Looking for some advanced tips

[teslamatic]

So I've pushed through to the phase where half of my roster are lvl 6 guys and it's gotten kinda hard. I know the basic mechanics, I got a ton of trinkets, I got most stuff in Hamlet decently upgraded (like 80%, some even 100%), I got a ton of trinkets sitting in my chest, but anyway I started kinda dying a lot. So I'd llike to ask the experienced dungeoners about some specific stuff. It's a cool game, I don't wanna stop playing, but I have to give up figuring all the things for myself as there's just too much time sunk. It'd be great if you could answer even one of the following questions:

(If there actually is a thread here already about just this stuff, just redirect me, thx!)

What are your favourite party combinations for the respective areas (Ruins, Warrens etc.), what did you find especially useful there and what is especially useless (speaking about the hardest lvl dungeons)? What are the worst threats in those areas? I realise this might sound strange for a guy claiming he's done stuff in the game, but honestly, I just used the basic synergies (lots of bleed+bleed vulnerability, or lots of stun+stun trinkets etc., or marking+combo attacks) and it somehow worked until now, so much that I could run any such synergy through any area at all. But it's not that simple anymore.

Is there some general trick that I've actually might!ve been doing all wrong that comes to your mind? Some stat that is super important? For example, I tend to use trinkets that hurt my speed or dodge, trading for dmg, acc, and prot.

What is your usual approach to the hardest lvl dungeons? Do you tend to risk a bit as in lower levels, or do you usually leg it when the first thing goes seriously tits up?

Do you even run at low light anymore when in the hardest dungeons?

What is the safest way to earn gold at this time? Suicide runs work for me (I got some 6 places on the roster for suicide characters), is there something more effective?

Do you have a soft spot for some particularly effective/cool party combination, including abilities and trinkets? Like, is there some super space shuffling party combo with sliding jesters and vanishing graverobbers and where is it useful at top lvl?

Is the darkest dungeon random or set? If it's set, is there an optimum approach?

It's a lot of questions, I know. I've lost my share of lvl 6 heroes, so I've had time to think about it. Thx for any tips, and may we all find virtue when tested.

[aardvarkpepper]

"but I have to give up figuring all the things for myself as there's just too much time sunk"

ok quit

your fundamentals aren't sound; you're asking the wrong questions

"What are your favourite party combinations for the respective areas (Ruins, Warrens etc.),"

nope. beginning players are like i use xyz party combination on xyz dungeon but nope. you have to make effective use of what you have. okay so "ideal" composition is houndmaster (or whatever) then blah blah. and you don't have houndmaster. what then? yeh. exactly.

stop looking for cheap tricks

"What are the worst threats in those areas?"

come on you played veteran dungeons you should know. each area you have to come prepared for whatever enemies ranging from collector to shambler to treebranch ogre to spiders to stress dealers to blah blah. and if you can't handle the range of enemies, then what does it matter if you're loaded to beat up treebranch ogres then you get wrecked by bandits.

see what I'm talking about the wrong questions see

"What is your usual approach to the hardest lvl dungeons? Do you tend to risk a bit as in lower levels, or do you usually leg it when the first thing goes seriously ♥♥♥♥ up?"

look okay there are rng factors. if you lack the patience to figure things out for yourself what is it going to help to write a sixty page manual covering contingencies, you're not going to have the patience to read that either. basically you have to keep in mind what you have, how best you can use it, then use it effectively, which changes depending on the situation.

yeah okay there are some general tips then there's a lotta specifics to cover but you said you have the general stuff (which I'm prepared to believe), but then obviously it's all about the specifics. so what, you think there's some "trick" that you missed that's going to make the game easy peasy? probably there's a lot more than one actually. which means, again, you're gonna have to learn it, and if you don't want to, then quitting is the right thing to do.

which doesn't mean you're a "quitter" it's just hey okay think about how you want to spend your time.

"Do you even run at low light anymore when in the hardest dungeons?"

again, you're trying to get this sorta general purpose "trick" answer. the answer should be obvious. if your lineup is kinda weak then you use more light; you'll reduce the damage and stress your party takes while still pushing for quest completion, and quest completion gives gold bonus and trinket. quest completion is how you get trinkets, and that should also be something you understand on such a level that you shouldn't have to ask (if you really want to git gud) because nomad wagon trinkets are pricey.

