Stygian mode requirements?

[Toni 'Bō' Jones]

Hey all!

My first playthrough, so I'm not familiar with the game, story or mechanics that much, and have few questions:

-- many gameplay options are locked [on Stygian], so I wonder what are those options and how they affect first time player experience? Am I missing on something critical? Tutorial is very helpful, but that notion got me confused.

-- how exactly do you finish the game? With 86 weeks limit I have to make my 'oxygen choices'. Should I complete all the objectives on the list? Or to prepare my heroes and complete the Darkest Dungeon area and clear all the bosses here? Anything else?

Please avoid the spoilers, if possible, as I've only beaten one boss (Wizened Hag) and not far into the the game yet.

[No One]

Ah, yes. There's a list of named teams on the wiki.

17^4 = 83521

I guess only 50625 if you don't have the flagellant and shieldbreaker.

Oh wait I forgot the FLG is a one-off.
Sorry, it's only 81920.

--

I took my antiquarian team to the final boss. Played kinda bad, won anyway.

Oh, by the way, pro tip: never lose on the final mission. There's like five minutes of unskippable dialogue, and if you die or have to retreat you get to listen to it all again. On my first save I decided to do the lambs to the slaughter achievement on this level, partly so I could have a quick peek at the last boss without risking a real team.

Boy I regretted that decision.

In other news my ATQ team is also great on the prophet.

--

I personally consider the FLG to be extremely powerful. Heals, manages stress, fast as lightning, hard to kill. Crazy damage outside the ruins, good reach.
SBR is mediocre. Again, super fast, kinda hard to kill, great reach...but damage alone just isn't that valuable. Also, if you have solid trinkets, playing her well is kinda super boring. A little bit top-tier tedious. The only time I really care about de-stealthing is with SBR, and she can't hit rank 4. Sigh.
That said I have a SBR with prismatic force and she's kinda nuts.

[GEB.Rosé]

Publicado originalmente por No One:

I personally consider the FLG to be extremely powerful. Heals, manages stress, fast as lightning, hard to kill. Crazy damage outside the ruins, good reach.
SBR is mediocre. Again, super fast, kinda hard to kill, great reach...but damage alone just isn't that valuable. Also, if you have solid trinkets, playing her well is kinda super boring. A little bit top-tier tedious. The only time I really care about de-stealthing is with SBR, and she can't hit rank 4. Sigh.
That said I have a SBR with prismatic force and she's kinda nuts.

Flag is a BEAST! when i first saw that video of a guy beating Swine King with flag only, i was so inspired! immidiatly got the dlc with him. flag is a beast, both in singleplayer and PvP. heals, bleeds, hp, damage, death door resistance, he got it all!

[No One]

He had to survive five deathblow checks. Odds = 1 in 697.
I have my doubts as to the veracity of that video. Either had to cleverly use cheat engine or re-record an inhuman number of times. If you're willing to do that, anyone can solo a boss.

FLG is hard to kill because he doesn't mind hitting death's door and immediately heals himself at the start of the next turn. Just don't let him get under max HP if you've procced a reclaim bleed and he'll be fine.

[GEB.Rosé]

Publicado originalmente por No One:

He had to survive five deathblow checks. Odds = 1 in 697.
I have my doubts as to the veracity of that video. Either had to cleverly use cheat engine or re-record an inhuman number of times. If you're willing to do that, anyone can solo a boss.

FLG is hard to kill because he doesn't mind hitting death's door and immediately heals himself at the start of the next turn. Just don't let him get under max HP if you've procced a reclaim bleed and he'll be fine.

true, it still was incredible (given that ive failed my 1st attempt with a full team, then saw that video). Flag is still great. very useful on DD3 too. hes like, PD, but tank. i love him

[No One]

He's like a leper, but fast, accurate, goes through armour, can hit the back, heals folk other than himself, and re-positions in one turn when knocked back.

[RopeDrink]

RopeDrink, it was an excellent, EXCELLENT character class summary/introductory, and top explanation of her best (and possible) use as well. Thank you so much, greatly appreciated.

No problem. I generally avoid marking and often play her in my own special way (which isn't the safest or most efficient), so I didn't go too in-depth. However, she is still a healer - and those can be very precious, especially early on. I always grab 2-3 ARB/MUS for the roster when I can, and she typically becomes my go-to healer for standard content. It's a lot more fun/interesting than the good ole Vestal safety-net.

