Anybody got tips or guide recommendations for a beginner?

[Jesterofgames7712]

I ask because I'm a person who likes to have a general idea of what to do in a game at first Plus my first hour of playing this game has gone a bit unsuccessful

[Xerkie]

Radiant Mode. Always be sure to manage your gold effectively, never go overboard with any one item unless you're sure you'll need them, or you have a Town Event which makes all items free

Look up some online guides to help you, there are many informative, detailed ones which you can stumble upon easily ; I'm not too good at explaining things, so they should help you a lot.

[FroBodine]

This guide. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=386706480

It's the Darkest Dungeon bible for identifying things you find in the dungeons is a life saver. The game is already brutally tough even with this help. At least you'll know what you're getting into if you open that next chest you find.

[Yuga-Suggah]

Im going to repost a comment I said to somebody else
First off bad traits isn't that bad. They suck but its a part of the game to have characters with bad quirks or just not use characters with really bad quirks. Things like Kelpto(which steal stuff from you) is nowhere near as bad as say Weak Grip on Life which reduces death resist by 10%. The first few weeks you can replace healers or just reroll the game. It happens. Thats how the game works.

Pay attention to status buffs(mostly self inflicted like what the Leper has) and especially debuffs like poison, bleed, and stun. Make sure you kill things with low hp and those who do damage to stress. The priorities of combat in this game are kill, stun, bleed/blight, maybe heal or buff and then damage. Trust me, its very common to die from little guys more often then the bigger hp enemies/bosses.

Curios are ussually not that bad, just pay attention what items works on what items. Its important to buy the right items with the right dungeon. But if anything, bring 8 food, 2 shovels, and 6-8 torches on light dungeons.


If you really don't want to wait for a healer/occultist to show up again, you can use backer heroes. Look at the guides to find out what Im talking about.

The game is a little hard, but there are ways you can control RNG to your favor. Biggest takeaway is that you shouldn't get too attached to anything in this game. If you can get around that, the game is a lot better.

[Yal]

Always have either one dedicated healer or two people with a support healing move (e.g. the crusader's Battle Heal), you need to have heals accessible that doesn't require supplies.... aka food. The hardest enemy in this game tends to be your greed, so the less you have to rely on supplies the better :P

All curios can be interacted in with certain items to guarantee a good result, e.g. using a key on a locked display case or chest guarantees you'll bypass the trap. Generally these make sense, so be aware of that and try to memorize any new combinations you find.

Speaking of that, sometimes it's better to NOT do anything with a curio..... if you're already loaded up on loot, for instance, why risk more stress or damage for stuff you might not even be able to carry? Some curios have very situational effects, such as the books giving you a randomm quirk or possibly stress damage.... two out of three outcomes are bad in that case (negative quirk and stress).

Take stress seriously, heroes that get afflictions starts messing with your strategy and easily leads the party into ruin or at least stresses everyone else out. If things are going south, it's better to escape while you still can than to lose the entire party AND the loot.

Try to deny your enemies as many turns as possible... stunning them with a plague doctor to let your heavy hitters land an extra hit, killing one enemy at a time rather than distributing damage evenly, have enemies die from ailment damage as soon as their turn starts... generally, enemies WILL cause trouble no matter how prepared you are, so think about what can remove the threats ASAP and try to do that.

All four areas have very different enemies, and different character classes perform worse or better than others depending on that. For instance, don't bring someone all about inflicting bleeding to the Ruins, because most enemies there are skeletons and don't even have blood in the first place.


And yeah, play on Radiant Mode. It's easier, but more importantly it's less grindy, and it was easy to give up on the game due to the grind later on.

[Yuga-Suggah]

A couple more tips, because why not. Stress is a big thing in ths game. A couple things you can do reduce stress. Kill stress damagers quickly. They are ussually in the back row. The guys with the cup, the straight coat guy, and the cult woman are all stress dealers. Kill them quick!

Secondly, bring and use torches. Darkness increases stress and decreases hit rate. If you are learning the game, you really dont want to want to be in dark. Once you have some understanding of stress management, playing in darkness isnt that bad. It increases loot and you waste less money on buying stuff.

Third, after the quest, you might need to heal stress damage. Just dont waste money on people with low stress. I would say don't heal if your stress is 30 or less.

Fourth, the bar and church heal stress. You can increase their use and effectiviness using by using deeds, shields, busts, and pictures you find in the dungeons. I personally think you should build up the church because the items used in the bar(pictures and I think shields) are used for the blacksmith. The blacksmith is much MUCH more helpful.




