Lepers - useless?

[Marciella Swift]

There came to a point in the game where I had to remove all the lepers in my party because I just find them completely underwhelming. Why use Lepers on position 1 if I can stick a Crusader, Abomination, Hellion, or heck ANYONE in that position and get far better results?

I find that their biggest problem is that their drawbacks are way too much in exchange for miniscule benefits. They're heavy hitters, yes, but at the price of having 20 less base accuracy on all his abilities and not being able to target anyone past row 2. And the fact that he has no move-forward abilities. You give him a Focus Ring and then you realized that you could have put another hero on that position with a legendary bracer or any +dmg items instead and then you output as much damage as a Leper if not more. Whereas other items make characters like the crusader, hellion, or abomination viable to good, Focus Ring only makes Lepers bad to viable.

And speaking of focus ring, it's not like Lepers are the only character you need them on. When you get to late game and you realize you have to fight all those enemies with high Dodge chance you're going to have to put +ACC trinkets on all your hard hitters. So really, how much +ACC do you need on Leper in order for him to be able to fight the dogs or spiders in champion difficulty? Even if you give him two focus rings he will still miss a few hits here and there and on top of that he still doesn't have any trinkets that provide +dmg. You can say "boost his accuracy with MAA or Jesters" and it's the same logic with ACC trinkets, that +ACC will make another character viable to good and Lepers from bad to viable.

And aside from heavy hitting what else can he do? Nothing really. He has no stuns, no bleed, no blight, no mark, nothing to deal with high PROT enemies. He has heal and stress heal but only to himself as he cannot heal or stress heal anyone else on his team. All his abilities point towards him being this durable tank, but smart enemies can just simply ignore him and focus the rest. And if they do focus the rest of his team what can he do? Nothing. When you get to champion dungeon a lot of enemies have high +PROT values on the 1st and 2nd row, and then you realize you'd rather have heroes who can blight and bleed, and Lepers can do neither.

I like to compare the Leper to the Abomination. Same principles apply - hard hitters with significant drawbacks. Only difference is that you get way more payoff by using the Abomination in exchange for a drawback that isn't as detrimental as missing a bunch of hits. Yes stressing up your team sucks, but it's a lot more manageable than some dumb RNG. On top of that, the Abom can hit the 3rd row, can blight, can deal more damage, and just like Lepers they have stress heal and heal of his own. You can't use him in a party with a Vestal, but you can with an Occultist. And the restraining padlock is a good item but not a necessary item on him, whereas focus ring is a necessary item on Lepers.

If I would recommend something, it's to give Lepers some kind of niche. A way to make it worth using him in a team aside from this "heavy hitter" status. Perhaps give him the ability to pierce PROT from an enemy, or an ability similar to the MAA's defender ability but works on the whole team. They buffed Highwayman by giving him riposte so something should be done with the Leper.

[Sir Francis]

Focus ring (or feces ring) is not worth using. Sun ring all the way, +10 acc on leper is more than enough to make a leper very vialble if not great. Frontliners generally dont have too much dodge, so its fine. Sun ring plus conditional dmg trinket (eldrich slayer ring in cove) gets him up to +40% dmg , if you use his camp skill he has another 10acc.
Basically leper is almost guaranteeing a one-shot on position 2 first round,
If you get nice quirks on him (i have +4speed +5acc) hes a beast to say the least.

[Solo Death]

This discussion has gone in circles about 800 times in this forum, and my argument stands where it's stood from day one. The Leper is not useless but he is my least favorite character. He can fit in party compositions but his lack of ability to help out the rest of the team, as well as shuffles being more devastating to him than to any other character, makes me shy away from him. I'd much prefer having a Crusader or Hellion up front as they still deal reliable damage, both can move if they're shuffled around, the Crusader has Inspiring Cry which is one of the best skills in the game (in my opinion) and the Hellion can hit any rank in position 1 as opposed to just the front 2.

[GZstar]

Leper for some people is one of their favorites, othes do not like/use him in hard fights at all. He really has lots of downsides, but all other characters also, only some are balanced in skill but not good in anything on the other hand. I made my experiences with him like I did with occultist - and like it is common for most people playing darkest dungeon for quite some time.

Both having a bad day can really ruin every run/every fight more or less on their own. Nevertheless I decided me, to take him on my DD3 mission. He´s really great but he needs good quirks or/trinkets to eliminate his downsides more than most other characters. Having this trinkets/quirks equipped he definetely is one of the best characters in game and as reliable as the others as well. You just do not have the need for other trinkets on him anyway.

His advantage is that he nearly is undestructable. Everytime an enemy targeting him nearly is a lost turn on the enemy. He´s just tanky like hell, has proper selfheal and stressheal - in combination with protection. He not only is a great hitter but also great in selfdefense. For the things he´s not capable of doing you have three other slots you can use to create a strong party. His damage output is not the only strength he has. Besides I also really like intimidate. People say he´s not a team fighter but intimidate really also is a great skill on him to eliminate danger of two strong enemy frontliners or one giant really effective.

