit mod. great for crit stress relief.
tracking shot. 9% crit buff
40% trap


crusader.
smite, stunning blow, inspirding cry. holy lance.(great for when moved out of position. deals damage AND moves back foward.)

man at arms.
crush. same as smite.. but hits 3 spots. that extra slot is pretty useful. Particularly when used with BH or occu, pull.
rampart. stun/kb. bolster.

bh.
come hither so fun.
hook and slice.

arb.
suppresing fire decent debuff.
sniper shot, bola, blindfire.


not a huge fan of the others. maybe just havent gotten a good skillset to see their loadouts really working.
but like, what does the grave robber have to match a highwaymans pistolshot? the free shovel?
lunge and shadowfade combo I can see being ok.. but its constantly fucking with your party layout. and seems really limited in target selection.

abomination party stress.. vestal, crusader, leper wont party with them. I guess you could run a houndmaster or jester for party aoe stress reduction to offset.

yeah, you guys talked them up. I dont see it? the constant self debuff.

What's the verdict on this game vs the way it was 8 months ago? I loved it initially, but it became hard as fuck and somewhat repetitive. The lack of endgame was a turn off as well. Would love to get back into it assuming they diversified it a bit and introduced an endgame. The narrator's voice alone was fucking gold.

Steam Community :: Guide :: Getting Started in Darkest Dungeon

yeah, this guide posted back on like page 4 is useful. old, but still relevant.
stagecoach #1 far and away.
guild#2 I think. being able to pick and choose key skills, at low cost is more important then most others.
sanitorium #3. as you start wanting to do 3+ yes, you do need to cultivate adventurers, and not just turn them over.

TB is terrible at this game it seems. Even reading the wiki. haha.



I'm on week 13. did start off a bit badly, very cash strapped, was wasting cash/time on sanitarium, bar/chapel..
read that guide, and changed things up. upgraded stagecoach.
I actually have not had anyone die. I retired one vestal, who at the time, I deemed not worth the cash, and needed the roster spot.
Starting to upgrade guild now. Can afford to unlock and upgrade key skills for any new recruit.
But with 3 full parties able to run, its been pretty easy to keep stress down. get cash.
havent even tried a boss yet. and even only 1 medium run.
did come across the Collector. Had my B team. #3 vestal, occulist, hellion?, and man at arms.

I was wasting too much on shovels, meds etc for a while too.


Want to try some low torch runs. not entirely sure where to start. high crit, dodge, and stress reduc? so.. hound, highwaymanx2, and ? melee? crusander heal/stress, helion stun spam, man at arms, party dodge buff?

Best part about this game is the Narrator, he sounds like the dude from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

Caliane_sl said:

Yeah, I like a good range of classes really.

Favs so far are, Vestal, houndmaster, highwayman, I suppose. then, crusader, man at arms, BH, and arb.

Vestal for the well duh..
targeted heal, aoe heal, damage+heal, and damage+stun.

houndmaster.
hounds rush, hits pretty hard.+bleed.
aoe stress heal.
aoe damage+bleed.
dog treats take up a space, but are a large damage boost.
40% trap

highwayman.
pistol shot. 10-12% crit mod. great for crit stress relief.
tracking shot. 9% crit buff
40% trap


crusader.
smite, stunning blow, inspirding cry. holy lance.(great for when moved out of position. deals damage AND moves back foward.)

man at arms.
crush. same as smite.. but hits 3 spots. that extra slot is pretty useful. Particularly when used with BH or occu, pull.
rampart. stun/kb. bolster.

bh.
come hither so fun.
hook and slice.

arb.
suppresing fire decent debuff.
sniper shot, bola, blindfire.


not a huge fan of the others. maybe just havent gotten a good skillset to see their loadouts really working.
but like, what does the grave robber have to match a highwaymans pistolshot? the free shovel?
lunge and shadowfade combo I can see being ok.. but its constantly fucking with your party layout. and seems really limited in target selection.

abomination party stress.. vestal, crusader, leper wont party with them. I guess you could run a houndmaster or jester for party aoe stress reduction to offset.

Click to expand...

Graverobber is fucking queen of blight dmg, always bring doctor with her and destroy everything, her dart lowers their resist to blight AND does a stacking 4dmg a round at rank one, leveled up I have done over 30 blight dmg a round when combined with doc. Boss killer for sure.
Bounty hunter and hound master are another really strong combo with marked targets, throw in an arbalist and man at arms for some great offense and defense, leper works well too if you need that self heal/stress relief.

