A Devil Stalks These Halls: A Comprehensive Guide to Darkest Dungeon's Boss Fights

There are almost 50 boss fights in all in Darkest Dungeon. They are as varied as they are sadistic, waiting intently in their corruption-soaked lairs to take advantage of the unprepared and foolish. This guide aims to give you a comprehensive overview of their tactics, strengths and weaknesses, party compositions best tailored to defeat each, and how to approach them from a more general, strategic point of view.

Introduction

Welcome to a comprehensive guide to Darkest Dungeon's boss fights. This guide aims to give you the very best chance of defeating them, describing their attacks, what their weaknesses are, how they develop in their three iterations and suggested party compositions for tackling each.

Let's get a few things clear straight off the bat:

• You shouldn't read this guide before taking on a boss, or if a boss whupped your sorry butt once. Darkest Dungeon is built on the premise that you will fail sometimes, heroes will die, you will have to bail on a mission. Although it may sometimes not seem like it, you are ALWAYS on an upward curve in this game; town upgrades cannot be taken away from you, hiring and firing heroes costs nothing. Take every defeat on the chin and try and learn from them. This guide is here if you are finding a boss so frustrating it's detracting from your enjoyment of the game.
  
  
• I am not going to give the exact stats for each boss.There's a wiki that already does that[darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com], which I will link to for each one. Giving them would simply be a case of me copying it across.
  
  
• This guide readily assumes you have already got the gameplay basics down. That is, bringing plenty of equipment for each mission, making use of the Sanitarium, how the torch level affects the game, the fact heroes can't do missions below their level, etc.
  
  
• The bosses are given here in the order they generally unlock in. It makes no difference what order they're taken out in (beyond which secondary boss then appears) and the order doesn't necessarily reflect difficulty, so don't feel married to it.
  
  
• My opinions on the best party compositions are ultimately subjective. If you think you've found a better formula, use it! I can only testify for what has worked for me.
  
  
• If you feel I've missed something or found an inaccuracy, mention it in the comments section. I'll be happy to add or change it. Or deny all knowledge and get abusive, one of the two.
  
  
• Here is a guide for dealing with the Crimson Curse bosses.

Boss Fight Basics

Here we'll discuss some of the key issues you need to think about before clicking on that button which will take you into a boss dungeon.

• Heroes cannot go into a dungeon they are over-levelled for. Once a hero has gotten to L3, they are useless as far as defeating those L1 bosses are concerned. It is not at all possible to use a single hero to defeat every boss at a particular level. They level up too fast.
  
  That means two things: If you've got a particular hero in mind for a boss fight, do NOT take them on regular missions if they're close to L3 or L5. Save them for it! Secondly, it means you CANNOT rely on a single party to take care of every last piece of business. Even if you didn't need to spend weeks curing disease/getting rid of negative quirks/elevating stress, you need B teams, C teams and substitutes.
  
  
• Make sure your selected heroes all have well-levelled gear and abilities. This may seem obvious but it's truly bizarre how many players think they can take on the L3 Swine King with level 2 gear and abilities all round.
  
  For the L1 bosses, you want level 2 gear and abilities; for L3, level 4 armor and level 4 abilities ideally (because the step up in L4 weapons is mostly pathetic, it's not as important.) For the L5 bosses, you want everything maxed out. The actual level of the heroes isn't quite as vital as this. Sure, ideally you want your guys to be L2, L4 and L6 respectively for the better resistances and rolls, but if one of your guys is L3 and everything else is set up perfectly to take on the Fulminating Prophet, don't sweat it.
  
  
• Be well prepared for a medium dungeon crawl. Having the ideal team to take on the Siren is worthless if you get to her with one hero Hopeless with stress and two others bleeding out. Take plenty of supplies. Good camp abilities, particularly ones that buff stats, make a huge difference.
  
  Here are my supply formulas for each dungeon:
  
  
  1. Ruins: 24 food, 8 torches, 2 bandages, 1 blight cure, 1 herb, 2 holy water, 2 keys, 3 shovels.
     
  2. Weald: 20 food, 8 torches, 3 bandages, 4 blight cure, 1 herb, 1 holy water, 1 key, 4 shovels.
     
  3. Warrens: 16 food, 8 torches, 3 bandages, 1 blight cure, 2 herbs, 1 holy water, 1 key, 3 shovels.
     
  4. Cove: 20 food, 8 torches, 5 bandages, 1 blight cure, 4 herbs, 1 holy water, 1 key, 4 shovels.
  
  As long as you're not really unlucky you should end up with a small surplus and food left over to heal with before going into the boss's room. You may want to take more supplies, based on the boss. We'll talk about that later.
  
  
• Make sure your team is free of bad diseases and quirks. In particular, watch out for "Fear of X" quirks where "X" is the type of boss you will be fighting. That type of quirk is easy to forget about, but you will be cursing it when your Hellion keeps missing the Hag because she's scared of other humans.
  
  
• Bosses are always in the furthest room away from where you start. Count the squares on the map, don't bother going to dead-ends. There may be multiple rooms which are all the same distance away! In these cases you need to rely on scouting. A GR, BH or HM in the party help; camp up before crossroads and use their scouting buff. This will hopefully save on time, resources and health.
  
  
• Don't forget trinkets! Even at low levels you should have a collection of trinkets, many of which will make a boss fight that much easier. We'll talk about particularly useful trinkets later.
  
