Hero Difficulty Tier List: Darkest Dungeon

[@alexhoughton3305]

Anti makes fights harder, but she makes the _game_ easier

[@patrickripleyiii134]

I may lose the battle but I will win the war

[@hariman7727]

Now if only I could figure out how to keep the team she's on from getting ripped to shreds...

[@atmosdwagon4656]

@Alex Houghton ^You get it. Concise and correct.

[@lusigia]

@@hariman7727 good old riposte team, good old riposte

[@hariman7727]

@@lusigia I'll have to try that if I play darkest dungeon again. I played through once and it took over 100 hours so I burnt out pretty hard. But that was also years ago so I might be up to playing more.

[@acksOldPeople]

The hardest character place on a team is Graverobber. This is because if you don't place one on your team, the chance of a Graverobber dying is 0%, so there is greatly reduced risk associated with the mission.

[@Mitoru.]

Got a smile out of me.

[@bchgh]

No shit, man GR is basically a meme at this point. I swear a rank 2 vestal can do more than a GR ever could.

[@Kotoy1]

@@bchgh shuffle is in shambles

[@andrewsavengers5612]

r/technicallythetruth

[@scythescythe884]

try stacking her with PD and/or occultist. use leper or another tanky boi for front line. sheild breaker is not a recommended pairing personally. she is really good in cove with stealth. she does one thing, and one thing only really well: kills crabs.

[@Sanah0lic]

abomination would be even harder from a team building aspect if it was old abom when holy heroes couldnt party up with him

[@KlaverKatten]

wait, holy heroes can party with him now? I hadn't heard about that! :O

[@vipersniperpiper6093]

@@KlaverKatten But as a downside,he gives the religious more stress whenever he causes stress to the party.

[@ligninman]

Just lost a plague doctor, a hellion and a musketeer to the collector. all of them on crit+instant deathblow. I hate this game and i'm never playing it ever again. See you all tommorow. edit : forgot to mention that they were all level 6 with max gear and unique/very rare/trophees trinkets. so I couldn't just leave out of the fight.

[@jackplisken4738]

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY SON * FlyingFist *

[@slushisimcambi2521]

You really hate to see it.

[@BotSupportIronValiant]

Sounds like you finally got room to put 3 more Crusaders on your team

[@BotSupportIronValiant]

No but seriously at least trophy trinkets can't be lost. Learned that the hard way. Glad I learned that

[@ShuffleFM]

F's in the chat

[@auro637]

Antiquarian is great. I always take one when doing the siren boss fights

[@cyanideytcuriousseadoggo]

Lol I can see.

[@sergritm]

Good to see the usual suspects (or team red hook) end up in easy tier. Really makes you appreciate the game design choices developers made regarding introduction to this beautiful game

[@nitthecroller]

"Alot of people consider her dead weight." Me: she is the complete opposite of dead weight. She has fantastic buffs.

[@sairan593]

Me, playing 3 Antiq + Flaggy consistently: what

[@Destroyer2150]

The thing is, a low level antiquarian can really hurt a team if you're not careful.

[@atmosdwagon4656]

People who bash Antiquarian aren't seeing her in the correct light: She's a strategic character rather than a tactical one. Successful Antiquarian hauls save you a week or two per mission on gold grind, and gives you more strategic breathing room for all sorts of things: Setting up key districts, safer Quirk management, rushing equipment upgrades on recruits....lots of uses for gold alone in DD.

[@hariman7727]

@@Destroyer2150 that's exactly the problem I had. Every time I took an antiquarian into a dungeon, I had a difficult time because her skills in battle were lagging behind, and relying on the other three party members for damage and healing left that party hurting severely. I could never get quite the right party mix or set of skills for the antiquarian to get her rolling. I'm glad other people can, but she never worked for me because I could never figure that out.

[@bongosmcdongos4190]

@@hariman7727 I find she's worst at low levels, once she's at max power she's pretty good

[@BotSupportIronValiant]

Listen. If you aren't taking a team full of Crusaders then you aren't playing correctly. HOLY LANCE FOR DAYS, DEUS VULT

[@aimbotarrow5981]

DEUS VULT

[@Ohflipsnap]

The Arab League of Occultists would respectfully disagree.

[@ExtremeMan10]

We need Jerusalem!

