How prepared should I be for the Darkest Dungeon?

[Tenmar]

So I've been in a terrible endless cycle running champion level dungeons and I have a good amount of people who are level 6 with 5/5 (4 on guild skills). How prepared should I be for the challenges of the Darkest Dungeon?

Right now I'm basically always breaking even and finally putting a bit of money into locking in positive quirks and getting rid of the really bad negative quirks. Not to mention having to spend 10k gold on curing diseases and destressing heroes. I'm at a point where I have to do pure gold runs and can't even afford farming heirlooms.

I'm at week 101 and I'm honestly really getting tired of doing this gold grind but at the same time I really do want to beat this game and not be thrown back a milestone as since losing a couple of heroes has drastically increased the grind even more.

Should I focus on farming/locking positive quirks while getting rid of the negative ones? How can I optimize farming gold so I can actually progress in the game again?

[Lu]

You don't need to have all the best quirks locked in to beat the game. It's a small advantage at best. In fact i'm sure many of the people who have already beaten the game didn't even think to lock in the quirks that are most useful in the Darkest Dungeon and instead locked in other stuff. Others probably had their best parties wiped on their first attempts and had to power level characters with no quirk optimization at all in order to beat the game.

Really, the best way you can prepare is by sending lower level characters you don't particularly care about into the Darkest Dungeon so you can get an idea of what to expect and which party compositions will work well.

[Tenmar]

Originally posted by Marma:

You don't need to have all the best quirks locked in to beat the game. It's a small advantage at best. In fact i'm sure many of the people who have already beaten the game didn't even think to lock in the quirks that are most useful in the Darkest Dungeon and instead locked in other stuff. Others probably had their best parties wiped on their first attempts and had to power level characters with no quirk optimization at all in order to beat the game.

Really, the best way you can prepare is by sending lower level characters you don't particularly care about into the Darkest Dungeon so you can get an idea of what to expect and which party compositions will work well.

I'd hate to tell ya, but not a lot of people have actually beaten this game according to the steam achievements. Beating this game is currently one of the most rare steam achievements.

So basically, send the lambs in to the slaughter? How would you even get to the boss to understand what you would need to do each time?

[Pseudok]

You are probably overprepared already, if such term can be used when it comes to DD.

Stress increasing negative quirks shouldn't exist, especially not Fear of Eldritch. Locking positives isn't that important here, really. Obviously they can be a bonus and you should keep an eye on them when choosing party, but trying to lock three perfect quirks and get two okayish at random will probably give you your first DD run at around week 188 ór something.

If you want to experience the DD completely by yourself (ie, not checking wiki), you should expect to lose your first party, no matter how well you prepare in-game. Surely loss is not 100% certain even then, but going in blindly and triumphing would require something at least I don't (and didn't :P) have myself.

[Madmax]

For what is worth, none of my DD teams had locked-in quirks. I sent one team on a pre-release save to the first DD quest and they got slaughtered, but that was the only one. On my fresh release save (the one I beat the game with), I beat each mission on the first time without looking up wiki info.* In fact, the one tip I saw for DD2 almost costed me the run.**

This is all to say that as long as you have a decent team (good damage and crowd control, no stress boosting quirks), and you don't bring a lot of +stress trinkets, you should be OK.

--
*OK, not 100% true. I did check the wiki to see whether I would need the Talisman of the Flame for DD3 because I was paranoid that the lack of warning was a bug.
**I saw a thread recommending anti-venom for DD2. My brain read that as "DD1 enemies are all about bleed, DD2 enemies must be all about blight!" So I didn't pack any bandages. Derp. You can imagine my reaction when the first Cultist Priest showed up.

[itssirtou]

If you want to be REALLY prepared you can look up the DD layouts, they are always the same.

[Ghin]

Go in and find out. Why would you want to spoil it?

[kNIGHT]

@OP you will want lev 5 skills. Otherwise go for it.

[chouia]

Originally posted by kNIGHT:

@OP you will want lev 5 skills. Otherwise go for it.

I agree... If you get enough gold to lock positive quirks, you should get enough gold to buy level 5 skills you use!!! You should improve skill's accuracy and efficiency.

Once you have max skills/armor/weapon, good trinkets, good campskills, no stress, no disease and enough gold to buy a lot of items for the run... there is nothing more you can do, you are definitely ready. (Maybe you could remove really bad quirks, of course...)

I think it's better to discover DD by yourself. But it's your choice, no doubt. If you really don't want to lose heroes, you can cheat a little bit! ;)

Originally posted by Tenmar:

Beating this game is currently one of the most rare steam achievements.

I like this game, but I think it's probably too long. Even without grind, you do always the same thing during hours and hours and hours... It's not boring if you really like the game... but it's probably too much for most of players.
It looks like you are a little bit tired too. The game could probably be a better experience if it was 1/3 shorter.

[Tenmar]

Thanks a lot for the responses! Really appreciate it. Sounds like I'm going to have to grind a bit more gold and get my squad level 5 skills to max out their ACC. Now to figure out what trinkets to bring as it sounds like there is a ton of bleeding and blight.

Also, interesting to know it is scripted. Kinda strange how the game is all about adapting.

I'll also have to agree that flame trinket confuses me and seems really out of place for the game. A trinket that I'm obviously going to need for the Darkest Dungeon, but I dont know what it is used for. Add to that I only get three so one person in the team is going to suffer whatever this "revelation" skill is. Really seems like bad game design for that especially at the end of the game where you dont know what is coming. It reminds me of a kaizo level from Super Mario Rom Hacks.

[Scootz]

The final dungeon survival guide by mrbunnyman actually has a fairly comprehensive guide if you want to look up the Darkest Dungeon, it'll save you a lot of guess work and when I asked about the first Darkest Dungeon I was told it was actually fairly easy...sorta.
If I get a total wipe though, I can at least use the four new slots to get some new heroes and get some easy gold.