Update on #3: Apparently a spent curio still prevents hunger and fight spawns, but the idea is still good to practice because of the second half of the reason which is being able to empty your inventory on the return trip. A few people have mentioned it now so I figured I'd make an update.
(info might be outdated, been a WHILE since I played DD) about hunger checks: It doesn't prevent it. It's never been there in the first place. Hunger checks are like traps, they are set from the start in their place when the dungeon is loaded, and no fight, curio, ANYTHING else can be there. That's why you always get hunger checks in the same spots when you travel back. Something I learned from Jared's streams.
I had fight/hunger spawn on spent curio(torch), though they will reappear once you defeat and enter same hallway again. Been doing enough torchless loot farming by spawning such battles to notice it. Likewise curio disappearing is good indicator of where not to go if you want to avoid losing food yet.
@@ToriToriUwU New hunger checks do spawn when you enter same hallway(even unexplored!) again, though once your party have one you can pass one hallway(aside from current) without triggering next one. In worst case scenario you have hunger check every 2 hallways.
i dunno, whenever i go down those dead end paths, i'll pass through 3-4 hallways/rooms and never get hit with hunger and then on the way back out, i'll have to eat 2-3 times, like my guys suddenly become diabetic just because they are backtracking? i can end up burning through 2 full stacks of food, just backtracking through a dungeon. must be why in the footage, i see him with 3-4 stacks of food. I didn't realize it was necessary to bring so much.
Remind yourself that great is the weapon that many fall in the face of chaos but not these nighmarish creatures can be felled, they ARE RAGE, BRUTAL, WITHOUT MERCY
When you're old like me, you go into a run and after the first fight you realize your antiquarian has the wrong skills. But the fights keep ending and you keep forgetting to change and only keep remembering at the start of the next fight. This happened to me just a couple days ago.
I like running him with the flagellent with the flagellent's stress heal skill and give the flagellent one or two trinkets to lower the stress the flagellent gains. This also lets you play with the flagellent's death door bonus.
There’s one rule I forget all the time but is so important for turn based games like this: it’s always better to be attacked by 3 enemies than 4 even if that means you need to absolutely pummel one guy on your first round of combat
One dead enemy is one action less for the enemies: that's the number that matters. If you happen to get that chance it's something you already won: if you skip attacking him with a strong direct damage dealer just cause he just needs pummeling to optimize damage then he might win initiative to others and act: then the party eats more steel for breakfast.
Yeah, I started playing Darkest Dungeon recently and killing enemies so they can't act is so important, that I'd often end up focusing one important enemy to make sure they can't do anything. Similarly, i've been often trying to wipe out several less tanky enemies over the tougher, more dangerous ones, especially if i can handle what that one tough enemy can throw out, just to deny more actions for the enemy, even if they're on the brink of death. There's one nice saying to add to this, and it sort of acted as my rule - a dead enemy cannot hurt you, but a half-dead enemy WILL kill you.
Veteran Mistake: Looting coins over gems at the start of medium and long dungeons. Most gems stacks are higher value than coin stacks and you will find a bunch of them. Stacks of onix are pretty commun. Citrine is the only gem that the stack is worth less than coin. Also, if you have an Antiquarian this is a little different, being coins the safer middle of the road, or you can try fishing for the big ones like rubies and sapphires. After you get the bank for a couple of weeks gold becomes a non-issue, but before that you want to get as much as possible to get your upgrades going.
@@rareroe305 dude why is it so fun to just use 4 of any of the class yet they are all good apart from occult (and jest but I’ve never use 4 jest so I don’t know)
i honestly dont think i've ever gotten a kill with antiquarian. i run her alot as well, but by the time every one is low i'm using her support skills and a top roll crit stab doesnt kill anything.
@@assiaisindegyara4905 She’s good for setting up “kill timers” with her blights and finishing enemies off at low health. She has decent accuracy and can hit any rank from any position, too, so if you’re concerned about overkilling a bit too much, she’s got you covered.
@@devranyilmaz9806 so... Pick the shit charecter because it means you won't be hitting to hard. resulting in less feel bad crit for 50 when you needed 1 dmg. Lol then I read my first comment. Yeh I don't run her in teams any more. I get a full squad of hers send em in and then delete them all assuming any one survived. She makes some solid bank that way, if you do a medium dungeon, lots of in run gold. Plus ways to make gold while camping.
I like running antiquarian with a highwayman dodge tank / damage dealer. Antiquarian using her "protect me" skill on him gives him even more dodge and twice as many chances to hit enemies with riposte.
Do you know how many times I'll get into a fight and say "oh dang I forgot to swap my skills" then instantly forgot to change them until I get into the next fight
I've had times because of how the game's UI does automatic selection in the mission select where I'd overlook which mission I was doing, so I'd accidentally send a team for Veteran Ruins against Veteran Siren. I somehow managed to beat the boss with no deaths and afflictions, but the lack of bleed protection was horrific for the ucas. It shows that double-checking your selections is crucial when you're playing.
The only reason I figured this out quickly was because I forgot to change a hero’s skill before a dungeon ( I think it was vestal) and I check too see if I could swap them and yep, I could. I then proceeded to forget this later, so yea definitely not the most memorable game feature, even if it is extremely important.
@@DagarCoH Well. It isn't exactly what Helmuth von Moltke said. What he said was also said by Sun Tzu over 2500 years ago. You need to plan ahead for every battle. The one that makes the most calculations before a battle win over the one that makes the least. A war is after all just a bunch of battles done during a time period. You can not just focus on a single tactics and never go back to the drawing board.
@@marcellocoppede7237 He absolutely wasn’t the first to say it. He makes references to things all the time and applies them to DnD. He certainly did not come up with the phrase though.
Selling all your crap trinkets when you start getting the good ones. It’s helpful to have a stockpile of crappy trinkets to serve as a buffer for events like the mutant crow stealing a bunch of stuff or your heroes losing trinkets when getting drunk or gambling. If you’re unlucky, sometimes a nice trinket gets lost anyway, but at least you have some protection.
You can circumvent the drunk/gambling thing by giving them the crap trinket before sending them in. If they lose a trinket, it'll be the one they have equipped, instead of from your inventory!
@@Coryn02 yep, the tavern as stress relief is actually so much more palatable with this trick, the chance of losing a musicbox or something otherwise makes the abbey much more appealing.
to add to your fifth point: you shouldn't over-theorise a particular strategy for a given team composition, try to think more generally. there're going to be times when a given strategy either can't be used or shouldn't be used. not to say you shouldn't consider strategies at all, of course, otherwise marking teams just wouldn't work at all, but you also shouldn't be left floundering if you're not able to mark an enemy or your team rolls speed in the wrong order or your primary damage dealer gets stunned by the most agile jellyfish the world has ever seen. I know I used to come up with 'great' farmstead teams that would mow through the rabble by using the same few moves every couple of turns, and then they'd get trampled by a plow horse and by the time they had recovered everyone would have +30 stress and huge blights. I think my play drastically improved when I stopped thinking "ok I'll do this on turn 1 and this on turn 2..." and instead thought "ok so this team can do this, this and this when it needs to". gotta be flexible, y'know. also sometimes it's just fun to use 'suboptimal' heroes for stuff. like bonk vestal or my favourite rank 2 plague doctor.
I think of my team as a set of pieces that have a global job to execute, which is 1- survive and 2 - finish the enemies. Now, what I see, instead of heroes and skills is a pool of all possible actions I can employ depending on the situation. Say a madman shows up on a battle and my whole team has heavy stress. Can my characters work together to end him turn 1? Should my stress healer try and squeeze some healing or focus the madman? Does any of my damage delaers have ranged skills or will I need to get him out of rank 4? Should I even kill him round 1, if I have the chance to stun? Can I actually risk getting someone afflicted and destress the rest of the team through camping? This is just one example, of a very specific situation. I don't care plotting a course when the game can mess it all up in a single turn. I simply let the events unfold and use whichever tool is most appropriate for the moment.
You just didn’t account for the shuffle, or didn’t have a high speed stunner for a horse. Now you know, and now you can account for it, nothing changed, using 2 moves can still net you 5k kills in farmstead, it’s just now those skills may have changed. Numbers and spreadsheets will be laughing still at the end.
