Mr.Pepper's Team #1 : Scholars and Dancers

Hello, I am starting a new serie to help new players with team building and encourage discussion between veterans. Feel free to ask any questions or talk about what you would change. We start today with a particulary effective Double Lunge comp

Scholars and Dancers

Grave Robber : lunge, thrown dagger, shadow fade, Pick to the Face
Trinkets : Letter Opener and Raider Talisman. This make GR able to outspeed rank 3 more reliably and lunge far more deadly with better acc and dmg, on top of this you get scouting chance.

Plague Doctor : Blinding Gas, Plague Grenade, Battlefield Medicine, Noxious Blast
Trinkets : Blasphemous Vial and speed (Mildred Locket, Baron's lash, feather crystal...). Blasphemous vial is an auto pick for any Plague Doctor, +Acc and +Stun chance make blinding gas so reliable; meanwhile the speed allow Plague doctor to stun backline before they act.

Crusader : Holy Lance, Battle Heal, Inspiring cry, smite
Trinkets : Focus ring and Ancestral Scroll. More acc and crit to allow holy lance to reliably kill the dodgy backline; the scroll will make Crusader support moves far more effective (+you can swap it at camp for more stress heal)

Occultist : Hands from the Abyss, Wyrd Reconstruction, Weakening Curse, Sacrificial Stab
Trinkets : Demon's Cauldron and Ancestral Pistol/Ancestor's Signet Ring. Demon's Cauldron is an auto pick for Occ, look at that +stun chance and +crit which makes Hands from the abyss one of the best skill in the game. The acc help him to land hit more reliably, then either choose more security with the +prot of signet ring or the option to outspeed monsters with pistol (+3 speed).

Explication

This is called a double lunge team (allow Grave Robber to use a high burst dmg two time in a row), it is very fast at controlling the enemies, whether by bursting or stunning them in the first turns. Plague doctor naturally opens fights with blinding gas, this way she prevents a lot of stress and guarantee that backliners will be killed before they act, whether they outspeed your other 3 heroes or not. Grave Robber will follow with Lunge, this can secure a kill right away or at least severely injure rank 3. Often this leave Occultist to stun rank 1 or 2, but he can also finish off a backliner left on few hp by Lunge. And finally thanks to his low speed crusader is guaranteed to act after Grave Robber, now in rank 3 he can use holy lance, repositioning the grave robber in rank 3. This means that turn 2 Grave robber gets to use lunge once again for another burst of damage.

You can also swap Plague doctor for an antiquarian for a nice cash run team

Strengths :

• High damage on the first two turns of combats
  
• High speed
  
• Very good backline damage
  
• Very good stuns
  
• 3 different sources of healing, with DoT cure
  
• Prevent stress as well as able to heal it
  
• Can prevent nighttime ambush
  
• Can cure diseases

Weak points :

• Slower tempo after turn 2
  
• Squishy
  
• Not a lot of camping self buff

Which area to bring them ?

This team performs well in all areas except for weald. The big hp and prot enemies (fungal scratcher/artillery, unclean giants, virago...) will make sniping monsters harder to achieve, the fight can't be secured in two lunge like with other monsters mashes. This will result in the team being exposed to more damage than it can take; in addition, this team doesn't have a lot of answers to big frontline damage of this area.

[Katatafish]

You have an occultist in like every team!
Maybe you should just run a full team

[RonnyRat]

fav team, thanks :D

[brevous]

This series you're starting looks so excellent. I don't have too many resources yet because I'm still quite early in the game but I'm going to try following your guide(s). Thanks

[_ALuX_]

That's cool, looking forward to the next one

[Mr.Pepper]

This is will be purely based around vanilla. I want to do something where everyone can participate/talk about their experience. To create ressources for new players

[_ALuX_]

Quick question - will these guides be purely vanilla, or will future guides also take into account your rework mods? I'm pretty sure the former will be the case but I just wanted to ask for when you do start bringing the other classes into the question in a future guide.