I have... No words... for death blow resist. (And also a small rant about speed)

[CarbonKnight9]

I've had a situation similar to this happen a few times now, including just barely, and I just have to talk about it/get it off my chest.

I just barely had a jester with 5 memories and really good quirks, probably the best jester I've ever had or ever will have, die to the first death blow check at a resistance encounter fight just before the oblivion rampart by the inn leading to the mountain.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "That's a darkest dungeon moment, that stuff just happens". And I agree, but there's more.
My team had speed trinkets on, everyone except leper had 7 or more speed from poultice and trinkets. The enemy plague eaters (I was in the foetor) had between 2 and 5 speed, none had more than 5 speed.
Yet all 4 of the enemies went before my entire team, and all 4 of them attacked jester (he didn't have any taunt), and he went from full hp to dead right at the beginning of combat before I could do anything.
I almost feel like we need a death armor system for heroes... Have either A. A certain amount of times you can get hit before dying, or B. Have death hp, where you have a certain amount of 'negative hp' that isn't very high and when it drops down all the way they die, or C. have 1 or 2 guaranteed chances to not die and then normal dbr comes in after that, and normal dbr would be lower than it is currently. Other systems like these might not be actually better and might be too strong even, but I am sick of losing heroes to rng and not to misplays. If I make a misplay and a hero dies, sure, that's how it works. But if I did nothing wrong, have full hp, have more speed than the enemy, and yet all the enemies go before me and all 4 of them focus one person and he instantly dies to the first death blow check which is only 25% chance to die before I can do anything, that just isn't fun.

And also, side note, the speed of heroes in this game compared to enemies, especially ordained enemies, is just sad. The only way to get ahead of them is the very small amount of speed trinkets, or poultice or some seemingly very rare inn items that aren't guaranteed to give you speed, or virtuoso jester, who is the last path in the game that gives extra speed. The speed of the heroes needs to be buffed a bit to compete, especially because hastened enemies exists and the hero's base stats weren't balanced around it, and especially after they do a jester path rework. That is all.

[CarbonKnight9]

Welp, same run, got the the oblivion rampart, exemplar goes twice before my team and does crit prelude and fall, next turn he uses crit exaltation on my occultist, then occultist died to the first death blow check from first trumpet, and then right after and pillar of sacrifice round 2 when the thing it sacrificed was about to die.
Leper then got crit down to death's door and blight, died the very next turn to first death blow check.
Flag thankfully does on his 3rd death blow check, even though he has 90% resist and he only had a slightly over 30% chance of dying on his 3rd check... but it's better than first time.

[MaZoMaN]

Backup save files.

[Bowzzer]

It's broken

[Raki]

Personally, I am not a fan of speed trinkets, because they also reduce HP. (Unless you had the highest tier one, but then your speed should have been way higher than 7) Which makes things like this more likely to happen.

I think the best way to avoid stuff like this is having a tank (or even a normal frontliner) with Breacher. With two Taunt + two Block at the start of battle, it's way harder to get oneshot like this.

Also, how many HP did you Jester have, and which Rank was he positioned? I usually position my Jester in R3, especially if he's Soloist (which has less HP). On R2, Virtuoso (+HP and +speed) is almost mandatory for me.

I understand that losing a character like this is very frustrating in the moment, but frankly, your plans with Death Armor are way overboard. That would mess with the game balance on a very fundamental level, requiring all kinds of rebalancing. It would also reward risky playstyles more, and I'd personally rather see the opposite.

I lost my favorite Hellion a while ago. She had 5 memories and had survived for half a year. (Which is a pretty long time in DD2, I dare say!) It was a sad day indeed, but that's the way it goes. And to be honest, it was my own mistake, which in a way made it even more sad. (Because I could have prevented it if I hadn't been stupid greedy)

[CarbonKnight9]

Originally posted by Raki124:

Personally, I am not a fan of speed trinkets, because they also reduce HP. (Unless you had the highest tier one, but then your speed should have been way higher than 7) Which makes things like this more likely to happen.

I think the best way to avoid stuff like this is having a tank (or even a normal frontliner) with Breacher. With two Taunt + two Block at the start of battle, it's way harder to get oneshot like this.