And if you want a cheesy quote for this: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Another benefit of delaying looting curios and rooms is that right before you plan to use a campfire or leave the dungeon, you can burn your torch out for the treasure bonus with practically no consequences!
@@eran5005you cannot get jumped by shambler from walking backwards. However, Shambler will appear if there's respawned fight and can be swapped for shambler fight. I usually lit a torch before engaged in a fight to prevent shambler and then continue on looting spree
@@tatarchan5212 from what i recall (been a while since i last played DD), the respawn is determined when you exit the room. I definitely had Shamblers fights spawn when i had lit torches, because i was in total darkness when i exit the room.
Other note: One action spent preventing damage is worth as much as 2 actions spent healing damage taken from an attack not prevented. When I run abom he tends to end up a stunbot because combining his stun lock and the crystalline key is +55% stun chance meaning you can doublestun that ghoul or crab
You've done this this, too, with your analysis of Vestal's illumination skill. I've used it often, and it helps me bring vestal along as not just a healer but also a debuffer so I don't have to focus so much on bringing accuracy trinkets for other heroes. It also gives you free torchlight, which is nothing to understate. That free torchlight adds up, being able to clear stealth and nerf enemy dodge is great too.
within my first play through I used the vestal too such a high extent, so that I challenged myself to play my second go mostly without her and it really helped me discover and appreciate some of the other healing (or even dodging) skills in the game.
5) Numbers Game. Youre talking about the importance of contextualizing abilities and loadouts and/or removing Black and White thinking from your strategy. Thats not even just good game advice, thats good life advice.
I think Darkest Dungeon (or maybe Roguelike genre) gives really good life lessons. You learn that bad things can happen anytime, anywhere, and plans don't matter. You learn to accept loss, to move on to reach your goal. And you learn what overconfidence is.
Darkest Dungeon is a game where you can't have everything and there is no wish fulfillment, which means you must earn what you can have and fulfill your own wishes according to your ability. I think that makes it a good life teacher, made even better thanks to Wayne June's bleak but eloquently pragmatic narration.
Hey Shuffle, appreciate the content. To add on to your point of unnecessary looting at number three, there's another reason to leave curios until later if you know you'll have to pass through that room or hallway again later: Your light level is likely to be lower at that point (or in any case is something you're in control of, if you know you're headed there), and therefore you may be getting more/better loot on your second pass than you might the first time around, when your torchlight was higher.
>Be veteran. >Know the game is gonna fuck you over. >Buy a lot of stuff cause you know you perhaps need it. >Get broke. >Run 4xAntiquarian, just once, it will work. >Doesn't work. >Cry.
Try running 3× Anriquarian and a Vestal on a long dungeon.Make it to first room,camp twice,spawn 6 trinkets,reduce stress abandon mission,sell trinkets and repeat.When i was unexperienced player i wanted to have more gold so i thought of this tactic and exploited the game quite a lot XD
When Swine Skiver goes first with a speed roll and crits all of your backline before you have a chance to react at the start of the fight and now 3 peeps are low and have long blight on them with no antivenom in inventory. I hate when people say just pull him to the front and kill him like yeah that works if you have the right party and if he doesn't already maim your team with a cripple them on freaking turn 1 since he has high damn speed dude makes the swine god look like a peewee pig on high rolls crits are totally unbearable even if the party is at 100% hp and stress and maxed out with full trinkets and resolve 6 its an instant i'm getting the hell out of here fight.
@O K who said I didn't bring antivenom? You get hit with blight on the turn after and booms mortality debuff backline characters don't have that much hp in champ dungeons.
Warrens Champion is the toughest generic dungeon to run imo, I just try to get my heroes to level 6 and then never field them again till bossfights/the darkest dungeon/after coming out of the darkest dungeon. The way I see it, champion dungeons are designed to kill your heroes, a stray shambler (which has a much higher chance to appear in champion) can really mess you up big time too, among other extremely dangerous foes like giga corpse eater.
When I first started playing this game I lost my first and only Vestal the week after I got her. I had to learn how to survive on No-Trinket Arbolest/Crusader for the next 8 weeks before I *finally* got a unit with decent healing (Occultist). I didnt get another Vestal for another 9 weeks. xD I tell you what though, for as versatile as Vestal is, I certainly am fine healing w/o her or occultist for that matter, and that's all because of that unfortunate event. xD
5. AH AH ! Yes, I think I have a problem with the Jester and the Antiquarian =^.^=, but I always enjoyed the Leper. 3. I took me time to understand that looting is not the best path. I was constantly running out of space in my inventory, leading me to bad choices (prefering heirlooms or money to other necessity goods). Since I stopped it, I could bring more torches and food, and heal during fights with bandages, antivenom,... as well as benefiting the curios which needs those necessity goods. This greatly improved my stress relief, which is always good is you don't want to go insane :'-D Great tips anyway, for all kind of players.
Advice 5 has really improved my gameplay. Not only do I get better but the game gets a lot more fun with a diverse party comp. Also Leper for me went from meh to my favourite champ and it is mostly because how good intimidate is.
I got back into DD recently because of the announcement for DDII, and these are really helpful tips. I remember when I first started playing I hated the highway man and leper and now that I have learned to use riposte and accuracy trinkets they are two of my favorite classes. My biggest struggle now is I feel like I don't know what to loot because my inventory always ends up full and I start ditching supply items to make space.
1 tip: bring a plague doctor/Hellion to save space on bandage and toxin cure bottle. Do not ditch out torches (unless you are in the final room), food (the food check could be a deadly trap). Mostly don't bring key. I find myself rarely need to use key on curio.
When I play this game, I like my overconfidence. Contrary to the popular belief, it is not a slow and insidious killer, which is made clear by my constant party wipeouts in the hardest difficulty. Quick and mind numbing, it leaves me with no more feeling and no more sanity left. Yet, I fucking love this game. 💀🖤
Two things I wasn't aware of for the longest time: Swapping skills in dungeons. SWAPPING HEIRLOOMS IN TOWN. Just discovered that like a month ago. Beat the game 3 times with a few failed stygian attempts.
The "No swaps" mistake i'm guilty of... In a way, i don't swap items or skills because i really don't need to most of the time, i gear and skill up my party before going into a dungeon so their skills are apporpriate to what they will be facing. The only times i switch skills is if i'm constantly getting critted and i need someone who can tank some hits, say i got a Houndmaster ill put on his guard skill just to be a bit more safe, but is mostly the exception and not the rule.
9:34 I played my first veteran long mission in the Weald. My team was MAA-BH-HM-Occultist. In the first half of the run, the MAA wss in death's door. He survived the fight but the dude had the DD debuff. In the second half of the run, i tried MAA in rank 4 as a full support and Occultist in rank 3, HM in rank 2 (i love the stun) and BH in 1. If the stress amount went above 50%, i simply switched between rank 3 HM and rank 2 Occultist. If my MAA never went to death's door, I think i will never knew about the amazing and full role he can do in Rank 4. I've only played this game for like 22 hours, and i can't believe the amount of flexibility and new strategies you can make. One of my new favorite games without a doubt
My fun/stupid party: 4th - Arbolist built for healing +light stress healing 3rd - Grave Robber w/ crits, speed, and lunge 2nd - Crusader w/ stuns, holy lance, stress healing 1st - Highwayman built for duelists advance (must be decently faster than crusader but slower than grave robber Dance till they're ded and stall to recover using shadowfade to set up for a mega crit lunge
you didn't mention one of the biggest reasons to not loot curios on your first pass through and it's that you can lower/snuff torch when you're done with the branch and get a lot of extra loot for almost no risk (the traps and hallway fights will be pre-scouted on your way back), then just reignite or camp when you're back to uncharted territory this is also one of the reasons scouting is so good, you can really squeeze your torch super hard when you have scouted territory ahead and the only downside is you "waste" a bunch of torches and you lower scouting chance for further rooms while doing it, especially if running 50-
This is such an under appreciated channel. I only recently got into darkest dungeon and have leveraged your videos to help me progress through the game. Thanks a ton for posting this content, and I hope you make it big.
