Heart attack till wipe

[Michael Daemon]

I gotta be doing something wrong because i can't complete a single dungeon without my whole party having repeated heart attacks until i either abandon or the whole party is dead. Even after leaving combat they just repeatedly heart attack over and over. I can't level a single character because of this, not once since the prologue could i complete a dungeon. Healing is irrelevant because my characters just heart attack mid combat and get deathblows. Idk what to do, seems impossible to progress.

[thebadman]

Its probably time to get rid of them and invite some relaxed greenhorn fools instead. Those that are still promising with traits/skills you can consider stresshealing in hamlet.

[Ivan Jamal]

Stress casters should usually be your priority, can't get a heart attack if you aren't taking stress.

[Gilmoy]

You're taking too much stress. A heart attack implies that you took 200 stress on 1 hero. You should be taking about 30 stress total over your entire party per fight, so about 7 per hero, not 200.

Basically, this means you're letting enemy stress-casters live too long.
In general, you might be letting everybody live too long.

The general solution is to kill them faster.
More specifically:

1. Recognize enemy stress-casters. The fact that you didn't name a specific one, and self-identify them as your primary problem, suggests that you don't recognize them at a glance, don't know their names, don't know their attacks, and don't fully understand DD's stress game mechanic. Study and memorize them all, one by one as you beat them.

2. Hit them. Prefer heroes who have attack skills that reach positions #c or #d.
1 skill per hero suffices. A hero with no such skill is weak for exactly this usage.
L1 heroes rarely have an attack that reaches #d.

3. Heal your stress. It's possible. Later on, it's an entire side industry, throughout DD.
Stress-healers exist. In Week 1 with L0 characters, you might have none available.
If you didn't get any, go for guys who kill things faster.

You always start the game with Reynaud, who is a Crusader. He has 1 medium stress-heal (at L1 it's weak), but he might not know it yet, which means you must live to Week 3 to unlock the Guild and train him in it. So you might or might not have this stress-heal at start of game. Later on, you can guarantee that you'll have it.

Don't try to win any healing race. L0s and L1s heal for less damage than the new damage that hits you next. Instead, kill 3 enemies ASAP. Then stall and heal. N.B. healer classes exist, too.

4. If your current L0 heroes already have 100+ stress each, maybe just dismiss them.
There is no clock in DD. You can restart with new L0 heroes off the Stagecoach, and train them up. You aren't penalized in any way for taking an extra 20 (or 200) weeks. Monsters don't get stronger. There is no clock.

Brand-new heroes might be less damaged than your current heroes, and not weaker because your current heroes haven't even leveled up yet. You could churn through disposable heroes and eke out small profit every week.

The biggest intangible profit you can reap early on is information. Learn monsters, learn what your skills do, learn how to build your teams to get skill combos that work. Learn when to abandon a quest for profit and minimal stress. If you survive a dungeon with moderate stress, broke even in gold, and you learned 2 new monsters, that's progress, too.

[Fat Frog]

kill stress damage enemies first

[Slippery Williams]

Not sure how familiar you are with the mechanics yet, but are you making sure you aren’t sending characters who have quirks that cause them high stress? Like sending ruins phobes into the ruins will skyrocket their stress and keeping the torch high will stress out characters who have a light phobia, etc

A really good idea would be to get w cheat sheet of what all the curios do as a lot can cause or even reduce stress and experimenting with them can be costly

[mldb88]

Are you letting your heroes recover sanity between dungeons using the abbey/tavern? I know it might sound like a basic thing on the surface but the game does kind of leave you to your own devices to figure things out to some extent, and it’s easy to overlook some of the core mechanics.

Aside from that, could be a combination as others have said of not dealing with stress enemies quickly, bad luck on vices/traits/diseases, or it could just be bad luck/poor planning with the dungeon pool.

Just a few beginning tips if you’re really having trouble:

Try to stick to short dungeons early and start off in the ruins. It’s generally the most beginner friendly area.

Bring at least 8 torches and make sure your light meter is always at least 50% full, low light increases stress

Don’t run from combat unless you plan on bailing on the dungeon. Fleeing battle will raise stress (learned that the hard way when I was reminded of this fact after fleeing a boss after it put everyone on deaths door, then the stress from fleeing combat full party wiped me).

Upgrade the caravan to get yourself a few more recruitment slots, that way you can more easily alternate members who have low or zero stress.

If you do a medium or long dungeon, use the log in your inventory when you’re getting stressed, there are camping skills that can reduce stress.

Check your trinkets, there are ones that increase stress as a drawback for other buffs. There’s a surprising number of these actually, and usually aren’t worth it unless you have stress heal abilities or stacking virtuous chance to drop it back down when you hit 100

[Michael Daemon]

Originally posted by Gilmoy:

You're taking too much stress. A heart attack implies that you took 200 stress on 1 hero. You should be taking about 30 stress total over your entire party per fight, so about 7 per hero, not 200.

Basically, this means you're letting enemy stress-casters live too long.
In general, you might be letting everybody live too long.

