KickStarter Darkest Dungeon Pre-Release Thread

[Angthoron]

Got critted by backliners with no chance to quickly nuke them on your own? Cultists partyshuffling?

 

[sser]

I like to maximize damage in my parties instead of heals/utility, and the Leper is basically the primary damage dealer. Also, he looks cool as shit.

Hmm, I'll give him a second chance then. Felt a little bland previously, not sure why.

Oh he doesn't really have much in the way of variety. Mostly just stands there and hits shit; and he more so than anyone is hurt by the party getting 'reshuffled.' I just like him from an aesthetic point of view. He even looks cool when he's taking damage, striking an anteater pose and all.

 

[Gord]

Got critted by backliners with no chance to quickly nuke them on your own? Cultists partyshuffling?

Shitton of crits and I brought two lepers, which was ultimately my downfall:
I got surprised a few times and encountered several enemies that would shuffle and/or stun my party, plus they were difficult to hit - in combination that made my lepers mostly dead weight.
Lesson learned, don't bring two of them.

 

[Gozma]

^ If I'm running a Leper and he gets surprised to the back of the bus I run and then walk back in - it's not guaranteed, but it's pretty likely and worth it if you're more than one turn from being in a useful party order. Sometimes you get a surprise round on them when you immediately walk back into the room - "They never expect it!"

The real weakness of Lepers isn't aim, which is pretty fixable, it's that they have absolutely nothing that can hit the back two ranks and and Red Hook hasn't really balanced their self-buffs to be useful in typical fights. Hellions are pretty much just better than Lepers or Crusaders - they swing as hard as crusaders, have more crit and speed, have a great bleeding attack (which does full normal hit damage before the bleed) that can hit the middle two ranks (which means they can easily hit all the bosses and hit or hit around the size 2 "minibosses"), a 3-enemy AoE, and a couple of other things that would be great by themselves on characters that don't get all that other shit. Plus the best crit camp buff and a great class trinket.

They have a lot of problems with archetypes having the good one and the obsolete ones, like Hellion vs. Cru/Leper and Highwayman vs. Grave Robber. They should add more shit like the Bounty Hunter x Occultist synergy to diversify things.

 

[da_rays]

I like Crusader's forward lunge. It's great for getting him back to tanking. Hellion can hit from being shuffled to the back row but I need her taking damage.

Just after a lunge from the grave robber ( Ho so delicous crit~ ) , to prepare her for that shadowy stun move, followed by a dagger in the eye courtesy of Mr. Jester , and then Holy Speared by the crusader. Hellion / Bounty hunter to get the next hit wherever you want. Shuffler party FTW :D

 

[Ellef]

Yeah the mobile party actually works. Lunge is a very high crit move and the front three are very flexible to hit any row when you need it. I had thought a jester was a buffer debuffer only, and the robber was mediocre until I tried them out properly.

Only the occultist I can't really get going. Even his unique heal is only slightly better than the Vestals if you manage to get a bleed immune friendly to cast it on.

 

[da_rays]

Yeah the mobile party actually works. Lunge is a very high crit move and the front three are very flexible to hit any row when you need it. I had thought a jester was a buffer debuffer only, and the robber was mediocre until I tried them out properly.

Only the occultist I can't really get going. Even his unique heal is only slightly better than the Vestals if you manage to get a bleed immune friendly to cast it on.

dunno if they meant him as the ''All or nothing healer'' , but yeah , he's hard to deal with in a party...i've tried tweaking him a bit to get that eldritch +dmg bonus quirk. Not easy, not easy at all....Still , im using him mainly for healing + debuffing dmg on nasty thing that almost 1 shot some of my guy on a crit . Without item buffing the debuff stat( gnhhh too much ~buff ) ive find its not that much reliable. still does the job tho on 2-3 strikes when im unlucky. The Eldritch whip with 2 back target is nice too , but somehow very situational . The rapy-tentacle that get the f'in crossbowmen any nasty shit that is way more dangerous behind theirs buddies. He still feel like he's missing something ....dmg output is pretty meh..well VS anything non-eldritch.

heh, just Alt tabbed to say my Occultist might have heard you. 3 healing in a row with 15~ and all resisted. Awww yeah.

