Darkest Dungeon

It's a decent game, OP. The problem is that the game is needlessly extended, especially the endgame, and that some of the higher level enemies are absolute bullshit. You can still mitigate a lot of the RNG with good tactics. Personally I understand that the game is all about loss so I don't mind. Overall a very flawed game but still enjoyable for a bit.

But are the DLC standalone or what? I just downloaded the latest DLC from IGG, but I'm not sure if it has the base game yet, which I should have asked from the beginning.

I remember that it used to have a thread on Holla Forums a lot. It was different during development?

Powerwolf is pretty degenerate band, don't take their songs seriously.

People kept getting mad that the devs were patching out "effective" strats during development.

The DLC is just a new area with a OP class. The new area adds a really annoying vampire effect.
The other one is just a single hero, which is okay.

Satanists beliefs are usually derivative from Christianity and the ones that are actually satanists and not edgy teens don't antagonize God.

I see, thanks, user.

Are there any decent porn mods yet? Aside from some new characters, I mean. I'd probably pick this back up if I could fap while I play.

user really? That's stretching it a bit much.
It's just a good song made by an otherwise disinterested powermetal band.
With actually Satanic music, it's usually not propaganda either, just aesthetic.

The core belief of Satanist is oppose to the corruption the belief on God spreads along the whole "Satan was right and God wasn't". As so, they usually hate more the people that believe in God than God himself.
But you're right, the song has the "We came to kill and plunder" line, which would have been infinitely better if changed to "We came to kill and conquer".

Good thing we have them all in the government counting shekels and killing civilization :^)

Fuck this shit and fuck grinding new characters.

I'll probably try again, but the fact that you have to rely on RNG to get party members worth a shit outside of specialized parties (DUDE ANTIQUARIANS AND FLAGELLANTS LMAO) makes it less obnoxious to just start a new game and hope for a better stable next time.

Upgrade your stagecoach first, and try to max out your speed.

...

Some tips since there's newfags in the thread:

Your best bro for early to mid game. Deus Vultman is the jack of all trades character, who can tank (Bulwark of Faith), support (Inspiring Cry is your best friend), and fuck things up as needed. You honestly can mix his skills up as needed and still get some mileage out of him. He falls off late game, however he is by no means obsolete. Nearly mandatory in the Ruins. I personally run him with Smite, Zealous Accusation, Holy Lance, and Inspiring Cry (always have this on Crusader) while kitted with a damage trinket and a speed trinket. Always lock in Quick Reflexes and Slugger when you see them. Third perk to lock in is up to you.

On paper, he's a melee/ranged hybrid fighter. In practice, he is very biased to melee, so you should use him as such. Highwayman has average damage for the game, however he makes up for it with more specialized moves. Open Vein gives a modest bleed and cripples speed, and Tracking Shot is good to have for bossfights, but his most important move (in my eyes) is Duelist's Advance, which moves up one space and gives him a counterattack every time he's attacked for a few turns. This counterstrike is extremely powerful against certain bosses (some bosses have several moves in one turn) and can proc even if the attack is dodged. I recommend running him with Wicked Slice, Open Vein (switch this for some other move if you bring him to the ruins), Duelist's Advance, and your choice of either Tracking or Point Blank Shot. (PBS looks tempting since the damage is high, but you can only nuke the front enemy. The front guys tend to be tankier monsters so I only bring that if I have to move him back a space while knocking back the dude in front.) Give him a damage trinket and a dodge trinket. Always lock in Slugger, Quick Reflexes, and Evasive.

Oh lordy this one's a hard one for me to sell. Vestal has the only "consistent" heal in the game (the only other healer's heals have a chance to bleed the target, heal for nothing at all, or both) and she is also the only one with an AOE heal. However she is really poor at everything else. She has a stun, but it's fairly weak unless you run her with stun trinkets (which you really shouldn't). Her other skills are only usable in the first two ranks, which are less than optimal places for you squishy healer to be standing in. Even then, Vestal's heals are only okay-ish, at least when compared to Occultist who can potentially heal for a tank's entire health bar. The only way to bring her heals up to "good" standards is to stack both healing trinkets (Tome of Holy Healing + Junia's Head/Ancestor's Scroll) on her. I wouldn't call her useless since she has her moments where I'd rather have her over an Occultist, but she really is weak, and a difficult pick to justify. She gets the job done early game, falls of mid game, and just gathers dust in the late game. She really only has 4 moves worth running: Divine Grace, Divine Comfort, Judgement, and Dazzling Light. Run the aforementioned healing trinkets. If you haven't found those yet, give her any trinkets that increases her survivability. Lock in Quick Reflexes, Hard Noggin (a stunned Vestal is a useless/dead Vestal), and either Evasive or Tough.

