Sonorous Prophet killed this game for me

[Milkymalk]

Every time I start a run, it goes well until I have to face the Sonorous Prophet. It takes hours to get to him, and he just wipes my rank 2 party without any chance. He crushes a character from full health to death's door in one attack and follows up with an AoE. I can't even try around how to beat him because of how the game works.
This boss literally killed the game for me, because I can't be bothered to keep trying. I have no idea what I can do to make this work.

[KocLobster]

Originally posted by Alex Darkcrowne:

Originally posted by cookie!:

Everything in this big post is valid and I would totally 2nd.




I know RopeDrink already basically addressed this, but I wanted to reinforce it. Until you are easily, regularly, and viciously raping this game, and are familiar with all of the different mechanics, I would say that group composition is quite important.


There are many absolutely amazing guides written for this game. The fans that wrote some of these guides were the difference between me mastering this game or abandoning it entirely. I constantly re-reference this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2813244137
I like it particularly for the numerous group composition suggestions for each dungeon, and the suggested provisions to bring to each individual dungeon.


I love this guide for strategies specific to each boss:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1756132323

Before you go suggesting guides, kindly go through the trouble of reading them.

First one you suggested repeatedly recommends backline OCC.
Second one recommends Fated.

First one is a rookie mistake, second one would get you mocked.

Look for the Darkest Dungeon Discord instead. It's got all the resources, plus easier communication thanks to real-time (ish) responses.
We have notable DD content creators like Thickveinysausage and ShuffleFM, as well as the actual dev team.

I've read those guides front to back many times, and found them immensely helpful. Sorry I guess if you didn't or if they didn't work for you.

[Alex Darkcrowne]

Originally posted by cookie!:

Originally posted by Alex Darkcrowne:

Before you go suggesting guides, kindly go through the trouble of reading them.

First one you suggested repeatedly recommends backline OCC.
Second one recommends Fated.

First one is a rookie mistake, second one would get you mocked.

Look for the Darkest Dungeon Discord instead. It's got all the resources, plus easier communication thanks to real-time (ish) responses.
We have notable DD content creators like Thickveinysausage and ShuffleFM, as well as the actual dev team.

I've read those guides front to back many times, and found them immensely helpful. Sorry I guess if you didn't or if they didn't work for you.

Backline OCC sucks. OCC has all his good moves at POS 2. At POS 1, he just loses Pull.

Fated is one of the worst positive quirks in the game.
Specifically, it says that it has a chance to turn a MISS into a HIT, which means it'll only ever proc at <100 ACC, which you shouldn't have in the first place.

Doesn't even recommend trying Occultist & Leper debuff spam for Prophet, which is not only effective, but hilarious.

[Milkymalk]

Originally posted by Alex Darkcrowne:

Doesn't even recommend trying Occultist & Leper debuff spam for Prophet, which is not only effective, but hilarious.

Noted. I beat him, but this will come handy in future runs and encounters. Haven't really used leper so far.

[KocLobster]

Originally posted by Alex Darkcrowne:

Originally posted by cookie!:

I've read those guides front to back many times, and found them immensely helpful. Sorry I guess if you didn't or if they didn't work for you.

Backline OCC sucks. OCC has all his good moves at POS 2. At POS 1, he just loses Pull.

Fated is one of the worst positive quirks in the game.
Specifically, it says that it has a chance to turn a MISS into a HIT, which means it'll only ever proc at <100 ACC, which you shouldn't have in the first place.

Doesn't even recommend trying Occultist & Leper debuff spam for Prophet, which is not only effective, but hilarious.

I feel like you're trying to argue points with me that I'm not even trying to defend. My main recommendation was two guides that I personally found extremely helpful when first learning this game. Unlike the false assumption in your first post, I've read both of those guides in their entirety many times. Like most things in life, they aren't perfect.

Taken as a whole however, I think both guides are very helpful for beginners, which OP clearly is. They can greatly reduce a lot of trial & error (and grinding) to quickly create a working foundation to master the game.

I don't even disagree with what you said. Fated sucks, yes. OCC can be better up front vs back. Yes.

Do those things make much of a difference for someone learning the game though? No, not really. Does the lack of recommending OCC upfront or the completely backwards recommendation of the Fated quirk completely nullify the entire guide and render all of its information useless? Again, not really.

I'm just genuinely trying to provide the OP some help. It seems like he's still learning the basics and you're pointing out more advanced tips before he's mastered the basics like getting a feel for party comp.

[Alex Darkcrowne]

Doesn't change the fact that those guides are questionable at best.
One of them has the heroes in reverse order, which is just straight up confusing.

For teambuilding, the core idea is to think of a dungeon as a problem to be solved, and heroes as tools to solve them with.
No A-teams, no favourites, or any of that crap. You want even levelling throughout your roster.

For example:
Cove has higher bleed resist than most, high PROT, a lot of bleed, and a lot of Eldritch enemies.
Plague Doctor has an answer for the first 3.
Occultist counters PROT (Curse) and Eldritch enemies (Stab & Artillery do +DMG vs. Eldritch)

Repeat until you have a full roster.

[sooshon]

It's my first time playing through this game and managed to beat him; I had no idea what to expect when going into the dungeon, never seen anyone play this game, and didn't look up any info outside the game, still found it manageable. Two of my guys did in fact die, but it was really unlucky since it happened on the turn before the boss died, so they could very easily have survived, got two bad dice rolls I guess (I don't really fully understand the whole deathblow system yet, not sure). I actually found the boss before him a bit harder and everyone in my party had stress over 100 in that one and going a little nutters, but they managed to pull through in the end...

anyway, if this random fool can do it so can you

[Alex Darkcrowne]

Originally posted by sooshon:

It's my first time playing through this game and managed to beat him; I had no idea what to expect when going into the dungeon, never seen anyone play this game, and didn't look up any info outside the game, still found it manageable. Two of my guys did in fact die, but it was really unlucky since it happened on the turn before the boss died, so they could very easily have survived, got two bad dice rolls I guess (I don't really fully understand the whole deathblow system yet, not sure). I actually found the boss before him a bit harder and everyone in my party had stress over 100 in that one and going a little nutters, but they managed to pull through in the end...

