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Darkest Dungeon: Tips and tricks Darkest Dungeon Guide
Last update: Thursday, April 20, 2023
1. Your heroes will die, you will have to deal with it. Some of them may survive dozens of missions, others will perish on the first mission that may appear to be a walk in the park. Most of them will die sooner or later; take care of your best warriors, and for the risky missions use the maddest and weakest.
2. The very first building you should focus on should be the Stage Coach. It keeps the flow of the heroes, and you will need at least four of them to start the mission. However, there is no point to waste valuable resources - the first couple of upgrades to the amount of heroes available per week should suffice, but you should increase their overall amount (your roster size) to 25 as quickly as possible.
3. Except for the start, do not recruit all of the available heroes. Check which heroes' classes do you need in the first place, and then look at their merits and quirks. You do not want to end up with a warrior who has a quirk which decreases health by 20%. Additionally, it's worth to pay attention to the abilities they start with - each ability they start with (which is the one you want to use) is a 1,000 gold you don't have to spend, which is a lot in the early game.
4. Most of the classes are designed for the specific roles. These roles are: tank, damage dealer, healer and support. The tank protects the team and takes the biggest damage on himself. Damage Dealer focuses on... well, dealing the damage and killing the enemies as fast as it is possible. The Healer keeps the party alive and takes of the debuffs through his skills. Support is the only one who is less specific as he generally supports the team through his buffs, changing the hostile party's order and so on. Of course it is possible to play in a different set-up, but this one would be the most efficient and recommendable. Especially in the first missions.5. Take care of the party's stress level. If it increases to 100/200, your heroes will gain negative afflictions - if that happens, send them to the Abbey or to the Tavern to decrease their stress. They will be unavailable for the next mission, but it is a far better solution than letting them go on a quest whilst insane.
6. The amount of gold you will have in the early game is extremely limited, so don't spend it on everything that comes across. Do not level up all of the heroes and try to pick only a couple of them for each role. The same rules apply for the Sanitarium treatment. Send there only the best of your members which are the least prone to dying in the next mission. As far as the quest supplies go, their amount depends on the length of the mission - you can learn about it in the "Provisions" and "Locations" sections.
7. First things first, you should upgrade your Stage Coach, so that you have access to at least 13-16 heroes at all Times. The Blacksmith can be omitted during the first several weeks, as you won't be able to upgrade the weapons and armors of your heroes above level 1 until they reach level 2. It's worth to complete the first 3 upgrades from every "tree" in the Tavern and the Abbey, so that you unlock the second slot for treatment, and at least the first 2 upgrades in the third "tree" in the Sanitarium.
8. The highest amount of damage comes from the 3rd and 4th enemy position - it applies to both regular, health damage, and the stress damage as well. Additionally, those positions are almost always occupied by enemies which can mark your heroes, or those who have the highest speed attribute. Your highest priority should be to either take them out, stun them, or pull them to the front - most of those enemies can't use their most powerful abilities while standing on the 1st and 2nd position.
9. Before you send your team on a mission, check what the objective of the mission is (searching through 90% of rooms, finding an artifact, defeating the boss, etc.). Proper preparations are half of the success. If you don't know which heroes (and in what combinations) are suitable for a specific type of mission, check the "Locations" and "Recommended Teams" sections.
10. Try to always have at least one hero with a high chance to disarm a trap (the chance to disarm a trap can be checked in the "Hero Classes" section of this guide). Getting into a trap is always "rewarded" with a large increase in the hero's stress (up to 20 points) and a high amount of damage, damage over time, and / or a severe debuff.
11. It's a good idea to equip an item (trinket) which increases the chances of Scouting. Additionally, the class perfect for that task is the Grave Digger - this hero has increased chance of scouting, and has a camp skill which increases it even further.
12. Do not ignore the power of scouting ahead! Thanks to that, you will be able to detect the potential enemy groups (preventing them from surprising your party, and increasing the chances of your party surprising them). Additionally, it will allow you to detect a trap, quest items, or even secret rooms.
13. Always check the Curio before you decide to activate it and NEVER risk. Activating some of the Curios without proper items may turn out extremely badly (a disease, +100 to stress, etc.), which is why you must always check them beforehand - see the "Curio" section to learn about the types of Curios in the game.
14. Boss fights are always located in the deepest parts of dungeons. Always count the number of rooms and if you want to go straight for the boss, head right where the amount of rooms is the highest.
15. Never, ever take a character with a high amount of stress (above 70 points) on a mission. A single, unfavorable move during combat and stepping into a trap can easily break the 100 points barrier, resulting in a hero getting an affliction.
16. If you are not entirely sure that you will be able to clear the dungeon from all the enemies without sustaining grave injuries, always take a healer with you (Vestal, Occultist). It's never worth the risk, especially when using high-leveled characters.
17. Always have someone who can reduce the stress levels of your team (Hound Master, Jester). Stress is the most dangerous mechanic in the game, which must always be monitored. A little bit of stress can be healed with the help of critical strikes, but it's always worth to have a character capable of reducing the stress of his/her teammates.
18. Never, ever send a party without taking food, especially on longer missions. Every time that a hunger check appears on the screen and you won't have any food for your team, you will have to make them starve, which will result in them taking 20% max health damage and about 20 points of stress. It's really not worth to save on food.
19. There's no point to invest a lot of gold into new recruits. If a low-leveled hero comes back from the mission with a massive amount of negative quirks, a disease, or a huge amount of stress, it's always more beneficial to get rid of that hero and take another one for its place - this way you will be able to save a lot of gold.
20. If your hero happens to have a very powerful positive quirk (details can be found in the "Quirks" section), it might be worth to lock it in. To do so, go to the Sanitarium, select a hero, drag him into the Infirmary, then select the positive quirk you want to lock in and then accept your choice. You can lock up to 3 positive quirks on a single character - remember that you can't remove them in any way.
21. Remember that you can remove a negative and lock in a positive quirk simultaneously - all you have to do is to simply select a single negative and positive quirk and start the treatment. You can save a lot of time with that method.
22. It's worth to complete the upgrades that decrease the costs of upgrading armor / weapons / skills in the Guild and Blacksmith. The first two upgrades are quite cheap, and they will give you a 20% discount on all those purchases. It basically means that every 5th upgrade is now free.