Darkest Dungeon is about making the best of a lousy situation. This official principle actually runs throughout the game and does it differently than most games. However, what Darkest Dungeon has in common with most other RPGs is that gold is the most important thing! Since gold is almost always scarce, you can never waste it and that's probably the point that most beginners do wrong.
Heroes inevitably suffer stress in the dungeons, which is inevitable. It does not mean that you have to invest money to relieve the stress. The heroes themselves are free! There is nothing else that is in vain in this game. Use that! This means you can recruit new heroes whenever you can, do quests (even without a torch light) as cheaply as possible, and then release them again. In this way, in Darkest Dungeon, you first work out about 70,000 or 80,000 gold pieces, and then you start equipping heroes.
So, do not bother renaming or otherwise adapting heroes at the beginning of the game. Heroes are created randomly each round in the coach. This applies to the classes as well as their names, abilities and tics. Healers (Vestal or Occultist) will be the rarest heroes in the carriage and will be the most stressful of your groups. But it really only treats them in the most extreme emergency. When you recruit, make sure that you have at least one healing ability and that you do not have to buy them extra. Apart from the basic ability, equipment and abilities can not be increased in the beginning. The heroes must first have visited a single dungeon.
If you are determined to keep heroes, pay attention to their ticks (quirks). These are the hardest / most time-consuming of all character attributes and can bring the decisive advantage later on the Expert difficulty level.
When a hero reaches level 3 and you want to keep him, then you can start to feel connected to him and give your own name to keep track. In that moment you can upgrade your upgrade. However, prioritize heroes who want to take her to a boss.
Do not buy all the skills of your heroes! You can only use 4 of the 7 abilities in combat and some of them are really useless. Do not waste money there. Check out our class guides for recommendations on the best skills in a class.
Killing an enemy is better than hurting it. It sounds plausible that many players still go wrong. This refers to surface attacks (AoE) such as the scattering kiss a highwayman (Highwayman) or the penetrating thrust of a barbarian (Hellion). If you do not kill an enemy, you have another chance to attack, causing damage and stress. Therefore, only attack a surface when one or two enemies require a death knell and you can scratch another. In any other case, performing a single attack with higher damage is far more rewarding.
Contrary to usual RPGs, a group in Darkest Dungeon does not necessarily have to have a tank (gunner or crusader) and does not necessarily have to be in first position. For most quests (exploring 90% of the rooms, gaining 100% of space combat, or procuring items), three damage-oriented classes work much more effectively with a healer.
Just because a character is a tank class does not automatically damage them. Only when abilities like Stronghold of the Believer (Crusader) or Defender (Gunner) are activated will these heroes become self-marking and thus increase the chance of being attacked. Otherwise, enemies usually pursue other targets and concentrate their attacks, for example, on heroes who are already injured.
The most damaging attacks from enemies usually come from position 3 and 4. So put your group together in terms of classes and abilities so that they can reach those positions as well. For example, a Barbarian should be at position 1, so that she can reach the enemy position 4 with her Iron Swan. This can also be a problem with dead bodies. Most enemies become corpses at death and block the path or attacks on classes such as the leper. Then sets Corpse destructive attacks such as demonic tugging , fining or Confusingly bang one, if you can not reach directly attacks the positions.
Do not be a hero! If one of your characters leaves, it's bad enough. But if the whole group dies, all equipment (accessories) and loot will be lost. Do not risk that, but flee over the button on the left upper edge of the screen from the dungeon.
Classes like the Grave Robber, the Dog Master or the Bounty Hunter, who are able to scout dungeons, are extremely useful on most quests (bosses excepted). Any trap that you discover and can thus defuse means reducing stress. Whereas it means stress, loss of life and dots if you just stumble in. In addition, exploration can be used to view and avoid enemies.
Each hero has different chances to defuse a trap. This is based on the class but also the character level. Check this with the purple icon below the hero when you're facing a trap.
There are no experience points for killing enemies in Darkest Dungeon. Fighting always creates stress and damage. Get out of the way of opponents as much as possible.
In boss fights exploration classes are usually the worst suited. You also do not need to find the boss. Because the boss is always in the furthest from the starting point.
On quests you can get different amounts of gold and heirlooms with the right pieces of luggage. Apart from normal bags (rucksacks, etc.), every object of the aisles and spaces can be used to apply a specific piece of equipment and triple their prey!
On the other hand, your inventory space is of course limited. So it's not worth it to bring too much luggage and throw away equipment afterwards. Our luggage guide gives you a rough overview of what you should pack for which dungeon. You should only refrain from these items if you are tracking one of the item quests and are already using up three inventory slots.
Sacred-looking objects in the first three dungeons and plants in the sea caves usually use the right items to provide buffs (reinforcements) or even remove ticks (quirks), which would cost a lot of money in the village. Do not miss this opportunity!
Leftover prey is gone forever! If you use an object and have no room to stow the loot, it will be lost in the moment. So, consider whether you really want to click on the object in the moment or come back later. Sometimes you have more space after completing the quest (because campfire wood was consumed or items were used). You can go back the ways and then use objects for the first time. Running back uses less torch light and produces less stress than the first time.
Always take two (or three) of class related abilities and one of the first standard abilities (encouragement and wound care) but not Strengthening Words (Pep Talk) when choosing your camp skills. This ability is not worth their money and the campfires.
When choosing the quest, pay attention to both the accessory and the heirloom reward. The dungeons reward you with different heirlooms (busts, portraits, certificates, etc.) and you will need others to build the village in each building. Do not complete quests whose rewards you do not need directly. Certificates are very important at the beginning of the game, for example, to expand the network of the coach and thus to get new heroes.
Quests can also be fulfilled in total darkness. These so-called "dark runs" create more stress on the heroes, but they also provide more loot and more damage or a higher critical hit rate. The latter, unfortunately, on both sides. The mortality rate increases. But classes with already high crit rate (Barbarin, Grave robber, occultist, for example) benefit greatly from such a dark run.
Darkest Dungeon assigns names for certain group combinations. However, that does not mean that you have put together a particularly good group. The group combination that deals the most damage is Arbaleste + Occultist + Fiend + Barbarin. Of course, this combination can easily be varied. For example, the fiend could be replaced with a leper or crusader, and if you go against a boss who deals high area damage, the vestal is preferable to the occultist.
For exploration quests, however, a combination of Arbaleste, occultist, tomb raider and barbarian is recommended. More meaningful group combinations can be found in the Boss Guides.
