why trinkets are garbage?

[Holy Templar]

hey,
my friend played this game lately a lot, then suggested me to try it. i played this game on my friends' account and it seems almost all of the trinkets are worthless to equip. they have so many downsides than their benefits.

i am on week 50 or something. 25 characters total, i have level 4 squad, level 3 squad, and low levels.
because of trinkets having so many negative effects, i tend to choose heroes with ''natural'' quirk, at least this way they can get more heal and have insane speed bonus.

i have couple of very rare ones, focus ring, junia's head, legendary bracer, bounty hunter specific etc.

blue and green ones always bad. the only good one i think is the speed stone. maybe those bleed ones on flag too.

around 56 trinkets in total and i can't remember any of them having full positive effect apart from speed stone. most of them have -speed, dodge, chance, debuff, move resist etc.

i mean even the very rare (orange) ones have negative attributions on them.

how you play end game with these kind of trinkets when even high level ones have negative sides?

[spaceweezle]

Quirks can often compensate or outright negate negative effects on trinkets. I guess the end-game then becomes balancing trinkets around Quirks so as not to suffer any major/crippling stat deficits.

Some deficits like that of Lepper trinkets are negated almost entirely due to innate class dynamics. Stress for instance being much less of a problem for the Lepper.

Similarly, trinkets such as Focus ring have their negative effects mostly diminished by virtue of equipping them on heroes with a very low dodge base. (Heroes that don't necessarily synergize well with Dodge.

There are also mode/style specific trinkets (low/high-torch) which are omnipotent respective of their intended functions. Hells Hairpin being a good example of this, but there are many more.

Then there is also the consideration that you have two trinket slots, enabling you to effectively cancel-out negative effects between them. Trinket-synergy I guess you might call it.

Personally I think the design is good as it makes you think more deeply on which trinkets works best for which hero and dungeon.

[TheAlmightySpode]

Trinkets aren't garbage. Yeah they have ups and downs, but the downs don't often outweigh the benefits. Look at Dismas's Head, for instance. +25% dmg in any position. Against any enemy. You trade 15% max HP and +20% stress, yeah, but that's 2-4 stress damage per attack for a consistent 3-6 damage per hit on Leper. Stack that further with something like Brawler's Gloves for another 25% dmg boost in position 1, and you're now hitting for a consistent 6-12 extra damage a turn with Leper.

You're giving up 15% HP, 20% stress, -5% crit, and 1 spd. But a heavy front line hitter like Leper or Abomination have massive health pools, self heal, and stress heal. The speed drop sucks for Abom, but Leper is gonna go last anyways. All this for a guaranteed kill on most enemies.

Now would I put these on Flagellant? No. His damage comes largely from bleed. They still are extremely good on the right hero though (Dismas's Head is honestly good on any damage dealer). It's about finding what to use where to benefit them the most.

[JEB!]

Ask yourself what your hero is doing and what they don't need to be doing. Lots of trinkets have negative speed or damage on them, if you don't want them to go first or deal loads of damage then those are basically free. Have a shuffling team with SB or GR? Then losing move resist isn't such a big deal. Have a solid healer like Vestal? Then lowered max health isn't such a big deal. Have a MAA to guard? Then you can get away with a single character having terrible defence. Have a Jester? Take on as much stress as you want. Not going to the Warrens? Lower your disease resistance. And so on.

You can go on to make interesting combinations like stacking crit on a character in order to get a pseudo stress heal.

[RopeDrink]

why trinkets are garbage?

There are plenty of garbage trinkets - but not for the reasons you've given.

Most of the absolute best trinkets in the game come with heavy detriments - which can be offset via other trinkets, quirks, buffs, or neutered via efficient play.

Ultimately, the overall value of trinkets boils down to their amount of specific (typically meta) stats.

For example:

Blasphemous Vial -- for Plague Doctor:
+10 ACC Ranged Skills -- Insane
+20% Stun Skill Chance -- Insane
+20% Blight Skill Chance -- Insert ["Nice"] Meme
+25% Stress

That one lonely detriment is automatically diluted by the queen of stuns having a higher chance to land and secure her prevention -- and in every other circumstance, the issue can be diluted via 1-2 quirks and/or the second trinket and/or buffs. Either way, it's a small price to pay for such a massive bonus.

blue and green ones always bad.

That is grossly incorrect.

There are plenty of common, green, and blue trinkets that veterans will favour over legendary (or higher) under various circumstances - particularly the class or light-based trinkets. After all, "Bright" trinkets used in the Courtyard or Harvest provide guaranteed positives with no downside -- because their light level is always 100.

For example, The Heaven's Hairpin (Blue Trinket, Hellion):
-25% Stress if Torch above 75
+10 ACC if Torch above 75

The Bright Tambourine (Blue Trinket for Jester):
+20% Stress Skills
-25% Stress if Torch above 75
+15% Stress if Torch below 51

Trinkets like that are absolutely insane for pushing through extended content.

i mean even the very rare (orange) ones have negative attributions on them.

