Good heroes for the different locations

[Elthrandil]

Hey,

can someonme tell me which "heroes" are usefull to take for the different locations?

[Solo Death]

Warning - This post is going to be VERY long and probably has more info than you'll care about, skip past the first section if you want.

Characters that are good no matter where you are (some will be mentioned again for specific areas):

Man-At-Arms -MAA is hands down the best tank in the game, and is always a good pick, regardless of the situation. Even against certain bosses where other heroes could be better, he is still a valid option due to how strong Retribution and Defender are.

Plague Doctor - With a Blight skill increase, she's one of the strongest classes in the game. Even without a Blight skill increase, she's still always a good pick, though without it she can struggle to land her Blights in the Weald and Warrens, however Battlefield Medicine and Blinding Gas more than make up for it. If needed she can be used strictly for stuns, buffs, and Blight/Bleed cures in the Weald and Warrens and she'll still be able to contribute pretty well. Nothing else to really say.

Abomination - Assuming you can take him (Not having Vestal, Crusader, or Leper in your party) he's one of the best classes in the game in the majority of situations. He does tremendous damage while in Beast form (albeit at the cost of party-wide stress, plus susteined stress on him). In Human form, he is also very strong, as Manacles has a decent stun chance and does good damage, Beasts Bile is a reasonably reliable AOE Blight skill that also reduces an enemy's Blight Resist, and Absolution is just the straight up best self-heal in the entire game. The ability to heal so much Health AND remove a good amount of stress in 1 turn is insane, you really can't get much more value than that (I'd argue the only skill that has potential to give more value is judgement, and that's only if it crits since it'll do damage, heal the Vestal, and Stress heal at the same time). Beasts Bile is obviously much less effective in the Warrens and Weald, but with the versatility of the Abom it doesn't matter much.

Vestal - What do I need to say? She's the best Healer who can also do some damage if necessary. Give her some healing skill increase trinkets, and your party becomes practically immortal. Even if you're using her in the second position, she's still very strong because Hand of Light does good damage and gives the enemy a damage debuff. She's always the best pick for a Healer imo.

Hellion - She's a good damage dealer, and is the only character that can hit the back line from position 1. She's got a good skill set that's viable in any location, just change based on needs, which really amounts to removing If It Bleeds with something else in the Ruins and Cove, since bleeds do almost literally nothing in the Ruins and are much less effective in the Cove.

Highwayman - One of the strongest classes in terms of raw damage, he packs a punch no matter where you are. Always a solid choice for any skill of your choosing, all are good (except Tracking Shot, imo, which is very rarely useful) in any situation, except Open Vein in the Cove and Ruins.

Arbalest - Always good for the mark, always good for being able to do solid damage from the back to any position, set of really good skills that are largely down to preference for what you would actually use. Not much else to say.

Bounty Hunter - Can be used as a pseudo tank, but has some very strong skills. Flashbang and Uppercut are 2 of the 3 strongest single target stuns in the game, Flashbang can hit anything and Uppercut can deal knockback but can only hit the front 2. He does INSANE damage to humans and marked targets with Collect Bounty, and to stunned targets with Finish Him. His Mark is the second best mark, considering it reduces protection. He's always a good pick.

Grave Robber - Never used her much myself, always preferred the Highwayman, but she's still always good. Her juggle skills are never bad to have, Poison Darts and Thrown Dagger are both very versatile skills that are usually her best 2 skills to have on. She's not a bad class, just not my style.

Jester/Houndmaster/Crusader - All have their own advantages, but I'm clumping them together because of their stress healing abilities being the thing to highlight here (that and this is taking long enough to post already). Being able to stress heal anyone or everyone in your party is really good to have reagardless of where you are.

Occultist - Basically an alternative to the Vestal in my eyes for the Ruins and Warrens, but is straight up better in the Cove o,p, and I really don't like Wyrd Reconstruction, personally. I've been realllllly screwed over by it before. That said, he's worth considering no matter where you go and if you find you like him more, he is much better than the Vestal in certain ways, particularly the ability to do far more damage from position 3.

Good Ruins Characters:

Crusader - Bonus damage Vs unholy. Really not much else to say. He's always good, but he especially shines here because of that ability.

2nd position Vestal - Specifically in that positon because Hand of Light has a buff vs unholy like the Crusader does with Smite. Like the Crusader, never a bad choice but really shines here.


