Darkest Dungeon®

Darkest Dungeon®

147 ratings
Common Q&A Tips for New Players
By CPE
Q: Umm.... Who are you?
A: I am just a player with fully upgraded helmet. I can't say I am good at the game but I can give some tips to other players.

Q: WHY DO I HAVE NO MONEY?!!!!!
A: Money can be used in different things like relieving stress, getting rid off negative quirks, buying upgrades for heroes, buying trinkets(not recommended in early game). If you found yourself out of gold or have only around 4000 gold or so, go get more heroes from the cart on the bottom right and make a team. Gather as much loop as possible and if you can't finish the dungeon, just exit it on the top right where a white flag is shown. If the new heroes suffers from stress just ignore it or fire him/her. You can make money this way.

Q: Why is this game so hard?
A: This game is designed to be hard. Maybe in the later patches they might nerf the difficulty level. For now, you can download mods that makes the game easier.

Q: Which team comp is the best?
A: There is no such a thing as the best team comp just as there is no such a thing as the best player in a team. Each team and even each character has different unique setting which can perform differently in different condition.
My current team comp(Maybe not the best): 1st: Man at Arms(Super Good)/Hellion/Bounty Hunter 2nd: Bounty Hunter/Highwayman
3rd: Highwayman/Houndmaster/Plague Doc/Arbalest 4th: Usually just Arbalest.

Man at Arms gives AOE debuff and damage, single target stun, return damage when enemy attacks him, and a ton of damage. Moreover he has great health which can tank 3-4 or even 5 hits from the bosses before going into deathdoor. It is a super good pick up if you are looking for someone who can tank everything.

Highwayman is more like a midrange utility based high damage hero aka glass cannon. He is really reliable in terms of damage and can deal massive amount of damage both AOE and single target. Also he has the lunge and point blanket shot combo which can deal around 40 damage before criting to the enemy front lane. It is a very solid pick up.

Hellion is more like a burst heavy front lane. She is not as tanky as the Man at Arms, but she can deal massive single target and AOE damage also bleeding the target in exchange of self debuff. It is more unreliable than Solid tanks but it sometimes can be very good so it is still a very good pick up.

I personally rarely run heal and I am pretty dependent on damage dealing and camping. Many people might run different things like Crusader(1st/2nd, easy to use), Jester(Doesn't Really Matter, really hard to master), Leper(Front Lane, bad end game due to low accuracy), Occultist(one of the strangest class, hard to master), and Vestal(Easy and a better way to heal than most classes). They have different special abilities that might not be easy for the new players. I tried a couple of times, sometimes the work well, sometimes not too good.
Not recommended for new player: Grave Robber(Too Squishy and too hard to use properly).

Q: Why are there objects that damages my heroes and even give a negative quirk.
A: Different objects reacts differently and sometimes the object reacts with an item. Ex. Locked Chests(Skeleton Key), Lab/Animal Parts(Medical Herb), Knifes(Bandage), Tree(Antidote), Fountain(Holy Water), Graves(Shovel). If you use proper item to it, it usually gives you a great benefit and avoids negative effects on your heroes.

Q: Why can't I kill the bosses?
A: Early bosses are more easily to kill, but still without weapon upgrades and skill upgrades it could be a pain in the butt. Just to be sure pick your team accordingly to the boss. For example if the boss is around 3rd to 4th position, pick long range attackers like Arbalest/Plague Doc/Highwayman. If the boss is around 1st or 2nd position, then pick something like Hellion/Bounty Hunter/Leper. Some bosses are designed to be harder than the others.

Q:Why is there an altar that summons a super boss by placing a torch on it?!
A: If you are not prepared for a super difficult fight for a guarantee random from a set of very rare trinket, don't fight it(DON'T PLACE A TORCH ON IT). The fight requires you to have more than enough HP, DPS, and AOE for the mission your currently ongoing mission. Be careful fighting it!!!

Q: Why is everything so expensive?
A: By upgrading your town you are experience lower price than the original ones. You can upgrade them by using one of the purple things you got from dungeons/finishing quests.

Q: Why do I die a lot in dungeons?
A: If you can't finish a dungeon just click and surrender. It is better this way because at least you can bring back the loot and fight for another day.

Q: Why are some of the monsters harder to kill than the others?
A: There is another value besides the attack and speed of the monster, the Protection(PROT). The higher the PROT is, the lighter you hit them. To deal with those high PROT monsters, blight or bleed is always a good choice because they ignore PROT. No PROT monsters are usually more damage heavy or have skills that are annoying(stun, debuff, stress, move, blight, bleed, and even disease).

Q: Why do I miss a lot?
A: By upgrading your skills you can receive a higher accuracy and damage. Also, check your disease, quirks, trinkets, or even things that happened in the town(Double Vision after drinking will lower your accuracy by 10), and make sure. Also, some skills have a higher accuracy than others and some heroes have a lower accuracy than others.