"What is the safest way to earn gold at this time? Suicide runs work for me (I got some 6 places on the roster for suicide characters), is there something more effective?"

ummmm

suicide runs are only good if you're pretty much failing at the game.

just think on it, you can do an apprentice short dungeon and get whatever it is 3K gold and a lousy trinket, or you can try to whup a veteran or even a champion and rake in more loot and far better trinkets.

so okay with suicide run you're already giving up on quest completion bonuses including valuable trinkets, then what? you're throwing away your expensive veteran-level heroes that have had gold spent on upgrades? or worse, champion-levels?

oh no, you're just throwing away apprentice level heroes? hey okay you're just wasting time then, you're getting lousy amounts of loot and no trinket, that's grindy.

now okay if you don't care if a hero dies here or there that's one thing. but "suicide runs" no.

"Is the darkest dungeon random or set? If it's set, is there an optimum approach?"

there is actually a guide available on Steam to the "darkest dungeon" dungeons you can follow that more or less or whatever, not saying it's accurate to the last detail but it's better than nothing

==

generally you do something like plague doctor stun (because multi-target against enemy back ranks; hellion multi-stun is front rank which is not as utility), plus plague doctor has decent speed and PD high-power stun trinket gives Acc boost as well. then you use vestal for multi-heal, or occultist for debuff and use other heroes for strong supplementary healing. while enemies are stunned, you use hit point and stress recovery abilities, so typically you want jester or crusader or houndmaster to chop away at stress. you use camping abilities to chop away at stress even more, and you use curios to regulate quirks, not just chopping them with coral in cove, but using like books and bookcases even for more chances at random positive quirks.

. . .

mind your healing and stress healing has to be pretty robust, it is NOT just stunlock. because +40 stun resist after each stun proc means enemy is going to break stun. so you have like 2-3 rounds of heal/stress heal but enemies can attack twice during those 2-3 rounds typically in a cycle. then that's hit point damage and possible enemy crit into stress.

so if you're just throwing in a chunk of stun and thinking "HODOR i got stunlocks " . . . no that misses the point entirely, you have *effective* stuns interspersed with *effective* recovery and abuse the anti-farm system by leaving 2 enemies alive . . . and maybe you use bounty hunter uppercut or other things to make enemies even less effective &c. and even then it's pretty much a given you kill enemy stress dealers first and *kill* them pretty quick, then you sort of transition into the stun/heal cycle . . .

so yeah okay it's old hat to me, but you can't just expect to stun, or to heal. you combine stunning and the healing, and that's where the abuse is.

. . .

oh yeh and what if they change so stun/heal is harder to abuse? well so what, then you just use speed/acc/dmg or whatever mechanic.

. . .

then there's a buncha stuff like using speed/acc/dmg stacking for certain party compositions, using 1-2 party members with movement abilities built in so you can get back into a fighting formation after being surprised or enemy shuffles, proper use and stocking of items (because you don't want to just buy everything that's costly and often useless, nor do you want to go in naked because then you can't trigger curios which really give a profit), use of food for healing when your healing is less powerful, bla bla bla lots of things.

. . .

"bla bla bla"?

yeah I just bla bla bla because if you don't want to figure it out (hey okay you were up front about it and I respect that) then really do you wanna go and do a lot of reading or figuring probably not, so essentially comes down to bla bla bla pay attention.

like yeah okay that is not a "cheap trick" but if you had all the cheap tricks then you wouldn't ask the questions right? but then, if you already know you maybe don't want to take the time to learn all the cheap tricks, just play another game

ain't no shame in playing another game

. . .

tldr; quit while you're ahead

[Arghaab]

Originally posted by aardvarkpepper:

bla bla bla

Don't know why but you made me smile more than usual with this post

Originally posted by teslamatic:

What are your favourite party combinations for the respective areas

As said, try figuring out what makes every area unique and come with a party ready for each encounter you might have to deal with.
There's plenty of setup out there waiting for you to discover them, it would be unfair to all the others if we were promoting one over the others.
But if you really want some ready-to-play setup, I'll give you some.