Up until Crimson Court, PD was the most powerful character in the game. She is not so much a healer as much as she is a support/DOT mage. She has the best stuns in the game bar none (even without stun trinks they're pretty good. Adding stun trinks makes them chainstun enemies reliably), and her poison hits pretty fucking hard. She also possesses the rare ability to cure bleeds/blights with her Battlefield Medicine. You have two possible ways of running her. She can be ran with Plague Grenade, Noxious Blast, Battlefield Medicine, and your stun move of choice, so that she can melt down tanks (especially those pesky octoniggers in the Cove) with her deadly poisons, or you can have her be a stunbot with Blinding Gas, Disorienting Blast, and your two moves of choice here so that she can keep enemies stunned while everyone else removes them safely. Either way, I recommend giving her the Blasphemous Vial and the Witches Vial (maximize her stun/poison potential) as trinkets. Always lock in Quickdraw and Quick Reflexes (especially if you plan to run her as a stunbot since going first makes a massive difference). Third quirk can be whatever you like, but I prefer to lock in either Steady to partially offset Blasph Vial's penalties, or Clotter to offset her naturally low bleed resist.

There's a reason that's given to you as your first party in the game. It's reasonable enough to run.

Personally, at least for "grinding" missions, I like to run Man at arms, Antiquarian, Vestal/Occultist (usually occultist) and Plague doctor. Antiquarian will speed up the grind significantly. Her abilities are weak, but Protect Me pairs exceptionally well with a man at arms running Retribution. It increases the frequency of enemies attacking the Man at Arms, which gives him almost double the value from Reposte attacks, reduces the damage he takes by buffing his protection, and focuses as much damage as possible to your main tank, so that you get more value out of single target healing. Technically a Man at Arms could use Defender to achieve similar results, but not until round 2, whereas round 1 value is pretty make or break in any strategy.

This party sucks at bosses that like to capture one of your heroes. If they take your Man at Arms, which they are almost guaranteed to do simply because of how the party works, you are pretty much fucked. You lose half your damage potential, all of your protection, and in the case of the Siren you give the boss similar protection. Also the Antiquarian is designed to be a weak character in combat anyway. Her main purpose is to help you acquire more gold, which helps in grinding.

cont.

On paper, Leper is the worst character in the game. His base accuracy is rotten, he's slow as molasses, he can only reliably attack ranks 1 and 2, his kit is very selfish and has little synergy with anyone else, and he MUST be in ranks 1 and 2 otherwise he can do literally nothing but awkwardly shuffle his way back. In practice, however, Leper is the best damage dealer in the entire game, and my personal favorite character in Darkest Dungeon. The first thing you notice with Leper is his retardedly high damage. Without damage trinkets, he hits like a truck. With damage trinkets, he hits like a bullet train full of IEDs. The next thing the Leper brings is his bread and butter move (for me anyways) Intimidate. Intimidate lowers the target's damage, and most importantly, it's protection. Very few characters can deal with enemies with protection prior to the Shieldbreaker, so having him be able to soften a tank up to kill it is huge. Leper can also make himself a good tank. Withstand gives him protections, plus a self-stress heal, and Solemnity lets him heal any damage taken while also buffing his resistances. Leper is a divisive character and I can see why. He's got a lot of weaknesses and is a very inflexible, so your team has to kind of be built around him. Wrangle his weaknesses however, and you'll have a character who can wipe a third of a boss' health bar with one move. You have options with Leper, but I always run mine with Chop, Hew, Intimidate (I swear by this move), and Withstand. Always run at least one accuracy trinket. The Leper's huge damages aint worth dick if he cant hit anything. Second trinket choice is up to you whether you want a damage trinket or a protection trinket. Always lock in Quick Reflexes, Natural Swing, and Slugger. (you can also make a good case for Balanced since Shuffles fuck Leper up bad)

