Second Assault on the Darkest Dungeon

[Tenebrous Hero]

Just looking for some tips for the titular mission. My first foray into the Darkest Dungeon was more or less relatively blind, (a friend of mind warned me about heavy bleed, so I tuned my party to resist it), but given just how close I nearly party-wiped, I just felt that a bit of similarly cursory knowledge before beginning the Second Assault would be advisable.

Is there anything in particular that haunts that segment of the game? Active stress dealers? The trinkets I received from the First Assault seem to nullify stress from a skill called Revelation... so I take it this is a stress focused dungeon?

[Lu]

You only get three trinkets to protect against Revelation, so one hero will be vulnerable to huge amounts of stress and damage. A good way to counter this is to bring classes that can guard, like the Man-at-Arms and Houndmaster.

Also, bring plenty of antivenom.

[Oscar tG]

I went into DD2 blind and suffered my first three deaths of the campaign and I can only stress that six antivenom are not enough.

[wckowalski]

Also, it may help to look up the map (always the same for DD missions), so you can minimize the number of fights you need to do.

[Xlomblie_Wheizard]

Just take a healer, someone who can Guard, & then take two classes who can do really high damage (one of which will not have a torch & has to be guarded). The Guard hero will also be the team's stun. This general formula clears that level out easily.

And it's blight more so than bleed on this level, so bring much antivenom, but bring bandages anyway because there are still those hyper bleed-inducing Cultists all over the place.

And like wckowalski said, a map o/t dungeon layout helps a lot, if you don't mind not going in blind. Which can be more fun. But also harrowing.

[DuckieMcduck]

As Marma brought up, you might want to bring a Man at Arms with the protective trinkets to guard whoever is unprotected.

You can use Houndmaster's Guard Dog skill for the same task.. but it will only work for a single turn, forcing you to re-cast it on the character once it's HM's turn once again. This will either greatly decrease your damage output and drag out the chamber fights even more, which is exactly what you don't want to do, or leave someone in the open and susceptible to a 1/4 chance to get astronomical stress & physical damage.

Outside of that, you'll get struck with tons of Bleed, Blight and Stress along the way to chambers, its contents guarded by humble sized fellows called Templars. As mentioned, you'll probably want to get rid of them as soon as possible.

[Tenebrous Hero]

UPDATE: Just returned from the second assault. Didn't go as badly as anticipated. Combated the Templar with the Flesh Hounds and the Impaler with the Polyps, but by the end of the Impaler fight, my heroes were far too battered to continue any further. Had to abort.

Will the beacons remain lit on our return journey to the Darkest Dungeon? Or will I have to slay all three from the beginning?

[Sunwave]

Originally posted by GildedEagle:

UPDATE: Just returned from the second assault. Didn't go as badly as anticipated. Combated the Templar with the Flesh Hounds and the Impaler with the Polyps, but by the end of the Impaler fight, my heroes were far too battered to continue any further. Had to abort.

Will the beacons remain lit on our return journey to the Darkest Dungeon? Or will I have to slay all three from the beginning?

I think you'll have to start from the beginning or it would be a little cheap. Can't promise it's correct, though. I got murderized by the other fight (the one you didn't see) and had to bail before getting any of the targets. The second time I completed the dungeon.

[No One]

While MAA is quite helpful, I one-shot this blind with PD-OCC-BH-HEL. It's not necessary. Mark isn't even that good here.

[Sunwave]

Originally posted by shinydeath:

While MAA is quite helpful, I one-shot this blind with PD-OCC-BH-HEL. It's not necessary. Mark isn't even that good here.

^ This. MAA is really helpful, but not needed. It's even possible to do it without a defender at all, if you have a super high dodge character or -% stress damage on the character without a talisman. Fast-kill party is good since the bosses don't have THAT high health. Mark is not that good indeed, because it works only for 1 turn on the bosses.

Still, I'd recommend MAA to do multiple attacks against the bosses (they often do AOE or front line damageon their second attack of the turn and you will basically counter 50% of their first turns because that's always revelation (right?).)

[Maple]

I beat it yesterday, because my last hero on death's door managed to land a crit on the final templar- based on my experience your MAA needs quick draw or something that seriously boosts his speed because otherwise you're at a big risk for the templars moving first (mine didn't), and you need extreme damage to kill them as fast as possible- you can't out last them. I'd also recommend a vestal with both heals and a healing trinket and to have stuns on your damage classes to allow minor stalling for heals.

[Sunwave]

Well, if you want to know my party:

Vestal (+2 healing trinkets), Crusader (+eldritch slaying, +25% damage), MAA (+speed, +speed), Yester (+quickdraw, +stressheal).

Normal fights:
Bascially crit 1 guy dead with the jester, then stressheal. Use crusader for other back-row if needed, or for stun. Use MAA for riposte, or for stun, or just damage. Stun/heal at the end of the fight to get back to full health and empty stress a bit (don't wait around for reinforcements though)

Bossfights:
MAA: Riposte, bolster, riposte, bolster. Until the unit without a talisman gets hit once by revelation, then start guard, riposte, guard, riposte.
Crusader does raw damage.
Vestal heals.
Jester keeps buffing party for extra crits (and heal crits).

It was not optimal, but I wanted to have 1 of every class with "never again".