[@BotSupportIronValiant]

@@Ohflipsnap *GASP* BLASPHEMY!!!

[@chuckchan4127]

Crusader is everything the Leper wants to be.

[@seanvelasquez2220]

smh i remember when someone was saying that you can put an anti for the siren fight and this random guy decided to go “man i wish i had one because she is so useless in every situation “ and im just b u h

[@pavisepavisnt]

Smh so many people sleep on Antiquarian

[@chuckchan4127]

Anti + Duelists advance = Highwayman go buuurrrr

[@GarlicPops]

I think people don't realize how important Antiquarian is in order for you to not have headaches with gold management. I'd say on bloodmoon she is an absolute must since upgrade costs are doubled and you need to be efficient with time, it also forces players to get creative with their party compositions. Antiquarian deserves more love, she is way stronger than people give her credit for.

[@cyanideytcuriousseadoggo]

Riposte teams in butchers curse with abom,HYM, and MAA: Your not the only one cursed with knowledge.

[@diamondsrule1699]

new player here. i LOVE antiquarian. i regularly forget to light torch (i need to work on stress management lmfao) so i come home from expeditions with loads of loot & i'm pretty sure antiquarian increases gold stacks by 250? invigorating vapors & flashpowder have helped me avoid a lot of damage

[@antonioscendrategattico2302]

@@cyanideytcuriousseadoggo Antiquarian in Butcher's Circus is soooo annoying to play against because suddenly, if you don't stack heavy dot, it's VERY hard to kill heroes because waiting until the healer has used their turn is no longer what you need, every hero can get themselves out of death's door and attack by taking a turn.

[@rumbling9879]

Just did Stygian for the first time after beating the main game a couple times Went smoothly, got to second darkest dungeon (Was also doing 1 of each hero run) Every single character died in the second darkest dungeon the stress was so insanely high even with torches against revelation and Houndmaster/Crusader healing I got obliterated game over Ow

[@McFisticuffs]

Arbalest's rallying flare is actually great for the Warrens too. The swinetaur and swine chopper have big stuns and they're usually too tanky to burst down, and clearing marks while fighting carrion eaters can actually add up to a huge amount of damage mitigation on top of a (very minor) stress heal.

[@trancandy1]

not even to mention it cheeses swine king

[@peterkallese6967]

17:54 Interesting. I am actually finding Houndmaster moderate. At least in the early levels. He is a versatile hero, but untill you hit veteran, his DoT only deals 1/turn, which made me have 3 members die to an apprentice Shambler and an inchoate flesh battle being a bit too close for comfort as I had him as the primary dmg dealer. In addition, I ran into some awkward positional issues with both his stun and stress ability only being available from their 2 respective positions. His Stress reduction ability also feels way worse in the early game, as both the stress reduction value and the chance of it hitting increases with levels. Lastly I find him being in an awkward position of having an assassin's defensive stats (10 dodge, but only 21 hp at level 1), while having an ability to guard other heroes. Granted, it gives bonus to dodge, but it feels soo when I have tried him

[@ShuffleFM]

His stress heal is pretty bad at the start. At champion it's a monster though. It'd be nice if his dots scaled better too

[@gustikscompany1172]

Hello good sir, I have never played DD but I’ve been binging your videos lately and enjoying every single one of them, keep up the good work and have a nice day :)

[@trancandy1]

high recommend. most of the negative steam reviews are just people being mad that they got screwed by rng while refusing to see where they messed up with their decision making. if you like really punishing games like dark souls i recommend picking it up. old comment so you might have already lol

[@kudosayala4943]

​@@trancandy1 unless you do everything right with perfect preparation only to miss 5 moves in a row & get crit 4 times in a row then alt f4 & hit the wall...

[@itstheblandman8734]

Here’s that thumbs up you asked for at the start 👍

[@THELASTWORKINGTOILETOFINDIA]

I like the way how you present your videos !! Inserting each hero individually according to their tiers while explaining why instead of lumping all of them together.

[@Hedning1390]

Leper is clearly not easy, because lots of people don't like him even though he is S-tier. I think that one thing people miss is that many enemy parties don't care about if you move them around, but they do very much care if you have a leper. In this way leper buffs all move skills, which is very strong.

