i'd add: - don't skimp on supplies - bring one accuracy trinket on almost any hero - think about what you could do to negate the most enemy actions - stuns op (follows from the previous tip) - prioritize blacksmith and guild - the first weeks are much harder than those that follow, don't give up
@Darkstar managing quirks early on is not needed, you can just fire heroes that have only bad things and get new ones pretty quickly, Guild - Blacksmith 100%
Early game I found dodge trinkets almost too reliable. Any green was cake with a sun cloak (?] or similar for extra lols bring antiquarian to boost dodge and help secure extra, crucial early game $$$. By mid you'll want to start transitioning to accuracy. AND YOU CAN CHANGE TACTICS MID DUNGEON. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how long I went until I realized that.
@@ussfriendship8989 lol yeah its almost a newb trap. The first buildings they let you upgrade aren't necessarily the ones to do. that damn nomad wagon should be totally ignored at least until the blacksmith and guild are unlocked. Trinkets are important, but money and heirlooms blown on them early on is a huge mistake IMO. I've done it tho. I've restarted this game more times than I can remember because of something I did early on that bit me in the ass.
That was actually the strategy for early Early Access. It was made obsolete with the introduction of corpses. Even if you have two lepers and nuke the two frontline units, the corpses will still be around unless you killed them with a crit.
bring more food than you think you need. food is relatively cheap, and failed hunger checks can be expensive if you don't have the stress healing to offset them. this is especially true because many map types have unavoidable long backtracking sections, and you can get hunger checks as often as once every two halls if you're unlucky enough. (note: hunger checks are actually invisible map tiles that aren't removed when you trigger them, and more spawn while backtracking like ambushes. thankfully after getting a hunger check you're immune to them for the rest of that hallway and the hallway afterwards, but this still allows for silly situations like getting 4 hunger checks in a short mission.)
When you're nearing the end of a mission, health isn't nearly as important as stress. All because when you return to the Hamlet your heros are back to full HP while stress doesn't change.
@O K I never said health wasn't important. I just meant that if you have the choice to return to the Hamlet or continue adventuring, then you may have the chance to reduce a lot of stress via camp, inspiring tune, cry havock, ext. Also I wasn't talking about a blood moon run as the video is titled tips for beginners.
Dont skimp on camping skills. Making sure most of your party has at least 1 or 2 good skills or a person that can prevent ambushes goes a very long way. A single suprise at camp could potentially remove most of the stress and hp healing done from thr camp
@@crazy10bears oh absolutely, its situational. Sometimes you're in a desperately health state and getting suprised could easily mean death. Sometimes it doesn't matter at all. But im saying that camping skills in general are important.
Great video Shuffle! :) One thing that has also helped me out a lot is paying attention to which enemies have taken their actions this turn vs which ones haven't yet. If you can take out an enemy before he has a chance to act, that's less damage coming to your party.
I ended up soft locking three separate files just trying to beat the game in trial and error before I taught myself most of these tips. Never even got someone past level 3 until my current file. And one other thing I've learned is that running is okay. A bad trait and a bit of stress from abandoning a quest is A LOT better than losing your best units.
Tip #7: don't skimp on provisions going into a mission, in time you'll gain a sense for what the ideal amount is but early on bring plenty of supplies (and use some of them on Curio interactions for more loot!)
1)Focus on Backline hereos - Supports and stress casters and they are more squishy And they kill them in almost 2 turns 2)Focus fire and even over commit because destroying enemies is the most important thing to do as enemy turns are dangerous 3)Stall(Stuns and low DMG so enemy doesn't die quickly) little bit for healing and mostly do it when only one enemy is left. 4)Diverse Abilities:-Skills that help you move around like holy lance 5)Max Gears and Skills:- Always have equipment one level over the dungeon you are going into.So upgrade your blacksmith and guildhall 6)Check Enemy Abilities:
I haven’t played the game in a few months but I come back to these videos because I love hearing you talk and your insights on the game. Keep it up dude!
Alot of the times player stick to only putting one hero per term so characters don't level out of effective comps (namely the Vestal). Once you hit champion dungeons, you no longer have to worry about managing EXP and that opens the door to experimentation. Go to an area your feel secure in (Like the Ruins) and take a 2nd row Vestal or Occultist there, and back the up with a another vestal or occultist. Now experiment with bonk vestal and front row occultist. A Good Comp may look something like this PD/Vest/Vest/Hell If you build your teams using the holy trinity of Tank, Damage, and Support, your lacking a true tank, but the extra healing and faster stuns from having 2 vestals will compensate. Just make sure you bring Hellion's camping skill that heals stress and the herbs to go with it.
@O K I see where you're coming from, and agree entirely about this part >keep control of the tempo. That's it. You hit the recovery phase and you start funneling your health/stress downward But that doesn't mean there's no tanks. To simplest way to describe what a tank does in any game is *Redirect damage away from other party members* Just like how DD only has one true healer, This game only has one true Tank: MAA. High HP. PROT buffs. Damage Redirection through guarding and self marking. Hell, he even has a Shield prominent in his design/backstory and before the DLC he was the only person that carried a shield. In a game like DD that matters a WHOLE lot. But like you said, DD incentivizing aggressive play with limited defensive options, but that just changes the role of a tank. Instead of a Tank redirecting damage, they instead use high HP values to take crits without being on deaths door. Their job is to delay that recovery phase and prevent that downward spiral.
Man, I found leveling up all my characters equally in the early game useless as we can upgrade the caravan and get level 2 characters later on, sometimes with better skills. Bless RNG.
Bro, you're a life saver. There were so many things I didn't know! You and a friend of mine are guiding me through my experience and I can't help but love this game already.
Not sure if I missed it but a trick you pick up on the harder difficulties is to put a terminal dot on a very weak enemy. Usually you only get 2 turns with a single enemy, but if you put a dot on an enemy that guarantees it will die, you can then use a stunner that does little to no damage to keep it locked down for a turn or 2 of that duration. You then get free turns to stall.
I’ve beaten the game four times on the middle difficulty, but Stygian difficulty regularly kicks my ass. The jump in difficulty is pretty rough, and the limit of weeks is kindof nerve racking.
u should try stunless torchless run on stygian. After beating the game on that difficulty with such a conditions I am now one of the most stress resistant man in a world.
Here, I'll throw my hat into the ring: If you're near the end of a dungeon or you think it won't be that threatening to you, a) save your firewood until everything on the map is dead so the stress you heal doesn't get put right back on and b) if there's a curio you don't know what to do with and you don't want to look it up, kill everything on the map and then start slapping things together. Like enemy moves, curios have symbols beneath provisions if you've used them on that curio that shows what it'll do. For example, in the Cove, that wierd purple blue coral, if you use Herbs on it, the hero that touched it while have a negative quirk removed. Most gross meat piles can have Herbs used on them for more food. I can't think of many curios that respond negatively to Holy Water, etc. Experiment in a low stakes environment so you know what to touch with what.
@@lazarusbooth8898 that is the case with books. Never touch books. But yeah you can introduce provisions to various curios in the hope they'll mate and give birth to positive things like loot, stress healing, negative quirk removal, DMG buffs, etc. (Side note: never touch books but certain piles of scrolls can -I believe- be burned for stress healing)
@@lazarusbooth8898 absolutely! This game is super intimidating, with a high barrier to entry. Anything to make new players' introduction smoother, especially now that the 2nd game is getting close. Of course, all of this stuff can be looked up, but that experimentation in the early to mid-game is super cool once you've learned all the basic mechanics.
I recommend getting in the habit of prepping before a mission. I always start by building a team based on the dungeon selected (blight heavy vs bleed, tank or mark and shot teams) then assign trinkets then I go back to the estate and check first the skills (open or upgrade) then weapons and armor and finally camping skills. Forget a step and you might not have assigned trinkets or left your hero lacking the skill that works best or inferior armor or weapons. Missions go much better if you take the time in the preliminary to prepare.
Agreed. I developed the same habit. Once you enter the dungeon, there is no easy way out. So taking the time to prepare accordingly can be the difference between winning and losing.
For tip 1, it is advisable to concentrate on frontline instead of backline in Champion difficulty cause all if not most backline enemy will have high dodge and high damage(no I'm not joking, its a far cry from veteran difficulty), unless all part member equip +ACC trinket its best to kill the frontline and force the backline to the front, this is what I get from other video guide and it help me a lot in Champion difficulty. you are free to disagree as this is just my personal opinion.
I'd suggest taking extra food for anything besides warrens to offset backtracking. Food stacks pretty well space-wise and the game loves to screw you for being cheap on it. You don't need much for warrens due to grid layout (powerful scouts) and food curios.
