All the reasons you said that Crusader is S tier are also the reasons why quad crusader literally just solves the entire video game of Darkest Dungeon. There is almost no situation where four crusaders isn't going to be a really good team, assuming you build them properly, of course. It's insane.
@@ExtremeMan10 Countess in general just sounds crazy, i haven't fought her yet but ive heard what she's like and man, idk if i have the courage to do that boss fight despite it being like the last fight i have to do
@@phiwvey I just did it for the first time the other day, 4 went in, 2 came out. I found out I played the fight wrong but yeah she's a hell of a boss fight for sure
honestly, the fact that almost 6 years after the game came out you can make part 6/3 and not repeat yourself is a testament to how cleverly balanced the characters are
It is now the sworn duty of us abomination lovers to force you to make a part 7. We will die on this hill if we must, or ascend like our arbalest and leper loving brothers.
I'd sua he is at least better than arbelist, grave robber. Bounty hunter., antiquarian and man at arms. He is weaker in the start of the game and gets more and more strong as you diversify your roster, gain trinkets, etc.
just got done playing through the darkest difficulty, got each class to legend and got all their class specific trinkets and abomination was by far my most used class and highest damage dealer while also being the most versatile. it's actually insane to think anyone would rank abomination anything besides s tier.
@@esoteric404Abom can absolutely be a wrecking force, but it's also a stress machine which SUCKS in some parts of the game (and especially Crimson Court unless you're bailing out specifically to bring out Abom against bosses only), it has accuracy issues, not so great trinkets, and it's a rather limited class in that it can only really be a damage dealer or a blight/stun bot, with both of them having positioning restrictions. It's definitely a usable class, all of them are, but compared to the sheer amount of stuff something like Crusader can do it's just not the same. Crusader can deal damage, mega tank, heal, stress heal, can be played on every position, can stun, can raise torch, also has great camp effects compared to Abom.
I would strongly encourage you to lean more heavily on building a level 5-6 Abom around his insane damage output in beast mode. With the +25% damage buff for 3 turns from the Transform skill at level 5, Abom's Rage has nearly identical damage, accuracy, and crit chance to a Chop from Leper-with-a-Focus-Ring, and is one of the highest speed heroes in the game even before the absurd +5 additional speed after transforming. Abom walks into a scary fight, trades a tame stress-cleave for throwing overstatted bricks of damage at anything up to rank 3 at unfairly high speed until he reverts to being a fair damage dealer on turn 4, and transforms back into a self-healing stunner when its time to stall. Abom walks into an easy fight and doesn't have to transform at all. I will absolutely say that low level Abom absolutely gets outclassed by being a narrow generalist with mediocre numbers and significant drawbacks, but it's hard to overstate how crazy it is that a character with solidly-above-average damage and speed gets a button that gives 2 trinkets worth of stats for 3 turns with the only tempo drawback being a stress cost that can be undone by squeezing in an extra couple of stress heals after a fight is under control.
The problem with transform isn't stress he gets, it's stress party gets. For long dungeons it'll stack up pretty quickly if you have to transform in every second fight (on average), or you'd have to spend a turn doing aoe stress heal. It has tendecy to snowball difficult situation even more. Sure, if you take out enemy stress dealers without them stressing his party stress is neglibile. But if for whatever reason things spiral out of control his party stress will contribute to this. Transform is great for boss killing, especially when he has nobody to stun or blight cleave, but you have to get him there - with equipment for transform, not stun utility. It's really difficult to equip him for both forms (maybe broken key + lock of fury/ancestor's candle serves well for both, but that's a long road to farmstead before actually utilising this playstyle), so whatever form you're not equiped to is underperforming.
I seldom have issues with stress at max torchlight whenever I have Houndmaster, Crusader, Jester, or Flagellant on a team because I stall fights against easy enemies for extra stress healing. You don't need to equip Abom for both forms (unless you have Broken Key, which makes equipping for both forms effortless lol). You (usually) have to decide what role he's going to fill on your team and whether you have trinkets that justify having him in that role instead of another hero. Champion Abom happens to naturally be extremely good at dealing damage, so equipping him like a melee damage nuke with accuracy, crit, and damage trinkets for any fight that won't be easy with human form is the easiest way to make him stand out from other heroes in a common campaign setting. If Abom is your damage dealer, its his job to get through the front half of tough fights as quickly as possible, and he should only be in human form in low-threat situations where he doesn't need to drop a nuclear bomb on anything and mediocre stuns are more than enough to keep things under control. Once you have Broken Key, you have the option of leaning extra hard into being a stun machine that locks down single dangerous enemies for multiple turns in a row. If you're going to stunlock something, you should have other damage dealers that are responsible for picking off enemies while Abom prevents the extra dangerous and hard-to-kill enemy from doing dangerous things, and stressing your party out to throw a punch instead of stunning something will generally be bad. Broken Key happens to be statted well enough to be worthwhile as a damage item on beast Abom, which encourages him to revert back to human form after killing most enemies so that he can shut down the last remaining threat.
Abom can definitely do some cool things and has good stats, which is why I made sure to say that no one is bad or unusable. I personally don't like the tempo tax of transformation, even if it is simple enough to mitigate. Between the stuns and transform damage bump though he has a lot going for him.
34:27 There are multiple axis on which to judge how bad a hero is when out of position. The most practical way to assess how a character performs when out of position is by considering what you expect them to do when they are moved by an anticipated amount based on known enemy skills, how often you can justify using their limited skill set in those positions, and how long it takes to walk them back into a useful position if you can't justify using those skills. It's a nuanced problem. Just to establish the general landscape of enemy move skills: Cultist Witch will commonly appear in all dungeons, and will regularly pull backline heroes 2 spaces forward out of position, and push frontline heroes backwards the same amount. Enemies that knockback 1 space are extremely common in every area except the Cove, where the sword fish frequently pull 1 space instead. In Veteran dungeons, size 2 enemies in the Weald, Warrens and Cove have devastating move skills and are dangerous enough to seriously punish loss of tempo. Giant will shuffle the entire party, and Swinetaur and Uca Crab will push positions 1 and 2 all the way to position 4. Swine Skiver in Champion Warrens knocks heroes in positions 1, 2, and 3 back to rank 4. With this context, it is absolutely fair to say Leper's positional weaknesses are more punishing than those of other characters. Leper has no skills that help end fights when he's in both positions 3 and 4. Leper can only correct his own position by walking one space at a time. Heroes in positions 1 and 2 are more regularly put far out of position than heroes in positions 3 and 4. Every other positionally restricted hero in the game is less disadvantaged by these conditions than Leper in at least one of these regards. Leper can use Withstand proactively against Swinetaur and Uca Crab to mitigate the chances of being thrown into position 4 and get lots of incidental value from the other resistances, so he is still a viable and versatile character regardless of this weakness, but he solves the problem less elegantly than other heroes do, and the situations where you do end up with Leper out of position are significantly worse than the situations where other heroes are comparably out of position.
As a complete and utter noob I took Jestal to every dungeon. Of all the DD players I watched none ever game me a compelling reason to change that. Then I watch Shuffle and he lets me know that playstyle is fine, but it's an entirely defensive and I could play more aggressively if I wanted to. It opened up my DD experience and I greatly appreciate that. (I'm still a Jestal simp but I'm seeking therapy for that so it's going to be ok)
Until you play Endless, then you'll go back to Jestal. It's not a defensive style, more like smart and reliable supports. The problem with this tier list is that it isn't focused on anything . I mean SB is an absolute SS tier in endless mode.
The Jestal is a FINE class to simp to! While Hellion and Vestal are awesome, it annoys me when people use them too much. But still, to each their own! :)
Check out how to play Crusader support, he can do job of Jester and Vestal at the same time, while being only one character WHILE being tanky as check. Crusaider support build is the best thing you can try out.
Jestal is just op, ofc you can get wins playing other comps but jestal with a beefy frontline is a surefire way to beat stygian/bloodmoon without relying on rng. Occultist is cool but the vestal party heal is straight busted especially when combined with the added speed of battle ballad spam you can basically always save your heroes on death door without facing a single deathblow check. The jester is broken as well since it allows you to run defensive trinkets on your dmg dealers whilst having insane acc and crits. vestal - jester - hwm - maa is the safest comp in the game and trivializes the game, you can swap the maa for another hwm, a leper or sb if you need more dmg but the maa can still hit for 20+ dmg with crits on each blow and has insane utility with stuns, guards and bolster as well as another riposte. People just don't want you to play the easy mode because they are struggling with rng reliant comps while you're just steamrolling the game with your superior jestal enjoyer intellect. Doesn't quite work for endless harvest though, gets you to 200 kills no problem but with the endgame conditions you need virtues to go on and other comps might fare better in that situation, solid choice still.
On the occultist vs vestal healing argument: The important question should not be how much healing they do on average, but how often you get at least as much healing as you need. Since you can't outheal enemy damage, usually you're either going to use healing to top your heroes off at the end of a fight, or using it as a panic button to get someone off of death's door. In the first case the highrolls can be ignored, since they just cause more overkill and in the second case inconsistency can cause deaths. The only situation i see where the average healing is the biggest factor is if the target is on low HP, but not in any immediate danger.
Occultist is an off healer at best. His best function is enabling an aggressive play style by the rest of the team. The best healer in the game is Flagellant.
That's a tricky situation. I see what you mean by saying that better average healing is a factor only if target has low health, but not in immediate danger. At the same token though, Which would you prefer in a dangerous situation? I see valid arguments for both. Vestal healing can be boosted enough to be quite substantial, and it sucks when the occultist heals low (or zero with bleed). On the other hand, Few things are more satisfying than when an Occultist explodes on that healing number!
It's unfortunately exactly like average dice rolls. Two six sided die roll on average 7. Occultist at max level does 0 - 22 heal roll. So he heals on average for 11. Without bleed he heals for more than vestal, with bleed he heals for less, but I guess if you have bandages or plague doctor's heal it cancels out the bleed effect. And then yeah, it's not just about numbers but also the situation, so healing someone at death's door with wyrd reconstruction isn't the best idea.
Hearing you talk about the again Crusader got me thinking: Hes ready for anything, but has to respond to everything. It sucks though people hold up the weakness to say the character is bad. He has weaknesses by design, hes a tank after all, not a DPS.
Gotta love logic of people like that. They say Crusader is holy DPS and slowest in the game. But meanwhile same people take flagellant into the RUINS or take occultist into the warrens where he cant do anything apart from crowd control or healing (champion). There is reason why Crusader is one of the most feared classes in Butcher Circus, that guy can be insanely good in any situation.
I think a lot of it is people shitting on him because he's easy and basic. Well, he's literally the tutorial character so yeah, duh. Not everyone needs to fit into a 4 turn dance routine with a double-axel spin-a-rooni.
@@fortheloveofking Funnily enough, Crusader actually would do great in a 4 turn dance routine! He can (stress)heal from any position and his strongest skill moves him forward. His low speed also makes him rather reliable for turn orders. What tripped me up is that for the longest time i tried playing him as some sort of tank with stun in rank one, which there clearly is faster and more reliable candidates for.
He actually has really good DPS if he starts at the back. What's interesting about crusader is that he can start at the back, wipe out the enemy backline with holy lance, get to the front and then start stunning the enemy and healing teammates. If you play him right, his role actually switches halfway through the fight where he goes from backline DPS to a frontline tank/support and he's great at both roles.
All my Bias here but MAA will always be S tier. That dude single handedly saved my Bloodmoon run. I always looked at him as a filler tank but now he’s my heart and joy.
"Final verdict" cannot wait for the final final verdict Srsly doe, thanks for existing, this is the YT channel I come to whenever I crave DD content on YT
The only thing I disagree with is occultist. Even though the 0 heal bleed on deaths door is enough to give someone an irl resolve check, crit chance through the roof makes his stuns the best in the game, AND he can stress heal with all those crits. Bottom of S rank sure, but he's just too powerful.
Occultist's damage always surprises me in the cove too. The eldritch bonus + crazy crit modifiers means he can almost be a damage dealer on the team even just running Sacrifical stab+hands from the abyss
Something else to be said for Occultists low heal is that of the 4 S-Tier characters, which you probably want to bring to missions as much as possible, 2 have a reliable way to get people off DD and 1 has a guard.
one of the few situations in which the Man at Arms is S-Tier is against bosses that have attacks like Vvulf's bombs, others take like 30 damage from the bombs, but if you build him correctly he takes 5 damage at most
I have a completely different reason for complaining about the leper. The whole point of the character is to break stuff in the front row and he doesn't even do that well since front row enemies have high PROC negating the high damage that he would do. Armor piercing would fix this but he doesn't have that. You need a set up where a back line enemy is pulled forward for him to actually do the damage he is supposed to be doing. Sucks cause I really like the leper. I love his self sufficiency, and like you said the issue with ACC is really a non issue with trinkets. They could have easily fixed this problem by giving him a trinket that gives armor piercing. Armor piercing in one slot, ACC increase in the other.
personally, only crusader and houndmaster deserve the S, can do most thing optimally from anywhere, plague doctor and hellion still need to be on their most optimal position to work optimally, and this is not just because you can get surprised or the enemy can shuffle you, but also because it affect team building, the first 10 week is one of the hardest part of the game, and if you get like bunch of hellion and plague doctor, you most likely will struggle, but since literally every single team would appreciate crusader or houndmaster, i think its fair to say that those two are the true S tier heroes
The S rating doesn’t mean perfect. It just means ‘best’. Crusader does have a best position based on the skills chosen as well as the role he’s been chosen to play. Houndmaster is positionally dependent based on his skills. In position 1 he can’t use his main damaging ability. The purpose of me responding to you isn’t to say you’re wrong, but to give a different perspective. Take care.
I recently started replaying Darkest Dungeon and wanted a more in depth analysis of all heroes and strategies since I have gone through the newbie parts already. I love your content and analysis on Darkest Dungeon stuff Shuffle!