Originally posted by teslamatic:

Is there some general trick that I've actually might!ve been doing all wrong that comes to your mind? Some stat that is super important?

Not really. It all depends on the situation and the party you chose to go with.
But keep in mind Speed is almost always a priority. If you can knock out enemies before they act, you don't need to bother about anything right?
Accuracy is important too, but not so much. You can't exceed 90% chance to hit. Depending on the area/character, know your enemies and know when having more Accuracy is useless.
Damage is not so important. Doing 150 or 100 damage in one hit seems to make a huge difference, but doesn't matter when the enemy has 160hp. Again, know what you're facing.

Originally posted by teslamatic:

What is your usual approach to the hardest lvl dungeons? Do you tend to risk a bit as in lower levels, or do you usually leg it when the first thing goes seriously ♥♥♥♥ up?

I never risk anything, even at lower level. But that's me, you don't have to do the same.

Originally posted by teslamatic:

Do you even run at low light anymore when in the hardest dungeons?

I never run at low light, but again that's just how I am. Other people will have other answers.
Just prepare accordingly. If you do dark runs, know why and with who. You might require more ways to recover quickly from bad encounters for example.

Originally posted by teslamatic:

What is the safest way to earn gold at this time? Suicide runs work for me (I got some 6 places on the roster for suicide characters), is there something more effective?

Well, what do you want? A safe way or an effective one? ^^
Basicaly, you should earn way more gold than what you're using if your heroes are already lvl 6.

[wckowalski]

Once you finish upgrading the hamlet, your gold collection should go up as you no longer need to use inventory spaces to bring back heirlooms.

[teslamatic]

Thx to both of you guys. Aadvark is being straightforward in a very likeable way - truth is I had some fun and consider the game good value for it, so I might just quit a mildly satisfied customer... We'll see.

My roster is actually more troubled than just being half-full lvl 6s. It's almost half lvl 6s, then quite a few lvl 5s, then two (yes, only two) lvl 4s (about to go up to 5) and then the few pieces of 0-1 lvl trash. I have almost every class available either at 5 or 6 (apart from houndmasters, they both got eaten, and my one bountyhunter, who also bought it and I never had a spare. But hey, I got two Jesters and of them is Axl Rose).

I have masive problems maintaining money balance. I basically levelled my characters but stopped using them when they reached lvl 6 (or even 5 sometimes), so I can't run middle dungeons at all.

When I run low lvl dungeons, it brings money (I call it "suicide run", but I don't mean they all die - obviously I expect some of them to die, but finish the dungeon anyway, it's gotten kinda easy). But there is little progress.

When I run hard dungeons, I have problems both with stress management and damage control. I often have to run away and then blow piles of money on stress relief in town. I also sometimes lose my very expensive (because upgraded) heroes. Granted, I had several very sucky and sudden cases of nasty Death's Door experience (severe cases of 0HP and having Bleed applied). Basically, I feel i haven't run a single Hard dungeon without either losing someone (when i pushed to finish it) or running away (when I lost money on balance, badly).

I haven't reached the point of being crazy mad because of it. Still it's a point where I either need to start doing things differently, or decide that I've had enough fun in this game. Which I have. Some of it felt really cool, like having three characters simultaneously on Virtue. Who cares about the mad one then, eh? (answer: no-one cares about him, and, as a result, he dies of a heart attack)

I am not above starting a new roster, btw (lvling up new guys should be relatively easy with the experience I got and I kinda like that part of the game), but only if I learn there is something more manageable than "read it all, learn everything, it's that kind of game" waiting for me at the endgame. Times when I was fine spending half of my free time reading about games that I wanted to be good at are well behind me. Not that there is something wrong with it, I just have less free time so I pick games where I can skip the "reading" part.