Think of it like a balancing act. You're investing X amount of negative towards Y+Z amount of positive -- followed by all the other positives and detriments of baseline stats, quirks, secondary trinket, skills, buffs, and other variables.

For example, Photomania provides -20% Stress while the Torch is above 75. So, with or without something like Bright Tambourine (another -25% stress while above 75), you can essentially nullify the +10-25% Stress received from X trinket very easily.

i tend to choose heroes with ''natural'' quirk, at least this way they can get more heal and have insane speed bonus.

Natural has its moments, but that paltry bonus costs two trinket slots instead of one, thus they will always be miles behind the heroes rocking two solid trinkets instead.

[Holy Templar]

i did get highwayman's ''gunslinger buckle'' (good for ranged attacks) this item is understandably good. at least it gives ranged attack buff and reduces melee attack dmg and acc.

i mean there are good synergies with items and characters like highwayman or arbalet or that girl with throwing knives with ring trinket or some other characters with trinkets. i do not re-equip them all so do not know their name.

to get this highwayman's ''gunslinger buckle'' item i did upgrade my squad and spent around 25.000 gold or so, lvl 4 armors, weapons, skills and camp skills.
i did use vestel, 2x highwayman, crusader for ruins mission to get highwayman's belt. it was orange or red mission cannot remember at the moment.

this was long mission with 2x campfire, i did get bunch of stock for the mission; like 2.5 food, 20 torches, 5 shovels, 3 keys, 2 herb bowl, 2 or 3 holy water. i know this was way overkill but i had to get that item, i did not care about gold cost.

i did not use veltel's heal more than 4 times in the entire run. mostly used her to stun or other ranged dmg attack for the back line. 2 highwayman (with ranged camp skill it when possible) grapeshot or single shot in the 4th line if there were stress dealers. crusader mostly used +holy dmg like vestel, sometimes stunned those fat mace skeletons with high health.

in the end found couple trinkets kept blue and green ones. bunch of bust like 40 and 30 crest, 3 portrait 3 paper writing. found 1 cape or something that gave 4.500 gold. it was too easy and i believe i did not have to upgrade all those things for this run.

not this topic related but, i think i have too many antiquarian (5 in total) i wanted to get at least 1 for each region but somehow get ruins scout mostly (2 ruins scout, 1 weald scout, 1 cove scout)

i think there is not any trinket storage limit because i keep all of them. i do not sell trinkets for gold because i did bunch of antiquarian runs. just want to collect them and compare.

in stage coach i keep getting same heroes and becaus of this my roster is mostly filled with same champions.
5x antq,
2x plague doc, jester, flag, maa, shieldbreaker
3x crusader, highwayman,
1 arbalet, leper, occult

only got 1 ♥♥♥ ( this is A B O short for abomination idk why steam blocked this word) and hound that died early,

i want to get a team with plague doc, knife throwing girl (can't remember class, mine only one died some time ago) shieldbreaker for poison tick dmg over time. i get 6 heroes from coach for every week but can't seem to get this knife throwing girl.

long post and some of them not related to this topic but wanted to share. thanks for your messsages read them all.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

Natural has its moments, but that paltry bonus costs two trinket slots instead of one, thus they will always be miles behind the heroes rocking two solid trinkets instead.

It's great when you're early game and (most) of the trinkets are trash. Don't lock it, though, for God's sake.

A good general strategy: if a hero is strong in a stat, buff it. You want it godlike.

An exception is if it's so good buffing it is wasting a trinket slot. Leper's damage is an example. Most of the time he hits, it takes out the enemy but causes a ridiculous amount of surplus damage that is meaningless.

If a hero is weak in a stat, fix it.

I'll stick with Leper. Leper's accuracy is miserable. You can't afford this loser missing because you probably waited all round just to get around to him.

If a hero is so abysmally weak in a stat that it doesn't even matter, disregard debuffs to that stat.

Again Leper. Leper's speed is so pitiful buffing it is nearly pointless unless you're getting that for free with something else.

There are exceptions to every one of these (even for the specific Leper examples). For instance there are some bosses that are giant balls of hit points and for those, buffing Leper's damage makes perfect sense.

The most important stats to boost are SPD/ACC tied for first with DMG as a distant second.

-STRESS is very important. An insane +STRESS should usually give you pause. The only reason it's acceptable on the Blasphemous Vial is that it is otherwise so insanely great it would be unbalanced.

And you also have to think about what you're fighting. You want trinkets that are good for where you're going.

So in Ruins, Unholy trinkets (not very important since these enemies while common there are not very formidable anyway). Warrens, Beast. Cove, Eldritch. Weald, Eldritch until Champion and then it's a toss-up between Eldritch/Human.

While Human is common in all dungeons up to the last, most human enemies aren't that formidable and with few exceptions the ones that are have another type like Eldritch or Beast.

[Ghoul Hunter]

Trinkets are totally worth it, but there are plenty of duds (or situational ones), too. Then there are the boss trinkets which have no downsides. You also can't lose them. Ancestor trinkets give huge benefits with a downside of +10% stress. That's a pretty low penalty, for things like +15 acc and +3 speed.