Great review - I came just to see your tiers, but I came away getting even more from how you described each hero's strengths and weaknesses and situational use cases. I have way less experience and have not sought out the challenges that you have, but it almost feels validating that between my first and second playthroughs how much my perspective evolved in similar ways, e.g. Flagellant and Leper went from exile to fun & satisfying once I understood how to use them, Shieldbreaker is an awesome but taxing luxury that pays off mostly when the game is basically already won, Crusader rose from B to S once I stopped expecting him to be an armored Hellion, Abomination went from my early fave to (imho) not worth the stress, Jester is surprisingly tedious if valuable for farmstead runs, Highway man is strong but has lackluster squad synergy, and Grave Robber is my favorite but a bit too dependent on crits Of course, I learned a lot from this video that makes my want to try a third playthrough of this path of pain
I've recently returned to DD for another shot at Stygian, gotta say your list is incredibly insightful, you're mentioning stuff i'd never even consider running and really going in depth on its the mechanics. Keep up the good work B)
about grave robber: damage exists on a few axis: how often it happens (every turn vs every other turn), how it changes (dot ramps up hypothetically, hellion kinda ramps down). the range of damage values. the accuracy. id apply this with a reference to how guns are modded in warframe but i'm it would probably miss. anyway point is that grave robber's damage is always ready. it's always there. you will never not be able to hit a button for damage (damage in every position). and she's not inaccurate. you don't expect a miss (she's not a leper) but it's variable (12-14 as you said) and for it to be great damage it does require setup (shadowfade) she has 100% uptime of damage, but not 100% damage uptime. there is always some damage. but there is not always all of her damage
With this knowledge I think I've discovered the best team ever conceived in Darkest Dungeon. Three Hellions and a Crusader in the back. Hellions kill everything while Crusader does the Orange Justice in the back. Every time they camp they all hit Revel and disco into a surprise round. Game over can't lose GG
An Hippocratic Crusader is a blessing. Not only does he have an omni position heal, he's a tank stress healer and God knows, he saved me a run that could've gone horribly bad after a terrible shambler encounter. His camp skills are also a blessing when you want to clear stress right before coming back to the hamlet. He really is a staple of my DD meta and truly deserves an S tier. Plus, Reynauld is the one who I first got a virtue on and it was epic, so yeah. S tier Baby, and Deus Vult.
Crusader is so god damn versatile, and fits into almost any team comp. Surprised to hear you got pushback for him being high rank in the past. EDIT: Loot pool dilution is a valid reason to put musketeer in a lower rank. She lowers the chance at character progression and definitely does not deserve A as long as Antiquarian is in a high rank for very similar reasons/logic.
I've had a bunch of Occultists at one time before, to compare how he performs with different quirks/trinkets, and found that he can be reliable in almost all comps with any trinkets; almost everything helps what he does, from debuffs to stuns to heals to straight-up wet work, and no single penalty is really a big deal for him in particular.
Hey man. Just wanted to say I really like your work. I like that you do longform videos that aren't well scripted or well rehearsed. It took me a while to understand what exactly it was, but... It's like watching a cook going through the thought process of creating a good stew (I used to be a cook). I don't know if you're familiar with LegendOfTotalWar or Lindybiege, they do the same thing more or less: Turn on the Camera/Mic and start going ham on the topic. Also watching the tier list and it's revisions was quite fun because you proved that you're open minded enough to revise your position. This is just a little thanks for the entertainment you offer.
Thank you for the kind words. Being a cook sounds fun, but stressful I'm sure. I'll take a peek at the recommendations since I haven't heard of them before :)
I'd agree that Crusader is S-tier. Between battles you can entirely switch his role from a moderate stress-healer and torch generator, to healer, to stunner, to raw DPS- extremely good. I also love the creativity with the Non-Euclidean Hilt, because you can make a Zealous-Accusation Build with it, or use the bonus stun skill chance for an extreme stun build. One of my favorite characters.
I have to say of all the ways to play Crusader, i never really got stun to work out that great for myself. That's also the first way i tried playing him (apart from ruins frontline damage) and what made me not like him as a character for a long time.
Played this game for the first time in 2024. Bounty Hunter was the character that made the games strategies/play click for me. He’s really good at teaching you the importance of prot by showing you how much damage you can do when you lower it. He’s teaches you how important rank/file on your team and the enemy team matters when you start yoinking the enemies that stress you out of the back. That and he can do all of that from almost anywhere so even if you are clueless like I was once you put him in the team it all starts to come together.
Highway man is always S tier to me. I don't know why but when things are not going well he is like always that dude who dodges certain death then nails crits. Everyone else messes up, Highway man steps up
Definitely think that antiquarian drops a tier late game. Her gimmick of getting extra money doesn’t matter in the endgame at all, because the amount of money you’re getting from the bank interest outpaces most other sources of income. She’s a great support character, but in my opinion she isn’t better than abomination because 1: she has overall worse stats (except dodge of course) 2: she needs help to survive fights a lot more than Abom does, absolution goes a long way
I agree with your analysis. The only thing I would add is that late game she gets better at combat by having more access to trinkets and having better stats on her abilities. Dodge teams aren't a thing at apprentice but you can certainly make them at champion.
@@ShuffleFM that’s true, she power creeps for different things depending on the stage of the game, I think I just prefer overwhelming force over dodge (I regularly use legendary bracer on several classes).
Her ability is diminished in the beginning, not the end. I used to be in the same boat you’re in, but after forcing myself to use antiquarian I realized that she’s a situational powerhouse. ‘Protect Me’ is really amazing with riposte or Flagellant & flash powder can be game changing against the big hitters of champion. Her effectiveness is very team dependent.
Until the bank is up, antiquarian is mandatory for every run. The game is set up so you spend more money than you can haul back. Mods fix this somewhat.
My argument for B tier Vestal: Her most optimal setup is boring to play. I guess that just goes with being a healbot in a turn-based game. Like sure, she's effective, but at higher levels of understanding the game she takes away a lot from the element of strategizing and just makes battles much slower. You could run something like Arbalest in the role of the healer instead of Vestal which, yea, she's more dangerous to take, but both for you AND your enemies! You won't see a scenario where backline Vestal destroys the backline, unless you count constantly stunning pos3 into that. And while we're talking about Arbalest, I think her biggest demerit outside of stuff like stats is that she can be very dangerous to new players who see that she has a heal but don't know how to heal reliably in this game. And so they end up just using the heal constantly, because they don't know how to mitigate damage, stall or even that enemies can easily outdamage your heals. But once you get a hold on those concepts I think Arbalest beats Vestal when it comes to being the best healer in the game, especially considering the buff it gives. Not only does it allow for more healing with food after combat in case you didn't fully heal while stalling, it also allows for some secondary heal like PD, Antiquarian or Crusader to chip in a little more during stalling (or maybe even in the middle of combat if the situation is good). I consistently like having my Arbalest pair with PD because it gives me a lot of control over enemy backline on top of the bonuses I already mentioned.
I'll be honest, everything you said about jester makes him an S tier. If the only thing you can say about a character is: "he's not mandatory" and "every character likes his buffs" on top of saying that he's just easy to use, ten I don't actually see any reason to drop him a rank.
Ok, crazy guy here. I actually run my vestals second slot damage dealer and healer. I got a scroll and a head (trinkets, scroll is heretical or profane, can't recall) early on that make it critical to manage her stress, but it takes the somewhat weak party heals into something legitimately formidable. What's more, a couple hands of light, emboldening vapor and a clobber can spike 40sum damage on a crit, to the point that vestal is downright scary. Plus with the illumination skill, she susses out any stealthed boys pretty fast. She's basically the foundation of my every team switching between build up and nuke shot to damage control. She might only get one nuke every other battle, but I know her target's dead or wishing they were.
The fact that you have 3 tiers only and mostly everyone is in A, and only 1 true b (not including musk) is such a fucking testament to red hooks balance team qnd char dev. And i agree with you, as someones whos beat it a few times, there is no one i really regret taking off the stage coach. I love antiqu, but shes the only one i can understand some people might be like "ugh". What a wonderfully designed game (for the most part)
I don't really understand the argument against Vestal being in S-tier. "Unless you're playing torchless, doing very difficult bosses or are new to the game, you very rarely have multiple people on death's door, so you don't need an AoE heal." Sure, if you're doing easy content and you know exactly what's coming, she's not needed, and you might as well run a de-stresser or damage dealer because stress is a bigger threat to you than damage. But in any content where you might actually risk dying ("the hardest missions in the game"), you say to bring her. Being good at hard stuff and bad at easy stuff is far more important than the other way around. I know you acknowledge it in the video, but I think your assessment of her (and especially your inclination to put her in B) is bias against her because she's boring and 1-dimentional. Which she is! But that 1-dimension (Judgement, Stun, 2 heals +/- illumination) is just broken enough to be better than any of the 20 builds a bounty hunter can do.
Late to the party, but I feel like BH's range, stuns, and in compliment to his ability to deal just ridiculous amounts of crit damage with mark synergy... I'd propose him S-Tier and for best character.
I agree. You can also keep his stall trinkets in place when he transforms because he gets the crazy buff when he transforms. I think that he is able to transform in 1/3 of the fights.it’s great that you don’t really need to build balanced with him to get that flexibility.
@@ShuffleFM always awesome vids, personally i love using characters im not comfortable with; shoving weird combinations into dungeons and forcing them to work puts them all in the same room
No joke, I think Leper is S tier. You summed him up quite accurately and still undervaluing him in my honest opinion by putting him in A. He's just an insane stand alone character.
Copium straight from ancestors private reserves. I get it, everyone loves the funny chop man, but it’s getting out of hand. In what universe is leper better than jester? What can he do except hit revenge on turn one and then throw damage on something you don’t really want to damage? He’s just a more awkward arbalest with much less supporting skills. I get it, he’s not F-tier, he’s not the worst, but enough with this cope already.
@@max7971 every universe? Highest damage, debilitates all enemies, most potent self heal and stress relief in the game while doubling as a tank. If you're comparing him to the Jester you clearly have no idea how to play this game.
Coming here from two years later, absolutely. Even if he misses 3 times in a row, the next hit will compensate for ALL that while being incredibly resilient, allowing your support to focus on squishier characters. One of my favorites.
I still think shieldbreaker is amazing at apprentice. The ability to break guard and hit the backline with high damage is useful no matter the level. Armour piercing is also just busted. I've been doing a lot of apprentice stuff lately and she just wrecks everything. I would give her S.
Grave Robber without Sharpened Letter Opener, A or even B+. Grave Robber with it, solid S. That trinket is just nut, everything you want (very high damage mod + accuracy to never miss) with some goodies on top (bit of dodge is never bad) and 0 drawbacks except needing to play with Crimson Court. All other trinkets that give close to this amount of buff come with some heavy cost (e.g. Dismas head gives only the damage part and cost you HP and stress). And the best part is that you can get it as soon as apprentice if it pops up as reward for the first CC mission. Getting it that early can literally change a run by influencing how much GR you want to have in your roster and the kind of party you will build around her (for example more HWM and SB to get the dance parties lunge -> lunge going)
Sickening Satchel is 20% damage to everything as long as enemy is blighted. Lunge itself has deals 33% damage when an enemy is blighted. together, its 53% damage on blighted targets and lunge itself has 140% damage scaling. so she is doing 193% damage. Its also so easy to apply blight early game by just picking plague doctor and using plague bile. plague bile->lunge =rank 3 unit dead. Sicken Satchel is also really strong for its ability to lower damage penalty of poison darts to -40%. Letter opener is more of secondary damage artifact, if you use it with sickening satchel, you can potentially do 218% damage lunges.
HIghway man is my favourite character after he gave me my most memorable fight. Against swine god I put his riposte up getting ready for an attack. Wilbur decided to mark him, and he crit Wilbur leaving him 100-0 So swine god goes berserk and thanks to my jester highwayman crits twice more on the attacks, and finally crits on the point blank shot soloing the entire fight in two turns. I was very concerned that I was about to lost this fight, and then suddenly it was over.
crusaders is a generalist but all his skill's do 2 things at the same time heal/stress/light damage/stun protection/mark/light cleave move/damage, thats great
Too many heroes in A tier in a 3 tier ranking, especially when ignoring Musketeer since it's a character clone. So in terms of downgrades, I'd say Antiquarian, Leper and Grave Robber should go down to B tier. Antiquarian because we're talking strictly about battle functionality, as it's pretty tough to rate her money generation as it depends on the specific play through(regular, no torch, blood moon, etc). While Antiquarian does do well in certain team comps, is she really the best choice in any of them and are these teams really that great if you took her money generation out of the equation? As for Grave Robber, she's simply the worst pure DPS character in the game and that's all she brings to the table. Other DPS characters also offer some utility(minor heals, stuns, etc) as well as superior damage. As far as the Leper goes, I think you overcorrected your stance on his weaknesses. His accuracy is still very much an issue as all characters generally want at least +5/+10 accuracy to feel comfortable, the Leper needs +10/+15 on top of that which isn't nearly as trivial to get and comes with an opportunity cost that other characters don't have to pay. Is this opportunity cost worth it? Can it be mitigated in certain setups? Sometimes, absolutely, but again B characters are not bad, they are just outclassed or require too much work to function similarly to other characters. Moreover his biggest weakness is not even his accuracy but his rigidity. This comes in 3 forms: positional inflexibility(rank 1/2 only), lack of movement(both skills and generic movement) and lack of reach(only rank 1/2). None of the other characters in the game are so limited on all 3 avenues as the Leper. In terms of upgrades, Occultist definitely deserves S tier. Firstly he's not a main healer but primarily a stunner/support with a nice heal. Secondly his 'inaccurate attacks' only applies to Sacrificial Stab which is rarely used on him, so not sure why you made such a big deal out of that. Moreover if you do go the damage route why didn't you mention his bonus vs Eldritch which is very significant as Eldritch are everywhere, especially when heading towards the end game. With these changes the tier list becomes much more balanced.
