High Damage Party.

[Artrysa]

I'd like to have a high dps party but i'm not that familiar with all classes. I've played for 20 or so hours so i know a bit but no deep knowledge. Can someone help me with this? I'm not sure which classes to use and i am completely lost when it comes to trinkets.

[Krampus]

There's just way to much info and tips when it comes to team compositions. Ranging from mark parties with ludacris dmg output in the later game, ripost-murder parties, blight composition. If you want general dps teams you can easily get party tips from various guides and stuff.
Main problem is, high dps output differs from mission to mission.
For example a mark party stomps on main game bosses like swine, hag or the cannon, while otjer bosses are much easier killed with a blight team for example.
Really depends on what you're going up against.

[RopeDrink]

As above, there are too many variables. Joe Soap will no doubt waltz in and tell you their favourite comp(s), yet that doesn't doesn't account for what you're using it for, your own style/preference etc etc, and of course everyone has differing opinions on each and every class, ability and comp.

All I'll say is that DD is a game where there's very rarely a catch-all answer. There is no single 'best comp' in any real category - and truth be told you don't need the perfect comp, either. You're meant to forge compositions that suit your needs at the time rather than try to find that one really good one. The only exception being CC and CoM DLC's as they are scenarios where you actually can refine a comp that suits you as much as possible.

One of the most generic comps that has a decent kit for almost everything is the very first comp you get in the game. It has healing, stress-healing, damage, stuns, and access to both bleed and blight. Consider the tools they give, how much you value each one, then tweak things however you deem appropriate.

[No One]

I'd like some more clarification of what you want. What do you want damage for? In my experience, a stun-centric party is more effective. More stuns more better. My favourite party is PD-JES-♥♥♥-OCC which (taking ♥♥♥ untransformed) is a collection of all the lowest damage characters in the game. However, it has three stunners, one of which is the PD, Queen of All Stuns. Plus OCC, with the stunniest stun, and ♥♥♥, with the fastest (and highly damaging) stun. Stuns also enhance the value of DoTs, which this party also has in spades.
So what do you want damage for? It's probably easier to solve the problem directly rather than asking how to use a particular means.

But let's say you just want damage, and want it now.

Actually let's go another digression first: most likely, whatever party you already like (or merely already have) can do lots of damage with a few tweaks and maybe a character swap. So, what do you have?

Anyway, high damage, and right now.

The character with the highest damage is the leper. This isn't a good choice, but bear with me for a moment. Even after correcting his accuracy with trinkets, he does more raw damage than anyone using their trinket slots for damage instead.

The most effective damage hero is the shieldbreaker. (SBR) The leper suffers heavily from protection. while the shieldbreaker has two separate ways to get around it. Unlike the leper, the shieldbreaker can deliver this damage quickly, at range, and has +5 accuracy instead of -10.

The hellion can also do tremendous damage and hit all ranks, isn't quite as squishy as the shieldbreaker, and brings a high-value stun to the table.

With some conditions, SBR and HEL can actually do more damage than the leper. SBR requires the target to be vulnerable to blight. The hellion uses bleed, can only hit row 1 from row 1, and debuffs her own damage so she can't sustain it. However, on that first turn, the attack is flat-out the strongest single hit anyone can deliver, which a whopping 22.5 base one-turn expected damage. (For comparison, an OCC hits most targets for 10 or so, at -5 acc.) (All damage numbers refer to numbers at rank 5; the relative values don't normally change over the levels.)

The abomination (♥♥♥) is like a leper except fast, has range, and has no accuracy issue. His transformation damage buff puts his damage in leper range by itself, and he also has that stun, but he causes stress damage to your party and himself.

The crusader, at rank 5, does more damage than a leper against undead, who are largely immune to bleeds, and can alternatively be a stunner.

Let's say you instead just love huge numbers.

For huge numbers, it's ARB-OCC-HM-BH or some rearrangement. Everyone has a mark, which adds 90-100% damage to the damage of everyone but the occultist. The HM's mark strips protection, solving the problem the leper had. Buff the BH's damage to high heaven and you can regularly see some truly staggering crits.