Jester is a character who you will steadily grow to love having around. His moves are mostly bleed moves, but his main move is Inspiring Tune, the best stress heal move in the game. Jester is a great supporting character, albeit an inflexible one. His Solo/Finale moves have long been nerfed into uselessness, so he's really mostly good for bleeds/buffs/stress heals. He's also the most fragile character in the game, so be prepared to either babysit the shit out of him, or lose him to the slightest breeze. Nonetheless you will love this clown, and you will rue the day when he dies or goes batfuck insane with laughter and starts stressing everyone the fuck out. Jester should be run with Battle Ballad, Inspiring Tune, Harvest, and Slice Off. Run him with the Bright Tambourine and a Bleed Amulet. Lock in Quickdraw, Tough, and Evasive.

Booty Hunter is a great damage dealer, but a very reliant one. Bounty Hunter's damage relies on hitting marked/stunned target. Though he has a mark and a stun, he should let his teammates do that rather than waste a turn doing that himself. I do mean it when I say to use him on a marked target. Hitting an unmarked opponent just makes Bounty Hunter an underpowered Crusader. He should ideally be placed on a team with either an Occultist (for dodge-heavy targets) or a Houndmaster (for tanky enemies) so that he can best take advantage of the damage he can bring. Also he shits all over the bandit enemies and is mandatory for the Pounder boss fight (he also eats Vvulf for breakfast). Even if marking isn't an option, he still brings some utility with Come Hither to pull mages forward, and Uppercut/Flashbang to stun niggers. I run my Bounty Hunters with Collect Bounty, Finish Him!, Flashbang, and Uppercut/Come Hither. I equip them with Wounding Helmet and Vvulf's Tassle. For them I lock in Slugger, Precise Striker, and Tough since BH's health leaves a bit to be desired.

She's a fucking nigger. Also she is basically a ranged Bounty Hunter. Much like BH, her damage output depends on hitting a marked opponent, but unlike BH, she lacks the utility to back herself up. She has Battlefield Heal that heals for little, but gives a healing received buff to the target that is nice to have, but is otherwise unremarkable. She is also quite inflexible, as having her dragged forward limits her to either wasting a turn moving back, or using Blindfire. My problem with Arbalest, is that she has a few moments where she really, truly shines, (Pounder, and Swine King) but is otherwise completely mediocre and not worth taking a slot from the Occultist/Plague Doctor. She is extremely niche. She shines in those specific moments where she is really good, but is outclassed anywhere else. I run Arby with Sniper Shot, Blindfire, Battlefield Heal, and either Sniper's Mark or Rallying Flare. I equip Shebooniqua with Ancestor's Musketball and Wrathful Bandanna. The best perks to lock in are Unerring, Eagle Eye, and the third perk is up to you. Oh yeah, did I also mention she's a FUCKING NIGGER

I've been playing this game alot recently and it's fun suprisingly. It can be very grindy and it feels like it needs more dungeon and enemy variety although it is adequate. Most of the characters have their uses and the only one I'd consider a useless waste of space would be the antiquarian. It's hard and goes out of its way to fuck you but I wouldn't say it feels unfair. I haven't beaten it yet so I've been playing vanilla but after I win I'm gonna play again but with a shitload of mods. Also the narrator can be entertaining and some of the mini stories surrounding the different bosses make them more interesting. My main gripe with it is that it's a long game but it feels kind of artificial. It's a game where the gameplay better be engaging to you or else you're going to hate it after a little time.

How do they have different helmets?
They don't do that in the version I'm playing?

Antiquarian is great. She's weak in combat, although she has some fairly good support abilities. Her main purpose is farming gold, which tends to be the grindyest thing in the game so she's very valuable to have.

Every antiquarian you have increases your max gold stack by 750. More importantly though, if an Antiquarian loots a curio (with any loot at all) it will drop an Antique in addition to regular loot. This even includes fixed-loot curios like unburned torches. Common antiques are worth 500 each and stack to 20 (10k gold stack), and rare antiques (about 1 in 7) are worth 1250 each and stack to 5 for a 6500 value stack. Taking an antiquarian along means HUGE profits, which can dramatically cut down on how much you have to farm and how much you have to scrimp to equip your team.

I don't recommend bringing her for bosses, but she's good enough for all regular dungeons.

