What did you think of our picks for the best Darkest Dungeon nude mods, and will you be installing any of these? Let us know if we missed any must-have mods in the comments section below!

Still looking for more gameplay focused mods to tweak the experience that don't bring on the bewbies? Check out our roundup of the best current Darkest Dungeon mods over here instead. 

But if you are searching for more nude mods in general, here are some articles to get you started: 

\n
• 10 Best NSFW Nude Mods Ever
\n
• Best Fallout 4 NSFW Nude Mods
\n

Bonus: Shindol Skins

\n
• Download this (not actually nude) Darkest Dungeon mod
\n

So, there's not actually any breasts or exposed genitals in this one, but if you know who hentai artist Shindol is, you'll want to grab these anyway.

You get three re-skins (two for the Crusader and one for the Hellion) that are adorable in a very waifu sort of way, and it really makes it all the more horrible when bad things happen to them in the dungeon!

Darkest Desires

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod (Warning: NSFW link!)
\n

Originally released on Nexus Mods, this nude mod ended up going directly to Lovers Lab as time went on due to its overtly sexual nature. This one goes in some pretty dark and fetishistic directions, so be prepared. From foot worship to forced sex with the abomination, they don't pull any punches here.

Darkest Desires changes up the game's existing camping skills and adds in new ones for a very different take on "stress relief." You'll never look at the image of three swords pointing toward the vestal in the same way again!

Be sure to grab this one quick, as it hasn't been updated in awhile, and all the patches for the Color Of Madness DLC will probably break it before too long.

Sexy Town Skins

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod
\n

There have been plenty of hero and enemy reskins, but don't think we're going to leave out the NPCs in the hamlet!

This nifty little mod replaces the skins for characters in the abbey, blacksmith, and camping trainer section to be a bit more alluring and revealing. If you've got a thing for nuns -- or just a thing for nude townsfolk in a dark, medieval setting, this is most likely the mod for you.

Topless Cultists

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod
\n

It's not just the poor, doomed heroes who get in on the nude mod action. You can also remove the clothing of the evil cultists trying to sacrifice your crew to ancient, dead gods!

I suppose, in a way, it makes sense -- I doubt cultists who slaughter innocents and gibber insane secrets to themselves care much about modesty, so why shouldn't they be topless while fighting?

Russian Nude Vestal

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod
\n

It should go without saying that the Vestal gets her own nude mod as well! While this one has some killer anime-style artwork, my only reservation is that it really doesn't match the rest of the Darkest Dungeon assets.

While the other mods here all stick to the base game style, this one clashes pretty hard with the dark colors. But if that sort of things doesn't bother you in the slightest, this is a nude mod you'll most likely want to add to your collection. 

The Hood

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod
\n

A brothel worker seems to have come off the wagon along with all those crusaders and highwaymen, and she apparently wants to go dungeon delving as well!

This is a reworking for the Antiquarian class, with quite a bit of exposed behind added in for good measure. A gory, prostitute version of Little Red Riding Hood is a pretty specific fetish, but I'm sure it ticks all the right boxes for somebody out there.

The Offering 2.0

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod
\n

OK, this one's sort of nude-ish in comparison to some of the previous mods we've listed, but the outfit on this new class is definitely skimpy, and there is some light nipple appearance in her various combat poses.

The Offering was supposed to be sacrificed to some evil entity, who chose instead, as a cruel joke, to steal her heart and give her another's. She's a tank hybrid meant to be played on the frontline, and she's not exactly hard on the eyes while she's up there either...

LW -- Hollow Sexy Skin

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod
\n

The Hollow is a back row healer class with a ghostly twist, and she also happens to not be wearing much while she delves into those diabolical dungeons! This re-skin of the class offers up a very distinctive hentai style if you don't dig the base imagery.

Note that to use this reskin, you first need to have the Hollow custom class mod installed. There's also an alternate re-colored version of the Hollow with different options available over here.

Urian Hellion African Princess Topless Reskin

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod
\n

More than just removing the top portion of the outfit to expose the breasts, this reskin completely changes the Hellion's appearance while retaining her more wild aspects.

There are a couple of animations that aren't quite perfect, but overall, the changes to the jewelry, tattoos, and ax blade make for a satisfying addition to the female lineup if you want a different appearance for the Hellion.

Naked Female Leper Skin

\n
• Download this Darkest Dungeon nude mod 
\n

I think we all suspected that the religious ladies in Darkest Dungeon have got it going on underneath those habits and robes, but now you can know for sure with the naked female leper!

All of her various animations are changed to nude, from the alluring camping pose to the shocked animation when gaining an affliction.

It's sort of odd that a leper would have such welcoming, smooth skin... but hey, this is "porn", not reality. And for those who want a more "realistic" experience, there is a properly messed up version of the naked leper class you can find by searching around on Lovers Lab.

For a game like Darkest Dungeon, one that's all about going mad and dying while battling eldritch monstrosities from beyond, you wouldn't think there'd be much demand for nude mods. However, you'd also be dead wrong.

Recent titles like Agony and Lust For Darkness have shown that there's a market for sexed-up horror games, and the modding community hasn't let down the pervs who want a little nudie action while getting butchered by fish people.

Weirdly, not many of the current mods focus on tentacles, which seems like the obvious way to go for a game with such clear Lovecraftian tones as this one. That oversight aside, there's plenty of nude DD mods to try out!

Note: The various bouncy bits have been mildly edited out in the slides to come, but obviously, they are on full display in the mods themselves. Keep in mind to view some of these mods you must also be logged into Nexus Mods and have the adult content option turned on.

Surviving the perils of Darkest Dungeon requires making the best of a very bad situation, which means dealing with afflicted heroes who have gone mad or suffered debilitating physical maladies.

With the Lovecraftian "Color Of Madness" DLC, your soon-to-be-dead adventurers will get lost in time and space, gaining terrible new afflictions like the insidious Refracted effect!

This affliction isn't explained very well with in-game text, however, so we've got a full breakdown of how you get it, how it works, and how it can be removed.

Looking for info on how to take out the trio of deadly bosses brought down from the stars instead? Check out the full breakdown on how to beat all three new Color Of Madness bosses here.

What is Refracted Affliction?

Refracted is a new affliction in Darkest Dungeon that can land randomly when a hero hits 100 or 200 stress. It can affect any character who has traveled to the Farmstead or played in the Endless mode. It will also sometimes land when dying in Endless mode, leaving the character Refracted rather than actually dead.

This new affliction seems to occur more often when fighting the extra "Color Of Madness" bosses like the Miller, Thing From The Stars, or the Sleeper. You will unlock The Blinders Are Lifted achievement for gaining the Refracted affliction the first time, so it's not all bad!

Refracted has an effect on the hero both in the current dungeon and when you return to the Hamlet. During the current quest, a Refracted character is phased out of space, so they can attack enemies in stealth, although it won't actually break the stealth buff. 

This effect can be modified with some of the DLC's new trinkets by spending shards instead of money. At first, this makes it seem like Refracted is more of a positive quirk than a negative affliction since it can actually be helpful in some situations.

As with any other malady, a Refracted character will randomly say insane things during battle, potentially leading to larger stress gains for the rest of the heroes, so be ready with stress healing skills and camping abilities.

When you leave your current area, any affected character will remain in your hero roster but be unavailable to perform any actions in the Hamlet or go on any quests for a for a week. Don't forget that the Endless mode twists time, so the calendar doesn't progress!

If you finish your current quest or retreat to a safe room (not during battle) with a Refracted character, you get the option to return all their trinkets to your inventory so they will be available for other characters while the affected character is out. Otherwise, their trinkets go with them and will be locked out for the duration of the character's missing time.

---

Now that you're done being refracted through the angles of time, are you still looking for more help with this devilishly difficulty dungeon crawler? Check out our other Darkest Dungeon guides here:

• Complete Color Of Madness Boss Guide
• The Best 8 Quirks for a Maddening Run
• Top 11 Darkest Dungeon Mods You Need to Download
• How to Complete the Wolves At The Door Quest
• Darkest Dungeon Provisioning Guide
• How to Beat the Crocodilian

Move over mosquito vampires -- its time for abominations from beyond the stars to invade Darkest Dungeon with The Color Of Madness DLC! Taking heavy cues from the Lovecraft classic The Colour Out Of Space, a new area near the Hamlet has been overrun by evil shards of cosmic evil flung down from the heavens.

Of course new DLC means new bosses, and as with any of the big bads in Darkest Dungeon, you need a strategy ahead of time if you want any chance of coming out alive.

When building your boss-killing party, keep in mind that several major gameplay tweaks have arrived along with the DLC. Notably, stuns have been nerfed so they can't be abused as heavily. The enemy recovery buff is now much more effective, so you can't stun an enemy repeatedly. Abominations can also now join a group with religious characters, so there's no more need for mods to do this for you and your party lineup options have expanded.

With those major changes in mind, lets jump into how to defeat the new Color Of Madness bosses!

The Color Of Madness Boss: The Miller

Your party automatically camps at the curio in the room before the fight with the Miller, so make sure to check what camping skills you have assigned before taking this quest! The Millers' stats are as follows:

• HP: 143
• Stun Resist: 95%
• Blight Resist: 60%
• Bleed Resist: 220%
• Debuff Resist: 60%
• Move Resist: 70%

The Miller gets two actions per turn, so your typical debuffs won't be as helpful since they will tick down faster. Bleed would be a great way to go, but at 220% resist you aren't likely to ever get a bleed effect to take hold. Unless you've got a really high chance to hit with a blight effect, straight damage is probably the best way to go.

His primary attack is The Reaping, which hits the whole party, so a group heal effect is useful in your lineup. The Harvest does a small amount of damage to a single character, but heals the Miller, so be on the lookout for a sudden health surge.

He summons 17 HP Farmhands who go in the front positions, along with 8 HP Sleeper's Heralds, moving the Miller to the back, so make sure you can hit the back positions.

While they have less health, the Sleeper's Heralds have higher protection and much higher resistances to all effects. Their Reality Bend skill can increase your stress and cause debuffs very quickly.

If you kill the Farmhands, the boss will use The Master Beckons to turn their corpses into undead Scarecrows (if you don't destroy the corpse in the same turn). Scarecrows that are destroyed can likewise be turned into new Sleeper's Heralds, so if you are taking out the underlings first, make sure to destroy the corpses.

You might be thinking that just leaving the Farmhands alive is the best course of action... except that he will use Winter's Breath to turn them into 25 HP Frozen Farmhands with better stats.

To beat this boss fight, you have to juggle destroying the minions against getting in enough attacks on The Miller that he doesn't heal himself back up to full with The Harvest.

If you don't have a ton of healing abilities, focusing on the Miller over his minions is the way to go. When he goes down, so do his minions, so you don't need to worry about dying after taking out the boss. Having a character to focus solely on the Miller who is crit-heavy with critical chance attacks and crit-boosting trinkets can make this an easier battle.

 Fighting The Miller (thanks to BaerTaffy for the screenshot)

The Color Of Madness Boss: The Thing From The Stars

This boss wanders the Farmlands and can be encountered randomly. The Thing From The Stars' stats are as follows:

• HP: 128
• Stun Resist: 85%
• Blight Resist: 40%
• Bleed Resist: 33%
• Debuff Resist: 40%
• Move Resist: 25%

During the battle the Thing will summon 6 HP Crystalline Aberrations, which have huge resistance against stun, bleed, and debuff and will move the boss back a position. You want to take these out quickly. Their suicidal Unstable Resonance attack destroys themselves, but deal high damage and stress.

The Thing can also cause blight, so have some antivenom on hand. His Paralyzing Shard attack does a small amount of damage, but increases stress and can stun, so be prepared to have one character unable to act frequently throughout the fight.

There's less strategy to this fight than in many other bosses, and nearly any party combo can work out here. With two actions per turn and low resistances, Bleed and Blight can be your best friends in this battle. A debuff like Weakening Curse from the Occultist or Bellow from the Man-At-Arms can also make this battle more manageable.

A combination of all three abilities consistently being used take this from an incredibly difficult battle to something akin to the Darkest Dungeon version of a cakewalk - still difficult, but at least possible.

 Fighting The Thing From The Stars (thanks to Game-Wisdom for the screenshot)

The Color Of Madness Boss: The Fracture / The Sleeper

This is a very strange fight, as the boss doesn't deal direct damage to you, but instead spawns other creatures that grow over time and then eventually damage you in a suicide move. The Fracture's stats are as follows:

• HP: 115
• Stun Resist: 140%
• Blight Resist: 120%
• Bleed Resist: 240%
• Debuff Resist: 90%
• Move Resist: 140%

First up, the Fracture will drop Seeds Of Fury to create three Focus Points of 25 HP each in front, shifting him to the far back position.

The boss will then use Befouling Tint to upgrade them to red or green versions with even more health. They can be upgraded multiple times, and each upgrade heals them completely. Oddly, the third form has less health than the second, so if you like risk/reward, you can take them out a bit easier at the third upgrade with a lucky crit.

When they hit the third upgrade, their next action will be to break and deal damage to the whole party in addition to a stun or blight effect, so taking out the Focus Points before they become overwhelming is critical. Balance fighting the shards with dealing damage to the Fracture when possible to eventually finish the battle.