With regards to "getting trapped in the statistics" it's a pretty common midwit pitfall in any game. A very illustrative example I've run into is mid-to-high-level Monster Hunter players running a skill that has a percentage chance to reduce damage taken from any given hit by a large portion, while not bothering with the defense stat on their armour as well as considering the defense up skill useless because if you do the math over the course of say a hundred hits with a theoretical infinite health bar the chance to reduce damage skill will save you more hitpoints. The thing that they completely miss is that the point of reducing damage taken is to allow you to survive more hits before you die (so you can heal) and just having enough defense will save you from getting one-hit by most attacks (all but one or two from the ultimate final boss monster) 100% of the time instead of like 35% with the "mathematically better" skill.
People get caught up on numbers in the tabletop RPG optimization community as well, and, I'd assume, many other video game communities. When people get so caught up on numbers they overlook practical situations that throw a wrench into those numbers, I'm surprised we don't have a broader term for that. Starting playing this game like a month ago and I can't put it down. I'm actually really impressed with how balanced the heroes are in Darkest Dungeon. Not to suggest that they are all equally good but it's actually rare to see a game where the quality spread is as tight as it seems to be in Darkest Dungeon. They've definitely got a thing going where the team comp matters far more than the individual parts.
About number one: it's fine to leave a unit alive if you can stun them and are confident you can either kill then next turn or they'll die to a DOT status. Otherwise, kill them off, that extra turn might kill a hero or put another on deaths door. Stunning them because you'd rather focus on someone else is fine, but don't leave them if you don't have them stunned.
0`My additions to your rules #1 Get in the habit of checking your camping skills before you right click on that firewood. Decide what skills you're going to use BEFORE you camp. In long dungeons I will often switch camping skills between my first and second camps based on the condition my team is in at that particular time. #2 There are no bad heroes. True. But there are heroes that you don't need to win the game and defeat all the bosses IMO you don't need the arbalast the leper or (if you can do without the extra money) the antiquarian. Arguments could also be made that you're better off not using either the bounty hunter or the grave robber and replacing them with highwaymen. All those classes can be used to good effect, but you don't need them to be successful. Actually, it could be argued that if it was possible, (which it mostly isn't) you could defeat the game with nothing but crusaders highwaymen and vestals. Except that you do need the man at arms for two particular boss battles Anyway my 2 cents.
It took me some time before I tried running comps without Vestal, and once I did I loved it. I actually have never lost a hero when using non-Vestal healer comps. The only good thing Vestal has is a group heal. She has low stun resist, a weak stun, & her positional dependency can be a real problem. After seeing several videos talking about Crusader or Flagellant healing I gave them a shot and have been loving it every since. I always run a secondary healer like Arbalest or PD incase the main healer gets stunned or to get someone off death's door.
The quote is "Everybody has a plan til they get punched in the face." I heard it from Mike Tyson. It Might be Sun Tsu that has the more poetic version though.
Hey thanks for the video. I have 300 hours in the game and i got really good tips here. Would be awesome to get a video with tips for the courtyard. Keep the great work
No hero sucks but there are heroes that don't suit certain playstyles, and I think it's ok if people choose to not use these classes. I like Leper even though some people hate using him, and I almost never use abomination but I'm happy with the teams I use so I don't bother learning how to use him. Whatever floats your boat
I bring a heroes ring into any dungeon mid/late game on any hero. I move it around based on who I think is gonna get the stress check. Its a lifesaver!
With regards to the number 5 point with no plans remain intact. I had a plan when I was fighting beguiling siren. I used transformed abomination and the siren took control of him and then had him transform back into a human severely damaging my ability to reliably do massive damage because my only other damage guy was leper. And then my healer was killed.
Speaking of leper, yesterday I decided to fight the fulminating prophet with a flagellant, an abomination and 2 lepers, and it worked out surprisingly well. I even took out all 3 pieces of wood, and only the healer died in the process.
...... OMG.... You can change their moves mid level? As long as you aren't in the middle of a fight? OMG... This information could have saved so many. Well, I'm glad I learned it now.
Min maxing in darkest dungeon is like min maxing a hexblade in 3.5 dungeons & dragons. It's not absolutely necessary but you really really really want to do it because you're already at a disadvantage.
In the case of ignoring a curio for when backtracking: Encountering an active curio twice gives twice the chance for your heroes with curiosity quirks (curious, kleptomania etc) from touching them and wasting it or even hurting themselves or stealing your loot (REYNAULD!!!) I never ever leave curio for later anymore ever since my leper ruined what was to be the easiest shambler fight of my life by going 'i wonder what this does' on the altar
You mean I don’t have to have stress heal equipped on my Jester for fights where no one has any stress and can do something useful for that fight? Dang. How did I not realize that before. Seems super obvious in hindsight…
So, I've just picked the game back up after not playing it for a while. I think the furthest I got was the Apprentice Necromancer on Darkest difficulty. This video is still helpful for someone as new as me, and I think that speaks volumes as to how well explained these mistakes are.
I'm no veteran and I understand no heroes are bad, but I can't see myself getting around the amount of stress an abomination causes. It's too much and endds up costing gold and downtime.
My worst game was 1 finished the quest with full HP no stress... But I decided to go for 1 more room ended up getting focus fired enemy went 8 times on the same unit... She immediately die... it was traumatizing. Lost a good hero from my A team
from your torchless video i started a no gold/treasure run and I'm fairly early on (about to go after the first boss) and so far i'd been dumping antiquarians under the pretense of "well i cant use them for their money bags anyway!" but now I'm reconsidering adding one to the roster just to see where that can lead me
when it comes to the kit overlap and thinking one's not necessary because others can do their jobs better.... i kinda have issues with that mindset in real life, feeling like i'm not needed since everything i can do someone else can do better. but i'm saving this video, it feels a bit odd to get a life lesson from a DD video but, thanks.
I'm not a veteran but i play fairly often and like the game. Had no idea that you can swap skills and got my one team killed because my Flagellant and Vestal had wrong skills ._.
I have 300+ hours in Darkest Dungeon, have been to the Wiki countless times and have watched untold amounts of content on thi game and it wasnt until just now that I learned that hunger checks can onl spawn on open tiles.
The third one was actually pretty helpful. I mean i was never looting curios that i will meet twice, because if i spend some anti venom before the fight it can fuck me up. But i didnt know that hunger checks or fights or curio icons on map cannot be at the same spot. So thanks on that one
Great guide as always; before watching I already knew I still have a long way to go, improvement-wise. Speaking of, I started my first Stygian run about 2 weeks ago and I'm not sure I'm doing well/fast enough now to beat the run. Currently around 30ish weeks in and I haven't even beat a single veteran boss yet, mainly because of terrible stress RNG made my GR selfish (from 0 stress) on the first battle during veteran Necromancer quest, despite 'Silence in the Crypts' enabled beforehand. That, and my party gained at least 4 diseases just from abandoning said quest. So now with knowledge gained from this guide, I'm not sure if I can improve and save the run in time, or just start another Darkest (+ Crimson Court) run and improve myself from there. Regardless, I love Darkest Dungeon regardless of what RNG it throws at me.
Stygian and bloodmoon always feels like you're going too slow because of how long the apprentice grind is. The veteran and champ part of the grind are over very quickly, so I would say by your timing you're fine if you are doing vet stuff right now.
10:37 and sometimes you don't get beast carcass for the entirety of long run in weald... only to then only get just 3 hunger checks in the entire run with backtracking like 8 rooms???? it can be so confusing at times I swear.
Pretty sure your quote comes from Sun Tzu's Art of War 😎 Really looking forward to getting into this game - these primer vids are a massive help man, thank you 👍 There's more to wrap your head around with this game, clearly, I need the knowledge and I'm getting it right here 😎
As someone who has over 800 hours in DD and is now trying Bloodmoon(its pain pls end my suffering I beg you) my most important one is to set up advantages for your next battle, even if its trivial one or only one fight, doing any 15% DMG quest plus less stress on mission. Oh and buy Color of Madness DLC, for every "endless" run, if you defeat Thing from the stars you always get 15k gold and some emblems, plus the time wont move so you can do 2 runs in single week.
After I saw that happen to my roommate while he was playing an excess of darkest dungeon, I decided I would never do that. Or at least mostly not do that. I think it did happen a few times because I wanted to rush a district or something.
I've been thinking there's a time and place to swap skills for character mid-mission. I've yet to really implement the strategy, but I'm thinking a hero who's been stressed out would benefit from reconsidering the combination of skills, but I hadn't thought of swapping out trinkets, which now seems so obvious I can't believe I hadn't been practicing the tactic already. Thanks for the tip, always room for improvement in this game.