You should add the stalling strategy as a good way to save money in your other guide. I always stall and return to hamlet with almost zero stress. Saves tons of money, and you can repeat the same dungeon with the same team, while stress healing, removing neg. quirks to others chars.
Don't splurge/waste all of your money, upgrade only the skills you intend to use and the gear of only the charaters about to go into a dungeon and of course be savvy about what buildings you upgrade and when.
@@zsuira You don't know how many people I've seen not knowing what stuff does WHILE IT'S LITERALLY WRITTEN RIGHT THERE. At the beginning you just have to read everything to get a understanding of how the RNG works.
I think I realized why I failed so many missions. I keep forgetting to upgrade my stuff. I really need to hammer that one into my skull… along with switching abilities I use in the middle of missions.
when you mentioned stalling in the first one, i tried to pay attention more to which enemies seemed to deal no damage or deal no sorts of dot, and started using them to piggy back some healing, really liking the cultist except when i see "crit 0!"
@O K thats what i tend to do, ive been healing at around half way and been getting lucky heals, annoying the times i get a 1 or a 2, ive been bringing at least one other person tho with capabilities of healing even if its a small amount like plague doctor and its been my favorite combo so far
Sounds like you figured it out then. Occultist appreciates a secondary healer just in case he low rolls. He should be healing when people are ideally around half hp so if he rolls 1 they aren't dying for it. Healing with him when someone is on death's door is terrifying, but it happens.
Personally I don't consider the occultist a healer. Even arbalist, imo, is a better healer as consistent low heals is better than none. As you gear up the occultists chance to bleed becomes almost 0 but there is nothing worse than having a toon at 0 health and seeing him pop a 0 heal only to lose the toon on the next action via mobs. Consistency in DD is always king. And he has no way to save multiple toons if you have a string of bad rng. So I'd advise to always bring him as a stunner unless you just need a trash comp to pass a week.
There is one thing I always struggle with in the game. When you level up your heros, at some point you cannot use them to grind the lower level dungeons. And the higer level dungeons will be still to challenging for them. I dont know... maybe I am only used to nobrainer Diablo and PoE grind ARPG...
Leveling a roster can definitely be tricky. Just use your lower levels to grind resources to upgrade the facilities do your high level heroes can get prepared in the future. It's not uncommon to have your next bracket of heroes sit around for several weeks while you catch everything up.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE ELDRITCH BEINGS, USE RIPOSTES. Abilities that grant riposte like Retribution on man at arms or Duelist's advance on Highwayman are some of the strongest moves in the game. It gives literally free damage over several turns.
side note: be carefull with maa's retribution, since it marks him. Used it one time in a fight against that tentacle thing in the warrens. the next turn it critted me for 46 :(
Mod user speaking: duelist's buckle is a great trinket for riposte spam (it literally makes it deal more damage), but if you are using "Koala's Creature Collection" mod then every single team marking ability sucks because "beholder" type enemies can use "Lo and Behold" to sacrifice that mark for big damage
I'm usually comfortable enough having level 3 gear and skills on veteran missions, but even then I know that's not optimal play and it is a risk, I just don't have the patience to grind just apprentice until level 4 is unlocked lol. Champion though, full stop you want full level 5 across the board, except maybe hero builds focused on non-damage abilities if you're impatient (rank 4 MAA/Occultist, maybe vestal), where the weapon upgrades are a bit less important (still want the speed though).
My tip is play like you want. That´s not possible on the hardest difficulty but on standard you can go for something risky for the level. You can go with no healer high evasion or a setup of low health hard hit. I say this because the tips given in the video is not always true, you don´t need to kill the backline if you have no healer, in that case you need to kill the ones who hit harder (sometimes are the backline but not always) like the fish with a sword in the cove.
I just picked this up after probably a few years of rage quitting. Safe to say I'm still terrible at it (my friends and I commonly describe this game as one that we love but absolutely hate and a game that mollywopps Dark Souls in terms of difficulty) but my restarted play through has been alright so far. Especially since I had a random gut feeling to murder the enemy backline first 9 out of 10 times lol. Almost lost a houndmaster on his first mission but it's because I believed the game when they said bring 8 torches. I struggle with money currently but that's probably because I mostly buy out the torches and rations, as well as bought up some weapon upgrades. Still need to get armor on my level 1 characters but I need deeds, something none of my current missions reward.
Here's one: if your team gets trashed and its actually only heroes you care about...there's no shame in immediately switching off your machine to avoid the dreaded auto save. Got a second shot at saving some favorite heroes that got decimated by the bandit 8 pounder this way :P
It took me a while to notice buffs cast at the end of combat carry over for a while to the next fight, IF you fight soon after the first. Graverobber hits way different with round 1 stealth start. Skills that would be useful only in long fights start making sense for short hallways. The luckiest case being a hallway fight with 3 weak enemies right before a room fight that lets you start snowballed in with buffs. * Not all carry over after the fight. Vapors doesn't. Skills like Anti's Get Down or Musk's Sidearm do though.
you dont need to stall forever *if you've been stalling and healing appropriately throughout the dungeon*. in medicine we have this saying "an oz of prevention is worth a pound of cure": you dont want to be in the situation where you're digging your front liner out of a hole with your healer while your entire team tries to stun the same enemy that will one-shot you if you give it a turn. heal up on the slugs you saw 3 rooms ago and you wont have so far to go when you're fighting the 4v4
one thing im always unsure on is after backline, or if there is no backline, do you prioritise the beeg bois or the small ones, I always go small cause taking down the two enemies quicker than the big one seems better to me, also if a supply has an effect on a curio it does give a little symbol of the results if you forget similar to enemy moves
Shuffles. Where is the importance of Scouting? You mention in number 3 how that you can still be surprised in a hallway at max light, but you can not actually be surprised when the enemy have been scouted. You even carry the Map in your footage so you know it is important in some way. Scouting doesn't just removing the chance of being surprised. It also allow you to pick your battles. It might not be worth to fight another group of enemies only to see what is in that curio behind them.
@@ShuffleFM Well. I never equip the holy lance on the Crusader only because of how rare that event actually is. I am more forced to move when I get pushed from the frontline then when I am surprised. I don't see the value in always having a skill equipped when it is in 99% of the game not being used. It is a great skill, but it is just to rare to justify.
@@Cloud_Seeker Unless you can get scouting to 100% or have enough movement with your other heroes, I don't see a reason not to put it on. Scouting also takes trinket slots usually. In the case of Crusader, after putting on stunning blow and inspiring cry, the rest of his moves are mostly circumstantial. Plus opening with holy lance on a rank 4 can be very good. The main reason I advocate for having a diverse move set is because the game has enough variance to warrant it. This is only in the case of movement skills vs. scouting too. There's no reason highwayman should be running both wicked slice and open vein for example, so learning how to have a lot of options is worth talking about.
found something very very interesting last night running 2 Crusaders frontline they were buffing each other after one passed his stress test. They consistently kept doing like it 8 times in a row. Has anybody ever seen this???
@@Cloud_Seeker If you never equip holy lance you should try some comp with pos3 crusader for holy lance on turn 1, holy lance could honestly be considered the strongest crusader skill; it fits perfectly with the nuke backline which is the first tip in this video.
THANK YOU!!!!!! i LOVE darkest dungeon and some of what you've send i've worked out quickly, loving strategy, however, had a really bad run (lost 4 great items, and my 2 great characters) and kinda rage quit,,, XDDDD sad IK,,, but i still love the game, and am spending this "break to forget my loss" studying!!! and after 3 of your vids, YOU ARE MY GO TO!! love it all. SO THANK YOU!
not just for accuracy, max your skills that do status effects (ESPECIALLY stun) because having a 150% chance of stun against an enemy with 50% stun resist basically negates their entire resistance
the first few ingame weeks are always much tougher than the rest, if you´re having trouble at the start remember that´s normal, you´ll be doing better when you start having more money and stronger heroes also if you´re having money issues just get an antiquarian
Thanks for the upload, man. Although it seems so obvious after hearing you say it, as a noob, the tip about being maxed for each difficulty tier is really helpful. My roster is actually lousy with crap like lv2 characters + base level gear & sub par abilities. Time for a big cull lol. Oh, any tips for fast farming? 😁
Farming for gold: bring Antiquarian to ruins or cove since there is a lot of gold and gems in some of the curio, do medium missions with a bunch of scouting to find secret rooms and get more loot/xp than short missions. If you have districts, build the bank when your guildhall is maxed out. Between that and Antiquarian you should make enough money to level all your people at champion quickly. Also sell unused trinkets. Quirk farming: spam short missions to roll quirks at the end of the level.