[nightshift]

As much as I feared what Champion dungeons will have in store for me, it's really not that much of a problem. Just equip yourself with the proper trinkets. I NEVER used a Legendary Bracer in my life, nor a Focus Ring, basically anything that decreases my SPD is worthless in my opinion. Like the Ancestral ones very much like the Candle or the one that gives surprise bonus. Basically regardless of rarity, I very much favor the dodge, crit and damage chance increasing kind. Many nice trinkets can be exceptionally good that are class specific (with the Antiquarian and the Jester as an exception, rest are allright). Basically with proper trinkets and skill selection you can do anything, even go against a Veteran boss with level 2-3.
Stress is never an issue if you aim for the stressers first. That is combat rule number one. Next is to attack piranhas and leave the those enemies last that have heavy prot and focus all you attack on them at the end while marking them.
Buffers buff. Jester should play the ballad, Antiquarian should spam their party dodge increase, and a few bolsters never hurt either. High dodge allows the luxury for healers to turn DD too and just finish the enemy all the faster. MMA has some great camp skills too that affects the whole party.

[No One]

I have a soft spot for PD-OCC-BH-HEL

Blasphemous vial + whatever, really, though some +speed seems marginally better.
Sun ring + junia's head
Sun ring + wounding helmet
Sun ring + berzerk charm or candle


Open with iron swan + finish him + artillery. Will kill both rear-liners 90% of the time, thus almost removing stress damage from the game. If it's a surprise, can skip blinding gas. If not, always open with blinding gas.

Next, if anyone is low on HP, stall. BH and HEL don't really need +stun to stun a lot. Octotanks are ideal for this since they do negligible damage, disable the stall timer, and the PD can cure the bleed. Otherwise, many battles will end with chain-stunning a lone target until the stall timer is almost up. If anyone is missing around 10 points (or more), then OCC heal. If a low number, use the PD - but entering a new battle with more than a few points missing is asking for a death's door check, even at full light.

BH's in the second line have a tendency to buy it like yours did, though. Did you put your hounds in the second line? That said I only lose them to bosses now. Can go anywhere, though the party has had stress issues only with fungal giants, due to repeatedly hitting death's door. This might be my fault, e.g. for not using disorienting blast. Can also forgo the sun ring and use +debuff, in which case the OCC should go on full-time debuff duty for giant fights.

On blight-resistant dungeons I can swap the OCC nad PD and use incision instead of the noxious blast, or I can use her +blight trinket. I really enjoy sacrifical stab even though 99% of the time the OCC goes artillery - heal - heal - heal - heal.

Always bring max food. Be aware of how much you can spend for out of combat healing - it's usually 4, unless you want to forgo feasts or pick some up in the dungeon. Don't rely on finding more later, that's asking to get screwed. I always take the feasts and typically end long champion quests with less stress than I started, the occasional RNG screw on the last battle aside. (ProTip: if your stress and health are good, don't go for 'one last battle,' just take the completion.) First feast for inventory space + camp buffs, second I try to save for an emergency but usually end up using it for inventory space too.

In theory the OCC can mark for the BH though in practice almost nothing lives long enough to really be worth it. Mark + crits can be fun, though.

Bring a bunch of herbs not to cure the hellion's battle debuffs, but her camp debuffs. Revel + herbs is really, really good. Also madmen and cove traps.

[Scootz]

I say follow what Shinydeath has to say.

But here's my version of things.

Make sure you always have at least two units that can hit rank 4 (And I mean a full hit, not spread out damage). Being able to hit the back rows is better than just raw damage (looking at you Crusader and Leper).
Focus on taking the stress dealers out first. You can heal easier than you can de-stress.
Stunning an enemy is a great way to mitigate the damage you'll take and give time to strike it lucky and heal big. BH or HM are great for stuns and great reach.

Personally I don't rely on dodge. Being able to kill them faster and take one less hit is better than letting them get in that extra hit and hope to dodge it. Accuracy is very important, I don't really use accuracy trinkets unless it's got some other good bonuses on it and only for Arb/GR.

My fave team set ups are usually something like

Arb/Occ/BH-HM/Hellion. Great reach, good damage, adequate stuns and having the arb to give the +heal bonus can mean an awesome heal quick. I prefer BH when doing cove. It's sorta my cove team, if I use HM then I try warrens/weald.

GR/Vest/any/hellion. Just sort of a... open team that's heal heavy. I mostly used it for leveling leper/crusader.

What you get from most of the team set ups are fast teams, a lot of reach who can focus fire and kill the back units quick.

