How Good is the Arbalest?

Darkest Dungeon class guides are here! Filthy discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the various DD classes both in general and with the Crimson Court DLC.
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[@qwcew]

Oy Filthy, Marks are non-resistable, its the debuff that accompanies them that can be resisted (granted, usually the debuff is very useful). [Note: You can still miss with the skill, but once you land it, you'll always mark the enemy though the debuff can still be resisted] Out of curiosity, would you be doing a video showing off what you consider good party compositions and why they're good? If you decide to stretch that idea into a series, you could make videos showing off different themes (bleed focused, mark, Abom party, money runs).

[@TUX3D0S]

I think he meant that the mark can be dodged, not that it can be resisted.

[@duketogo13]

Yeah I just can't agree with his mark comments. In certain situations, mostly bosses with a ton of moves, yes marks aren't all that useful. But what I feel like is too quickly glazed over is the fact that in a mark specific party your entire mark specific party is going to be pouring damage onto that enemy taking advantage of their lowered prot/dodge. Also it isn't like BH, and HM are poor classes so you're gimping yourself by bringing these other characters that take advantage of marks.

[@FilthyRobot]

I had actually forgotten that marks themselves can't be resisted. The mark attack can still miss though, right?

[@duketogo13]

I may just be lucky but I can't recall ever seeing a mark target miss when I've used it. But seeing as they've got accuracy they must be able to miss. But at level 5 they've got a base accuracy of 120 on the HM, BH, and Arbalest before any traits/trinkets which is pretty high.

[@qwcew]

Yeah the attack can still miss, they do have accuracy listed in their description after all (which is an amusing image when you consider that Houndmasters miss with a whistle.)

[@ForeverHeavyMetal00]

He said that criticals aren't good all the times, he is right. One time the siren took my crusader with all trinkets that deal damage and hit my highwayman with riposte on, tracking shot and camping buffs. The damage that the crusader did to the highwayman was critical and put him in death doors but the ripose also was a critical, both were in death doors and i almost died with a heart attack but i did have the chance to heal them and win the fight.

[@TylerTried]

Damn that sucks haha. I wondering when crits were bad. Glad you shared your misfortune.

[@Akaritomi]

Sounds like a good DD story to tell. "2 of my boys got into a fight over some fish looking bitch and nearly killed each other, but they realized bros are always over hoes and they killed that hoe together."

[@arthursimsa9005]

@@Akaritomi It's a terrible idea to have a Highwayman against the Siren, man, that sould be obvious.

[@justinjakeashton]

@@arthursimsa9005 Lest you brought an Antiquarian.

[@TigerKirby215]

Doesn't mention the "Fuck the Swine" flare. :\ Seriously, if there's one use for the Arbalest it's fighting the Swine. The Swine is slow af (0 Speed, I belive) which makes the Arbalest's speed a non-issue. And being able to erase Wilbur's marks massively lowers the total damage output of The Swine. In addition you'll very often be bringing either the Houndmaster (+Damage to beasts) or the Bounty Hunter (+Damage to large enemies via the Planned Takedown camping skill) who both have marks which you can capitalize on if Wilbur's marks miss. And Supressing Fire really isn't that bad lol. It's not good, but it's not bad. It's basically a shitty Grapeshot Blast that has a chance of providing minor debuffs. Between it and Bola the latter can be better for finishing off enemies who your frontline can't hit.

[@FilthyRobot]

I did forget to talk about flare. It's a little more complicated than just going faster than the swine though, you want the Arbalest to consistently be the 2nd party member of yours to act, that way you not only get the mark removal, but also the stun clear on the rest of your team. However, that's literally the only fight in the entire game that I bring flare to.

[@nightcorechar6714]

This is kinda unrelated but I felt so smart when I accidentally did this... So Swine was my first red boss and I was shaking in my boots, I did a ton of research on the wiki and I settled on a comp consisting of Sheildbreaker, Flagellant, Houndmaster and Vestal. Our mission was going and my party was settling down to camp before we ventured to fell the beast when I read the Sheildbreakers camping skill that makes it so an ally cannot be marked. Due to my research and previous encounters, I knew that would be massive vs Wilbur so I popped it on my Flag, thinking along the lines of he’s going to be in the front so he’ll be marked more. We burst into the room and Wilbur marked my Vestal straight away, I was already frustrated as Swine critted her for like 30 but then my Flags turn rolled around and I read the most beautiful sentence ‘Remove mark from allies and grant to self.’ I pressed it and boom, no marks on the board. That Swine King could do little more than flail about whilst Wilbur snorted and cried. After I felled them both (taking great joy in Wilburs demise as my friend told me I had to kill the small one first when I faced the green Swine and I lost an entire party to it) I returned triumphantly home with a full hp roster and only mildly stressed from Vestals earlier encounter with the grim reaper. I couldn’t believe this combo wasn’t mentioned anywhere on the wiki and that I did 40 minutes of research for a boss that I ended up destroying by accident!

[@VientoFly]

The arbalest heal can target positions1,2 and 3 on your line

[@FilthyRobot]

Yes, I misspoke in the video. It's not in front of her, it's position 3, 2, or 1 from positions 4 or 3. Also, I think I forgot to mention Rallying Flare (which, to be fair, is a pretty forgettable skill). It's nearly entirely useless except if you can reliably go second in your hero order vs the Swine God fight and resist Wilbur's stun.