@@ShuffleFM Ah. Perfect. Does Antiquarian have a passive loot buff or do I need her to have Trinket Scrounge? Thanks for the reply btw, I appreciate it.
@@andrewrobertson3894 every fight she's in and every curio she interacts with will drop Antiques which sell for a LOT, and each Antiquarian in your party passively boosts gold stacks by 750 (so 2500 with one anti, 3250 with two etc)
@@andrewrobertson3894 The Antiquarian should be the character that interact with all objects. You always get a special item when she does if the object have loot. She also have a passive gold stacking bonus.
@@andrewrobertson3894 Antiquarian has a few ways of getting loot: 1) When she is the one to open loot curio, she automatically finds antiques that stack and sell for gold. These can also drop from battles with her in the party. 2) Gold stacks higher with her in the party. Each Antiquarian increases the gold stack limit by 750. 1 is usually enough to be worthwhile. 3) During camp she can use trinket scrounge if you have inventory space, or if you can put it on another hero. Trinkets sell for a minimum of 750 each. The first 2 are strictly passive, just make sure she opens the curio. Even a torch sconce can give you an antique because of it.
this should be REQUIRED watching multiple times for any person starting DD. Also if you use antequarians for loot/money.. ALWAYS make sure they are selected when you open chest and sooner or later, you will meet the Collector. just run from him lol. 2) pay attention to what attacks happen in what maps. one map is weak to bleed, one map is weak to blight, etc. 3) the blueprints are more valuable and useful to your team then upgrading the tavern or abby. first priority for upgrades is stagecoach to 4 or 5 chara's, blacksmith, guild.
Early game I found dodge trinkets almost too reliable. Any green was cake with a sun cloak (?] or similar for extra lols bring antiquarian to boost dodge and help secure extra, crucial early game $$$. By mid you'll want to start transitioning to accuracy. You don't need to max out every class. Be very selective with who you recruit and even more selective with who you're willing to spend money on to improve. By Midgame you'll be recruiting heroes with every ability and better weapons so save money however you can and only upgrade like your top 8-10 heroes but that might even be too expensive. AND YOU CAN CHANGE TACTICS MID DUNGEON. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how long I went until I realized that.
I'd argue you want accuracy at all levels. Having a 70% chance to hit spiders for instance is not fun. Dodge scales very well for early/mid game though.
Tip for the early game and mainly the early game, you see a vestal in the stage coach? Take it. Not having a consistent healer consistently can be SEVERELY punishing, even 4-5 health is better than praying for deaths door to hold
not really, Vestal is the best healer but lots of other characters can heal too, if you have Crusader/Arbalest/Ocultist they can heal just fine in place of her, and they can deal good damage while they´re at it too
Here's a video you could make: Which are better, quirks or trinkets? In the DD discord I opined that quirks are better, to the point that it's q good idea to aggressovely sell trinkets and use the gold to lock quirks, especially in the early game.. Another person disagreed and felt trinkets were too important and generally more useful than locked quirks on individual heroes. Who is right?
My philosophy is if it wins, then it's a good idea. So if selling trinkets to lock quirks is winning in your game then it's fine. I personally don't like relying on getting quirks because they are more random than trinkets, but they can be very powerful
Definitely earned a sub man! Thanks for your vids! I'm getting a lot better at the game but I put off playing darkest dungeon for a while and I don't know why lol. But now that I buckled down and finally tried it it's one of the best games ever in the history of human creation!! Literally like heroin 🤣. I have a lot of games to play and I can't put it down to even play em
Experienced recruits can be nice if you play darkest/radiant and lose someone high level. It's too slow to use on stygian or bloodmoon. I personally don't get experienced recruits anymore because I build up a full roster at lower level, so losing people late game doesn't set me back enough to care at the time. A lot of people have said they enjoy it though so it has merit. Locking quirks is tough to answer because it depends how much gold you have and if you can afford it. I only lock quirks if the hero already has 5 and 1 of them could roll off, but I am much quicker to remove bad quirks since they are cheaper usually. If you have gold to spend I'd recommend locking + speed quirks, + damage, + accuracy, + crit, and hippocratic on healers. There are probably more but that's what I can think of off the top of my head. Tough/hardskinned are pretty nice too.
One thing I always forgot was that you could camp on medium missions and up... So many deaths, for what? I guess carelessness Is just a slow and insidious killer
Just started playing the game, and all 4 of my character during a dungeon got full 200 stress, because I couldn't get to the backline guy that keeps doing AOE Stress skill. And by the time I killed the backline, my characters started hitting each other, afflicting bleed etc, and just crumbled before the enemy. I had no gold left, so no money to purchase food or even a torch. So yeah. Restart, I guess XD
Hi, new player here. at 6:45 your highwayman does a counterattack to the enemy attacker? Is that a perk? an item? I have never seen my units do a counterattack.
It's called riposte, and it's the symbol with the orange swish and the spiky ball at the end. Only 2 heroes can do it. Highwayman with duelist advance and man at arms with retribution :)
Hey, could you make a guide about how to make money (without the usage of antiquarian). I have like 70 hours in the game and kinda don't know how you can have more than 100 000 gold. I don't treat people much, i don't remove negative quirks when i do not need to, i use items to get more money in dungeons and i sometimes sell unused trinkets, yet still almost every week i have the question "WHY NO MONEH?!". Cute girl antiquarian is the only one who helps me to find finances and stuff. I think such a guide would be appreciated not only by me but also by the people with similar problem. P.S. pls help
If you have districts then build the bank. Getting gold with no districts and Antiquarian is a bit more challenging. The easiest tip is to snuff your torch right before a battle ends so you get more loot drops from it, and make sure that there are at least 1 or 2 extra curio that you can see that you know you can keep the torch down for to get bonus loot. For other tips, I would suggest running the ruins and cove more often because the urns and dead fish drop gems. The weald has some great loot curio, but they are more inconsistent I feel like. Coral in the cove, scrolls in the warrens, and the caregiver's convention event from the weald can save you quirk money for those times you do need to do it. Plague Doctor and Grave Robber can remove diseases on teammates by camping to save money too. Bumper crop is a warrens event that saves you ~5000 gold usually. Stack scouting and do medium/long missions to find secret rooms.
I just started this game a week ago or so. I've had it for a while (free game), just never got into it. I'd say things were going okay, relatively. In 23 weeks (in game), I only had 2 people die. Yesterday, I was in a veteran, medium length, mission. Was almost done with it, one more room to explore. Actually, I was done with the mission, but wanted to check out the last room. Right before the room, there was this object that I had to use a torch on. I wish I hadn't done that. My team got wrecked and I lost 3 of my best guys/gals before I found out how to escape the battle. 2 champion lvl members and a lvl 4 (whatever that's called). I wasn't into the game when I started, even less so now.
@@ShuffleFM I've played through Dark Souls countless times and Dark Souls 2 quite a few times. Dying/failing doesn't bother me. Losing 3 people because I didn't know there was an option to retreat and that option looks very similar to what tells you what your mission is, that was frustrating. I could have bailed as soon as I realize things went very south (which I realized very quickly). I wasn't super attached to any of them. But, they did make it 23 weeks (I had them from the beginning). They died at lvl 5 in a lvl 3 dungeon as if they were a lvl 0.
Since I don't know what your gameplay and teams look like I can only offer some general tips. - Bring some heroes who can stun and disrupt the enemy during battle. Ideally you never want the enemy team to get 4 attacks in a single round. If you can consistently keep it to 2 or 3 attacks per round, you'll do a lot better. Upping the speed on your team helps as well since going first lets you dictate the fight. - Focus fire dangerous enemies. These should not live past turn 2 unless it's something as beefy as a ghoul, or the enemy team has 3 nuclear level threats. - Let enemies bleed out instead of finishing them off if they are guaranteed to die and use those extra turns to heal. Stunning or lowering their speed helps with this too. - Take extra provisions, specifically all of the food. Being able to use 8 food at camp is incredibly helpful. On that note, plan out your camping skills in advance so you know which ones you want to hit with that team. - There are 2 times to camp: when you need to recover, and when you need buffs. It's okay to camp early in a dungeon if you can maximize it. - Having a consistent hp healer and stress healer helps with long missions if you are squeezing out extra turns for recovery. This does not mean you need jester or vestal every time.