FLG is also one of the few heroes on my "always grab 2-3 of them" list. Healer, and stress-healer, with good baseline speed, the best bleeds in the game (thus passive anti-PROT), projection from the front - and while not the tankiest from a health perspective, he can still look after himself in a pinch.

I will always dissuade people from banking on RNG (eg. deathblow-resist), but that doesn't change the fact that he has the highest chance, even if you do decide to play like it's stuck at 0% (which you absolutely should be doing).

You can fit him into an ungodly amount of teams without being a detriment to them - including the (arguably) best team for Crimsom Court, and a really good non-cheese Endless team (ie. when you can't be bothered with virtue fishing, dodge-strats, or any other jargon).

[No One]

Best known CC team, yes. And if anyone has a better one I'll happily add it to my guide.

[RopeDrink]

Publicado originalmente por No One:

Best known CC team, yes. And if anyone has a better one I'll happily add it to my guide.

Oh, I'm sure someone out there doesn't agree, so I'm just being polite. I wouldn't change my CC or Endless teams for the world, even if (in endless at least) certain strats can do better. The team was designed purely with CC's expanded maps in mind - pure sustain + abuse of blood-light, yet you can casually stomp all over the ruins if you want to. The only boss I genuinely find annoying is the croc, even though they'll kill it more often than not.

I've dubbed them Crimson Court Crushers, even though they work everywhere. The only hope you have of flubbing is a really bad surprise shuffle and/or being too stubborn or over-confident to fix it quickly. Been at the brunt of that myself, though I don't have the Twitch clips any more.

Either way, it's one of those teams I deviate to when I want to go on autopilot.

[Toni 'Bō' Jones]

You guys made me want to play Flagellant so much now. He comes with Crimson Court dlc, right? By the look and sound of him it's very dark and masochistic character - my fav type. Judging by his abilities [by reading your messages] he is indeed a natural beast. Looking froward to play all the CC even more now and having so much fun. Delayed gratification can pay off greatly.

Publicado originalmente por No One:

Oh, by the way, pro tip: never lose on the final mission. There's like five minutes of unskippable dialogue, and if you die or have to retreat you get to listen to it all again. On my first save I decided to do the lambs to the slaughter achievement on this level, partly so I could have a quick peek at the last boss without risking a real team.

Boy I regretted that decision.

This has to be the best tip ever, haha. :D Thank you, I will try to do my best. No promises are made, however. :P For now - my main objective is to survive the very first one. Well, even to reach the boss fight, cos knowing me I can easily retreat after some hallway encounters.

But wait, this unskippable dialogue is the same, no matter what you do: die, retreat or win? Kinda weird.

Publicado originalmente por RopeDrink:

No problem. I generally avoid marking and often play her in my own special way (which isn't the safest or most efficient), so I didn't go too in-depth. However, she is still a healer - and those can be very precious, especially early on. I always grab 2-3 ARB/MUS for the roster when I can, and she typically becomes my go-to healer for standard content. It's a lot more fun/interesting than the good ole Vestal safety-net.

Early game healer problems, so much this. ^ I lost my first original vestal basically on her first mission after the tutorial dungeon - she became virtuous and survived 3 or 4 death's doors and fought very bravely, but being the only healer and me not knowing what I was doing back then, she had very little chance to survive. Mobs basically ganged up on her, attack after attack. It took weeks for new vestal to arrive (I was without Occ as well) and my only healer was Reynauld, who was afflicted and had to go on two missions like that, so healing was a pain at first. On my next run I will be taking Arbalest on with healing and de-stealth in mind.

[No One]

You can activate only the flagellant. You can do it on an already-active save, in other words, right now. if you want.

You can also activate only the districts, though I don't recommend it since you can use it as a pure power boost. CC is a little P2W if you activate the districts and not the monsters and disease.

[Toni 'Bō' Jones]

That will defeat my original intent on playing the pure vanilla first - just the base game, no mods, no expansions, no nothing. I want to complete Darkest Dungeon at least once like that, preferably on Stygian. Maybe giving another run on Darkest for fun/less personal worries about limits and all. After I can add all the other content, which will add the fresh touch, new things/new chars to discover and also will make possible to see the QoL improvements since release. Replayability, too, certainly - even tho I don't really need additional motivation to play the game now.

Besides, I don't have much time to raise couple of good Flagellants on my save anyway and would rather focus on heroes I have. It would also feel weird to have a new character without DLC content he's naturally related to.