  
• Speaking of which, if at all possible take on a boss fight when the mission's offering a particularly good trinket as a reward. Some very rare trinkets aren't a great deal of use: Martyr's Seal, Hero's Ring etc. Others, like Cleansing Crystal, are incredibly useful later on.
  
  
• A fun exploit which allowed you to farm enemy summoners for loads of loot has been sewn up, as of a recent update. So don't waste your time beating up mooks.
  
  
• It is not necessary to defeat any area boss in order to complete the game. You will notice you can go to the Darkest Dungeon at any time - as your very first mission, if you really hate Reynauld and Dismas. However, the L5 bosses all drop potent trinkets with no downsides to them, some of which will greatly aid your cause.
  
  
• Do a Cleanse mission in the dungeon before taking on its boss to boost your chances. Cleanse missions - knock down the swine shrines, sanctify the altars etc - trigger a town event which grants extra XP and 15% extra damage on the next mission, if it's in the same dungeon. This is a great little bonus if you can line it up before challenging a boss.
  
  
• Remind yourself.
  

Darkest Dungeon Basics

You can get this information elsewhere in greater depth, but here are the must-know aspects of the four dankest of boss fights:

* Heroes who complete a Darkest Dungeon will refuse to do another. So if you're going after a certain achievement involving a HWM and CRU, for instance, don't use them until the last one. Heroes who have completed a Darkest Dungeon no longer count towards your roster limit, which can be handy.

* It goes without saying that your heroes should be completely maxed out, and their worst negative quirks removed. Traits that force curio interactions like Curious etc. aren't as bad anymore, since there are no curios in the final levels. But anything that causes stat loss under 50% health, weakness to bleed, Fear of Eldritch etc. are really unhelpful.

* As it warns you, bailing on a DD mission means losing one of your heroes.

* The floor is automatically scouted. So don't waste time on scouting buffs in camp, scouting trinkets etc.

* Loot is almost non-existent, shovels and keys are worthless. The key point here is that you won't be particularly pushed for inventory space. Which is good, because you want to purchase every last piece of food, blight cure, bandages and herbs the supplier has on offer. All of it! There is n't an attack in the Darkest Dungeons which doesn't carry a potentially fatal effect-on-hit. (Bandit Vvulf's level has blockages and chests, so do take shovels and keys for that.)

* The enemies are almost universally Eldritch, and there is a preponderance of dual Beast types too. That gives your Occultists and Houndmasters an edge, as well as making the Eldritch/Beastslayer Rings good picks. I usually try and lock in Eldritch Hater if it crops up on a hero later on, if the money's available.

* You can continue pootling around on your estate after you've finished the game, so don't feel you have to complete everything else before doing so.

The Necromancer

Overview

http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Necromancer

The Necromancer starts off as a beginner boss that can be easily tackled with your starter party, sufficiently equipped. Recent changes, however, have made him considerably tougher at later levels. The essential strategy remains the same: get some good blight/bleed on him, beat his and his skeltal armies' heads in with a Crusader.

Behaviour

The Necromancer is Unholy/Eldritch in type, and attacks only once per turn. He is not particularly resistant to blight, bleed or debuff, but has a high stun resist. He has three moves: a ranged attack that hits the back two rows, a melee attack that hits the front two rows, and a stress attack that hits everyone. If he uses *any* attack, he summons a skeleton minion in front of him. It doesn't matter if the attack connects, only that he attacks, so the only way to stop him summoning a skeleton is by stunning him. He will keep summoning them until he's got a full party of them in front of him. The skeletons *do* leave corpses. They do not attack on the turn they are summoned.

Later iterations

The L3 Necromancer can summon bulwark skeletons as well as sergeants. The Necromancer Lord can sometimes summon generals.

Strategy

Basic key here is to stop the skeleton thing getting out of control, whilst whittling the Necromancer down each turn. Have a beatstick in the front row (Reynauld is absolutely ideal) whose job it is to slap down the skeletons as they appear, whilst guys who can hit row 2/3 focus on the Necromancer. This starts getting dicier when he starts pooping out bulwarks, because they can soak up a lot of damage. However a Crusader with the Unholy Slayer ring should be able to get through them (and make mincemeat of the dungeon beforehand).

If the Necro Lord manages to get a bone general out... well, just hope he doesn't, but if he does, have your Plague Doctor keep peppering the Necro with blight nades so he's still getting whittled down, whilst try and stun the general. Untested, but it seems that if you take a bone general out, the Lord will immediately summon it again from the corpse.

Suggested team

• Crusader w/ Smite and Stunning Blow
  
• HWM w/ Pistol Shot and Open Vein OR Crusader #2 w/ Smite and Holy Lance
  
• Plague Doctor w/ Noxious Blast and Plague Grenade
  
• Vestal w/ Heal, Shining Light and Judgement

Things to avoid

Because the Necro can end up in any rank, make sure you have a balanced party that can hit any rank. It's absolutely essential you keep chipping him every turn, he does build stress quite fast. There's no class that is a real no-no in this fight, beyond ones that are overly reliant on bleed.

The Hag

Overview

http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Hag

The Hag is a boss designed to stop players who have been facerolling the game so far in their tracks. Teams not prepared specifically to kill her will inevitably find her a nightmare. If you come well prepared, however, she's one of the easiest.

Behaviour

The Hag is Human in type, and attacks twice per turn. She is very resistant to stun, moderately resistant to blight and weak to bleed, with low health and no PROT. She always takes up row three and four, with her cauldron taking up one and two, and never moves from there.