@@ShuffleFM Holy hell thanks for the tips! I've had the best luck with 2 lepers in the front position vestal in 3, and I switch between plague doctor and arbelist in the rear, or I do a crusader in position 1, abomination in 2, bountyhunter or highway man in 3, and a vestal in 4. I seem to exhaust my campfires usually with 30% of the dungeon left and I feel like I'm managing stress and damage well, but then I feel like the game catches on to my good luck and ill get 2 heart attacks, or way debuffed/bled/blighted shortly before the end of the dungeon.... I almost want to send you a playthrough so you can be like, "right there was your fatal error"
@@rooktakesbishop7938 Your first team is really slow besides plague doctor, so they will get hit a couple times before they get to act unless they surprise the enemy. Vestal and PD need to be stunning constantly in that setup, and you need to leave an enemy in the front at the end of battle to hit solemnity a couple times it sounds like. I'm assuming vestal is the one eating heart attacks in that team. The 2nd team is more solid. You can stun with each hero and that makes "Finish Him" from bounty hunter pretty good. Crusader with inspiring cry and some extra turns of stalling can get a couple stress heals out and help. Both teams you listed have trouble killing rank 4. Between that and heart attacks, I can probably point to that as a fatal flaw lol. Try hellion in rank 1 with either team and use iron swan on turn 1, it should help. You're free to send in gameplay, I'm still taking submissions for a bit longer.
Part of my job doing this is knowing when the game goes on sale surprisingly. The last new player video did well so I figured there would be a good response for another. Good luck :)
One of my guys died of a heart attack and then I retreated and the rest all had heart attacks right after. 😭 I’ll never wait until the last minute again
Can you do something about the items ? I had no idea you can eat food to heal ! Some of the things like laudanum don't seem to do anything, andI don't get the keys either. Also I just learned today that you have to press y to use the shovel to avoid the stress and damage!
TY for an awesome video. I learned a lot! Hey guys. Im new to DD. I have a question. How do you change abilities for each companion? They have 7 abilities but i can only access 4. How do you unlock and how do you change the 4 abilities you can take in combat? Also how do you change the Abomination's abilities. He comes with all 7 unlocked, but i dont know how to select the 4 i want to take. TY!
You need to use and upgrade the guild building in the hamlet to unlock or upgrade skills you don't have. After that, you click the skill you want to take off in the character sheet then click the one you want to equip after. Abom has all skills unlocked by default and he can access the other ones by transforming (skill 1).
@@ShuffleFM TY sir! Yeah, my questions were a bit premature. I just had to play the game a little to unlock buildings. It's hard in the beginning especially because the game simply wont give me another tank or healer. So i have to baby sit the 2 i have for now and just take my B team out while those 2 recuperate. Also they have some good quirks so i dont really want to get rid of them. Just hope the game will send me more tanks and healers. All im getting is mid row dps mercs...
concrning point 4. Isn't it better to not waste money on level 0-1 characters and just ditch them if they get afflicted and get new ones? It feels like a waste to use money on characters that I don't know if i'm going to keep.
So when you talk about max gear and skills, does that mean that you do not attempt the next level of dungeon if you don't have 4 characters with those ranks? How do you quickly regain yourself if you lose some or most of your characters that were at your highest rank? Eventually you high level people from stage coach off the bat, but these tend to have a lot more negative quirks...
You can attempt to do dungeons if the gear is equal to the level, just don't try veteran with level 1 or 2 gear or champ with level 3 for example. The champ jump is specifically where you want maxed stuff because of the stat spike on the enemy side. Levels 1 and 2 take the longest to get through so experienced recruits only really shines if it hits a level 3 imo. There's no real fast way to recover from a team wipe at high level. On darkest and radiant it's an annoying setback. On stygian and bloodmoon it can be devastating, which is why you max the roster and level a full roster together in case something happens. Raising a roster is a much broader topic though.
Thank you for the responses, both! I'm getting back into it after a few runs previously where I got to weeks 20-30. What I'm trying to remember is how I used dark runs in my first run. I treated certain people fully expendabley, sent them in without torches, and I'd retreat them to massive loot gain. But I'm trying it now and they just keep dying in the first or second encounter.
tbh i just discovered how good is the plague doc in this game i m still learning how to kick the ass of the game because I on my firt play was on radiant and it was great i was a moron and i thought if i cankill the enemies before they fight it s good well hard way to learn it at higher level it don t work like this and surprisingly like every noob at darkest my bacline was jestal
Hi I just started on playing today and I have one thing I want to ask about leveling skills and gear. I've been too afraid of losing characters and I've been struggling with keeping their stress levels down and having any gold leftover. I'm slowly building up my shops so it costs less to heal and I focused everything on getting my carriage up. Is it really worth it to level their gear yet for the beginning areas? Also I want to say screw those random torch spots that force you to a boss fight. That tpk my best guys
My problem is that my main two troups say that the mission is too easy and they cant start it, on the other hand not main hereos are too weak what can i do?
Its because your resolve level is too high, once your characters reach level 3 they won't do any of the easy mission, to solve it use a new team to grind out lower level dungeons, to prepare your main team for the harder dungeon difficulty, so you won't need to brute force it
Tip #0: do not click on any books for the love of god
Torch them. The heat will heal your stress.
@@CorruptorPeste HAHAHA
@@CorruptorPeste ill try it thanks for a tip
@@thorfinnrthewise3883[insert Interstellar banging on wall yelling clip]
@@zweihander7825*Piano music swirls as you realise it's too late, the darkest dungeon has already claimed his sanity*
i'd add:
- don't skimp on supplies
- bring one accuracy trinket on almost any hero
- think about what you could do to negate the most enemy actions
- stuns op (follows from the previous tip)
- prioritize blacksmith and guild
- the first weeks are much harder than those that follow, don't give up
Don't skimp on supplies is very important. I learned it the hard way
@Darkstar managing quirks early on is not needed, you can just fire heroes that have only bad things and get new ones pretty quickly, Guild - Blacksmith 100%
Early game I found dodge trinkets almost too reliable. Any green was cake with a sun cloak (?] or similar for extra lols bring antiquarian to boost dodge and help secure extra, crucial early game $$$. By mid you'll want to start transitioning to accuracy.
AND YOU CAN CHANGE TACTICS MID DUNGEON. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how long I went until I realized that.
dont ask me why but for some reason i upgraded the nomad wagon solely on my first run
@@ussfriendship8989 lol yeah its almost a newb trap. The first buildings they let you upgrade aren't necessarily the ones to do. that damn nomad wagon should be totally ignored at least until the blacksmith and guild are unlocked. Trinkets are important, but money and heirlooms blown on them early on is a huge mistake IMO. I've done it tho. I've restarted this game more times than I can remember because of something I did early on that bit me in the ass.
Leper just shuffles enemy back line by killing frontline
That was actually the strategy for early Early Access. It was made obsolete with the introduction of corpses. Even if you have two lepers and nuke the two frontline units, the corpses will still be around unless you killed them with a crit.
@@Cloud_Seeker That's where Crit leppers come in XD
@@StFelixofAstora Also where the miss leper comes in. There is a reason it was made obsolete in early EA.
@@Cloud_Seeker it wasn't from the misses
@@Cloud_Seeker fair enough tho I never really had problems with misses thanks to buffs
bring more food than you think you need. food is relatively cheap, and failed hunger checks can be expensive if you don't have the stress healing to offset them. this is especially true because many map types have unavoidable long backtracking sections, and you can get hunger checks as often as once every two halls if you're unlucky enough.
(note: hunger checks are actually invisible map tiles that aren't removed when you trigger them, and more spawn while backtracking like ambushes. thankfully after getting a hunger check you're immune to them for the rest of that hallway and the hallway afterwards, but this still allows for silly situations like getting 4 hunger checks in a short mission.)
Ti is the correct advice
I once had 6 hunger checks in a row(in like 3-4 corridors)while backtraking it was a fucking disaster
_"Packs full of war and steel, but nary a thought given to the plow. To fall for such a thing: a bite of bread."_
very helpful comment thank you! I had no idea about the invisible map tiles shenanigans but that is so cool from a game development perspective
Tip 69: Quad Leper is the best team in the meta
This game came out 5 years ago and still a lot of people watching a beginner tips including me
Bought it days ago.
Finally stopped MISCLICK so now I can properly play and fail by choice instead of UI
XD
When you're nearing the end of a mission, health isn't nearly as important as stress. All because when you return to the Hamlet your heros are back to full HP while stress doesn't change.
@O K I never said health wasn't important. I just meant that if you have the choice to return to the Hamlet or continue adventuring, then you may have the chance to reduce a lot of stress via camp, inspiring tune, cry havock, ext.
