[WIP] The Darkest UI Guide - "A spark without kindling is a goal without hope."

A comprehensive UI guide to help you navigate the Darkest Dungeon! The Battle Screen, Dungeon Map, Character Sheets, and Quest Screen are all fully explained, plus a little bit about basic game mechanics.

"Frustration and fury! More destructive than a hundred cannons."

This is a small guide intended to help you understand the UI elements of Darkest Dungeon.

What do the various map icons mean? What do the battle icons mean? How do I read the battle stats? What's the deal with the Quest Map? All of this will be explained in this guide.

The Map - "Gilded icons..."

1. Hallways: four tiles connect rooms.
   
2. Rooms: rooms to explore.
   
3. Map Icon: select Map.
   
4. Inventory Icon: select Inventory.

Map Navigation:

• Hold right-mouse (mac?) and move your mouse to move the Map.
  
• Left click a room to travel to it.
  
• Mouse wheel zooms in and out.

Room Icons - "A beacon in the darkness..."

Party
The torch shows your party's location.

Entrance
The dungeon entrance, where you start.

Unknown
Maps and Scouting will reveal a room's type.

Go to
This icon will appear over the room you are going to.

Empty
This room is barren.

Altar (This is a room battle)
This room will have altar/holy curio in it. (Altar of Light, Pristine Fountain, etc.)

Treasure (This is a room battle)
This room will have treasure curio in it. (Heirloom Chest, Strongbox, etc.)

Battle (This is a room battle)
This room will have a mob of enemies.

Boss (This is a room battle)
This room is where the boss is located.

Completed
This icon will appear appear over a room once you have completed it and looted it.

Hallway Icons - "...stars in the emptiness of the void."

Party Tile
The torch shows your party's location.

Unknown tile
Maps and scouting will reveal a tile's type.

Battle tile
Foul abominations await you.

Curio tile
Dungeon interactions. (Sconce, Sack, Shallow Grave, etc.)

Trap tile
Look for a trap object and click on it.

Blockade tile
Use a shovel to remove the blockade and not induce stress.

Completed tile
A tile that has been revealed and completed or looted.

• You will always walk down hallways from left to right, regardless of your orientation on the map.
  
• You can walk backward to the room you came from.
  
• You move much slower when walking backwards.
  
• Walking occasionally (randomly) causes stress.
  
• Backtracking (going where you have been before) causes additional stress.

The Battle Screen - "These nightmarish creatures can be felled..."

• Enemies come in two sizes.
  
• Big enemies take up two rows.
  
• Small enemies rake up one row.
  
• Enemies have a maximum of 4 rows.
  
• Yellow bars mean they have not gone yet.
  
• The red icon above the enemy's health shows who can be attacked by your current skill.

• At the bottom of your character is a healthbar and stress meter.
  
• You can see the exact numbers by hovering your mouse over it.

Hovering your mouse over enemies tells you

1. Enemy name.
   
2. HP and basic stats.
   
3. Enemy type. (human, unholy, etc.)
   
4. Resistances.
   
5. Chance of your attack succeeding and damage range.
   • When not attacking, it will not display 5.

Tip! Use skills like the Occultist's Eldritch Pull and the Man-at-Arms' Rampart to move enemies to a row where their skills are not effective. In the picture above of the enemies, all I need to do is pull the gun-wielding Brigand forward and the knife-wielding Brigand will no longer be able to attack. Lots of back-row enemies have skills that rely on them being in the back row. If you move them up front, they often won't be able to do their normal attacks.

Bosses are unaffected by move skills




Please see Skills and Placement "... the wise hero trains for what he will face" chapter below for more on how attacks and party placement work.

Battle Screen Icons - "... they can be beaten."

These are icons that appear underneath your character.


Bleeding
Deals damage per round.

Blighted
Deals damage per round.

Buffed
Increases stats.

Debuffed
Decreases stats.

Marked
Target is marked. (certain skills do more damage to marked opponents)

• Remember! You can hover over any of these icons and they will tell you how much DMG per round, how many rounds, and what stats are being buffed and debuffed.
  
  
• Conditions stack. If you can, stack bleed and blight to deal enormous amounts of damage over time (DOT) to bosses each round. Also, stack buffs to deal massive crit damage and bolster accuracy.

When taking and delivering attacks, different types of damage have different icons.

Physical Damage
Physical damage affects your health. This includes normal attacks, bleeding and

Stress Damage
Stress Damage affects your sanity.