[@strawberrijam3676]

i totally agree with your list. However, for a beginner, i believe that HWM may be undervalued. To me, his strongest asset is his ability to do something useful in every position in conjuction with his good damage output and ofcourse... riposte. A beginner player may not see how strong riposte is, and as a result of that, they may look for other huge damage dealer like leper in the thought that they are better. So i believe it's medium. It's definetily an easy pick for an veteran player. In order to control MAA decently, it's true that you need a good understandment of your whole team and the enemies and view them as a whole in order to choose the best action

[@Netugi]

Kind of agree about HWM, took me a while to understand the strength of his melee moves and duelist in particular. Doesn't help that Dismas starts with 3 pistol moves and just one melee move that loses a lot of its value in the first area of the game, I saw him as a primarily ranged character for a while. But yeah once you figure out the basics you usually just lock duelist, open vein/wicked hack, pistol shot, and point blank (some wiggle room ofc), easy value and not much decision making.

[@xelinco3005]

Most character in easy are not exactly one dimensionnal, hwm is definitly not harder than any other moderate heroes and i would say that bounty hunter is definitly harder to play than him.

[@strawberrijam3676]

@@xelinco3005 I agree with that! For a player who have understood the dynamic of riposte, HWM is very easy. That's one of the many reasons why hwm is broken right? So easy to use that you can choose him in almost every situation and it will do something beneficial for the team, it doesnt need anybody else in order to be efficient while in the same time, it can help the team in many ways. It's not that the riposte mechanic is hard to understand, but you really need to start and count the damage output and the possibilities of getting hit, in order to see his ''true damage'' against the enemy team. When you see big hits from lepers and helions, it might be easy to overlook hwm

[@flagellantbestgirl]

I'm not really sure about Riposte being the overpowered thing everyone seems to think it is. 85 accuracy is pitiful and needing to get targeted is another pretty big downside. To deny dangerous actions you need to take them first, and have them target you which cannot be done consistently. Antiquarian's Protect Me helps a little in that regard though. Not sure how this is op broken and hwm is so excellent lol

[@strawberrijam3676]

@@flagellantbestgirl I think that ,when you use the riposte, hwm will be to rank 2 or 1. usually, enemy frontliners attack your frontliners while enemy backliners attack every position in most cases. So by having him in the first 2 rows, you have so much more chances of getting hit. As for the fact that you put yourself in a potentially dangerous situation, he has decent hp to survive a couple of hits. Extra dodge with antiquarian helps him avoid dmg while the riposte is still activate. The thought of potentially killing everyone in one turn because of the riposte, saves so many other weird situations, that's why is broken

[@peterkallese6967]

25:46 Also interesting. I would have put MaA in moderate (heck I was even considering easy). It's true that there's so much stuff that you can do with him, but I also feel like that no matter what you choose to do, it's pretty much gonna be worth it, say except for when you should have protected your rank 4 healer from getting nuked and put on DD with DoT ticking lol

[@imonlyhueman1203]

throw man at arms in the back with that shield let him scream and guard he an extra stack of hp for my leper the walking heads team comp is godly

[@AstrixFTW]

Love the tier lists man! You should try tiering all of the abilities next, the trinket tier list brought me on to your channel

[@ShuffleFM]

Thanks! If you're interested I actually did skills and camp skills a while back, here's the first of them kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4WkeJSkn8ZpipY

[@AstrixFTW]

ShuffleFM oh wow awesome, thanks! I don’t know how I missed it. Instawatch

[@secretname2670]

Bragging rights; I found out the utility of most of those characters on my own (flagellant as main healer, Man at arms speed debuff, Antiquarian's insane macro value). I feel smart because every time I watch your videos, something I found out on my own gets confirmed! The game is so well built that even 10 years after release, new players can still use their brains to absolutely dominate, and I love it.

[@ShuffleFM]

Love this mindset :)

[@DeimosWhitesnake]

Leper is the hardest character to use because of how god-like he is.

[@spadam0]

I often give my abom the map so I don't have to solve what to do with his second slot, but since I got broken key I have been using that with transference sometimes and it feels good. It's kind of nice having a toon who doesn't really need more than broken key.