Also I wasn't talking about a blood moon run as the video is titled tips for beginners.
Dont skimp on camping skills. Making sure most of your party has at least 1 or 2 good skills or a person that can prevent ambushes goes a very long way. A single suprise at camp could potentially remove most of the stress and hp healing done from thr camp
Depends on your team comp. I literally never prevent ambush which frees up those points for something that's actually useful.
@@crazy10bears oh absolutely, its situational. Sometimes you're in a desperately health state and getting suprised could easily mean death. Sometimes it doesn't matter at all. But im saying that camping skills in general are important.
Great video Shuffle! :) One thing that has also helped me out a lot is paying attention to which enemies have taken their actions this turn vs which ones haven't yet. If you can take out an enemy before he has a chance to act, that's less damage coming to your party.
That's exactly the way to be thinking about it :)
I ended up soft locking three separate files just trying to beat the game in trial and error before I taught myself most of these tips. Never even got someone past level 3 until my current file.
And one other thing I've learned is that running is okay. A bad trait and a bit of stress from abandoning a quest is A LOT better than losing your best units.
Tip #7: don't skimp on provisions going into a mission, in time you'll gain a sense for what the ideal amount is but early on bring plenty of supplies (and use some of them on Curio interactions for more loot!)
i learn this for the bad way :(
yeah for short mission, 8, medium maybe 16 and long 24.
Warrens gives extra food often enough that you don't need to bring as much. Or cou could bring the same amount and heal.
_"The price of preparedness: paid now in gold, later in blood."_
Important caveat: don't stall too long, some guys get reinforcements
If you use two attacks (Even if they miss/do 0 dmg) reinforcements won't arrive
Hitting corpses delays reinforcements too.
1)Focus on Backline hereos - Supports and stress casters and they are more squishy
And they kill them in almost 2 turns
2)Focus fire and even over commit because destroying enemies is the most important thing to do as enemy turns are dangerous
3)Stall(Stuns and low DMG so enemy doesn't die quickly) little bit for healing and mostly do it when only one enemy is left.
4)Diverse Abilities:-Skills that help you move around like holy lance
5)Max Gears and Skills:- Always have equipment one level over the dungeon you are going into.So upgrade your blacksmith and guildhall
6)Check Enemy Abilities:
I haven’t played the game in a few months but I come back to these videos because I love hearing you talk and your insights on the game. Keep it up dude!
Same)
Alot of the times player stick to only putting one hero per term so characters don't level out of effective comps (namely the Vestal).
Once you hit champion dungeons, you no longer have to worry about managing EXP and that opens the door to experimentation.
Go to an area your feel secure in (Like the Ruins) and take a 2nd row Vestal or Occultist there, and back the up with a another vestal or occultist. Now experiment with bonk vestal and front row occultist.
A Good Comp may look something like this
PD/Vest/Vest/Hell
If you build your teams using the holy trinity of Tank, Damage, and Support, your lacking a true tank, but the extra healing and faster stuns from having 2 vestals will compensate. Just make sure you bring Hellion's camping skill that heals stress and the herbs to go with it.
@O K I see where you're coming from, and agree entirely about this part
>keep control of the tempo. That's it. You hit the recovery phase and you start funneling your health/stress downward
But that doesn't mean there's no tanks. To simplest way to describe what a tank does in any game is *Redirect damage away from other party members*
Just like how DD only has one true healer, This game only has one true Tank: MAA.
High HP. PROT buffs. Damage Redirection through guarding and self marking. Hell, he even has a Shield prominent in his design/backstory and before the DLC he was the only person that carried a shield. In a game like DD that matters a WHOLE lot.
But like you said, DD incentivizing aggressive play with limited defensive options, but that just changes the role of a tank.
Instead of a Tank redirecting damage, they instead use high HP values to take crits without being on deaths door. Their job is to delay that recovery phase and prevent that downward spiral.
Man, I found leveling up all my characters equally in the early game useless as we can upgrade the caravan and get level 2 characters later on, sometimes with better skills. Bless RNG.
tip #6: watch ShuffleFM
Indeed
💯💯💯💯💯
Tip #7 bully people like you because of your pfp
Bro, you're a life saver. There were so many things I didn't know! You and a friend of mine are guiding me through my experience and I can't help but love this game already.
Not sure if I missed it but a trick you pick up on the harder difficulties is to put a terminal dot on a very weak enemy. Usually you only get 2 turns with a single enemy, but if you put a dot on an enemy that guarantees it will die, you can then use a stunner that does little to no damage to keep it locked down for a turn or 2 of that duration. You then get free turns to stall.
As a new player I would love to see a +/- trait Tier list.
Might be time to do it then. You aren't the only one who has asked lately lol
Just starting this game and your videos and comment sections are super helpful and appreciated
I’ve beaten the game four times on the middle difficulty, but Stygian difficulty regularly kicks my ass.
The jump in difficulty is pretty rough, and the limit of weeks is kindof nerve racking.
u should try stunless torchless run on stygian. After beating the game on that difficulty with such a conditions I am now one of the most stress resistant man in a world.
Here, I'll throw my hat into the ring: If you're near the end of a dungeon or you think it won't be that threatening to you, a) save your firewood until everything on the map is dead so the stress you heal doesn't get put right back on and b) if there's a curio you don't know what to do with and you don't want to look it up, kill everything on the map and then start slapping things together. Like enemy moves, curios have symbols beneath provisions if you've used them on that curio that shows what it'll do. For example, in the Cove, that wierd purple blue coral, if you use Herbs on it, the hero that touched it while have a negative quirk removed. Most gross meat piles can have Herbs used on them for more food. I can't think of many curios that respond negatively to Holy Water, etc. Experiment in a low stakes environment so you know what to touch with what.
The skin with Carving on it in the Warrens has a negative effect with Holy Water
Wait I can do that? I assumed everything I touched was a fifty fifty if it was going to hurt me
@@lazarusbooth8898 that is the case with books. Never touch books. But yeah you can introduce provisions to various curios in the hope they'll mate and give birth to positive things like loot, stress healing, negative quirk removal, DMG buffs, etc. (Side note: never touch books but certain piles of scrolls can -I believe- be burned for stress healing)
@@drakematsen4978 Wow, thanks for the advice man
@@lazarusbooth8898 absolutely! This game is super intimidating, with a high barrier to entry. Anything to make new players' introduction smoother, especially now that the 2nd game is getting close. Of course, all of this stuff can be looked up, but that experimentation in the early to mid-game is super cool once you've learned all the basic mechanics.
I recommend getting in the habit of prepping before a mission. I always start by building a team based on the dungeon selected (blight heavy vs bleed, tank or mark and shot teams) then assign trinkets then I go back to the estate and check first the skills (open or upgrade) then weapons and armor and finally camping skills. Forget a step and you might not have assigned trinkets or left your hero lacking the skill that works best or inferior armor or weapons. Missions go much better if you take the time in the preliminary to prepare.
Agreed. I developed the same habit. Once you enter the dungeon, there is no easy way out. So taking the time to prepare accordingly can be the difference between winning and losing.
For tip 1, it is advisable to concentrate on frontline instead of backline in Champion difficulty cause all if not most backline enemy will have high dodge and high damage(no I'm not joking, its a far cry from veteran difficulty), unless all part member equip +ACC trinket its best to kill the frontline and force the backline to the front, this is what I get from other video guide and it help me a lot in Champion difficulty. you are free to disagree as this is just my personal opinion.
I'd suggest taking extra food for anything besides warrens to offset backtracking. Food stacks pretty well space-wise and the game loves to screw you for being cheap on it. You don't need much for warrens due to grid layout (powerful scouts) and food curios.
You should add the stalling strategy as a good way to save money in your other guide. I always stall and return to hamlet with almost zero stress. Saves tons of money, and you can repeat the same dungeon with the same team, while stress healing, removing neg. quirks to others chars.
Don't splurge/waste all of your money, upgrade only the skills you intend to use and the gear of only the charaters about to go into a dungeon and of course be savvy about what buildings you upgrade and when.
tip #8: READ, PLAYER, READ
@@zsuira You don't know how many people I've seen not knowing what stuff does WHILE IT'S LITERALLY WRITTEN RIGHT THERE. At the beginning you just have to read everything to get a understanding of how the RNG works.
The player, not the heroes.
*DO NOT LET THEM READ!*
I think I realized why I failed so many missions. I keep forgetting to upgrade my stuff. I really need to hammer that one into my skull… along with switching abilities I use in the middle of missions.