When the Fracture goes down, it morphs into the Sleeper (the comet that landed), which has 225 HP. It only gets one action per turn, but the attack deals large amounts of damage to whole the party. The best way to take this out is to go for multiple crits in a row. Small amounts of damage over time will just lead to disaster, as the Sleeper needs to go down in a handful of turns or you are guaranteed to die.

 Fighting The Fracture

Do you have any other boss fight strategies for The Color Of Madness? Let us know your best Darkest Dungeon boss tactics in the comments below! And check out our other Darkest Dungeon guides here on GameSkinny.

Having just launched on iOS, Darkest Dungeon is still going strong. It seems as if the call to madness and redemption is answered by sinners and saints alike, all with their unique quirks.

So let us steel ourselves, for We are the Flame, and Darkness fears us. The caretaker has complied a list of the eight most useful quirks found in our Heroes (subject to professional psychiatrist's prognosis). 

What is a Quirk?

Quirks in Darkest Dungeon are traits that Heroes possess and obtain -- either from the beginning of their adventure at the stage coach, or through effects and changes that take place during their expeditions. These traits can be positive or negative, and they can directly alter the stats of your Heroes -- or even force them to take certain actions. (Someone who is Compulsive, for example, may interact with items you really don't want them to touch.)

These Quirks can be acquired from stress relief activities in the Hamlet, or most commonly during (and in the aftermath of) an expedition. Fulfilling the quest objective and having a low stress level decreases the chance of taking on a negative quirk. But failing the objective and having high stress drastically increases the chances for bad quirks.

What Are the Best Quirks in Darkest Dungeon?

Obviously, you want to try your best to collect positive quirks that will enhance your character and their abilities. But not all positive quirks are created equal. Here are the absolute best quirks that will help you survive even the darkest of dungeons. 

Fated

A 10% chance to turn any MISSED attack into a HIT.

Though an extremely useful skill for any dungeon-delving Hero, this quirk is particularly useful on Lepers -- as their default accuracy is somewhat low. But it's not just a crutch to help Lepers. This Quirk is useful on the vast majority of Heroes. (Just think of how many lives could have been saved if just one missed strike landed.)

Hard Skinned

+10% PROT 

10% damage reduction without the need for in combat skill use? The advantages of this quirk speak for themselves. A Man at Arms, Leper, or a Crusader will get the most out of this quirk with their naturally high health pool. 

Tough

+10% Max Health

Topped off with Hard Skinned, having a Hero who's Tough will seriously bolster their ability to take damage and survive even the most grueling of fights. This quirk is ultimately useful on any Hero, but one could argue that it benefits tanks more than other classes.

On Guard

+4 Speed, +5 Dodge, during the first round of combat.

This is an excellent trait for any Hero, but it's a true boon for Highwaymen, Grave Robbers, and Hellions. The bonus speed on your first round of combat helps to quickly kill your foes, and the dodge helps you stay out of harm's way when the enemy comes out swinging. 

Quick Draw

+4 Speed during the first round of combat.

Almost exactly the same as On Guard, but without the dodge bonus. It might seem like an inferior quirk, but that extra speed can be the deciding factor in whether that all-important critical hit lands on the boss you're facing.

Unerring 

+10% damage with ranged attacks

Having a steady damage output, the Graverobber and Highwayman both benefit greatly from the Unerring Quirk. With this buff making them even deadlier, they'll be able to quickly dispatch most foes that you face in your quests.

Eagle Eye or Precise Striker

Eagle Eye: +3% Ranged Crit chance
Precise Striker: +3% Melee Crit chance

Although two seperate Quirks, Eagle Eye and Precise striker fulfill virtually the same role in terms of damage-dealing, increasing your chance to crit with ranged or melee strikes. This is a great quirk for any primary damage dealing heroes.

Irrepressible

+5% Virtue Chance

Possibly one of the best Quirks to get on any Hero, the Irrepressible Quirk grants an increased chance for a hero to become Virtuous -- which is the opposite of Afflicted. Many battles have seen the tides turn thanks to a Hero being able to withstand the horrors of the world around them, so this quirk can be invaluable in dire situations that would break lesser minds/spirits.

All the positive quirks in Darkest Dungeon are useful, but these eight in particular will serve your frontline fighters well -- helping them to withstand, sustain, and dish out even more damage. But keep in mind that the Caretaker is an odd man. And despite his list being useful, there are plenty of other quirks and combinations that will help you make it through the Darkest Dungeon.

Need more help surviving each punishing dungeon delve? Check out the rest of our Darkest Dungeon guides for more tips that will help your party stay alive (and sane) until the job is done:

• Darkest Dungeon Party Building Guide
• Darkest Dungeon Curios Guide
• Darkest Dungeon Hero Class Guide
• Darkest Dungeon Crimson Court DLC: Guide to the Flagellant Class
• Darkest Dungeon Provisioning Guide

What did you think of our mod picks here, and what new Darkest Dungeon mods would you recommend we try out? Let us know with a comment below!

If you want even more ways to tweak the Darkest Dungeon experience, be sure to also check out:

\n
• 10 Darkest Dungeon Mods To Keep You Alive Longer
\n
• Best DD Mods You Should Be Trying Out
\n

Sunlight Warrior Man At Arms Skin

Get It Here

The game already takes its difficulty from Dark Souls, so why not pull some of the art as well? Praise the sun with this new set of skins for the Man-At-Arms class in all its various animations! Despite bringing in a little brightness, this mod actually makes the game a bit darker (or I guess more soulsier?).

Epic Loading Screens

Get It Here

I honestly don't know how it took so long for a mod like this to show up. While Darkest Dungeon just oozes a particularly dark and gritty style, the loading screens are a little lackluster.

No more though! This mod adds in epic combat scenes featuring the most common enemies from whatever area you are exploring, offering a little excitement while you wait for the Ancestor to stop yapping away.

Faster Walking

Get It Here

When you've seen the exact same Warren, Cove, Ruins, and Weald backgrounds a couple of thousand times, the monotony can really start to set in and weaken the game experience.

If you want to get to the next room more quickly to complete any given quest, this mod boosts the walking speed so the hallways will fly by. Just don't forget to keep an eye out for those traps!

Dungeon Background Variations

Get It Here

I'm consistently impressed with how the modding community always steps in to resolve core issues with any given computer game. Darkest Dungeon's aesthetics are absolutely a huge draw... but the unending grind required to reach the end of the game means you will see the same hallway panels over and over and over and over.

For a varied experience that's more pleasing to the eye, this mod changes up some of the backgrounds with different colors and curio placements, adding them in randomly with the normal backgrounds.

Marco's Inventory Balance Mod

Get It Here

There are a bunch of inventory stacking and tweaking mods out there to ease up on the relentlessly difficult back and forth of being prepared or being out of money. This particular entry is a new Steam Worskhop version of one of the best mods from the game's earlier editions.

Where this one really shines is that it doesn't totally go off the rails, giving you limitless stacks of torches to carry or a free bag of holding that lets you return from a mission with all the gold you can imagine.

Instead, it scales the stack limits better so you can carry enough valuable objects back from a mission to actually be worthwhile at higher levels. It makes the grind a little less relentless, and helps you actually build up enough of a war chest to upgrade your facilities.

Super Heroes

Get It Here

While the recently released Radiant Mode was a welcome addition to Darkest Dungeon by cutting down the dozens of hours of grind after you inevitably (and repeatedly) lose a high level group to a total party wipe, it didn't really offer an "easy" mode.

The whole point of this game is the difficulty and setbacks, of that there's no doubt, but there does reach a point somewhere around 30-40 hours in where you've had enough of relentless failure and just want to see the next boss or finally storm that final dungeon.

That's where the Super Heroes mod comes in. See those killer pixelated shade they're wearing? That's because the future is so incredibly bright after modding your heroes to be relentless powerhouses who deal obscene damage. Health loss will no longer be a concern here (although sanity can still cause you to lose all four super powered versions of your heroes, so stay vigilant).

No Invitations Required

Get It Here

Oh my sweet tentacled god, this is mod so, so badly needed. Are you tired of grinding away against anything that vaguely looks like a mosquito (while your whole roster of heroes contracts the Curse and dies of blood craving) and somehow still not getting the invitation you need?

To move onto the later quests of the Crimson Court DLC without the obnoxious invitation, just download this nifty little mod that cuts out the middle man (middle mosquito?). 

For those who are opposed to the spirit of this particular mod and want to keep the difficulty and grinding cranked up to maximum levels, check out our full guide to finding the Crimson Court invitation.

Lone Crusade

Get It Here

Most Darkest Dungeon mods make the game easier... but not this one! Forget delving into the abyss with a group of four heroes to assist one another. That's all but a distant memory with the Lone Crusade mod, which has you play through the entire game with no one but the Crusader Reynauld.

Obviously tweaks are made to the enemies and bosses, since there are places where one character can't possibly win normally. But don't think this mod is doing you any favors. The difficulty is ramped up even further than normal -- and if Reynauld dies, you get to start over from the beginning.

More District Buildings

Get It Here

The District Buildings were an excellent addition to the game's base Hamlet, but sadly they are a little underutilized -- especially since you'll be building them so few and far apart due to the high costs and low number of available blueprints.

This mod adds in a whole mess of new buildings revolving around every single class, so you'll have far more constructions projects to try out in between dungeon delves.

House Full Of Piggies

Get It Here

The Warrens version of the previously mentioned Kraken mod, this one gives you several new swine opponents to battle, and they absolutely will test your skills.

Your standard battle tactics will likely result in a hasty retreat, as the pig folk punish you for not thinking strategically and learning from your mistakes. I don't know what the human equivalent of bacon is, but the swine are sure about to find out.

Unleashing Of The Kraken

Get It Here

There have been plenty of mods over the last two years or so that add in new classes, but less prevalent have been whole new monsters and bosses. A series of mods from ActionJack aim to rectify that problem, taking up the noble goal of providing new creatures to messily devour your heroes (or drive them mad, of course).

The Kraken mod adds five new common aquatic-themed enemies to the Cove area, along with a brand new tentacled boss. As with most DD bosses, this one will take some strategy and forethought to avoid a total party wipe. Get ready to meet a Captain Jack Sparrow style end!

The brutally hard and extremely grim phenomenon that is Darkest Dungeon may have finally received its Crimson Court DLC to add another layer of dungeon delving fun, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

There are dozens, or maybe even hundreds, more hours to be had in this game through the absurd number of mods available. Due to the game's gestation in Early Access, sadly many of those mods are drastically out of date and no longer function due to a variety of updates and patches over time.

The once-necessary Curio Hints mod for instance isn't working properly anymore (that's alright though, just use our Darkest Dungeon curio guide instead). Losing the sexy time camping skills from the Darkest Desires mod, on the other hand, was a blow we simply may never recover from.

Luckily, new mods have arrived to fill that void -- and here we're rounding up the 11 best mods available at the moment that you need to be trying out for vanilla Darkest Dungeon, Radiant Mode, or the Crimson Court DLC.

With tough bosses, sometimes even tougher minibosses, permadeath, and just about a million different ways to get your heroes killed, Darkest Dungeon is enjoyable because it’s a difficult game.

That being said, sometimes even the best of us get stumped, and it’s not enjoyable to smack your head against the wall when it comes to tough opponents. Such is the case with Vvulf, the leader of a group of bandits in Darkest Dungeon -- and the boss at the end of one of its more frustratingly hard quests, "Wolves at the Door".

If you’re stuck on this particular section of the game, don’t worry! We’re here to help you beat the Wolves at the Door quest in Darkest Dungeon.

Preparing for the Wolves at the Door Quest in Darkest Dungeon

If you’re worried Vvulf is like Crocodilian, in that he shows up early to kick your heroes into an early grave, keep calm. The Wolves at the Door quest won’t start until you’ve spent at least 35 weeks in the game, and you have at least 4 level 5 heroes. Even then, the quest only has a random chance of starting, so don’t sweat too much.

However, you should be prepared for this quest. First, make sure you have four shovels on hand, as you’ll want to have them after you beat Vvulf to secure some treasure. Second, try to have four level 1 heroes you don’t care about – ones straight off the stagecoach. This isn’t so much for preparing to take on the quest as it is insurance if the quest pops up and you aren’t ready.

Sending four level 1 heroes to their deaths is preferable to starting this quest unprepared, or starting and abandoning the quest. If you abandon it, the game chooses one of your heroes at random and kills them. Not good if it kills one of your better heroes!

To prep your heroes for the quest, try to level a Man at Arms, a Vestal, a Houndmaster, and a Jester to 5+. These four heroes are one of the better bets for a team to take on Vvulf and his cronies. You’ll also want to stockpile bandages and medicinal herbs in addition to the four shovels you’ll need, as well as trinkets to increase your heroes’ survivability during the fight (more on that below).

Once the quest starts and you’re ready, take your four heroes to the starting area. Wolves at the Door is like the Darkest Dungeon quests -- so there's no scouting, but the map is static. If you want to beeline for Vvulf, head upward. But before you rush headlong into battle, bear in mind that the rooms to the left and right contain treasure with a high chance of getting Ancestral Trinkets (the treasure room in the center of the dungeon can also contain an Ancestral Trinket). These items alone make the quest well worth its difficulty.