Conditional Damage
You have either been poisoned or diseased.

Critical Hit
You have struck a critical blow, giving you the chance to deal large amounts of damage.

Death
You will rejoice when you see it on your foes, weep or rage when see it on your heroes. Either way, it comes for us all.

The Character Sheet - "Great heroes can be found here..."

Skills and Placement - "... the wise hero trains for what he will face."

The Quests Map - "You remember our venerable house..."

There are 5 different dungeons. Each dungeon has its own special enemy types, curios, bosses, and visual theme. Some areas favor Undead enemy types, others are loaded with Beasts. If a hero is good at fighting Beasts, then they will be better in the Warrens than in the Ruins. If a character has a phobia related to Beasts, then they should avoid the Warrens.




At the top of each set of quests are some icons for each Dungeon.

• Dungeon Name
  
• Completion Bar
  
• Quest Rewards
  
• Dungeon Level

Quest Rewards:

Bust
Upgrades: Abbey, Sanitarium.

Oil Painting
Upgrades: Guild, Tavern.

Deed
Upgrades: Blacksmith, Stagecoach.

Crest
Upgrades: Everything.


An explanation of the Completion Bar and Dungeon Level mechanics.

The Completion Bar and the Dungeon Level work in tandem. The Completion Bar raises for each successful quest completed in that dungeon. The harder the quest, the more the meter will be raised. Upon completing the meter, it will raise the dungeon's level. The dungeon's level determines when a boss will be unlocked. After a while, leveling up a dungeon will stop until you defeat that dungeon's boss.



When you select a quest, you will see a brief description for it on the left of your screen.

• Mission type and flavor text
  
  
  
  
  
• Quest length and difficulty.
  
  • Short quests: 0 Campfire
    
  • Medium quest: 1 Campfire
    
  • Long quest: 2 Campfire
• Mission goals needed to complete the quest.
  
  
  
  
• Rewards for completing the quest.

Quest Icons - "It is an abomination!"

Quest icons are comprised of three different elements:

• Icon Image - Quest Type
  
• Icon Ring - Quest Length
  
• Icon Color - Quest Difficulty

Each quest type has its own icon.

Explore 90% of Rooms
Explore 90% of the rooms to complete the dungeon.

Defeat All Room Battles
You must defeat all altar, treasure, and battle rooms to complete the dungeon.

Retrieve Items
You must find a certain number of a special item to complete the dungeon.

Use Items On Curios
You will be given items that must be used on a specific type of curio to complete the dungeon.

Defeat A Boss
Defeat the Boss to complete the dungeon.



Three colors represent the difficulty.

Green
Apprentice difficulty

Orange
Veteran difficulty

Red
Champion difficulty



The length of a quest can be seen by the ring around each quest type's icon.

No Spikes
Short

3 Spikes
Medium

5 Spikes
Long

Boss icons follow the same color and ring rules, but rings are colored gold.

F.A.Q. - "A man in a robe, claiming communion with the divine... madness."

Why is this game so hard!

Darkest Dungeon uses a reverse difficulty curve, similar to X-COM: Enemy Unknown. This means the game is harder at the beginning and gets easier later in the game. (IMO, Darkest Dungeon's end-game is much more difficult than X-COM:EU's) Most games, like shooters and especially platofrmers, do the exact opposite. Expect to fail early on. Learn from your mistakes.

No, seriously, why is this so hard?

For one, this game plays against natural instincts of empathy. Characters are meant to be expendable. You are meant to lose them and dismiss them. Especially early on. Don't look at this as trying to min-max everyone that wanders in. Only give the worthy the good stuff. Cast the rabble to the wayside.

Why is my party always so stressed out!?

The most common reason is because you keep investigating everything. Some curio (dungeon interactions) require specific items to succeed. (ie: a Confessions Booth requires Holy Water) This is why it's bad for your Leper to go diving into carcasses just because he has Necromania. Some of the curios are random chance. Look at curio guides to see what are the percentages of various interactions are.

Why are fights so hard?

The game is about minimizing risk. If you have two opponents that re the same, with equal health and only one has taken their turn, then attack the one that hasn't taken their turn yet if you can kill them. Deny your enemy attacks. Make sure to prioritize opponents that specialize in dealing stress. It is much easier to heal health than to heal stress. Move enemies around in their rows to mess with their attacks.

Why is the [boss] so hard!?