She always starts off by putting one of your heroes, chosen at random, into the pot. They lose health every tick for as long as they remain in the pot. The pot can be attacked to knock it over and release them; the pot itself immediately respawns. When the hero reaches death's door, they are also released from the pot.

The Hag meanwhile will target the remaining heroes with a single target stress attack, a full party stress attack, and a full party melee attack. If the pot is ever not full, she will put a hero into it on her next turn.

Later iterations

The L3 and L5 Hag can heal themselves with Taste the Stew.

Strategy

Ignore the pot. This is where most people go wrong. You want to be concentrating entirely on the Hag's measly health bar. This is why you come with a team that can consistently do damage to ranks 3 and 4 no matter if they're pushed up a rank because the person in front of them just went into the pot. That means no Houndmaster in rank 2, for instance.

With the team below, she's really a very straightforward boss. In camp, spread buffs across the party, so you aren't banjaxed by the Hag targeting the one hero you put all the buffs on. The Manslayer Ring is really handy, too.

If you don't manage to kill the Hag before she puts someone on Death's Door, you should have an opportunity to heal them before she attacks next. Having two or more people with heals - Hellion's Adren Rush, Arbalest's Bandage and Occultist's Wyrd - helps a lot with this.

Suggested team

• Hellion w/ If It Bleeds and Iron Swan
  
• Bounty Hunter w/ Finish Him and Hook and Slice
  
• Occultist w/ Vulnerability Hex, Wyrd Rec and Sacrificial Stab
  
• Arbelest w/ Sniper Shot and Battlefield Bandage OR Houndmaster w/ Hound Rush

Things to avoid

Do not bring the Crusader or the Leper to this fight. They will be more or less worthless, unless you luck out and the Hag chooses them for the pot.

The Swine King

Overview

http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Swine_Prince

The Swine King is probably the toughest of the three primary bosses, simply because of the damage he can put out and that absolute... swine... Wilbur. Later on the latter makes life very difficult indeed. You need bleeders and the best tanks you have available.

Behaviour

The Swine King is Beast in type, and attacks only once per turn - as long as you don't attack Wilbur. He is almost no resistance to bleed or blight, but high resistance to stun. He takes up rank 1 and 2, with Wilbur in rank 3.

At the beginning of each turn, Wilbur marks one or two heroes. At the end of the turn, the King will either attack those for massive damage, or use Wild Flailing, which does the same amount of damage to someone at random but with less accuracy. If you ever do attack Wilbur whilst he's still alive, he will immediately respond by attacking the whole party with Enraged Destruction. If heaven forbid you actually kill Wilbur whilst he's still alive, that is all he will do.

When the King is dead, Wilbur attacks with Squeal and Bit o Squeal, both of which do low damage but stun. How often he does this is based on level.

Later iterations

At L3, Wilbur attacks twice per turn. He uses Bit o Squeal on one hero, and then marks. At L5, Bit o Squeal targets *two* heroes.

Strategy

Obviously, ignore Wilbur whilst the King is still alive. He takes up the front two rows so almost anything can hit him. He has almost no resistance to blight or bleed, so pile that on if you got it. However, he's got a huge HP pool and no PROT - you need beatsticks, and you need to give them as many buffs as you can. Whether it's Hellion, Leper or Crusader, use camp and trinkets to get as much damage and crit buffs on them as possible. This battle is a case of who can smash the other down the fastest.

An incredibly useful ability for the later variants is the Arbalest's Flare. You can clear Wilbur's stuns and marks with it, hopefully giving your beatsticks the best chance they have of hitting the King and increasing the chance he'll use the less accurate Wild Flailing. The downside to this is you probably can't take the Houndmaster at the same time with her, who's also really good in this fight. The Occultist's Weakening Curse and the Vestal's Hand of Light are also pretty good at limiting how much damage the King can do - he's no good at resisting debuffs either.

Suggested team

• Hellion w/ If It Bleeds and Wicked Hack
  
• Bounty Hunter w/ Collect Bounty
  
• Occultist w/ Vulnerability Hex, Weakening Curse and Wyrd
  
• Arbalest w/ Sniper Shot and Flare OR Houndmaster w/ Hound Rush

Things to avoid

Tricky classes that don't do a great deal of damage, such as the Graverobber - unless you pile on the dodge trinkets and use her as an avoidance tank. Avoid AOE attacks that will also clip Wilbur.

The Siren

Overview

An odd boss but ultimately not too difficult, as long as you're not overly reliant on a single hero or direct damage. You need at least one good blighter.

Behaviour

The Siren is Eldritch in type, attacks twice per turn, and takes up two ranks, starting in 1 and 2. Like all pelagics she is pretty resistant to bleed and has good PROT, however is weak to blight and fairly weak to stun.

The Siren will use Song of Desire to try and bring one of your heroes over to her side. This may or may not work. The rank the hero goes to is random. Once on her side, the hero will use an attack at random and, after 1-2 turns, swap back, going to the back of the party. It does not matter what attacks you have upgraded or unlocked; enthralled heroes can use any.

The Siren meanwhile either use a full party stress attack, a full party bleed attack, or summons a Cove enemy.

Later iterations

The Siren summons increasingly tougher monsters, including guardians and shamans at L3 and a small chance to summon ucas at L5.

