Darkest Dungeon: Guide

It’s difficult to cover all aspects of the game with one article so we have prepared for you several guides. Here we will summarize the most significant sides of this strange and unusual RPG. Do you want to go deeper? Then just check our detailed guides in the game’s section. Don’t expect to beat the Darkest Dungeon immediately. This game is rather hard even on a standard level of difficulty. It can ruin your psychic, that’s true.

But we will help you! Be sure to read our guides and then you can finish the game successfully. Note that this guide can contain spoilers. Let’s start!

For beginners

Well, the Darkest Dungeon has a quite clear tutorial during which you can discover the basics of this game. Also, you can understand the main idea and your goal here. We can remind you these main things. Therefore, you are an heir of the game’s antagonist named the Ancestor. This freak put terrible experiments and almost led the world to his end. You should drive back monsters whom the Ancestor led and bring peace to the world.

For that goal, you can use brave adventurers. Gameplay consists of upgrading your estate, hiring and leveling up heroes, exploring dungeons and killing monsters. At the end, you will face the most dangerous boss in the hardest dungeon. Defeat him and you will finish the game. But you are just starting your way here. Check our articles with titles «Beginners guide» and «Strategy guide» to understand how to start.

Heroes

They are your main power and main instrument in dungeons. All heroes are divided into 17 classes with unique appearance, combat and camping abilities and roles. Developers sometimes introduce new classes so this guide is relevant as of November 2017. There are damage dealers, support classes, control classes and mixed universal heroes. You must create a squad of 4 characters so you may want to include different classes.

Oh, your heroes will die permanently. Don’t mind that so far as it’s unavoidable. You just cannot beat the game with 4 locked heroes. New characters are available at the Stage Coach. Hire new heroes as often as possible to choose the best roster for each mission. Upgrade your squad evenly and don’t invest only in one particular hero. He can die or become crazy or betray you easily. It’s better to create a balanced team than have one powerful leader.

Here are all classes in alphabetical order:

• The Abomination.
• The Antiquarian.
• The Arbalest.
• The Bounty Hunter.
• The Crusader.
• The Flagellant.
• The Grave Robber.
• The Hellion.
• The Highwayman.
• The Houndmaster.
• The Jester.
• The Leper.
• The Man-at-Arms.
• The Occultist.
• The Plague Doctor.
• The Shieldbreaker.
• The Vestal.

You can check our «Character guide» article where we described all classes. Also, read the «Best Party» and the «Party Builds» articles where we have provided strategy tips for several rosters.

Heroes’ features

Here we will describe general features of all characters in the context of mechanics of this game. All you must learn are three characteristics:

1. Stress.

Heroes will enhance the level of stress all the time. Stress is increased by dungeons, enemies, artifacts, events. However, you can decrease stress with several skills or in your estate for gold. Stress bar is ranged from 0 to 200. When it reaches 100 a hero will get an affliction – a strong removable negative trait. Also, a hero can get a virtue – a strong positive feature, but this occurs less often. Read the «Stress Relief» article for more information.

1. Quirks.

Your heroes can get not only temporary traits. Quirks could be good or bad; these features buff or harm heroes’ stats respectively. Every adventurer can have up to 10 quirks. These features are more stable than afflictions and virtues. You can delete quirks only in the Sanitarium for gold. There you also may fix features which you like. Way more, characters can get a disease which is almost always a bad feature!

1. Equipment.

In this game, each class has its own weapon and armor. You can equip and upgrade them in the Blacksmith. Weapons help heroes to deal more damage while armor boosts their health and defense. Heroes also can carry up to 2 trinkets in addition to equipment. These artifacts often have combined positive and negative effects. Try to balance trinkets’ influence to gain more benefits than limitations. Read the «Trinkets» article for more information.

The Hamlet

It’s your town, your home, and your base. Here you can hire and upgrade heroes, unlock their skills and equipment, cure stress and delete bad traits as well as get information about the world. At the start, you will see almost very devastated buildings. Upgrade them for gold to gain an access to more new options and abilities. We described every building shortly:

• The Abbey. It allows heroes to cure stress in three rooms with different features.
• The Ancestor’s Memoirs. It allows you to read memories of the Ancestor.
• The Blacksmith. It allows you to level up the equipment of heroes.
• The Graveyard. It contains information about every dead adventurer.
• The Guild. It allows you to level up and learn combat skills of heroes.
• The Nomad Wagon. It allows you to sell or buy trinkets.
• The Sanitarium. It allows heroes to remove diseases and bad quirks or lock good quirks.
• The Stage Coach. It allows you to hire new heroes. Upgrade this building firstly!
• The Survivalist. It allows you to unlock and upgrade camping heroes’ skills.
• The Tavern. It also allows heroes to cure stress but causes more effects that are negative.

In the Crimson Court DLC, you can unlock even more buildings called Districts. They give passive bonuses. For example, Districts can increase stats of some classes or give you free items each week. To build a District you should find a Blueprint during town events or in fights with bosses.

Preparing to the mission

To finish the game you have to complete several missions and slay some bosses. There are 5 locations with different monsters, dungeons, and quests:

1. The Ruins. Here you will face unholy foes and human bandits.
2. The Weald. Here you will fight mostly with humans.
3. The Warrens. Here you will encounter a lot of beasts.
4. The Cove. Here you should kill eldritch foes and humans.
5. The Courtyard. Here you can encounter almost all types of enemies including vampires.