An underated combo I think, is Vellion. You can build Vestal to do heals and stuns, while Hellion stuns and does big damage. Add in a PD for extra control and you have a threesome that can just go so, so far.
I’ve gotta defend Highwayman for S. I’m playing through again and as a point of practicality I can always build a team around Highwayman because he does good to great damage from any rank, to any rank. In the early to mid game I might not have a Hellion available or maybe I don’t have a hard hitter up front or maybe what I have is lacking for reach… a Highwayman solves all of those problems. He might not have flexibility it terms of different capabilities (healing, stunning, etc) but he is by far the most flexible damage dealer. End game when you have access to everything maybe he’s not S tier, but on the way to the end he solves a lot of problems you may have with throwing together a useful lineup.
I've killed some bosses with Highwayman in couple of turns just boosting accuracy and dodge with trinkets: from second row advance attack activating riposte and then go back with point blank to repeat. Dual Highwayman is fun also. The fact that he can easily negate all shuffle attacks might save the day. Also I'm biased, for he is my fav character. S tier!
My only changes are Leper and Vestal in S tier. Probably ought to have a D tier though, just to be able to differentiate between some of the A tier characters. Abom still getting dropped in the last tier though.
@@misty1985 Lol, nah, it isn't. Just because every character is useful does not mean every character is so similar you can't tell who is slightly better than the others. Putting anti next to Flag and Highwayman? Sorry but no. MAA with Leper and Shieldbreaker? Again, no. With 5 tiers you could probably drop Graverobber and Occultist a level too because they're frankly just slightly less useful than the rest of A tier, even if they are still very viable.
I wonder how strong a team of the S tier heroes would be. Yawp + Blinding Gas opening can stun the entire team, two characters have self heals, two characters have single target heals, one character has self stress heal, one has single target stress heal, one has group stress heal, they all put out high damage, 3 characters have bleed, one has blight, one has guard, two have self buffs, one has a single target buff, one can cure DoTs. Positioning would be PD - Crusader - HM - Hellion.
You have to put Crusader in 2 and HM in 3 for it to work properly. Holy lance is best used in repetition and you HM is always going to go first anyway meaning your Cry Havoc is useless first round, or any round the Crusader doesn’t lance before and lance is useless after 1 use. Skip lance, put on Smite and Stun. HM can do the 4th rank sniping with the hound and Hellions Iron Swan. If it lives, PD blights it to death next turn. Dont bother with YAWP in most scenarios, its a good stun but Hellion is better used smacking things instead of tryna stall before stalling is necessary. Crusader can stun one of the front-liners anyway. This setup isn’t the greatest in the Ruins or Cove, but its still pretty good because of PD’s blight stacking and Crusaders BEEF. If you’re boss killing, swap HM for HWM. The extra damage will just end the fight quicker.
I'm surprised that Abomination is considered B tier. I'm probably 1/3 thru the vanilla game (Darkest Difficulty) , and he is unstoppable. I just run him with any sort of stress healer, and *Lock of Transference* / *Restraining Lock* . Stress really hasn't been an issue for me. Lol. I don't transform on every turn, Just when a fat boi pops up or a boss. Is it that I'm just not far enough in the game yet? Does he start to fall off or something?
He actually gets better later on, but the main issue is how transform works and doesn't lower the stress gained the higher rank it becomes means that half his kit is not worth using in the majority of encounters. Abom is still a 9 speed stunner, even if his stun is weak in terms of stun chance, so he's never going to be bad for that.
I got this god leper cause he has Natural Swing (+5 Acc) Slugger (+10 Damage with Melee) Tough (+10% HP) And i give them a Sun Ring and Focus Ring and he is a beast His damage is through the roof and best part about him is the fact i can place him in any team and he works great as long as they don’t need the front or dance with him with the exception of Highwayman
The thinking is that stunning enemies and killing them quickly mitigates more damage than healing restores. You can always run a healer, but they aren't broken or mandatory imo since there are alternatives.
Thing is you can abuse stalling with one weak enemy to endlessly heal in most fights. Healing is vital, don't get me wrong, but it's not as op as most players think it to be. Most players with that mentality tend to heal when it's not necessary.
Bonk Vestals are more than a meme. Mace Bash is weak on its own, but trinket support is excellent. The CC set is worth 2 slots just for +25% healing and +35% stun, you get more than a free Ancestor's Pen thrown in. That upgrades Mace Bash to a non-marked Collect Bounty for Unholy instead of Humans. After a Hand of Light, your Mace Bashes hit harder than Lunge (assuming no skill-specific bonuses). Details will differ, but the same principle applies to Profane Scroll - you essentially get more than a free high-quality trinket thrown in. The options are even better offense, fantastic group heals with a second heal trinket, or both with Heretical Passage in Eldritch-rich locations/Farmstead.
I agree with almost everything. However, why not put grave robber in B if she's basically the same as abomination. My biggest gripe though dude. It's not much of a tier list if almost everyone is in the same tier.
Depends what you want from a tier list. If you use them to check out a games balance and see how different heroes compare, this one still does a great job. Not his "fault" if DD is well balanced.
At first I ran leper EXCLUSIVELY with vengeance because I thought you needed the accuracy. Then I ran without it because the change to single-use abilities in farmstead changed and he still ended up hitting so I really like him now. Just sucks he only works in spot 1/2 and can only target 1/2 reliably, purge and intimidate might help but they take a turn to set up. I don't like how 11 out of 17 are all in the same tier. Kind of defeats the purpose of a tierlist IMO. It's basically saying "These 4 are super strong, these 2 are lacklustre, the rest are all essentially equal"
Leper's weaknesses are more on paper than in actual gameplay. But when his weakness hit (position or miss) it's worse for him. We don't have enough amazing skills that goes backwards comparing to those that goes forward, so if you got pushed to rank 3 or 4 you are really fucked. Jester and Vestal however can do something significant in ranks 1 and 2 while the damage dealers goes foward.
ShuffleFM is the best DD player ever and someone had the gaul to say he is garbage for taking Leper on torch-less? He took a character with ACC issues and won on torch-less....Im so confused as to how thats garbage play? Anyways, great video as always Shuffle. Without your videos I would have never beaten this game. Keep on keepin on my man!
So to get through the DD missions you essentially want at least 16 max resolve heroes because of the debuff right? This alongside having the 2 dlcs to contend with means you're in champion long enough that shieldbreaker breaks into S imo. Either way, good video 👍
Some heroes are S with the "right comp" and others are S out of the box. Jester is definitely the former, as in wherever he can be both support and an effective damage source, and he actually dodges for once in his life, it's like having two heroes in one. He's omega squishy though, so he's the fairest A in the game imo
Let's do this: 1) Abomination (B Tier Human / F tier Beast): Definitely the worst character and it's because half of their kit is basically just a bad Leper. Even modding Padlock of Transference to negate 95% of all the stress generated by Beast Mode, it remains underwhelming due to the poor base accuracy of Rake, and if you aren't Raking, you're losing a substantial amount of the damage you're stress nuking your team for. 2) Antiquarian(A tier): Pure support that scales ludicrously well. As a smoke-machine, she trolls the hell out of the enemy. Godly stall potential with her lite-blight. Otherwise, she's the premier strategic character. Just a really, REALLY rough start. 3) Arbalest (D tier): Overly mark reliant for high damage. Solid support otherwise. 4) Bounty Hunter (B Tier early/ C Tier late): His CC and reach is really great, especially early on when enemy Stun/Move resists are low. Late game he falls off vs other classes as bulk damage becomes more viable due to better trinket selection, improved equipment and higher accuracy from skill levels. But since early game is the real hidden metagame of DD, he's in a really good spot. 5) Crusader (S Tier): If Speed Quirks didn't exist, Crus would be down in D tier, because oh boy is Speed a big deal in DD. As it is however, he can be tuned up pretty readily with Trinkets and quirk management, and thus, fits into the difficulty curve of Darkest Dungeon almost perfectly; providing a blend of good CC, high damage, reach, and utility/healing all in one sturdy package while not compromising heavily on any of these things. 6) Flagellant: (A Tier): Insanely good kit that only lacks bulk damage. Most characters get worse under pressure in a game defined by mounting pressure; Flagellant EXCELS when under pressure. His mediocre HP is his real weakness. 7) Grave Robber (B-Tier): Very swingy performance, across the board, but with an average that skews towards powerful. Keystone character of Blight Teams. Absolutely busted Trinkets.Crap HP but she earns it. 8) Hellion (S-Tier): The reason I don't look so kindly upon Leper. Reach wins battles more consistently than bulldozing, and Hellion has both incredible reach AND damage to make it count. Being able to hit any position for significant alpha damage from Position 1 is HUGE since most front liners flat out can't do it. (in fact, only Shieldbreaker shares this ability)
9) Highwayman (A-Tier): Consistency defines Highwayman. He dances, his Trinkets are among the best, and he can strike nearly any position from any position. That's all BEFORE Riposte. Riposte gives him another tool in his kit and can cheese out some otherwise incredibly difficult fights. But as the ShuffleFM notes, it's not the totality of his character. 10) Houndmaster (A-Tier): Below average HP, solid all-rounder otherwise. 11) Jester (B-Tier): Favorite character. He's really wonky to build early since he gets stuck into one of two roles: Finale spam or Support. Late game, he makes Dancing Teams hum. The #1 problem with his kit is the redundancy of Harvest vs Slice Off. Finale is meh. 12) Leper (D-Tier): Extremely overrated. Has ended more Stygian runs for me than any other character, on account of character deaths and time loss. In the broader metagame, Leper is at his worst during the first 30 weeks; which is the most important and difficult part of Stygian difficulty. Losing characters and runs (retreats) to bad luck is brutal and potentially game ending and Leper tempts that bad luck more than any other character in the game. Can Leper be powerful? Absolutely. Late game Leper is Schwarzenegger with a machinegun; a death-golem who mows down even the toughest enemies (that he can reach). I've used him enough to know this first hand. However, I've also used Leper enough to know that in order to tap into that power, I have to make some really painful sacrifices in the early game, which is not something I have to do with Hellion, Crusader, or even Shieldbreaker; none of whom fall off late game either. (also, I disagree with denouncing the complaints as "playing the numbers game". This isn't just a psychological "feels" problem but a matter that comes up because of how accuracy vs dodge works in DD. 10 less accuracy does NOT translate into 10% fewer hits or one extra miss per ten attacks on average; it's actually worse than that, and that's vs targets with ZERO DODGE. The true odds get WORSE vs enemies with dodge.)
13) Man At Arms (?-Tier) This guy is the weirdest character in the game, whose effectiveness, more than any other character in Darkest Dungeon, scales directly to the expertise of the player. He's the polar opposite of Leper in a way; lacks raw power, but provides so much utility that it's absurd. His biggest weakness is that he is NOT easy to use. His base damage is the worst among front liners and his trinkets have been over-nerfed. You really have to know where to use him and when, but he's incredibly solid when you do. No other class can dictate the flow of battle like Man At Arms through use of Bellow, Guard, Stuns or his many buffs. 14) Occultist (A-Tier) Hidden monster of a character. He's pitched as the party's Wizard, but he's really more like the D&D Bard; a jack-of-all trades who mid-ranges like a boss. Don't just run him Position 4 like I did for my first couple of years playing DD; run him Position 2 and have him Hands of the Abyss things into the dirt. Wyrd Reconstruction would be immensely better with just 1 point of minimum instead of 0; even at the expense of a few points of maximum healing. As flavorful as his healing is, the chance of wasting a turn potentially healing for zilch and then causing bleeding is completely stupid. I really like Occultist; his Hexes are awesome, his trinkets are even better, and his flexibility is superb. Just a great unit to have in general, even if he's squishy, he still has excellent dodge. 15) Musketeer (C-Tier) Arbalest clone has arbalest strengths and arbalest problems. No need to waste time repeating what's been said; has marginally worse Homestead trinkets, is otherwise identical. 16) Plague Doctor (S-Tier) No disagreements from the video here. Blinding Gas is just straight up overpowered and it's found on a character with 7-9 base speed. Pretty much all of her skills are good, even her "worst" skill in Emboldening Vapors. (+Speed and +Dmg is INSANE on Hellion, Shieldbreaker and Crusader; or even Houndmaster and Arbalest/Musketeer. Don't sleep on it!) 17) Shieldbreaker (C-Tier Early, A-Tier late) Pierce is straight up the most consistent general attack in the game. Apart from that, she is a late bloomer for sure. Impale is a sick move come late game, she is one of the few front-line Blight characters in the game, and she is (appropriately enough) one of the best dancers in the game along Highwayman. Like Grave Robber, her primary drawback is her low HP. Guard effects and evasion Trinkets are a must early on, and defensive quirks are pure gold. 18) Vestel (B-Tier) The reason I don't rate her as A or S tier is because she's locked into one true skillset in position 3 or 4. Unlike Occultist, Vestel really doesn't have the base stats or trinket quality to excel in her role outside of that or those positions. The top-grade healing is quite welcome, as is the stun, and her core skills are undeniably excellent. It's just that with experience, I find myself using Vestel a lot less. (Bonk-Vestel is a meme for a reason; she's still noticeably worse than Pos 2 or even Pos 1 Occulist. Yikes.)
Rake has poor accuracy? It has 90-110 based on rank, making it the second highest level of accuracy you can find on a damaging move. There's also no excuse not to consider broken key when it's incredibly good for him, and among the cheapest CoM trinkets. Abomination has problems, but I don't see how accuracy could be considered among them.