Strategy

What generally works in the Cove generally works against the Siren. With your trusty Plague Doctor/Grave Robber you stack plenty of blight on her and cure her bleed attack. Stunning Satchel Shadow Fade/Poison Dart GR is particularly effective against this boss; you buff your dodge at the same time as keeping her locked down, hopefully for 2 or 3 turns before her stun resistance climbs too high. You also need your go-to beatstick to take out minons that appear and take chunks out of her when you can.

Spread camp buffs around for this boss. She will get ahold of your guys at least two or three times; you don't want it to be your hugely pumped up Hellion that gets a turn against you. Alternatively and if you've got the money, bring a whole load of holy water and give it to the whole team before-hand. Song of Desire counts as a debuff, and has relatively modest chance of succeeding. Holy water greatly increases a hero's chance of resisting it for a few rounds.

Worth noting here is Leper's Bloody Shroud camp ability, which layers move, bleed and debuff resists on him. That plus holy water and Solemnity makes him virtually impervious to the Siren, and thus a great choice for this boss - particularly if he's given Dark Strength from the Occultist.

Some of the minions she summons can be a bigger pain in the ass than usual; guardians can protect her and shamans can heal or buff her. Focus down shamans like you normally would if they appear. There's nothing much you can do about guardians except ram your face into them unfortunately. Ucas are actually less of a concern and can by and large be ignored, as long as you've got plenty of bandages/the PD to cure their bleed attack.

Suggested team

• Leper w/ Cleave, Hew and Solemnity
  
• Grave Robber w/ Shadow Fade, Poison Dart and Lunge
  
• Occultist w/ Wyrd and Sacrficial Stab
  
• Plague Doctor w/ Noxious Blast and Battlefield Medicine

Things to avoid

This is yet another boss that will make you seriously regret bringing Jester.

The Brigand Pounder

Overview

http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Brigand_Pounder

This is a tense and drawn out boss. If you do it right the thing you have to worry about are the other bandits, not the cannon itself. It's mostly a case of bringing a really good DPSer and heroes who can hit the backline, and hoping/prepping for crits.

Behaviour

The cannon is its own special type, and is basically completely resistant to everything. It also has a huge PROT stat which reduces most normal attacks to scratches. The one ray of light is that it has relatively low HP - and in normal circumstances it cannot attack.

The cannon comes with a brigand lighter, who appears in either the third or fourth row. The lighter ALWAYS goes last in a round. If the lighter gets a turn, he will light the fuse and the cannon will either misfire (healing stress for the whole party) or fire, dealing massive HP damage and stress damage to the whole party. A brigand cutthroat in the first row and a fusilier in the third or fourth row round out the enemy party.

At the beginning of a turn where there are ANY brigands missing, the cannon will use Reinforcements to summon more. They can attack on the turn they are summoned.

Later iterations

The cannon has increasingly smaller chances to misfire at L3 and L5. Its PROT increases. Additionally at L5, it can summon a Bloodletter to replace dead cutthroats, and it might summon two lighters if both the back ranks are dead.

Strategy

You have to have a cast iron strategy to kill or stun the lighter in one turn, every turn. It's not particularly hard - he doesn't have much health or resistance. But damage spread is a thing and so is whiffing an easy shot, so your whole party should ideally have a way of hitting rank 3 or 4 relatively hard. Arbalest is perfect for lighter-killing duty. Or you can use the BH's flashbang to allow her a shot on a marked cannon.

Meanwhile, you need someone to chip the cannon. Don't bother trying to reduce its PROT with Houndmaster's mark or its attack with Occultist's curse - it's as resistant to debuffs as anything else (you can still apply mark, which as already suggested is useful). It does have a solitary weakness: crits. Crits ignore a portion of PROT, so against the cannon do exponentially more than a normal attack would. Any kind of attack that has a high chance of critting, trinkets and camp/battle buffs that increase crit rates - these can make this fight a lot less grind-y. Generally speaking you want to piling as many buffs on your tank beatstick as you possibly can. Damage, PROT, ACC (yes, the cannon can dodge), anything. Remember that they are probably going to be taking a knife to the gut most turns too.

I tend to ignore the other two brigands and let them do their thing. Unless you can kill them straight away and have plenty left over to hit the lighter and the cannon, it's pointless because they come back straight away next turn. The only reason you might have for doing is if, as discussed, you're pretty confident and you want to stack up loads of loot by killing loads of minions.

I've suggested Leper here because of his huge attack (buffed even more in camp by Occultist), but if you're in the mood to kill brigands I would take Hellion instead at L5, because the Bloodletter appearing renders Leper fairly useless. Hellion can also buff her own crit rate in camp, whilst the Leper needs the BH or the MAA to do this.

Suggested team

• Leper w/ Chop, Revenge and Solemnity
  
• Bounty Hunter w/ Collect Bounty and Flashbang
  
• Occultist w/ Vulnerability Hex, Abyssal Artillery and Wyrd
  
• Arbalest w/ Sniper Shot and Battlefield Bandage

Things to avoid

DoTs are not worth an awful lot in this battle, since the Cannon is immune to them and any bandit snuffed out by them is immediately replaced. Discard trinkets that emphasise DoTs, speed and debuffs, concentrate on ones that increase damage, acc, crits and PROT.

The Prophet

Overview

http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Prophet

This is a bit of a puzzle boss, similar to the Hag. Like her, if you bring the wrong kind of party you're kinda screwed, but with the right one he's fairly straightforward. It's all about being able to hit rank 4 in the first place without having to chew through a bunch of furniture to reach him.