[@wtfsparta4522]

He just told the use of the flare in the comment above. It could probably work against enemies that have better attacks against marked targets, for example the mushroom thingies in weald, too. But it's only consistent and extremly good against the swine God like FilthyRobot mentioned (at least in my experience but i only played for about 50h)

[@bradofwales]

and the siren as the entrance song is a debuff and the flare hightens the resistance

[@wtfsparta4522]

Hm that's good to know. But i usualy just take an antiquarian, which has a low debuff resist and is therefor very likely to get controlled, but can hardly damage my party.

[@ZygonCannar]

Hey Filthy, I really like your guide videos, but I wanted to let you know that Marks(that don't miss) are otherwise 100% reliable. It's the Debuff that can be resisted, the Mark will always apply. Great video otherwise! I look forward to more.

[@ImaginaryNumb3r]

Surprisingly, the Arbalest and Leper make a good combination. First Aid on the Leper, along with his Solemy and Recovery Charm and he will literally never die.

[@ToppledTurtle834]

I believe people always underestimated the Arbalist. I have done a no light no vestal run and the Arbalist was a really important character for me to prevent dying. I uses them on every darkest dungeon except for the first one, she has difficulty against shuffling horror. I used her in a party with preferably men at arms on space 1(can also be a crusader but that leaves the party more vulnerable to health damage but it can help with stress heal), hound master or highwaymen(starts on space 3 first action is duellist advance) on space 2, hound master(if with highwaymen) or graverobber or occultist on space 3, and ofcourse the Arbalest on space 4. This comp has a lot of damage which was very much so needed because you really didn’t want to get much damage if you don’t have a vestal. These days I play it with a vestal in space 2 instead of an occultist because obviously she is far stronger, play her with her acc and damage debuff to help in the recover phase if against bigger enemies. Now for my reasoning why I like this comp with arbalest: In that game I found out that debuffs is a way to make enemies significantly less scary. The debufs hit more consistently than you give it credit for since it doesn’t increase the debuff resist of the enemies unlike the stun increases the stun resist. With a good debuff, men at arms buff and stun combination you can recover very easily. This brings me to the debuff that the arbalest gives: it decreases the amount you get crit and the accuracy of the character. This is not only good against a bigger target and the debuff of the arbalest prevents crits, aka stress. That makes enemies significantly less scary. However, a lot of times it is not worth it to just debuff because of the debuff but if your other guys left a character on low health this is an amazing use. Killing a character and debuff on 2 others is so much better than using an entire action to just kill that 1 enemy. Since the arbalest is a low speed character it means that she usually cleans up an enemy you don’t want around in the second round and the situation I just mentions does occur quite often. Also against the big crab and the treebranch hit you can use the ability to give a comfortable time recovering. The main roll of the arbalest in the first rounds is dealing damage. This can be done without using the mark in most cases. Against stress characters usually either finish one with supressing fire or using blind fire to potentially if you’re lucky damage the enemy you want to die, but most importantly make sure that the arbalest goes first on the second round. The second round you can use sniper shot to try and kill the enemy you want to kill before it’s second action. If you fight bigger enemies and especially if they have protection the arbalest can do a lot of work if you mark the target with the hound master first. The hound master will most likely go before the arbalest if you havn’t used blind fire yet. This way the arbalest can do significant damage and if she crits almost kill a really strong enemy quickly, her low speed also doesn’t matter in this case because the big enemies have even lower speeds anyway. Enemies like gouls, swinotaurs, crabs, the big skeleton guy and other big or even smaller enemies are dealt with really fast doing this. And even if they resist the debuff they can’t resist the mark of the hound master. And not only the arbalest benefits from the mark but the hound master does too, and if you play with a graverobber that one also benefits from the mark. Since I played without vestal it was important that those enemies went down quickly but if you play with vestals it is still really good if you don’t get hit. Her heal is the ability you will use most of the time in the recovery phase of the fight. The first heal isn’t that great but after using it more than once on a character it is enough to top off you’re heroes again. You do need the +33% healing if you take here as the only healer besides the hound master and perhaps otherwise it takes far too long. This was really difficult if my party got damaged a lot in the fight and I can’t say it is at all a great way to recover the health of you’re party but if you can’t play vestal it was actually good enough. When you do use vestal like in every other normal run you can us the vestal aoe heal and use the arbalest heal on the character who is more damaged and that character will benefit a lot from the buff the arbalest heal gives him. This way it is not needed for the vestal to leave rank 2. If you use another healer besides the arbalest then the supressing fire is really usefull against a big monster to let him miss a lot and not do any crits on your team. This way you have an easy time recovering of most big enemies. The last part of her are here camping skills. They are amazing. The +2 speed on everyone is sometimes great and the restring crossbow is a good buff as well. The debuff of -2 speed on that can be cured by herbs and even if you don’t have those the arbalest isn’t fast anyway and there for the -2 hurts less on her than on a faster character which you want to potentially kill or stun enemies before they can act. Listed above is my reasoning of why I think you really underestimate the potential strength of the arbalest. She is surprisingly flexible and really tanky. The biggest weakness is if she gets shuffled to the front but even then she can use blind fire and get to the back line in 1 turn, or you can use the movement abilities of other characters to help her get to the back ranks again. The speed is a problem with her but the large damage potential, large crit change which helps with the stress heal a bit as well, and the actual surprisingly good healing if combined with another heal makes her in my eyes a good character who I like to use. And I want to stress one last time that the crit and acc debuff she has helps to prevent a lot of stress which allows the hound master to be enough stress healing to keep your party low stress. Love your content and I hope someone actually reads this and maybe will try this out some time. I like the tactic a lot.