 

[Ellef]

It just seems someone else does his abilities better than him, unless it's against Eldritch.

 

[sser]

Occultist seems pretty shitty to me. Seems more like a character you'd want for 'late-game' parties than a dude that helps your scrubs survive the early gauntlets.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Occultist seems pretty shitty to me. Seems more like a character you'd want for 'late-game' parties than a dude that helps your scrubs survive the early gauntlets.

Occultist rules. Big heal gives some flexibility - if a bit feast or famine - his hex move that marks a target has insane synergy with the BH (who's very good on his own with his pulls and knockbacks), and back row attacks are always awesome.

Grave Robber is the only shitty character, and that's because she's basically just a poor man's highwayman.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

I find the Grave Robber's not too bad. As noted earlier, she moves through the ranks nicely (Lunge and Shadow Fade), very handy for surprise fights, and she has decent dodge and critical %. And her accuracy is great too. I find Highwayman is better for just sitting in one spot. Grave Robber is also a blighter, Highwayman a bleeder. I think there are enough differences to justify her use - especially in the Ruins where bleed is useless against the undead.

I think they've done well with all the classes considering how many there are.

It'll be interesting to see what the 5 remaining classes will bring to the table, and whether or not they'll be superfluous.

 

[Ellef]

Lunge might be the most hard hitting move in the game, at least top 3. Lunge to front row, stun + dodge buff with move backwards, repeat. Only works with other movement characters really. But the graverobber is definitely a good character.

It'd be cool if we had a proper defensive character with the 5 new ones. Someone who can intercept attacks on other party members, maybe bubble a char for immunity etc
Also having a big character who takes up 2 slots would be interesting. Would obviously need to kick some serious arse for that to happen.

 

[Gozma]

The highwayman has base damage like 30% higher out of the box compared to the Grave Robber and a way, way better AoE (they do about the same damage except his hits three characters vs. two and the GR's version that hits the two ranks is the middle is much more situational). Lunge is OK but it's only getting up to about the damage of the HWM's basic melee attack because her base damage is weak.

But the thing that really makes the highwayman qualitatively better is that he gets a ridiculously good camp buff (clean guns) and another camp buff (the one that swings surprise in your favor) that is really good. Grave Robber camp skills are nothing special.

However I don't really see how people say GR's are weaker than Plague Doctors, which I can't do anything with except give them first round speed trinkets so they can throw one unreliable stun on the back ranks at the start of a fight. And then fail their 100% blight/bleed cure most of the time. Looking at PD's moveset it's like it was made by someone else than all the other characters, someone that thought doing a small amount of blight damage is (on a class tied for the lowest base attack and lowest crit) is worth -75% damage. The hellion's bleed attack does full base damage, and that's hellion base damage. And PD's melee attack needs to have terrible accuracy and mediocre crit, even though again the base stats of the class cover making it shitty at melee already. Go hang out with the Occultist and see how a backliner is supposed to stab people right son

 

[Gord]

^ If I'm running a Leper and he gets surprised to the back of the bus I run and then walk back in - it's not guaranteed, but it's pretty likely and worth it if you're more than one turn from being in a useful party order. Sometimes you get a surprise round on them when you immediately walk back into the room - "They never expect it!"

With the danger of sounding stupid: How do you back out of a fight? Didn't know you could do this.
But the fight that killed my party was anyway a lost cause. 2 Gargoyles + that large ghoul-thing, all of them rather sturdy and hard to hit (esp. the gargoyles) and a ton of stun/shuffle attacks.
My last surviving guy (one of the lepers) spend the final 4 rounds stun-locked at deaths door until they had the mercy to finish him.

However I don't really see how people say GR's are weaker than Plague Doctors, which I can't do anything with except give them first round speed trinkets so they can throw one unreliable stun on the back ranks at the start of a fight. And then fail their 100% blight/bleed cure most of the time.