Behaviour

The Prophet is Unholy and attacks twice per round. He is completely resistant to Stun but has very low resistance to blight, bleed and debuffs. He appears in rank 4, behind 3 Pews that increase in sturdiness the further they go back.

At the start of each turn, the Prophet uses Calamitous Prognostication (this is besides his two other turns). This highlights two ranks on the heroes' side. At the end of the turn, these two ranks will get hit by Rubble of Ruin, which does heavy damage.

The Prophet meanwhile uses a single target stress attack and a full party blight attack.

Later iterations

Eye on You gains a chance to stun. His blight attack also becomes quite heavy, and the pews very hefty.

Strategy

Pretty sure this boss was designed entirely with the two classes that were released with him in mind, the Man-at-Arms and the Arbalest. Together they own the Prophet, and you should always be taking them along to meet him.

The MAA's Defender ability is a huge help against the Prophet's rubble ability, to start off with. With this you can guard whichever rank has been lit up, and let the MAA tank it with increased PROT. You can run the Houndmaster's own guard ability instead/as well if you like - and he is particularly good at hitting the back row - but increased dodge is a less reliable strategy. The MAA also has immense camp abilities. I recommend using Train on the Hellion, and giving increased dodge to the whole team.

The Arbalest? She hits the back row. Over and over. Restring Bow, set up the mark with Occ and away you go. Manslayer's ring on either her or IS Hellion if you've got it. The only reason you might have for destroying the pews is the fact they do drop quite nice loot at the end. Only do it if you're super confident you've got the Prophet locked down.

The Plague Doctor's a very good alternative for this fight too. She can blight the Propet with plague grenade and clear up his own blight with her cure. If you decide not to use her, make sure to bring plenty of antivenom for this fight (not normally needed much in the Ruins) because at later levels the Prophet's blight does do a lot.

Suggested team

• Hellion w/ Iron Swan and Adrenaline Rush
  
• MAA w/ Defender and Bolster
  
• Occultist w/ Vulnerability Hex, Abyssal Artillery and Wyrd
  
• Arbalest w/ Sniper Shot and Battlefield Bandage

Things to avoid

Leper obviously, and the BH isn't a great deal of use either. The Crusader too, unless you've got more than one and the right trinkets to make the Holy Lance wombo combo work. As good an ability as it is, don't use MAA's Rampart during the fight because it will stop Hellion's Iron Swan from working.

The Formless Flesh

Overview

http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Flesh

DoTs. As many as you can bring. That is all.

Behaviour

The Flesh is an Eldritch type. It consists of four different things in each rank, which all get one attack. Each thing has different resistances, but very generally they are weak to blight, debuffs and bleed, have middling resistance to stun and have high PROT.

At the beginning of each turn the Flesh shapeshifts so something different appears in each rank. Each part has a particular attack: the head thing bites, doing heavy melee damage and causing bleed, the spine thing hits, doing medium melee damage and causing stun, the heart thing heals itself, and the butt thing does something unspeakable which does heavy ranged damage and causes blight. The only part of it which doesn't boast considerable PROT is the heart bit.

Later iterations

At later levels the head and butt target two heroes at the same time. The bleed and blight it causes is also much more serious.

Strategy

The Formless Flesh defies a fixed strategy to focus down a particular rank over and over, because it constantly shapeshifts. Its weak spot (the heart) may not even appear, let alone appear in a rank where you can hit it freely. Moreover, if it DOES appear it will be healing itself generously, whilst its other parts wall direct attacks pretty effectively.

For this reason, you need to exploit the fact that it is all one monster by stacking as much blight and bleed as you possibly can on it. The Hellion and HM are selected here because not only can they cause bleed on most ranks they can hit any rank for fairly heavy damage, so you can rail on the heart if it does put in an appearance. PD is a no-brainer; plague grenade every round on the back two ranks, except when you need her to cure blight/bleed. If you've got it, give her Tough Ring; she's not going to be using direct damage anyway.

The last slot is up to you. This is actually the one boss fight Jester does really well in, boosting the whole party with Battle Ballad and then stacking loads of bleed on the Flesh with Harvest. The problem is fitting him into a party composition where he's particularly effective (rank 3) without losing either the PD or a healer. As for the healer themselves, I've chosen Occultist again because of his Eldritch bonuses (equip him with the eldritch incense trinket), but Vestal is a perfectly reasonable option.

Suggested team

• Hellion w/ If It Bleeds, Wicked Slice and Iron Swan
  
• Houndmaster w/ Harry, Target Whistle and Hound Rush
  
• Occultist w/ Wyrd, Sacrificial Stab and Abyssal Artillery
  
• Plague Doctor w/ Noxious Blast, Battlefield Cure and Plague Grenade

Things to avoid

Remember to bring plenty of blight and bleed cure to this boss fight, even if you bring PD; this thing is pretty damn good at stacking DoTs itself. Generally speaking trying to brute-force Formless Flesh won't work. It's too good at soaking up damage.

The Drowned Crew

Overview

This is not dissimilar to the Necromancer fight. You need someone to keep a reappearing skeleton down whilst everyone else concentrates on the main guy, whilst he/it/they try and build your stress as much as possible. A similar kind of strategy should work.

Behaviour

The Crew are an Unholy type, and get three moves per round. They have fairly high bleed resistance, medium stun resistance, low blight and debuff resistance, and no PROT, as long as the anchorman hasn't got hold of someone. The anchorman meanwhile has heavy resistances (except to stun) and a large PROT boost.