[@Lorrin81]

Filthy gives an overly negative impression of marking targets. He fails to explain that marking is balanced around a team, not an individual hero. One of the things I wish he would explain is just how strong marking is at the later stages of the game when you run a comp that specifically takes advantage of marks. Having Occultist/Houndmaster/Arbalest (for example--add in a Bounty Hunter or Highwayman or Graverobber as you like) is INCREDIBLY strong against, say, a Hateful Virago or many of the end-game strong mobs and even bosses (Swine/Necro/Hag--try marking the pot, for example, for reliable one-shots on the pot; the pot can't be debuffed but it can be MARKED). Taking the first turn of your Occultist to mark a high-HP/high-Dodge Hateful Virago provides a high number of character turns that is a great return on investment. Many of his criticisms don't make sense: (1) It has to hit and it can be resisted--that applies to everything in the game; it's a truism, not a drawback of marking. (2) Marking lasts for actions, not turns--true, but even against a mob or boss that has 2 moves per turn, a single mark provides you with, on average, 7 or 8 or more turns of YOUR characters while the target is marked, and the more you manipulate speed the more character turns you get with a single mark. The fact that marking is situational and you need the right team comp doesn't make it bad.

[@skulldoxbox2]

Brian Kluk I would say that, it has more to do with filthy being a very cautious player. In his mind, you are not going to be able to sink the many actions into a mark. If you get crit in the middle of your mark combo, you need to run damage control. The comps that take advantage of marks to the fullest, lack either dedicated healers or tanks. The best comp I can think of, that still meets filthy's healer, stunner, stress healer, damage dealer rules, would probably be vestal, hound, highwayman, and bounty hunter in that order. Marks aren't that bad, but they are useless in certain fights. Although I do love filthy completely ignoring flare.

[@Doominator10]

skulldoxbox2 it has 1 specific use vs the swine prince in that you can remove Wilbur's marks and not get obliterated.

[@skulldoxbox2]

masterofthor I am not saying he wasn't justified in ignoring it. I just find it funny that he probably forgot about it completely

[@CidGuerreiro1234]

It seems marks cannot be resisted though, only the debuff.

[@TheSamuraiGoomba]

Yeah, Filthy seems to overlook how amazing marking can be in a full party. Marking enemies allows you to deal tons of extra damage and a lot of mark classes are extremely high-damage even before you add all the mark damage. Bounty Hunter and Houndmaster with a mark active on a boss, with the Houndmaster's dog treats active? That damage goes crazy high. Arbalest's heal is pretty useful too since it increases the amount of healing you get on future heals, so you can keep your tanks topped up. Abom, Occultist, Arbalest, Houndmaster, Bounty Hunter etc all excel in mark parties.

[@jasondelvaux3036]

Marking is synergistic. I love having multiple heroes capable of marking (arbalest, houndmaster, bounty hunter) and also capable of taking advantage of marks (the aforementioned heroes plus grave robber). One hero places the mark (which is a wasted action according to your commentary), but then 2-3 heroes can then make use of that mark to completely wreck powerful opponents. In my opinion, that more than justifies spending the turn to mark an enemy because then several attackers get a huge damage bonus.

[@NxS96]

i really like it in the leper video when you said how good the class is right in the beginning... i think it great for clarity just a suggestion :)

[@AnybodyKillMe]

agree

[@tremolobanshee]

Is it actually "bad" to use a healing ability at camp? I know it's lower on the list of priorities, but triage has been helpful for me plenty of times. Anyone else have an opinion?

[@kellycowley3535]

Sawyer Schmitt I think different people just play the game differently. I usually use camping as a way to de-stress my characters but I have used the healing abilities a few times.

[@Smorccc]

Try out a Leapfrog team with Crusader (pos 1) HWM (2) and GR (3) spec so that they all have their move skill (lunge and the stun for GR, point blank shot and duelist advance for HWM, and finally get HOLY LANCE for crusader). GR ideally moves first and uses lunge against Pos 3 (GR moves to pos 1) HWM uses duelist advance to move to pos 1 and hits pos 3 (ideally killing) Crusader uses Holy lance to move to pos 1 and hits pos 4. (This puts GR into pos 3 so she can use Lunge again on the next turn) Vestal or Occultist can heal or contribute damage to kill pos 4 on the first turn. (You can also opt to set up for point blank shot by using a skill other than the blight for GR) I really like these kinds of multi positional teams. The combat has a great flow to it, you also have bleed from HWM and blight on GR for stronger enemies (but I don't suggest this group for bosses, only for fun) . If you try it out, let me know what you think!

[@WolfmanXD]

I feel like marks are useful if you know you're going to be fighting enemies with a high stat of the type of the mark you're bringing. Like bringing a protection down mark for those snails, or a dodge down mark against a bunch of stuff in the darkest dungeon.

