What’s the deal with antiquarians

[GnomeBerserker]

People seem to like the antiquarian but to me she seems like one of the worst classes. Is there any out of battle effects that she has that makes her so good or am I just missing her point in combat

[R.O.D.]

She is not meant for combat, she is meant to interact with curios and gather monstruous amounts of gold
a farming hero you can say.

[R.O.D.]

She has a chance of loot her exclusive antique loots from curios and battle, worth 500/1250/? gold of value each and she also let you carry more gold in each stack.

[anachoret]

Get tons of moneys and get trinkets during camp. In combat, can make the party hard to hit / funnel attacks to Riposte characters.

[GnomeBerserker]

Ok,good to know

[RopeDrink]

Antiquarians are the class you bring when profit is your primary intention. They're not awful in combat, just greatly reduced compared to the rest of the roster.

For each Antiquarian you have in a team, the max amount of gold you can carry per stack increases, and they have near guaranteed chances of looting vendor-trash worth a tidy sum (curio specific), so yes, double, triple or even quad Antiquarian teams are a thing seeing as the more you have, the more gold you can hoard and guaranteed vendor trash. They can also create trinkets at camp, so it's not uncommon to just bring multiple antiquarians to dungeons solely to generate trinkets, which can then be sold or kept.

As someone who loves stacking them for both fun and profit, I typically run Nervous Stab, Festering Vapour, Healing Vapour and "Protect Me".

Tri-Anti Shambler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWwjQuIHggQ

Tri-Anti Loot Run (83k Gold, including completion reward).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWGAm7CWNc0

[anachoret]

Quadquarians.

[Iron Ben]

The antiquarian isn't that bad in combat, althought it's more of a support role than anything else. Her team dodge buff is pretty good, as is her accuracy debuff. She also has pretty nifty class trinkets, if you can find them...



^_^

[anachoret]

Originally posted by Iron Ben:

The antiquarian isn't that bad in combat, althought it's more of a support role than anything else.

Her Kukri seems to do surprisingly more average damage than some people we won't name.

[JusTheory]

She isn't as strong in combat as other characters but I have never felt she was bad. The money is very useful and she has a wide range of useful abilities.

[RedTuna]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

Tri-Anti Shambler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWwjQuIHggQ

just wanted to say that the editing in this is brilliant and dank AF.

[SKull]

The only useful combat ability is really the small heal and the thing that can force other characters to defend her if she is attacked. With a MAA or HWM with riposte/retaliation that can give you quite a lot of extra damage pr round.
But antiquarians are for money, not combat. Just remember to loot things with the actual antiquarian. Oherwise you won't find any relics.

[R.O.D.]

Originally posted by GnomeBerserker:

People seem to like the antiquarian but to me she seems like one of the worst classes. Is there any out of battle effects that she has that makes her so good or am I just missing her point in combat

"The Antiquarian is one of the playable Character Classes in Darkest Dungeon. The Antiquarian is by far the weakest class in the game, with relatively weak (if at least usable) attacks, leading to sub-par combat performance. As a supporting character she's surprisingly useful; she can heal party members, bolster their dodge rates, and perform nominal debuffing on enemies. Most notable, the Antiquarian is a highly useful mercantile hero who boasts a number of unique properties that can help a party earn gold on an adventure:
Firstly she increases the amount of gold you can carry in a stack from 1750 to 2500. Every subsequent Antiquarian will further increase it by another 750 (for a theoretical maximum of 4750 with a full Antiquarian party).
Secondly is that she causes unique loot to drop. These are Minor Antiques, which are worth 500 gold each and stack to 20, and Rare Antiques which are worth 1250 each and stack to 5. Antiques will only be looted if the Antiquarian interacts with the curio. Rare Antiques, being more expensive than their minor counterparts, are less likely to be dropped or looted. The exact ratio is 1:6"

[R.O.D.]

"The Antiquarian's low combat performance belies her utility on the battlefield. While her damage output is one of the lowest of any class, she makes up for it in other areas, and the Antiquarian is usable in several different roles depending on what skills she's given.

As a character who bolsters the amount of Gold you bring home, however, she's great for supporting early operations to finance your adventures, and her abilities are almost entirely centered around boosting the party's survivability. Throughout her career, her Fortifying Vapors ability is as strong as the Plague Doctor's Battlefield Medicine, though it lacks status recovery. This allows her to take some of the heat off a party, especially one whose members are otherwise self-healing, like the Leper, Abomination, or Hellion. Because her other effects focus on damage mitigation, she can actually help maintain a party by making it take notably less damage than it might otherwise.

Her other abilities play into her "Survival-Boosting" nature and are comparatively strong. Invigorating Vapors is a useful ability that boosts the entire party's dodge rate by 3; as it gets stronger it actually makes her more viable, because she can boost the natural dodge rates of your characters by that much more, and it stacks with itself, making it potentially possible of boosting the party's dodge rates by a significant degree. Get Down! gives an even larger boost that works extremely well against enemies that like to use Marks. Perhaps the most interesting ability she has is Protect Me, which has the dual benefit of not only reducing your available number of targets but of significantly boosting the defense of the Antiquarian's bodyguard. This can be extremely strong with characters who wouldn't ordinarily be able to guard someone, but will nonetheless enjoy the benefits of the massive PROT boost, such as the Leper, Hellion, or Crusader. Flashpowder is another useful ability that synergizes well with her ability to bolster party defense, its only real downside being that it's single-target only.

Her combat abilities are easy to overlook but are still nonetheless useful; Nervous Stab, though weak, can hit almost any target, and though both the damage and blight effect of Festering Vapors is weak, the effect can hit the whole battlefield and is still a useful effect for residual damage. The Antiquarian is one of the few characters whose combat abilities aren't too shaken up by row, allowing her to work from anywhere except the front.

Make no mistake, however: This character is all about boosting the amount of gold you bring home and defensive support - not out-and-out fighting. She's at her best when she helps a party minimize or avoid taking damage in the first place and mitigating that damage further thereafter. Use her correctly, and as a utility character she may surprise you with how effective she can be."

[pavig]

The other nice thing about the antiquarian is her party wide dodge buff skill. This is highly underrated as dodge tends to be less powerful at higher levels, but with a low level party it can make your whole team very hard to hit. This is very helpful early in the game to get characters through and grow your economy.

[Drain]

You slot the hero to make gold. She's not meant for combat, and needs to be carried. In combat she's terrible. She can snipe enemies at low HP, or heal people off death's door, but that's about it. It basically boils down to her forcing guard on another hero. They get a buff off her for doing this, and attacks redirected to them will trigger riposte. Ideally you'd use a man at arms. She should keep the guard up, while he keeps riposte up. Enemies have a 50% chance to wack themselves. She also has a skill to move back if shuffled.