And yeah, PLAY RADIANT MODE. It is not easy mode. Grind is a big "problem" in this game and Radiant Mode helps this a lot.

[p.sahlstroem]

And watch youtube videos of people playing, most of them are quite amusing, and it has helped me intensly knowing what to expect. The fun part comes when you are facepalming at how badly the people in some youtube videos are playing :-)

[incarnite_azurnum]

One thing I found help was to play maybe a few missions per day/whenever you want to play the game.
For other hints and tips, as many of the others have said, Stress can be the biggest killer.
70% of the battle is fought before your heroes even take a step into the dungeon. You not only need to consider your hero line up seriously, you need to consider what provisions you want to take. For beginners and during early game, you typically want to keep a healer in the line up (Vestal or Occultist).
The sin is not in being outmatched, but failing to recognise it. Retreating and forfeiting the mission are perfectly okay when it seems you can't complete the mission.

[Jesterofgames7712]

Also question another question for anybody who wants to answer

Are jester's good?
Because on paper at least they seem good

[Yal]

Originally posted by Jesterofgames7712:

Also question another question for anybody who wants to answer

Are jester's good?
Because on paper at least they seem good

They are good, but only really shine in parties that can handle being shuffled around. They work well with Grave Robbers and Highwaymen, for instance, and their stress heal + not being religious combo means they go well with Abomination parties as well to keep the stress levels manageable.

[Dolphinflav]

IMO a Jester is vital in later dungeons because of that nice stress heal. I find that there's no way to avoid the stress that the game dishes out without taking much fewer risks than normal, which could lead to either drawn out games, or afflictions.
Although any high damage/stun comp can pretty easily counter stress damaging enemies, but I don't trust the RNG enough to rely on stun and insta-kill.

[Jesterofgames7712]

Originally posted by Dolphinflavoredicecream:

IMO a Jester is vital in later dungeons because of that nice stress heal. I find that there's no way to avoid the stress that the game dishes out without taking much fewer risks than normal, which could lead to either drawn out games, or afflictions.
Although any high damage/stun comp can pretty easily counter stress damaging enemies, but I don't trust the RNG enough to rely on stun and insta-kill.

what about final and the jester's other moves?
I ask Because i'm wondering if the jester is only good at stress healing?

[Dolphinflav]

Originally posted by Jesterofgames7712:

what about final and the jester's other moves?
I ask Because i'm wondering if the jester is only good at stress healing?

Honestly I never use the Jester's other moves. I don't know if it's because I'm not using it right or what, but his finale needs him to be in the first rank, and it gives -40% damage, -30 dodge, and -10 ACC for just a decent amount of burst damage.

Usually I just go with the stress heal, battle balad, and his two bleed abilities. Sometimes I use the dirk stab if I have a comp that can easily be moved around, but that's just it. His other moves are only really effective if he's in a comp that doesn't suffer from being moved that much.
I will admit, though, that his solo has a really good debuff.

Otherwise, Jester is the one and only hero with a high single-target stress heal.
Houndmaster has a group stress heal which has a 65-66% to succeed, reaching +7 at max.
And then the Crusader has up to +10 stress heal, which is pretty good, but not desirable over his other attacks, and I could go on but you get the idea.

tl;dr
Jester is good at stress healing, both in fights, and in camps. His other pluses are group-bleed, and speed/crit buffs. Like many things, he's situational, but good in his situations.
Basically 10/10 would jester again

[Jesterofgames7712]

Originally posted by Dolphinflavoredicecream:

Originally posted by Jesterofgames7712:

what about final and the jester's other moves?
I ask Because i'm wondering if the jester is only good at stress healing?

Honestly I never use the Jester's other moves. I don't know if it's because I'm not using it right or what, but his finale needs him to be in the first rank, and it gives -40% damage, -30 dodge, and -10 ACC for just a decent amount of burst damage.

Well i think final is suppose to be used in conjucter with Solo as it puts him in the front of the party
And to also be fair I tend to Critical with final in the situations i can use it more offten than not due to it's Pretty high nearly 20% chance critical chance

Though it is a pretty risky move

[Jesterofgames7712]

Well i took out the first boss Thank's to the jesters ability to doll out bleed consistantly


and my second boss the swine prince i have no idea what to do against any tips for anybody still following this thread?

[h0b0king]

On the Swine - Just murder the guy in front. It may be worth noting how his mechanics work, he hits the targets marked by his little beloved pal, who is also the only thing controlling him and stopping him from going full on demon cleaver monster on your heroes. So Is there a way to eliminate marks? Limit enemy damage output? Redirect damage away from certain heroes to ones with say tons of Prot?