How to Beat Vvulf in Darkest Dungeon

Vvulf has a suite of nasty abilities that make him a tough fight. He takes two actions during a round, which he will most often use to summon a Brigand Cutthroat via the Get Them! ability. He'll also cause stress by using Warcry.

The real danger with Vvulf is his Barrel O’ Bombs, a static enemy that he uses to throw a bomb at a random hero using Bombs Away. Vvulf does this at the start of every round for free (as in, he doesn’t use an action to throw the bomb), and detonates the bomb with Time’s Up! at the end of the round (again, for free). The bombs deal 23-45 damage, meaning they’re extremely deadly.

The safest tactic is to have Man at Arms use Defender when Vvulf places a bomb at the feet of one of your characters. If Vvulf manages to put the bomb at your Man at Arm’s feet, use Retribution instead because the Riposte will target Vvulf. Use Jester and Houndmaster to lay down bleeds on Vvulf, as well as de-stress your heroes (if they need it). As Vvulf takes two actions, bleeds will be doubly effective. Vestal is here to heal, of course.

Avoid hitting the Barrel O’ Bombs for two reasons: one, it has Riposte and can crit; and two, even if you manage to destroy it, Vvulf will summon another Barrel with Get Them! anyway. And be careful with Jester’s Harvest ability at the start of the fight; you don’t want to hit the Barrel.

Your entire task for this fight should be to focus on Vvulf. If you try to focus on the Brigand Cutthroats, Vvulf will simply summon more – he’s got a 100% chance to summon one, and a 33% chance to summon another, So even if you kill two, there’s a decent chance he’ll get them both back. Just put all the bleeds you can on Vvulf, and watch his 200 HP drop quickly.

Which Trinkets to Use

Trinkets can save your bacon in this fight, so here’s some quick recommendations. Put +protection and +healing on Man at Arms, as he’s your meat shield. Put +accuracy and +bleed damage (or just +damage) on Houndmaster, and +accuracy and +bleed chance on Jester. Any healing trinkets will do for Vestal, because, you know… healing.

After you beat Vvulf, head straight down for the treasure room, and collect your well-deserved rewards.

Got other tactics to beat Vvulf in the Wolves at the Door quest? Let us know your favorite party and tactics in the comments. And be sure to check out the rest of our Darkest Dungeon guides for more help with this punishing game.

• Darkest Dungeon Crimson Court Boss Guide
• Darkest Dungeon: What are Laudanum and The Blood For?
• Darkest Dungeon Provisioning Guide
• How to Get the Invitiation in Darkest Dungeon: Crimson Court
• Darkest Dungeon: Complete Guide to Quirks and Their Effects
• Darkest Dungeon Crimson Court DLC: Guide to the Flagellant Class
• Darkest Dungeon Crimson Court DLC: Guide to New Curios and Achievements
• Getting Started With Darkest Dungeon's Crimson Court DLC

Every aspect of Darkest Dungeon is meant to push you to the absolute brink of your limits. You will have your health, your sanity, and yes, even your pocket book thoroughly tested.

Proper provisioning before a quest can be the difference between survival and disaster, but each area calls for different supplies to be purchased ahead of time. Below we explain how to properly provision for every area and how those provisioning strategies can change whether you are more focused on survival or on hauling more loot home.

Note that the provisions listed under each individual area are focused on that area's specific creatures and curios, but there are minor exceptions. For instance, bandages aren't as useful in the Ruins (for the most part) as the skeleton and necromancer enemies exclusive to the Ruins don't usually cause bleed damage, but you can still run into generic enemies like brigands or the Fanatic who do have bleed effects.

There's also one special provision added in the "Crimson Court" DLC to be considered: Blood can be found only by fighting enemies in areas where there's currently an Infestation level, meaning you'll have to hang out there for awhile to keep your roster alive. This also means more heroes are going to get cursed with vampirism, resulting in a spiraling cycle of needing ever more blood.

Survival in Darkest Dungeon

These are the basic provision needs for nearly any expedition whether short, medium, or long (for specifics on what you want for each distinct area of the game, see those sections below).

If you are low on funds and need to prioritize for survival, skip the provisions that help you with curios -- since you can simply not interact with those curios -- but in general, don't skip bringing at least one shovel, since its not worth the potential damage and stress.

Short

• Torch x 5 -- If you prefer always having an advantage in combat and have gold to spare, extra torches never hurt, so buy a few more
• Food x 8 -- This is the minimum amount of food to provision, where you won't ever take hunger damage and may still have one or two food to spare for minor healing between combat
• Curio provisions / shovel x 2 - 3 (see each specific section for what items are useful in that dungeon)

Medium

• Torch x 10
• Food x 16 -- Don't forget you can get excellent health and stress reduction if you use a full eight food while camping
• Curio provisions / shovel x 4 - 5

Long

• Torch x 14
• Food x 24
• Curio provisions / shovel x 8 - 10

 Such A Simple Thing -- To Die For Want Of A Piece Of Bread

Loot

For a high loot, high danger run, you want as much room in your inventory as possible for bringing all that loot back. First and foremost, ditch the torches entirely when provisioning, as you want to be in the dark as much as possible to increase the chance of finding treasure.

If you're feeling particularly greedy, lower the amount of food from the quest guidelines below, but make sure you don't skimp on the curio provisions, since curios tend to give better loot when you use their associated items.

 You Want Room For Shinies Like This!

Courtyard

Extremely Necessary Provisions:

• Blood -- Bring as much as possible without letting your cursed heroes at home waste away. All the Courtyard expeditions after the first main quest feature absolutely huge labyrinths of rooms filled with enemies who will infect your heroes with curse
  
  
• Bandages -- Many mosquito / vampire enemies cause bleed, and they can be used on the Pile of Bones curio. If you are using a Flagellant-based party though, these aren't as necessary.
  
  
• Shovel -- There are bone piles similar to the Rubble in the ruins, as well as several curios that offer better results when using the shovel

Somewhat Helpful Provisions:

• Torches -- The Courtyard doesn't use the same torch light mechanic as the other areas of the game, so these aren't required. However, they do offer a bonus to accuracy, and can be used on Cocoons and Thronging Hives for stress reduction and finding treasure
  
  
• Medicinal Herbs -- Using these on the food trays offer up large amounts of food if you are running low
  
  
• Antivenom - A handful of enemies and curios can cause blight

 The Blood - I Must Have It!

Cove

Extremely Necessary Provisions:

• Medicinal Herbs -- Many creatures, traps, and curios here cause diseases and debuffs, provision these to be safe
• Bandages -- Several fish enemies cause bleed damage

Somewhat Helpful Provisions:

• Holy Water -- If you come across the Fish Idol curio, this cleanses it for a damage buff

Not Very Helpful Provisions:

• Skeleton Key -- You will only rarely come across locked chests here

 Do You Really Want To Bleed To Death From A Fish Hook?

Ruins

Extremely Necessary Provisions:

• Keys -- There are frequently locked chests in enemy rooms
• Holy Water -- Several different curios in the Ruins offer better or exclusively positive results when using this provision
• Shovels -- Rubble is found often in the Ruins, and your party will both lose health and gain stress if you have to break through bare handed

Somewhat Helpful Provisions:

• Medicinal Herb -- Useful for the Iron Maiden curio, but otherwise not as helpful in the Ruins
• Extra food -- Useful on medium and long quests, as unlike the Warrens or Weald, very few of the curios here provide food as a reward

Not Very Helpful Provisions:

• Antivenom -- Unlike the Cove, most of the enemies here don't deal blight damage and few of the curios require using this provision
• Bandages -- The curios here don't deal bleed damage, and there are fewer overall damage-over-time effects in the Ruins

 A Ruins Explorer's Best Friend

Warrens

Extremely Necessary Provisions:

• Medicinal Herbs -- A ton of curios here give better results if cleansed with herbs first, and several even offer up food so you can skimp on that provision
• Bandages -- Many enemies cause bleed effects in the Warrens

Somewhat Helpful Provisions:

• Holy Water -- A handful of lesser-found curios like the Eldritch Altar require Holy Water

Not Very Helpful Provisions:

• Torch -- Although you should obviously bring some torches along, the hallways are actually shorter here so you can provision fewer torches

 Always Cleanse Demonic Pig Food Before Eating!

Weald

Extremely Necessary Provisions:

• Antivenom -- Many enemies, traps, and curios cause Blight while traveling the Weald

Somewhat Helpful Provisions:

• Medicinal Herbs -- Using this on the Beast Carcass provides lots of food, and at the higher level boss battles here, you will need to counter the Witch's debuffs
• Bandages -- A handful of enemies cause bleed here and curios like the Eerie Spiderweb give better results with using Bandages
• Holy Water -- If you come across a Troubling Effigy, using Holy Water removes a random negative quirk

Not Very Helpful Provisions:

• Skeleton Key -- Chests are rare here. Save your money and pick up the more important Antivenom instead

 Everything In The Forest Wants To Poison You!

Darkest Dungeon

Extremely Necessary Provisions:

• Antivenom -- Many enemies in this final area of the game cause blight
• Bandages -- Many enemies in this final area of the game cause bleed

Somewhat Helpful Provisions:

• Holy Water -- Although there aren't any curios that require it, the buffs provided by Holy Water (assuming you aren't cursed with vampirism) can be helpful against many of the enemies here

Not Very Helpful Provisions:

• Shovel -- You won't come across any rubble blocking your passage, so provisioning these are pretty useless here
• Skeleton Key -- There aren't any curios here that require a key, so don't waste your funds!

 Get Ready To Bleed When You See What's Under The Robe!

That's all you need to know to provision your team of cannon fodder before being horribly killed by monsters!

Have any other provisioning tips and tricks to offer? Let us know what we missed in the comments!

And be sure to check out our other Darkest Dungeon guides. Here are some to get you started: 

• Darkest Dungeon Curios Guide
• Darkest Dungeon Boss Guide
• Darkest Dungeon "Crimson Court" DLC: Guide to New Curios and Achievements 

• Darkest Dungeon "Crimson Court" Boss Guide

Difficulty is often what makes victory worth attaining, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with trying to tone it down a bit for fun. If you feel like you could use a little boost in Darkest Dungeon, give any or all of these mods a try. Or if you need a little extra help without modding, check out any of our other Darkest Dungeon guides here on GameSkinny for tips on how to survive these punishing dungeons. 

So now that you can swing the odds in your favor with mods, are you feeling a bit more courageous? What other kinds of mods would you like to see made for Darkest Dungeon? Or do you prefer keep the difficulty of the original game intact? Let us know down below.

Crimson Curse Buff

As anyone who's played Darkest Dungeon's The Crimson Court DLC will tell you, acquiring the Crimson Curse status effect is just painful. Moon slime's Crimson Curse Buff mod seeks to alleviate that a bit by removing effects like the max HP penalty and Blight weakness from some of the stages of the curse.

What's nice about this mod is that, unlike many others, it doesn't remove the Crimson Curse from the game entirely -- so you still get to enjoy some of the added challenge of The Crimson Court without being broken by it.

Get Crimson Curse Buff via the Steam Community

Stacking Inventory

Another mod by Maester Silvio, the relatively simple Stacking Inventory mod makes firewood, dog treats, quest items, and a few other items stackable in your inventory. This clears up clutter and makes item management generally more convenient, so it's definitely recommended. It also doesn't affect the game's overall difficulty a tremendous amount, so it's still a good mod even if you're concerned about spoiling the challenge of the game.

Get Stacking Inventory via the Steam Community

Anti-Grind & Larger Roster

This mod is actually a combination of two mods by Spyboy, both intended to ease the pain of losing a powerful hero. Anti-grind Stage Coach accomplishes this by raising the likelihood of finding higher level heroes later in the game, thereby reducing the amount of time spent grinding new recruits after one of your better heroes inevitably dies. Larger Roster, meanwhile, simply lets you hold on to more heroes at one time. Combined, these two mods can make the game much more user-friendly, particularly in the later game when losing a powerful hero can really screw you over.

Get Anti-grind & Larger Roster via the Steam Community

[Image courtesy of the Steam Community]

Commissar - Class Mod

Another great class mod is the Commissar - Class Mod by ActionJack (no relation to the author of this article, I swear). Though not as obviously overpowered as the Vampiress, the Commissar is still a great addition any team thanks to its highly supportive skill set. The Commissar is capable of buffing allies and shifting their positions, putting you in a prime position to wreak havoc on foes. It's both a fun and awesome class.

Get Commissar - Class Mod via the Steam Community

[Image courtesy of the Steam Community]

Vampiress_Spine_Mod

Steam user scorpiovaeden created this mod to make the deadly Vampiress an available class in Darkest Dungeon. In addition to looking just plain awesome, the Vampiress is a genuine wrecking ball (barring any updates to the mod). With solid HP, great speed, massive AoE potential, and self-healing, the Vampiress easily out-performs most of the base game's classes, so having one on your side can be a real boost to your chances of victory. 