Good Weald Characters:

Houndmaster - He's good anywhere, don't get me wrong, but particularly shines in the Weald and Warrens because of Hounds Rush's Bleed chance. He's a versatile class that can be in any position bar position 1 due to his skill set, and is always useful, he just really shines in the Weald and Warrens. There are also a decent amount of beasts here that he can benefit from.

Jester - Particularly useful in the Weald if you use Slice off and Harvest. I personally don't because I prefer Solo/Finale Jester (that and he really just buffs 90% of the time if I bring him anyway). His bleeds are both probably the best bleeds in the game, and they really shine in the Weald and Warrens since they can actually hit reliably there.

Occultist - The Occultist is most useful in the Weald and the Cove, due to the presence of Eldritch enemies. Abyssal Artillery and Sacrificial Stab are both exceptionally strong against Eldritch Targets, allowing him to shine a bit brighter here. I definitely still prefer the Vestal in the Weald, myself, since there are also a lot of Beasts and Humans in this area, but he's still strong.

Good Warrens Characters:

See Weald characters, just remove Occultists. The areas are very similar in terms of what to prepare for when it comes to enemy resistances. Warrens is a lot more Stress heavy imo, and also has a lot less blight, but otherwise they're basically the same. Houndmaster is particularly great here because nearly every enemy is a beast.

Good Cove Characters:

Occultist - This is the only area where I think the Occultist is strictly better than the Vestal. Literally every single enemy in this area (besides the occasional Cultist/Brigand group) is Eldritch, giving the Occultist the ability to do a tremendous amount of damage very quickly. Strong Single Target Healing is also extremely useful here as there's not that much AOE aside from the occasional Brigand Group (or a thrall exploding, but if that happens it's your own fault for not killing it immediately). Most damage here comes from the Blue Pelagic enemies, and they don't deal any AOE damage, it's all single target damage, which makes Wyrd Reconstruction very strong. I still recommend bringing classes that have self heals or smaller party heals incase the Occultist decides to not give you the amount of healing you need, as he is entirely RNG based when it comes to how good his healing is.

Plague Doctor - Worth a mention here specifically for Veteren and Champion Dungeons. It's not relevent in Apprentice Dungeons because the Uca Crusher/Savages don't spawn, which is the main reason to bring her in those dungeons. The Uca Crusher/Savage have the strongest bleeds in the game, dealing 8 damage per turn and 10 damage per turn respectively. To deal with this, you NEED either lots of Bandages, or a Plague Doctor to not have to deal with it at all. He Blight skills are also incredibly good here since everything has little to no resistance to them, but Battlefield Medicine is the real reason to bring her here.

MAA - Stuff hurts here. A lot. So he deserves a mention for Defender. The ability to Defend one character completely and heavily buff the MAA's protection is invaluable for reducing as much damage from the Pelagic Groupers/Widemouths/Pirannah's as possible. Retribution is also really good since it allows the protection to happen and also allows you to deal damage back to the enemies.

Grave Robber - Especially good for Toxin Trickery and Poison Darts. Toxin Trickery gets rid of Bleeds and Poison Darts is an easy source of very reliable damage. Not much else to say.

Abomination - His Human form particularly is EXTREMELY useful here. Everything here is weak to Stuns (except for the Uca Crusher/Savage), and everything is weak to blight. He can literlly heal through any bleed delt to him with Absolution while also lowering his stress if he needs to. He's great no matter where he is, but he's especially good here.


Oddballs:

Antiquarian - Good for money, not that great for combat. Relevent everywhere. She has a couple of good defensive skills. Really your own choice for when to use her and when not to use her. Where you're going has literally no bearing on wheather or not to use her, and she's only a character that stands out if you need cash.

Leper - Leper is a good class, with a fatal drawback: Accuracy. He's an oddball because, without an Accuracy buff (be it from a quirk, trinket, or party buff from the MAA or Jester) he is very difficult to make use of. He does a lot of damage, can easily take care of himself, and should probably never be affected by a move skill ever. With an accuracy buff, he becomes extremely powerful, but without one, he's rarely better than something else no matter where you are. Also worth noting that if you're going the Cove with him, he is extremely weak to bleeds.