I just got into the game and I'm fresh. I didn't realize what would happen if you killed the little piggy on that boss. And my hellion crit the lil piggy in one swan and I thought like "heck yeah what you gonna do now pig man?" My dudes made it through like 5 death blows leaving my jester and g.r. without pick and jester in the front with his two bleed moves and buffs worn off. But they survived the shift and nailed the last hit. I needed five and I got five. But at what cost... Actually it was flipping sick and it kinda made me love the game. Can't wait to play it more.
Regarding point 3, I'm not sure if this mechanic is related but I think I actually learned of these invisible tiles from the courtyard. Every empty tile you traverse, you gain 1 stress, so if there's a trap, a battle, a curio, or an invisible tile, then you won't get the stress (correct me if I'm wrong)
I don't think stress is guaranteed on empty tiles, it might be, but I do feel that you only get stress on empty tiles as well. I should have looked it up
I wish i had enough luck to play torchless. I've been doing a no death bloodmoon challenge since the color of madness update and I lose it constantly to bad luck. 9/10 times its spiders getting all 4 turns and 2 crits in full torch on my fastest unit that then dies to the blight.
Not that there isn't a lot of skill and knowledge involved but like. Today I lost a run that had a highwayman,vestal,grave robber, and plague doctor to a group of spiders because none of them rolled higher speed than the spiders and they all wailed on my plague so when she got her turn she just died.
Ah beans thats rough. Torchless Deathless is really just grinding out attempts and hoping to get the good one where you can get past week 15 lmao, so best of luck with that.
@@OWlsfordshire i dont think it effects the game as a whole. Really its only a problem with doing a self imposed deathless run on the higher difficulty when the game itself actually allows for 10 which is more than gracious over all
For a moment I thought you were talking about a mechanic of taking extra trinkets in your inventory that I wasn't aware of! I forget to swap trinkets even more than I forget skills, so I've kind of given up on it... Also, I really don't understand why people call the leper trash, he's just a focus ring away from criting everything in the Frontline for 60 damage, he carried both the first and third darkest dungeon on stygian for me. He can be both a placeholder character to put in first or second and forget about him while he destroys the enemy Frontline and a cornerstone character if the team is built around him, I urge anyone reading this to try out the conveyor belt strategy, it's not terribly effective, but it sure is cathartic. Also, an addition for this list, though it might be considered more of a newbie mistake, don't forget to get vials of the blood in your supplies when going out with infected heroes, rip Bernard my beloved flagellant.
The only thing bad about Leper that he could not reach the backline. So a character that could move enemies around would be really good with him. I don't find my Leper crit that often, but when he do, he sure does output big pp number.
@O K I don't think any character is useless, but the antiquarian is the closest to it of them all. If you mismanage your funds the antiquarian can help but won't save you, but sometimes you just need a cash injection for extra upgrades, so I can't say she is inherently useless. In the late game her money effectiveness drops and she is obsolete if you have a bank. Her supportive abilities are outmatched, but she's also the most versatile support and can shine in some very specific lineups.
5. is real good. One time LowkoTV was streaming a Starcraft 1 campaign and ran into some Scouts (protoss air superiority fighters). And he gave a whole little schpiel about how Scouts weren't meta and no one ever used them... and then just kinda sat and watched as they completely annihilated his entire force of Guardians (zerg heavy bombers). Not meta, don't need to deal with them. Ha! They're powerful at their niche, they're just less cost-effective than other options (Corsairs and Carriers). But it doesn't make 'em not dangerous!
im a big fan of taking a unit with me who i dont care too much about their trinket on so i just give them something that will help me if i need it later. or and i admit this one is far less optimal, i just leave them empty to potentialy open up 2 slots if trinkets drop in the dungeon
#4: counterpoint - The Leper. Can't do anything from position 3 or 4. Can't hit position 3 and 4. A Man-at Arms or Hellion can do everything better. And 3 and 4 tend to be where stresscasters live. As for accuracy on our Lepery friend though - Jester or accuracy trinket and he DOES do a ton of damage to front liners (and can team up with an occultist to bully anything with low debuff res to 0% damage). And torchless, you're gonna want a lot of jesters for stress management anyhow.
Counter counterpoint: The other 3 heroes on your team can take care of the backline, and leper still has intimidate do help out with it. Hellion is comparable but not MAA imo. Hellion has reach and less sustainability. When I beat torchless I had 1 jester at the end. I had 2 but one died. They are helpful but not necessary. Thanks for the push back, it's always fun to talk about leper :)
I power-levelled a vestal from 2 to 6 with the +xp trinket, took her into darkest dungeon map 2, realised I hadn’t levelled her skills, weapon or armour. Oops Fortunately, there was a decent amount of self heal on the team so I scraped through.
Update on #3: Apparently a spent curio still prevents hunger and fight spawns, but the idea is still good to practice because of the second half of the reason which is being able to empty your inventory on the return trip. A few people have mentioned it now so I figured I'd make an update.
(info might be outdated, been a WHILE since I played DD) about hunger checks: It doesn't prevent it. It's never been there in the first place. Hunger checks are like traps, they are set from the start in their place when the dungeon is loaded, and no fight, curio, ANYTHING else can be there. That's why you always get hunger checks in the same spots when you travel back. Something I learned from Jared's streams.
I had fight/hunger spawn on spent curio(torch), though they will reappear once you defeat and enter same hallway again. Been doing enough torchless loot farming by spawning such battles to notice it. Likewise curio disappearing is good indicator of where not to go if you want to avoid losing food yet.
@@ToriToriUwU New hunger checks do spawn when you enter same hallway(even unexplored!) again, though once your party have one you can pass one hallway(aside from current) without triggering next one. In worst case scenario you have hunger check every 2 hallways.
i dunno, whenever i go down those dead end paths, i'll pass through 3-4 hallways/rooms and never get hit with hunger and then on the way back out, i'll have to eat 2-3 times, like my guys suddenly become diabetic just because they are backtracking?
i can end up burning through 2 full stacks of food, just backtracking through a dungeon.
must be why in the footage, i see him with 3-4 stacks of food. I didn't realize it was necessary to bring so much.
6 Overconfidence
Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer
Remind yourself that great is the weapon that many fall in the face of chaos but not these nighmarish creatures can be felled, they ARE RAGE, BRUTAL, WITHOUT MERCY
Don't touch the Brazil ball
@@matheusviolante8364 Ancestor has been spending too much time in the tavern lately
A slow and insidious killer.
Planning for skill swapping just leads to forgetting it
This seems like something the ancestor would say
@@FinnOAventureiro S Black is busting my balls because on stream I forget to swap skills all the time lol
When you're old like me, you go into a run and after the first fight you realize your antiquarian has the wrong skills. But the fights keep ending and you keep forgetting to change and only keep remembering at the start of the next fight. This happened to me just a couple days ago.
@@ShuffleFM
Not really. Happens to me too.
@@ShuffleFM I'm going to coin a phrase and just say, ahh that old dog treat paradox
Number 6
Forgetting that houndmaster has a 1 turn guard.
forgetting to use the op dog biscuit. or getting to good to use syndrome on them and suddenly the dungeons finnished.
Crusader's stress heal is so unique. You can both save from death's door and heal the stress from the crit in one action.
And it grants a bonus to torch too. It may not be the best at one thing but it's good at everything
i always have it equipped, great for stalling until the warning for a party with no vestal/jester/houndmaster
Crusader is one of my favorites! I don’t get why it was even mentioned! some parties crusader is my chosen healer/stress healer.
I like running him with the flagellent with the flagellent's stress heal skill and give the flagellent one or two trinkets to lower the stress the flagellent gains. This also lets you play with the flagellent's death door bonus.
@@goatcheezius2399 flag is best healer and stress healer
There’s one rule I forget all the time but is so important for turn based games like this: it’s always better to be attacked by 3 enemies than 4 even if that means you need to absolutely pummel one guy on your first round of combat
One dead enemy is one action less for the enemies: that's the number that matters. If you happen to get that chance it's something you already won: if you skip attacking him with a strong direct damage dealer just cause he just needs pummeling to optimize damage then he might win initiative to others and act: then the party eats more steel for breakfast.