Also, how many HP did you Jester have, and which Rank was he positioned? I usually position my Jester in R3, especially if he's Soloist (which has less HP). On R2, Virtuoso (+HP and +speed) is almost mandatory for me.

I understand that losing a character like this is very frustrating in the moment, but frankly, your plans with Death Armor are way overboard. That would mess with the game balance on a very fundamental level, requiring all kinds of rebalancing. It would also reward risky playstyles more, and I'd personally rather see the opposite.

I lost my favorite Hellion a while ago. She had 5 memories and had survived for half a year. (Which is a pretty long time in DD2, I dare say!) It was a sad day indeed, but that's the way it goes. And to be honest, it was my own mistake, which in a way made it even more sad. (Because I could have prevented it if I hadn't been stupid greedy)

Jester was virtuoso and had the stout quirk and had eaten apples and cheese I think, so I'm pretty sure his hp was somewhere around 44, and he was in rank 3. He didn't have any speed trinkets or poultice because he's virtuoso. But 4 ordained foetor enemies, 2 of which crit, where able to bring him down and kill him even still. I had the highest tier speed trinket on occultist, and everyone else just had poultice to bring up their speed, even leper, though I was running tempest leper so the minus speed from that still made him slow. My flagellant actually had breacher, but I was considering not locking it in because it broke some team comps with hellion or leper or even man at arms where flag had to be in rank 1 now because of breacher, but before I could properly consider locking it in he lost it. I guess that's a bit of a lesson to me, breacher is too good to pass up.
Overall, I agree with your opinion on that my suggestions for dbr or death armor are overboard, but it just feels like in dd1 I could throw together a decent team that at least somewhat covered my bases and It'd be fine if I played well, but in dd2 I feel like your team has to be a lot stronger and more watertight, and I feel like the game punishes you more for trying new things and new team comps that are slightly sub optimal than dd1 did... It's still fun of course, but I just wish I could do more than what felt 'meta'. Maybe that will come with time, but I do have like 150 hours in this game I think so far, not counting leaving the game open.

I guess I should be glad to have my 5 memory pd, man at arms, and highwayman still, especially with the locked in jinx on highwayman, it works very well with the riposte playstyle.
Also, I should mention, my team for this was: Rank 4, Ritualist Occultist with weakening curse, vuln hex, wyrd, deamon's pull, and binding shadows. Rank 3, Virtuoso Jester with encore, inspiring tune, fade to black, razor's wit, and harvest. Rank 2, Maniac Flagellant with lash's gift, deathless, punish, sepsis, and more MORE. Rank 1, Tempest Leper with solemnity, chop, ruin, withstand, and bash.

[CarbonKnight9]

Note: one of the enemies was the elite sheep guy who has like 2 actions per round, so I suppose it was 5 attacks, not 4
Additional note: why the heck does that guy have 2 actions per round

Also, if you just want a normal run of the game, what's your go to confession? Because I always do cowardice when I'm just running a normal team, because I think resentment is too specialized to prefer back rank damage, and obsession and ambition are just too difficult if I'm not building a really good team, and denial is too short. I almost wish there was a way to choose your confession *after* you choose your party, not before, so you can select the act that will best fit this new team comp you want to try, but as it is now I have to reset if I want to change the confession after I have selected it

[Raki]

Wow, that's a case of very bad luck. It really looks like there's not much you could have done.

Breacher is probably my most valued quirk. I insta-lock it on tanks, and even on other characters it can be surprisingly fun. I once had this crazy Plague Doctor Surgeon, who'd jump to front every battle and oneshot enemies. :)

Anyway, other than Breacher, I also cannot think of many options to prevent a case like that. On the plus side, maybe you used up the bad luck for a decade with this. ^^

Regarding confession, I sometimes use Denial to check if some plan actually works, but as you say, it's too short. I think the boss I've killed the least is Act4. I don't think I've ever died to it yet, and I've only killed it like 3 times or something (one of those was on Stygian Blaze, at least) I should probably play it more often, now that I think of it.

I usually stick with Act 2 and 3 I guess. Act 5 takes so long, and as you mentioned, you also have to cover a lot of bases when building your team. For a few months I was running Stygian Blaze exclusively, but now I'm it up a bit more.

I agree that being able to change the confession in the Crossroads would be nice. Sometimes I log out there, and compeltely forget which Act I'm picking my team for. :D