[RastaMV]

There are a lot of variables of course, but there are a few things in some of their kits that give them advantages in certains zones.

The Houndmaster for one has a damage bonus against beasts, this make him especially useful in the Weald and Warrens. Beast monsters usually have a lack of resistant against bleed which also helps adding a little more damage to his attacks.(for that same reason I like to take Helions in the Warrens and Weald)

You can take a Plague Doctor pretty much anywhere, her blight grenades work wonders against the Ruins and Cove's inhabitants but never underestimate the power of her stuns which can be used against any and all annoying backrows.

The Occultist has bonuses against Eldritch which helps him add a bit more damage in the Weald and Cove.

Vestals and Crusader excell in the Ruins because of their advantages against Unholy monsters.

The Arbalest can also go anywhere but important to keep in mind that her Flare's ability to cleanse marks and stuns from your team can really prevent a lot of pain in the Weald and against other enemy relying on marking for damage.

And off the top of my head, that's all I got. Keep in ming though, that with good team comps any hero can go anywhere.

Edit : Aw....Welp... Solo Death beat me to the punch.

[Elthrandil]

Wow, thanks for the efforts :)
I'll read it when im back ^^

[LaserGuy]

I'll just include a few comments that others haven't pointed out in the excellent advice as well:

Ruins:
Ruins is a fairly high stress area, damage is lowish, enemies are a bit weak on the HP side. Very little in the way of bleed or blights. Bounty Hunter is very useful here with his pulls and shuffles. Of particular note, the Bone Noble, the most common stress dealing monster, can't move out of Rank 1, and can only do a very weak attack. So a quick pull from your BH can knock him out of the fight permanently. The Bone Arbalests are similar--they're one of the highest DPS enemies in the area, but their attacks are weak in Ranks 1-2 (they can retreat though). Stress relief characters (Jester, etc.) are okay in Ruins, but the enemies are weak enough that you can often get by with just killing/disabling most of the enemy party in 1-2 rounds. For that reason, DoTs are also fairly useless here, IMHO. Although Crusaders get a bonus vs. undead here, unless you're using a Holy Lance build, you're going to find your Crusader can never hit the enemies that you need to kill first.

Warrens:
Warrens is high damage, medium stress, some blights, lots of disease. Very annoying area. You will come to hate those stupid vomit pigs. Jester and HM are good here as noted, but, IMHO, the most important character for Warrens (for Veteran/Champion) is the Occultist. He is the hard counter to the Swinotaur, the most deadly enemy in this area--unlike the high damage enemies in the Weald, the Swinotaur has massive AoE attacks so your protection skills from your MaA and HM won't do so much good. If you don't bring your Occultist, you're going to have a bad time. He's also good against the Swine boss for the same reason (Arb works too, but Occ is more reliable, IMHO)

Weald:
Low stress, high damage, lots of blight. Many enemies have PROT. At veteran/champion level, it's quite important to have a HM/MaA (or if you're daring, an Antiquarian will work in a pinch) since they will protect you against the Fungal Scratchers and Blighted Giants. Fungal scratchers can also be dealt with using move skills--push a pair of them into Ranks 2 and 3 and they'll waste 75% of their attacks. Both of these super high damage enemies can only hit Ranks 1-2 (though the giants can shuffle) so protection skills really shine here.

Cove:
Medium damage, low stress, one nasty bleeder. Like the Bone Royalty, the stress dealing Pelagic shamans are useless in Rank 1, so it's worth pulling them if you can. Avoid Lepers and Crusaders here, since the enemy parties often have double tanks (eg. maggot + guardian) and you'll want to take these out last. The groupers hit ranks 1-2 if they are in 1-2, and 3-4 if they're in 3-4, so while their damage is big, you can control the fight fairly easily. Cove is the hardest area (IMHO) at Apprentice level since the mobs tend to have more HP and have better group synergy than other areas, but it's the easiest at Vet and Champion. Most teams are decent here.

[Biopanda]

I find the Grave Robber has one of the highest crits in the game (Thrown Dagger has a whopping 11% crit mod) but her downside is her damage range is so differed. My level 4-5 grave robber maxed had a base range of 9-20 damage without trinkets.

My comment on the Leper is that he has arguably the highest base damage in the game, but you have to manage this accuracy with the right trinkets. His usefulness is also gated by PROT, which is usually in the front lines.