Darkest Dungeon The Color of Madness: Selection of Party Members Darkest Dungeon Guide

Selection of party members in The Color of Madness DLC expansion pack is quite difficult, because it depends on the progress you have already made while being at Farmstead. Depending on your progress, you will encounter other opponents with different weaknesses and strengths. So it is not possible to prepare the team in 100% for every situation - however, playing at Farmstead can be tweaked a bit to make it significantly easier.

• The first two missions at Farmstead
• Mission - The Endless Harvest
• Heroes that you should not use

Standard, starting party is great for the first two missions on Farmstead.

The first two missions at Farmstead

During the first two missions at Farmstead, you will only fight against the opponents implemented in The Color of Madness. A large part of them have a relatively high resistance to bleeding and at the same time low resistance to blight. They also have a relatively high level of dodge, and some of them also have a relatively high protection (PROT). The following heroes will be very successful in these missions:

1. Crusader - great character for the first position. He is strong, deals considerable damage to the first two rows, and can strengthen himself in a critical situation by increasing his protection factor.
2. Highwayman - thanks to the changes to critical hits introduced in the expansion pack, the Highwayman is strong than ever before. He can attack enemies in any position, has a lot of accuracy (so won't miss when attacking), and in case of enemy with a high protection factor he can easily cause bleeding. In addition, he has a high dodge rate, so some enemies will have a problem to hit him.
3. Vestal - the ideal healer, especially due to the fact that many enemies are able to attack several heroes at the same time. This class can cure one character or the whole team, and when the healing is not required, impose negative debuffs on enemy units or remove the effect of hiding.
4. Plague Doctor - can cast Blight on enemies, stun and reshuffle enemies, strengthen team members, and in case of an emergency, cure bleeding and pestilence from himself or any ally, treating both characters.

As you can easily guess, this is a standard starting team, to which the player has access after completing the training mission. With such a party, it is possible to complete all the missions at Farmstead without any problems, as well as to survive many waves of enemies during The Endless Harvest. Of course, the characters can be exchanged - the Highwayman can be changed to Hellion or Jester, the Crusader can be replaced by Man-at-Arms and the Plague Doctor with Abomination. In these missions, however, it is not worth using Flagellant (if you have the Crimson Court expansion set) or Leper - the former one emphasizes the bleeding effect, to which enemies are quite resistant here. The latter may have problems hitting enemies with a relatively high level of dodge.

Mission - The Endless Harvest

Starting team - Crusader, Highwayman, Vestal and Plague Doctor - performs equally well during The Endless Harvest.

In turn, during The Endless Harvest mission, where the player's goal is to survive as long as possible, the following characters will prove their worth:

1. Crusader or Man-at-Arms should stand in the front position. The first hero will be useful for a team focused on offensive play and quick elimination, and the second hero will be useful for a more defensive gameplay, where the support of the whole team is also important.
2. Highwayman, Hellion or Jester should take the second position. Here everything depends on your liking - the Highwayman copes with several targets at the same time, or when you need to quickly eliminate one opponent. Hellion can cause quite a heavy bleeding and take out a target from the 4th row (although he has to move himself to the 1st row), and Jester can also, if necessary, support the team with his music.
3. Vestal in third position. The best choice when it comes to the healing and supportive character. Vestal can heal all heroes at once, which will be useful for Farmstead, where a lot of enemies will attack several heroes in the same time. It is not worth to use another healer.
4. Plague Doctor on the fourth position. It's the best tactic when it comes to a helpful character in form of support and/or dealing damage from the back row. Plague Doctor can apply a blight effect to enemies to which they're sensitive and, if necessary, stun two targets at the same time or buff a character.

Heroes that you should not use

There are a few heroes that it is better not to use here. These are:

1. Flagellant (if you have a The Crimson Court expansion set). This hero deals damage from bleeding, to which most of the enemies are resistant. Besides, speed is an important factor here and Flagellant needs a few rounds to "turn up".
2. Leper. The hero will have huge problems hitting anyone because of his low accuracy. You can use him, however, if you can give him the right accuracy bonus. Only then he will be able to hit two enemies on 1 and 2 row with one attack.
3. Arbalest - her power consists in dealing damage by the use of markings, but on Farmstead most enemies either fall after one or two attacks, or like bosses - have a few movements in one round and the marker simply disappears before a chance for an attack.
4. Bounty Hunter - the exact same situation, like in the case of Arbalest.