The plague doctor is ok as a back-line stunner, his success chance isn't worse for me than with other stun abilities (might change with higher levels, though). Unfortunately he is far less useful once the backrows are empty.
GR is a mixed back, good flexibility but too reliant on crits, imho. Base damage should maybe be buffed a bit. More useful in a party with other flexible attackers, but bringing a HWM or Hellion will likely do more damage.

Given how the opinions on chars differ, I guess the balance isn't that bad already, but there are chars that are obviously better than others (e.g. Hellion), especially since some are always good to have, while others are more situational.

Btw. - I think the Hellions bleed attack missed every single time for me, and the debuff is pretty serious, so I'm not really using it anymore.

 

[Ellef]

You can back out of fights with a little white flag above your inventory. Its success rate feels about 60/70%. Good when you enter fight with some messed up surprised party formation.

 

[Gord]

Wow. Didn't know that. But in that case, is there ever a chance of losing chars or getting a TPK? I could just back out, leave the dungeon and just accumulate some stress?

 

[Ellef]

Oh plenty of chance of losing chars. The worst is when some crit with a bleed attached brings you to zero, then the tick wipes you out. You'd have to be taking some pretty huge risks for a TPK.
Of course if you don't feel like dying, with the right items + quirks, you can reach 100 deathblow resist.

 

[Gozma]

^ If you have a character at death's door with a bleed/blight on him, if you successfully run away (on a different character's turn) you will get a chance to use bandages/antitoxin before the kill tick. Or I guess you could just exit the dungeon.

Btw. - I think the Hellions bleed attack missed every single time for me, and the debuff is pretty serious, so I'm not really using it anymore.

The one with the debuff isn't the one I'm talking about. There's another one that can be used from the first/second/third rank and hits the second or third rank, no debuff. In fact the one that has the debuff is only barely superior in damage to the one I mean, so maybe there's a screwup there.

 

[Gord]

You're right, I forgot about the other one. The debuffing one needs to be improved a bit, imho - either higher ACC, lower debuff or more bleeding damage.

 

[Thor Kaufman]

The highwayman has base damage like 30% higher out of the box compared to the Grave Robber and a way, way better AoE (they do about the same damage except his hits three characters vs. two and the GR's version that hits the two ranks is the middle is much more situational). Lunge is OK but it's only getting up to about the damage of the HWM's basic melee attack because her base damage is weak.

But the thing that really makes the highwayman qualitatively better is that he gets a ridiculously good camp buff (clean guns) and another camp buff (the one that swings surprise in your favor) that is really good. Grave Robber camp skills are nothing special.

However I don't really see how people say GR's are weaker than Plague Doctors, which I can't do anything with except give them first round speed trinkets so they can throw one unreliable stun on the back ranks at the start of a fight. And then fail their 100% blight/bleed cure most of the time. Looking at PD's moveset it's like it was made by someone else than all the other characters, someone that thought doing a small amount of blight damage is (on a class tied for the lowest base attack and lowest crit) is worth -75% damage. The hellion's bleed attack does full base damage, and that's hellion base damage. And PD's melee attack needs to have terrible accuracy and mediocre crit, even though again the base stats of the class cover making it shitty at melee already. Go hang out with the Occultist and see how a backliner is supposed to stab people right son

Must have been some misogynist designing the PD

whats a TPK btw

 

[bozia2012]

Wipe.

 

[Gord]

whats a TPK btw

Total Party Kill.

Btw., did they change the (enemy) crit rates recently, or have they always been that high?
I get a lot of fights suddenly with what feels like ~20% crit rate.

 

[Luka-boy]

The plague doctor is ok as a back-line stunner, his success chance isn't worse for me than with other stun abilities (might change with higher levels, though). Unfortunately he is far less useful once the backrows are empty.

I have some news for you.

Spoiler

 

[bozia2012]

I have some news for you.

Spoiler

Yeah, check your pronouns shitlord. We need a tumblr page for each char to sort this out.

 

[Gord]

Shame on me. Must be my internalized misogynistic rape-culture enabling.


(I totally knew that, btw)