Get Vampiress_Spine_Mod via the Steam Community

[Image courtesy of the Steam Community]

No Monster Crits

I understand that critical hits are just a part of video games and are important for adding a level of unpredictability to a game -- but that doesn't mean I won't hurl obscenities at my monitor whenever they happen. No Monster Crits by CrazyMLC saves us all an eventual headache by stripping monsters of their ability to land critical hits. Some might even argue that this makes the game better by keeping success tied to player skill rather than RNG.

Get No Monster Crits via the Steam Community

No Random Diseases

Don't you just hate spontaneously obtaining syphilis? Well sometimes that just randomly happens when you finish a level in Darkest Dungeon. ColourlessAmiba's No Random Diseases mod squashes this little lottery of misery by removing any chance of heroes randomly obtaining diseases upon returning to the hamlet.

Now if only they could make this mod for college IRL...

Get No Random Diseases via the Nexus Mods community

No Random Negative Quirks

Challenging games should also be rewarding -- so it definitely feels like a kick to the shin whenever you make a flawless run through a dungeon only for one of your heroes to be randomly granted Satanaphobia at the end of the level. But the No Random Negative Quirks mod by Bad Maw prevents heroes from randomly acquiring negative quirks upon returning to the hamlet. 

Get No Random Negative Quirks via the Nexus Mods community

Level Restrictions Removal

Dungeons in Darkest Dungeon are restricted by character level in order to prevent higher-level heroes from running through the same low-level dungeons over and over again. The purpose of this is obviously to make grinding for XP and items a lot more difficult -- but perhaps too difficult. Level Restrictions Removal by Maester Silvio seeks to rectify this by removing the level restrictions from dungeons, enabling you to grind to your heart's content. 

Get Level Restrictions Removal via the Steam Community

[Image courtesy of Steam Community]

Strong Start

It makes sense to start with the Strong Start mod by Steam user Seraph. Intended for use with a new save game, this mod lets your two starting heroes begin the game with no negative quirks, three positive quirks, and a skeleton key. Your hamlet will also have a few more resources from the beginning, giving you a nice leg up on the difficulty curve.

Get Strong Start via the Steam Community

[Image courtesy of Steam Community]

Darkest Dungeon is hard, and that's a good thing! Really. Challenging games are always the most rewarding, and Darkest Dungeon is certainly both. But let's be real here; sometimes I just want to come home, sit in front of the computer, and casually run through a dungeon without having to worry about my heroes randomly contracting syphilis. 

Luckily for us, that's what mods are for. Here's a list of the 10 best mods to help you make Darkest Dungeon a bit more like a casual dungeon crawler and less like a steady stream of demoralizing beat-downs.

Darkest Dungeon, the stress-inducing and hopelessly difficult dungeon crawler, recently got a new expansion called The Crimson Court, which adds much more to the game -- including a new campaign in a new area that takes place parallel to the main game. The DLC also adds more enemies, a new class, a new boss, a new disease, and new items.

But some of those new items are giving players trouble, as their uses aren't entirely clear. This is especially true for Laudanum and The Blood. So in this short guide, we're going to go over both those items and what you need to be doing with them. 

What Laudanum Does in Darkest Dungeon

Laudanum is probably the simplest of the new items. Its only purpose is to cure horror.

Horror is a status ailment that's been in the game since before the expansion. It acts a lot like bleeding, but with added stress. Stress will steadily increase every turn if horror is not treated with something like Laudanum.

Where to Find Laudanum

Laudanum is a supply, so it can be bought from the supply trader in addition to the random drops of it you'll get from dungeons.

What The Blood Does in Darkest Dungeon

The Blood is a lot more complicated than Laudanum, because it's tied to the new disease called the Crimson Curse. The Crimson Curse essentially turns the infected party member into a vampire, which comes with downsides and upsides (but of course, in typical Darkest Dungeon fashion it's mostly downsides). The disease has four stages, and giving blood to the infected party member has different effects at different stages.

First is the passive stage. All this stage entails is a few debuffs and a +1 speed buff. Giving the infected party member The Blood in this stage will increase their dodge by 7 and increase their speed by 3 for three rounds.

During passive phase a prompt will sometimes come up, similar to the hunger prompt, that asks you to feed your party member The Blood. If you don't feed them The Blood, you'll move into the second stage of craving.

During the craving phase, the effects of the debuffs/buffs are doubled. They will also do random actions similar those of stress afflictions -- like hurting allies, passing turns, causing stress to increase, etc. If the infected party member is given The Blood during this phase, they will go to the Bloodlust phase.

During the Bloodlust phase, the party member only gets buffs -- specifically +25% damage, +4 speed, and +15% resistance to bleed, blight, and stun. However, the party member will also do random actions that harm the party. If The Blood is given to them in this stage, they will take massive stress damage (35-40) but gain +50% damage and +4 speed for 3 rounds. After long enough, the Bloodlust will pass and the party member will become passive again.

If the party member is not given The Blood for long enough during the craving phase, they will go into the wasting stage. Everything in this stage is the same as craving, but the party member also gets +10% deathblow resistance. If given The Blood in the wasting stage they will become passive. If they don't get The Blood by the next check, they will die.

Where to Find The Blood

Blood can be found anywhere in the expansion areas and anywhere with infection. Unlike other supplies, if you have leftover blood at the end of a dungeon, it will all go to your storage for use the next time you go into a dungeon.

While Laudanum doesn't add a lot to the game, The Crimson Curse and The Blood are new mechanics that'll certainly mix up your playthrough -- whether it's for better or for worse.

That wraps up this item guide! For more help with this punishing dungeon crawler, check out the rest of our Darkest Dungeon guides to make sure your whole party makes it out alive. 

With the release of Darkest Dungeon’s DLC Crimson Court, many players were caught off-guard by the ferocity of the Crocodilian -- a mini-boss you can encounter during what seems like a routine quest. The Crocodilian is one of those mini-bosses that are harder than final bosses, especially because you encounter Crocodilian during the first quest in Crimson Court. Like many of the bosses in Darkest Dungeon, there’s a good way to deal with Crocodilian that might not be the way you usually deal with enemies, but makes the fight against him much easier.

Bear in mind: Red Hook Studios released an update on June 21 that reduced Crocodilian’s max HP and prevented it from healing while submerged on Apprentice and Veteran levels. Resolve 0 or 1 heroes participate in the Apprentice and Veteran level difficulties, and may or may not have a better time fighting Crocodilian because he can’t self-heal -- but either way the mutated croc still deals hefty damage. I’m tackling this fight from the perspective of Resolve 2 and above heroes, so Crocodilian can Submerge and self-heal during the fight.

The Crocodilian starts the fight at rank 4, and only has two abilities that move it forward: Lurking Fear, a buff that nets it +20% damage and +10% protection, and Apex Predator, an attack that targets two heroes for large amounts of damage and moves Crocodilian forward 4. Note that Crocodilian can only use Apex Predator after it uses Submerge. The attack Crocodilian seems to use the most – as long as it’s not in the front rank – is Swarming Corruption, which hits all four heroes, causes stress, and debuffs accuracy by 10. Submerge, however, is the ability that makes Crocodilian so hard to deal with. He gains +35 dodge when he’s Submerged, and automatically heals. The mutated croc can use Submerge at any rank, and the ability sets him up for Apex Predator.

Strategy for Defeating the Croc in Darkest Dungeon

Crocodilian only has 50% stun and bleed resistances, and takes two actions every round -- so a stun that gets through severely limits the amount of damage he can put out (or heal), and a bleed is twice as effective. In addition, the croc only has a 35% move resist, so keeping him in the back rank to stop him from using Teeth Rake – a medium-damage ability that bleeds, stresses, and pulls a hero 2 ranks forward – might be advisable, as well.

Crocodilian has 109 health, which seems like a lot until you start stacking bleeds on him. Those two actions per round mean heroes like the Houndmaster, Jester, and Highwayman can keep applying bleeds until Crocodilian kills himself.

Hero choice can be extremely important in the Crocodilian fight. Vestal is a great choice because of Dazzling Light – which she can use from the back ranks to stun – and Divine Comfort, which can help mitigate the damage from Swarming Corruption. Highwayman and Jester both have decent bleed attacks, in the form of Open Vein for Highwayman and Harvest or Slice Off for Jester. Hellion is also a good choice, for her Barbaric YAWP! and If It Bleeds abilities, though be warned that Barbaric YAWP! gives Hellion a damage and dodge debuff.

Houndmaster has a good selection of bleeds, along with Blackjack -- which has a stun with a high base percentage. The Flagellant gets a nod for this fight, mostly because of the decent bleed attacks he has and the insane Redeem ability, which he can only use if he has less than 50% max HP, but heals for 33% of a hero’s max HP. Additionally, if the Flagellant is killed, he will heal the rest of the party and stun all enemies – which isn’t exactly something you want to happen, but it’s nice to know he’ll go out with a bang.

Like most of the rest of the game, Crocodilian is an enemy you have to outsmart and endure. Darkest Dungeon won’t do you any favors if you come to the fight unprepared, and attempting to simply run roughshod over him with sheer damage will most likely get your heroes killed. If, however, you plan your attack accordingly, and bring heroes that will counter the Crocodilian’s strengths and target his weaknesses, the fight should go well. And you can continue through the Crimson Court without too much trouble.

Got any strategies for beating Crocodilian we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments. And be sure to check out the rest of our Darkest Dungeon guides to ensure that you stay alive and keep your mind intact in this punishing game.

[images courtesy of Red Hook Studios Inc.]

As if Darkest Dungeon wasn't hard enough already, the Crimson Court DLC brings in five ultra deadly new bosses focused around vampires (and those who hunt them), with a crazy mutant crocodile thrown in for good measure.

Some are found at the end of long quests (and we mean loooooooooong -- these are much bigger than the standard dungeons by a factor of five or six times) while others are found randomly under certain circumstances.

As with the base game, boss fights aren't just harder versions of normal hallway battles. They have very specific tactics and combat flow you need to follow, as having a full team of high health damage dealers won't help you win if you don't have the right heroes who are able to hit the correct positions. Below we explain how to best defeat all the Crimson Court DLC bosses.

How to Beat the Crocodilian in Darkest Dungeon

The Crocodilian's stats are as follows:

• HP: 108
• Stun Resist: 50%
• Blight Resist: 80%
• Bleed Resist: 50%
• Debuff Resist: 75%
• Move Resist: 35%

Defeating the mutant Croc and ending this quest starts the infestation level, which leads to the rest of the Crimson Court quests. He's tough to beat though, with high health after a medium dungeon (even though it's listed as "short"), where you will likely have rank 0 or 1 heroes.

The Crocodilian begins in the 4th position, with vegetation featuring huge HP totals in the first three spots. Unlike the pews in the Ruins Necromancer bosses, there's no point in trying to attack or move the vegetation. Those three slots are just there to take up space so the boss can screw with your tactics.

To win this battle, you need to bring a group of heroes who can all attack all four slots, as the Crocodilian moves between front and back row (and can move your party members). It's a good bet you'll have numerous heroes at death's door throughout the battle -- so if you a bring a healer, equip a skill that heals everyone a small amount rather than one person a large amount. It's better to keep getting out of the death's door condition than to try and keep your tank at full health.

Trinkets and abilities that buff your Dodge stat are incredibly useful here, as the Croc's attacks can be devastating. Your goal is to evade attacks while dealing as much damage as possible before he submerges to heal.

Marking skills that increase damage and the bloodlust buff (attained by giving blood to a cursed hero who is in the craving state) will get you enough damage to win.

Don't discount damage-over-time effects though. With his relatively low bleed and stun resist, you can keep knocking the Croc off his turn schedule and still deal damage each round to prevent submerging and healing.

For added fun, upgraded versions of the Crocodilian will appear randomly in the Courtyard when you move into the next phase of the Crimson Court quest.

 Fighting The Crocodilian

How to Beat the Fanatic in Darkest Dungeon

The Fanatic's stats are as follows:

• HP: 119
• Stun Resist: 45%
• Blight Resist: 80%
• Bleed Resist: 45%
• Debuff Resist: 35%
• Move Resist: 55%

Like most bosses, there are three upgrading versions of the Fanatic. The stats above are for his first encounter.

This wandering boss has a small percentage chance of appearing anytime you enter a dungeon with cursed heroes. The more cursed heroes in your lineup, the more likely he will appear (you'll know he's coming because the intro screen for the area will change to show the Fanatic). He shows up in a random room of the dungeon, so it's actually still possible to miss him even if he spawns.

Very similar to the Hag boss from the Weald, the Fanatic will take one of your heroes and put him in the pyre, where that character takes damage each round. In other words, you'll actually be fighting with three heroes instead of four.

If you hit the pyre and free your companion, the Fanatic will just grab another hero in the next round or two anyway, so don't bother -- just hit the boss instead. High health isn't a boon here, because the pyre deals a percentage of health each turn, rather a specific number of damage points.

With three moves per round, there's not a lot of point to stun or marking tactics here. Bleeding, however, is incredibly effective as it will hit him constantly -- so bring along characters who can cause bleed.

In particular, a lineup of Hellion, Flagellant, Hound Master, and Jester is useful since they all can cause bleed and attack different positions. The Fanatic starts in the back row but can move during the battle, so avoid heroes who are best at only attacking the first two slots, like the Crusader or Leper.