Yeah, I started playing Darkest Dungeon recently and killing enemies so they can't act is so important, that I'd often end up focusing one important enemy to make sure they can't do anything. Similarly, i've been often trying to wipe out several less tanky enemies over the tougher, more dangerous ones, especially if i can handle what that one tough enemy can throw out, just to deny more actions for the enemy, even if they're on the brink of death. There's one nice saying to add to this, and it sort of acted as my rule - a dead enemy cannot hurt you, but a half-dead enemy WILL kill you.
beat the shit out of the rank 3 lil skeleton bastard, got it
This is why most AoE attacks in this game just aren't worth using.
So you need to watch the 5 mistakes beginners make then
Veteran Mistake: Looting coins over gems at the start of medium and long dungeons. Most gems stacks are higher value than coin stacks and you will find a bunch of them. Stacks of onix are pretty commun. Citrine is the only gem that the stack is worth less than coin. Also, if you have an Antiquarian this is a little different, being coins the safer middle of the road, or you can try fishing for the big ones like rubies and sapphires.
After you get the bank for a couple of weeks gold becomes a non-issue, but before that you want to get as much as possible to get your upgrades going.
Another mistake is not using 4 crusaders to easily win the game with holy lance
Or 4 Highwaymen against the Shuffling Horror. Worked for me, on Stygian.
@@rareroe305 dude why is it so fun to just use 4 of any of the class yet they are all good apart from occult (and jest but I’ve never use 4 jest so I don’t know)
@@arniepage1662 idk if this is a hot take in general but occultist is one of my favs. his on my a- team.
@@assiaisindegyara4905 yeah same but running 4 of them in a team is just inviting disaster lol. Got get those 0 crit heals tho.
@@arniepage1662 Have you ever tried it? I ran a champion level long mission with 4 occultists. It went rather smoothly.
"Even Antiquarian has some pretty strong combat prowess"
*_flashbacks to TVS soloing the final boss with 1 antiquarian_*
He got 5k kills in endless harvest with 4 antiquarians as well :O
i honestly dont think i've ever gotten a kill with antiquarian. i run her alot as well, but by the time every one is low i'm using her support skills and a top roll crit stab doesnt kill anything.
@@assiaisindegyara4905 She’s good for setting up “kill timers” with her blights and finishing enemies off at low health. She has decent accuracy and can hit any rank from any position, too, so if you’re concerned about overkilling a bit too much, she’s got you covered.
@@devranyilmaz9806 so... Pick the shit charecter because it means you won't be hitting to hard.
resulting in less feel bad crit for 50 when you needed 1 dmg.
Lol then I read my first comment. Yeh I don't run her in teams any more. I get a full squad of hers send em in and then delete them all assuming any one survived. She makes some solid bank that way, if you do a medium dungeon, lots of in run gold. Plus ways to make gold while camping.
I like running antiquarian with a highwayman dodge tank / damage dealer. Antiquarian using her "protect me" skill on him gives him even more dodge and twice as many chances to hit enemies with riposte.
Do you know how many times I'll get into a fight and say "oh dang I forgot to swap my skills" then instantly forgot to change them until I get into the next fight
I've had times because of how the game's UI does automatic selection in the mission select where I'd overlook which mission I was doing, so I'd accidentally send a team for Veteran Ruins against Veteran Siren. I somehow managed to beat the boss with no deaths and afflictions, but the lack of bleed protection was horrific for the ucas.
It shows that double-checking your selections is crucial when you're playing.
@@thepineapplemiscreant2625 I've nearly done that same thing. I'll go to make a last minute change and almost hit the wrong mission
I've been playing this game for 2 years and I had no idea you could swap abilities mid-dungeon
The only reason I figured this out quickly was because I forgot to change a hero’s skill before a dungeon ( I think it was vestal) and I check too see if I could swap them and yep, I could. I then proceeded to forget this later, so yea definitely not the most memorable game feature, even if it is extremely important.
@@underplague6344 Oh, the campaigns that could've been saved....
"No plan survives contact with the enemy"
- It is a military proverb and most likely have no known first author.
Helmuth von Moltke
Also, it should coontinue something like: "Still, planning is inevitable for success."
@@DagarCoH Well. It isn't exactly what Helmuth von Moltke said. What he said was also said by Sun Tzu over 2500 years ago.
You need to plan ahead for every battle. The one that makes the most calculations before a battle win over the one that makes the least.
A war is after all just a bunch of battles done during a time period. You can not just focus on a single tactics and never go back to the drawing board.
it was Matt Colville, here one youtube
@@marcellocoppede7237 He absolutely wasn’t the first to say it. He makes references to things all the time and applies them to DnD. He certainly did not come up with the phrase though.
Selling all your crap trinkets when you start getting the good ones. It’s helpful to have a stockpile of crappy trinkets to serve as a buffer for events like the mutant crow stealing a bunch of stuff or your heroes losing trinkets when getting drunk or gambling. If you’re unlucky, sometimes a nice trinket gets lost anyway, but at least you have some protection.
You can circumvent the drunk/gambling thing by giving them the crap trinket before sending them in.
If they lose a trinket, it'll be the one they have equipped, instead of from your inventory!
@@Kurochana Nice tip!
@@Kurochana I was unaware of this.
@@Coryn02 yep, the tavern as stress relief is actually so much more palatable with this trick, the chance of losing a musicbox or something otherwise makes the abbey much more appealing.
Although selling early is good when you have the Bank since you can start accumulating interest faster.
to add to your fifth point: you shouldn't over-theorise a particular strategy for a given team composition, try to think more generally. there're going to be times when a given strategy either can't be used or shouldn't be used.
not to say you shouldn't consider strategies at all, of course, otherwise marking teams just wouldn't work at all, but you also shouldn't be left floundering if you're not able to mark an enemy or your team rolls speed in the wrong order or your primary damage dealer gets stunned by the most agile jellyfish the world has ever seen.
I know I used to come up with 'great' farmstead teams that would mow through the rabble by using the same few moves every couple of turns, and then they'd get trampled by a plow horse and by the time they had recovered everyone would have +30 stress and huge blights.
I think my play drastically improved when I stopped thinking "ok I'll do this on turn 1 and this on turn 2..." and instead thought "ok so this team can do this, this and this when it needs to". gotta be flexible, y'know.
also sometimes it's just fun to use 'suboptimal' heroes for stuff. like bonk vestal or my favourite rank 2 plague doctor.
I think of my team as a set of pieces that have a global job to execute, which is 1- survive and 2 - finish the enemies. Now, what I see, instead of heroes and skills is a pool of all possible actions I can employ depending on the situation.
Say a madman shows up on a battle and my whole team has heavy stress. Can my characters work together to end him turn 1? Should my stress healer try and squeeze some healing or focus the madman? Does any of my damage delaers have ranged skills or will I need to get him out of rank 4? Should I even kill him round 1, if I have the chance to stun? Can I actually risk getting someone afflicted and destress the rest of the team through camping?
This is just one example, of a very specific situation. I don't care plotting a course when the game can mess it all up in a single turn. I simply let the events unfold and use whichever tool is most appropriate for the moment.
The only time to micromanage a plan turn by turn is Shrieker.
You just didn’t account for the shuffle, or didn’t have a high speed stunner for a horse. Now you know, and now you can account for it, nothing changed, using 2 moves can still net you 5k kills in farmstead, it’s just now those skills may have changed. Numbers and spreadsheets will be laughing still at the end.
And if you want a cheesy quote for this:
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Great video as always, cant wait for Top 5 Champion mistakes
Another benefit of delaying looting curios and rooms is that right before you plan to use a campfire or leave the dungeon, you can burn your torch out for the treasure bonus with practically no consequences!
No consequences except for a possible Shambler encounter, if you just willy nilly backtrack in total darkness.
@@eran5005you cannot get jumped by shambler from walking backwards.
However, Shambler will appear if there's respawned fight and can be swapped for shambler fight.
I usually lit a torch before engaged in a fight to prevent shambler and then continue on looting spree
@@tatarchan5212 from what i recall (been a while since i last played DD), the respawn is determined when you exit the room. I definitely had Shamblers fights spawn when i had lit torches, because i was in total darkness when i exit the room.