@@hawkeye611 I get that, but here's the deal. My currently playthrough is "What if" mode, where I changed a number of trinkets and skills to adjust their potential. (remade Musketeer a sort of Pos 2-3 variant that mains Buckshot instead of Sniper Shot) Abomination was actually the impetus for this run after a Shuffle video talking about Trinkets. I'm running a modded Padlock of Transference that negates most of the Stress from of Transformation, just to see how broken beast mode Abomination actually is. And so far, it's been highly underwhelming. I've taken this Abomination to a lot of different places, and for whatever reason, they just keep missing way more attacks than what Rake et all says on the tin. It's gotten to the point where I'm equipping Focus Ring on them. (and it's not negative ACC quirks or disease; I've removed most of their negative quirks and locked in a couple solid defensive quirks) On paper, this should not be happening, and it merits further testing to see if it's a quirk of the cleave attack code or something I somehow messed up in modding the game. (I didn't touch Abom's base skills at all, since that would defeat the point of the test) As for the rest, well, yeah; you are absolutely right. Broken Key is...broken, and having a reliable stunbot in Pos 2 or 3 is really, really good. I'm just kinda tired of it. As the game goes on, I find myself wanting a Houndmaster, Highwayman, Man At Arms, Shieldbreaker or Crusader more than I do Abomination for Pos 2/3 most of the time.
I get that Leper is likeable, but his biggest issue is his lack of repositioning tools and you kinda made it a footnote on his character. ACC is an easy fix, but if he gets shuffled out of position, outside of some very specific setups, getting him to the front again is wasted turns. It's very possible to have him shuffled or surprised to the fourth position and he needs two turns to get back up if he's not lucky enough to swap with someone who can reposition with skills. I don't take Leper because having him shuffle out or get pushed back feels worse than it does with nearly any other character. It's the same weakness as human abom: half the positions in the game (3-4 for Leper, 1-4 for Abom) mean they're not contributing to damage or debuffs that round, they can only heal.
The reason I think the "can't fix their positioning" negative gets easier to care less about as time goes on is the fact that PD and vestal are 2 characters people feel are very strong and good, but they get dunked by positioning and no one ever seems to care about that. For leper though it suddenly becomes a real issue again. Not saying you are doing this obviously but there is a lot of anti leper bias out there where people apply things to him in a greater magnitude than they do to others. Plus if you are really worried about leper getting knocked out of his spot, it isn't that common of a situation and you can team build to mitigate it
@@ShuffleFM Sorry for necro. Shuffles are bad for PD and vestal as well, but nobody in this game gets screwed as hard by movement skills as leper. I'd argue that PD and vestal are simply better characters than leper in general, but if we're specifically arguing the movement/shuffle point, PD and vestal generally aren't hurt as much by shuffles as leper because: a) They have specific skills they can use in these positions (think mace bash/incision) whereas leper has 0 options in the backline whatsoever. However I'll agree that most people generally don't run those skills for PD/vestal so they would essentially be stuck in the same position. b) I'd argue that assuming you run the normal/meta build on PD/vestal the only truly horrible position for either of them to be in is position 1, they don't like being in position 2 but they can still blight/stun and heal/stun respectively whereas leper is completely useless in position 3/4. c) Most of the skills that can fix shuffles/positioning while still doing something productive outside of just movement move your characters forwards instead of backwards, or at least they fix frontline shuffles more than they fix backline shuffles, thus making it easier to push people who are stuck in position 1 into position 2 than it is to get people who are stuck in position 4 out of the backline. Highwayman can fix your positioning with duelist's advance and he actually loves being in position 1 afterwards to use point blank shot, but he only goes forwards with duelist's advance and he can only use point blank shot in position 1, he can't fix the backline. Man at arms' stun is similarly useful outside of just movement, but it also only moves him forward. Hellion/Crusader's movement skills both do solid damage and move them forward. Shieldbreaker can easily help people get out of position 1, but she can only get people out of position 4 with expose, which I don't think most people run and it would also put shieldbreaker in position 4 herself where she doesn't want to be either. All of those other skills I mentioned are also skills you're most likely already running, so you don't have to build your party differently to combat enemies who shuffle your party in this way. The only good skill I can think of right now that puts a character all the way at the back is GR shadow fade. Maybe you could argue for Antiquarian Get Back and Jester finale as well but I'm not the biggest fan of those skills. d) Assuming you agree with point c, vestal especially doesn't care that much about getting shuffled because her teammates are almost guaranteed to be faster than her and they will be able to shuffle her backwards. PD suffers a bit more because her high speed makes her more vulnerable to wasted turns though. All in all vestal and PD don't enjoy getting shuffled, but leper truly becomes useless upon getting shuffled. He has more useless positions than vestal and PD and in general getting your frontliner shuffled into your own backline is far more debilitating than getting your backliner shuffled into your frontline.
I love the hellion and plague doc. HwyM, Bounty H, and Occultist are all amazing to me. Good in ALL areas with a few skill tweaks. I like the shieldgirl too but only if I can have 2 of them to spam the aoe spear throw. The crusader is useless. By the time he gets to go the enemies have rekt your party. 4 times now I have decided to give him another try because everyone loves him and I just helplessly watch as he sits there while I get smashed. I mean what the hell is going on? At any rate, the hellion is my girl. She sits on the throne. What an absolute unit of a character!
as a new player this video helps a lot ty!! i will say tho jester has gotten me thru so many fights and judging from what u said about him, it's kind of A just bc u dont like the playstyle, but functionally it feels like S even coming from someone who deff isnt using the class to the full potential
Love the video series man! What you think about this team?: Plage Doctor - Occultist - Dogmaster - First position is up to you, some good Melee DPS like Leeper or Headhunter
Bolster isn't just good in boss fights. +10 dodge and -20% stress buffs on all heroes from a max level Bolster is a huge amount of stress mitigation, and then the dodge gives incidental mitigation to damage and disruption as well. The dodge buff alone adds up to as much mitigation as a guaranteed stun after ~9 enemy actions, which happens in 3ish turns against a lot of non-trivial fights, and mopping up stress from slippery stress dealers and random crits pushes Bolster over the top in a lot more situations than you'd expect from a move you only have to use once before letting Man-at-Arms do whatever else he needs to do. Prior to Champion level, you are certainly better off stunning things instead, but there is definitely a critical mass where the percentage mitigation on Bolster versus bad stuff having big numbers and Champion monsters regularly making fights last a long time adds up to Bolster a great move. Flagellant can also milk extra value from Endure when he has stress reduction buffs, and Bolster will incidentally give him that extra value.
It's still good statistically. I personally think it's too slow for regular battles is all. That turn 1 could be spent on bellow, guard, or rampart which all help end the fight faster and reduce enemy turns. Dodging is the same idea of reducing enemy turns technically which is why I compare it that way
@@ShuffleFM It is definitely too slow for a lot of regular battles, but in champion dungeons specifically, there are a lot of stacked enemy mashes with dangerous, hard to kill enemies where the teamwide dodge buff is going to add up to as much mitigation as a stun over the course of the fight, and then gives every hero a free stress reduction trinket on top of that. I’ve personally decided that doing something significantly strong in the scary fights is worth being significantly weaker in the easier ones, because things going wrong in easy fights is recoverable, and making scary fights as trivial as possible prevents a lot of nail biting.
Flashpowder, I find, is pretty bad in torchless, cuz you are essentially a flashpowder down against all enemies - so it only really starts kicking in from it's second use, which is quite slow
Torchless is weird. The enemies get more accuracy so dodge is harder to do and not as valuable. Meanwhile the enemies hit so damn hard that being able to dodge any of that helps a lot
*Abomination gets put in b tier* *sad abomination noises* also, yea abom's kit can definitely be better if rh took care of him more/better, that and usually other heroes can just do what he does better in alot of cases
@@dr.narwhalmd4885 i made a team with jestal-abom-sd i manage to reach more of 400 kills. I said a got luck because my abom obtained the self stress v and my vestal stress heal all. I only stop because my boss fight was The flesh with crit buff and my team heal debuff
I disagree with abomination. Him spamming manacles is absolutely correct. But that being a bad thing is wrong. Abomination is basically front three stunner, that can self sustain. Which is insanely good. Him transforming for damage, is whatever, it comes up in fringe cases and is nice when needed. But he is basically manacles and absolution which is pretty damn good. Considering stun is great, and if he is ever targeted, which is basically another stun since he can self sustain. Him having a lackluster kit doesn't mean he is bad, just bad design.
I just started playing darkest dungeon, i thought i would just be very boring and use the "generic" classes like crusader but damn hound master and flagellent have to be my favorites, such cool classes
Imo vestal still deserve S. Yes it's usually better being proactive than reactive, but that's only when you already know what you'll encounter. Picking vestal is very safe for your team and usually the go-to pick when you going blind. I'd rather have her and don't need her healing, than need her healing but not having her
I'd like to make an argument in favor of PD. She is the best DPS in the game. With Hag's Ladle her blight chance can go as high as 210% which is ridiculously overkill and nearly guarantees blight against every single enemy in the game. Even without it, you can swap in Blasphemous vial and reach 200% aswell as getting a +10 ACC bonus to her already ridiculously high ACC ranged attacks. Combine that with the fact DoT's ignore prot, her blights are the most consistent damage in the entire game. Between Plague Grenade and Blinding Gas, I think Plague Grenade is better. Landing 1 plague grenade and having the blight proc (which we already know is guaranteed) makes quick work of backliners hp typically killing them a turn early which often time denies them the use of another attack which is the same reason why stuns are good. Only Plague Grenade hits more often, can proc blight more consistently and proc multiple rounds in a row compared to Blinding Gas' stun proc, and to top it off PD's high speed, when paired with another high speed DPS that can hit backline, can guarantee a backline kill before the backline has even had a single turn. Plague Grenade can also crit which deals minimal damage but it's a nice stress heal. Even without Plague Grenade, to my knowledge, Noxious Gas is the highest damage DoT the player can apply and it can give an ACC debuff to the enemy it hits. Noxious Gas also give PD something she can do in frontline, and on most fights using Emboldening Vapours on the other DPS gives equivalent overall damage compared to Noxious Gas giving her something to do even if she's shuffled to the front of the party and waiting for the frontliners to Duelist's Advance or Holy Lance back to the front. Battlefield Medicine can cure often times preventing DoT damage outright and rarely becoming the best effective overall heal in the game, albeit a regular heal and a bandage is pretty much equivalent and it's preferred to have both options incase the person being bled goes first in the turn order. That way you can use PD's turn to blight which is often more useful than curing some 2 damage bleed. In conclusion, she gets kills fast, consistently, and her utility is busted too. That said, there is far better situational damage such as with Flagellant if you happen to be against low prot enemies susceptible to bleed, or Leper if you can get an MAA and Jester on the same team. I admit I only love PD for her consistency and ability to enable similarly consistent plays from other DPS. TL;DR Poisoned Herb goes in SSS+ Tier
Vestal saved my first ever swine prince fight. I killed Wilbur. Actually ended up winning the fight thanks to bleed and divine comfort. Vestal S tier for new players lmao
All the reasons you said that Crusader is S tier are also the reasons why quad crusader literally just solves the entire video game of Darkest Dungeon. There is almost no situation where four crusaders isn't going to be a really good team, assuming you build them properly, of course. It's insane.
*cough* Countess *cough*
Gets easier later in the game but I agree
@@ExtremeMan10 *cough* holy lances *cough*
@@ExtremeMan10 Countess in general just sounds crazy, i haven't fought her yet but ive heard what she's like and man, idk if i have the courage to do that boss fight despite it being like the last fight i have to do
@@phiwvey I just did it for the first time the other day, 4 went in, 2 came out. I found out I played the fight wrong but yeah she's a hell of a boss fight for sure
When's 7/3 (final part 2: Electric boogaloo)
Lmao take my like
Please?
Please please please
چچپ
7/3 attack on titan edition
honestly, the fact that almost 6 years after the game came out you can make part 6/3 and not repeat yourself is a testament to how cleverly balanced the characters are
It is now the sworn duty of us abomination lovers to force you to make a part 7.
We will die on this hill if we must, or ascend like our arbalest and leper loving brothers.
I'm on board. He has been unstoppable in my current (First) Playthrough.
We will show Abomination's Glory to the world!
I'd sua he is at least better than arbelist, grave robber. Bounty hunter., antiquarian and man at arms. He is weaker in the start of the game and gets more and more strong as you diversify your roster, gain trinkets, etc.
His CoM trinket is nutzo. I've doubled stunned the tree giants regularly in the weald.
just got done playing through the darkest difficulty, got each class to legend and got all their class specific trinkets and abomination was by far my most used class and highest damage dealer while also being the most versatile. it's actually insane to think anyone would rank abomination anything besides s tier.
@@esoteric404Abom can absolutely be a wrecking force, but it's also a stress machine which SUCKS in some parts of the game (and especially Crimson Court unless you're bailing out specifically to bring out Abom against bosses only), it has accuracy issues, not so great trinkets, and it's a rather limited class in that it can only really be a damage dealer or a blight/stun bot, with both of them having positioning restrictions.
It's definitely a usable class, all of them are, but compared to the sheer amount of stuff something like Crusader can do it's just not the same. Crusader can deal damage, mega tank, heal, stress heal, can be played on every position, can stun, can raise torch, also has great camp effects compared to Abom.
Crusader honestly feels like they go virtuous way more often than afflict than other characters seem to
Because desires and fear are for infidels.
@@ExtremeMan10 And regret is a sin.
Also transformed Abom. I had more virtue than affliction from Abom
I had a hellion go virtuous like 5 times in a row once. Crazy.
@@OrangeJuice-jv9xu I had a jester go 6.
Dismas isn’t S tier? Sorry you’re gonna have to make another tier list
yeah man, that's some bullshit right there
I just got Dismas to level 5. He is my dawg
@@turtle_lover4213 Not Houndmaster?
I would strongly encourage you to lean more heavily on building a level 5-6 Abom around his insane damage output in beast mode. With the +25% damage buff for 3 turns from the Transform skill at level 5, Abom's Rage has nearly identical damage, accuracy, and crit chance to a Chop from Leper-with-a-Focus-Ring, and is one of the highest speed heroes in the game even before the absurd +5 additional speed after transforming. Abom walks into a scary fight, trades a tame stress-cleave for throwing overstatted bricks of damage at anything up to rank 3 at unfairly high speed until he reverts to being a fair damage dealer on turn 4, and transforms back into a self-healing stunner when its time to stall. Abom walks into an easy fight and doesn't have to transform at all.
