Difficulty jump for Level 5 missions

[Sapphire Bullets]

For my first game I've been playing on Radiant/"Easy" mode and I've been having an okay time. Completing most missions and almost never losing an adventurer, but I've found that compared to the jump from level 1-3 missions the level 5 missions have been absolutely brutal.

I've been keeping pace with training and equipment upgrades but I've been losing a lot of characters and gear. Any tips for this stage in the game?

[Norton 360 for Gamers]

Here's a few general tips:

-Make sure your heroes are at least lvl 5 and have maxed gear and skills. Upgrading skills boosts their accuracy which is vital for Champion dungeons where the more annoying enemies are very dodgy. You might want to use accuracy boosting trinkets and quirks as well.

-Use a fast party. You don't want the entire enemy party to go first so avoid using a team where everyone is slow. Trinkets and quirks that boost speed are helpful with this.

-Focus on the Champion exclusive enemy first. Each region has one enemy that only appears in Champion level dungeons. Those enemies are especially nasty and should be killed as quickly as possible.

-Most of the enemies in the back use weaker attacks when pulled to the front. Same goes for some of the Frontline fighters when they get knocked back. If you can't kill or stun 'em try disrupting the enemy's formation instead.

[wolkenwand]

Use blight resist trinket for frontliner in weald, and bleed resist in cove. In warren use pulling trinket, ruin is rather flexible bring plague doctor if you want. My playstyle is defensive/dragging battle in champion dungeon, while in apprentice and veteran dungeon bursting damage to end battle as quickly as possible.

[White Shadow]

I can reassure you that once you get a hang of level 5 dungeons and get familiar with enemy strategies there, they won't feel quite as bad anymore.

Really want to stress (lol pun) on the point Stepping Away for a moment said regarding enemies having a high dodge chance in level 5 dungeons. Having accuracy boosting trinkets is very important or ways to debuff enemy dodge. There are some enemies, especially in the Weald, that have crazy amounts of dodge (like over 40%).

Start with Short dungeons first before going for Medium or Long. And also take the party which specialises in the dungeon location you're going for. Avoid at all costs taking characters which have a phobia associated with that location or enemy type that is common in it.
So basically:
Ruins - don't take anyone with fear of the unholy or ruins phobe
Weald - don't take anyone with zoophobia or fear of mankind or weald phobe
Warrens - don't take anyone with zoophobia or fear of mankind or warrens phobe
Cove - don't take anyone with fear of eldritch or cove phobe.

In general, don't take anyone with over ~30% stress into those dungeons, or else their stress levels will accumulate faster than you notice. And make sure all diseases have been cured.

Lastly, make sure the party synergizes well enough regarding the roles. In general, you'd want at least one good DPSer (preferably two), one good tank, one healer, and one buffer/debuffer. One character might be able to tick two or more of those of course. Have at least a couple of good high speed characters too. I often bring Graverobbers and Highwaymen to my dungeon runs, and those guys are absolute CRIT machines and have ways to boost their own accuracy too.

Hope some of these tips help. Most of all, it's all down to practice and familiarity with the dungeons.

[No One]

Sun rings. +10 acc on everyone who attacks is a must. +20 for leper. If you don't have enough, it's the one time battle ballad / command are useful.

Stun things. Having a dedicated stunner makes your life much easier. I prefer damage, so I usually run with multiple stunners instead.

With a proper trinket and party setup, you can kill the back two rows on the first turn as long as not everyone rolls minimum. Alternatively kill one and stun two others.
E.g, abyssal artillery, dog hit, manacles, and shout/crush/rampart depending on what's left. Or, dagger throw, iron swan, judgment, crush. Pull tentacle, chop, holy lunge, snipe.

As long as two enemies, one double-wide, or an octotank are alive, you can stall the battle indefinitely. This is cheesy as hell, tedious, and super effective. Once you're down to one enemy, you have two full turns to kill it. Or continue stalling and healing. Third turn is a stress hit, and the fourth turn calls reinforcements, bringing the total back up above two.

Lepers and crusaders are very slow and have poor reach, generally making your life more difficult that it needs to be. Crusaders can stress heal which is nice, but they're so slow it only takes the edge off. And their stun is basically the poster child for bad stuns.