Note: since you can only have four slots for heroes on an expedition, a generalist(Crusader) is better than two specialists(Vestal and Jester)
Other note: One action spent preventing damage is worth as much as 2 actions spent healing damage taken from an attack not prevented.
When I run abom he tends to end up a stunbot because combining his stun lock and the crystalline key is +55% stun chance meaning you can doublestun that ghoul or crab
You've done this this, too, with your analysis of Vestal's illumination skill. I've used it often, and it helps me bring vestal along as not just a healer but also a debuffer so I don't have to focus so much on bringing accuracy trinkets for other heroes. It also gives you free torchlight, which is nothing to understate. That free torchlight adds up, being able to clear stealth and nerf enemy dodge is great too.
Good thing I am a champion and am far beyond silly mistakes
*party wipe, including Dismas and Reynauld*
"You will arrive along the Old Road..."
within my first play through I used the vestal too such a high extent, so that I challenged myself to play my second go mostly without her and it really helped me discover and appreciate some of the other healing (or even dodging) skills in the game.
5) Numbers Game.
Youre talking about the importance of contextualizing abilities and loadouts and/or removing Black and White thinking from your strategy.
Thats not even just good game advice, thats good life advice.
I think Darkest Dungeon (or maybe Roguelike genre) gives really good life lessons. You learn that bad things can happen anytime, anywhere, and plans don't matter. You learn to accept loss, to move on to reach your goal. And you learn what overconfidence is.
@@hjubris Good comment.
🤓
Darkest Dungeon is a game where you can't have everything and there is no wish fulfillment, which means you must earn what you can have and fulfill your own wishes according to your ability. I think that makes it a good life teacher, made even better thanks to Wayne June's bleak but eloquently pragmatic narration.
Hey Shuffle, appreciate the content. To add on to your point of unnecessary looting at number three, there's another reason to leave curios until later if you know you'll have to pass through that room or hallway again later: Your light level is likely to be lower at that point (or in any case is something you're in control of, if you know you're headed there), and therefore you may be getting more/better loot on your second pass than you might the first time around, when your torchlight was higher.
>Be veteran.
>Know the game is gonna fuck you over.
>Buy a lot of stuff cause you know you perhaps need it.
>Get broke.
>Run 4xAntiquarian, just once, it will work.
>Doesn't work.
>Cry.
Should have run Quad Leper instead
Try running 3× Anriquarian and a Vestal on a long dungeon.Make it to first room,camp twice,spawn 6 trinkets,reduce stress abandon mission,sell trinkets and repeat.When i was unexperienced player i wanted to have more gold so i thought of this tactic and exploited the game quite a lot XD
For me even 3 antiquarians find too much valuables to carry, so for me the best farming setup is 2 antiquarians + some backup for them
When Swine Skiver goes first with a speed roll and crits all of your backline before you have a chance to react at the start of the fight and now 3 peeps are low and have long blight on them with no antivenom in inventory. I hate when people say just pull him to the front and kill him like yeah that works if you have the right party and if he doesn't already maim your team with a cripple them on freaking turn 1 since he has high damn speed dude makes the swine god look like a peewee pig on high rolls crits are totally unbearable even if the party is at 100% hp and stress and maxed out with full trinkets and resolve 6 its an instant i'm getting the hell out of here fight.
And there's Skeleton Noble with just a knife dealing 3-5 damage. Not all beings created equally.
@O K who said I didn't bring antivenom? You get hit with blight on the turn after and booms mortality debuff backline characters don't have that much hp in champ dungeons.
Warrens Champion is the toughest generic dungeon to run imo, I just try to get my heroes to level 6 and then never field them again till bossfights/the darkest dungeon/after coming out of the darkest dungeon.
The way I see it, champion dungeons are designed to kill your heroes, a stray shambler (which has a much higher chance to appear in champion) can really mess you up big time too, among other extremely dangerous foes like giga corpse eater.
Or in the Cove you get a hallway fight with four Pelagic Groupers
When I first started playing this game I lost my first and only Vestal the week after I got her. I had to learn how to survive on No-Trinket Arbolest/Crusader for the next 8 weeks before I *finally* got a unit with decent healing (Occultist). I didnt get another Vestal for another 9 weeks. xD
I tell you what though, for as versatile as Vestal is, I certainly am fine healing w/o her or occultist for that matter, and that's all because of that unfortunate event. xD
Definitely never thought about rotating neutral trinkets around. That's a great tip.
5. AH AH ! Yes, I think I have a problem with the Jester and the Antiquarian =^.^=, but I always enjoyed the Leper.
3. I took me time to understand that looting is not the best path. I was constantly running out of space in my inventory, leading me to bad choices (prefering heirlooms or money to other necessity goods). Since I stopped it, I could bring more torches and food, and heal during fights with bandages, antivenom,... as well as benefiting the curios which needs those necessity goods. This greatly improved my stress relief, which is always good is you don't want to go insane :'-D
Great tips anyway, for all kind of players.
Advice 5 has really improved my gameplay. Not only do I get better but the game gets a lot more fun with a diverse party comp. Also Leper for me went from meh to my favourite champ and it is mostly because how good intimidate is.
Fear of overkill is something i do every once in a while but thats when dealing with DOT on the enemy
Man this was super helpful. Trinket swapping and food preservation were things i discovered way too late in the game.
I got back into DD recently because of the announcement for DDII, and these are really helpful tips. I remember when I first started playing I hated the highway man and leper and now that I have learned to use riposte and accuracy trinkets they are two of my favorite classes. My biggest struggle now is I feel like I don't know what to loot because my inventory always ends up full and I start ditching supply items to make space.
Inventory management is a really hard part of expeditions. Even a decision of 600 gold vs 3 deeds is tough
1 tip: bring a plague doctor/Hellion to save space on bandage and toxin cure bottle. Do not ditch out
torches (unless you are in the final room), food (the food check could be a deadly trap). Mostly don't bring key. I find myself rarely need to use key on curio.
When I play this game, I like my overconfidence. Contrary to the popular belief, it is not a slow and insidious killer, which is made clear by my constant party wipeouts in the hardest difficulty. Quick and mind numbing, it leaves me with no more feeling and no more sanity left. Yet, I fucking love this game. 💀🖤
Two things I wasn't aware of for the longest time: Swapping skills in dungeons. SWAPPING HEIRLOOMS IN TOWN. Just discovered that like a month ago. Beat the game 3 times with a few failed stygian attempts.
The "No swaps" mistake i'm guilty of... In a way, i don't swap items or skills because i really don't need to most of the time, i gear and skill up my party before going into a dungeon so their skills are apporpriate to what they will be facing. The only times i switch skills is if i'm constantly getting critted and i need someone who can tank some hits, say i got a Houndmaster ill put on his guard skill just to be a bit more safe, but is mostly the exception and not the rule.
9:34 I played my first veteran long mission in the Weald. My team was MAA-BH-HM-Occultist.
In the first half of the run, the MAA wss in death's door. He survived the fight but the dude had the DD debuff.
In the second half of the run, i tried MAA in rank 4 as a full support and Occultist in rank 3, HM in rank 2 (i love the stun) and BH in 1. If the stress amount went above 50%, i simply switched between rank 3 HM and rank 2 Occultist.
If my MAA never went to death's door, I think i will never knew about the amazing and full role he can do in Rank 4. I've only played this game for like 22 hours, and i can't believe the amount of flexibility and new strategies you can make. One of my new favorite games without a doubt
You didn't used to be able to swap skills mid-dungeon, wonder how many people are operating off outdated knowledge vs. people who just never tried
Swapping skills before bosses is what made me beat the red difficulty in every region
My fun/stupid party:
4th - Arbolist built for healing +light stress healing
3rd - Grave Robber w/ crits, speed, and lunge
2nd - Crusader w/ stuns, holy lance, stress healing
1st - Highwayman built for duelists advance (must be decently faster than crusader but slower than grave robber
Dance till they're ded and stall to recover using shadowfade to set up for a mega crit lunge
you didn't mention one of the biggest reasons to not loot curios on your first pass through and it's that you can lower/snuff torch when you're done with the branch and get a lot of extra loot for almost no risk (the traps and hallway fights will be pre-scouted on your way back), then just reignite or camp when you're back to uncharted territory
this is also one of the reasons scouting is so good, you can really squeeze your torch super hard when you have scouted territory ahead and the only downside is you "waste" a bunch of torches and you lower scouting chance for further rooms while doing it, especially if running 50-
This is such an under appreciated channel. I only recently got into darkest dungeon and have leveraged your videos to help me progress through the game. Thanks a ton for posting this content, and I hope you make it big.