Makes me want to do another Bloodmoon run.
Don’t know if my wife is ready to see the anger and despair this game brings out in me.
More Darkest Dungeon content please. Just got the ancestral edition on sale and i'll take all the knowledge available for a better start.
when you mentioned stalling in the first one, i tried to pay attention more to which enemies seemed to deal no damage or deal no sorts of dot, and started using them to piggy back some healing, really liking the cultist except when i see "crit 0!"
@O K thats what i tend to do, ive been healing at around half way and been getting lucky heals, annoying the times i get a 1 or a 2, ive been bringing at least one other person tho with capabilities of healing even if its a small amount like plague doctor and its been my favorite combo so far
Sounds like you figured it out then. Occultist appreciates a secondary healer just in case he low rolls. He should be healing when people are ideally around half hp so if he rolls 1 they aren't dying for it. Healing with him when someone is on death's door is terrifying, but it happens.
Personally I don't consider the occultist a healer. Even arbalist, imo, is a better healer as consistent low heals is better than none. As you gear up the occultists chance to bleed becomes almost 0 but there is nothing worse than having a toon at 0 health and seeing him pop a 0 heal only to lose the toon on the next action via mobs.
Consistency in DD is always king. And he has no way to save multiple toons if you have a string of bad rng. So I'd advise to always bring him as a stunner unless you just need a trash comp to pass a week.
There is one thing I always struggle with in the game. When you level up your heros, at some point you cannot use them to grind the lower level dungeons. And the higer level dungeons will be still to challenging for them. I dont know... maybe I am only used to nobrainer Diablo and PoE grind ARPG...
Leveling a roster can definitely be tricky. Just use your lower levels to grind resources to upgrade the facilities do your high level heroes can get prepared in the future. It's not uncommon to have your next bracket of heroes sit around for several weeks while you catch everything up.
Right on time I just started this game over the weekend. First experience with it wish me luck.
You can do it! It's well worth your time and the emotional exhaustion lol
Breath…
It’s gonna be okay.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE ELDRITCH BEINGS, USE RIPOSTES. Abilities that grant riposte like Retribution on man at arms or Duelist's advance on Highwayman are some of the strongest moves in the game. It gives literally free damage over several turns.
side note: be carefull with maa's retribution, since it marks him. Used it one time in a fight against that tentacle thing in the warrens. the next turn it critted me for 46 :(
especially since they can cancel enemy effects if the riposte kills the enemy in the process
@@GEB_Rosee_PPS Arbalest/Musketeer can remove marks.
Mod user speaking: duelist's buckle is a great trinket for riposte spam (it literally makes it deal more damage), but if you are using "Koala's Creature Collection" mod then every single team marking ability sucks because "beholder" type enemies can use "Lo and Behold" to sacrifice that mark for big damage
@@kamilslup7743 behold deez nuts
I'm usually comfortable enough having level 3 gear and skills on veteran missions, but even then I know that's not optimal play and it is a risk, I just don't have the patience to grind just apprentice until level 4 is unlocked lol. Champion though, full stop you want full level 5 across the board, except maybe hero builds focused on non-damage abilities if you're impatient (rank 4 MAA/Occultist, maybe vestal), where the weapon upgrades are a bit less important (still want the speed though).
thank you for this! Really helpful. Just got the game and really enjoying it so far
I only just started but everytime either Reginald or Dismas dies, I just reset.
Stalling is so satisfying, getting outta battle with full health party bc you stunlocked and blighted this slow tanky enemy
My tip is play like you want. That´s not possible on the hardest difficulty but on standard you can go for something risky for the level. You can go with no healer high evasion or a setup of low health hard hit. I say this because the tips given in the video is not always true, you don´t need to kill the backline if you have no healer, in that case you need to kill the ones who hit harder (sometimes are the backline but not always) like the fish with a sword in the cove.
I just picked this up after probably a few years of rage quitting. Safe to say I'm still terrible at it (my friends and I commonly describe this game as one that we love but absolutely hate and a game that mollywopps Dark Souls in terms of difficulty) but my restarted play through has been alright so far. Especially since I had a random gut feeling to murder the enemy backline first 9 out of 10 times lol. Almost lost a houndmaster on his first mission but it's because I believed the game when they said bring 8 torches. I struggle with money currently but that's probably because I mostly buy out the torches and rations, as well as bought up some weapon upgrades. Still need to get armor on my level 1 characters but I need deeds, something none of my current missions reward.
Here's one: if your team gets trashed and its actually only heroes you care about...there's no shame in immediately switching off your machine to avoid the dreaded auto save. Got a second shot at saving some favorite heroes that got decimated by the bandit 8 pounder this way :P
Honestly even if I haven’t played DD yet, just hearing people talk about it and dissect its systems is strangely relaxing for me
glad this game is still so popular. I have my doubts that DD2 will be as good.
I am afraid you might be right. Sequences are usually bad news.
It took me a while to notice buffs cast at the end of combat carry over for a while to the next fight, IF you fight soon after the first. Graverobber hits way different with round 1 stealth start. Skills that would be useful only in long fights start making sense for short hallways. The luckiest case being a hallway fight with 3 weak enemies right before a room fight that lets you start snowballed in with buffs.
* Not all carry over after the fight. Vapors doesn't. Skills like Anti's Get Down or Musk's Sidearm do though.
you dont need to stall forever *if you've been stalling and healing appropriately throughout the dungeon*. in medicine we have this saying "an oz of prevention is worth a pound of cure": you dont want to be in the situation where you're digging your front liner out of a hole with your healer while your entire team tries to stun the same enemy that will one-shot you if you give it a turn. heal up on the slugs you saw 3 rooms ago and you wont have so far to go when you're fighting the 4v4
one thing im always unsure on is after backline, or if there is no backline, do you prioritise the beeg bois or the small ones, I always go small cause taking down the two enemies quicker than the big one seems better to me, also if a supply has an effect on a curio it does give a little symbol of the results if you forget similar to enemy moves
It's usually better to get rid of the small ones first, yeah. You want to take turns off the enemy side as quickly as possible.
Talking about optimizing turns to heal stress and then shift clicking the bonfire, I see what you did there
My tip on a new save is turn off torch and let the crusader get murked, the caravan will give you another hero that's not a kleptomaniac
Shuffles. Where is the importance of Scouting? You mention in number 3 how that you can still be surprised in a hallway at max light, but you can not actually be surprised when the enemy have been scouted. You even carry the Map in your footage so you know it is important in some way.
Scouting doesn't just removing the chance of being surprised. It also allow you to pick your battles. It might not be worth to fight another group of enemies only to see what is in that curio behind them.
Too many good tips to cover, and I think teaching players to be able to deal with being surprised is worth mentioning, as incredible as scouting is.
@@ShuffleFM Well. I never equip the holy lance on the Crusader only because of how rare that event actually is. I am more forced to move when I get pushed from the frontline then when I am surprised. I don't see the value in always having a skill equipped when it is in 99% of the game not being used. It is a great skill, but it is just to rare to justify.
@@Cloud_Seeker Unless you can get scouting to 100% or have enough movement with your other heroes, I don't see a reason not to put it on. Scouting also takes trinket slots usually. In the case of Crusader, after putting on stunning blow and inspiring cry, the rest of his moves are mostly circumstantial. Plus opening with holy lance on a rank 4 can be very good. The main reason I advocate for having a diverse move set is because the game has enough variance to warrant it.
This is only in the case of movement skills vs. scouting too. There's no reason highwayman should be running both wicked slice and open vein for example, so learning how to have a lot of options is worth talking about.
found something very very interesting last night running 2 Crusaders frontline they were buffing each other after one passed his stress test. They consistently kept doing like it 8 times in a row. Has anybody ever seen this???
@@Cloud_Seeker If you never equip holy lance you should try some comp with pos3 crusader for holy lance on turn 1, holy lance could honestly be considered the strongest crusader skill; it fits perfectly with the nuke backline which is the first tip in this video.
Thanks for this helpful guide, just got this game yesterday
THANK YOU!!!!!! i LOVE darkest dungeon and some of what you've send i've worked out quickly, loving strategy, however, had a really bad run (lost 4 great items, and my 2 great characters) and kinda rage quit,,, XDDDD sad IK,,, but i still love the game, and am spending this "break to forget my loss" studying!!! and after 3 of your vids, YOU ARE MY GO TO!! love it all. SO THANK YOU!
Love your vids, very informative keep it up
not just for accuracy, max your skills that do status effects (ESPECIALLY stun) because having a 150% chance of stun against an enemy with 50% stun resist basically negates their entire resistance
Noice. Wish this was here several days ago, i wouldn't lose that many characters.