Q: Why can't I beat monsters in the dungeons easily without taking a lot of damage?
A: Having a high speed and a high attack is a great way of not taking damage or stress penalty during fights. Kill the weak ones first also. Try to snipe one or two people off the back before your enemy attacks. Also try to focus the enemies that have not attacked yet.
High speed and attack heroes: Highwayman/Arbalest.

Q: What is stress and affliction?
A: Stress is a bad thing that can build up in your hero. Stress can be built by enemy criting, no food, object interaction, some enemy skills, etc. Stress can be relieved by camping skills, criting the enemy, some skills from your heroes, etc. When you reach 100 stress, your heroes might suffer an affliction(usually gives stress, debuff, damage, pass turn to the hero or other heroes) or a virtue(reduce stress, heal, buff for the hero or other heroes). If the hero suffers 200 stress, the hero dies with a heart attack.(RIP)

Q: Do I open another account if I messed up?
A: Try to turn back the situation as much as possible(You can make money with the second Q&A in this guide), before quitting the account. Success only comes after many trials and failures. I was once broke and have no hero left with only 480 gold or so.

Q: What supplies do you suggest to bring on a mission?
A: Short: 8-10 Torches, 8 food, 2-3 shovels, 1 antidote, 1 bandage, 2 skeleton keys, 1-2 holy water, 2 medical herbs.
Medium: 10-12 Torches, 12-16 food, 3 shovels, 2 anti, 2 bandage, 2-4 SK, 2 HW, 2 MH.
Long: At least 16 Torches, around 20 food, 4-5 shovels, depending on the area bring anti and bandage accordingly, 5SK, 2HW, 3-4 MH.
If you are fighting a boss bring more antidote, bandage, and medical herbs accordingly. Also, some bosses are harder than the others. Moreover, the boss room is usually the furthest room away from the starting area, so camp at the room before.
This is only my opinion. I don't really have a lot of experience with long quests and boss fights either, so this serves as a suggestion.

Q: WHY U BAD ENGLISH?
A: English is my second language and if I made any mistakes please point it out. If there are places that need clarification and even correction, please comment down below.

This is my first time making a guide. Thank you for reading and have bright day on the darkest dungeon.(Keep your torches lit)
   
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Top 3 Hero in Diffrent Position(My Opinion)
Different heroes has different uses, so I will separate this ranking to different position.

1st Position
Man at Arms: With different forms of debuff towards the enemy and buff towards the allies, Man at Arms take the first spot. He has everything, both early games and late games. The return damage from him towards all enemies are super good in the early games. Also, his stun chance and his reposition skill are extremely useful towards the mid and the late game. Moreover, his AOE debuff of both speed and dodge is extremely useful in the late game because in the late game the monsters usually have a high speed that will damage your hero a lot and high dodge for your heros to miss. More to that, Man at Arms also have a lot of resistance, accuracy, and HP. It is great tank in the 1st position.

Bounty Hunter: This extremely burst heavy and tank based person is extremely good in different fights. Against human with no PROT he can sometimes burst out around 50 crit damage towards one target. On top of Marking the target, he can one shot human or other weak enemies easily without any effort. on top of that he has different displacement skills like his pull and moreover he has a stun skill from his flash bang. He is a great choice if you are boss fighting and going on a long quest.

Hellion: This barbaric lady can throw out tons and tons of damage when you put her in the first position. With her bleeding skills she can easily shred any target easily and even targets with high PROT can't withstand her huge damage. However, almost all her skills has a bad side which gives her a 2-3 turn debuff. She is super good if you are looking for short and easier fights. She don't do super good when the fight it prolonged due to the debuff stacking. Unless you want to spend a lot of money on buying medical herbs to continue her damage output.

2nd Position
Bounty Hunter: His great abilities shines in both 1st position and the 2nd postion. Also by putting him second and have another tank at first can really secure the firepower from the back lane. Other good things about the Bounty Hunter is listed in the 1st position.

Highwayman: A top tier damage carry in fights, with different skills and good utilities around the battlefeild. His grapegun blast is outrangeous in terms of damage. In late game with some buffs on your highwayman he can probably do about 40 damage combined throughout the three targets. Also, he has normal range and melee attacks like normal front and back lane heroes, so he is really versatile. By putting his on the 2nd postiton he can also do the lunge(forward 1 and can target almost all targets) and point blank shot(backward 1 and do around 25 damage before criting) combo which is really a "devastating blow" to your enemy. Also I like taking point blank shot because it is a good if not the best boss killer in the entire game.

Crusader: Unlike other tanks I have little to no success with crusader but that doesn't conclude his usefulness in terms of team comp. He has many uses and also bonus damage towards unholy targets. He is also a great tank like the Bounty Hunter or Man-at-Arms. Also combined with stunning blow and other debuff, aoe skills, Crusader is definitly not a bad choice in terms of building a team. However, I feel like he doesn't have enough advantage to list it on the top tier. Maybe is due to my lack of knowledge of game, he is never a good hero in my team. Sorry Crusader fans, though his kit is super strong in my opinion D:.