The general solution is to kill them faster.
More specifically:

1. Recognize enemy stress-casters. The fact that you didn't name a specific one, and self-identify them as your primary problem, suggests that you don't recognize them at a glance, don't know their names, don't know their attacks, and don't fully understand DD's stress game mechanic. Study and memorize them all, one by one as you beat them.

2. Hit them. Prefer heroes who have attack skills that reach positions #c or #d.
1 skill per hero suffices. A hero with no such skill is weak for exactly this usage.
L1 heroes rarely have an attack that reaches #d.

3. Heal your stress. It's possible. Later on, it's an entire side industry, throughout DD.
Stress-healers exist. In Week 1 with L0 characters, you might have none available.
If you didn't get any, go for guys who kill things faster.

You always start the game with Reynaud, who is a Crusader. He has 1 medium stress-heal (at L1 it's weak), but he might not know it yet, which means you must live to Week 3 to unlock the Guild and train him in it. So you might or might not have this stress-heal at start of game. Later on, you can guarantee that you'll have it.

Don't try to win any healing race. L0s and L1s heal for less damage than the new damage that hits you next. Instead, kill 3 enemies ASAP. Then stall and heal. N.B. healer classes exist, too.

4. If your current L0 heroes already have 100+ stress each, maybe just dismiss them.
There is no clock in DD. You can restart with new L0 heroes off the Stagecoach, and train them up. You aren't penalized in any way for taking an extra 20 (or 200) weeks. Monsters don't get stronger. There is no clock.

Brand-new heroes might be less damaged than your current heroes, and not weaker because your current heroes haven't even leveled up yet. You could churn through disposable heroes and eke out small profit every week.

The biggest intangible profit you can reap early on is information. Learn monsters, learn what your skills do, learn how to build your teams to get skill combos that work. Learn when to abandon a quest for profit and minimal stress. If you survive a dungeon with moderate stress, broke even in gold, and you learned 2 new monsters, that's progress, too.

[Michael Daemon]

I tried a whole bunch of these tips and so far i've managed to get 8 heroes out of 12 through the grinder to level 1 with bad rng killing off four of them. Now i just need to figure out how accuracy and turns work but im no longer losing whole parties to insta death so that's progress. Thanks all for the advice, off to run these poor souls through a medium in an attempt to hit level 2 maybe four of them will survive.

[gruetoo]

don't do a medium with level 1s. wait until you have a full party of level 3s with fully upgraded gear and moves, the difficulty increase is real and the unprepared will be wrecked.

[No One]

to-hit: acc - dodge + 5. That is, to-hit display of 95 means 100%.

Initiative = spd + d8.
A crusader has a speed of 1, and can roll 2-9. Typically a difference of 3 speed is enough to reliably go first, though it's not exactly guaranteed. As usual in DD, you should plan on RNG going bad. If you really need someone to go first, strategize based on them going last. (In other words, start trying to run.)

Note that if you have a slow team and you ambush a fast team, they will go last the first round due to the ambush, and then first on the second round due to speed. This means if you don't kill or stun a good chunk of them, you can be subjected to 8 attacks in a row - very dangerous. (And painfully slow to watch.)

[gruetoo]

Originally posted by gruetoo:

don't do a medium with level 1s. wait until you have a full party of level 3s with fully upgraded gear and moves, the difficulty increase is real and the unprepared will be wrecked.

I just realized you may be talking about a medium length dungeon, not a medium difficulty one. if that is the case, forge ahead, but remember to stock up for the increased length accordingly.

[Gamefever]

Best advice I can give...

Dont be in a hurry to upgrade the heros (fools) that come to conquer the dungeon.
As you upgrade the stage coach, you can get upgraded fools that bring their own kit at levels 1-3. Pretty much free.

Also if you farm up 50 portraits and get your hands on a blueprint from downing a boss, you can build a bank that earns you 5% interest on your gold week to week.
That removes a significant issue from the game which is gold and the cost of managing the heros ends up being negated due to interest building up faster than it can be spent.

Essentially, one approach is to not bother upgrading heros unless you got them at level 3 to start.

[No One]

The middle tier of quest difficulty is called veteran or level 3.

[Hakimoto]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but the backline enemies are the ones that cause stress. Kill/Stun those before dealing with the frontline monsters. The only way a frontline monster (i.e. a tanky type that starts in the frontline) can cause stress is a crit. Low light can also cause stress, but overall, it's the backline monsters that do it, especially things like the guy who yells at you and the floating lady that casts stress spells. (My memory fails me at their names)
Also, learn what skills are useful and what aren't. If you are constantly using grapeshot and missing, well, maybe use a single target skill that can do damage, like lunge.
I suggest watching some Youtubers, such as FMShuffle, who explain the game and mechanics.

[Michael Daemon]

So this advice is all primo, i managed to defeat an apprentice necromancer, got a team to level 3 and a few back up teams rising through the ranks. Over half of my heroes are cheats and not allowed to gamble anymore but that's a problem for tomorrow. Thanks a lot guys.