Also, still waiting for the best character comps video.
the first few ingame weeks are always much tougher than the rest, if you´re having trouble at the start remember that´s normal, you´ll be doing better when you start having more money and stronger heroes
also if you´re having money issues just get an antiquarian
Thanks for the upload, man.
Although it seems so obvious after hearing you say it, as a noob, the tip about being maxed for each difficulty tier is really helpful. My roster is actually lousy with crap like lv2 characters + base level gear & sub par abilities. Time for a big cull lol. Oh, any tips for fast farming? 😁
Farming for gold: bring Antiquarian to ruins or cove since there is a lot of gold and gems in some of the curio, do medium missions with a bunch of scouting to find secret rooms and get more loot/xp than short missions. If you have districts, build the bank when your guildhall is maxed out. Between that and Antiquarian you should make enough money to level all your people at champion quickly. Also sell unused trinkets.
Quirk farming: spam short missions to roll quirks at the end of the level.
@@ShuffleFM Ah. Perfect. Does Antiquarian have a passive loot buff or do I need her to have Trinket Scrounge? Thanks for the reply btw, I appreciate it.
@@andrewrobertson3894 every fight she's in and every curio she interacts with will drop Antiques which sell for a LOT, and each Antiquarian in your party passively boosts gold stacks by 750 (so 2500 with one anti, 3250 with two etc)
@@andrewrobertson3894 The Antiquarian should be the character that interact with all objects. You always get a special item when she does if the object have loot. She also have a passive gold stacking bonus.
@@andrewrobertson3894 Antiquarian has a few ways of getting loot:
1) When she is the one to open loot curio, she automatically finds antiques that stack and sell for gold. These can also drop from battles with her in the party.
2) Gold stacks higher with her in the party. Each Antiquarian increases the gold stack limit by 750. 1 is usually enough to be worthwhile.
3) During camp she can use trinket scrounge if you have inventory space, or if you can put it on another hero. Trinkets sell for a minimum of 750 each.
The first 2 are strictly passive, just make sure she opens the curio. Even a torch sconce can give you an antique because of it.
Backline is why my favourite build is
4: support class (normally vestal)
3: crusader
2: graverobber
1: shieldbreaker
this should be REQUIRED watching multiple times for any person starting DD. Also if you use antequarians for loot/money.. ALWAYS make sure they are selected when you open chest and sooner or later, you will meet the Collector. just run from him lol. 2) pay attention to what attacks happen in what maps. one map is weak to bleed, one map is weak to blight, etc. 3) the blueprints are more valuable and useful to your team then upgrading the tavern or abby. first priority for upgrades is stagecoach to 4 or 5 chara's, blacksmith, guild.
Early game I found dodge trinkets almost too reliable. Any green was cake with a sun cloak (?] or similar for extra lols bring antiquarian to boost dodge and help secure extra, crucial early game $$$. By mid you'll want to start transitioning to accuracy.
You don't need to max out every class. Be very selective with who you recruit and even more selective with who you're willing to spend money on to improve. By Midgame you'll be recruiting heroes with every ability and better weapons so save money however you can and only upgrade like your top 8-10 heroes but that might even be too expensive.
AND YOU CAN CHANGE TACTICS MID DUNGEON. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how long I went until I realized that.
I'd argue you want accuracy at all levels. Having a 70% chance to hit spiders for instance is not fun. Dodge scales very well for early/mid game though.
awesome thumbnail! I like inclusion of a skill trainer on the right
Jester/Leper: shuffle that bonk spook to expose the cup spook then stab some bones
Tip for the early game and mainly the early game, you see a vestal in the stage coach? Take it. Not having a consistent healer consistently can be SEVERELY punishing, even 4-5 health is better than praying for deaths door to hold
not really, Vestal is the best healer but lots of other characters can heal too, if you have Crusader/Arbalest/Ocultist they can heal just fine in place of her, and they can deal good damage while they´re at it too
Here's a video you could make: Which are better, quirks or trinkets? In the DD discord I opined that quirks are better, to the point that it's q good idea to aggressovely sell trinkets and use the gold to lock quirks, especially in the early game.. Another person disagreed and felt trinkets were too important and generally more useful than locked quirks on individual heroes. Who is right?
My philosophy is if it wins, then it's a good idea. So if selling trinkets to lock quirks is winning in your game then it's fine. I personally don't like relying on getting quirks because they are more random than trinkets, but they can be very powerful
I haven't even watched the video yet and clicking the like button lol. I like your other videos and I definitely need this one lol
I've been told specifically that upgrading skills or gear below level 2 is a bad idea since they're still fresh and easily replaced.
Imo anything that helps them live and win runs is worth it
A stun on vestal can be better than a heal alot of the time. U might heal for 12 and then get hit for 16.
I expected this video, thank You Shuffle
This is really good information! 👍
Stinking Collector killed my only *Beekeeper* right off the stagecoach middle of the 2nd run in the Ruins..!!
I've had reinforcements come up while stalling ! it went from 1 enemy left to a full 4 enemies !
With stalling I started like slowly doing it without watching the guides however with overkill a blight or bleed will kill them ignore them
interesting fact: one plague doctor is enough to control the back rows. What does this mean? it means that you can take 2 lepers and a jester
Definitely earned a sub man! Thanks for your vids! I'm getting a lot better at the game but I put off playing darkest dungeon for a while and I don't know why lol. But now that I buckled down and finally tried it it's one of the best games ever in the history of human creation!! Literally like heroin 🤣. I have a lot of games to play and I can't put it down to even play em
Woohoo! Glad you gave it another try :)
Shuffle! Are there quirks that I should instalock when I get them? And is it ever worth getting experienced recruits?
Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed
Experienced recruits can be nice if you play darkest/radiant and lose someone high level. It's too slow to use on stygian or bloodmoon. I personally don't get experienced recruits anymore because I build up a full roster at lower level, so losing people late game doesn't set me back enough to care at the time. A lot of people have said they enjoy it though so it has merit.
Locking quirks is tough to answer because it depends how much gold you have and if you can afford it. I only lock quirks if the hero already has 5 and 1 of them could roll off, but I am much quicker to remove bad quirks since they are cheaper usually. If you have gold to spend I'd recommend locking + speed quirks, + damage, + accuracy, + crit, and hippocratic on healers. There are probably more but that's what I can think of off the top of my head. Tough/hardskinned are pretty nice too.
Also get eldritch slayer, that is a free +10 accuracy for darkest dungeon.
One thing I always forgot was that you could camp on medium missions and up...
So many deaths, for what?
I guess carelessness Is just a slow and insidious killer
Just started playing the game, and all 4 of my character during a dungeon got full 200 stress, because I couldn't get to the backline guy that keeps doing AOE Stress skill. And by the time I killed the backline, my characters started hitting each other, afflicting bleed etc, and just crumbled before the enemy.
I had no gold left, so no money to purchase food or even a torch. So yeah. Restart, I guess XD
Hi, new player here. at 6:45 your highwayman does a counterattack to the enemy attacker? Is that a perk? an item? I have never seen my units do a counterattack.
It's called riposte, and it's the symbol with the orange swish and the spiky ball at the end. Only 2 heroes can do it. Highwayman with duelist advance and man at arms with retribution :)
@@ShuffleFM Thank you for that helpful reply! I'll check it out, that seems very strong.
Thanks for the tips!
Hey, could you make a guide about how to make money (without the usage of antiquarian). I have like 70 hours in the game and kinda don't know how you can have more than 100 000 gold. I don't treat people much, i don't remove negative quirks when i do not need to, i use items to get more money in dungeons and i sometimes sell unused trinkets, yet still almost every week i have the question "WHY NO MONEH?!". Cute girl antiquarian is the only one who helps me to find finances and stuff. I think such a guide would be appreciated not only by me but also by the people with similar problem.
P.S. pls help
If you have districts then build the bank. Getting gold with no districts and Antiquarian is a bit more challenging. The easiest tip is to snuff your torch right before a battle ends so you get more loot drops from it, and make sure that there are at least 1 or 2 extra curio that you can see that you know you can keep the torch down for to get bonus loot. For other tips, I would suggest running the ruins and cove more often because the urns and dead fish drop gems. The weald has some great loot curio, but they are more inconsistent I feel like. Coral in the cove, scrolls in the warrens, and the caregiver's convention event from the weald can save you quirk money for those times you do need to do it. Plague Doctor and Grave Robber can remove diseases on teammates by camping to save money too. Bumper crop is a warrens event that saves you ~5000 gold usually. Stack scouting and do medium/long missions to find secret rooms.