At the start of a turn where there is no anchorman, the Crew's first move will be to use All Hands On Deck to summon him. At the end of a turn where this is an anchorman, he will anchor the hero in rank 1. This has the effect of completely healing the anchorman, causing stress to that hero every tick, prevents that hero from moving, and giving the Crew a significant PROT and resistance boost as well as health regen. The anchorman loses his own resistances and PROT.

Meanwhile the Crew uses a single target stress attack, a debuff attack and a single target ranged attack which causes bleed.

Later iterations

All Hands on Deck gains a chance of shuffling the hero it targets.

Strategy

You need a strategy to render Mr. Subskeltal ineffectual. At L1 and L3, this is as straightforward as bringing that Unholy Slayer Ring equipped Crusader you used to beat down on the Necromancer, and hitting the the anchorman hard every time he appears. The Crew get a lot of moves, but as long as you didn't rock up to fight them with a lot of stress already they're pretty ineffectual as long as subskeltal is kept down. Don't bother attacking the Crew themselves if the anchorman's got someone, they'll completely wall it with the increased PROT and health regen.

At L5 however, beatsticking the anchorman stops being effective as he absorbs too much damage, and you need to play a bit smarter. Houndmaster's Guard + dodge trinkets can be used on your frontline unit to hopefully stop him getting ahold of anyone at all. Otherwise, his low stun resist can be exploited. Use Graverobber's shadow fade, and then have her lunge forward on the next turn. Her boosted dodge should be enough, again, for the anchorman to miss her.

It doesn't matter too much if he does, eventually, grab someone; what matters is he's not getting to do it every turn, so the rest of your team is getting the opportunity to whittle down the Crew. Plague Doctor is standard for the Cove and stacking blight on the Crew works. All Hands on Deck's shuffle means that whatever team you take must be able to get back into formation reasonably easy. Again Crusader's great for this, because Holy Lance does bonus damage to Unholy if he's forced to the back row.

Suggested team

• Crusader w/ Smite, Inspiring Cry and Holy Lance
  
• Graverobber w/ Shadow Fade, Lunge and Toxin Trickery
  
• PD w/ Noxious Blast, Incision and Battlefield Cure
  
• Vestal w/ Divine Comfort and Dazzling Light

Things to avoid

Watch out for trinkets that decrease stress resist, this boss uses a lot of stress attacks. Make sure most of your team can hit rank 1, so you never have to deal with the anchorman for long. Because of its chance to shuffle your line-up later on, be careful of teams/trinkets that need a certain formation to function.

Vvulf

Overview

Vvulf has a chance of appearing after week 20 if you have four L5-or-better heroes available. The longer he doesn't show once those conditions are met, the better the chance will be. He appears as a town event that you can either turn down or agree to. Turning it down will destroy two hamlet upgrades.

A recent change has stopped Vvulf from turning up more than once. Which is good, because he's arguably the toughest boss in the game, Darkest Dungeon inclusive. He does drop a nice trinket though, so the event is worth doing.

Behaviour

Vvulf gets his own mini-dungeon, first and foremost. It's always the same and will always be scouted, similarly to the Darkest Dungeon. The side-paths lead to treasure guarded by more bandits, if you're feeling confident.

Vvulf is human and gets 2 moves per turn. If barrel o' bombs is up, he will always use Bombs Away, which works similarly to Prophet's prognostication; the rank marked will take very heavy damage once the turn is up. The barrel can be destroyed, but it has riposte permanently active so will hurt the hero if they don't OHK it.

Vvulf can resummon the barrel, as well as bandits, with his other moves. These will either place guard on a foe, or stun a hero.

Later iterations

Vvulf only ever shows up if you've got four top tier heroes, and you shouldn't use lower level heroes unless you want them to die.

Strategy

You should first seriously consider what is more important to you at the time - four high-levelled heroes, or two building upgrades. If you don't have four level 6 champions ready and waiting specifically for this boss, I would think about the other options, because generally speaking All That Money You Spent Getting Those Idiots That Far > Almost Anything Else. To be clear on this - Vvulf is on a par with any Darkest Dungeon level, and he will paste the first four heroes you get to L5, if that's all you have. In fact he's worse, because you don't get the opportunity to camp up against him.

What you can do is block Vvulf by sending four chumps straight off the wagon, and then immediately quitting the quest. Like Darkest Dungeon this will kill one of them - but the hamlet is spared and hey, they didn't cost anything, right? Until you've got a Vvulf-killing team ready and assembled this is honestly the best way to go. Just always have four level 0s waiting to take the hit.

In order to take on Vvulf properly, you first need to reach him. Bring every shovel and bandage available, as well as a fair amount of herbs and holy water. The amount of bleed and debuffs the brigands cause is real.

Once you do find him, you need two elements: a Guarder, and heavy duty healing. Like the Prophet his worst ability is his nuke, but that can be countered with Man-at-Arms and/or dodge build Houndmaster. Even without that though, the bandits he summons cause horrible amounts of damage and he crits pretty much all the time. This is why you need healbot Vestal at the back - make sure she's got tome of holy healing or her scroll trinket, she isn't going to be doing much else.

Hellion is once again recommended as your front-liner, as she can heal off bleed and can cause bleed herself, which is helpful thanks to Vvulf constantly using his own guard to boost PROT. The last slot is more personal preference. Bounty Hunter does extra damage vs. humans, however his stress heal and bleeds make Jester also a decent choice for this one. Make sure one of them has a Manslayer's Ring, and bring the Bleed Amulet if you've got it.