I will absolutely say that low level Abom absolutely gets outclassed by being a narrow generalist with mediocre numbers and significant drawbacks, but it's hard to overstate how crazy it is that a character with solidly-above-average damage and speed gets a button that gives 2 trinkets worth of stats for 3 turns with the only tempo drawback being a stress cost that can be undone by squeezing in an extra couple of stress heals after a fight is under control.
The problem with transform isn't stress he gets, it's stress party gets. For long dungeons it'll stack up pretty quickly if you have to transform in every second fight (on average), or you'd have to spend a turn doing aoe stress heal. It has tendecy to snowball difficult situation even more. Sure, if you take out enemy stress dealers without them stressing his party stress is neglibile. But if for whatever reason things spiral out of control his party stress will contribute to this.
Transform is great for boss killing, especially when he has nobody to stun or blight cleave, but you have to get him there - with equipment for transform, not stun utility. It's really difficult to equip him for both forms (maybe broken key + lock of fury/ancestor's candle serves well for both, but that's a long road to farmstead before actually utilising this playstyle), so whatever form you're not equiped to is underperforming.
I seldom have issues with stress at max torchlight whenever I have Houndmaster, Crusader, Jester, or Flagellant on a team because I stall fights against easy enemies for extra stress healing.
You don't need to equip Abom for both forms (unless you have Broken Key, which makes equipping for both forms effortless lol). You (usually) have to decide what role he's going to fill on your team and whether you have trinkets that justify having him in that role instead of another hero.
Champion Abom happens to naturally be extremely good at dealing damage, so equipping him like a melee damage nuke with accuracy, crit, and damage trinkets for any fight that won't be easy with human form is the easiest way to make him stand out from other heroes in a common campaign setting. If Abom is your damage dealer, its his job to get through the front half of tough fights as quickly as possible, and he should only be in human form in low-threat situations where he doesn't need to drop a nuclear bomb on anything and mediocre stuns are more than enough to keep things under control.
Once you have Broken Key, you have the option of leaning extra hard into being a stun machine that locks down single dangerous enemies for multiple turns in a row. If you're going to stunlock something, you should have other damage dealers that are responsible for picking off enemies while Abom prevents the extra dangerous and hard-to-kill enemy from doing dangerous things, and stressing your party out to throw a punch instead of stunning something will generally be bad.
Broken Key happens to be statted well enough to be worthwhile as a damage item on beast Abom, which encourages him to revert back to human form after killing most enemies so that he can shut down the last remaining threat.
Abom can definitely do some cool things and has good stats, which is why I made sure to say that no one is bad or unusable. I personally don't like the tempo tax of transformation, even if it is simple enough to mitigate. Between the stuns and transform damage bump though he has a lot going for him.
M-A-A (buff/debuff/prot) > Jester/Houndmaster (stress heal) > Abom (Human) > Abom (Transform) is super fun to play!
@@bringmecaretakers Lmao, gotta give it a try, seems so bad
34:27 There are multiple axis on which to judge how bad a hero is when out of position. The most practical way to assess how a character performs when out of position is by considering what you expect them to do when they are moved by an anticipated amount based on known enemy skills, how often you can justify using their limited skill set in those positions, and how long it takes to walk them back into a useful position if you can't justify using those skills. It's a nuanced problem.
Just to establish the general landscape of enemy move skills: Cultist Witch will commonly appear in all dungeons, and will regularly pull backline heroes 2 spaces forward out of position, and push frontline heroes backwards the same amount. Enemies that knockback 1 space are extremely common in every area except the Cove, where the sword fish frequently pull 1 space instead. In Veteran dungeons, size 2 enemies in the Weald, Warrens and Cove have devastating move skills and are dangerous enough to seriously punish loss of tempo. Giant will shuffle the entire party, and Swinetaur and Uca Crab will push positions 1 and 2 all the way to position 4. Swine Skiver in Champion Warrens knocks heroes in positions 1, 2, and 3 back to rank 4.
With this context, it is absolutely fair to say Leper's positional weaknesses are more punishing than those of other characters. Leper has no skills that help end fights when he's in both positions 3 and 4. Leper can only correct his own position by walking one space at a time. Heroes in positions 1 and 2 are more regularly put far out of position than heroes in positions 3 and 4. Every other positionally restricted hero in the game is less disadvantaged by these conditions than Leper in at least one of these regards. Leper can use Withstand proactively against Swinetaur and Uca Crab to mitigate the chances of being thrown into position 4 and get lots of incidental value from the other resistances, so he is still a viable and versatile character regardless of this weakness, but he solves the problem less elegantly than other heroes do, and the situations where you do end up with Leper out of position are significantly worse than the situations where other heroes are comparably out of position.
Doesn't Leper have really good move resist though?
@@thermophile1695 Significantly better than other heroes, yes, but not enough to ignore the consequences of letting him get moved
As a complete and utter noob I took Jestal to every dungeon. Of all the DD players I watched none ever game me a compelling reason to change that. Then I watch Shuffle and he lets me know that playstyle is fine, but it's an entirely defensive and I could play more aggressively if I wanted to. It opened up my DD experience and I greatly appreciate that. (I'm still a Jestal simp but I'm seeking therapy for that so it's going to be ok)
Until you play Endless, then you'll go back to Jestal. It's not a defensive style, more like smart and reliable supports. The problem with this tier list is that it isn't focused on anything . I mean SB is an absolute SS tier in endless mode.
The Jestal is a FINE class to simp to! While Hellion and Vestal are awesome, it annoys me when people use them too much. But still, to each their own! :)
Check out how to play Crusader support, he can do job of Jester and Vestal at the same time, while being only one character WHILE being tanky as check.
Crusaider support build is the best thing you can try out.
@@patrykrys3153 Holy smokes you're right! Thank you for the suggestion.
Jestal is just op, ofc you can get wins playing other comps but jestal with a beefy frontline is a surefire way to beat stygian/bloodmoon without relying on rng. Occultist is cool but the vestal party heal is straight busted especially when combined with the added speed of battle ballad spam you can basically always save your heroes on death door without facing a single deathblow check. The jester is broken as well since it allows you to run defensive trinkets on your dmg dealers whilst having insane acc and crits. vestal - jester - hwm - maa is the safest comp in the game and trivializes the game, you can swap the maa for another hwm, a leper or sb if you need more dmg but the maa can still hit for 20+ dmg with crits on each blow and has insane utility with stuns, guards and bolster as well as another riposte. People just don't want you to play the easy mode because they are struggling with rng reliant comps while you're just steamrolling the game with your superior jestal enjoyer intellect. Doesn't quite work for endless harvest though, gets you to 200 kills no problem but with the endgame conditions you need virtues to go on and other comps might fare better in that situation, solid choice still.
On the occultist vs vestal healing argument: The important question should not be how much healing they do on average, but how often you get at least as much healing as you need. Since you can't outheal enemy damage, usually you're either going to use healing to top your heroes off at the end of a fight, or using it as a panic button to get someone off of death's door. In the first case the highrolls can be ignored, since they just cause more overkill and in the second case inconsistency can cause deaths. The only situation i see where the average healing is the biggest factor is if the target is on low HP, but not in any immediate danger.
I find Vestal's aoe heal to be more situationally useful
Occultist is an off healer at best. His best function is enabling an aggressive play style by the rest of the team. The best healer in the game is Flagellant.
That's a tricky situation. I see what you mean by saying that better average healing is a factor only if target has low health, but not in immediate danger. At the same token though, Which would you prefer in a dangerous situation? I see valid arguments for both. Vestal healing can be boosted enough to be quite substantial, and it sucks when the occultist heals low (or zero with bleed). On the other hand, Few things are more satisfying than when an Occultist explodes on that healing number!
Also, Occultists have VERY high crit, which I believe aids Wyrd Reconstruction too!
It's unfortunately exactly like average dice rolls. Two six sided die roll on average 7. Occultist at max level does 0 - 22 heal roll. So he heals on average for 11. Without bleed he heals for more than vestal, with bleed he heals for less, but I guess if you have bandages or plague doctor's heal it cancels out the bleed effect.
And then yeah, it's not just about numbers but also the situation, so healing someone at death's door with wyrd reconstruction isn't the best idea.
Hearing you talk about the again Crusader got me thinking:
Hes ready for anything, but has to respond to everything.
It sucks though people hold up the weakness to say the character is bad. He has weaknesses by design, hes a tank after all, not a DPS.
Gotta love logic of people like that.
They say Crusader is holy DPS and slowest in the game. But meanwhile same people take flagellant into the RUINS or take occultist into the warrens where he cant do anything apart from crowd control or healing (champion).
There is reason why Crusader is one of the most feared classes in Butcher Circus, that guy can be insanely good in any situation.
I think a lot of it is people shitting on him because he's easy and basic. Well, he's literally the tutorial character so yeah, duh. Not everyone needs to fit into a 4 turn dance routine with a double-axel spin-a-rooni.
Laughs in 4 man crusader runs with holy lance
@@fortheloveofking Funnily enough, Crusader actually would do great in a 4 turn dance routine!
He can (stress)heal from any position and his strongest skill moves him forward. His low speed also makes him rather reliable for turn orders.
What tripped me up is that for the longest time i tried playing him as some sort of tank with stun in rank one, which there clearly is faster and more reliable candidates for.
He actually has really good DPS if he starts at the back. What's interesting about crusader is that he can start at the back, wipe out the enemy backline with holy lance, get to the front and then start stunning the enemy and healing teammates. If you play him right, his role actually switches halfway through the fight where he goes from backline DPS to a frontline tank/support and he's great at both roles.
Man, highwayman not S tier, feelsbadman
All my Bias here but MAA will always be S tier. That dude single handedly saved my Bloodmoon run. I always looked at him as a filler tank but now he’s my heart and joy.
Literally my favorite class. I recruit them every time I see them if they don’t have super negative quirks
"Final verdict" cannot wait for the final final verdict
Srsly doe, thanks for existing, this is the YT channel I come to whenever I crave DD content on YT
It's funny that as you were talking about Occultist, I had one in my team that did a 1 HP heal one turn, then a 32 crit heal the next.
Occultist is an agent of chaos
The only thing I disagree with is occultist. Even though the 0 heal bleed on deaths door is enough to give someone an irl resolve check, crit chance through the roof makes his stuns the best in the game, AND he can stress heal with all those crits. Bottom of S rank sure, but he's just too powerful.
Occultist's damage always surprises me in the cove too. The eldritch bonus + crazy crit modifiers means he can almost be a damage dealer on the team even just running Sacrifical stab+hands from the abyss
irl resolve check, nice one XD
If he had a bit more base accuracy and some better defenses I'd agree. He's right there.
Multiple low heals in a row can be lethal and it happens too often imo
Something else to be said for Occultists low heal is that of the 4 S-Tier characters, which you probably want to bring to missions as much as possible, 2 have a reliable way to get people off DD and 1 has a guard.
one of the few situations in which the Man at Arms is S-Tier is against bosses that have attacks like Vvulf's bombs, others take like 30 damage from the bombs, but if you build him correctly he takes 5 damage at most
How often do you have multiple people on death's door?
Brigand Pounder *Looks away and begins whistling*
One of the single scariest moments in this game is missing the matchman.
@@ShuffleFM I did champion Pounder the other day and lost my Grave Robber to grapeshot because she missed a 95% on the 1 hp matchmen. *sadge*
21:45 i mean technically the shrieker fight can be won by waiting till it runs away, if thats what youre into i guess lol
The fact that you don't need to kill shrieker to get your lost trinkets back is actually quite valuable.
I have a completely different reason for complaining about the leper. The whole point of the character is to break stuff in the front row and he doesn't even do that well since front row enemies have high PROC negating the high damage that he would do. Armor piercing would fix this but he doesn't have that. You need a set up where a back line enemy is pulled forward for him to actually do the damage he is supposed to be doing. Sucks cause I really like the leper. I love his self sufficiency, and like you said the issue with ACC is really a non issue with trinkets. They could have easily fixed this problem by giving him a trinket that gives armor piercing. Armor piercing in one slot, ACC increase in the other.
All six parts of the Tier List Stones have been obtained. May the universe know naught but fear.
Part 7 could be a breakdown of that A tier into more tiers. It got pretty busy with lots of characters.
personally, only crusader and houndmaster deserve the S, can do most thing optimally from anywhere, plague doctor and hellion still need to be on their most optimal position to work optimally, and this is not just because you can get surprised or the enemy can shuffle you, but also because it affect team building, the first 10 week is one of the hardest part of the game, and if you get like bunch of hellion and plague doctor, you most likely will struggle, but since literally every single team would appreciate crusader or houndmaster, i think its fair to say that those two are the true S tier heroes
The S rating doesn’t mean perfect. It just means ‘best’. Crusader does have a best position based on the skills chosen as well as the role he’s been chosen to play. Houndmaster is positionally dependent based on his skills. In position 1 he can’t use his main damaging ability.
The purpose of me responding to you isn’t to say you’re wrong, but to give a different perspective. Take care.
I recently started replaying Darkest Dungeon and wanted a more in depth analysis of all heroes and strategies since I have gone through the newbie parts already. I love your content and analysis on Darkest Dungeon stuff Shuffle!
Glad you enjoy it :)
Great review - I came just to see your tiers, but I came away getting even more from how you described each hero's strengths and weaknesses and situational use cases. I have way less experience and have not sought out the challenges that you have, but it almost feels validating that between my first and second playthroughs how much my perspective evolved in similar ways, e.g.