However, there's also DOTs, which are far more reliable than regular hits and have the highest average damage potential. Remember the hellion hitting for 22.5 with all those restrictions? The plague doctor's (PD) regular blight attack, if run for all three turns, does 23 damage. (22 for the bleed.) And she does it from the back row, meaning you can have both PD and a hellion. Also, it will always do 21 damage, unlike the hellion's attack which can be as low as 17.

If you're fine with using up a front-row slot, then the flagellant's full power is 26. (Though even fully debuffed, a hellion's bleed running all three turns hits for 25.4)

If you want to take down a boss, then DoTs have by far the highest damage-per-action. Regular enemies should not be living long enough to take three ticks, though. However, while going to the boss, the additional DoT ticks work as insurance against whiffs and minimum damage hits.

And work well with stuns, which work well anyway. Since DoTs tick before the monster's turn you can rely on one tick. If they're stunned, then you can rely on two. Going back to the hellion's monstrous attack, then relying on two ticks brings it up to 27.5 damage.

--

In other words, like I mentioned in the second paragraph, it's more about who -can't- do tremendous damage. Basically, occultist and vestal, who are healers. And the occultist does very respectable damage on eldritch enemies anyway. The man-at-arms, who is the only real tank, and has a riposte which is deadly in certain niche situations, and can support your team with +acc shouts before you have +acc trinkets.

The highwayman will do more damage than marking rogues before the setup, and unlike an hellion doesn't have to be in row 1, but his damage normally caps at merely respectable. The graverobber's thing is being super fast. Good damage but not tremendous.

Antiquarian, who is supposed to be weak.

--

Let's briefly recap some downsides, for completeness.

The leper has no reach, no speed, and is crippled by protection.

SBR can't beat raw leper damage against no-prot blight-resistant enemies. Crusader can't beat leper damage against any non-undead.

Hellions are merely respectable against bleed-resistant enemies, and worse than a leper against armoured undead, the stun aside.

Abominations stress your party, which affects trinket use and/or requires turns to remove.

Many enemies die in roughly two hits anyway, which counters the setup mark users need. Further mark+crit simply wastes crit damage, whereas a hellion or SBR crit can take out row 4 enemies in one move. Similarly a graverobber lunge crit against row 3.
Mark parties are significantly hampered against multi-turn bosses...and yet bosses are exactly when mark +damage is least likely to be wasted.

A plague doctor whose blight target dies in one turn just did the lowest damage in the game. (Antiquarian notwithstanding.) Similarly jesters and flagellants have a lot of damage that can't be boosted by trinkets, camping skills, and curio effects, so the one-turn damage of a grave robber or hellion can far outpace them.

All DoT users have only one kind, and are significantly hampered in resistant areas, except the plague doctor who has both (plus stuns). DoT crits are simply worse than direct damage crits.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by No One:

I'd like some more clarification of what you want. What do you want damage for?

Skipping a lot to get to here.

Many enemies die in roughly two hits anyway, which counters the setup mark users need.

Many of them do, but in many cases, the most damage was done in the first hit. So when I want damage buffed, it's where on many of my encounters, I'm in this situation where without buffs, my first hit is nearly but not quite killing the enemy. Bringing that up to a one hit kill, as can often be done by buffing damage, buffing damage, and buffing it again, is what I want.

I want the first round to be a massacre.

Then there's another situation, more common in Champion levels, where there's one super high priority enemy that is the signature Champion-only level monster, and where it takes a middle-high level of damage to finish. There, I want everyone buffed to some degree, not because one hit kills of these are likely, but because I want to be able to finish at least this one guy in the very first round.

Third best is weakening them and dotting them so their first attack is their last.

Second best in between those is where I like stuns, where I load them with damage and DOTs so two rounds of DOTs will finish them. Then stun them.

(Part of why stuns aren't the core of my strategy is stuff like Hateful Virago, unstunnable by any practical means.)

Anyway that's one answer to "why do you want damage?" And damage is just the way you get there. "To kill things" is also just part of the answer. Killing them in the first round, killing them with just one hit from one hero whenever possible, and killing them before they do anything develops it more.

All DoT users have only one kind, and are significantly hampered in resistant areas, except the plague doctor who has both (plus stuns). DoT crits are simply worse than direct damage crits.

Put the Miller's Pipe on someone with a bleed and they have both, albeit in a limited form.