Damn you really getting those advise coming. It's always nice to have some tutorial videos about this game
People seem to like them so I'll keep doing it :)
With regards to "getting trapped in the statistics" it's a pretty common midwit pitfall in any game. A very illustrative example I've run into is mid-to-high-level Monster Hunter players running a skill that has a percentage chance to reduce damage taken from any given hit by a large portion, while not bothering with the defense stat on their armour as well as considering the defense up skill useless because if you do the math over the course of say a hundred hits with a theoretical infinite health bar the chance to reduce damage skill will save you more hitpoints. The thing that they completely miss is that the point of reducing damage taken is to allow you to survive more hits before you die (so you can heal) and just having enough defense will save you from getting one-hit by most attacks (all but one or two from the ultimate final boss monster) 100% of the time instead of like 35% with the "mathematically better" skill.
People get caught up on numbers in the tabletop RPG optimization community as well, and, I'd assume, many other video game communities. When people get so caught up on numbers they overlook practical situations that throw a wrench into those numbers, I'm surprised we don't have a broader term for that.
Starting playing this game like a month ago and I can't put it down. I'm actually really impressed with how balanced the heroes are in Darkest Dungeon. Not to suggest that they are all equally good but it's actually rare to see a game where the quality spread is as tight as it seems to be in Darkest Dungeon. They've definitely got a thing going where the team comp matters far more than the individual parts.
About number one: it's fine to leave a unit alive if you can stun them and are confident you can either kill then next turn or they'll die to a DOT status. Otherwise, kill them off, that extra turn might kill a hero or put another on deaths door. Stunning them because you'd rather focus on someone else is fine, but don't leave them if you don't have them stunned.
0`My additions to your rules
#1 Get in the habit of checking your camping skills before you right click on that firewood. Decide what skills you're going to use BEFORE you camp. In long dungeons I will often switch camping skills between my first and second camps based on the condition my team is in at that particular time.
#2 There are no bad heroes.
True. But there are heroes that you don't need to win the game and defeat all the bosses
IMO you don't need the arbalast the leper or (if you can do without the extra money) the antiquarian. Arguments could also be made that you're better off not using either the bounty hunter or the grave robber and replacing them with highwaymen. All those classes can be used to good effect, but you don't need them to be successful.
Actually, it could be argued that if it was possible, (which it mostly isn't) you could defeat the game with nothing but crusaders highwaymen and vestals. Except that you do need the man at arms for two particular boss battles
Anyway my 2 cents.
It took me some time before I tried running comps without Vestal, and once I did I loved it. I actually have never lost a hero when using non-Vestal healer comps. The only good thing Vestal has is a group heal. She has low stun resist, a weak stun, & her positional dependency can be a real problem. After seeing several videos talking about Crusader or Flagellant healing I gave them a shot and have been loving it every since. I always run a secondary healer like Arbalest or PD incase the main healer gets stunned or to get someone off death's door.
The quote is "Everybody has a plan til they get punched in the face." I heard it from Mike Tyson. It Might be Sun Tsu that has the more poetic version though.
Hey thanks for the video. I have 300 hours in the game and i got really good tips here. Would be awesome to get a video with tips for the courtyard.
Keep the great work
Working on a courtyard guide right now. Not sure when it will be done :(
Got just over 200 hours in as well and I feel these are going to help me so much.
The first tip should be: consider that all heroes you send there WILL get the Curse and plan accordingly
No hero sucks but there are heroes that don't suit certain playstyles, and I think it's ok if people choose to not use these classes. I like Leper even though some people hate using him, and I almost never use abomination but I'm happy with the teams I use so I don't bother learning how to use him. Whatever floats your boat
a crit generally gives some stress relief, so no worries about the overkill crit as far as i’m concerned
I bring a heroes ring into any dungeon mid/late game on any hero. I move it around based on who I think is gonna get the stress check. Its a lifesaver!
I actually didn't know you could switch skills during a dungeon 😂
I have a lot of hours on DD and have never seen a hunger check come up on a “used” curio spot. Good video btw
With regards to the number 5 point with no plans remain intact. I had a plan when I was fighting beguiling siren. I used transformed abomination and the siren took control of him and then had him transform back into a human severely damaging my ability to reliably do massive damage because my only other damage guy was leper. And then my healer was killed.
Speaking of leper, yesterday I decided to fight the fulminating prophet with a flagellant, an abomination and 2 lepers, and it worked out surprisingly well. I even took out all 3 pieces of wood, and only the healer died in the process.
...... OMG.... You can change their moves mid level? As long as you aren't in the middle of a fight? OMG... This information could have saved so many. Well, I'm glad I learned it now.
Min maxing in darkest dungeon is like min maxing a hexblade in 3.5 dungeons & dragons. It's not absolutely necessary but you really really really want to do it because you're already at a disadvantage.
I know this is unimportant for most but hound master also has great trap disarm. 100% at level 5 dungeons.
In the case of ignoring a curio for when backtracking: Encountering an active curio twice gives twice the chance for your heroes with curiosity quirks (curious, kleptomania etc) from touching them and wasting it or even hurting themselves or stealing your loot (REYNAULD!!!)
I never ever leave curio for later anymore ever since my leper ruined what was to be the easiest shambler fight of my life by going 'i wonder what this does' on the altar
You mean I don’t have to have stress heal equipped on my Jester for fights where no one has any stress and can do something useful for that fight? Dang. How did I not realize that before. Seems super obvious in hindsight…
So, I've just picked the game back up after not playing it for a while. I think the furthest I got was the Apprentice Necromancer on Darkest difficulty. This video is still helpful for someone as new as me, and I think that speaks volumes as to how well explained these mistakes are.
Hunger check spaces are pregenerated meaning it cannot appear on a curio that's been used or not.
A TIME TO PERFORM BEYOND ONE'S LIMITS
I didn’t know you can swap skills. Damn these are great videos.
I'm no veteran and I understand no heroes are bad, but I can't see myself getting around the amount of stress an abomination causes. It's too much and endds up costing gold and downtime.
My worst game was 1 finished the quest with full HP no stress... But I decided to go for 1 more room ended up getting focus fired enemy went 8 times on the same unit... She immediately die... it was traumatizing. Lost a good hero from my A team
from your torchless video i started a no gold/treasure run and I'm fairly early on (about to go after the first boss) and so far i'd been dumping antiquarians under the pretense of "well i cant use them for their money bags anyway!" but now I'm reconsidering adding one to the roster just to see where that can lead me
That's a great mindset to have, good luck!
when it comes to the kit overlap and thinking one's not necessary because others can do their jobs better.... i kinda have issues with that mindset in real life, feeling like i'm not needed since everything i can do someone else can do better. but i'm saving this video, it feels a bit odd to get a life lesson from a DD video but, thanks.
I'm not a veteran but i play fairly often and like the game. Had no idea that you can swap skills and got my one team killed because my Flagellant and Vestal had wrong skills ._.
Skill swapping is so nice vs boss and i always forget trinket swapping unless it gives me more inventory space xd. I'll definitly try to do it more.
I have 300+ hours in Darkest Dungeon, have been to the Wiki countless times and have watched untold amounts of content on thi game and it wasnt until just now that I learned that hunger checks can onl spawn on open tiles.
The third one was actually pretty helpful. I mean i was never looting curios that i will meet twice, because if i spend some anti venom before the fight it can fuck me up. But i didnt know that hunger checks or fights or curio icons on map cannot be at the same spot. So thanks on that one
the thing is, due to my weaponized autism, I've been doing these things for years
Great guide as always; before watching I already knew I still have a long way to go, improvement-wise.
Speaking of, I started my first Stygian run about 2 weeks ago and I'm not sure I'm doing well/fast enough now to beat the run. Currently around 30ish weeks in and I haven't even beat a single veteran boss yet, mainly because of terrible stress RNG made my GR selfish (from 0 stress) on the first battle during veteran Necromancer quest, despite 'Silence in the Crypts' enabled beforehand. That, and my party gained at least 4 diseases just from abandoning said quest.