Fighting the Fanatic

How to Beat the Baron in Darkest Dungeon

The Baron's stats are as follows:

• HP: 233
• Stun Resist: 87%
• Blight Resist: 85%
• Bleed Resist: 55%
• Debuff Resist: 60%
• Move Resist: 85%

After an absurdly, punishingly long map, you finally get to fight the Baron. He hides inside a random pulsating egg and makes you search for him by hitting each position.

You want some serious buffs for this fight, so having blood on hand for your cursed heroes is a must. The Houndmaster's Guard Dog ability is useful, as is the Bolster skill from the Man-At-Arms class, both of which will make you less likely to get hit.

Having an Occultist in the back row can be helpful, since Vulnerability Hex hits any position and will knock the Baron out of his egg (and can then be used to mark the boss and lower his defense), while Wyrd Reconstruction is of course always useful for healing. 

Bleeding skills, in addition to getting your cursed characters into bloodlust mode, is a good way to whittle down the Baron's huge health pool.

   Fighting the Baron

How to Beat the Viscount in Darkest Dungeon

The Viscount's stats are as follows:

• HP: 127
• Stun Resist: 55%
• Blight Resist: 95%
• Bleed Resist: 70%
• Debuff Resist: 70%
• Move Resist: 95%

If you've found the Mercurial Salve trinket (increases damage substantially against bloodsuckers), this battle can be over quickly because of the Viscount's lower health for a big boss. Any trinket or ability that ups your damage potential should be equipped here, and of course don't forget about bloodlust.

The Viscount moves between positions, so again your typical damage dealers like the Crusader and Leper aren't as useful -- you want something that can attack multiple slots and do mid-to-high damage.

A hyper-focused party of two transformed Abominations and two Houndmasters using dog treats for bonus damage can make quick work of this boss. Otherwise, focusing on Bleed, Stun, and Riposte makes for a longer but more manageable battle.

 Fighting the Viscount

How to Beat the Countess in Darkest Dungeon

The Countess' stats are as follows:

• HP: 400
• Stun Resist: 140%
• Blight Resist: 119%
• Bleed Resist: 90%
• Debuff Resist: 120%
• Move Resist: 220%

With tons of health and high resistances, The Countess is tough. Continuously hitting yourself with the Bolster skill can be incredibly helpful, though, as you won't get hit by her devastating group attacks nearly as often.

Although it's sort of cheap, a team of three Man-At-Arms heroes and one Graverobber in the third position (to hit with ranged attacks) will take a long time to win -- but you'll almost never get hit, since you can keep Bolstering every time it runs off. Don't forget to feed blood to your cursed characters for the speed and damage boost!

Once again with this boss Bleed resist is lowest, so using those skills can be devastating since she moves three times every single round. Just make sure to keep applying Bleed as it wears off. A Flagellant kept at death's door will do some devastating damage as well, if you're equipping trinkets that increase damage when at low health.

 Fighting the Countess

Now you have all the knowledge you need to make your way through all of the Crimson Court's big, bad, and bloodthirsty bosses! Do you have any other strategies we didn't list here that work well? Let us know in the comments!

If you're having trouble with any other part of the Crimson Court DLC, be sure to check out our other Darkest Dungeon guides:

• Starting the Crimson Court quest
• How to get the Crimson Court invitation
• Complete guide to the Flagellant class
• New Crimson Court curios and achievements

With the "Crimson Court" DLC to Darkest Dungeon, you get a whole new area to explore filled to the brim with blood sucking fiends! From killing giant mosquitos to contracting vampirism on your own, there's plenty to see in this new area near the Hamlet.

Getting into the first section of the Courtyard is easy, but after completing that initial quest, you'll notice something strange -- you are barred from returning unless you have an invitation.

Turns out those vampires are serious about their entry rules. No invitation, no returning for more bloody mosquito mayhem. They also clearly aren't going to just hand one out to your crusading group of heroes, either.

While new enemies will appear in other areas like the Ruins or Cove, you can't actually continue the Crimson Court quest line and take on the Baron until finding that pesky little piece of paper granting you entrance to the Courtyard.

Finding The Crimson Court Invitation

Before invitations will drop from certain vampiric enemies in the "Crimson Court" DLC, first you have to get the bloody bug infestation level to reach high, which means completing the first Courtyard quest where you have to burn the Thronging Hives with special torches and then kill the Crocodilian.

After that quest is finished, the infestation level will increase slowly as you complete quests in other areas of Darkest Dungeon. Try to complete as many as possible as quickly as possible, as blood drops are rarer outside the Courtyard and you will likely have several cursed heroes on their way to wasting away without a steady blood supply.

Failing or abandoning quests doesn't seem to raise the infestation level at all, so prepare with the ideal party lineup for each area (Crusaders for the Ruins, characters who can heal blight in the Cove, and so on) and make sure to bring enough provisions.

You can check the current infestation level by heading to the Embark screen and checking the red banner icon on the left side of the screen.

 Checking the infestation level

When the infestation level is finally at high, a special new enemy carrying an invitation will randomly appear in any of the game's areas. There's no one sure fire place to go to find him, so just head into any quest and hope for an appearance.

This new monster looks just like the Manservant enemy from the Courtyard, but is instead titled a Gatekeeper and is very obviously carrying a large, bloody piece of paper -- that's the invitation you want to get your hands on!

 Yup, that's the Gatekeeper

Killing the Gatekeeper in the "Crimson Court" DLC

You don't have to kill the Gatekeeper in any special way. Just take out the group of monsters and the invitation will be found in the loot.

Keep in mind the invitation follows all the same rules for other loot, meaning you need to have an open slot in your very limited inventory. It's better to drop something, even a pricey gem, and keep the invitation than hope you find a Gatekeeper again later.

As with any other treasure, your current group of heroes has to survive the dungeon to bring it back, so if you are low on health or high on stress, its better to abandon the current quest and keep the invitation than lose it to those all-too-frequent total party wipes Darkest Dungeon is so fond of dishing out.

   Huzzah, the invitation is ours!

Now that you've got that elusive invitation in your possession, just head over to the Embark screen again and select the Courtyard to move onto the next quest about killing the Baron.

Good luck, and hope the Fanatic doesn't chase you down and kill your cursed heroes!

More Bloody Darkest Dungeon Adventures

Getting the invitation is just one small aspect of the "Crimson Court" DLC that adds in plenty of new enemies, bosses, and even a whole new character class. Need more help? Check out our other Darkest Dungeon "Crimson Court" guides here:

• Starting the Crimson Court quest
• Complete guide to the Flagellant class
• New Crimson Court curios and achievements

There's enough RNG in Darkest Dungeon to screw you over a million times, and the game's quirk system does a pretty good job of both bolstering and ruining your characters as one of the game's biggest stat modifiers.

Just like people in real life, every party member you come across has their share of quirks. They start off with at least one positive and one negative quirk when you see them in the Stage Coach, and they gain more while pushing through the horrors before them.

This guide will go over Darkest Dungeon's quirk system, as well as lay out all of the game's positive and negative quirks for you to peruse and hope you get (or don't get).

When do you get new quirks, and what affects whether they're negative or positive?

There are three situations in which your characters may receive additional quirks:

• After an expedition
• When interacting with curios during expeditions
• When relieving stress at the Hamlet

Finishing an expedition brings relief, but sometimes that relief is short-lived -- one or more of your characters may take on a negative quirk upon its completion.

There is no way to stop your characters from gaining quirks, but you can increase their chances of getting positive quirks from expeditions by keeping their stress low and completing the expedition's objective.

If you leave an expedition early, the characters you took in are more likely to take on negative quirks. If you complete an expedition's goal, you have a flat 45% chance to take on a positive quirk -- and the chance of a negative one is based off each character's stress level at the time of completion.

Lastly, a character can have up to 5 positive quirks and 5 negative quirks. A previous quirk will be overwritten if a character receives a new one, but this can be prevented via locking them in.

Removing negative quirks

Want to remove a quirk? Then it's time for a trip to the Sanitarium, where they can wipe away negative quirks as well as lock in positive ones (for a hefty price that only goes up as a character's Resolve does).

You can have a character stay at the Sanitarium to remove a quirk for a fee. This starts at a reasonable sum -- but should a quirk have been enforced and made permanent, it will be more expensive to remove.

A negative quirk can be made permanent if left to fester for too long, or if a character interacts with a curio and is given a negative quirk it already had. It's important to try to get rid of any truly debilitating quirks early on, before a character is heavily afflicted by it.

Some negative quirks are certainly less debilitating than others. It's often in your best interest to let the less-than-terrible ones fester and be made permanent to avoid getting something even worse.

Locking in positive quirks

It seems locking in positive quirks isn't that different from removing negative ones, as both are dealt with at the Sanitarium. As with removal, you can have a quirk locked in for a fee. But locking in positive quirks is significantly more expensive than removing negatives.

You can lock up to three positive quirks at the Sanitarium and your choices ca not be undone, so choose wisely.

Locking in positive quirks has two functions:

• You are guaranteed to not have that quirk overwritten by another when you get a new positive quirk
• The positive quirk will not be erased by its negative counterpart

Those are two pretty good reasons to lock in the best of the best. A list of conflicting quirks can be found below.

Positive quirks

This list is self-explanatory, except for one bit: Quirks with an asterisk (*) next to their names have no negative counterpart to knock them off a character's quirk list. They can only be removed manually, or if a character with 5 positive quirks receives another positive and overwrites them.

Negative quirks

Neutral quirks

These "neutral" quirks are more negative than positive. All of them are related to what a character will or will not do when in town, and often they make managing your characters' stress relief more complicated than it needs to be.

Conflicting quirks

These are quirks that cannot be had simultaneously -- and there are quite a few of them. So how do they work?

Let's say a character has "Natural Swing", which grants a nice +5 ACC, but finishes an expedition and receives its polar opposite, "The Yips".

In this situation "Natural Swing" and its nice +5 ACC will be removed and instead you'll have "The Yips" and its -5 ACC in that character's negative quirk category instead.

It may seem like there's a lot to remember about quirks, but you come across (and lose) so many characters that you come to memorize your favorites and lock them in, and hope for the best otherwise. That is, of course, unless you're playing above Normal mode. If you're new to Darkest Dungeon, just do your best. The game is out to get you in more ways than just your characters' quirks.

If you still need a bit of help, you can check out the rest of our Darkest Dungeon guides in order to survive this punishing game. 

With the arrival of The Crimson Court DLC, Darkest Dungeon just got a whole lot bloodier -- and not just because of the vampires! The new Flagellant hero class is based around self-mutilation and getting people bleeding. The more blood, the more damage he deals!

Below we cover everything you need to know to build a party around this new class. Just getting started with Crimson Court? Check out our basic guide to starting the DLC, or take a look at all the new curios and achievements you can unlock along your journey.

Flagellant Stats

Your base stats for the flagellant are sad in the extreme, starting out with 22 HP due to the Sinner's Flesh "armor" and a base damage of 3 - 6 with a 2.5% chance of a critical hit using the Hand Fashioned Flail.

Really pathetic, right? It's way lower than any of your more reliable damage dealers like the Crusader, Leper, or Highwayman. That's where his skills come into play, though (see below). As the Flagellant takes damage and steals negative effects from party members, his power grows.

Of course, you can also increase health and damage by heading to the blacksmith for upgrades. I'm not sure how the blacksmith is exactly upgrading his flesh, but apparently it works out somehow (and is probably quite painful).

Weapon Upgrades

• Level 1 weapon: 4 - 7 damage, 3% crit chance
• Level 2 weapon: 2 - 8 damage, 3.5% crit chance
• Level 3 weapon: 5 - 10 damage, 4% crit chance
• Level 4 weapon: 5 - 11 damage, 4.5% crit chance

Armor Upgrades

• Level 1 armor:  HP 26, defense 5%
• Level 2 armor: HP 30, defense 10%
• Level 3 armor: HP 34, defense 15%
• Level 4 armor: HP 38, defense 20%

 Upgrading The Flagellant's Flesh

Flagellant Skills And Party Builds

The Flagellant's best position -- regardless of which skills you have active -- is in the first or second spot of the lineup, and everything the Flagellant does is based around the Suffer skill and having low health.

To make this skill work, someone else in the party needs to be bleeding, blighted, or marked -- so areas where those skills aren't used often by enemies make the Flagellant less useful to put in a group. Thankfully in the Courtyard you'll all be bleeding all the time, so he's tailor-made for the DLC area.

Suffer takes an affliction off another hero and transfers it to the Flagellant... and then increases his Protection and Death Blow resistance. Despite the fact that he'll be taking damage every round, he'll actually be harder to kill.

Unfortunately, you can't use Suffer on enemies -- which seems like an oversight, since several of the Flagellant's skills cause bleed.

 Suffering for a friend

Now that you're properly suffering, its time to take some damage, because the Flagellant works best when at low health. The Exansanguinate attack, for instance, can only be used if below half his total HP. He also gets a large bonus to damage and critical hit chance if health is below 38%, and that stacks even further if the Flagellant has hit 100% stress and gains the unique Rapturous affliction.