3rd Position
Arbalest: How good is this girl?! This girl has everything, ranging from Crit, speed, heal, dodge, buff, to displacement to enemy, aoe, debuff to enemy. She even has bonus damage and bonus crit damage towards marked enemy. I couldn't agree more when people starts talking about how over powered she is. When you are lucky, she can one shot the backlane enemies who will usually destroy your game plan by increasing your stress, move your heroes around, and even giving your heroes diseases. This girl can end it all! Also this girl can use bola to display multiple enemies and rerange them into her attacking range.

Highwayman: Again, he is still a great pick for a range damage carry with his kit. Also, he can dance around the battlefield easily even when your team are suprised and moved around. Details about Highwayman's kit is in the 2nd position discribtion about him.

Plague Doctor/Vestal: They are equally good in this position. Plague Doctor is good for Blighting the heavy armored enemies and buffing/curing your allies. Combined with highwayman's aoe, it is a great tool to finish small skirmishes without taking any damage.(Specially when going against low PROT squishy enemies) Vestal is more of a good healer with AOE and single target heals. Also she provides single target solid damages so it is good for going against low PROT enemies.

4th Position
Arbalest: This girl is the same no matter if you put her third or forth. I usually take 2 Arbalests and putting them thrid and forth due to their extremely high damage offering. Detail about Arbalest's kit is in the 3rd position discribtion about her.

Occultist: Occultist is more like a Highwayman but different. He is not really utility based(can't move around easily), and I don't have much success with him. That said, his kit is definitly one of the strongest with one of the potenially best heal in the game and one of the worst. However his sacrificial stab is definitly one of the best tools against hard enemies. Putting him in 4th is not a bad choice.

Houndmaster: I am some success with this new character. With your biscuit up you can do a lot of damage to bosses and big minions on top of his unique "marking" ability. He is good for a small damage burst that can usually take over any strong and hard to remove enemy. He is also a great pick for boss fighting but he can't tank a lot of damages though. It is a good pick in forth.

Some didn't mentioned heroes:
Grave Robber: At first glance I thought this character is another Highwayman, but soon I realized it is not too good due to her lack of sustain, damage, and significant HP. If you can master her and put her with super good quirks and trinkets, good for you, but for now..... I really think she is in the bottom of the list.

Leper: Another bottom list hero, Leper is a good early game hero, but his really low(65) base accuracy really hurts his lackluster kit. Soon I realized there are more good picks like Crusader, Man ar Arms, Bounty Hunter, Hellion, etc.

Jester: Oh good old Jester. He is extremely hard to master, but he has a great bleeding skills. On top of that, he has a great if not the best stress relieving skill during camps. He is more combo oriented than the tranditional damage(Arbalest, Highwayman) or tank(Man-at-arms, Bounty Hunter) oriented heroes. Moreover, he has a great buff that increases your entire team's crt chance, speed, and most importantly accuracy. However, his main issue is jumping around as if he is surprising his own allies. Look I am here, now I am here, no I am here now.(What an idiot= =) Sorry Jester fans.

That concludes my rating and as a reminder this is only my opinion.
12 Comments
DJ Raptor May 11, 2019 @ 3:40pm 
What about nev characters? SShield breaker and sniper girl?
xS1lver N Black Feb 20, 2016 @ 11:49am 
Good insight into the game mechanics and play. Thank you for posting this.
YukoValis Jan 31, 2016 @ 6:04pm 
Not bad, but you might want to tweek the item loadout a little. Where you are going counts for a lot. For example if you are going to the Cove or Weald take more shovels since chests and gravedigging need them. If going to the warrens bring more medical powder or whatever.
CPE  [author] Jan 26, 2016 @ 10:28am 
@LODE I noticed there are a lot of changes to the game and I am trying to come up with a new guide. Thank you for reminding me. Some information here is still useful in the current day.
Super Arthritis ⁧⁧ ⁧⁧Man Jan 25, 2016 @ 1:13pm 
It's not worthless mate.
LODE Jan 23, 2016 @ 9:16pm 
Are you going to do a current guide now that the game is released? This seems worthless now since it's over six months old in to a game that went through a lot of late changes.
Lihodel Jan 20, 2016 @ 9:11am 
Jester - 4 position NO STRESS TO TEAM(high stress relif), GOOD BUFF.
Leper - 1-2 position trinket(+15 ACC - 10 dodge or +10 mele acc) arond 40-50 NORMAL damage to one target,IMMORTAL TANK ( high hp,self heal,stress relif,PROT buff).
Abomination 1 or 2-3 position HIGH DPM at 1, stun and good dpm at 2-3 good, combo meet himself at 1-2-3 position( not need healing or stress relif).
emp456 Jan 19, 2016 @ 12:33pm 
Very good and very clean. Q&A is perfect for reading comprehension. Great work, thank you!
CPE  [author] Sep 2, 2015 @ 12:12pm 
@Xearien Thank you for the support!
I, Schizo Christ Aug 22, 2015 @ 4:55am 
This is just what I needed, thanks!