I just started this game a week ago or so. I've had it for a while (free game), just never got into it. I'd say things were going okay, relatively. In 23 weeks (in game), I only had 2 people die. Yesterday, I was in a veteran, medium length, mission. Was almost done with it, one more room to explore. Actually, I was done with the mission, but wanted to check out the last room. Right before the room, there was this object that I had to use a torch on. I wish I hadn't done that. My team got wrecked and I lost 3 of my best guys/gals before I found out how to escape the battle. 2 champion lvl members and a lvl 4 (whatever that's called). I wasn't into the game when I started, even less so now.
Sorry to hear that. We consider dying to shambler a rite of passage, but I understand it can be very frustrating
@@ShuffleFM I've played through Dark Souls countless times and Dark Souls 2 quite a few times. Dying/failing doesn't bother me. Losing 3 people because I didn't know there was an option to retreat and that option looks very similar to what tells you what your mission is, that was frustrating. I could have bailed as soon as I realize things went very south (which I realized very quickly). I wasn't super attached to any of them. But, they did make it 23 weeks (I had them from the beginning). They died at lvl 5 in a lvl 3 dungeon as if they were a lvl 0.
I'm having trouble making it through any long dungeon, whatre some good strategies for long dungeons??? Thanks for the content! I'll keep watching!
Since I don't know what your gameplay and teams look like I can only offer some general tips.
- Bring some heroes who can stun and disrupt the enemy during battle. Ideally you never want the enemy team to get 4 attacks in a single round. If you can consistently keep it to 2 or 3 attacks per round, you'll do a lot better. Upping the speed on your team helps as well since going first lets you dictate the fight.
- Focus fire dangerous enemies. These should not live past turn 2 unless it's something as beefy as a ghoul, or the enemy team has 3 nuclear level threats.
- Let enemies bleed out instead of finishing them off if they are guaranteed to die and use those extra turns to heal. Stunning or lowering their speed helps with this too.
- Take extra provisions, specifically all of the food. Being able to use 8 food at camp is incredibly helpful. On that note, plan out your camping skills in advance so you know which ones you want to hit with that team.
- There are 2 times to camp: when you need to recover, and when you need buffs. It's okay to camp early in a dungeon if you can maximize it.
- Having a consistent hp healer and stress healer helps with long missions if you are squeezing out extra turns for recovery. This does not mean you need jester or vestal every time.
@@ShuffleFM Holy hell thanks for the tips! I've had the best luck with 2 lepers in the front position vestal in 3, and I switch between plague doctor and arbelist in the rear, or I do a crusader in position 1, abomination in 2, bountyhunter or highway man in 3, and a vestal in 4. I seem to exhaust my campfires usually with 30% of the dungeon left and I feel like I'm managing stress and damage well, but then I feel like the game catches on to my good luck and ill get 2 heart attacks, or way debuffed/bled/blighted shortly before the end of the dungeon.... I almost want to send you a playthrough so you can be like, "right there was your fatal error"
@@rooktakesbishop7938 Your first team is really slow besides plague doctor, so they will get hit a couple times before they get to act unless they surprise the enemy. Vestal and PD need to be stunning constantly in that setup, and you need to leave an enemy in the front at the end of battle to hit solemnity a couple times it sounds like. I'm assuming vestal is the one eating heart attacks in that team.
The 2nd team is more solid. You can stun with each hero and that makes "Finish Him" from bounty hunter pretty good. Crusader with inspiring cry and some extra turns of stalling can get a couple stress heals out and help.
Both teams you listed have trouble killing rank 4. Between that and heart attacks, I can probably point to that as a fatal flaw lol. Try hellion in rank 1 with either team and use iron swan on turn 1, it should help. You're free to send in gameplay, I'm still taking submissions for a bit longer.
@@ShuffleFM thank you so much! You're spot on about my vestal taking heart attacks, ill try these tips and let you know my results! Thanks again!
My favorite team goes as: Musketeer, Arbalest, Occultist and Bounty Hunter
The marks just melt front and backline enemies
Jumping back into this game
Thanks for the video! I'm really enjoying the game, but it is not an easy start.
How did You know I would purchase this game today?
Part of my job doing this is knowing when the game goes on sale surprisingly. The last new player video did well so I figured there would be a good response for another. Good luck :)
One of my guys died of a heart attack and then I retreated and the rest all had heart attacks right after. 😭 I’ll never wait until the last minute again
The necromancer was givin me trouble any suggestions for attacking?
Just saying. I always slept on pos 2 hound master. I used to run stress heal on him religiously until I saw shuffle being spicy. Good jizz.
Can you do something about the items ? I had no idea you can eat food to heal ! Some of the things like laudanum don't seem to do anything, andI don't get the keys either. Also I just learned today that you have to press y to use the shovel to avoid the stress and damage!
I'll see if I can make something in a few days.
TY for an awesome video. I learned a lot!
Hey guys. Im new to DD. I have a question.
How do you change abilities for each companion? They have 7 abilities but i can only access 4. How do you unlock and how do you change the 4 abilities you can take in combat?
Also how do you change the Abomination's abilities. He comes with all 7 unlocked, but i dont know how to select the 4 i want to take.
TY!
You need to use and upgrade the guild building in the hamlet to unlock or upgrade skills you don't have. After that, you click the skill you want to take off in the character sheet then click the one you want to equip after. Abom has all skills unlocked by default and he can access the other ones by transforming (skill 1).
@@ShuffleFM
TY sir!
Yeah, my questions were a bit premature. I just had to play the game a little to unlock buildings. It's hard in the beginning especially because the game simply wont give me another tank or healer. So i have to baby sit the 2 i have for now and just take my B team out while those 2 recuperate.
Also they have some good quirks so i dont really want to get rid of them. Just hope the game will send me more tanks and healers. All im getting is mid row dps mercs...
Great stuff!
concrning point 4. Isn't it better to not waste money on level 0-1 characters and just ditch them if they get afflicted and get new ones? It feels like a waste to use money on characters that I don't know if i'm going to keep.
Certainly. This is more of a situation where you know you want to keep that unit, or that it's worth investing in. Something like hippocratic vestal.
So when you talk about max gear and skills, does that mean that you do not attempt the next level of dungeon if you don't have 4 characters with those ranks?
How do you quickly regain yourself if you lose some or most of your characters that were at your highest rank? Eventually you high level people from stage coach off the bat, but these tend to have a lot more negative quirks...
You can attempt to do dungeons if the gear is equal to the level, just don't try veteran with level 1 or 2 gear or champ with level 3 for example. The champ jump is specifically where you want maxed stuff because of the stat spike on the enemy side.
Levels 1 and 2 take the longest to get through so experienced recruits only really shines if it hits a level 3 imo. There's no real fast way to recover from a team wipe at high level. On darkest and radiant it's an annoying setback. On stygian and bloodmoon it can be devastating, which is why you max the roster and level a full roster together in case something happens. Raising a roster is a much broader topic though.
Thank you for the responses, both! I'm getting back into it after a few runs previously where I got to weeks 20-30.
What I'm trying to remember is how I used dark runs in my first run. I treated certain people fully expendabley, sent them in without torches, and I'd retreat them to massive loot gain. But I'm trying it now and they just keep dying in the first or second encounter.
tbh i just discovered how good is the plague doc in this game i m still learning how to kick the ass of the game because I on my firt play was on radiant and it was great i was a moron and i thought if i cankill the enemies before they fight it s good
well hard way to learn it at higher level it don t work like this
and surprisingly like every noob at darkest my bacline was jestal
Tip 6 : run quad leper and reap the rewards
Hi I just started on playing today and I have one thing I want to ask about leveling skills and gear. I've been too afraid of losing characters and I've been struggling with keeping their stress levels down and having any gold leftover. I'm slowly building up my shops so it costs less to heal and I focused everything on getting my carriage up. Is it really worth it to level their gear yet for the beginning areas?
Also I want to say screw those random torch spots that force you to a boss fight. That tpk my best guys
It's still good to level gear. The first upgrades are cheap and they help people stay alive for longer
@@ShuffleFM Ok ty, cheers
Sometimes I stall for too long and they call for reinforcements
My problem is that my main two troups say that the mission is too easy and they cant start it, on the other hand not main hereos are too weak what can i do?
Its because your resolve level is too high, once your characters reach level 3 they won't do any of the easy mission, to solve it use a new team to grind out lower level dungeons, to prepare your main team for the harder dungeon difficulty, so you won't need to brute force it