[Mv]

Recommended teams:
Hellion always at position 1; Vestal always at position 3 or 4. Avoid sh♥tty classes like Leper, Jester, Antiquarian... Grave Robber is my preferred position 4, but Arbalest and Hound Master are also great ones; Keep a char with stun at position 2 (Bounty Hunter or Hound Master). This is basically an extremely powerful team comp.

About trinkets:
SPD is the most overpowered stat, then DMG, then ACC. Anything else is unnecessary (except for classes like PD and Vestal, you know).

About torch:
Always 75+; there's only 4 reasons for me to play in a champion dungeon, and none of them requires me to play with any less than 75+ light.

About The Darkest Dungeon:
All 4 missions are set; always the same.
- Jester for mission 1 abusing the fights against double rapture fights.
- Double MAA for mission 2.
- PD with stun trinkets for mission 3

[teslamatic]

Interesting tips. My obsession with "tanks" up front seems to be misplaced. I'll definitely try the combinations y'all are suggesting. Thanks. Shinydeath's looks good too, altho I'll need to lvl up that BH first.

Originally posted by shinydeath:

I have a soft spot for PD-OCC-BH-HEL

BH's in the second line have a tendency to buy it like yours did, though. Did you put your hounds in the second line? That said I only lose them to bosses now.

Yes, both my Hounds (lvl 5 and 6) and the BH (lvl 5) got their final tickets punched in the second position. That is why I tried to run with meatier characters up front since ("tank"+Hellion), but with little success (and one of my lvl 6 Hellions died when running from the first Darkest Dungeon afterwards). Now it's obvious putting Hellion second hurts the party because it takes away her Iron Swan and a "tank" has even less of a reach, so... bad. Hmmm.

But I actually never combined any of BH or HM with the PD, which now I see is a good way to "stunlock" the opposition and that should boost survavability.

I gather Jester is a bit frowned upon. Anyone running a reliable stress-relief combo with him, or is he too much work to bother?

[Arghaab]

So, since people started posting some team comps, I might as well do the same !
If I had to do my "best" team comp for each dungeon, they would always include a plague doctor, but these days I try not to rely on them too much and try some different setup, so keep that in mind.


Let's start with the Warrens :

You just told you had 2 Jesters, here's a team for you ! I've been trying it for quite some time now and I think I got the right setup now.

Arbalest/Jester/Jester/Man-At-Arms

Sun Cloak on Everyone, then Debuff Amulet on the Jesters, Ancestor's Coat on the Arbalest, Ancestor's Candle on the Man-At-Arms.
By the look of the trinkets I guess you already got it, Jesters keep soloing, Man-At-Arms keeps Bolstering and Arbalest does what Arbalest does.

Jester start with 48 Dodge, Man-At-Arms 40, Arbalest at 45, so you'll get hit once or twice, but by turn 2 you will have +18 from the Man-At-Arms and Jesters will have debuff enemies for -56 ACC (considering you hit 3 out of 4 times, wich is average from my experience).
Arbalest focus on taking out enemies with high debuff resist first. When there's 2 enemies left you can bandage and ignore them for a while, then it's time for the Finale. Run Blind Fire on the Arbalest, that's important if you want to truly impress your audience if they still want more after Finale.

That's not taking into account Quirks and Camping buffs.

Quirks are important too, but not really. On Guard is the best here.
Evasive is great as well but you don't really want Evasive when you're playing your characters outside of this composition so the choice is yours.
Accuracy is important since you don't run ACC trinkets.

Oh, and if I'm running this in the Warrens, that's because there's so much food in there that you won't need any dedicated healer. That's also why Arbalest is in my opinion the best choice As the main damage dealer of this composition. She can heal everyone during camp in case things go wrong.
But things are not supposed to go wrong, and the Man-At-Arms Dodge buff is priority number one during camp.


Houndmaster/Houndmaster/Bounty Hunter/Hellion is probably my all-time favorite.

Don't really need a long explanation there, Hounds have bonus damages against beast, Bounty Hunter as well and you encounter almost exclusively beasts in the warrens.
With no healer and everyone built around dealing damages, you should be abble to take out the back line on round 1 during each encounter (before they act if you have the right quirks).
Round 2 Hellion stuns and Bounty Hunter starts dealing damages to the front line, Houndmasters stress heal/heal or starts dealing damages as well, depending on the situation.
Round 3 you finish them of, or you stun for one more round of healing/stress healing, but that's greedy and won't work every time.