Correction, rare antique stacks are worth 6250. Still very good to have.

She also has the "trinket scrounge" camping ability that can occasionally earn you rare trinkets, meaning even more gold.

cont. again

Basically a girl Highwayman. Both are melee/ranged hybrids, but where HWM is biased towards melee, she is biased towards her ranged attacks. While Highwaydude has all the damage, Grave Robber has a bit more utility under her belt. If you want a ranged attacker, Grave Robber is your best bet, however be prepared to change tactics when dealing with enemies with guards/protection as Grave Robber really struggles against protection. If ever you can, try mixing Grave Robber and Highwayman together. I found a neat tactic that involves two highwaymen with duelists advance and a grave robber with Lunge. They both synergize with each other remarkably well. On my Grave Robbers I always pack Pick to the Face, Thrown Dagger, Poison Darts, and either Lunge or Shadow Fade. Equip her with Ancestor's Musketball and Raider's Talisman. Lock in Unerring, Eagle Eye, and Evasive.

First thing's first: Antiquarian is NOT a combat character. Do not even attempt to use her as a combat character for her use in a fight is as much as a socket wrench in a pregnancy ward. Even the utility she brings is underwhelming. She has a weak heal and a mediocre blight. She can force someone to protect her which synergizes well with Highwayman and Man at Arm's counters, but that's all she's got. Where she really shines is in your wallet. Antiquarians allow you to hold more gold in your inventory per stack (additional antiquarians give more gold per stack) and if she is made to interact with everything, Antiquarian is able to find these valueable relics that are worth a decent amount, are dirt common, and stack to a retardedly high amount. You drag this dumb gypsy cunt around and if she lives, you are rewarded with a metric fuckload of cash. Darkest Dungeon gets really grindy later on. A few trips to a medium dungeon with an antiquarian will have you go from selling trinkets just to afford torches to spending everything on therapy for your faggot heroes while still swimming in more cash than you know what to do with. Once you're rich though, there's no real reason to even keep one in your roster. Her moves don't really matter, but I'd run mine with Nervous Stab, Flashpowder, Invigorating Vapors, and Protect Me! I give her the Carapace Idol and some other dodge trinket for her items. Lock in Evasive, Tough, and Hard Skinned.

Hellion is probably the closest the game has to a "meta" damage dealer. Whereas every other character has had more specialized sources of damage, Hellion just straight up hits hard. Hellion has some really strong moves under her belt, but most come with the downside of debuffing her when used. Like Arbalest, Hellion has her few moments where she really truly shines (the pussy method of killing Prophet, the Mammoth Cysts) but unlike Arb, she can actually back her shit up with her damage output and slight utility. My main moves on Hellion are Wicked Hack, Iron Swan (I know this move is situational as fuck, but I swear by it to my dying breath), Barbaric Yawp/Breakthrough, and Adrenaline Rush. If you aren't an Iron Swan patrician like me, you can substitute with If it Bleeds. Do note ever use Bleed Out, it sucks. I equip Snu-snu lady with full damage trinkets and always lock in Slugger, Natural Swing, and a third perk of your choosing.

The healer for those who love to gamble. Occultist has the highest healing in the game, but balances it by having a chance to bleed the patient. His healing also runs at extreme values. He can either heal for your whole health bar, or heal for a whopping 0 health. Aside from his meme heals, Occultist also has a fair amount of utility, with marks, pulls, debuffs, and a melee attack that crits like a motherfucker. He trades consistency for power, and let me tell you, you will feel it when he bleeds a death's door hero while healing him for nothing. Occultist has options, but I run mine with Wyrd Reconstruction, Vulnerablility Hex, Eldritch Pull, and either Sacrificial Stab or Weakening Curse. I give Occultist one healing trinket and then give him a Cursed Incense. Always lock in Quickdraw, Quick Reflexes, and Evasive.

I have to admit I didn't know that, I ran her three times and all three she was absolutely useless and so I just dropped her. I'll have to try her when I'm grinding for supplies and upgrades before big boss fights. Thanks user.

