What a is a good crew/strategy for the champion lvl weald?

[Mr. G]

I thought I was ready for a champion Dungeon. I had a crew of all lvl 6 heroes, with lvl 5 skills, max weapons, and nearly maxed armor.

https://youtu.be/FhMyMmNDOok

Needless to say things did not go well. I managed to make it about 2/3 of the way to the hag, but then I let stress get a hold of my occultist. As you guys all know when your healer gets afflicted (mashochistic) and won't heal your dungeon run is done.

Who do you like to take for weald?
Also do you guys have any dungeon strategy tips for champion dungeons in general?

[Solo Death]

Debuff's are your friend. Particularly for the Giants, you NEED either a MAA with defender and/or Leper/Occultist to debuff the ♥♥♥♥ out of their damage. The Giant can literally one shot any character in the game if he crits with Treebranch Smackdown so you really do have to be able to deal with it, the rest of the dungeon is basically secondary in comparison.

This all being said, you also really need to be able to deal with blight so a PD is really useful, plus in the base game, you can blight everything there as long as you have a blasphemous vial.

Personal favorite composition for basically every Champion dungeon you can think of that isn't a boss fight is, back to front, Vestal, HM (for stress healing and damage), BH/HWM/GR, MAA. MAA usually defends rank 2 but can switch to the back line when needed, GR/HWM/BH always does damage, HM usually does damage but stress heals when necessary, Vestal pretty much always heals. It's particularly useful in the weald because the more dangerous enemies, Fungal Clawers and Corrupted Giants, are basically nullified with Defender.

[Mr. G]

Originally posted by Solo Death:

Debuff's are your friend. Particularly for the Giants, you NEED either a MAA with defender and/or Leper/Occultist to debuff the ♥♥♥♥ out of their damage. The Giant can literally one shot any character in the game if he crits with Treebranch Smackdown so you really do have to be able to deal with it, the rest of the dungeon is basically secondary in comparison.

This all being said, you also really need to be able to deal with blight so a PD is really useful, plus in the base game, you can blight everything there as long as you have a blasphemous vial.

Personal favorite composition for basically every Champion dungeon you can think of that isn't a boss fight is, back to front, Vestal, HM (for stress healing and damage), BH/HWM/GR, MAA. MAA usually defends rank 2 but can switch to the back line when needed, GR/HWM/BH always does damage, HM usually does damage but stress heals when necessary, Vestal pretty much always heals. It's particularly useful in the weald because the more dangerous enemies, Fungal Clawers and Corrupted Giants, are basically nullified with Defender.

I may need to get those characters leveled up. Thanks for the crew tips. I will give it a try.

[timmy]

The classic Weald combo is Arb - Occ - HM - BH. Marking to kill giants fast, stuns to stop backliners from marking, two marking debuffs that lower prot, Occultist gets +dmg to almost all enemies, and Arbalest's heal buff helps with low heals from Occultist.

[LaserGuy]

MaA is the hard counter to the Champion Weald. Put him in Rank 1, guard the person in rank 2. Will render the fungals and giants basically harmless. Doesn't hurt to give him a trinket with decent bleed/blight resistance buff (eg. Cleansing Crystal), but not essential. Protection ring isn't bad either.

(Note that the giants can only Treebranch Smackdown ranks 1-2 and the fungal shamblers can only attack ranks 1-2. If a giant shuffles your party, you should reshuffle your MaA back up as quickly as possible on the subsequent round even if it means wasting a few turns).

[Mr. G]

Originally posted by timmy:

The classic Weald combo is Arb - Occ - HM - BH. Marking to kill giants fast, stuns to stop backliners from marking, two marking debuffs that lower prot, Occultist gets +dmg to almost all enemies, and Arbalest's heal buff helps with low heals from Occultist.

That was exactly who I took. I just played poorly.

[Zadavaka]

This is how i do it. My party is Arb - Occ - MaA - Jes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgV3W5QfYsY

[Mr. G]

Originally posted by Zadavaka:

This is how i do it. My party is Arb - Occ - MaA - Jes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgV3W5QfYsY

Thanks for the share.

[dnqbob]

Bring man-at-arm or a strong stun armed Hound Master.

[Mv]

There is so much wrong in that video that it hurts to watch.

[Sunwave]

This was not a problem of your party. This was a problem of your choices during the battles. Ok, time to do some serious ripping apart of your skills. XD (all in good nature, though I usually sound a bit.... negative. Sorry in a advance)

One important tip for ALL dungeons from now on: Focus fire. Do NOT waste your attacks spreading out over two or more targets unless you kill at least one of the multiple targets. Choose a target, and kill that target, and THEN move to the next target. You can stun/move stuff, but don't do damage on multiples. You will take unnecessary damage and stress.

First encounter, immediately you start with mark on one of the tough enemies, then you spread damage with hounds harry, then you put a debuff on the back row witch. You hardly did anything to kill them. (though you did use the mark next turn, which was good).
Next round you start healing with one of your two damage dealers, while the enemy does more damage than you can heal. Basically you're just trying to die slow instead of quick by doing that. Kill them first, *then* heal a bit during the last enemy if you can.