[Shadeball]

Worked great for me early on- excellent damage when the accuracy isn't as important and not much shuffling. Being useful in early-game is not the worst thing in the world.

[Kek Topus]

rank 1 or 2
chop, hew, purge, solemnity
focus ring and berserk mask
bonus points for supporting plague waifu in rank 3

there, useful leper

[LaserGuy]

Here's my generous review of the Leper:

Highlights:
-Highest damage of any character in the game by a fair margin. A Crusader, Abom, or Hellion needs a big damage trinket to get close to his base damage range. With a damage trinket of his own, he can do comparable damage to the marking classes against marked targets.
-Highest stun resistance of any character in the game. Blight and debuff resist are also pretty good. Although he is vulnerable to shuffles, his move resist is quite high.
-Camp skills are all great. Quarantine is the 2nd best stress removing skill (behind Revel) without the nasty debuffs. Reflection and Bloody shroud can nicely offset his vulnerabilities.
-Extremely tanky and independent. Basically requires zero upkeep from the rest of the team... can heal, treat stress. Great frontliner in no-healer parties.
-Class trinkets are all quite good with minimal drawbacks.

Weaknesses:
-Shuffles, obviously.
-Low accuracy
-Can't hit past rank 2.
-Slow speed.
-Very bad bleed resist.

He's a class with some big benefits, but some major drawbacks. In a lot of cases, you're probably better off with a Crusader, who has a lot of the same features but a bit more flexibility. Overall, I'd say he's still probably in the bottom third of classes, but he's playable. And, as I noted, because of his relative independence of the rest of the team, he's quite good in no healer or light healer (eg. Arbalest only) parties.

[Frostylicious]

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

Here's my generous review of the Leper:

Highlights:
-Highest damage of any character in the game by a fair margin. A Crusader, Abom, or Hellion needs a big damage trinket to get close to his base damage range. With a damage trinket of his own, he can do comparable damage to the marking classes against marked targets.
-Highest stun resistance of any character in the game. Blight and debuff resist are also pretty good. Although he is vulnerable to shuffles, his move resist is quite high.
-Camp skills are all great. Quarantine is the 2nd best stress removing skill (behind Revel) without the nasty debuffs. Reflection and Bloody shroud can nicely offset his vulnerabilities.
-Extremely tanky and independent. Basically requires zero upkeep from the rest of the team... can heal, treat stress. Great frontliner in no-healer parties.
-Class trinkets are all quite good with minimal drawbacks.

Weaknesses:
-Shuffles, obviously.
-Low accuracy
-Can't hit past rank 2.
-Slow speed.
-Very bad bleed resist.

He's a class with some big benefits, but some major drawbacks. In a lot of cases, you're probably better off with a Crusader, who has a lot of the same features but a bit more flexibility. Overall, I'd say he's still probably in the bottom third of classes, but he's playable. And, as I noted, because of his relative independence of the rest of the team, he's quite good in no healer or light healer (eg. Arbalest only) parties.

Honestly, while I agree with the low bleed resist being a thing on the Leper, it isn't that detrimental. I'm able to heal him with an Occultist just fine and he rarely gets a bleeding effect from it, if ever. And I don't use any quirks or trinkets that increase his bleed resist, either.

[Curious Fox]

Chop Intimidate Purge (Self stressheal+Prot)

As others said, Leaper's good side is his outrageously great tanking abilities. If you don't really count utility he is even tankier than MAA.

I don't particularily attempt to hit with him and I mainly use intimidate with him. Paired with Occultist they can carve down an enemies attack until -136% with is nearly guaranteed 0 damage to your allies.

Lock in Hard Skinned + Tough with tough Ring and ancester's bottle you have a 20prot 96Hp tank.

If you lock in the third with Natural swing or Fated you are good to to go, you can honestly replace bottle with sun ring or focus ring if you want to be slightly more offensive.

[daleth]

Actually I can't imagine playing DD without Leper. Mostly because of the "Lighting the Way" Darkest Dungeon - I couldn't pass it without him. I've focused there on defense of Leper, so his abilities was: Withstand (because of protection) and Solemnity (immunities) which make him core of team for fighting with Malignant Growth, Cultist Priest and Templars. Rest of abilities was: Chop, Hew. I've gave him Talisman of the Flame and Immunity Mask. His accuracy was increased by Jester's "Battle Ballad" - just as @Marmara you wrote. Leper done his work excellent and passing this dungeon was quite easy.

Heres my guide of passing "Lighting the Way" DD with more precise description if anyone will be interested.

I definitely dislike Occultist - I think nobody should rely on him and his healing ability. So for me Abomination is also not so good, because he disables Vestal in the team.