I'm running this Hellion with Wicked Hack/Iron Swan/Barbaric Yawp/If it Bleeds but if she starts taking too much damages, I switch If it Bleeds out for Adrenaline Rush.
One of the Houndmaster then goes to rank 2, and the Bounty Hunter to rank 3.
(Edit : Houndmaster switches Cry Havoc for Blackjack, and Bounty Hunter switches Uppercut for Smoke Bomb, for obvious reasons.)
For the next encounter's second round, Hellion will self heal while Houndmaster and Bounty Hunter take care of stunning the enemies. This + eating a lot between fights, wich is doable every time in the Warrens.
If it's the Bounty Hunter who starts taking too much damages, he just eats a lot.
(Edit : This composition would actually benefit from having a third Houndmaster instead of the Bounty Hunter in my opinion, but then people would call me crazy, and Bounty Hunter's Uppercut is very nice if you encounter Swinetaurs, since they're basicaly useless when standing on rank 1)

What's really important is to focus on Speed in order to act before the enemies. If you have the right quirks you should be abble to do it reliably.

With this party, always start the dungeon with max food and Medicinal Herbs.

[Scootz]

The Jester is an okay unit, but he lacks any consistent attack. He stays rank 2/3, can only really attack the same positions. Lacks any real stopping power, moves your guys around, can't touch rank 4, and then sure he lowers stress - but as apposed to bringing some one who can take out a stress unit and then support your team his awesome ability just gets left behind by his general lack of ability to do anything else than bleed 2/3.

Tanks are over used in the lower levels but later on lack team synergy, ability to reach back ranks, no high strength stun.
I still use crusaders for ruins, but aren't very useful elsewhere.
And Hellions are a bit deceitful, they seem like they can work widespread but really they want that number one position for themself. If they get pushed back then okay, but then they're just nothing special.

[No One]

Originally posted by Scootz:

GR/Vest/any/hellion. Just sort of a... open team that's heal heavy. I mostly used it for leveling leper/crusader.

With an MAA in the 'any' slot it's a meaty team combining a bunch of top-tier classes.

GR doesn't need the sun ring's accuracy but I like double +damage on her and the sun ring is hard to beat for +dam.
VES - + heal + heal, I use the -10% health one, not -speed.
MAA - candle + sun ring
HEL - 'zerk + sun ring.

I kill the back two with iron swan + crush + knife + judgement. Also plays well with lunge + rampart.
I think retribution is best used like an AOE - if something is almost dead, the MAA can chip it down with the chance of getting extra attacks out of it. Usually.

--

Forgot to mention, with PD-OCC-BH-HEL, you can get stress issues on the OCC. If so, swap sun ring for focus ring.

--

You can run leper/crusader with only a minor loss of effectiveness, but it needs someone with a pull. OCC's daemon's pull is less inefficient than the BH's pull. Also it takes up a trinket slot for +move.

I haven't tried it, but PD with +stun +stun and a +speed quirk could theoretically keep the back locked down, then clear the front corpses at the proper time.

[Grimelord82]

Counter to Arghaab, I use my Jesters this way:
Position 3 (when their turn happens, not necessarily at combat start!), Both Bleed skills, Battle Ballad/Dirk Stab, Inspiring Tune.
First few turns is about them applying damage + bleed.

Bleeds aren't useless if you can stack them or stun something so it takes 2 rounds of bleed without being able to retaliate. Houndmaster in spot 2 for his bleed + stun is a good teamate. He can help you do either. Don't forget, bleed & blight clear corpses, which can be quite helpful.

If there is only a single enemy left, my Jester damage is useless here since it only hits slot 2/3. But they can still buff and de-stress like champs and that what I want at that point. Their camping skills are hard to beat for de-stress as well.

Enemy position 3 is what I always seem to end up focusing on in round 1. Almost everyone can hit it. If you can crit, shuffle or bleed clear it, then it gets filled from spot 4. As other have noted, spot 4 can be focused on with a Hellion in front of your party, but spot 3 is much more accessible for teams that lack her.