Protect Me pairs well with a Reposte user, as it forces the enemy to attack that character, triggering more counterattacks and also increases their prot. Invigorating Vapors buffs the whole party with dodge and stacks with itself. Nervous Stab is weak, but it's decently reliable as it can hit any of the front 3 slots and be used from any slot. Fortefying Vapors is a very weak heal, but it can still reliably bring somebody back from deaths door. Festering Vapors does little damage, but it can target any space from any space and also debuffs blight resist making it easier for your plague doctors to get in damage themselves.

All in all she's not actually terrible as a support, but she doesn't bring the healing or damage. She can easily double the gold you bring home though, which depending on what you spend in supplies can as much as quadruple your actual profit easily.

there's also a trick where you can bring a party of Antiquarians to a dungeon with camping (preferably a long dungeon), get to the first room and then camp and spam trinket scrounge. Then you exit the dungeon and sell the trinkets.

Your assessment doesn't factor in reliability, which is considerably more important than sheet statistics. In DD, the only hit points that really matter are the ones keeping you off death's door, and that means consistency is miles more important than healing magnitude to actually keep a party on its feet. When clutch time happens, your occultist will heal for zero, and then that hero will get burst down the next round. You can always heal up health damage by keeping a couple front-rank enemies stunned and using the time to recover. You also forget that the vestal has the only party heal in the game, which gets magnitudes better with % heal items. Vestal's stun, while weak, is better than occultist's damage skills against anything but eldritch enemies, and adds that extra layer of reliability to your party. I will say that Occultist's weakening curse is good against big fucks like giants and swinetaurs, but it's more of a niche case that can also be handled with prot and guarding. Also, houndmaster's protection-stripping mark is miles better, and he's one of the three best characters in the game.

The same reliability issues apply to the Leper. A bigger problem than his shit accuracy is that anything he can do only applies to the first two ranks, where the tanks usually are. Those ranks do health damage, which is relatively irrelevant compared to stress, and usually don't do that much of it to begin with. What you actually want is to stun/kill the back rank wizards, markers, and stress-dealers, which leper can't do without someone else shuffling or supporting him. Compare him to the other tank options: Man at Arms and Crusader. MAA's default attack hits rank 3, he has a move/stun, a speed/acc debuff, and excellent buffing options for his party. Crusader has similarities to Leper, but is more reliable, has a stun, a targeted heal, and most importantly, can heal stress, which is a massive utility that many other characters won't give you. He also hits leper levels of damage in the ruins, which gives him another use case scenario. Finally, both of these characters can manage shuffles considerably better, and MAA synergizes nicely with highwayman's DA spam. Leper is also literally pozzed.

Decent writeups on the other classes, though.

What makes you say that?

Not in the metaphorical sense, but he is literally infected with the medieval equivalent of AIDS. Insofar as lore goes he's pretty okay. In fact, you can generally tell how good a character is by their bark toward the heart.

Anyone here actually manage to kill the shrieker without letting it get away? Is that even possible? I beat the thing and got my trinkets back but I'm it escaped and I was wondering if that would happen everytime.

Get accuracy/crit trinketsup the ass,get an Arbalest, a grave robber with to throw knives,an occultist for heals,crits and marks and an Halberd-woman and watch it die to hits.

...

Don't, the webm is better than the game.

I don't know if OP is still lurking the thread, but the game is an above average dungeon crawler with really good flavour and a focus on risk management.
The game's biggest issue is It can't decide whether or not it wants to be a good dungeon crawler or rely on and intergrate its themes and atmosphere. In many places the game combines the two beautifully and the ideas and inspirations are expertly woven into the mechanics, but other times its blatant that they couldn't decide on, or weren't competent enough to balance the two aspects. It ends up pussyfooting around too much when it should really hammer home your hopeless lovecraftian struggle, and shoves terrible design where it isn't needed and undermines those same ideas.

If you find yourself playing through the base game or DLCs and think it's too easy or lacks depth, I suggest picking up the Darkest Dungeon mod. It's a huge overhaul that's a great deal more difficult and depthful than the original game, but has a few issues of its own that can make or break it for you.

Which one?

Wow, that was an excellent display of incompetence.
I'm talking about Pitch Black Dungeon, made by the guy who actually created some of the in-game events with Red Hook.

That's the only mod I've heard consistently great things about.