Flagellant and Leper went from exile to fun & satisfying once I understood how to use them,
Shieldbreaker is an awesome but taxing luxury that pays off mostly when the game is basically already won,
Crusader rose from B to S once I stopped expecting him to be an armored Hellion,
Abomination went from my early fave to (imho) not worth the stress,
Jester is surprisingly tedious if valuable for farmstead runs,
Highway man is strong but has lackluster squad synergy, and
Grave Robber is my favorite but a bit too dependent on crits
Of course, I learned a lot from this video that makes my want to try a third playthrough of this path of pain
My boy Abom better be S tier...
Edit: Bloody hell, Shuff :D
You, talking about the game, Sir, is very, veery relaxing and gives a lot of knowledge about the game we love. Keep doing it! -Snejki
I've recently returned to DD for another shot at Stygian, gotta say your list is incredibly insightful, you're mentioning stuff i'd never even consider running and really going in depth on its the mechanics.
Keep up the good work B)
Crusader is H O L Y L A N C E. of he didn't have this marvelous button, he'd be much less fun and flexible.
I thought for a long time that holy lance was only situational/a meme and thought Crusader was a bad character and frontliner.
I stand corrected.
about grave robber: damage exists on a few axis: how often it happens (every turn vs every other turn), how it changes (dot ramps up hypothetically, hellion kinda ramps down). the range of damage values. the accuracy. id apply this with a reference to how guns are modded in warframe but i'm it would probably miss. anyway point is that grave robber's damage is always ready. it's always there. you will never not be able to hit a button for damage (damage in every position). and she's not inaccurate. you don't expect a miss (she's not a leper) but it's variable (12-14 as you said) and for it to be great damage it does require setup (shadowfade)
she has 100% uptime of damage, but not 100% damage uptime. there is always some damage. but there is not always all of her damage
*clicks Impale*
"Set you up, sweetie"
With this knowledge I think I've discovered the best team ever conceived in Darkest Dungeon.
Three Hellions and a Crusader in the back. Hellions kill everything while Crusader does the Orange Justice in the back. Every time they camp they all hit Revel and disco into a surprise round.
Game over can't lose GG
I know this comment is a month old but it killed me. Laughed for 5 minutes straight.
An Hippocratic Crusader is a blessing. Not only does he have an omni position heal, he's a tank stress healer and God knows, he saved me a run that could've gone horribly bad after a terrible shambler encounter. His camp skills are also a blessing when you want to clear stress right before coming back to the hamlet. He really is a staple of my DD meta and truly deserves an S tier. Plus, Reynauld is the one who I first got a virtue on and it was epic, so yeah. S tier Baby, and Deus Vult.
56:53 "Relatable, consistent" i heard it with the Ancestor's voice
Grave Robber - S tier character in our hearts.
Bet she's a freak too.
Crusader is so god damn versatile, and fits into almost any team comp. Surprised to hear you got pushback for him being high rank in the past. EDIT: Loot pool dilution is a valid reason to put musketeer in a lower rank. She lowers the chance at character progression and definitely does not deserve A as long as Antiquarian is in a high rank for very similar reasons/logic.
I've had a bunch of Occultists at one time before, to compare how he performs with different quirks/trinkets, and found that he can be reliable in almost all comps with any trinkets; almost everything helps what he does, from debuffs to stuns to heals to straight-up wet work, and no single penalty is really a big deal for him in particular.
Every time I come back to this game I watch some of your videos. Its been great watching your channel blow up over the years!
Hey man. Just wanted to say I really like your work. I like that you do longform videos that aren't well scripted or well rehearsed. It took me a while to understand what exactly it was, but... It's like watching a cook going through the thought process of creating a good stew (I used to be a cook).
I don't know if you're familiar with LegendOfTotalWar or Lindybiege, they do the same thing more or less: Turn on the Camera/Mic and start going ham on the topic.
Also watching the tier list and it's revisions was quite fun because you proved that you're open minded enough to revise your position.
This is just a little thanks for the entertainment you offer.
Thank you for the kind words. Being a cook sounds fun, but stressful I'm sure. I'll take a peek at the recommendations since I haven't heard of them before :)
I'd agree that Crusader is S-tier. Between battles you can entirely switch his role from a moderate stress-healer and torch generator, to healer, to stunner, to raw DPS- extremely good. I also love the creativity with the Non-Euclidean Hilt, because you can make a Zealous-Accusation Build with it, or use the bonus stun skill chance for an extreme stun build. One of my favorite characters.
Or use a 4 man crus with holy lance and win the game on any difficulty lol
I have to say of all the ways to play Crusader, i never really got stun to work out that great for myself.
That's also the first way i tried playing him (apart from ruins frontline damage) and what made me not like him as a character for a long time.
Played this game for the first time in 2024. Bounty Hunter was the character that made the games strategies/play click for me. He’s really good at teaching you the importance of prot by showing you how much damage you can do when you lower it. He’s teaches you how important rank/file on your team and the enemy team matters when you start yoinking the enemies that stress you out of the back. That and he can do all of that from almost anywhere so even if you are clueless like I was once you put him in the team it all starts to come together.
Highway man is always S tier to me. I don't know why but when things are not going well he is like always that dude who dodges certain death then nails crits. Everyone else messes up, Highway man steps up
Definitely think that antiquarian drops a tier late game. Her gimmick of getting extra money doesn’t matter in the endgame at all, because the amount of money you’re getting from the bank interest outpaces most other sources of income. She’s a great support character, but in my opinion she isn’t better than abomination because
1: she has overall worse stats (except dodge of course)
2: she needs help to survive fights a lot more than Abom does, absolution goes a long way
I agree with your analysis. The only thing I would add is that late game she gets better at combat by having more access to trinkets and having better stats on her abilities. Dodge teams aren't a thing at apprentice but you can certainly make them at champion.
@@ShuffleFM that’s true, she power creeps for different things depending on the stage of the game, I think I just prefer overwhelming force over dodge (I regularly use legendary bracer on several classes).
Her ability is diminished in the beginning, not the end. I used to be in the same boat you’re in, but after forcing myself to use antiquarian I realized that she’s a situational powerhouse. ‘Protect Me’ is really amazing with riposte or Flagellant & flash powder can be game changing against the big hitters of champion. Her effectiveness is very team dependent.
Until the bank is up, antiquarian is mandatory for every run. The game is set up so you spend more money than you can haul back. Mods fix this somewhat.
My argument for B tier Vestal:
Her most optimal setup is boring to play. I guess that just goes with being a healbot in a turn-based game. Like sure, she's effective, but at higher levels of understanding the game she takes away a lot from the element of strategizing and just makes battles much slower. You could run something like Arbalest in the role of the healer instead of Vestal which, yea, she's more dangerous to take, but both for you AND your enemies! You won't see a scenario where backline Vestal destroys the backline, unless you count constantly stunning pos3 into that.
And while we're talking about Arbalest, I think her biggest demerit outside of stuff like stats is that she can be very dangerous to new players who see that she has a heal but don't know how to heal reliably in this game. And so they end up just using the heal constantly, because they don't know how to mitigate damage, stall or even that enemies can easily outdamage your heals. But once you get a hold on those concepts I think Arbalest beats Vestal when it comes to being the best healer in the game, especially considering the buff it gives. Not only does it allow for more healing with food after combat in case you didn't fully heal while stalling, it also allows for some secondary heal like PD, Antiquarian or Crusader to chip in a little more during stalling (or maybe even in the middle of combat if the situation is good). I consistently like having my Arbalest pair with PD because it gives me a lot of control over enemy backline on top of the bonuses I already mentioned.
I'll be honest, everything you said about jester makes him an S tier. If the only thing you can say about a character is: "he's not mandatory" and "every character likes his buffs" on top of saying that he's just easy to use, ten I don't actually see any reason to drop him a rank.
Ok, crazy guy here. I actually run my vestals second slot damage dealer and healer. I got a scroll and a head (trinkets, scroll is heretical or profane, can't recall) early on that make it critical to manage her stress, but it takes the somewhat weak party heals into something legitimately formidable. What's more, a couple hands of light, emboldening vapor and a clobber can spike 40sum damage on a crit, to the point that vestal is downright scary. Plus with the illumination skill, she susses out any stealthed boys pretty fast.
She's basically the foundation of my every team switching between build up and nuke shot to damage control. She might only get one nuke every other battle, but I know her target's dead or wishing they were.
The fact that you have 3 tiers only and mostly everyone is in A, and only 1 true b (not including musk) is such a fucking testament to red hooks balance team qnd char dev. And i agree with you, as someones whos beat it a few times, there is no one i really regret taking off the stage coach. I love antiqu, but shes the only one i can understand some people might be like "ugh". What a wonderfully designed game (for the most part)
I don't really understand the argument against Vestal being in S-tier.
"Unless you're playing torchless, doing very difficult bosses or are new to the game, you very rarely have multiple people on death's door, so you don't need an AoE heal."
Sure, if you're doing easy content and you know exactly what's coming, she's not needed, and you might as well run a de-stresser or damage dealer because stress is a bigger threat to you than damage. But in any content where you might actually risk dying ("the hardest missions in the game"), you say to bring her. Being good at hard stuff and bad at easy stuff is far more important than the other way around.
I know you acknowledge it in the video, but I think your assessment of her (and especially your inclination to put her in B) is bias against her because she's boring and 1-dimentional. Which she is! But that 1-dimension (Judgement, Stun, 2 heals +/- illumination) is just broken enough to be better than any of the 20 builds a bounty hunter can do.
Late to the party, but I feel like BH's range, stuns, and in compliment to his ability to deal just ridiculous amounts of crit damage with mark synergy... I'd propose him S-Tier and for best character.
I agree. You can also keep his stall trinkets in place when he transforms because he gets the crazy buff when he transforms. I think that he is able to transform in 1/3 of the fights.it’s great that you don’t really need to build balanced with him to get that flexibility.
All characters are so usable that 3 tiers are almost too many :P
Finally, legit love this comment. Too many people want more tiers and it's like why lol
@@ShuffleFM always awesome vids, personally i love using characters im not comfortable with; shoving weird combinations into dungeons and forcing them to work puts them all in the same room
No joke, I think Leper is S tier. You summed him up quite accurately and still undervaluing him in my honest opinion by putting him in A. He's just an insane stand alone character.
I highly underestimated his potential. Once you start buffing his damage, and pulling enemies to him, He CLEAVES like a mthrfckr. Haha
Copium straight from ancestors private reserves. I get it, everyone loves the funny chop man, but it’s getting out of hand. In what universe is leper better than jester? What can he do except hit revenge on turn one and then throw damage on something you don’t really want to damage? He’s just a more awkward arbalest with much less supporting skills. I get it, he’s not F-tier, he’s not the worst, but enough with this cope already.
@@max7971 every universe? Highest damage, debilitates all enemies, most potent self heal and stress relief in the game while doubling as a tank. If you're comparing him to the Jester you clearly have no idea how to play this game.
Sir, let me tell you about King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem "the leper"
S tier is the only place for a king.
Coming here from two years later, absolutely. Even if he misses 3 times in a row, the next hit will compensate for ALL that while being incredibly resilient, allowing your support to focus on squishier characters. One of my favorites.
I still think shieldbreaker is amazing at apprentice. The ability to break guard and hit the backline with high damage is useful no matter the level. Armour piercing is also just busted. I've been doing a lot of apprentice stuff lately and she just wrecks everything. I would give her S.
Shes so squishy tho, and dealing with nightmares in apprentice missions is practically asking for affliction.
Grave Robber without Sharpened Letter Opener, A or even B+. Grave Robber with it, solid S.
That trinket is just nut, everything you want (very high damage mod + accuracy to never miss) with some goodies on top (bit of dodge is never bad) and 0 drawbacks except needing to play with Crimson Court. All other trinkets that give close to this amount of buff come with some heavy cost (e.g. Dismas head gives only the damage part and cost you HP and stress). And the best part is that you can get it as soon as apprentice if it pops up as reward for the first CC mission. Getting it that early can literally change a run by influencing how much GR you want to have in your roster and the kind of party you will build around her (for example more HWM and SB to get the dance parties lunge -> lunge going)
Sickening Satchel is 20% damage to everything as long as enemy is blighted. Lunge itself has deals 33% damage when an enemy is blighted. together, its 53% damage on blighted targets and lunge itself has 140% damage scaling. so she is doing 193% damage. Its also so easy to apply blight early game by just picking plague doctor and using plague bile. plague bile->lunge =rank 3 unit dead. Sicken Satchel is also really strong for its ability to lower damage penalty of poison darts to -40%. Letter opener is more of secondary damage artifact, if you use it with sickening satchel, you can potentially do 218% damage lunges.
HIghway man is my favourite character after he gave me my most memorable fight.
Against swine god I put his riposte up getting ready for an attack.
Wilbur decided to mark him, and he crit Wilbur leaving him 100-0
So swine god goes berserk and thanks to my jester highwayman crits twice more on the attacks, and finally crits on the point blank shot soloing the entire fight in two turns. I was very concerned that I was about to lost this fight, and then suddenly it was over.
crusaders is a generalist but all his skill's do 2 things at the same time heal/stress/light damage/stun protection/mark/light cleave move/damage, thats great
Too many heroes in A tier in a 3 tier ranking, especially when ignoring Musketeer since it's a character clone. So in terms of downgrades, I'd say Antiquarian, Leper and Grave Robber should go down to B tier. Antiquarian because we're talking strictly about battle functionality, as it's pretty tough to rate her money generation as it depends on the specific play through(regular, no torch, blood moon, etc). While Antiquarian does do well in certain team comps, is she really the best choice in any of them and are these teams really that great if you took her money generation out of the equation? As for Grave Robber, she's simply the worst pure DPS character in the game and that's all she brings to the table. Other DPS characters also offer some utility(minor heals, stuns, etc) as well as superior damage.