Highway man is awesome with crit builds for exactly what you said but his bleed does decent dmg and stacks a bleed so that is not to be overlooked, if you bring 1 highwayman you might as well bring two..or three and a jester or man at arms for speed buff.

yeah, maybe ill give her another shot.

looking at her set.
throw dagger is also a 10% crit mod. with no damage penality. and -bleed resist, and +5 acc buff.
shes got 1 more speed. slightly less raw damage, but catches up.

poison dart is only back line. but has its place, as noted.
flashing daggers, is middle two positions. but only -33 damage mod, and +%% crit mod.. While grapeshot is -60% damage, -7% crit, for 3 slot target..

Tracking shot only real advantage it seems for highwayman. looks like I was wrong, and just had the wrong rng on her starting skills.

tracking shot does pair well with houndmaster though. highwayman ideal at #2 position. grave at #3 for poison dart.
I do like hound at #3 for howl though. A #2 hound certainly works though a well. rush, harry, whisle, and blackjack.

Highway man is actually pretty awful. He's suffering from being the OP class in the initial early access build and has been nerfed significantly since then in almost every update. Does he even have a skill left that doesn't have a -damage mod on it?

Graverobber drinks his milkshake in every way. I think the only thing highwayman has going for him is the legendary ranged damage trinket?

This was my suicide crew(minimal provisions no healers, all loot) ended up destroying the dungeon and left with zero stress and like 8K worth of stuff.
http://images.akamai.steamuserconten...1E3685D14175A/

I am a huge fan of jesters. They are the surest way to level up adventurers, finish medium and long dungeons and save tons in stress relief. You can simply run the same four people week after week until they level out of range for the starter dungeons.

Pair the jester with either Vestel or Occultist and then whatever else suits your fancy. I prefer at least one or two classes to have a stun. The jester does the stress heal 90% of the time, with the other 10% split between the battle song or sliceoff/harvest to help a little with damage.

The vestel and occultist heal and either use judgment or pull to mess with the back lines.

The other two classes just kill things and then leave the least threatening target alive and preferably stunned for as many rounds as possible before incurring the stress penalty for taking to long. It seems to be based on how many attack actions you are taking each round or how many enemies are left. But anything past turn 5 you risk 6-8 stress per person. This way the healer and jester can recover stress damage and physical damage and leave the party close to, if not better off than, where they started the fight.

Depending on the dungeon, the hallway fights are actually opportunities to recover from room fights.

I also really like jesters with Abominations. The jester can buff the abomination and then manage his stress each round, and the initial 8 stress to the party from the transform is nothing worth worrying about, especially if you can camp.

Jester camping can be awesome for serious stress relief. I have brought people into a dungeon with 90 stress just to have them finish the run with 0-10 stress.

Obviously anything that can reduce it's own stress or heal itself just makes this set up even more efficient, so lepers and abominations work great and to a lesser extent hound masters crusaders and hellions. Thing about lepers is you need a good pull ability or two to bring the back row within striking distance. So Occultist, Jester, Bounty Hunter, Leper is a really great party.

So say yes to jesters. They are the key to stress free adventuring.

I took your advice and tooled a Jester to take with me after two straight weeks of abandoning a dungeon because stress got too high and health was too low. Was able to complete 2 dungeons without too much hassle so it's a solid strategy. Just have to watch for those assholes who like to do stress attacks. Jester alone isn't enough to handle them (at least at HR1) and they're typically in the back slots so depending on your makeup can be difficult to get to. This game does like to throw the suck your way though.

The key to making the most of a jester i your group is to also have a healer, but that is pretty common practice anyway, and to have at least one reliable stun attack. Even the vestel's will work. Then you just milk extra rounds out of the end of each combat to maximize stress reduction and recover health.

But yeah all of the other stuff like targeting stress inducing enemies first, and being smart with focusing one target down at a time if you can still apply. 10 stress reduction per round isn't going to save you from a doomsayer blasting your guys each turn.

Also I have been messing around with low light runs now that I have some good trinkets for that. The increased rate of critical hits helps apply a second wave of stress reduction... however when stress damage does come to your party it comes in a big way. The increased rate of loot is pretty impressive though. Even on some short runs I am running out of space to fit in all the heirlooms and gold.

I got into this recently. Not knowing much early on, I dismissed a few high stress or badly rolled vestals trying for some good ones. Now that I realize how important real healers are, I haven't seen a vestal in my 6 slot stagecoach in something like 12+ missions. I'm managing with shitty occultist healing, or just running suicidal squads that barely finish missions with no healer.

Enjoying the game in spite of the difficulty. I think graverobber so far is my favorite unit. Very hard hitting melee attack with huge range, a stacking superstrong dot from any rank, and a hard hitting attack against marked targets for when the other units in the squad happen to use that. They're decent at trap disarming too!

Man, the art style is such a refreshing change of pace from all the Japped-out loli/furry bullshit I've been seeing in MMOs.

Picked this up last night, holy shit this is some addicting stuff. I just wish loot was done better and the various afflictions wouldn't trigger so easily. Made it to Week 14 or something, still getting the hang of balancing my roster.