[@WoWisdeadtome]

I find marks very good when your team is composed with them in mind. Take for example, Bounty Hunter, Hound Master, Occultist, Arbalest. Use the occultist to mark at the start of a fight (if practical) then everyone spams their abilities that have bonuses against marked targets. As you say, applying a mark for yourself means you have to take more rounds to take advantage of it but when you have multiple characters that can take advantage of the mark you have to factor the damage bonuses they receive into the calculation as well and it becomes a really big damage boost. This combo is actually really powerful against bosses that can be reached in either rank 2 or 3, absolutely devastates the swine king as the hound master damage ability also has +damage against beasts. The hound master can also give -prot if that helps since you're not going to be using any DoTs.

[@mikelms20]

Tbh I like marks when you have 2 or 3 characters that exploit marks. For example go out with a bounty hunter, arbalest and cultist+crusader for tanking-stress heal

[@quinn_griffin]

If it's just the Arbalest the math on marking isn't great. What you want to do is apply the mark with the Houndmaster, then capitalize with characters that have high mark-payoff abilities. The one place where Sniper's Mark really shines is when you go to hunt the Shrieker.

[@aguywatchingtheshow]

Sweet analysis and I appreciate the work you put into the chart on the bottom. Good job.

[@Reavenator]

You didn't even mention rallying flare. It's very situational, but it has its uses. It trivializes the swine king fight, and it's pretty useful in the weald what with all the enemies there that cover your team with marks.

[@davidsasuke7326]

But what about her last abilitty :( *BibleThump*

[@Maurice040684]

Yes, I wonder too! Even if this ability is useless most of the time, he should have reviewed it. And there are a few situations, where this ability is quite usefull, for example it is a way to make the Swine King boss fights a lot easier.

[@FilthyRobot]

See the pinned comment.

[@keennickolas8575]

@@FilthyRobot there is no pinned comment talking about the last ability. maybe it got erased. I cannot find it ö.Ö

[@DuckieMcduck]

@@keennickolas8575 I like to think Rallying Flare is so worthless he couldn't even muster the energy to talk about it

[@Andrius319]

I do bring her a lot. She goes very well with hound master, because of two reasons- hound master mark reduces protection and marks (and increase crit from on arbalest which is threefold damage increase, her low speed usually lets hound master to mark before her action) , and second- hound master can focus fairly high on enemy surprise which negates low speed on the first round. bringing occultist might be also good on rounds when there is nothing to heal (so u can mark).

[@Doominator10]

I would really like these clad reviews if there was a recommended trinkets/quirks section too. For example, I always instalock On Guard for the bonus spd at start to quickly blindfire. Unless it hits a high prot target, I can just focus that down. Load her up with damage and speed trinkets to go with it. There was a time where I would run double arbalest with bonus speed and damage to 1 shot something important... those times stopped once I hit champion level dungeons though.

[@AshTheObscure]

Personally I like dodge, at least for earlier encounters. Definitely helps to cut down on the number of people that need healing when against the Prophet.

[@TheSamuraiGoomba]

The Arbalest is amazing for dealing high damage to ranks 2, 3 and 4 while also having the ability to heal party members in the event you need something fast to keep your characters alive. She runs well in basically every party in position 4 but shines in mark parties.

[@politicallycorrectredskin796]

Mark is a group ability. Occ, arb, BH and HWM in the same group can do some serious damage. So it's not 2x regular attacks VS 1 mark/1attack. It's 2x4 regular attacks vs 1 mark/5 attacks. It really stacks up. The only real drawback is for boss fights. The mark can't be resisted. It can miss or be dodged obviously.

[@nurichbinreel4782]

They should change the mark so that it has 3 charges and hitting the marked target with an ability that gets buffed by marked uses up a "charge" of the mark.

[@Exantius9]

Regarding Marching plan: it says "all companions", not "entire party", meaning it doesn't affect the arbalest herself

[@FilthyRobot]

I'm aware, was I unclear in the video?

[@korvincarry3268]

i find running houndmaster, arbalest, and 2 others makes it easy to mark a target and hit it immediately with the mark percentage

[@MrSemanticprison]

i usually ditch the mark and take suppressing fire. I use it when the enemy I want to kill has very few HP, so the debuffs and other target damage are just bonus. I use a HM or BH to mark for her if i really want a marking party edit: typed HY instead of HM

[@kevinsuurland428]

once you have prophet's eye + berserk charm on her, she suddenly becomes the most broken thing you've ever seen.

[@qwormuli77]

She really doesn't need that extra accuracy from the prophet's eye, though. Try out fuseman's matchstick or something similar to murderize everything.

[@christophergreen6537]

i usually take 2 arbalests, the heal stacks very well. having 2 arbs shoot supressing fire and then a antiquarian use a party dodge buff, the enemys wont hit you for 3 rounds . works quite well, and no crits!

[@vangelissavvidis4759]

You always say that dodge is not useful in contrast to HP, however, you can dodge important damage not for the damage itself, but for the effect that do to you, especially the stress effect. You can even avoid some crits from having huge dodge. Therefore, this is what can make it up for the inconsistency that you correctly mentioned.

[@wesleybrock315]

Her crit is not terribly useful in normal fights but I really enjoy it during boss fights where those crits for 40+ dmg are welcomed. In fact I find the Arbalest most useful in boss fights.