Suggested team

• Hellion w/ If It Bleeds and Ardenaline Rush
  
• MAA w/ Defender, Bolster and Rampart
  
• Houndmaster w/ Guard Dog, Cry Havoc and Hound's Harry
  
• Vestal w/ Divine Grace and Judgment

Things to avoid

You really need that Guard. Trying to destroy the barrel each turn is a mug's game, and because of everything else this boss has got going you cannot rely on tanking the bombs.

The Shuffling Horror

Overview

It's our friend from the intro! The name of the thing is actually a hint. You need a team that can cope with being constantly moved around.

Behaviour

The Shuffling Horror is an Eldritch type, takes up three spaces and gets two moves per turn. It appears with a Cultist Priest in row four; if the Priest is dead one of its moves will be to resummon him. It otherwise targets two heroes with a bleed attack, or shuffles the entire party. It has high resistance to stun, fairly high resistance to blight, and low resistance to bleed and debuff.

Strategy

This is relatively straightforward, as long as you come with a team who can put up with the shuffling shenanigans and can weather the annoying priest and the dungeon beforehand. Obviously don't try and kill the priest, Plague Doctor or Bounty Hunter can both do a good job keeping him stunned most of the time whilst everyone else piles into the Horror. Crusader's a good choice for front line duty thanks to Holy Lance, and the fact he does extra damage against Rapturous Cultists. Highwayman, Grave Robber and Houndmaster are all good shouts thanks to their being incredibly flexible (although note Horror will be resistant to GR's trademark Shadow Fade strategy).

The only real conundrum is who to take as your healer. I would save any Vestals you have and bring Occultist, because his Stab makes him not-useless if he's dragged to the front (put Eldritch Incense on him, for this and every Darkest Dungeon you bring one on).

Suggested team

• Crusader w/ Smite, Inspiring Cry and Holy Lance
  
• Highwayman w/ Dueler's Advance, Pistol Shot and Point Blank Shot
  
• Occultist w/ Wyrd, Stab, Vuln Hex and Abyssal Artillery
  
• Plague Doctor w/ Stunning Gas, Battlefield Heal, Noxious Gas and Incision

Things to avoid

Leper has no place in *any* of the first three Darkest Dungeons in my view, and this one is probably the worst of all for him. Equally Arbalest will struggle. Try and save Hellions for later floors, since her move forward is poor.

The Templars

Overview

This is probably the toughest floor, at least if you know what the lay-out of the third is. It involves a trinket handicap that has to be worked around, and not one but three gruelling boss fights. You need heroes who can weather damage.

Behaviour

The Templars are Eldritch/Beast types, and there are four different types. The Gladiator and Sniper get 1 move per turn and are only concerned with attacking. The Impaler and Warlord get 2 moves and use Revelation every other turn. Revelation does untenable HP and stress damage to any hero not holding the torch trinket. They all use a heavy damage move against the front two rows, they all have a blighting attack and they all have a single target attack which forces the target back and stuns. They are moderately resistant to stun and blight, weak to bleed and debuff.

Strategy

The dungeon is laid out into three wings arranged around a single ring. The boss room in the west wing is to the furthest south, in the north wing it is to the furthest north, and in the east wing it is to the furthest south. My strategy for camping is to travel clockwise around the map, use the first camp before the second boss fight, the second some time before the third (obviously the situation changes if you get unlucky and need a heal bad).

Your team has to be carefully selected and trinketed, because you only get three torches and thus one of your guys is vulnerable to Revelation. I think Man-at-Arms is an absolute must for this dungeon; not only can he guard whoever goes without, he can weather damage better than almost any other hero, which is key for this fight. Houndmaster is also a great choice, not just for his own guard but for the fact he does extra damage against Beasts (Polyps and Flesh Hounds are also this type). If you do use HM give him Wilbur's Flag to further boost his dodging credentials.

Given a Book of Healing or similar Vestal is the best healer, and for this dungeon that is essential. The last slot is more flexible. Bounty Hunter can play off HM's mark but is fragile - having Vvulf's Tassle available might tip the balance in his favour for you. With boosted dodge Grave Robber is a good candidate for the torch-less role, but will leave your team short of raw power. Crusader and Hellion can both weather damage well, and Hellion can heal off blight. Whoever you put in the front row will benefit a lot from Crew's Bell.

Suggested team

• Man-at-Arms w/ Defender, Bolster and Rampart
  
• Bounty Hunter w/ Collect Bounty, Flashbang and Finish Him
  
• Vestal w/ Divine Comfort and Judgment
  
• Houndmaster w/ Guard Dog, Cry Havoc, Whistle and Hound's Rush

Things to avoid

If you don't bring a good Guarder you'll be really up against it in this mission, you won't stay lucky forever. Do not forget the blight cure for this mission whatever you do.

The Mammoth Cyst

Overview

The game reckons this is the toughest level in the game. It only is if you don't know where the boss room is and you don't have a well-prepared team. You shouldn't need all of those logs, promise!

Behaviour

The Mammoth Cyst is more of a mob than a boss, as it appears repeatedly throughout this level as well as in the boss chamber. It is Eldritch/Beast in type, has two moves per turn and always appears with a White Cell Stalk behind it. If the Stalk is dead Cyst will spend its next move summoning it.