Second encounter, you start with hound's harry again. Bad. It is for inflicting bleed, but the doggies have little health so bleed is kind of useless. Just do the more damaging attack on a single target. You will probably kill them, or almost kill them (and it might inflict bleed nonetheless). Second round, instead of killing a dog with your arbalist, you try to heal again which will only end up as a net loss anyway.

Third encounter was mostly fine.

Fourth encounter, similar things as the first. Spread out damage. Your first kill was your last guy (girl) in the second round. The mushroom had 1 health. NOW is when you should do a spread damage attack (the arrow rain thing would have killed him) but instead you do a focused attack on the 1HP guy.

So my tips in short:
- Kill stress dealers first (or other back-row low-health enemies)
- Focus-fire. Don't spread damage. (Unless spread damage will make a kill too)
- Don't heal if they do more damage than you can heal, unless death's door.
- KEEP TORCH ABOVE 75 (you didn't at first, which gives monsters +crit ridiculously).

[Lauleyhn]

Nice hints. Would be a shame if someone would appear shortly before the boss room and stress out your party.
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1089669-darkest-dungeon

[Mr. G]

Originally posted by Sunwave:

This was not a problem of your party. This was a problem of your choices during the battles. Ok, time to do some serious ripping apart of your skills. XD (all in good nature, though I usually sound a bit.... negative. Sorry in a advance)

One important tip for ALL dungeons from now on: Focus fire. Do NOT waste your attacks spreading out over two or more targets unless you kill at least one of the multiple targets. Choose a target, and kill that target, and THEN move to the next target. You can stun/move stuff, but don't do damage on multiples. You will take unnecessary damage and stress.

First encounter, immediately you start with mark on one of the tough enemies, then you spread damage with hounds harry, then you put a debuff on the back row witch. You hardly did anything to kill them. (though you did use the mark next turn, which was good).
Next round you start healing with one of your two damage dealers, while the enemy does more damage than you can heal. Basically you're just trying to die slow instead of quick by doing that. Kill them first, *then* heal a bit during the last enemy if you can.

Second encounter, you start with hound's harry again. Bad. It is for inflicting bleed, but the doggies have little health so bleed is kind of useless. Just do the more damaging attack on a single target. You will probably kill them, or almost kill them (and it might inflict bleed nonetheless). Second round, instead of killing a dog with your arbalist, you try to heal again which will only end up as a net loss anyway.

Third encounter was mostly fine.

Fourth encounter, similar things as the first. Spread out damage. Your first kill was your last guy (girl) in the second round. The mushroom had 1 health. NOW is when you should do a spread damage attack (the arrow rain thing would have killed him) but instead you do a focused attack on the 1HP guy.

So my tips in short:
- Kill stress dealers first (or other back-row low-health enemies)
- Focus-fire. Don't spread damage. (Unless spread damage will make a kill too)
- Don't heal if they do more damage than you can heal, unless death's door.
- KEEP TORCH ABOVE 75 (you didn't at first, which gives monsters +crit ridiculously).

This is solid feedback no offense taken. Keep it coming as it will help me survive this game. I want to actually take out a champion boss and that will require me to play a lot smarter.

[Panfilo]

Weald can be challenging because high priority targets (dogs and witches) are pretty fast with high dodge, which can wreck a team in a few bad rounds. You really need to focus them down like people mentioned.

The other thing about Weald is unlike other dungeons where you can count on most curios needing 1 or 2 items Weald has curio interactions for every possible item, compelling you to take antivenom, bandages, herbs, lots of shovels, etc. I would say hoard shovels if you haven't scouted all the hallways; while you could dig up a shallow grave it won't be worth it if you have a wall or two in the next several hallways that penalize you for wasting it on some loot.

[jackinthebox4]

I like to bring the abomination here. Even if he's smacked with a tree he can self-heal his wounds and some stress untransformed. Also stuns with his chain.

If your're gunning for the boss you might have to ignore curios if you don't have the right supplies. Some can add debuffs like the cove and you don't want to get your team diseased halfway through.

Also light is your friend. Above 75% before you enter a room or meet an enemy group and you'll have the best chance to get them suprised. Some trinkets synergize with high light levels especially the Sun Ring.

[Mr. G]

Originally posted by jackinthebox4:

I like to bring the abomination here. Even if he's smacked with a tree he can self-heal his wounds and some stress untransformed. Also stuns with his chain.

If your're gunning for the boss you might have to ignore curios if you don't have the right supplies. Some can add debuffs like the cove and you don't want to get your team diseased halfway through.

Also light is your friend. Above 75% before you enter a room or meet an enemy group and you'll have the best chance to get them suprised. Some trinkets synergize with high light levels especially the Sun Ring.

I like the abomination as well, I may give that a try too.