[@t3chn0dr0n3]

My take on the arbalest is a bit different: - While I don't like her low damage before trinkets and her terrible mobility, I see her as an excellent support in recovery phase with her bandages. Her healing during camping makes her very, very good for pure-damage compositions where health is a greater issue than stress. - While I see your point on blindfire, I never ever use it on the first round. Instead, I pick it because I can attack FROM the front with it if I get shuffled and AT the front after I have cleared the backline (Sniper Shot can't hit #1 slot). Blindfire never ever hits corpses. You can have 3 corpses and 1 enemy - it will always hit the enemy. - The way to deal with marking is by having someone else do the marking, for example an occultist right off the first round. His mark also de-stealths, which I find extremely useful on higher levels. Overall, I see her as a not very good backline due to her low speed and average damage, but still the best the game has to offer. I use her in almost all areas and all kinds of compositions, from standard to marking comps.

[@t3chn0dr0n3]

Aaaaand the occultist mark got nerfed and doesn't de-stealth anymore :( This means that a marking party Arbalest + Occultist cannot 1-shot the backline on 1st round anymore.

[@EdHastingsKillerShrike]

Personally, i agree that marking is usually not worth bothering with...particularly early on and in routine looting missions. But later on having another character do the marking so the arbalest can use her actions to shoot works well on high hp enemies and bosses. I usually have an occultist do the marking to set up an arbalest, and bounty hunter and / or houndmaster. In that kind of line up, I don't even take the arbalest's marking skill bcs if there is an enemy in slots 2-4 she sniper shots and otherwise she heals only occasionally using another skill. I instead use the 4th skill slot for the clear stun / clear mark / debuff % buff skill which is very situational and kind of meh overall but has come in handy in various clutch situations. I rarely run an arbalest without the other marking heroes as she just too slow, and if I do I'm not going to waste an action setting up a mark when she's the only one who benefits from it as the action economy is not favorable. When I first started playing the game, I picked her quite often for slot 4 but as I got more familiar with the game I found that I prefer supports with DoT's in the 4th rank, or an antiquarian for a money run. I ended up using arbalests only for certain boss fights like the prophet and swine boss, and the second darkest dungeon which I beat with an all-marking party line up of Arb / Occ / Hound / Bounty.

[@FilthyRobot]

I like Arbalest and marks for DD4 as well.

[@borderline3444]

The tangent on how bad marking is really makes me think that he overlooks the value in having a team that can take advantage where you aren't losing a full turn, such as an occultist marking and an arbalest, bounty hunter, and hound master take advantage of that mark without wasting a damage turn. While it won't work against a skeleton if you set it up on certain enemy's it has the highest damage potential of any team comp

[@lGuzikl]

You don't bother marking if you have only 1 mark oriented hero because, as you said, it's not worth it. The story is diffrent when you have 2 or 3. I do agree that marks, that would work best against bosses don't work that well because of per move. I wish it lasted longer or was per round basis.

[@FilthyRobot]

Same

[@MakiMaki.]

I'd rather have a character be not hit at all than take damage on a higher HP pool. It's not only better for the given character but also opens up the healer's turn for potential support damage or debuffs. Thus, so far I couldn't agree with your personal (and certainly subjective) evaluation on any of the characters you've covered. However, I do like the comparison of the character's stats to the average of all characters.

[@FilthyRobot]

Consistency is king in a game that kills you from crit strings with dots.

[@MakiMaki.]

Hm, I can agree with that. But in the end, regarding crits a higher HP pool might help you just as much if you find that same consistency with the enemies getting almost guaranteed hits, because you lower your dodge chance even more. Come to think of it, it might be a cool idea to calculate the statistical sweet spot for HP and Dodge values, so you could find the best middle ground in how much you want to raise or allow yourself to lower each stat.

[@JWSoul]

Ive got to agree with you on this! Dodge avoids hits, hits that cld be crits! High HP pool just absorbs the crits which will require healing. Filthy needs to re think this i feel.

[@dremorakynval1269]

Filthy is right. It's not the higher average damage of crits that kills you, it's getting crit twice with a dot on you. Higher HP gives you a better buffer when that happens while higher dodge makes that situation happen less. The catch is that in the best case scenario there's about a 1 in 1000 chance of that happening over two sequential hits. Because of the way HP and Dodge is handled, your evasive characters will have small HP pools. Even with an amazing 75% dodge rate I wouldn't take that plunge.

[@MakiMaki.]

So, what you're saying is that getting crit twice in a row with a dot on you is what kills you ... and you suggest that favouring HP over Dodge - which actually increases the chance that you'll get hit with that DoT and the 2 crits in a row - is the better idea? Alrighty then.^^ Those 50-60dmg crits that come out sometimes don't really care if your hero has 35 or 45 health. So I still think that especially with heroes that already have a small HP pool and higher Dodge, it might make more sense to increase that Dodge even more instead of getting some puny additional HP points if it's those massive hits that you worry about. So what I suggested in my previous post was to try to calculate where that sweet spot in the balance between HP and Dodge values are. :)

[@rodriqcc]

Excellent guides! All of em and you explained them so well.

[@giveussomevodka]

You should do those dodge vs HP, movespeed on damage dealers, the different marks, etc rants on separate videos. That way it will also be easier to reference them and link to them from your other guides.

[@FilthyRobot]

I disagree, it's an essential part of the character's make up.

[@Ratt611]

I hope you do the grave robber next, I love that class for how versatile it is. I'm not a huge fan of the arbalest, but she's really shines for boss killing.

[@Mr_Maiq_The_Liar]

2 arbalest in the back, an occultist in the second row, and a crusader in the first. Could you ask for a faster way to kill bosses?