With the increase to damage and critical chance, you'll be dealing significantly more damage than the pathetic base 3 - 6 per hit. But what if you're all healed up and not in peak suffering form? Keep Rain Of Sorrows in your skill lineup as a fall back measure. It does next to no damage, but causes bleeding on enemies while you wait a turn or two.

 +45% damage and +60% protection makes him your new tank

Ideal Party & Trinkets for the Flagellant

When building a party around a Flagellant, it's a good idea to have an Occultist in the group, since that hero offers the healing of the Vestal with more versatility. The Occultist's Wyrd Reconstruction skill causes bleeding while also healing -- meaning you don't have to wait for an enemy to cause a bleed effect to get the Flagellant powered up.

When picking trinkets for your Flagellant, the Book Of Rage is a killer addition, since it doesn't matter that it reduces your bleed resist, but gives even bigger damage and critical hit bonuses when beneath 33% health. A very rare Flagellant-only trinket released with the DLC even further increases his Death Blow resistance, so equip those as soon as you find them.

 Forget diamonds - a Book Of Rage is a Flagellant's best friend!

On Death's Door But Not Dying

Like with the Abomination, there's a balancing act at play while using this hero. The Redeem and Exansguinate skills lower your damage and health -- meanwhile Suffer, low health, and the Rapturous affliction increase stats.

Besides the fact that the Flagellant will frequently be stealing afflictions from other members of the party, he can also randomly start bleeding just when walking through the dungeon. He's pretty much always going to be losing health unless you've invested in a ton of bandages -- and you shouldn't, because you want him damaged most of the time.

Being at low health isn't a negative though, since this hero starts with 73% resistance to Death Blow, so you can pretty well keep him at death's door constantly. Remember that as long as a hero has at least 1 HP, a single attack can't kill them -- it will only knock them back to death's door, and another attack (or bleed damage) is required to cause a Death Blow.

In other words, so long as you have a supply of food and any hero who can reliably heal 1 HP, you can keep your Flagellant near dead, dealing tons of damage, and very rarely actually die.

 Who needs blood and health? Not the Flagellant, that's for sure.

Now that you know the basics, you can head out with a Flagellant-focused team and cause some mayhem! What's your preferred skill loadout, and what party lineup do you find most effective to base around this hero? Let me know in the comments! And be sure to check out the rest of our Darkest Dungeon guides for more help with the game.

Just when you thought you'd finally found the bottom of the depths of the Ancestor's depravity, he offers up yet another tale of evil and debauchery.

Turns out that besides hiring brigands to kill the townsfolk, turning the forest into a place of twisted magic, bringing pig flesh to demonic life, summoning zombies, and communing with Cthulhu fish creatures -- he also had the time to attend lavish vampire galas!

We previously covered every last curio in the base game extensively, but several new ones have arrived with "The Crimson Court", along with a host of extra achievements to unlock.

Let's jump in and take a look. 

Curios

Crumbling Pillar

Item: Shovel

This is the Courtyard version of the wall of bones that must be removed with a shovel or cause damage. You can't pass without removing the curio, so if you didn't bring any extra shovels, everyone in the party will take damage and acquire stress for having to break it down by hand.

 Crumbling Pillar

Bloodflowers

Item: Shovel, Blood, or Holy Water

Using blood causes nothing bad to happen, but doesn't seem to give a positive effect, either. Using holy water causes the flowers to wither and gives you some extra stress. Digging up the bloodflowers with a shovel results in random treasure.

 Bloodflowers

Damned Fountain

Item: Holy Water or Torch

Pouring holy water into the Damned Fountain gives one hero a big reduction in current stress while activating without an item causes bleed. Throwing in a torch gives a small amount of stress.

 Damned Fountain

Hooded Shrew

Item: The Blood

Give this mysterious blood drinker some (what else?) blood in exchange for treasure – and it's usually a pretty good treasure, netting Crests for upgrades and some food.

 Hooded Shrew

Pile Of Strange Bones

Item: Bandages, The Blood, or None

Using blood summons mosquito and vampire enemies to fight, which isn't very helpful (apparently, you are resurrecting the dead vampire with blood). Activating normally without an item has a small chance of providing a trinket, but most of the time will just deal damage. Using bandages offers some items.

 Pile Of Strange Bones

Throbbing Cocoon

Item: Torch (or none)

Throw a torch in there to burn the eggs and regain some stress. If you activate the cocoon without an item, a group of mosquito enemies will pour out. That should have been obvious -- usually, nothing pleasant comes out of a cocoon throbbing in a vampire courtyard.

 Throbbing Cocoon

Thronging Hive

Item: Pitch Soaked Torch

This is a special quest curio that initially appears in the first quest of the Courtyard area. Use the three special torches (not a regular torch) provided at the start of the mission to destroy these. After getting the Invitation, these appear normally and can be destroyed with regular torches for loot and a chance at getting some Blood.

 Thronging Hive

Disturbing Diversion

Item: Shovel

This mouldering evidence of a society's depravity is best left alone, as opened unaided you have a chance at a negative quirk and high stress, or you can use a shovel to get some heirlooms.

 Disturbing Diversion

Forgotten Delicacy

Item: Medicinal Herbs

Using herbs grants food and gold, while eating these delicacies with no protection has a chance for a disease, negative quirk, blight, and the Crimson Curse.

 Forgotten Delicacy

Wine Crate

Item: Antivenom or Shovel

Antivenom provide some stress healing, while a Shovel gives you fire wood. Going in without any items has a chance to give Blood, a negative quirk, a disease, or bleeding.

 Wine Crate

Crimson Court Achievements

Les Jeus Sont Faits

Defeat the Baron -- This is achieved by beating the boss in the second main Crimson Court quest

Just The Cheque

Defeat the Viscount -- This is achieved by beating the boss in the third main Crimson Court quest

Her Last Dance

Defeat the Countess -- This achieved by beating the boss in the fourth and final main Crimson Court quest

Symptoms 

Get Infected by the Crimson Curse -- This will occur while exploring the first area of the Courtyard and fighting either Esquires or Sycophants

Happy Together

Collect Your First Trinket Set -- Make sure to activate curios and keep an eye out for matching trinkets at the nomad's wagon

From Rubble To Rabble

Build Your First District Building -- After finding a blueprint as a reward for a quest you will gain access to District buildings, which cost gold, portraits, deeds, crests, and so on.

The Red Hook

Build The Red Hook -- This absurd District building costs 25,000 gold, 750 crests, and 1 blueprint to build

The Flesh Is Willing

Recruit a Flagellant -- This achievement only pops if you recruit a flagellant through the stage coach, not through a town event

An Unexpected Party

Collect The Invitation -- This is a story/quest based achievement, with invitations dropped by fighting Castellans during the Baron quest

Expired

Lose a Hero to Wasting Away From the Curse -- If you don't ever feed a cursed hero any blood, this will eventually occur

Shadows Blur Together

Kill an Ally While Under the Curse -- A cursed hero who goes berserk will eventually get this one if you haven't been healing the party

What Strange Bedfellows

Contract the Crimson Curse via Contagion -- When two heroes are in the same building to reduce stress, such as the Abbey or Tavern, there's a small chance the curse will spread between those heroes.

Zealous Accusation

Defeat the Fanatic -- While exploring with the "Crimson Court" DLC, eventually, this unhinged priest will attack you as a random wandering boss

Jailbreak

Rescue Someone -- This is a story/quest related achievement

Bloodcult

Have Your Entire Roster Affected by the Crimson Curse -- So long as you are rotating out heroes for subsequent quests, this will almost certainly happen organically over time

---

Those are all the Darkest Dungeon "Crimson Court" DLC achievements currently available -- happy hunting! Are you just getting started with this bloody expansion? Check out our basic guide to getting started with the Crimson Court quests here.

After months of early access and now more than a year after full release on PC, fans have been desperately seeking even more Darkest Dungeon to ineffectually assault with a group of emotionally squishy, insanity-prone heroes.

The Crimson Court DLC is finally here, offering a unique take on vampires as mosquito-loving socialites with long proboscis noses. As expected, the difficulty level is off the charts, and it's easy to get wiped out just in the first quest!

If you don't want to be a red stain on the dungeon floor, read on for tips on how to survive the opening quest of The Crimson Court.

 You don't want to end up like this guy!

Preparing To Assault The Courtyard

The first two goals in The Crimson Court quest line are to explore the Courtyard and burn the hives -- but you can't actually access the Courtyard until completing two excursions into the Ruins first if you've started a fresh game.

Most enemies in this new area have low bleed resist, so a bleed-based party can be incredibly effective. The mosquito and vampire enemies have higher blight resistance, but its usually around 40% or below, so a blight-focused Plague Doctor with stun skills can still be useful in the back row.

Even though the first excursion into the Courtyard is listed as a short quest, it's really more of a medium length quest, but with no camping supplies – so prepare accordingly in your provisions. Enemies in the Courtyard frequently cause blight and bleed, so bring bandages and antivenom, and many of the curios either require holy water or blood (a new item found very rarely while completing quests).

The Courtyard uses bloodlight, rather than the normal light level, which increases each turn blood is shed. Torches also work differently in the Courtyard, giving each hero a boost to accuracy for every torch spent that stacks up to three times.

Hallways are much longer in the Courtyard than in the normal game areas, so there's more chances to run into traps, curios, and enemy encounters. Make sure you are stocked up on provisions and have a healing hero on hand, or you won't be making it to the end of the quest.

 Squaring off against new enemies in the Courtyard

Crimson Curse

Attacks from enemies in the Courtyard have a small chance to instill the Crimson Curse, which is like an affliction, disease, and quirk all rolled into one awful package. Unlike other diseases, the Crimson Curse can't be removed at the Sanitarium.

The base skill debuffs for being cursed are:

• -5% to stun, blight, and bleed resistance
• -10% to max HP
• -10% virtue chance
• +1 to speed

For every level of craving a cursed character gains, those debuffs go up an order of magnitude. At higher levels of craving, the character will behave as though afflicted by switching positions in battle, passing on turns, or refusing healing.

Cravings obviously are bad, but you can keep them at bay by giving a character the rare blood items found in the Courtyard.

 The Blood!

Taking blood while cursed and at the lowest level of craving gives a slight bonus to Dodge and Speed. But if you wait to feed a hero blood until they are craving it at higher levels, they go into blood lust mode -- which significantly increases damage, speed, and resistances.

By planning ahead and combining a character suffering blood lust with effects like extra damage from marking skills, you can obtain absolutely huge damage output.

A few achievements are associated with the Crimson Curse:

• The Symptoms achievement pops when a first character is infected.
• Having your entire roster infected at once unlocks the Blood Cult achievement.
• The Expired achievement pops if a hero wastes away and dies from the Crimson Curse by reaching the highest level of craving.
• Shadows Blur Together is unlocked if one of your cursed companions goes berserk and kills a team member.

 The Crimson Curse 

Crocodilian

Update: the 6/21 patch reduced the Crocodilian's health and removed his ability to heal while submerging when using rank 0 or 1 heroes.

The first quest requires you to use three special Pitch Soaked Torch quest items on Thronging Hives curios. It sounds easy, but there's a major catch. In every playthrough I've attempted so far, I've run into the utterly insane Crocodilian before coming across the third Thronging Hive, so he appears to be directly tied into the quest and not just a random boss.

Despite being a level 0 quest, the Crocodilian boss has 118 HP, deals large amounts of damage to multiple heroes, and can heal himself for 12 - 24 HP every few rounds. Expect his power to get patched down in the near future with an update, but for now, you have to think smart or there's no hope of winning.

Remember the damage bonus from blood lust? You will need this for the Crocodilian. Trinkets to increase stun and bleed are also helpful, as the boss only has 50% resistance to those -- and keeping it stunned every other round makes it much harder for the beast to submerge and heal itself.

Jaw Snapping Death

New Goodies And Events

Several new town events appear in Crimson Court -- most notably The Town Is Abuzz, which makes stress reduction activities less effective, and Blood Scourge, which sees a wandering member of the new Flagellant class appear (he may also show up in the new recruits at the stagecoach).

Other than events, the primary goodies on display are new trinkets, and they have far fewer drawbacks than normal. Antiquarians in particular make out like bandits, getting huge bonuses with no drawbacks on most new trinkets.

Also be on the lookout for the Salacious Diary, which turns Vestals into healing machines, and the Tin Flute, which makes Lepers take far less stress damage and increases their accuracy with no downsides.

 The Flagellant Appears

It Gets Even Darker

There's much more to this blood-drenched DLC, so stay tuned for further guides to come. Need help (or a refresher) with the base game instead? Check out our other Darkest Dungeon guides for more help with this punishing game:

• Darkest Dungeon beginner's strategy guide
• Darkest Dungeon hero class guide
• Darkest Dungeon party combos guide
• Darkest Dungeon curios guide
• Darkest Dungeon boss guide

Darkest Dungeon is a complicated game that has a rough tutorial and a steep learning curve. It is categorized on Steam as a hard game with the “difficult” tag. According to Steam's global statistics, only 56.9% of players have completed the first achievement of “Welcome Home.”

This achievement is granted to those who reach the estate by completing the tutorial. With this high percentage, it looks like new players are having difficulty getting attached to the game. The interface is nice, but there are not enough descriptions and tips on what to do next. The tutorial is important in any game as it teaches you how to play. In Darkest Dungeon, the tutorial is lacking, which could stop people from continuing.