[@theycallmeLEV]

Fav character is occultist, see you on twitch from SE1insanity

[@Juliett-A]

I agree. I slept on the occultist for a long time because I just saw her as a healer with a bad heal. But once I realized that she is a solid damage dealer with really strong utility and an occasional emergency heal then I fell in love with her and found it much easier to fit her in a team.

[@pavisepavisnt]

Friendship ended with Vestal, now Occultist is my best friend.

[@peterkallese6967]

2:28 Padlock of Transference??? Coming from Vanilla, that trinket has been my go to for abom. Extra skill chances with no downsides? Yes pls (Granted I typically just use him as blight/stunbot, but still)

[@DM-ql6ps]

I pretty much always keep this on mine as well

[@paulberry5750]

11:49 Something changed with the game's RNG. My flagellants die on the first Deathblow hit a lot more now. Occultist and/or Vestal is almost Mandatory.

[@The_Vanni]

Maybe you were using the wrong trinkets?

[@paulberry5750]

@@The_Vanni Trinkets are window dressing. Didn't matter what I equipped. 😕

[@SnakeEater776]

In the end everything returns to a roll of a dice, you can put the odds in your favour as much as you want but there is always that chance, maybe you just got really unlucky. I run martyrs seal on mine and hes tanking many deathblows

[@RichieThe13th]

Sometimes having 2 of the same hero is really awesome. One of my recent favorites is 2 occultists. I feel like Man at Arms would be awesome with 2. Also teaming 2 occultists and an antiquarian with whoever in front has been freakin sick! Dodge, heal, debuff, damage 😁

[@defaultv.7959]

I usually use Suppressive Fire/Smoke Screen when I know a Sniper Shot will not lead to a kill by the end of the round.

[@hariman7727]

My start of video bet is that the antiquarian, jester, and shield breaker are the hardest. The antiquarian because she's got all her utility wrapped up in extra money gain, which means her battle skills and camping skills aren't as good as others. The Jester because he's just tricky to use. And the shield breaker because the nightmares are such a drag on that class.

[@falseking989]

Antiquarian has indirect value, and I think that's why people have trouble understanding her role. In macro she triples your gold intake. In micro she acts like a Jester without Finale. So if you have a 3 man group that can win a fight she can indirectly make it easier for that 3 man group to win.

[@vurt22]

Great video and thanks for the time stamps!

[@sailorraybloomdz]

Personally I don't feel comfortable at all with Hellion. Yes, you just put her into rank 1, but she has so many situational buttons that I have hard time picking 4. She can hit all ranks, but sometimes something as simple as Wicked Hack feels like a must to me, leaving me with no space for her stun or move forward skill in case of a shuffle. The only easy thing I can say about Hellion is that her hairpins are great picks or just about any acc trinket.

[@JerdMcLean]

I enjoy running an Antiquarian/hughwayman and Vestel/Crusader core. View Antiquarian like running 3 upstart goblins, just helps thin the deck and the turns you're not thinning the deck you got some pretty good support.

[@AzarakiDragon]

Why do I like watching tier lists so much? Also honsetly once Anti gets to lvl 5 or 6, I start to miss her dodge buff when she's not on a roster. She's definitely not all that much of a hinderance

[@RookieREX]

same i like her buffs i usually run straight buffs, guard and heal or blight depending on zone, most of the time i dont get to use the other abilities as dodge is really helpful sometimes

[@radleyshort8232]

I've played this since early access and still absolutely love this. Great to see someone still putting up discussion and guides and yours are fantastic

[@TheRealVRA]

Feels weird commenting on an old video, but I've started using SB every time I think about using Leper. I feel like prot is just too common. And making up for SBs low health is easier than making up for Lepers acc and lack of reach.

[@scarlet8078]

That's a good point, but I think it's a matter of preference. My SB's tend to have low survivability unless I use Sway, but then I feel like I'm wasting a turn by buffing a damage dealer to keep her up. If I'm going to "waste" a turn, I'd rather do so in a way that helps the entire team, like by using Houndmaster's Mark (reduces enemy's Prot)

[@tylerwarwick7975]

Man at arms is in such a weird spot for me, lately I've been trying his position 4 trinket and a buff/debuff loadout without an attack or riposte and I think it might actually be quite strong if it's on a good team. So far he's been totally fine each fight but I'm struggling with composition so some of his teammates aren't doing as well. I think when I get home from work I'm going to try man at arms(4) houndmaster(3) vestal(2) shieldbreaker/flagellant(1) I just came up with it while typing this out so it could be trash but that's just par for the course when I'm gaming lol.