[@ralfsdzirkalis6463]

Actually it's written in the code that you can't miss a hit if you have 90% hit chance. At least there was a Reddit post about that.

[@stoopidknight4336]

The bounty hunter is insane with the occultist making that mark target amazing with night hp enemies but thats just my play

[@mineman2142]

bounty hunter mark ability come hither is pretty ideal when paired with collect bounty

[@sylvananas7923]

When you bring a mark party vs the countess *feelsbadman*

[@RevilloPhoenix]

Personally how I use a mark is go with Bounty Hunter, Hound Master, Occultist & Arbalest. Occultist marks when not healing and then the other 3 can all hit the mark. Use this for boss killing.

[@mirion3383]

Suppresing fire is super dope tho. No more Crits from Fungal Giants.

[@hideshisface1886]

Well, marks used by individual characters are pretty worthless, unless you really want that debuff. As you mentioned, in most cases you waste a turn to get less than double damage next turn. However, this is true only if you have one character that benefits from a mark. Say... In a team built around marks, you can get three buffed attacks at the cost of one mark. Now, while it is true that you won't always be able to consistently use marks, it may be a solid way to deal with priority targets much more quickly.

[@SuicideDeathCommando]

Awesome guide, commenting for the algorithm

[@DeathScavenger420]

Love the analysis, can't wait to see your thoughts (be it good or bad) as well as the raw data on my personal favorite class: The Hellion.

[@Andrius319]

For me, its either Hellion or plague doctor with her double stun/blight. Taking both of them you can stun whole enemy party ^-^

[@tyr3039]

love these videos man, exactly what i needed

[@senioy]

Arbalist is the absolute monster in darkest dungeon 2 and 3. Give her Vvulf's trophy and I have dealt up to like 68 dmg to mammoth cists. She is not good in a day to day dungeon - she is an absolute monster against bosses. Best class for sure in those situations.

[@jerry987m4]

Might be worth mentioning that blindfire doesn't target corpses

[@FilthyRobot]

Good point. The skill would be awful it if could hit corpses.

[@Doominator10]

FilthyRobot I remember those days. It was indeed awful

[@iReppoGames]

Is the arbalest good in mark parties? (bounty hunter, houndmaster etc)

[@XenomorphsWrath]

It depends on what you see as good. If good means the best, than no. She wouldn't be able to keep up with "the best", which relates to the entire marking concept. If you want to know if she is viable or even benefitial to a marking line up than the answer is Yes. You will have to play around her, or things will end up messy, but she deals enough damage to not be a waste, her skills are good and if you have an ocultist in P2 who works as heal and debuff Character she will usually have a mark to shoot at. There are better line ups out there, but few who work as well with marks as she does.

[@iReppoGames]

Can you suggest a viable marking party comp? And if there are better party compositions, what are they?

[@cheeseisgood345]

iReppo A comp I occasionally like to use (obligatory I am not an expert at this game) is actually a named comp, Marked for Death. BH in front line, then HM, Occ, and Arb in the back line. If you're like me and really enjoy using the mark mechanic this team is really good for abusing it and making sure your targets are constantly marked

[@iReppoGames]

And can I ask what the occulist is there for? Im also sort of new and I really haven't tried the occulist much what does he provide for the marking group

[@Yankess189]

iReppo mark and debuff dodge, and heal

[@toprak3479]

The only realy way to use mark is to use Mark for Death followed up by Arbalest shots.

[@Ratt611]

I'm dying to know what class is filthy's favorite.

[@CidGuerreiro1234]

My money is on the Vestal.

[@leonardobarrios5497]

There are mark temas, so you use a mark with some guys like the ocultist por hound and a bounty hunter you get a CRAP tone dmg forma boss fights like the swine that obliterates them

[@xszdev]

Need to finish this series

[@veng3r663]

Well shoot I wanted to hear about her Rallying Flare since I have my Arbalest in Party Position 1 or 2... :/

[@mophead-xk8dd]

I'm pretty sure the -dodge mark skills exist only to kill the shreiking horror

[@XavierPatrello]

Rallying flare MIA.

[@aegisScale]

It makes the Swine God trivial, which is nice.

[@DelawareBrooks]

He brings up that sometimes crits can be bad. Under what situations? Like when you want to keep a front monster alive for healing, but wanted to apply dot so that you can make sure they don't get 1 more turn. What other situations? Obviously you getting crit is bad.

[@captaincraftit696]

I know I'm two-years-plus late, but nothing says "oh god" quite like subscribing to the church of the holy vestal-jester-highwayman-highwayman and not knowing how Wilbur works. And on that note, if you have a highwayman in a dancing team, a crit gives him +2 speed IIRC, which (could) possibly disrupt the rhythm of said team. Tiny things like that, though, I can't think of any places or situations where a crit is consistently bad overall.

[@Coeurebene1]

how good are Filthy's guides? the best

[@Patcherson]

I love the videos. Keep em coming

[@Coryn101]

Forgot to talk about flare!

[@kellylee2955]

I feel like you really undersell mark teams here. Using say an occultist/Arbalest/ and two bounty hunters for example. You mark with just one of these guys for one turn (say occultist) then the entire team gets a huge bonus for damage. You are talking about 200%+ extra damage for one turn which by far makes up for the 100% damage of the occultist. And then for the next turn when the mark may still be up all the extra damage is just on top of that.

