How NOT to play your first veteran dungeon

[Mr. G]

Well after ages of turtling my way along in DD I finally braved a veteran dungeon with all lvl 3 characters.
https://youtu.be/CwKLGzGLhds
It did not go well. Any tips on what I could do differently would be much appreciated.

[TheBoredGal]

First of all, Provisioning. Bring 16 food on medium missions, bring 4 shovels, 12 torches. Other provisons you should take depends on the area, Ill let you find out that one.

Veteran missions, these missions can be a kick in the ♥♥♥♥. A few mistakes I saw that could make your chances much greater are the following
-Stress levels, your stress on people are way too high, even with a jester in tow.
-Armour and Weapons, Having lvl 3 A and W are required to basically have a chance of survival.
-Skills, Like A W's they need to be rank 3 in everything to stand a chance.
-Diesese, I'm not sure what the illnesses are but if they are a massive stat downgrade like most of the STI's in the game you need to adress that before entering, but if it''s like bullimic then you don't have to worry unless you intend of healing with that charcter during camping.

This should help a bit and if you need anymore advice just ask, these moron over here has beaten NG+, not braging just saying cause I got experience.

-TheBoredGuy

[Mr. G]

Originally posted by TheBoredGuy733:

First of all, Provisioning. Bring 16 food on medium missions, bring 4 shovels, 12 torches. Other provisons you should take depends on the area, Ill let you find out that one.

Veteran missions, these missions can be a kick in the ♥♥♥♥. A few mistakes I saw that could make your chances much greater are the following
-Stress levels, your stress on people are way too high, even with a jester in tow.
-Armour and Weapons, Having lvl 3 A and W are required to basically have a chance of survival.
-Skills, Like A W's they need to be rank 3 in everything to stand a chance.
-Diesese, I'm not sure what the illnesses are but if they are a massive stat downgrade like most of the STI's in the game you need to adress that before entering, but if it''s like bullimic then you don't have to worry unless you intend of healing with that charcter during camping.

This should help a bit and if you need anymore advice just ask, these moron over here has beaten NG+, not braging just saying cause I got experience.

-TheBoredGuy

Thanks for the explicit and clear feedback. I will give this a try. I had no idea what the average skill/equipment requirement was. So maybe I'm not really turtling at all then. :)

[TheBoredGal]

Originally posted by Ninja Pirate:

Originally posted by TheBoredGuy733:

First of all, Provisioning. Bring 16 food on medium missions, bring 4 shovels, 12 torches. Other provisons you should take depends on the area, Ill let you find out that one.

Veteran missions, these missions can be a kick in the ♥♥♥♥. A few mistakes I saw that could make your chances much greater are the following
-Stress levels, your stress on people are way too high, even with a jester in tow.
-Armour and Weapons, Having lvl 3 A and W are required to basically have a chance of survival.
-Skills, Like A W's they need to be rank 3 in everything to stand a chance.
-Diesese, I'm not sure what the illnesses are but if they are a massive stat downgrade like most of the STI's in the game you need to adress that before entering, but if it''s like bullimic then you don't have to worry unless you intend of healing with that charcter during camping.

This should help a bit and if you need anymore advice just ask, these moron over here has beaten NG+, not braging just saying cause I got experience.

-TheBoredGuy

Thanks for the explicit and clear feedback. I will give this a try. I had no idea what the average skill/equipment requirement was. So maybe I'm not really turtling at all then. :)

It's all good mate I made the same mistake before, It's what Darkest Dungeon is about. Trial, Error and RNG, My three favorite things.

[p.sahlstroem]

You got out without losing any heroes, that's a draw+ :-)

A few tips on what could have been done better:
1. Way to much stress going in
2. Strange positioning. I prefer to have the jester in the 1st row, and kill of one enemy with finale the 1st round and then have him stab his way forward. And I prefer having the occultist in the 3rd row so that he can stab occasionally
3. You let your light level become to low. I'm a chicken so I keep mine at 75+ at all times
4. Keys are very usefull provisions. Use them for instance on Heirloom chests

But 4 of them fishdudes in a veteran mission with lvl 3 heroes is pretty harsh, so don't get discouraged :-)

[Dr. Uncredible]

On top of previous notes I´d like to add:

1. Fishmen have high bleed resist, so bleed attacks aren´t too useful in the Cove, meaning the jester couldn´t live up to his full potential.
2. Odd skill set up on the Bounty Hunter, he was in rank 1 where two of his skills couldn´t be used. I would recommend uppercut for a rank 1 BH.
3. You spread your damage out a lot, fishfolk hit like trucks, so you want as few of them around to do hurty stuff as possible, better to focus down single targets than to have many wounded doing full damage.

[Mr. G]

I've been worrying I spread damage too much. Thanks for the feedback. I'll see if I can be a bit more successful on my next go round.