So now with knowledge gained from this guide, I'm not sure if I can improve and save the run in time, or just start another Darkest (+ Crimson Court) run and improve myself from there. Regardless, I love Darkest Dungeon regardless of what RNG it throws at me.
Stygian and bloodmoon always feels like you're going too slow because of how long the apprentice grind is. The veteran and champ part of the grind are over very quickly, so I would say by your timing you're fine if you are doing vet stuff right now.
I’ve been playing this game for years and I didn’t realize you could swap skills mid dungeon. 😂
10:28 For the record, that quote is from Rommel
10:37 and sometimes you don't get beast carcass for the entirety of long run in weald... only to then only get just 3 hunger checks in the entire run with backtracking like 8 rooms???? it can be so confusing at times I swear.
Pretty sure your quote comes from Sun Tzu's Art of War 😎
Really looking forward to getting into this game - these primer vids are a massive help man, thank you 👍
There's more to wrap your head around with this game, clearly, I need the knowledge and I'm getting it right here 😎
As someone who has over 800 hours in DD and is now trying Bloodmoon(its pain pls end my suffering I beg you) my most important one is to set up advantages for your next battle, even if its trivial one or only one fight, doing any 15% DMG quest plus less stress on mission.
Oh and buy Color of Madness DLC, for every "endless" run, if you defeat Thing from the stars you always get 15k gold and some emblems, plus the time wont move so you can do 2 runs in single week.
I didn't even realise you could switch skills mid mission until way after I beat the game lol. 70+ hours played until I learned that. Felt so stupid
i've been playing this game for a while now, its the first i heard about switching skills during dungeons!
i didn't know about that!
I only get hunger checks after I feel like im nearly done with the dungeon so I swap out my last bit of food for loot 😒
Packs laden with loot are often low on supplies.
@@shino1970 to fall for such a little thing... a bite of bread...
After I saw that happen to my roommate while he was playing an excess of darkest dungeon, I decided I would never do that.
Or at least mostly not do that. I think it did happen a few times because I wanted to rush a district or something.
I've been thinking there's a time and place to swap skills for character mid-mission. I've yet to really implement the strategy, but I'm thinking a hero who's been stressed out would benefit from reconsidering the combination of skills, but I hadn't thought of swapping out trinkets, which now seems so obvious I can't believe I hadn't been practicing the tactic already. Thanks for the tip, always room for improvement in this game.
Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face with a Treebranch Smackdown after getting surprised at 100% torch in a hallway fight.
I just got into the game and I'm fresh. I didn't realize what would happen if you killed the little piggy on that boss. And my hellion crit the lil piggy in one swan and I thought like "heck yeah what you gonna do now pig man?" My dudes made it through like 5 death blows leaving my jester and g.r. without pick and jester in the front with his two bleed moves and buffs worn off. But they survived the shift and nailed the last hit. I needed five and I got five. But at what cost...
Actually it was flipping sick and it kinda made me love the game. Can't wait to play it more.
Regarding point 3, I'm not sure if this mechanic is related but I think I actually learned of these invisible tiles from the courtyard. Every empty tile you traverse, you gain 1 stress, so if there's a trap, a battle, a curio, or an invisible tile, then you won't get the stress (correct me if I'm wrong)
I don't think stress is guaranteed on empty tiles, it might be, but I do feel that you only get stress on empty tiles as well. I should have looked it up
2 and 3 are things that I would be doing if I didn't forget during the run. Half the time I forget taking the map with me lol.
Oh my god, I had no idea you could swap skills in a mission
Fun fact: I once Leper Crit for 56 on a 2 health skeleton
Yeah I didn't know you could swap skills on dungeons
I wish i had enough luck to play torchless. I've been doing a no death bloodmoon challenge since the color of madness update and I lose it constantly to bad luck. 9/10 times its spiders getting all 4 turns and 2 crits in full torch on my fastest unit that then dies to the blight.
Not that there isn't a lot of skill and knowledge involved but like. Today I lost a run that had a highwayman,vestal,grave robber, and plague doctor to a group of spiders because none of them rolled higher speed than the spiders and they all wailed on my plague so when she got her turn she just died.
Ah beans thats rough. Torchless Deathless is really just grinding out attempts and hoping to get the good one where you can get past week 15 lmao, so best of luck with that.
@@flagellantbestgirl thanks man, I need all the luck I can get. I just wanna see a good run lol.
@@averynewtown2782 Very cool ideas were used to create this game, but way too much RNG and combat is a bit dodgy overall.
@@OWlsfordshire i dont think it effects the game as a whole. Really its only a problem with doing a self imposed deathless run on the higher difficulty when the game itself actually allows for 10 which is more than gracious over all
Adding to #5: Everyone has a plan until they hare punched in the face.
I love the leper. My off the shelf leper earlier chopped the necromancer with a 36 damage crit turn 1 😂
For a moment I thought you were talking about a mechanic of taking extra trinkets in your inventory that I wasn't aware of! I forget to swap trinkets even more than I forget skills, so I've kind of given up on it...
Also, I really don't understand why people call the leper trash, he's just a focus ring away from criting everything in the Frontline for 60 damage, he carried both the first and third darkest dungeon on stygian for me. He can be both a placeholder character to put in first or second and forget about him while he destroys the enemy Frontline and a cornerstone character if the team is built around him, I urge anyone reading this to try out the conveyor belt strategy, it's not terribly effective, but it sure is cathartic.
Also, an addition for this list, though it might be considered more of a newbie mistake, don't forget to get vials of the blood in your supplies when going out with infected heroes, rip Bernard my beloved flagellant.
The only thing bad about Leper that he could not reach the backline. So a character that could move enemies around would be really good with him. I don't find my Leper crit that often, but when he do, he sure does output big pp number.
@O K I agree with most of what you said, I just don't think his weaknesses are enough to name him worst character like many people say.
@@mini-spooder101 yup, the conveyor belt occultist - occultist - leper - leper, it's hilarious.
@O K I don't think any character is useless, but the antiquarian is the closest to it of them all. If you mismanage your funds the antiquarian can help but won't save you, but sometimes you just need a cash injection for extra upgrades, so I can't say she is inherently useless. In the late game her money effectiveness drops and she is obsolete if you have a bank. Her supportive abilities are outmatched, but she's also the most versatile support and can shine in some very specific lineups.
5. is real good. One time LowkoTV was streaming a Starcraft 1 campaign and ran into some Scouts (protoss air superiority fighters). And he gave a whole little schpiel about how Scouts weren't meta and no one ever used them... and then just kinda sat and watched as they completely annihilated his entire force of Guardians (zerg heavy bombers). Not meta, don't need to deal with them. Ha! They're powerful at their niche, they're just less cost-effective than other options (Corsairs and Carriers). But it doesn't make 'em not dangerous!
I actually learnt pretty recently that you can swap skills, lmao...
Wow number 3 is great, thanks for the tips!
im a big fan of taking a unit with me who i dont care too much about their trinket on so i just give them something that will help me if i need it later. or and i admit this one is far less optimal, i just leave them empty to potentialy open up 2 slots if trinkets drop in the dungeon
#4: counterpoint - The Leper. Can't do anything from position 3 or 4. Can't hit position 3 and 4. A Man-at Arms or Hellion can do everything better. And 3 and 4 tend to be where stresscasters live.
As for accuracy on our Lepery friend though - Jester or accuracy trinket and he DOES do a ton of damage to front liners (and can team up with an occultist to bully anything with low debuff res to 0% damage). And torchless, you're gonna want a lot of jesters for stress management anyhow.
Counter counterpoint:
The other 3 heroes on your team can take care of the backline, and leper still has intimidate do help out with it. Hellion is comparable but not MAA imo. Hellion has reach and less sustainability.
When I beat torchless I had 1 jester at the end. I had 2 but one died. They are helpful but not necessary.
Thanks for the push back, it's always fun to talk about leper :)
I believe the "street version" of your quote is this one from Mike Tyson : "Everyone's got a plan till they get punched in the face!"
I power-levelled a vestal from 2 to 6 with the +xp trinket, took her into darkest dungeon map 2, realised I hadn’t levelled her skills, weapon or armour.
Oops
Fortunately, there was a decent amount of self heal on the team so I scraped through.