You probably haven't seen them all yet, or you haven't taken the time to evaluate them fully.

[RopeDrink]

-STRESS is very important. An insane +STRESS should usually give you pause. The only reason it's acceptable on the Blasphemous Vial is that it is otherwise so insanely great it would be unbalanced.

Indeed.

As said, the value of trinkets is often down to their amount of very specific stats -- and because there are SO many trinkets and SO many stats, then by process of elimination, a humble majority of trinkets suck by default -- but not because they have 'detriments' -- that's just the balancing act.

Here's a quote from various "best stats" discussions, which apply to 'combat' more than 'trinkets', but it gives an indication of why some trinkets are flatly better than others:

ACC > SPD > Stress Reduction > DMG/Chance > Resistances (Bleed/Blight) > Health/PROT > Healing Done/Received > Whatever.

Stress Reduction is the wild card. It's great to have by default, but you'll want more depending on the trinkets. However, with or without +/- Stress, you are absolutely going to want ACC and SPD regardless, and definitely won't say no to things like Stun Chance, perhaps even damage... and then you get to the nice mediums, like resistance, health, protection, etc.

During the early game, there are instances where you absolutely will use common trinkets like "Dazzling Charm" or "Witches Vial" (flat 10-15% stun chance with no downside) over trinkets of much higher quality (eg. -SPD)... and then, compare it to something extreme, like Broken Key on Abomination:

+15 ACC
+35% Stun Skill Chance
+10% Stress

That +10% stress is such a small price to pay for something so glorious.

[Nakos]

Things like the Book of Sanity are about as commonly found as other orange trinkets, and make an effective counter-weight to things like the Blasphemous Vial.

[RopeDrink]

Aye, that's a good one.

For fun, here are "lower-than-legendary" (non-class) trinkets I use as filler. If you see bold/italic, I keep them for longer - or until the very end. Everything else becomes free gold as soon as I have better alternatives.

-- Very Common (Grey)
Stun Stone
Stun Charm
Bleed Charm
Blight Charm
Health Stone
Debuff Charm
Disease Charm
Bloodied Fetish
Protection Stone

-- Common (White)
Warrior's Cap
Damage Stone
Dazzling Charm
Reckless Charm
Warrior's Bracer
Snake Oil
Speed Stone

-- Uncommon (Green)
Worry Stone
Heavy Boots
Steady Bracer
Surgical Gloves
Calming Crystal
Swift Cloak
Stun Amulet
Blood Charm
Bleed Amulet
Bloodthirst Ring
Book of Holiness
Book of Relaxation
Chirurgeon's Charm

-- Rare (Blue)
Brawler's Gloves
Fasting Seal
Sniper's Ring
Berserk Charm
Feather Crystal
Recovery Charm
Quick Draw Charm

-- Very Rare (Orange)
Tough Ring
Fortifying Garlic
Cleansing Crystal
Legendary Bracer
Focus Ring
Hero's Ring
Book of Sanity

There are also plenty of niche options, such as gear affected by high/low light, gear for taking down specific enemy types (beast, human, eldritch, etc), gear you might keep for "Virtue Fishing" (like Hero Ring -- which you have no reason to keep for any reason other than that particular strat, hence I automatically sell them, whereas others might hunt them down).

That's about 50'ish trinkets, and only a handful are legitimate 'keepers'.

Then, you have class-specific trinkets, which is where things get a lot more niche. For example, as an incision-PD enjoyer, I will always hunt down a Bloody Herb (Blue) + Dissection Kit (CC), whereas people who avoid melee-PD will be less excited.

There are far more notable 'class-based' trinkets compared to notable 'generic' trinkets, so it'd take way too long to list them all - but despite the vast amount of trinkets in Darkest Dungeon, I only really keep a few rows of them in my box at any one time.

There are lots of really, REALLY good ones, but because there are so many to choose from, and because there's only a small selection of truly amazing stats, a hefty chunk of trinkets simply aren't worth keeping for very long, especially when you have farmed up to Orange (or higher) quality.

Even some of the unique boss trinkets will be thrown in the dumpster quicker than various greens, blues, or rares.

[Stevcorp]

Anything that doesn't boost evade or makes it smaller.

[strike478]

This is DD not D&D. Trinkets usually have downsides but sometimes those downsides can be negated. Like for example when your hero has lots of traits which help to reduce/cure stress you can use trinket which does something positive for increased stress. Also -1 to spd can be good for hero which focuses on healing/removing statuses. Sometimes its worth to slow down most of your team if one guy can give them all bonus to offensive stats.

Yes bad choices can murder you and be more harmful than helpfull but... trinkets can be sold so if you feel like you wont find use for one of them in near future you can sell it. Also if you for example kleep getting trinkets with nice positive bonuses but bleed vulnerability... you can either use them in locations when bleeding is very rare or sell them. Or use them in one location, sell them before going to one whjere bleed happens often. Or sell so many bleed vulnerability trinkets that when you find next one you will have budget to buy 12 bandages for new adventure. This is hard punishing game but with right strategy you can make maaany things work.