The game has had success, despite the achievement results. It is #34, on Rock Paper Shotgun's list of The 50 Best RPGs on PC. But, just think of how great it could be if the tutorial was more user friendly. If people aren’t grabbed by the game from the start, there could be bad reviews and returns. The developer, Red Hook Studios, may want to rethink their tutorial if they want to keep their buyers happy. People expect the game to be challenging--not the tutorial.

The normal battles in any given area of Darkest Dungeon can be deadly, so obviously the bosses are absolute nightmares.

One of the greatest difficulties of the boss fights isn't actually the boss itself, but rather going through a medium or long dungeon to find that boss first. The quicker you reach the boss, the better your chance of survival.

If all the party is already over 100 stress and you are out of provisions by the time you stumble on the boss, your chances of survival are much lower. To counterbalance this, always keep the light level up around 100% (which gives a scouting bonus), equip trinkets that increase your scout chances, and swap out your camping skills so everyone has a scouting bonus option available.

Another important aspect that leads to frustration for players who are thinking along traditional RPG lines is not realizing that defeat is part of this game. It's better to flee, learn from how you got trounced, abandon the quest, and come back again with a better party tailored to the situation.

There are three distinct variations on each boss (except for the final boss fight) that you will have to fight over time, each of which will go up in health and have increased stats from their previous iterations. Each subsequent battle reveals ever more damning secrets about your ancestors' unhealthy interest in hidden arcane arts.

For the most part, the strategies remain the same in every iteration of a boss – since you too will have upgraded heroes facing off against them – but in same cases tweaking your lineup may be required. At the highest levels, it can actually be more advantageous to go with a no-healer party and instead focus on trying to kill the boss quickly rather than keeping everyone alive each turn.

If you need more help in surviving the unholy horrors set loose by your ancestors, be sure to also check out:

• Darkest Dungeon combat survival guide
• Darkest Dungeon curios guide
• Darkest Dungeon party building guide
• Darkest Dungeon hero class guide
• Darkest Dungeon beginner's strategy tips
• Darkest Dungeon mods you need to install

Darkest Dungeon Ruins Bosses

Necromancer

Unless you have a truly bad run of luck with misses and criticals (or your entire party is already on the verge of insanity and/or death before entering the room), the Necromancer will be the easiest boss battle you face in the game. By “easy”, of course, I mean you probably won't have a total party wipe.

First and foremost, you should have a Crusader -- as is the case with any expedition into the ruins, since his Smite ability already deals bonus damage against the Necromancer. If you can fit two Crusaders into your party and equip them both with Unholy Slayer Ring trinkets, you'll be golden.

Nothing is ever completely easy in Darkest Dungeon though, and the problem will be getting your Crusaders into position to strike, as the Necromancer constantly spawns skeletons and moves himself to the back row. In each of the three versions you'll face of the Necromancer, the specific type of undead summoned increases in health and power.

Due to his low move resistance, your strategy should be to manually pull him into the front row using skills like Come Hither (Bounty Hunter) or Daemon's Pull (Occultist) if you can't kill the skeletons fast enough to also get in a strike at the boss (will become more likely in the second and third tier battles).

The Necromancer's bleed resist is also quite low, so even if you have trouble keeping him in the front row, using any bleed skill will whittle down his health while you focus on the skeleton minions. The Hound Master or Hellion are good choices on that front. His stun resist, on the other hand, is exceedingly high, so while you might get lucky and pull it off, usually focusing on this status effect is a waste of time.

Necromancer Boss

Prophet

With an extremely high move resistance, there's little chance you'll get the Prophet into range of your front row melee attacks, so you need to equip everyone with the skills that hit the back row. Unlike with many other boss fights, there's only one enemy here actually dealing damage to you, so a party focused on marking and then dealing extra damage to marked creatures (specifically with the Arbalest and Bounty Hunter) will make quick work of the boss.

The Prophet frequently uses attacks that cause stun or blight. If you are focused on taking the Prophet down quickly, the blight damage might not be a major threat, but stunning is definitely of concern. Before heading into this battle, its a good idea to equip trinkets like the Stun Charm, Immunity Mask, or Wilbur's Flag.

This crazed fanatic is susceptible to both bleed and blight himself, so if you hit him with a double whammy of both and then focus on long range back row attacks, taking him out won't actually take too long. The trouble is, you may want to drag this fight on longer than necessary.

Although he's the only one doing any damage, the Prophet isn't alone in this battle – the front three enemy lineup slots are filled with inanimate church pews. The more pews you destroy, the more money you'll earn at the end of the quest. But they have inordinately high health. If you are willing to risk dragging the battle out instead of going straight for the kill, bring out heroes who can debuff the Prophet's damage, such as the Vestal or Occultist, to keep your party from getting wiped out.

Prophet Boss

Darkest Dungeon Cove Bosses

Siren

Like with the Hag in the weald, this is a battle where you will frequently be down to only three members, as the Siren constantly steals one. Unfortunately in this case, that hero will actually fight against you.

There's no point in hitting your charmed hero – that damage remains when the hero returns to your ranks automatically in 2 – 3 rounds, and killing the character won't stop the Siren from entrancing another hero the next turn.

Between charming your heroes and summoning backup fish monsters, the enemy lineup is going to constantly be in flux, so it's a good idea to have a full lineup that can hit any enemy position. You don't want to be wasting time moving your characters around, since by the time you are all in the proper position, the enemy lineup will have shifted again.

The best strategy here is to ignore both your charmed hero and the summoned monsters, as more will always be on the horizon. Just go straight for the Siren with everything you've got. If you are taking too much damage from your charmed hero, however, stunning them is an excellent option. Trinkets like the Debuff Charm and Debuff Amulet can also raise the chance the Siren's charm won't work at all.

Siren Boss

Drowned Crew

This frustrating battle will see the undead pirates messing up your formation by dragging a back row character up to the front, so make sure you have a backup skill on each character so they hit from the front as well.

The Drowned Anchorman will also freeze your front line character in place and rapidly raise their stress level, while simultaneously regenerating the rest of the Drowned Crew's health constantly. Killing the Anchorman ends the effect, but a new one will be summoned shortly.

Avoiding the Anchorman's attack is the best way to prevent an infuriatingly long battle, so equipping trinkets that increase your Dodge skill on the front line fighter is a must. Stunning the Anchorman can also be useful for getting a few attacks off before he can hit your front hero and start the healing process again.

Keep in mind that killing the Drowned Crew also kills the Anchorman, so whenever possible, your attacks should be focused on the main boss.

Drowned Crew Boss

Darkest Dungeon Warrens Bosses

Swine Prince

A nod to both The Dunwich Horror and Wilbur the pig from Charlotte's Web, the terribly mutated Swine Prince occupies the first three slots of the enemy lineup while his miniature aiming tool Wilbur occupies the far back row.

Wilbur will mark your characters so they take more damage, and of course the Swine Prince focuses his attacks on those marked heroes, so you have a good idea of who you need to heal up ahead of time. Wilbur can also stun your heroes, so it's a good idea to equip trinkets that increase your stun resistance ahead of time.

Although he's a major annoyance, do not attack Wilbur at all until the Swine Prince is dealt with, or you will receive a massive retaliation strike.

Skills like the Arbalest's Rallying Flare can remove Wilbur's marking so you take less damage, although that uses up a turn you could be dealing damage instead. Your main focus should be on taking down the Prince as fast as you can with attacks that target the front row.

The Prince is also susceptible to blight, bleed, and debuffs, so it's possible to both lower his attack damage and constantly lower his health each turn, even if you get stunned by Wilbur.

After the Prince is down, you may want to let Wilbur get in some shots before crushing him if you are an achievement hunter with no regard for the life of your troops. There's actually a secret Steam achievement if you let a party member get killed by Wilbur!

Swine Prince Boss

Flesh

A big, disgusting mass of cast-off swine parts from your ancestor's failed experiments, the Flesh consists of four different parts -- each taking up a spot in the enemy lineup, but all using a single health total. Hitting any part of the lineup will damage the boss, so you are pretty open in terms of attack types.

Each part will change into a different type over time, with the four available types having varying resistances. The one type you most want to see is the heart, and always target that whenever possible, as it has a much lower Protection stat.

You will want the ability to heal the front two spots of your lineup or have them heal themselves, as they will take significant damage (in addition to the bleed effect) during this battle.

The Occultist's Abyssal Artillery attack is particularly effective here, as it does extra damage against the Flesh and hits two spots at once. Bleeding effects, such as the Houndmaster's Hound Harry, can also be quite useful to overcome the high Protection of each piece of Flesh.

Flesh Boss

Darkest Dungeon Weald Bosses

Hag

This enormous and cannibalistic witch takes up the back two spots in the enemy lineup, while her gigantic pot for seasoning human meat takes up the front two rows. Make sure you have at least three characters who can target the back row, as the Hag has an extremely high move resist and won't be pulled to the front row by your movement skills.

Much of this battle will only feature three of your heroes, as the Hag will quickly throw one into the pot, where that character will take damage each round. You can hit the pot a few times to set that hero free, although in the next round or two the hag will snatch up another hero.

Remember how I said you should run if things are going badly? That's a less useful strategy here, since any character stuck in the cauldron will die when you flee.

Your main focus should be whittling down the Hag's health. Only focus on the pot if you either have a character who can't hit the back row, or if you truly need that captured hero back to deal more damage. The Hag's bleed resistance is low, so utilizing a few bleed attacks in a row can give you time to set your captured companion free from the pot while still dealing damage.

Hag Boss

Brigand Pounder

A very unusual boss, this fight is actually against the gigantic cannon itself, while the bandits who show up to use it are just the minions!

The cannon has very high resistances against everything, so for the most part there's no point in bothering trying to hit it with any status effects. That's a problem, because it also has a very high Protection stat, so all your attacks will be doing much less damage than normal.

This fight is further complicated by how the Pounder's attacks work – to deal its most devastating attack, a Brigand Matchman must be alive and able to act. Your focus should be first on killing all the brigands (or barring that, stunning the Matchman if possible and then killing him the next turn) and then dealing any remaining damage straight to the cannon.

A good mix of area affect and straight melee damage powers is very helpful here, as you want to be both taking out the minions and damaging the Pounder at the same time, if at all possible. Since you won't be taking as much damage if you consistently kill the spawning bandits each turn, you can get away without bring a Vestal or any dedicated healer into this battle.

Brigand Pounder Boss

Darkest Dungeon Final Boss

The final boss is actually your ancestor himself, who goes through numerous forms before finally turning into the Heart Of Darkness.

The most difficult element of this fight is the Come Unto Your Maker attack, which is used twice during the battle and each time forces you to pick one character to die, permanently, regardless of their health level. The choices you make there will determine whether you win or lose.

Your best bet is to kill off your utility or healing characters, and leave your main damage dealers alive. To ensure they stay alive and can keep dealing damage, be sure to equip those front line damage dealers with stunning and blight resistance trinkets, and then just get off your strongest attacks until the Heart Of Darkness finally goes down.

Heart Of Darkness Boss

Got any other strategies for taking on these infuriatingly difficult Darkest Dungeon boss battles? Let us know how you beat each boss!

Although the approach and execution is vastly different in Darkest Dungeon than your typical 2D RPG, the heart of the game is still in turn-based battles. They swing at you, you swing back at them, and hopefully at the end you come out with your whole team still standing.

Of course, half that team might be a gibbering mess, chanting insane words of arcane power while stealing the party's loot, but that's the appeal of this crowd-funded gem: overcome extreme adversity with a group of heroes who aren't likely to live long.

One important aspect of the game that is radically different from other titles in the genre: your heroes are completely expendable. Yes, it hurts to have that Crusader raised to level 4 resolve across a dozen quests bleed out in combat or die of starvation. The good news is that afterward five more holy warriors probably just arrived through the stage coach and are ready to face death in his place.

Strategy and luck will be needed in your war against the swine and worse terrors...

Your party members simply will die, and with some regularity, but following this combat guide will keep them alive a bit longer so you can complete more quests and inch your way towards the final dungeons.

Before (or after) going through our combat guide, you may also want to take a look at our other guides full of tips and tricks:

• Darkest Dungeon beginner's strategy guide
• Darkest Dungeon hero class guide
• Darkest Dungeon party combos guide
• Darkest Dungeon curios guide
• Darkest Dungeon mods you need to install

Darkest Dungeon Hero Positions

There are plenty of different party combos to be utilized, and each is useful in different situations. In general, you want a good balance between dealing straight damage and either managing the enemy or dealing with setbacks in your own party. Since healing only occurs while camping or in battle, a means of lowering stress and reducing damage within your party is key to staying alive, especially during longer quests.

The preferred position for each class is critical to take note of, since that's where the hero's best attacks will work, but remember that they aren't set in stone. It's always a good idea to invest in those skills that can be used from other positions, as your carefully crafted lineup will frequently be rearranged in surprise rounds.

Many of the monstrous creatures found in Darkest Dungeon have one or more abilities that also force characters to move forward or backwards in the formation. Rather than wasting turns having to rearrange your party, its a better idea to be able to attack or use helpful effects from any position with a backup skill.