[@tylerwarwick7975]

I think I'm going to scratch the shieldbreaker thought though, I don't think vestal would appreciate being thrown in the front as often as shieldbreaker tosses her friends around.

[@annurissimo1082]

Highwayman is bae, you can't deny.

[@quickpawmaud]

I have had some bad luck with Hellion and Houndmaster. Those are some of the only characters I have had die so far.

[@hrs.ai2018]

For Antiquarian most mistake done by players is booting +Dodge to everyone which does not make much different. Antiaquarian equip a +10 Dodge trinket/better and boost her Dodge with 'GetDown' during the battle. Most hit target her from enemy would be 'Missed' , that is extremely helpful. That's how Antiquarian should be played

[@atmosdwagon4656]

Dead wrong. Group dodge makes an enormous difference, especially on torchless runs.

[@victorprati7908]

yo cool tier list thanks a lot!

[@nitthecroller]

Shuffle! Can you answer me a question? "Am I going overboard with healing?" I find that some of my party comps are over prepared with healing. Stuff like: Arbalest/plague-doctor heal; vestal/occultist heal; crusader/houndmaster heal; leper/flagellant heal. I seem to always take alot of healing just in case shit hits the fan. But disaster doesn't happen that often and my last death was a party wipe to the prophet. My main method of play is to nuke the opponents before they do anything, which is a form of healing through damage prevention. Should I tone that down? Focus on other skills? What skills?

[@ShuffleFM]

On paper it does look like too much on paper, but if you're clearing content then it's fine. You're in the right headspace when you think of damage prevention as healing, because it is. As long as you have some reliable stuns you don't need as much healing for that exact reason.

[@nitthecroller]

@@ShuffleFM May I recommend making a video explaining to folks how much healing would be wise to bring in dungeon delving? Please do.

[@ShuffleFM]

@@nitthecroller Thanks for the idea. I'll see if I can make something of it

[@S_Black]

Vestal/Occultist is overkill. But the rest is fine. PD for example isn't a main healer while Arb can be. And HM has only a self heal, so you want someone else for the rest. For Occ, you can pair him up with Arb or PD for example to fix his mistakes.

[@nitthecroller]

@@S_Black I rarely take occultist and PD together as, in my mind, they occupy the same role of 'support'. Still thanks for the suggestion. I do love running 2 arbalest 2 crusaders with 4 mini heals. The heals being split up like that provides a surprising amount of flexibility in combat. All 4 can output tremendous damage while also having consistent healing.

[@rory9975]

Do I over think hellion? Her moves dmg nerfing her make her feel complicated and like I'm not playing her optimally.

[@trancandy1]

random question: if you could add one skill from any hero to one other hero's skill list, what do you think would be the most broken combo? like giving leper iron swan

[@ShuffleFM]

Iron swan leper sounds insane lol. I'd say giving hellion exsanguinate could be crazy. Her crit buff is bonus damage against bleeding targets and she hits super hard already.

[@neglectfulsausage7689]

man at arms is easy and leper is hard. leper juggled to back means worthless. manarms can move far even without self-juggle skills. he is for the bellow to lower speed of enemy units so that all your get to go first next turn which is very strong, its a skill that gives you surprise mode on enemies and just keep hitting the button to make it worse.

[@antiheartless45]

Have you tried an all Graverobber team?

[@ShuffleFM]

Yes, lots of shadow fade lol

[@patrickripleyiii134]

Damn where did the other team go

[@Str8UpFax]

My main problem with this game is that it feels impossible to have that "perfect team good in every situatuon".. youre always missing at least one thing (stress, healing, damage, stuns, etc)

[@DanielOrtega-mz2tw]

Guud list I think I’d put jester on easy tho

[@yuvalgabay1023]

Im new and I really had fun whit glave barberian lady,heighway man ,and man andarms doing a dance whit Battle sister heal bot .very fun

[@madmaxiemartialartsnerd485]