The Cyst has a ranged attack which causes stress and a melee attack which causes blight, and may target two heroes at once. Once its health is below half it can also use a regenerate/buff move. Meanwhile the White Cell Stalk acts once per turn, can move a hero, heal and buff the Cyst, or use its signature ability Teleport. This immediately ends the battle and transports your party to a peripheral room somewhere in the dungeon (which may also contain a fight). The Cyst has a PROT stat and otherwise moderate resistances across the board.

The likelihood of the Stalk using Teleport goes up the longer it has been active, starting at about 5% in its opening turn. The Cyst and Stalk do not heal if the battle ends via Teleport. Their health and statuses remain the same as when you left.

Strategy

This floor and enemy is designed to drive you completely mad, but it's actually fairly straightforward once you know where to go. From the entrance room go EAST, EAST, SOUTH, SOUTH, SOUTH, EAST. This will get you to the boss chamber with a minimum of encounters.

As for the Cyst - your key players here are Plague Doctor and Hellion. With Blasphemous Vial and Blinding Gas PD has a very good chance of stunning not just the Stalk but the Cyst as well, giving you time to hit them as you please. With Iron Swan, Hellion can kill the Stalk almost at will. Both carry blight and bleed, which is extremely useful against the PROT stat of the Cyst. Occultist is a no-brainer for healing duty. Bounty Hunter, Abomination or HWM can all slip reliably into slot 2.

Try and make sure the Stalk is never active after about three turns of being up. It's much better to waste a turn killing it than to waste who knows how long trudging back to where you were.

Suggested team

• Hellion w/ Iron Swan, Adrenaline Boost and If It Bleeds
  
• Abomination w/ standard
  
• Occultist w/ Stab, Artillery, Weakening Curse and Wyrd
  
• Plague Doctor w/ Blinding Gas, Noxious Gas, Plague Grenade and Cure

Things to avoid

You really need to be able to hit rank 4 hard to prevent Teleport. If you do get Teleported, try and head back to the routes you've already cleared even if this takes you a longer way around. When monsters don't drop loot it's simply better to avoid them altogether.

The Heart of Darkness

Overview

This is more like a "victory" lap than anything. A team that can feasibly hit any row hard will triumph.

Behaviour

Heart of Darkness has four forms in all, some of them Eldritch/Human and others a unique type. It starts off with four identical beings in each row. The being in the back row is invincible, the other three are vulnerable to pretty much everything. The copies have a damage/stress attack, the back enemy has a heal it uses when it isn't summoning more of itself. As the front three are destroyed, they are replaced mostly by identical copies but occasionally by an imperfect copy. Once 5 imperfect copies have been destroyed, the second form is revealed.

The second form moves from row to row each round, with all the other rows filled by invulnerable space. It attacks with full party heavy stress and bleed attack.

The third form doesn't do anything except cast blight on the whole team. Attacking it in any way heals the hero, but also places blight on them.

The fourth form has a heavy stress attack, a heavy damage attack which causes bleed and a dual blighting/stunning ability, however its trademark ability forces you to choose one of your heroes to OHK. It does this twice during the battle, and it can't be blocked by stun or anything else.

Strategy

The final boss does pretty much anything and everything, but none of it with any great lethalness until its very last form. As long as you bring all the blight, bleed and debuff cure available you should be alright. Almost all of its forms are vulnerable to stunning - taking advantage of that is helpful.

One thing you should think about when putting together your team is making sure that, when two heroes are removed from it, the two that remain can still function well. You probably want to keep your two heaviest hitters, because no healer does particularly well in row 2.

I've offered the original team for funsies but really, it's as effective as anything that can be put together.

Suggested team

• Crusader w/ Smite, Inspiring Cry and Holy Lance
  
• HWM w/ Open Vein, PBS, Wicked Slice and Pistol Shot
  
• Plague Doctor w/ Blinding Gas, Cure, Noxious Gas and Incision
  
• Vestal w/ Dazzling Light, Divine Grace, Judgment, Divine Comfort

Things to avoid

Nothing much. If you've got this far, you have the know-how to kick this thing's butt pretty easily.

[Denai Atricus]

for the brigand 16 pounder, the effectiveness of dual shieldbreaker cannot be stressed enough. the consistent damage of pierce will far out weigh the lower damage output. I brought a vestral for stun and heal and a grave robber for pickaxe but even though i won i would have done better with a 3/4 slot hero that can one hit the pyro.

[Mox]

Tried to sacrifice a weak hero to delay Vvulf and he was just waiting for the next bunch of suckers the very next turn. Maybe it's just a Stygian thing, but don't try this - you'll waste a hero and a week!

[HeartOfDarkness7]

Also, it appears that Vvulf does appear more than once if you don't kill him.

[HeartOfDarkness7]

Please update to include the shrieker.

[CrowMauler]

Gray88 Dismas and Reynauld

[Nuculear Baggins.]

I have had success against the brigand pounders with GR's Pick to the face. It's armor piercing makes the cannon itself go down real fast. The caveat that while she is on cannon breaking duty whole fight, you got only three shots at the lighter. Shouldn't be too hard with, I had Hellion and arbalest to kill the lighter and then either take out a bandit or join the cannon clonking fun.
Heck, GR's pick makes attacking Hag's Cauldron semi-viable move too.. But only if you're in pickle and really need to save whoever got chucked in.

[Gray88]

I am up to DD4 on a deathless run, what do people think is the best 2 man group to beat the heart?

[coldgarden]

nice guide

[cmd1095]

Would love an addition for the shrieker, but very nice guide, very helpful

[Reef]

Hmm would be nice if you add the thing from the stars