As far as the Leper goes, I think you overcorrected your stance on his weaknesses. His accuracy is still very much an issue as all characters generally want at least +5/+10 accuracy to feel comfortable, the Leper needs +10/+15 on top of that which isn't nearly as trivial to get and comes with an opportunity cost that other characters don't have to pay. Is this opportunity cost worth it? Can it be mitigated in certain setups? Sometimes, absolutely, but again B characters are not bad, they are just outclassed or require too much work to function similarly to other characters. Moreover his biggest weakness is not even his accuracy but his rigidity. This comes in 3 forms: positional inflexibility(rank 1/2 only), lack of movement(both skills and generic movement) and lack of reach(only rank 1/2). None of the other characters in the game are so limited on all 3 avenues as the Leper.
In terms of upgrades, Occultist definitely deserves S tier. Firstly he's not a main healer but primarily a stunner/support with a nice heal. Secondly his 'inaccurate attacks' only applies to Sacrificial Stab which is rarely used on him, so not sure why you made such a big deal out of that. Moreover if you do go the damage route why didn't you mention his bonus vs Eldritch which is very significant as Eldritch are everywhere, especially when heading towards the end game. With these changes the tier list becomes much more balanced.
Solid take.
An underated combo I think, is Vellion. You can build Vestal to do heals and stuns, while Hellion stuns and does big damage. Add in a PD for extra control and you have a threesome that can just go so, so far.
1 year later~~~
But isnt that a official party with a name already?
Vestal-PD-GR-Hellion was something like sisters of war
Tier list: almost everyone in middle tier - nice game, good balance
I’ve gotta defend Highwayman for S. I’m playing through again and as a point of practicality I can always build a team around Highwayman because he does good to great damage from any rank, to any rank. In the early to mid game I might not have a Hellion available or maybe I don’t have a hard hitter up front or maybe what I have is lacking for reach… a Highwayman solves all of those problems.
He might not have flexibility it terms of different capabilities (healing, stunning, etc) but he is by far the most flexible damage dealer.
End game when you have access to everything maybe he’s not S tier, but on the way to the end he solves a lot of problems you may have with throwing together a useful lineup.
I've killed some bosses with Highwayman in couple of turns just boosting accuracy and dodge with trinkets: from second row advance attack activating riposte and then go back with point blank to repeat. Dual Highwayman is fun also. The fact that he can easily negate all shuffle attacks might save the day. Also I'm biased, for he is my fav character. S tier!
My only changes are Leper and Vestal in S tier. Probably ought to have a D tier though, just to be able to differentiate between some of the A tier characters. Abom still getting dropped in the last tier though.
the game is too well balanced, thats why the majority of characters are A, theres no useless character in this game, they all do something good
@@misty1985 Lol, nah, it isn't. Just because every character is useful does not mean every character is so similar you can't tell who is slightly better than the others. Putting anti next to Flag and Highwayman? Sorry but no. MAA with Leper and Shieldbreaker? Again, no. With 5 tiers you could probably drop Graverobber and Occultist a level too because they're frankly just slightly less useful than the rest of A tier, even if they are still very viable.
Thanks for all the work this list represents
I will not tolerate Vestal slander. She's best girl.
I wonder how strong a team of the S tier heroes would be. Yawp + Blinding Gas opening can stun the entire team, two characters have self heals, two characters have single target heals, one character has self stress heal, one has single target stress heal, one has group stress heal, they all put out high damage, 3 characters have bleed, one has blight, one has guard, two have self buffs, one has a single target buff, one can cure DoTs. Positioning would be PD - Crusader - HM - Hellion.
You have to put Crusader in 2 and HM in 3 for it to work properly. Holy lance is best used in repetition and you HM is always going to go first anyway meaning your Cry Havoc is useless first round, or any round the Crusader doesn’t lance before and lance is useless after 1 use. Skip lance, put on Smite and Stun. HM can do the 4th rank sniping with the hound and Hellions Iron Swan. If it lives, PD blights it to death next turn.
Dont bother with YAWP in most scenarios, its a good stun but Hellion is better used smacking things instead of tryna stall before stalling is necessary. Crusader can stun one of the front-liners anyway.
This setup isn’t the greatest in the Ruins or Cove, but its still pretty good because of PD’s blight stacking and Crusaders BEEF. If you’re boss killing, swap HM for HWM. The extra damage will just end the fight quicker.
I'm surprised that Abomination is considered B tier.
I'm probably 1/3 thru the vanilla game (Darkest Difficulty) , and he is unstoppable. I just run him with any sort of stress healer, and *Lock of Transference* / *Restraining Lock* . Stress really hasn't been an issue for me. Lol. I don't transform on every turn, Just when a fat boi pops up or a boss.
Is it that I'm just not far enough in the game yet? Does he start to fall off or something?
He actually gets better later on, but the main issue is how transform works and doesn't lower the stress gained the higher rank it becomes means that half his kit is not worth using in the majority of encounters. Abom is still a 9 speed stunner, even if his stun is weak in terms of stun chance, so he's never going to be bad for that.
I got this god leper cause he has
Natural Swing (+5 Acc)
Slugger (+10 Damage with Melee)
Tough (+10% HP)
And i give them a Sun Ring and Focus Ring and he is a beast
His damage is through the roof and best part about him is the fact i can place him in any team and he works great as long as they don’t need the front or dance with him with the exception of Highwayman
I feel like you made this tier to celebrate your boy the crusader and then just stuck everyone else in A. lol
Nah. I talked to a lot of people in my community and they felt making 3 tiers was right because the power level of heroes isn't that different.
Sad to see my favorite trilogy come to an end.
Maybe I’m bad but having no good healers in S feels a bit wrong. I feel like I’m trolling if I don’t take Atleast one of arb vest occult or flag
The thinking is that stunning enemies and killing them quickly mitigates more damage than healing restores. You can always run a healer, but they aren't broken or mandatory imo since there are alternatives.
Thing is you can abuse stalling with one weak enemy to endlessly heal in most fights. Healing is vital, don't get me wrong, but it's not as op as most players think it to be. Most players with that mentality tend to heal when it's not necessary.
HWM not in S tier?
*Dies of cringe*
(loved the video, thanks shuff
Bonk Vestals are more than a meme. Mace Bash is weak on its own, but trinket support is excellent. The CC set is worth 2 slots just for +25% healing and +35% stun, you get more than a free Ancestor's Pen thrown in. That upgrades Mace Bash to a non-marked Collect Bounty for Unholy instead of Humans. After a Hand of Light, your Mace Bashes hit harder than Lunge (assuming no skill-specific bonuses).
Details will differ, but the same principle applies to Profane Scroll - you essentially get more than a free high-quality trinket thrown in. The options are even better offense, fantastic group heals with a second heal trinket, or both with Heretical Passage in Eldritch-rich locations/Farmstead.
I agree with almost everything. However, why not put grave robber in B if she's basically the same as abomination.
My biggest gripe though dude. It's not much of a tier list if almost everyone is in the same tier.
Depends what you want from a tier list.
If you use them to check out a games balance and see how different heroes compare, this one still does a great job.
Not his "fault" if DD is well balanced.
At first I ran leper EXCLUSIVELY with vengeance because I thought you needed the accuracy. Then I ran without it because the change to single-use abilities in farmstead changed and he still ended up hitting so I really like him now. Just sucks he only works in spot 1/2 and can only target 1/2 reliably, purge and intimidate might help but they take a turn to set up.
I don't like how 11 out of 17 are all in the same tier. Kind of defeats the purpose of a tierlist IMO. It's basically saying "These 4 are super strong, these 2 are lacklustre, the rest are all essentially equal"
Leper's weaknesses are more on paper than in actual gameplay. But when his weakness hit (position or miss) it's worse for him. We don't have enough amazing skills that goes backwards comparing to those that goes forward, so if you got pushed to rank 3 or 4 you are really fucked. Jester and Vestal however can do something significant in ranks 1 and 2 while the damage dealers goes foward.
ShuffleFM is the best DD player ever and someone had the gaul to say he is garbage for taking Leper on torch-less? He took a character with ACC issues and won on torch-less....Im so confused as to how thats garbage play? Anyways, great video as always Shuffle. Without your videos I would have never beaten this game. Keep on keepin on my man!
Imma say it, I like Musketeer more than Arbalest. It all comes down to fashion really, and you can't beat that hat. Form *and* Function.
So to get through the DD missions you essentially want at least 16 max resolve heroes because of the debuff right? This alongside having the 2 dlcs to contend with means you're in champion long enough that shieldbreaker breaks into S imo. Either way, good video 👍
Some heroes are S with the "right comp" and others are S out of the box. Jester is definitely the former, as in wherever he can be both support and an effective damage source, and he actually dodges for once in his life, it's like having two heroes in one. He's omega squishy though, so he's the fairest A in the game imo
Let's do this:
1) Abomination (B Tier Human / F tier Beast): Definitely the worst character and it's because half of their kit is basically just a bad Leper.
Even modding Padlock of Transference to negate 95% of all the stress generated by Beast Mode, it remains underwhelming due to the poor base accuracy of Rake, and if you aren't Raking, you're losing a substantial amount of the damage you're stress nuking your team for.
2) Antiquarian(A tier): Pure support that scales ludicrously well. As a smoke-machine, she trolls the hell out of the enemy. Godly stall potential with her lite-blight. Otherwise, she's the premier strategic character. Just a really, REALLY rough start.
3) Arbalest (D tier): Overly mark reliant for high damage. Solid support otherwise.
4) Bounty Hunter (B Tier early/ C Tier late): His CC and reach is really great, especially early on when enemy Stun/Move resists are low. Late game he falls off vs other classes as bulk damage becomes more viable due to better trinket selection, improved equipment and higher accuracy from skill levels. But since early game is the real hidden metagame of DD, he's in a really good spot.
5) Crusader (S Tier): If Speed Quirks didn't exist, Crus would be down in D tier, because oh boy is Speed a big deal in DD. As it is however, he can be tuned up pretty readily with Trinkets and quirk management, and thus, fits into the difficulty curve of Darkest Dungeon almost perfectly; providing a blend of good CC, high damage, reach, and utility/healing all in one sturdy package while not compromising heavily on any of these things.
6) Flagellant: (A Tier): Insanely good kit that only lacks bulk damage. Most characters get worse under pressure in a game defined by mounting pressure; Flagellant EXCELS when under pressure. His mediocre HP is his real weakness.
7) Grave Robber (B-Tier): Very swingy performance, across the board, but with an average that skews towards powerful. Keystone character of Blight Teams. Absolutely busted Trinkets.Crap HP but she earns it.
8) Hellion (S-Tier): The reason I don't look so kindly upon Leper. Reach wins battles more consistently than bulldozing, and Hellion has both incredible reach AND damage to make it count. Being able to hit any position for significant alpha damage from Position 1 is HUGE since most front liners flat out can't do it. (in fact, only Shieldbreaker shares this ability)
9) Highwayman (A-Tier): Consistency defines Highwayman. He dances, his Trinkets are among the best, and he can strike nearly any position from any position. That's all BEFORE Riposte. Riposte gives him another tool in his kit and can cheese out some otherwise incredibly difficult fights. But as the ShuffleFM notes, it's not the totality of his character.
10) Houndmaster (A-Tier): Below average HP, solid all-rounder otherwise.
11) Jester (B-Tier): Favorite character. He's really wonky to build early since he gets stuck into one of two roles: Finale spam or Support. Late game, he makes Dancing Teams hum. The #1 problem with his kit is the redundancy of Harvest vs Slice Off. Finale is meh.
12) Leper (D-Tier): Extremely overrated. Has ended more Stygian runs for me than any other character, on account of character deaths and time loss.
In the broader metagame, Leper is at his worst during the first 30 weeks; which is the most important and difficult part of Stygian difficulty. Losing characters and runs (retreats) to bad luck is brutal and potentially game ending and Leper tempts that bad luck more than any other character in the game.
Can Leper be powerful? Absolutely. Late game Leper is Schwarzenegger with a machinegun; a death-golem who mows down even the toughest enemies (that he can reach). I've used him enough to know this first hand.
However, I've also used Leper enough to know that in order to tap into that power, I have to make some really painful sacrifices in the early game, which is not something I have to do with Hellion, Crusader, or even Shieldbreaker; none of whom fall off late game either.
(also, I disagree with denouncing the complaints as "playing the numbers game". This isn't just a psychological "feels" problem but a matter that comes up because of how accuracy vs dodge works in DD. 10 less accuracy does NOT translate into 10% fewer hits or one extra miss per ten attacks on average; it's actually worse than that, and that's vs targets with ZERO DODGE. The true odds get WORSE vs enemies with dodge.)
13) Man At Arms (?-Tier)
This guy is the weirdest character in the game, whose effectiveness, more than any other character in Darkest Dungeon, scales directly to the expertise of the player.
He's the polar opposite of Leper in a way; lacks raw power, but provides so much utility that it's absurd.
His biggest weakness is that he is NOT easy to use. His base damage is the worst among front liners and his trinkets have been over-nerfed. You really have to know where to use him and when, but he's incredibly solid when you do.
No other class can dictate the flow of battle like Man At Arms through use of Bellow, Guard, Stuns or his many buffs.
14) Occultist (A-Tier)
Hidden monster of a character. He's pitched as the party's Wizard, but he's really more like the D&D Bard; a jack-of-all trades who mid-ranges like a boss. Don't just run him Position 4 like I did for my first couple of years playing DD; run him Position 2 and have him Hands of the Abyss things into the dirt.
Wyrd Reconstruction would be immensely better with just 1 point of minimum instead of 0; even at the expense of a few points of maximum healing. As flavorful as his healing is, the chance of wasting a turn potentially healing for zilch and then causing bleeding is completely stupid.
I really like Occultist; his Hexes are awesome, his trinkets are even better, and his flexibility is superb.
Just a great unit to have in general, even if he's squishy, he still has excellent dodge.
15) Musketeer (C-Tier)
Arbalest clone has arbalest strengths and arbalest problems. No need to waste time repeating what's been said; has marginally worse Homestead trinkets, is otherwise identical.