[@marcfortig8941]

I love the arbalest, and I will continue using it :)

[@ahanakowski]

Yeah, she is slow, but it is so frigging sweet when you surprise the enemy. Can basically always rely on her to clean up one of those pesky back row monsters.

[@Jefrejtor]

Why did you lock in Unyielding? Is deathblow resist actually good? It only skews the RNG a bit in your favour, you said yourself that the crown trinket for Flagellant (which does the same thing) is pretty worthless.

[@thatdudeinthecotton]

To be fair, one's a trinket and the other's a quirk. Losing a trinket slot for the effect is pretty huge, and also the flagellants trinket is competing with martyrs seal, an item that does the same effect far better. Compared to the relatively low power level of quirks however, it isn't that bad, especially as the you aren't even guaranteed to get the best ones around anyway.

[@hoteltrivago.3034]

Jefrejtor Idk. It seems like a strange move for someone who says consistency is king.

[@douwehuysmans5959]

You do understand that multiple attackers can utilize the mark right?

[@irrelevant12]

I have a critic about your disclaimer, you have change it atleast 3 times. With the leper you said "often played with low light" with the abomination you claimed "with no light" and in this video you didn´t even mentioned light. This is relevant because in a no light stygian/hard mode your take is very objective and i agree with all the points. BUT if you bring back the light leper stop being utterly garbage. To the point that despite being true that if a party comp works in the hardest dificulty with no light it will work on lower dificultties. It is also true that with 100% light like must people including myself often play. There are better comps and your reviews are often wrong and for people who want to build good comps, they will be ignoring good characters just because they dont work at low light.

[@tacticalchunder1207]

benkeiaa kant well you're fucking deaf aren't you? He says it right at 25 seconds.

[@justinthompson6364]

Michael Western Your criticizing Benkeian kant for being unobservant, which is ironic because you clearly didn't read the comment. He says that there's something wrong with the disclaimer, not that Filthy forgot it.

[@Gustavo-vt7jl]

You are really helping me, Bro!! This game is so fucking hard haha

[@CybernatonEvolution]

I didn't know Tyson Fury plays Darkest Dungeon.

[@Braddack]

i woud find an "How to Scout" Video very helpfull.

[@BenjCano2020]

You made a slight error in your math. You said that using Sniper Shot on a target at max rank gives +100% damage, and +10% critical chance, and then said that two Sniper Shots in a row (200%) damage was the equivalent of Mark+Sniper shot. This is incorrect. Because of the additional crit chance, Mark+Sniper Shot does, effectively, 205% (a 10% chance of 50% extra damage is an extra 5% on average) damage, slightly edging out two Sniper Shots in a row, plus stress relief.

[@atsoyo]

Nice and informative !!

[@PedroTorres-ky2yx]

These videos have helped me immensely! Liked and subbed

[@MrZerodaim]

You focus a bit too much on the speed imo. Sure she's slightly slower, but a 1-2 speed difference isn't the end of the world either. You can get any of the speed quirks to offset this, but in the end the hidden roll will still rule. Now, assuming she goes last most of the time, it isn't that big of a deal. Stress dealers are usually very fast and outspeed the whole party, being a bit slower to kill them doesn't change much. Without crit or dodge, it takes about 2 hits to kill an enemy in the back, so you can let the Arbalest have the high-crit first shot on the second target. Finally, being last means you can reliably use your heal on an heavily wounded target and have your (fast) heal benefit from the +40% heal on that target (except on the last turn)

[@MrMonsterwar]

These videos are very helpful, but I wish you would make some videos on the characters that are really good in the game :P

[@TUX3D0S]

he's doing every character

[@RisenCepheid]

Every attack that has a 90% chance to hit or above (player) will hit 100% of the time despite the visual % capping at 90.

[@WillYum97]

I DiabloS I It doesn't work that way mate

[@RisenCepheid]

CoolMintz Then link me anything where an attack that has a 90% chance of hitting misses. I'll wait.

[@qwormuli77]

But it does. A zero dodge character can avoid damage from "100%" accurate attack and vice versa. The only undodgeable actions are auxiliary ones(like buffs or heals), or marks in my experience(on that i'm not sure, but in all my time playing DD i have not had a single mark miss).

[@LuisAngelGamer]

Marks can be dodged, why? I don't know, it almost doesn't happen, the ACC in the "Mark Attack" is quite high, but for DD rules, everything can be dodged/missed

[@WillYum97]

qwormuli Read again, I'm the one saying that there's always a chance of an attack missing, DiabloS is the one claiming that 90% attacks can't be dodged

[@blackjesus476]

Cant you just take a bounty hunter, mark the enemy, hit the enemy with the Arbalests main attack then hit it with bounty hunters one? Wouldn't that be worth it?

[@skelskeleton]

My only complaint is that you should flip movement around (2:0 instead of 0:2) but this is just a nitpick. Great series!

[@MrOobling]

I disagree. The way that movement abilities appear in game as well as in the code has the movement forwards first and movement backwards second.

[@skelskeleton]

Crusader "Holy Lance" ability that moves you forward one. combat_skill: .id "holy_lance" .level 0 .type "melee" .atk 85% .dmg 0% .crit 5% .move *0 1* .launch 34 .target 34 .is_crit_valid True .effect "Unholy Killer 1" Hellion "Move" Skill (Thing that indicates how movement works) combat_move_skill: .id "move" .level 0 .type "move" .move *0 1* .launch 4321 Antiquarian "Get Down!" Ability (movement back 1) combat_skill: .id "cower" .level 0 .type "ranged" .atk 0% .dmg 0% .crit 0% .move *1 0* .launch 4321 .target .is_crit_valid True .effect "Antiq Cower 1" "Antiq Self Speed 1" The game code clearly shows that backwards movement is the left digit and forward movement is the right digit. Just saying.

