Ultimate Darkest Dungeon Strategy Guide: Top Tips for Success

Whether you’re a novice or a veteran player of Darkest Dungeon, this guide has you covered. No matter if you’re having issues in the early game or with resources or just want to be better prepared, these tips will ensure your dungeoneering is better.

The dungeons in Darkest Dungeon all have different enemies and mechanics requiring special preparations. Here’s how to approach each environment effectively.

General Tips for All Dungeons

– Always include at least one hero who can put reliably hit back line heroes (3-4).

– Having two backline attackers is often ideal as priority targets often hide at the back.

– Focus on damaging your adversaries with the weaknesses of the dungeons. Ruins and the Cove react best to blight, and bleed rules over Warrens and Weald.

Dungeon-Specific Preparation

Ruins:

– Bring a little holy water, a couple of keys, a few shovels, and 1-2 antidotes.

– Enemies suffer punishments against blight.

Weald:

– Pack some more shovels, bandages and medicinal herbs for the food salvage.

– Bleed affect enemies in the game.

Cove:

– Make sure to take bandages, spare torches, and some shovels.

– Enemies can be affected by blight.

Warrens:

– Bring cures for diseases, camping skills to resist the blight, bandages and shovels.

– Opponents are susceptible to bleeding.

Hero Selection and Team Building

As a result of years of game balancing by the developers, Darkest Dungeon does not sport any bad heroes, just bad teams. Every character can be effective if used properly.

Core Team Roles

Healers: Essential for maintaining party health.
Damage Dealers: For eliminating threats quickly.
Stunners: To control dangerous enemies.
Support Roles: Buffers, markers, or stress healers.

Stress Management

Stress relievers are especially helpful when learning the game. Heroes that can heal stress include.

Jester.
Crusader.
Houndmaster.
Flagellant (Crimson Court DLC).

The Leper and Abomination can self-heal stress. The best way to deal with stress accumulation is to immediately delete or stun those dealing stress (most often in the backline).

Health Recovery Options

Viable healers include:

Vestal (the most reliable dedicated healer).
Occultist.
Arbalest.
Flagellant.
Crusader.
Antiquarian.
Plague Doctor.

In the early game, getting a Vestal is a great play but not for healing due to the damage they take. If you are not part of the Vestal party, take along two healers. Alternatively, go with self-healers like the Leper, Houndmaster, Abomination, and Hellion.

Special Mention: The Antiquarian

Even though the Antiquarian is weak and has poor stats and skills who seem unusable, she offers two passives.

Increases the maximum amount of gold that can stack in your inventory.
Finds special relics worth substantial gold when interacting with loot-yielding curios.

Taking an antique dealer on infrequent runs can permanently end your money troubles.

Dungeon Exploration Strategies

Accepting Loss

Sometimes a mistake will kill a hero, sometimes sticking around for too long will do it, and sometimes, it’s just bad luck. When this happens don’t restart the game: deaths are part of the experience and recovering from the setback makes the win feel much better.

Pay Attention to Warnings

The game provides many hints through.

Narrator warnings about low light.
Curio descriptions suggesting what to use (or avoid).
Hero warnings during boss fights.

Team wipes will often occur if players don’t pay attention.

Curio Interactions

Use common sense with curios.

Holy water on religious objects.
Keys on locked items.
Medicinal herbs on edible or plant-related objects.
Bandages on anything that might cause cuts.
Anti-venom on poisonous items.
Shovels to dig or smash obstacles.

Light Management

Keep torchlight at 75+ when learning the game. Brighter light will get you more rewards but combat will be a lot harder. An idea that’s commonly used is to kill every enemy, then extinguish all the torches, before interacting with the curios. This is because loot is generated at the moment you interact with something for the first time.

Scouting and Speed

Scouting is very effective. It helps you avoid surprises and to plan your route. Together with high speed, it allows your heroes to act first and take control of battles. Having a speed boost of +8 it ensures that enemies never play before you.