Thanks for the headsup anyway. I didn't know you can play a character without turning on an expansion and vice-versa. Quite neat, all things considered.

[Toni 'Bō' Jones]

I'm about to dive into my first THE Darkest Dungeon mission soon, most likely some time today when I get to play it, so quick update on couple of things: after pondering for some good time on my party composition, I've come to conclusion to bring my first and only Legendary heroes that I have. I seem to struggle with completing level 5 dungeons which means no resolve XP for my level 5 heroes and with just 3 deaths away from the save deletion I cannot risk more. Time is running out too and I'm on Week 70 or something.

Thus, my final party is: Occultist -- Dismas -- Reynauld -- Leper. Not ideal and I really didn't want to bring Leper with me since he isn't really into moving around type of guy, but I have no choice. At the very least he can taker care of himself, can heal, distress, and buff himself, plus is quite tanky/resistant so he will be of great help in the dungeon (I hope) and I will change his skill-line before the boss fight. It also feels like a fair play to him, being among the first Legendary characters (all 4 leveled up at the same time, plus I had another Legendary hero who died) and he's my first ever Leper who basically went through entire game - so dude has earned his legendary run. I'm more worried about Occ heals, truth be told.

As for my game - I think I have the issue with going through champion dungeons and it's more about being mental/emotional, as I have anxiety every time I go there. I mostly go through the ruins now for free stress/medical heals events but even there I struggle, every fight is tough and I can't remember when was the last time I completed a mission here. I ease through dungeons lvl 1 and 3, with basically any party comp I have, but lvl 5 ones just became my Bogeyman, and Kryptonite for half of my dead heroes/. D: Last night I lost another 2 to a pattern I seem to be absolutely loving to repeat: it's past midnight, I'm tired and my mission is, of course, at the lvl 5 dungeon. I think: better go to bed, rest and get back tomorrow with refreshed mindset, and then I'm like 'nah, I got it', start my run, lose and retreat, haha. Madness, they say, is when you do the exact same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

I feel quite good about everything, however, the desire to rage quit (which I never did, of course) is gone and I'm overreacting less and accepting my defeats as valuable lessons. I even like it, to a degree, but sure, I have to get better. Honestly, I'm not even sure how I leveled my first Legendary heroes at this point - dungeons were the same, but I don't recall having as many issues as of now. I remember fighting the giants and never fearing them, and now I'm terrified. Are there couple of versions of giants, perhaps, and I met the less troublesome before?

I also played with the Antiquarian and she's amazing. Brought her in on couple of trips and made some good money plus I think it was her run when I pulled -25% stress very rare trinket out of random hallway chest? Which is very helpful since I lost my Book of Sanity and never got another one. I also keep meeting Collector more often, but he's probably my fav encounter so far. Love his design, idea, everything.

Oh, and Hellion started to grow on me as I like the girl more and more. I would have taken her on instead of Leper (DD first mission), but she's still around lvl 4 I think. She applied holy water on some pigs altar in the Warrens and got -30 dodge (ouch) and still managed to dodge some attacks afterwards. Definitely going to pay more attention to her on my new save.

Been feeling sick couple of days so haven't played much but finally doing better and getting back to the game. My save will probably be over today or tomorrow - either by death or time limit, but I'm very excited to begin my new journey, to learn and explore more of this gem of a game.

Darkest Dungeon II is on the horizon as well, as red Hook announced the full release date, which I look forward to.

[No One]

Publicado originalmente por Toni 'Bō' Jones:

I think I have the issue with going through champion dungeons

There's a difficulty spike going from veteran to champion. Gets nearly everyone their first go-round.
DD's difficulty curve is less a curve than a drunken walk.

[Toni 'Bō' Jones]

Publicado originalmente por No One:

There's a difficulty spike going from veteran to champion. Gets nearly everyone their first go-round.
DD's difficulty curve is less a curve than a drunken walk.

It came with a delay, which threw me off, mostly. My first 4-5 Champion missions went quite well. Maybe more even. Then, all of sudden, I started sucking at them - big time. It's as if, sport example, you play in Championship and then your team wins and get promotion into Premier League, play couple of games with great confidence and quality and then you realize you're among elite and everything just goes downhill from that.

I like the drunken walk example - it definitely feels like one now, haha.

[No One]

It's extremely possible you got a spate of forgiving RNG at an especially confusing moment. Was it the same parties in the first half-dozen as in the later attempts?