Most of the bosses hide in the back rows, to keep from being hit by frontline attackers like Crusaders and Lepers. Use Highwaymen, Hellions, and other attackers that can hit 3rd and 4th row opponents. Bosses are big, so they will always be susceptible to third row attacks. Each one has a gimmick to it, and it is up to you to figure it out.

What should I upgrade first?

There is no right way to start off, but some things do make the early game easier, notably having access to a large roster of fresh recruits. IMO, upgrade the Stagecoach's Hero Barracks to a full roster and Stagecoach Network to at least level 2, so that you have at least 3 new recruits each time. Make sure to save some deeds for upgrading the Blacksmith!

What should I upgrade next?

Guild Hall and Blacksmith help a lot. The Sanitarium will help strengthen good characters, so that helps a lot, too. Overall, though, don't get too attached to your characters and only fully outfit the ones that have really good perks. Don't go overboard on reducing stress for all of your characters. Use the lesser ones as fodder and don't be afraid to hire a newbie team, only to send them to their doom. Just make sure that you don't spend too much money on their provisions.

What is the point of the [class]?

Look at the stats. The Arbalest can take advantage of marked opponents for more damage, but the Highwayman has a higher accuracy and crit percentage with his pistol. Each and every class has their own niche, and it's up to you to use them how you see fit. This includes their range of attacks. Hellions aren't as tanky as other classes, but they have better range to hit 3rd row opponents. Analyze the skills, strengths, and weaknesses of each class, and find what works for you.

What's the deal with sanity in this game? And the weird junk?

Darkest Dungeon is heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's twisted, horror fiction. Lovecraft was known for playing up the suspense element of the unknown and unseen, often using the "mysterious thing that drove people mad" plot device. This same device is used in Robert W. Chambers' The King In Yellow, a collection of short stories loosely revolving around a short play that shares the name of title, which drives people mad upon seeing the second act.

The creatures described in Lovecraft's works are pulsating voids filled with mouths, twisted abominations, and the infamous Cthulhu which is resembled as an octopus-faced humanoid with multiple eyes. It often involved elements of the occult and portals to planes of other existence.

I have a tip/ question/ you missed something/ you got something wrong!

Please leave a comment and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

May I link to your guide or host it somewhere else?

You may certainly link it elsewhere. Please tell me if you do, so I can give I can give it a shout out. However, I ask that you please not host this on another site without my permission. If you wish to host it, please contact me and we can work it out. I only ask for attribution, as long as you are not profiting off of my work.

I want to translate your guide!

Please leave a comment and I'll try to get to you as soon as possible. I openly welcome translations, as long as I get proper accreditation for source material. I have all of the images labeled in a folder and I can send you the raw text with markup, so you can have the exact same formatting, if you want.

Your Guide isn't finished!?!?

Yes, I know. It's about 80% done, though. I should have it finished by the end of the June. I just wanted to go ahead and publish it because I felt it offered a good deal of info already. Your patience is greatly appreciated!



Thank you very much for reading this guide!
I hope you found it to be useful!

[Polyester™]

The Altar icon also dictates a quest location, such as medicine bags. They do not always have room battles.

[gintoki]

thanks

[Ash]

Info about the different dungeons and what to expect to deal with them and best/worst class to use for them, especially the darkest dungeon.

Some class synergy examples that work well together would also be nice, the classes are vast and showing which one works well with who would be a tremendous help for begginers that are havin issues to swallow all the info being shown from the classes.

Love how this is going so far, would love to see this finished.

[Jjkramok]

I suggest you add to the Hallway Icons that if you have a Collect Items or Interact quests that you can hover over a scouted curio on the mini-map, that will tell you if it is a 'curio' or 'quest curio' like sacks of grain for a Collect quest or Animalistic Shrine for a Interact quest.

[Aqua]

Yeah no problem. I'd also recommend updating the Screenshots in the "Quests Map" stuff since I'm pretty sure the heirloom icons don't appear above the bar anymore. But just small little things, everything is really well written. So good job!

[Insanity Claus]

@Aqua: Yes, very good point. I need to update that and a few other things. This guide was primarily written before they had added corpses, so there's a decent amount of catching up I need to do on some of the sections.

Thank you, LIMT_CONCEPT and Abel for the kinds words! I hope to be able to finish this guide soon. Glad you found it useful!

[Aqua]

Pretty nice guide so far, but I'd also add the Secret Room in the "Hallway Icons" section.

[MAD_MISSILEER]

Very well written, thank you.

[Abel]

Nice guide and useful compendium.