Houndmaster and Man-at-Arms mlg pro strats

[CrackerjackTiming]

So it seems like a lot of people toot these classes' horns--someone in one of these threads somewhere even said the Houndmaster might be the best class in the game. I'm dumb and a casual and not good at video games and all that, so while that might be true, despite all the time I've sunk into Darkest Dungeon I can't say that I've ever been all that into either class.

I use the Houndmaster for the Formless Flesh and the Countess, and I use the Man-at-Arms for the Blind Prophet and Vvulf, because I find them to be really useful for those bosses (I've never beaten the Countess without using the stupid "2 Houndmasters spamming Guard Dog" trick) but otherwise I feel like they underperform. Far from being the best class in the game, at least when under my control, they're like a step up from the Leper in terms of overall usefulness compared to the other classes. I'm sure that this is my fault, because it also took me a while to figure out how to use the Bounty Hunter semi-competently, and the Man-at-Arms and Houndmaster appear to be a lot more popular than the Bounty Hunter ever was.

So what am I doing wrong? Or, more importantly, what are the best ways to utilize the Houndmaster and Man-at-Arms?

[Ichthyic]

put houndmaster at position 4, occultist at 3, maa, hellion.

make occultist fastest using speed trinkets. accuracy and crit are also good. houndy should have ranged crit and damage, bleed chance.

if weak back row, use abyssal strike to weaken or finish positions 3 & 4 in enemy ranks, if it doesn't finish, follow up with houndmaster harry skill, or even a swipe from hellion.

if strong back row, use mark with occ, have houndy crunch a biscuit, and use hound's rush on the most dangerous target. will usually take out anything short of a boss or a giant tree. I regularly get 70+ damage crits.

maa is used for defensive tanking and riposte, and bellow

hellion is awesome for stuns on pos 1&2, and damage for 1,2 and 4. can add bleeds too for a bleed type team (as can houndy).

I haven't had any problems using this team for pretty much anything in the game. only weakness is hellion getting shifted, but the others can pretty much do something significant from anywhere.

[Anexu]

The Houndmaster's main attack can hit any row, and he's comfortable in any row but the first. This makes him useful in nearly any team and area.

In recovery rounds (when the last remaining monster is doomed by blight/bleed and you have some free actions) he has a strong self-heal and, if he's in the back, a nice party-wide stress heal.

He plays well in marking teams. He gets a hefty bonus from marks and his mark has unusually high values in both its debuff chance and protection debuff.

His stun is also extra likely to land, and his class stun-chance trinket boosts it more than most other such trinkets. It can also reach into the third row, making it, overall, perhaps the best single-target stun skill.

So, even before getting into boss-specific tactics involving his guard and multi-target attack, we have a hero who's strong both in the back rows and the second row. Oh, and he has excellent camping skills.

His usefulness is both deep and broad, making him one the most welcome additions to one's roster.

-

Early on, the Man-at-Arms is a decent front row hero. His main attack reaches the third row and he has a stun. His multi-target attack is fun at these levels.

In Champion level areas he starts to shine. His party-wide buffs become relevant. Bolster stacks nicely with his excellent camping skill Tactics (and with the Antiquarian's dodge buff). His accuracy buff helps against dodgy beasts and stress witches.

His stun, which has a potent support trinket, breaks guards and helps enable recovery rounds.

His guard is especially useful in the Cove against the sword-weilding fish men and in the Weald against the front row mushroom men. They hit hard but can only attack the front two rows; a couple of applications of his protection-buffing guard makes their damage manageable so you can focus on the enemy's back rows and then maybe take some time to stress heal. This also works against the cultists.

I like him best in the Cove, where both his stun and guard are useful. Also, the Cove is my favorite place to bring Antiquarians since you only need shovels and herbs for curio looting, and I like stacking her dodge buff with Tactics and Bolster.

I like him in the Weald to guard against fungal goons and buff accuracy against the hounds and witches. I like him in the Ruins to stun guarders and because his own stun resistance is a bit higher than normal. I seldom bring him into the Warrens, with the notable exception of fighting the Swine boss.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by CrackerjackTiming:

So what am I doing wrong? Or, more importantly, what are the best ways to utilize the Houndmaster and Man-at-Arms?

MAA's real god-tier abilities are his camping abilities. Throw on a couple of his party-wide buffs and your party is an unstoppable wrecking ball.

He also trivializes some fights like Vvulf so long as you don't let him get stunned.

[No One]

Bleed and blight deal okay with high-prot enemies. They can't burst, and everyone has resistance to one or the other.

Hound whistle deals with all high-prot enemies AND increases burst potential.

--

Riposte is absurd on any boss that likes to AOE a lot. Shamblers mainly, but also the Miller, Prophet, Baron...

But mainly, an MAA is a CRU or LEP with better speed and nonzero reach.
Basically DD would be a much better game if dangerous enemies were sometimes found in the front row, instead of only in the back, or if they had kept the idea that hitting the back was hard.

[Butt Goblin]

Houndmaster hits like a truck in a mark party. He's not the best at anything (except for maybe dealing with PROT on trash enemies) but he's very good at a lot of utilities that aren't easy to come by othewise--stress healing, reliable stuns, guards, trap disarming, and even scouting--while also having no real weakness besides dealing mediocre damage without mark synergy.

MaA has a lot of roles. He's the most defensive dancer for one, which is crucial as a lot of dancing parties feature super-fragile Graverobbers that demand protection but also usually demand that you keep shuffling ad-infinitum which on other classes means not defending. He has an insanely good ACC+CRIT buff that dramatically improves your average damage and stress healing, especially in crit parties. He's the only "traditional" tank that's actually any good at tanking (though there are other ways of defense, e.g. stunning). Bolster has cheesy potential in dodge-stacking parties and is one of the few ways of getting enough dodge for it to be worth a damn (just not on his own...). Riposte is excellent against AoE-heavy enemies and even when fighting normal enemies, his damage and range are pretty good--nothing groundbreaking but he's better than most support heroes. Basically, if you have one party member that's much squishier than others, you need ACC and don't want Jester or trinkets for one reason or another, or you're running a dancing party, MaA is a shoe-in.