Things I thought were interesting You put flag and man at arms at Hard For me these were pretty straight forward characters, and the real difficulty was deciding which parties really bring the bank out of their buck As for Flag: I find a lot of his abilities really good, So honestly for me the hardest part was after I chose my first standard 2 abilities, His Single target whip and his Team heal, Chosing the final two can be daunting for honestly they are all SOOOO good. maybe im biased and ive seen some people disagree already but if you were to make a tier list that goes C/B/A/S. I put him in A tier every single time. Only reason I don't put him at S, is because he's not really viable in the ruins, but great everywhere else. Man At arms: now i'm just confused why you even consider this character hard. He has two main jobs. Protect, and stun, pretty standard character in my opinion. now a character I'm surprised you didn't put into hard, was Grave Robber, For yes once you understand her she's pretty simple. But if you are a new player not reading any guides. Figuring out the Grave Robber is pretty hard, for she has very specific things she wants in her party, and she has two very vastly different builds in how you can create your grave robber. She has so much creativity demands, that for a player who prefers a more straight forward play style, once again without any guides, one can easily struggle to learn her. It took me a while to figure out just how good she is with characters like the abomination Just my thoughts on the list

[@ShuffleFM]

For GR I think it's more of what you said for the other characters where making a team for her might be challenging. Otherwise I don't think it's too difficult for most players to get comfortable throwing knives and darts. It's effective enough, and the lunge style is a bit more work to team build for, but it's just pressing lunge over and over. Flagellant is definitely a 5 move slot syndrome hero, meaning he has great options but not enough space. For MAA I think he can get by with stuns and protecting, yet getting the most out of him is really difficult since he can do so much.

[@maxnathan3765]

so they did super nerf bolster right? i thought it was supposed to be both acc and dodge or something

[@ShuffleFM]

Bolster used to be + dodge and speed that you could stack. It got nerfed into what it is now at color of madness iirc

[@somelosercalledjab]

Hard - Abomination, Antiquarian, Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, Crusader, Flagellant, Grave Robber, Hellion, Highwayman, Houndmaster, Jester, Man-at-Arms, Musketeer, Occultist, Plague Doctor, Shieldbreaker, Vestal Normal - Leper Easy - Source: I am stupid.

[@The4Quiabos]

I NEED MORE TIER LOST. GO TO MOD CHARACTERS TIER LIST!!!

[@jadeamulet2339]

Is a party comp of Vestal, PD, Abom, and highwayman a decent comp? I focus on stunning turn one and killing unstunned enemies quickly

[@ShuffleFM]

Yeah that sounds fine. You will struggle to hit rank 4 so stress might be an issue if vestal is missing judgment hits

[@BrotherVoidBomber]

I still have yet to find a fit for the abomination in years of this game. Dont get me wrong he is stronger but I never chose him because early levels he's just... meh? Weirdly enough I almost always go for the flag early since even in the coven bleed is a option if you have the build for it.

[@maguc5906]

Leper at easy? 4 leper team must make the game a cakewalk!

[@gasparperalta3725]

Man at arms is so 6head

[@zombieboss5178]

Damn, MMA's gameplay is tied to his lore very well (he dictates battles in his lore, and he dictates how you die in the game :D)

[@reesewhittington6778]

How are flag and shields up hard? And how is occultist not easy?

[@ShuffleFM]

Flagellant requires more game knowledge than most heroes so you can know when he's safe to stay at low hp. SB is really brittle in the early game and I've seen a lot of people lose her during apprentice missions. Occultist has a lot of things he can do and a few different builds, which I think makes him more complex.

[@reesewhittington6778]

@@ShuffleFM shields up meant shieldmaster, and i just turn me brain off with the flag, and he just shreds.

[@Rudi4rius]

Sorry dude, you have to start pronouncing Flagellant like Chris does

[@HiddenReaper]

Comment for the gods

[@chuckchan4127]

Leper is actually very hard to use due to how trash he is.

[@ShuffleFM]

You take that back right now D:

[@chuckchan4127]

@@ShuffleFM Lepers always takes things in the back.

[@BotSupportIronValiant]

Trash he says. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rl7Ci6Vrbcl5ebM Nah. You just don't have the faith needed to play him.

[@flagellantbestgirl]

why is leper trash >:(

[@chuckchan4127]

@@flagellantbestgirl All of the hard fights either shuffle you around or the boss shuffles around. His garbage accuracy doesn't help