There is also the final dungeon with many strong monsters and the last boss. All missions are divided into short, medium and long types. Tasks also can be different: from exploring a location to defeating the boss.

Before starting the mission, you should choose 4 heroes and buy supplies. Your main item is food. Heroes may become hungry and in that moment you should choose whether to feed them or no. A hungry team will enhance stress and physical damage while well-fed squad even can restore his health. In addition to the food you also can buy:

• Antivenom. It can counter toxic attacks, poisons and blight skills.
• Bandage. It can remove bleeding from your hero.
• Blood. This item from the DLC can quench the thirst of infected hero.
• Herbs. These items will cure any disease.
• Holy water. It increases all resistances of a hero.
• Laudanum. It can cure horror effects.
• Shovel. It can remove obstacles in dungeons.
• Skeleton key. Use it to unlock chests and doors.
• Torch. Your main item to increase the level of light.

You will also receive free firewood for medium and long missions. Use it for camp.

In the dungeon

Each expedition consists of several parts. There are rooms and corridors in the dungeon and you have to move there. You will find different rooms with enemies, curios, bosses or treasures. You also will find empty rooms where a party can camp. Hallways contain traps, obstacles, curios and secret rooms. Use your scouting skill to reveal objects and monsters before they will harm you.

During movement, the light level will decrease. Light in dungeons is a very important resource. With the high level of it, heroes will better scout rooms and corridors and can surprise monsters. With the low level of it, heroes increase stress and can be surprised by monsters. Enemies at the low light also have increased ACC, DMG and CRIT. But you will receive more loot with the low level of light.

Keep in mind two types of objects you can find in the dungeon:

1. Curios. These are activated objects which can have good or bad effects. You can interact with curios with any of your characters. It’s suggested to turn on a curio with a certain item from your inventory. Thus, you have increased the chance of good effect. Curios can heal you, reduce stress and apply buff or quirk. In case of failure, you can get debuff or damage.
2. Obstacles. These objects you can find in corridors. Buy at least one shovel for each expedition to remove an obstacle. You can remove it without instruments, but heroes will be damaged with loss and stress together with the level of light will decrease. Check a usefulness of shovel: the Courtyard > the Ruins and the Cove > the Weald > the Warrens.

Combat

In dungeons, you will face foes and fight them. It’s the primary part of gameplay so try to learn combat rules quickly. Combat is divided into turns or rounds. Normally each hero and enemy can perform one action per his turn. Respectively, you have 4 actions which include attack, move or support. Some bosses can act twice per turn and it can be a problem. Be sure to check our guides for each boss in the «Boss Guide» article.

Remember the main rule of each fight: «It all depends on the position». Heroes can cast their abilities only at specific slots. Heroes also can target only specific slots of the enemy formation. You have 4 slots and foes have up to 4 slots. So be sure to place heroes in tight slots to reveal their potential:

• First row occupies a damage dealer or a tank.
• Second slot belongs to a damager.
• Third slot occupies a controlling hero.
• Fourth row belongs to a support.

To defeat foes you must use combat abilities. Each party member has 7 skills and can carry up to 4 on a single mission. Skills are restricted by slots. Adventurers can use attacking skills to kill monsters, supporting skills to buff allies or debuff enemies or healing skills to cure teammates. There are single-target and AoE abilities. During his turn, a hero can also use one item in addition to casting a skill. So you can cure a disease and immediately attack an enemy, for example.

And we have two more things you should know about battles. Dead foes leave corpses on the battlefield. Corpses occupy slots as normal enemies and don’t let you attack backlines. Corpses last for 4 turns and it’s very long. You can delete them with a simple attack or use special skills that clear the battlefield.

Finally, you can leave almost any battle. If you need a rest just click the flag icon in the top left corner. Retreating will save health and lives of your adventurers, but it will enhance stress. Some heroes with bad traits or quirks can refuse to retreat and you have to continue fighting in this case.

Camping

Among with combat abilities, heroes have camping abilities. You can camp during medium or long missions to recover health and apply buffs. To create a camp you should simply activate firewood from your inventory.

There are two parts of camping:

1. The meal stage. Provide food to heroes or left them without provisions. Note that a party without food will reduce health and increase stress while good meal can cure wounds.
2. The skill stage. Choose which skills heroes will cast. You have 12-time points and can buy bonuses and cures for them. Think wisely what bonus you need right now.

Don’t forget that camping is dangerous too. Enemies will attack you at night with great penalties for your team. Means that level of light will instantly be decreased to 0 and you won’t have an opportunity to retreat. We suggest taking special camping ability which can prevent night attacks. You can unlock this ability in the Hamlet via the Survivalist.

Finishing missions

At the end of every mission, you can return to your estate or continue crawling through the dungeon. If you have a powerful team without wounds and stress it’s a good idea to proceed and gain even more loot. But often you will finish with damaged and stressed heroes. So don’t risk and return to the town. You can keep your loot anyway.

Rewards include gold, heirlooms, and artifacts. Upgrade buildings and heroes, cure adventurers of maladies and stress, buy new supplies for this loot. You can sell trinkets if you are out of money. Explore dungeons and complete quests to get new rewards. Finish the final dungeon and slay bosses there to finish the game. Good luck!