Hunger Mechanics

Checks for hunger are created upon dungeon generation, and those locations never change. After activating a hunger tile or camping, you’re immune to hunger checks for two rooms.

Skill and Trinket Flexibility

Changing combat and camping skills in the middle of a dungeon is easily overlooked by players. With this, you can switch in situation-specific skills for boss fights or camps. In the same way, you can use your inventory to trade trinkets as well.

Boss Locations

Most bosses spawn in the furthest room from where you start. Only mini-bosses and certain special encounters do not. To find the boss’s location, count the tiles of individual rooms rather than the hallway ones

Combat Tactics

Action Economy

Maximize the effectiveness of each hero’s turn.

Avoid wasting turns on buffs in standard battles (save them for boss fights).
Exceptions include party-wide buffs like the Jester’s Battle Ballad or Man-at-Arms’ Command.

Stun Strategy

Stuns help shut down dangerous enemies from attacking. Effective stunners include.

Occultist.
Plague Doctor.
Abomination.
Houndmaster.
Bounty Hunter.

Use stuns to lock down priority targets for damage dealers to take out, or disable lower threats while focusing on bigger dangers.

Target Priority

Focus on positions 3-4 first, as they typically house stress dealers.
Stun front-row enemies (usually damage dealers) when possible.
If you can’t stun both front-liners, kill one quickly to reduce incoming damage.

Stunned enemies gain a 40% stun-resistance when they recover, preventing them from getting perma-stunned.

Combat Mathematics

Understanding these formulas helps optimize your approach.

Hit chance = Accuracy – Dodge + 5% (hidden bonus).
Reaching 95% hit chance guarantees all attacks will land.
Protection is more reliable than dodge, but high dodge can make heroes nearly untouchable.
Raw damage is easier to stack than critical hit chance.

Guard Mechanics

Strong defensive skills like the Defender of Man-at-Arms or Guard Dog of Houndmaster are effective in forcing enemy firepower to attack them.

Healing Timing

Only use your heals until the very end of fights with 1 or 2 enemies remaining. This makes the most efficient use of time before the stall timer kicks in. The stall timer goes off when just one foe is remaining, leading to stress build-up and extra enemies.

Strategic Retreat

Don’t hesitate to retreat when a battle turns against you. It’s better to preserve your heroes than risk a party wipe. With each failure, the odds in favor of retreating improve.

Hamlet Management

Building Priorities

– Upgrade the Stagecoach, Blacksmith, and Guild first.
– The Sanitarium and Nomad Wagon become valuable in mid-to-late game.
– The Abbey, Tavern, and Survivalist are generally lower priority.

District Priorities (Crimson Court DLC)

Focus on these districts if you have the crimson court DLC.

Cartographer’s Camp (improved scouting and loot).
Sanguine Vintners (eliminates need to gather blood).
Puppet Theater (provides stress relief).

Generally not worth it. You’ll drain a valuable heirloom with no real benefits. Of course, this may differ if you have a lot of gold.

Advanced Strategies

Shambler Farming

Hunt Farm apprentice level shamblers with level 2 heroes for ancestor trinkets. Take in heroes with riposte (highwayman or man-at-arms) which make this fight easier.

Jester Optimization

Instead of just using Jester to heal stress, you can use him as a glass cannon buffer. He can charge up his final attack to unleash catastrophic damage on any remaining foes or bosses, during a battle.

Trinket Prioritization

When selecting trinkets, generally prioritize those that enhance your heroes’ strengths and mitigate their weaknesses. Focus on trinkets that improve damage output for damage dealers, increase healing efficiency for support heroes, and enhance stress relief for characters prone to accumulating stress. Additionally, consider trinkets that boost critical hit chances, provide protection, or improve speed, especially when preparing for difficult boss battles. Be mindful of the trinket’s drawbacks, such as stat reductions, and balance them accordingly to ensure your team remains optimized for success in any dungeon.

Ultimate Darkest Dungeon Strategy Guide: Tips and Tricks for Success