16) Plague Doctor (S-Tier)
No disagreements from the video here. Blinding Gas is just straight up overpowered and it's found on a character with 7-9 base speed. Pretty much all of her skills are good, even her "worst" skill in Emboldening Vapors. (+Speed and +Dmg is INSANE on Hellion, Shieldbreaker and Crusader; or even Houndmaster and Arbalest/Musketeer. Don't sleep on it!)
17) Shieldbreaker (C-Tier Early, A-Tier late)
Pierce is straight up the most consistent general attack in the game.
Apart from that, she is a late bloomer for sure. Impale is a sick move come late game, she is one of the few front-line Blight characters in the game, and she is (appropriately enough) one of the best dancers in the game along Highwayman.
Like Grave Robber, her primary drawback is her low HP. Guard effects and evasion Trinkets are a must early on, and defensive quirks are pure gold.
18) Vestel (B-Tier)
The reason I don't rate her as A or S tier is because she's locked into one true skillset in position 3 or 4.
Unlike Occultist, Vestel really doesn't have the base stats or trinket quality to excel in her role outside of that or those positions.
The top-grade healing is quite welcome, as is the stun, and her core skills are undeniably excellent. It's just that with experience, I find myself using Vestel a lot less. (Bonk-Vestel is a meme for a reason; she's still noticeably worse than Pos 2 or even Pos 1 Occulist. Yikes.)
Rake has poor accuracy? It has 90-110 based on rank, making it the second highest level of accuracy you can find on a damaging move. There's also no excuse not to consider broken key when it's incredibly good for him, and among the cheapest CoM trinkets. Abomination has problems, but I don't see how accuracy could be considered among them.
@@hawkeye611 I get that, but here's the deal. My currently playthrough is "What if" mode, where I changed a number of trinkets and skills to adjust their potential.
(remade Musketeer a sort of Pos 2-3 variant that mains Buckshot instead of Sniper Shot)
Abomination was actually the impetus for this run after a Shuffle video talking about Trinkets. I'm running a modded Padlock of Transference that negates most of the Stress from of Transformation, just to see how broken beast mode Abomination actually is.
And so far, it's been highly underwhelming.
I've taken this Abomination to a lot of different places, and for whatever reason, they just keep missing way more attacks than what Rake et all says on the tin. It's gotten to the point where I'm equipping Focus Ring on them.
(and it's not negative ACC quirks or disease; I've removed most of their negative quirks and locked in a couple solid defensive quirks)
On paper, this should not be happening, and it merits further testing to see if it's a quirk of the cleave attack code or something I somehow messed up in modding the game. (I didn't touch Abom's base skills at all, since that would defeat the point of the test)
As for the rest, well, yeah; you are absolutely right. Broken Key is...broken, and having a reliable stunbot in Pos 2 or 3 is really, really good.
I'm just kinda tired of it. As the game goes on, I find myself wanting a Houndmaster, Highwayman, Man At Arms, Shieldbreaker or Crusader more than I do Abomination for Pos 2/3 most of the time.
That's a lot to respond to but I read it and appreciate your thoroughness. I could definitely see those placements with that reasoning
I get that Leper is likeable, but his biggest issue is his lack of repositioning tools and you kinda made it a footnote on his character. ACC is an easy fix, but if he gets shuffled out of position, outside of some very specific setups, getting him to the front again is wasted turns. It's very possible to have him shuffled or surprised to the fourth position and he needs two turns to get back up if he's not lucky enough to swap with someone who can reposition with skills.
I don't take Leper because having him shuffle out or get pushed back feels worse than it does with nearly any other character. It's the same weakness as human abom: half the positions in the game (3-4 for Leper, 1-4 for Abom) mean they're not contributing to damage or debuffs that round, they can only heal.
The reason I think the "can't fix their positioning" negative gets easier to care less about as time goes on is the fact that PD and vestal are 2 characters people feel are very strong and good, but they get dunked by positioning and no one ever seems to care about that. For leper though it suddenly becomes a real issue again. Not saying you are doing this obviously but there is a lot of anti leper bias out there where people apply things to him in a greater magnitude than they do to others.
Plus if you are really worried about leper getting knocked out of his spot, it isn't that common of a situation and you can team build to mitigate it
@@ShuffleFM Sorry for necro.
Shuffles are bad for PD and vestal as well, but nobody in this game gets screwed as hard by movement skills as leper. I'd argue that PD and vestal are simply better characters than leper in general, but if we're specifically arguing the movement/shuffle point, PD and vestal generally aren't hurt as much by shuffles as leper because:
a) They have specific skills they can use in these positions (think mace bash/incision) whereas leper has 0 options in the backline whatsoever. However I'll agree that most people generally don't run those skills for PD/vestal so they would essentially be stuck in the same position.
b) I'd argue that assuming you run the normal/meta build on PD/vestal the only truly horrible position for either of them to be in is position 1, they don't like being in position 2 but they can still blight/stun and heal/stun respectively whereas leper is completely useless in position 3/4.
c) Most of the skills that can fix shuffles/positioning while still doing something productive outside of just movement move your characters forwards instead of backwards, or at least they fix frontline shuffles more than they fix backline shuffles, thus making it easier to push people who are stuck in position 1 into position 2 than it is to get people who are stuck in position 4 out of the backline. Highwayman can fix your positioning with duelist's advance and he actually loves being in position 1 afterwards to use point blank shot, but he only goes forwards with duelist's advance and he can only use point blank shot in position 1, he can't fix the backline. Man at arms' stun is similarly useful outside of just movement, but it also only moves him forward. Hellion/Crusader's movement skills both do solid damage and move them forward. Shieldbreaker can easily help people get out of position 1, but she can only get people out of position 4 with expose, which I don't think most people run and it would also put shieldbreaker in position 4 herself where she doesn't want to be either. All of those other skills I mentioned are also skills you're most likely already running, so you don't have to build your party differently to combat enemies who shuffle your party in this way. The only good skill I can think of right now that puts a character all the way at the back is GR shadow fade. Maybe you could argue for Antiquarian Get Back and Jester finale as well but I'm not the biggest fan of those skills.
d) Assuming you agree with point c, vestal especially doesn't care that much about getting shuffled because her teammates are almost guaranteed to be faster than her and they will be able to shuffle her backwards. PD suffers a bit more because her high speed makes her more vulnerable to wasted turns though.
All in all vestal and PD don't enjoy getting shuffled, but leper truly becomes useless upon getting shuffled. He has more useless positions than vestal and PD and in general getting your frontliner shuffled into your own backline is far more debilitating than getting your backliner shuffled into your frontline.
Have you ever considered doing reviews of modded characters and the like? I'd love to hear your thoughts on characters like Duchess or Ringmaster.
I would love to. Unfortunately there isn't time right now with dd2 coming
I love the hellion and plague doc. HwyM, Bounty H, and Occultist are all amazing to me. Good in ALL areas with a few skill tweaks. I like the shieldgirl too but only if I can have 2 of them to spam the aoe spear throw.
The crusader is useless. By the time he gets to go the enemies have rekt your party. 4 times now I have decided to give him another try because everyone loves him and I just helplessly watch as he sits there while I get smashed. I mean what the hell is going on?
At any rate, the hellion is my girl. She sits on the throne. What an absolute unit of a character!
as a new player this video helps a lot ty!! i will say tho jester has gotten me thru so many fights and judging from what u said about him, it's kind of A just bc u dont like the playstyle, but functionally it feels like S even coming from someone who deff isnt using the class to the full potential
Love the video series man!
What you think about this team?: Plage Doctor - Occultist - Dogmaster - First position is up to you, some good Melee DPS like Leeper or Headhunter
As a new person to the game I say that vestal, plague, crusader and helium work the best for me
Bolster isn't just good in boss fights. +10 dodge and -20% stress buffs on all heroes from a max level Bolster is a huge amount of stress mitigation, and then the dodge gives incidental mitigation to damage and disruption as well. The dodge buff alone adds up to as much mitigation as a guaranteed stun after ~9 enemy actions, which happens in 3ish turns against a lot of non-trivial fights, and mopping up stress from slippery stress dealers and random crits pushes Bolster over the top in a lot more situations than you'd expect from a move you only have to use once before letting Man-at-Arms do whatever else he needs to do. Prior to Champion level, you are certainly better off stunning things instead, but there is definitely a critical mass where the percentage mitigation on Bolster versus bad stuff having big numbers and Champion monsters regularly making fights last a long time adds up to Bolster a great move.
Flagellant can also milk extra value from Endure when he has stress reduction buffs, and Bolster will incidentally give him that extra value.
It's still good statistically. I personally think it's too slow for regular battles is all. That turn 1 could be spent on bellow, guard, or rampart which all help end the fight faster and reduce enemy turns. Dodging is the same idea of reducing enemy turns technically which is why I compare it that way
@@ShuffleFM It is definitely too slow for a lot of regular battles, but in champion dungeons specifically, there are a lot of stacked enemy mashes with dangerous, hard to kill enemies where the teamwide dodge buff is going to add up to as much mitigation as a stun over the course of the fight, and then gives every hero a free stress reduction trinket on top of that. I’ve personally decided that doing something significantly strong in the scary fights is worth being significantly weaker in the easier ones, because things going wrong in easy fights is recoverable, and making scary fights as trivial as possible prevents a lot of nail biting.
Leper shouldn't even be on this list. He's his own squad.
Flashpowder, I find, is pretty bad in torchless, cuz you are essentially a flashpowder down against all enemies - so it only really starts kicking in from it's second use, which is quite slow
Torchless is weird. The enemies get more accuracy so dodge is harder to do and not as valuable. Meanwhile the enemies hit so damn hard that being able to dodge any of that helps a lot
*Abomination gets put in b tier*
*sad abomination noises*
also, yea abom's kit can definitely be better if rh took care of him more/better, that and usually other heroes can just do what he does better in alot of cases
I really enjoy using abom in the endless harvest, him spamming rake and leper spamming hew is amazing
@@dr.narwhalmd4885 I've recently did a beastbom run with pd/jest/occ/abom and I got to 300, he is definitely a solid option that is also fun to use
@@dr.narwhalmd4885 i made a team with jestal-abom-sd i manage to reach more of 400 kills. I said a got luck because my abom obtained the self stress v and my vestal stress heal all.
I only stop because my boss fight was The flesh with crit buff and my team heal debuff
Has the game been updated since this ? Is this truly final verdict
Game hasn't been updated so I haven't had a reason to change it :)
@ShuffleFM wow didn't expect a reply thanks. Love Grave Robber hehe
I disagree with abomination. Him spamming manacles is absolutely correct. But that being a bad thing is wrong.
Abomination is basically front three stunner, that can self sustain. Which is insanely good.
Him transforming for damage, is whatever, it comes up in fringe cases and is nice when needed. But he is basically manacles and absolution which is pretty damn good. Considering stun is great, and if he is ever targeted, which is basically another stun since he can self sustain.
Him having a lackluster kit doesn't mean he is bad, just bad design.
He works extremely well for me. I only ever transform him when u come across a "Fat Boi" enemy or a boss, and ive never run into a stress problem.
I think occultist is one of my favorite classes. I keep him in rear and he's the healer/back row damager
can't wait for part 207/3
I just started playing darkest dungeon, i thought i would just be very boring and use the "generic" classes like crusader but damn hound master and flagellent have to be my favorites, such cool classes
Imo vestal still deserve S. Yes it's usually better being proactive than reactive, but that's only when you already know what you'll encounter. Picking vestal is very safe for your team and usually the go-to pick when you going blind. I'd rather have her and don't need her healing, than need her healing but not having her
I'd like to make an argument in favor of PD. She is the best DPS in the game. With Hag's Ladle her blight chance can go as high as 210% which is ridiculously overkill and nearly guarantees blight against every single enemy in the game. Even without it, you can swap in Blasphemous vial and reach 200% aswell as getting a +10 ACC bonus to her already ridiculously high ACC ranged attacks. Combine that with the fact DoT's ignore prot, her blights are the most consistent damage in the entire game.
Between Plague Grenade and Blinding Gas, I think Plague Grenade is better. Landing 1 plague grenade and having the blight proc (which we already know is guaranteed) makes quick work of backliners hp typically killing them a turn early which often time denies them the use of another attack which is the same reason why stuns are good. Only Plague Grenade hits more often, can proc blight more consistently and proc multiple rounds in a row compared to Blinding Gas' stun proc, and to top it off PD's high speed, when paired with another high speed DPS that can hit backline, can guarantee a backline kill before the backline has even had a single turn. Plague Grenade can also crit which deals minimal damage but it's a nice stress heal.
Even without Plague Grenade, to my knowledge, Noxious Gas is the highest damage DoT the player can apply and it can give an ACC debuff to the enemy it hits. Noxious Gas also give PD something she can do in frontline, and on most fights using Emboldening Vapours on the other DPS gives equivalent overall damage compared to Noxious Gas giving her something to do even if she's shuffled to the front of the party and waiting for the frontliners to Duelist's Advance or Holy Lance back to the front.
Battlefield Medicine can cure often times preventing DoT damage outright and rarely becoming the best effective overall heal in the game, albeit a regular heal and a bandage is pretty much equivalent and it's preferred to have both options incase the person being bled goes first in the turn order. That way you can use PD's turn to blight which is often more useful than curing some 2 damage bleed.
In conclusion, she gets kills fast, consistently, and her utility is busted too. That said, there is far better situational damage such as with Flagellant if you happen to be against low prot enemies susceptible to bleed, or Leper if you can get an MAA and Jester on the same team. I admit I only love PD for her consistency and ability to enable similarly consistent plays from other DPS.
TL;DR Poisoned Herb goes in SSS+ Tier
Vestal saved my first ever swine prince fight. I killed Wilbur. Actually ended up winning the fight thanks to bleed and divine comfort. Vestal S tier for new players lmao
my favorite team was antiquarian, plague doctor, crusader, and hellion. the stuns and versatility carried me trough the game.
Does % healing increase prevent 0 heals with Occultist?
No sadly.
Still waiting for beginners guide part 3
My favorite characters not in S, sorry I'm just going to wait for 7/3