Returning to Darkest Dungeon

So I got Darkest Dungeon years ago, intrigued by its Mike Mignola-inspired art and both setting and gameplay that really effectively drive forth the idea of cosmic horror.

The weird thing is that I think I'm getting the hang of it, and that's making me nervous.

I play the game very conservatively - I try to do all the easier missions until I've got my heroes upgraded to high levels, gear, and abilities. I also definitely tend to get them more provisions than they need. I keep the light level nearly at 100 most of the time.

But I also think that now that I've figured out how to swap out abilities on each hero, you can really build some powerful combos. (To swap out abilities, you first have to make sure that you have more than four trained at the Guild. You then click an ability on their character sheet - which you get by right-clicking the character in your roster - and then click the ability you want to use instead.)

As an example: the Occultist has "Wyrd Reconstruction," which is a heal that has the potential to heal a lot (it's a range from zero to some high number) but then has a chance to put a bleed on the target. I believe the bleed is only one damage a turn for three rounds, which usually makes it a net positive, even if it prevents you from capping someone's health. On the other hand, the bleed is often resisted.

But if you mix him with a Witch Doctor, you can get a heal (whose name I don't recall) that heals only a hit point or two, but also removes all blight and bleed effects - including that of Wyrd Construction.

Together, you can lay some pretty significant heals down in a game that is extraordinarily stingy with healing.

Learning how to build a party really makes the game much smoother. For example, with the guild you can first unlock all of a character's abilities, and then you can pick the ones that suit certain positions - for example, you might put an Arbalest in the back and give them a bunch of long-range attacks (which generally require a back position.) I like to have my people specialize, which does mean that when enemies use knockbacks and pulls you can get out of position, but you can usually recover.

There are also kind of "builds" that work for each class. The Jester, for example, has a lot of abilities that buff "Finale," which is an ability you can only use once in a battle. If you assign the Jester's abilities to focus on this, however, you can buff Finale to something like three times as much damage, which then allows you to hit for a massive burst of damage that will generally one-shot anything but a boss.

Now given the horrific nature of this game, I'm certainly wondering whether my current tendency toward success will prove to inflate overconfidence, thus getting a bunch of my dudes killed.

Still, another useful skill that I've figured out is trading out heirlooms - the currency you use to upgrade buildings in town. Next to them is a little "exchange" symbol that you can use to exchange one type of item for the other three. I suspect that this is less than a zero-sum exchange, or else you might as well have all the same kind of resource, but given how just about every upgrade needs house seals, you'll often find you have tons of busts, portraits, and deeds that would be more useful as something to trade for seals.

Anyway, fun game.