[@steven1716]

The mark has slightly more accuracy than the sniper shot. Greater chance to land the mark then sniper shot than two sniper shots. Also, the mark gives a higher crit chance.

[@Cowtymsmiesznego]

Whilst technically true, it's not the full picture. Consider that you have a higher chance to hit at least one of the two sniper shots than hitting the one sniper shot after you've marked the target. This means that even if you do more average damage with the mark+shot combo, double shot is more consistent (it does nothing less often).

[@nameless0f]

arbalest shoots the target occulyst marks

[@Ivan.80p]

Acording to this guy only one character is good. The hellion

[@elim9054]

Man at Arms? Houndmaster?

[@Rombizio]

Mark works mostly when u have 2 or 3 chars that get extra mark dmg. Besides that it is disappointing.

[@knightshade2532]

To capitalise on marks I'd be tempted to bring arbalest/musketeer, occultist, bounty hunter and then any Tanky character to make up position one (likely the leper for his self preservation and prot boost skills but I know leper is a sensitive subject on this channel lol)

[@MrOobling]

I have tried using the arbalest numerous times in mark and non-mark parties and have every time found her to be underwealming. The problem is that she is a primary damage dealer with only average damage and no dots or backup stuns. Average damage is normally fine because a lot of abilities don't use damage however, for a class where almost every ability is damage based, I would expect something better than average.

[@Andrius319]

Have you used her damage camping skill?

[@MrOobling]

I'm not sure how that makes up for the low base damage. Most damage dealers have a camping skill which gives them a damage buff equal to or even better than the arbalest's (though the arbalest's is particularly strong). Unfortunately, they only last for 4 battles, they aren't valid before you camp and it requires you use them when camping, points which could be used on something else.

[@genericprofile2381]

Musketeer has a rifle so she's better by default

[@keennickolas8575]

wow ... the arbalest got plenty of nerfs in ... ö.Ö Blindfire Speed Buff is lower. supressive fire only hits the last two ranks :3

[@FartSmucker]

2:10 after the usual bullshit.

[@andreasfuglsang17]

Is it worth buying DD on PS4? I've heard the controls are awful...

[@CidGuerreiro1234]

I found the game to be unplayable with a controller. I would get it on PC.

[@Mr_Maiq_The_Liar]

I think you fail to realize, marks are exponentially more powerful the more characters you have that utilize them. If you came in with just an arbalest, and nobody else that utilizes marks in anyway, then your an idiot who doesn't know how to build a team. When multiple people benefit from marks you will do far more damage than if you had one person apply their own mark, or have nobody use marks at all. That being said, having the mark on all your mark target characters makes your characters less versatile. But far. FAR more deadly. Worthy trade in my book, if you know what your getting into.

[@luna775]

oh, hi mark!

[@femboypeek3410]

it would be need if you talk about graverobber or jester

[@femboypeek3410]

oooh nvm ignore my comment wait why did you do leper then you just hate it that much?

[@qwcew]

Making a comprehensive guide, he's obliged to analyse all of them. Also its important to understand why he doesn't like lepers. From there, you can see the sort of criteria he applies when choosing heroes and their skill load outs on high difficulties and low light. The key reason was that the leper could only fulfil his role (damage dealer) effectively against the first two rows.

[@flyingoctopus4304]

He's making a character guide for every character, on stream we got a strawpoll for twitch chat to vote wich character we wanted first and the rest would be in alphabetical order. As befitting of twitch chat we overwhelmingly chose Leper to see the rage and salt.

[@kevinduffy7018]

I like you and I know this is 16 months old, but it seems like some of your information just doesn't make sense. Like you talk about marking skills as though the person casting the mark has to "gain back" 100% damage (200% total), completely ignoring the fact that they're on a 4-person team. Wouldn't that "gain back" be mitigated by the gains the other heroes have? If 2 heroes gain 50% damage, they don't need to gain back anything. I get that front-loading is super important and that most fights are "over" in 1-2 turns and then go to recovery, but I don't think you're taking into account the party aspect of any kind of debuff. Also good luck on your current mtg stuff.

[@raeelemental7084]

Early : Man look at all these abilities! Wonder how experienced players use them. Vet : Damage, Damage, Damage. Wait.. Backline's dead stun 'em.

[@user-xc4lq1zq2x]

WE GET IT. YOU DON'T LIKE DODGE.

[@FilthyRobot]

HI AND WELCOME

[@dremorakynval1269]

It'd be nice to have a "skip the disclaimer" button.

[@rkrokberg]

Why does speed have a hidden RNG element? It's one of the few things I hate in this game. Why can someone suddenly act before someone with much more speed? It's cheap bs that makes the entire stat feel arbitrary.

[@qwormuli77]

The stat still works as it's supposed to, as in, it makes faster units act first extremely often. The RNG value works only to prevent the player from planning everything out perfectly, making the gameplay more organic and less dull. You might feel bummed out as your 10 speed graverobber was once slower than a 9 speed occultist, but this game would feel a lot duller with no unexpected angles(puzzling trapezohedron, anyone?).