The game itself is solid as someone who's had it through multiple development stages up to the final product, but it gets a lot of criticism about the RNG from those who can't git gud. I can consistently build up a team and town from the start without do-overs very reliably, minimizing risk and maximizing reward is pretty satisfying and it's fun working through the mechanics. The other major criticism, which has a solid point, is the grind. The further you get into the game, the "grindier" it gets; the reason for this is that things become more and more difficult to the point you need to understand what you're doing at all times, and slight mistakes will make you waste massive amounts of time. At best, a mistake will result in needing to abandon a mission and deal with a team's stress and lose your investment; at worst, a mistake will cost a high level character that will need to be replaced, which not only takes time but can also be massively tedious due to how the mission system works (minimum level requirements).

If you enjoy the gameplay itself for what it is, the latter part isn't too big a deal. It does get irritating sometimes late game when you're constantly trying to beat the final mission and you might not have all your planets align for it.

Also, the narration is fucking top notch. I have never enjoyed a narration in any game as much as the guy who does it in this game.

have you checked out the workshop?

Wasn't that strategy crippled due to nerfs to holy lance ?

No, Lance Spam was a retarded party comp from early access that trivialized most of the game. Red Hook kneejerked and nerfed the ability into mediocrity, and in turn legions of asshurt shitters bitched into eternity about it.

Post-Release/Crimson Court 4 Crusaders became a semi-viable memecomp, especially in PBD.

Any way to install the mod without relying on the shitty workshop? I don't use steam.

It should be up on Nexus. As far as adding the mod files to your own, i'm not sure where those would go.

So how about the Abomination? I haven't figured out how to integrate him into a party but I have had some success with 4 of them together. They are a little slow in fights and VERY weak at level 0, but as the progress alternating slots between damage and heal/de-stress seems to work pretty well. It's an especially good setup on the siren as captured abominations will frequently just heal themselves

Abomination essentially takes the place of an alter-ego Crusader which is somewhat hinted at by religiously devout refusing to be in a party with him. He can heal himself, take care of his stress to a small extent, do a good deal of damage on one or more targets. He can also tank a good bit of damage compared to other characters. Generally speaking if you could use a crusader in a certain comp, Abom would work there too. I like using him and Occultist together (especially since by default the Vestal doesn't want to party with him).

Shit.

Darkest Dungeon is too difficult and not the game for me and I don't want to gitgud

Try steam workshop downloader?steamworkshopdownloader.com/

It is shit. The gameplay is utter shit. Art and sound is spectacular, the narrator is splendid, but the gameplay is random fakehard randumb with intentionally obtuse and hostile UI elements.

Highwayman with PBS+Duelists advance, the other skills don't even matter since you are going to be alternating those two constantly. Duelists advance can't be used from the front space and moves forward 1, PBS moves back one, so the combo allows him to keep up Reposte constantly without wasting turns moving back.

Throw an antiquarian in the mix with "protect me" on the Highwayman in order to make the enemy attack him more often and give him a bit of prot, and HEAPS of dodge and you basically make your enemies kill themselves trying (and failing) to hurt you. I just wish Invigorating Vapors could be used from position 1 or 2, that way I could alternate buffing prot/guard and giving him even more dodge

And that is exactly where the game stopped being fun and started being bullshit. I'd rather hit my dick with a hammer than running in a shitty dev's endgame hamster wheel.

I don't really find that to be the case much. Maybe it's because I'd rather grind "easy" dungeons to get my town levels up and stockpile gold and trinkets, but I find myself dismissing high-level heroes much more often than losing them in battle.

You could also just grab a Man at Arms, and use Rampart to move him forward every other turn.

Updates made the game a lot easier, things like the Antiquarian making gold farming easy (or the librarian for exp) and the stage coach gives level 3 heroes. Also the districts give buffs and the town events give things like free stress healing or reviving dead heroes.
It still relies on RNG mostly, though.

So what are some strong party compositions?

I've played most of the game with Plague Doctor, Occultist, Highwayman/Man at arms, Antiquarian. I use the Highwayman/Man at Arms for Reposte, Antiquarian uses Protect Me to buff the reposte-user and direct more of the enemies attacks to him, occultist heals/damages and plague doctor spams blights and occasionally cures. It works really well for non-boss mid level dungeons to the extent that I can complete a long dungeon with near 0 stress and full life, but it completely falls apart on bosses and struggles in high level.

I just wish there was more plague doctor r34

Patrician taste user.