[LaserGuy]

All of the advice from No One is great.

I'll add a few other bits.
-Use level 5 gear and skills. The bare minimum for Champion-level areas is really probably level 5 skills and 4/4 on arms and armor, but 5/5/5 is best.
-Always bring a scouting trinket to avoid ambushes
-Keep your torch above 75.
-Bring bandages and antivenom into the Warrens, antivenom into the Weald, bandages into the Cove.
-Kill Swine Skiver/Squaffy Ghost/ Hateful Virago/Bone Bearer quickly and with extreme prejudice. Swine Skiver is particularly nasty, and should be stunned or repeatedly pulled to the front ranks.
-Use high-quality trinkets. Don't be afraid of taking extra stress if you're getting a good bonus to speed, ACC, stun chance, healing, DMG, etc. Generally, +20-30% extra stress is not going to be a huge liability.
-Always use ambush prevention when you camp.
-Never fight the Champion Shambler.
-Always bring a Man-at-Arms to the Weald.
-When in doubt, bring a Plague Doctor.

[Caramirdan]

For Champion-level dungeons especially, regardless of Radiant or Darkest:

Never forget the option to retreat when things go south (white flag in screen's upper left). In general, if I start to wonder if I should retreat from a fight, it might be already too late, so on the first instance of wondering, I do it now; sometimes retreat becomes impossible that turn, so the earlier the better. Also, remember that losing loot is better than losing heroes, so also consider abandoning a run and returning to the Hamlet when more than 1 hero is afflicted (unless a Jester is present) or a hero is killed.
Discretion (retreat) is the better part of valor.

tl;dr: don't push heroes too far.

[The Grand Sham]

Champion level dungeons have a difficultly spike. No doubt about that. Max out your blacksmith and guild skills before anything else. As always, have strong trinkets that increase whatever you need for that dungeon whether it's accuracy, HP, damage, dodge or resistence buffs. Know your dungeons, know your enemies and know how to deal with them accordingly.

A general rule of thumb for less difficultly is to bring a reliable healer and stress healer.

Pro Tip: A little trick is to kill prioity targets first and leave two weak enemies alive. Stun them as much as humanly possible and spend round after round healing and stress healing. You will be hit by critical attacks, dealing additional stress damage, but you can outpace this if you're persistent enough.

Example: In the Ruins. If you get a Shield skeleton, club skeleton, sword skeleton and goblet skeleton, who do you kill first? Kill the skeletons with the sword and goblet first. Club guys are probably the weakest enemies in the entire game and the shild+axe ones are tanks but deal little damage. (if you can move the goblet skeleton to rank 1, he'll never hit you with his stress attack and is a great option so long as he stays there).

Let's say you have a Vestal --> Jester --> Man at Arms --> Hellion

Use your Vestal to heal. Use your Jester to stress heal. Use your Man at Arms to defend the Hellion. The Hellion, use that "Barbaric YAWP!" move to keep the enemies stunned. Let's say it's a Leper instead of a Hellion. Then just have the Leper self heal and/or self stress heal to speed up the process even if you can't stun. Do this until you've fully healed your entire party. Using this trick, you can leave most dungeons in just as good or better shape than you left.

The most difficult place to do this is the courtyard, but even there you can do this if you have two Supplicant's left at the end of the battle. You can't stun these guys, but they don't hit you with stress damage (crits aside) and their damage is manageable, so long as you don't mind a party full of cursed heroes, which is going to happen eventually there anyway.

This might make each run last a little longer, but you'll find yourself losing far fewer heroes.

[No One]

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

Keep your torch above 75.

The hotkey is T! and you can also click on the light bar. This goes double if you're using sun rings. Keep the corner of your eye on the pulse down, and bring it back up right away.

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

When in doubt, bring a Plague Doctor.

The Queen of All Stuns is probably the best class in the game.

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

The bare minimum for Champion-level areas is really probably level 5 skills and 4/4 on arms and armor, but 5/5/5 is best.

If you're already struggling, triple 5s is not optional.

[𝓗𝓮𝓵𝓸]

just make sure to be fully upgraded before even going into a Champion Dungeon.