All my teams have at least 1 stun, mostly 2, sometimes 3 (yay PD+BH+MAA)

Try a shuffle team. Healer/GR/Jester/MAA. The front three all have skills that move them forward at least one place, and can hit position 3. MAAs comes with a Stun, so you have that covered. GR can also stun and reset her position if need be. GR usually goes first in this setup, then Jester, MAA, Healer. But none of them really care.
Rnd 1 - Lunge, Harvest/Slice Off, Rampart, Artillery for example. It should damage spot 3 enemy to the point where he bleeds out in round 2, AND shuffles the spot 4 enemy into position for the same treatment in round 2, swapping out Lunge for something else.
If you need to stun lock multiple enemies, then MAA and GR just alternate in the front two postions. That lowers the GR damage some, so I usually have MAA use Rampart twice in a row on singles.

Houndmaster in Spot 2 is something I do plenty of. He ALWAYS has his dodge&guard skill, his dog's dodge armor trinket, and his stun truncheon trinket in this case. His guard only lasts a turn, but the dodge bonus from it lasts a couple. It does seem less effective on Champion than Veteran, but it still works. Mostly he's there for the stun or finishing off something.

[teslamatic]

Again, thanks for all this, guys. Every specific advice helps and all together quickly gave me a general idea where to improve. I've already done a few runs and things look much better. What I most realised is:

- speed is king. I used to equip trinkets that hurt speed, almost always.
- stun, stun, stun. I used to run stun only as a bonus mechanic, usually with just 1-2 characters able to stun, sometimes entirely without it.
- trying to outheal damage is stupid. I never fully realised you needed to kill/cripple most of the enemies and only then heal back up.
- reach is important. I used to run parties with as much as two characters unable to reach position 4
- bonuses stack. Penalties stack. Also for equipment. Yea, I never realised that. Now I know I can stack +stun trinkets and stun a character two, perhaps three times a row.

All in all, seems I've been actually lucky to get as far as I did even.

I have also tried a few of the combinations you suggested and, no surprise, they work better than what I've been running with. I've gotten to trying some new ones myself, after leveling new boys and girls, and particularly PD-BH-HM-HE surprised me with how effective it can be even without strong healing. PD can be substituted for a VE and still isn't half bad.

If you still feel like sharing more tips - I'm all ears. Thx for the Jester stuff! They are too much fun to be left alone.

I noticed there weren't many groups with the Highwayman. They seemed alright and well-rounded damage dealers, but might they just not perform too well on the hardest level? Lack of great synergies? No stun sure doesn't help, I guess? Or do you have some good groups with them?

I also love groups that use the shuffle strategy, like SausageLinx suggested. Gotta try that one.

[No One]

I haven't played with HWM much since the riposte thing. I've seen videos of them kicking ass, though. Their riposte damage is madness.

I had an OCC-Dismas-Reynard-LEP group. It would probably be great now - hook something forward for the leper to chew through, while Dismas hits row four with duelist, setting up Rey for the lance kill. Party doesn't exist now due to spoiler reasons.

HWM/MAA combos are also great. MAA can easily reposition the HWM for more riposte/assassination goodness, plus guarding him when his sub-hound defences give him issues, plus potential for having 50% of your party riposte ready. Could try something silly like VES-HWM-HWM-MAA too - this is a time -spd is good, put it on the front HWM, with +spd on the back, and they can duelist cycle each other.

Pistol shot used to be good and is now niche. It's good for avoiding the duelist's shuffle. Better idea: plan to shuffle.

IMO corpses and prot make point-blank janky, should plan to not use it in most cases. Most frontliners have ~40% prot, meaning 150% * 60% = 90% damage. Use wicked on someone without prot or make them bleed. Reposition with someone else, hence the nice meaty MAA above.

Tracking shot can only do two things: efficiently finish of a nearly-dead enemy, and hit the rear ranks from row 1. Grapeshot finishes off nearly-dead enemies better, but can't be used in row 1. Otherwise tracking is a net loss even in optimal conditions. That said the speed RNG can screw a shuffle party - e.g. the MAA can go first turn 1 and second turn 2, meaning tracking can be your only option to keep focus on the rear ranks.