[Rennacius]

I will stress was has been kinda expressed above: don't hit many targets if you can focus on one enemy and kill it, be it the one with the lowest amount of health or the big hitter but that you calculate you can kill in one turn. Even with 1 HP a monster hits with full force, so focus damage on one and try to stun the rest if you can.

[Arcangelo]

Ok, let's see:

- You chose a difficult area for your first experience in a Veteran Dungeon. A 100% Room Battles Medium Cove is asking to get mauled.

- Provisions: buy way more. I usually take 24 Food on Medium, but that depends on the area.
16 Torches, 3-4 Shovels for the Cove, 4+ Herbs for the Corals (they remove Negative Quirks), some bandages if I don't have a Plague Doctor in the party (which is rare, because PD and Occultist in the Cove are great). 2 Keys, 0-1 Holy Water, no Antivenom.

- Bring lvl 3 weapons/armours/skills. If you can't, try at least to have Armours and Skills or just the Skills (it will be hard though).

- Team Composition: not so good. First, they were too Stressed, even with a Jester in the party, never start a run with 30+ Stress heroes. Occultist should stay in rank 3 to use him efficiently. Jester is not so useful in the Cove. It would be a better choice to keep him in rank 4. His Bleed Skills are almost useless in the Cove.

- Skills: Your Bounty Hunter has 2 Skills he can't use from rank 1. Huge mistake. You're crippling yourself badly. Jester should have Solo and Finale to face the Cove.

- Trinkets: I don't like your choice of trinkets for the Bounty Hunter (lowering his Damage with a Tough Ring just to give him more PROT is not a good choice. He is a glass cannon with great crowd control skills, don't decrease his Damage.). Jester is "ok". Abomination has only 1 trinket and Occultist has zero. ZERO xD.

- General gameplay: ok, many of your mistakes depended on the things I discussed above; still, you must learn which enemies prioritize first and how to focus fire. You're spreading your damage too much, it doesn't work. Every enemy you don't kill or stun will hurt you. Use your Stuns. Kill their backrows first. Don't use the Abomination's Vomit to Blight the enemies, it's a niche skill, useful only in an handful of situations. Stun with his chain. Learn when it's time to heal. You healed too much with your Occultist, while you should've used Debuffs or Stab.
You should've camped almost at the start, after your first battle, because your heroes were too Stressed. Kill always Shamans first, then Warriors, then anything else. Be careful though, Drowned Thralls must die within 2 round or they explode.


Hope this helps, I'm not judging you, just want to help. Good luck next time ;)

Ps: next time try bringing a Plague Doctor with Stuns and Battlefield Medicine. She shines in the Cove.

[Mr. G]

Originally posted by Arcangelo:

Ok, let's see:

- You chose a difficult area for your first experience in a Veteran Dungeon. A 100% Room Battles Medium Cove is asking to get mauled.

- Provisions: buy way more. I usually take 24 Food on Medium, but that depends on the area.
16 Torches, 3-4 Shovels for the Cove, 4+ Herbs for the Corals (they remove Negative Quirks), some bandages if I don't have a Plague Doctor in the party (which is rare, because PD and Occultist in the Cove are great). 2 Keys, 0-1 Holy Water, no Antivenom.

- Bring lvl 3 weapons/armours/skills. If you can't, try at least to have Armours and Skills or just the Skills (it will be hard though).

- Team Composition: not so good. First, they were too Stressed, even with a Jester in the party, never start a run with 30+ Stress heroes. Occultist should stay in rank 3 to use him efficiently. Jester is not so useful in the Cove. It would be a better choice to keep him in rank 4. His Bleed Skills are almost useless in the Cove.

- Skills: Your Bounty Hunter has 2 Skills he can't use from rank 1. Huge mistake. You're crippling yourself badly. Jester should have Solo and Finale to face the Cove.

- Trinkets: I don't like your choice of trinkets for the Bounty Hunter (lowering his Damage with a Tough Ring just to give him more PROT is not a good choice. He is a glass cannon with great crowd control skills, don't decrease his Damage.). Jester is "ok". Abomination has only 1 trinket and Occultist has zero. ZERO xD.

- General gameplay: ok, many of your mistakes depended on the things I discussed above; still, you must learn which enemies prioritize first and how to focus fire. You're spreading your damage too much, it doesn't work. Every enemy you don't kill or stun will hurt you. Use your Stuns. Kill their backrows first. Don't use the Abomination's Vomit to Blight the enemies, it's a niche skill, useful only in an handful of situations. Stun with his chain. Learn when it's time to heal. You healed too much with your Occultist, while you should've used Debuffs or Stab.
You should've camped almost at the start, after your first battle, because your heroes were too Stressed. Kill always Shamans first, then Warriors, then anything else. Be careful though, Drowned Thralls must die within 2 round or they explode.


Hope this helps, I'm not judging you, just want to help. Good luck next time ;)

Ps: next time try bringing a Plague Doctor with Stuns and Battlefield Medicine. She shines in the Cove.

Thank you for the detailed feedback I will give it a go. Hopefully I can upload a successful medium run soon.