Deathblow Resistance is the chance of a hero not dying from taking hit at 0 HP.
So, 67% DBR equates to a 1/3rd chance of them dying from a hit at 0 HP.
DoTs bypass DBR.

DBR is also a lie and should never be relied upon, EVER. A single point of healing will immediately lift Death's Door, and that fact can be exploited to keep heroes alive even with no health.

If your party is getting stressed, you need to stop incoming stress by killing stress casters IMMEDIATELY and stalling a turn every fight to heal and de-stress.

DD can be strangled thoroughly if you know what you're doing.

[KocLobster]

Originally posted by Alex Darkcrowne:

For teambuilding, the core idea is to think of a dungeon as a problem to be solved, and heroes as tools to solve them with.
No A-teams, no favourites, or any of that crap. You want even levelling throughout your roster.

For example:
Cove has higher bleed resist than most, high PROT, a lot of bleed, and a lot of Eldritch enemies.
Plague Doctor has an answer for the first 3.
Occultist counters PROT (Curse) and Eldritch enemies (Stab & Artillery do +DMG vs. Eldritch)

Repeat until you have a full roster.

I fully agree with everything here you've said.

But again, I think the guides (both the two I linked as well as a bunch of the others here on steam) are a great start for learning the ropes. For example, everything you mentioned I already learned either directly from the guides or indirectly from using those guides as a foundation and furthering my knowledge by playing the game. However you want to slice it, they're quite beneficial.

Both of those guides are quite large, and you seem determined to nitpick a couple small things and present that as reason for completely invalidating them as a whole. I guess...I just don't understand why or what would motivate someone to do so.

[RopeDrink]

Darkest Dungeon has been so heavily dissected over the past 7 years that there are very obvious meta's and equally obvious solutions to pretty much every problem, so it all boils down to what the problem is and how hard you want to squash it.

It's infinitely easier to find things that work (compared to finding things that don't), and as a result, a lot of information - be it great, serviceable, or atrocious - can 'work out' regardless.

A proverbial 'bad guide' can feed you the statistical Holy Grail, but also cement bad habits and promote comparatively rubbish comps, quirks, trinkets (etc), or even the total opposite -- really good comps and setups, but promote watery playstyles and bad stats, (etc).

As the saying goes, "You can win with Quad LEP or Quad ANT if you want" -- but there's a reason that sentiment isn't suggested to new or struggling players, and one of many reasons why I prefer to criticise from the perspective of efficiency (rather than functionality).

Anyway, that's just speculative here-nor-there.

Very little information is required to crack DD's difficulty like an egg, so it's not as hard as the devs had hoped, but it is still a very punishing game where losing high-level heroes isn't fun.

The best thing to say is:
If guides haven't helped with a particular problem, don't hesitate to ask.

[\tg/ World Peace]

Prophet is one of the easier zone bosses IMO, you just need to have MAA and VES in your party. Guard whoever is going to get hit by rubble and keep riposte up. VES can pull multiple people off of Death's Door by group healing. Some other good options are ABM to rake down the pews or HWM for more riposte.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by \tg/ World Peace:

Prophet is one of the easier zone bosses IMO, you just need to have MAA and VES in your party. Guard whoever is going to get hit by rubble and keep riposte up. VES can pull multiple people off of Death's Door by group healing. Some other good options are ABM to rake down the pews or HWM for more riposte.

One of my generic teams for this is something like ARB(MUS)/OCC/MAA/LEP. Both OCC and LEP spam their debuffs to get the Prophet completely helpless as quickly as possible. Plus OCC can also top off heroes who aren't in critical trouble, while ARB/MUS can fix up heroes who are in critical danger (which they probably will not be) while also doing huge damage. And then MAA can guard anyone about to be hit by what will probably be feeble rubble.

This team renders the Prophet so weak so quickly that it's often even practical to spend some time taking out the pews for a few extra coins.

[sooshon]

Originally posted by \tg/ World Peace:

Prophet is one of the easier zone bosses IMO, you just need to have MAA and VES in your party. Guard whoever is going to get hit by rubble and keep riposte up. VES can pull multiple people off of Death's Door by group healing. Some other good options are ABM to rake down the pews or HWM for more riposte.

Now that I've played through the game I have to agree with this, he seems to be one of the easiest bosses to learn. All he does is the big rubble drop at the start of the round and some blight attacks. I made a habit of taking a stack of holy water (for +resistances) whenever I was fighting a new boss since I didn't know what to expect going in blind and having +resistances for a few turns can be a big help against bosses with blight\blood\debuff attacks. This worked perfectly on this boss (I was also using a lot of +resistance trinkets in the middle part of the game I remember), since you can avoid most of the blight that way, then at worst the rubble drop can put heroes at death's door and you can heal out of it (though once I learned the boss just simple healing / camping and buffing before the boss fight, and putting the sturdier heroes in the rubble's path was enough. The boss is also weak to blight so a hero like the plague doctor can make short work of him.

All in all I found the game to be a bit too easy on the starter difficulty once I got the hang of the basics and managed to win my first try in 78 weeks with 15 heroes lost. Kind of wish I had played on a harder difficulty, but might have to take a break before doing another run. Probably could have been faster but I think I was over-preparing for the darkest dungeon since I did fail my first level once in there so I started hunting all the boss trinkets for a while.