The Crusader's Holy Lance ability, for instance, is generally of no use, since it means you'll be giving up the ability to use either Smite or Holy Accusation. When you find the Crusader randomly in the back row at the start of a surprise combat however, Holy Lance not only lets you deal some damage, but it moves the Crusader back towards the front where he belongs.

Enemy position is equally important, since attacks can only hit specific slots on the enemy side. Before landing that death blow, always think about how you are going to deal with the corpse that gets left behind, as it can get in the way and prevent you from hitting the next enemy.

Corpse removal skills are helpful to have on hand, and it can also be extremely useful to turn the tables on the opposing side and mess with their formation. The Daemon's Pull skill from the Occultist is a good choice on that front, letting you pull a protected enemy in the back row straight to the front, where it will be vulnerable to your front line bruisers.

Your formation will frequently be broken by attacks like these.

Darkest Dungeon Torch Levels

The light level, controlled primarily by using up torches bought during the provisioning phase, has a huge impact on your experience on any quest.

To save money, it's actually a perfectly viable strategy to simply ignore torches altogether and go adventuring completely in the dark. You will take much more stress damage at the 0 light level, but it frees up your inventory slots, results in better loot finds, and ensures you'll score critical hits more often, which more than makes up for it.

If you don't want total darkness but still don't want to spend money on torches, there are several skills available that bump the light level up slightly, especially from the Vestal and Crusader.

Bonus critical hits can make up for all the other downsides.

The main downsides to adventuring in darkness are that you won't scout as often – making it difficult to find a boss during a long quest – and you won't surprise the enemy nearly as frequently.

That extra stress damage in low light conditions can also get crazy, and having a group of characters who all ignore your commands or pass their turn due to stress afflictions make this already hard game insanely frustrating. If you don't want to add that extra concern, be sure to stock up on torches (usually around 6-8 to stay at highest light levels in a short quest).

Darkest Dungeon Stress Relief

There's no way around it: your party is going to end up with high stress during the course of a quest, and it's very likely someone is going to get a new affliction when hitting 100 stress. That doesn't mean they all have to all become afflicted or you can't stave off heart attacks when nearing the 200 mark, though, as there are effective ways of keeping stress down (for awhile at least).

High stress has a serious cascade effect: a character who hits 100 stress and gains an affliction like abusive, paranoid, hopeless, etc. will rant during combat and deal stress damage to surrounding party members at random times during battle. Essentially, you want to stop anyone from hitting the highest stress levels, even if everyone ends up hovering just below a resolve test.

You want to avoid this for as long as possible.

Normally, a less useful hero than many other classes, the Jester can lower stress by 10 at a time with the Inspiring Tune skill during battle, and that number goes up as the Jester's resolve increases and you upgrade the skill. While the Hound Master's Cry Havoc skill offers a smaller amount of stress healing, it does affect the whole group at once, making it useful when everyone has been taking stress damage.

Several classes have the ability to manage their own stress if you feel comfortable swapping out an attack skill. The Crusader's Inspiring Cry ability offers a decent amount of stress reduction on himself if you spend the gold to actually upgrade the skill. The Leper's Withstand ability also works very well on that front, as it not only reduces stress, but also increases the Protection skill so you take less health damage the rest of the battle.

Darkest Dungeon Combat Healing

The inability to heal outside of camping or combat – and the lack of healing potions – makes combat incredibly deadly, especially as you venture further. Just like with stress relief, you always want to have a dedicated character who can heal others, or several characters who can heal themselves.

Just like with attack skills, keep in mind that healing capabilities change in different lineup positions – the Occultist, for instance, can be a better healer than the Vestal using Wyrd Reconstruction from the back row or third slot.

Since combat is where the bulk of your healing will occur, an excellent strategy when you are low on health is to kill all but one enemy and make sure the last monster standing has a low stun resistance. Keep him stunned for a round or two so you can spend some time healing, but don't keep this going too long, as its very easy for the tide to unexpectedly turn in this game, even when you seemingly have the upper hand.

Dealing Damage And Controlling The Enemy

Stunning is great, but outright killing is better. In the opening round of combat however, a volley of stunning (assuming your enemies don't have high stun resistance) from a skill like the Plague Doctor's Blinding Gas skill can be helpful. There's a balance to be struck here though - don't waste time trying to stun an opponent you could be killing instead.

A dead enemy is a manageable enemy - corpses don't hit back!

Deciding who to target first and how to spread out your damage is a crucial part of making it through combat without injured and insane party members. Always think big picture and not just the next round, but make sure you are taking out the enemies most likely to increase your stress.

The Madman enemy for instance won't be dealing much damage, but both of his abilities cause stress and then increase future stress damage on that character. If the combat goes on for more than a few rounds, he has the potential to cause afflictions on your whole party. Killing him first should generally be the priority of anyone in your group capable of hitting the back row.

Just as important is to always pay careful attention to the turn order. Since healing is so scarce, always focus on the enemy who hasn't had his turn yet, if you have the possibility to kill him before the next round. It's in your best interest to take monsters down quickly and have combat remain as short as possible.

Accepting Defeat

When everything goes to hell and you are on the verge of losing your entire party in the next combat, remember that you can abandon the quest! It stings, but it's better than an avoidable total party wipe and having to start over with lower level heroes again.

Yes, you will take extra stress damage, and you won't get the quest rewards, but you will come away with whatever loot you discovered before giving up and have the chance to put your half-mad party up in the Abbey or Tavern for a week.

Might as well accept the inevitability of death now.

Got any great Darkest Dungeon combat tips? Let us know how you've managed to slay all those eldritch abominations while keeping your party healthy and whole!

Darkest Dungeon features a steady stream of heroes ready and willing to go mad and die on fruitless quests to reclaim your ancestral lands from eldritch horror.

Not counting the custom heroes available through various user mods, at launch there are 14 Darkest Dungeon classes available for putting together a wide range of party combinations.

Before you can start picking a party lineup though, you need to know the best and worst skills each class has available, as well as what unique class camping skills will give you an edge in longer dungeon quests.

Below you can find a rundown of every single hero in the game, along with the best classes for filling each role and lineup position. (Note that in the preferred position listing, Slot 4 is the far back, while Slot 1 is the very front).

For more details on keeping your party sane and breathing, you may also want to check out:

• Darkest Dungeon beginner's strategy guide
• Darkest Dungeon party combo guide
• Darkest Dungeon curios guide
• The Darkest Dungeon mods you need to install
• Darkest Dungeon combat guide

Abomination

Preferred position: Slot 2 or Slot 1

Role: Damage

A very odd hero, the Abomination automatically gets all his class skills from the start and is capable of dishing out large amounts of damage, but he also has significant drawbacks. For starters, none of the religious classes – the Vestal, Crusader, and Leper – will join a group containing an Abomination, which reduces your party combination options.

The Abomination also has to transform into beast mode to use his most damaging skills, which raises the stress of every other hero in the party. To be most useful, you should team up the Abomination with classes that have stress reduction abilities.

The camping skills available to an Abominations usually come with big drawbacks, but offer big rewards as well. Psych Up, for instance, will see your Abomination outclassing all other heroes on the damage front, while Eldritch Blood makes it much less likely your hero will contract a disease or suffer from effects like blight and bleed.

Arbalest

Preferred position: Slot 4

Role: Damage / Marking

The dedicated ranged combatant, an Arbalest can only move backwards in formation and is all but useless at the front row.

Sniper Shot is your basic ranged attack, but try to use Sniper's Mark first to mark the target and deal bonus damage. When combined with other classes that also deal bonus damage to marked creatures – like the Bounty Hunter or Hound Master – this can be a devastating combo.

Definitely invest in the Blind Fire skill before taking your Arbalest into a dungeon. This hero is a major liability if you get surprised and the lineup swaps positions (or an enemy uses an ability to rearrange your marching order). Blind Fire, meanwhile, still lets you hit something from the front row, even if you don't control what enemy gets hit.

For camping skills, Triage is the clear winner since it heals everyone, but Restring Crossbow also ensures the Arbalest will deal more damage for the remainder of the quest.

Bounty Hunter

Preferred position: Slot 2

Role: Damage / Utility

A middle-of-the-road combatant, the Bounty Hunter has mid-range health, speed, and base damage in addition to both melee and ranged combat options. Because of where his skills can be used, he's better in the second slot than on the front line.

Where the Bounty Hunter shines is in conjunction with marking enemies. Use the Mark For Death skill first, then employ the Collect Bounty skill, which does a staggering 90% bonus damage to a marked foe, in addition to an extra 15% damage against human enemies. You'll make quick work of bandits that way.

Uppercut gives you both knockback and stunning abilities, but can only hit the front row, while Flashbang can stun an enemy in any position and still shuffles the lineup. Either of these abilities should be used in conjunction with Finish Him for bonus damage to a stunned monster.

When picking camping skills, Planned Takedown is excellent for bonus damage against bosses, while Tracking will increase your chances of surviving the rest of the dungeon to actually reach that boss.

Crusader

Preferred position: Slot 1

Role: Damage / Utility

Your all-around best Darkest Dungeon class (and prime front line fighter), the Crusader has low speed but makes it up in pretty much every other category. With excellent health and base damage, plus his damage bonus against undead, the Crusader should always be in your party when exploring the ruins.

Besides the basic Smite skill, Zealous Accusation should be on your list for its ability to hit two enemies at once, and Inspiring Cry offers stress reduction and a bonus to the light level. For your final skills, Stunning Blow lets you (of course) stun an enemy, while you can then either choose Battle Heal for a small amount of healing or Bulwark Of Faith for raising your Protection and the light level.

For camping, pick up the Zealous Speech skill to drop everyone's stress at once, or instead use Zealous Vigil to drop the Crusader's stress and prevent an ambush. Stand Tall is also helpful if you have a companion at death's door but there's still plenty more rooms waiting to be invaded.

Grave Robber

Preferred position: Slot 4 or Slot 3

Role: Utility / Damage

With low health but very high speed, the Grave Robber is all about hitting enemies at range. Thrown Dagger does decent damage, but works best in cooperation with another class that can mark the target first.

Poison Dart should be deployed against an enemy with low blight resistance, while Pick To The Face is a good choice if you put the Grave Robber in Slot 3 instead of Slot 4.

Lunge deals excellent damage, but also re-positions the Grave Robber to the front, where the rest of her skills are are pretty much useless, so it's usually a last resort attack. The stunning Shadow Fade skill, however, can only be used from the front two positions, so if you pick Lunge, use it in conjunction with Shadow Fade.

For camping, you absolutely want Snuff Box, which gets rid of diseases without having to pay gold to the Sanitarium. Pilfer can also be useful, as it gives you an extra provision that might make the difference between victory and defeat.

Hellion

Preferred position: Slot 1

Role: Damage / Utility

While the Hellion has only middling health and speed, her raw damage output and ability to cause both stun and bleed make her one of the better front line options when your Crusader or Leper aren't around.

Wicked Hack is your basic attack skill, which of course only lets you hit the front row. If you want more versatility, pick up the Iron Swan skill as well, which offers the chance to reliably hit the very back row.

Barbaric Yawp is a good choice for its stun ability, but don't forget it also debuffs you and means your Hellion will be dealing less damage during the rest of the encounter.

If It Bleeds is a good choice for decent damage and the bleed effect, but Bleed Out is far superior for bleeding damage -- so long as you only need to hit the front row. Breakthrough hits the front three enemies all at once (excellent for large groups of low health enemies), but it also debuffs you.

Unfortunately the Hellion's camping skills generally don't match up to the other classes. Battle Trance uses up 3 rounds and is only helpful if the Hellion is in Slot 1, while Revel lowers stress at the cost of debuffing everyone. Likewise, Reject The Gods has too high a cost to offset what it offers, and Sharpen Spear takes up too much time for the small bonus to critical hits it offers.

Highwayman

Preferred position: Slot 3 or Slot 2

Role: Damage

Although his health and base damage aren't on par with the main front line fighters, the Highwayman makes an excellent addition to any party lineup with his ability to deal damage both from and to any position.

Point Blank Shot does killer damage if the Highwayman has been pulled to the front row, while Open Vein does decent damage and causes bleed. Grapeshot Blast is great for crowd control, hitting two enemies at once, and Pistol Shot lets you hit back row enemies while dealing greater damage to a marked creature.

While camping, each of the Highwayman's skills are powerful, but they all use up a full 4 rounds. The Gallows Humor skill is one of the best options for reducing party stress quickly, while Clean Guns will see your Highwayman reliably dishing out a very high amount of damage for the rest of the quest.

Hound Master

Preferred position: Slot 4 or Slot 3

Role: Damage / Bleed

With medium health and high speed, the Hound Master's real usefulness is in his ability to attack any enemy position and the capability to both mark and cause bleed.

Combining Whistle (which marks a target) and Hound's Rush (which deals 60% extra damage against a marked target) is a winning combination on bigger enemies with loads of health, while Hound's Harry is always useful for causing bleed.

Although Cry Havoc lowers the stress of all party members, it really isn't worth taking as the amount reduced is minuscule. Lick Wounds is a better pick, as it allows the Hound Master to reliably heal himself a decent number of hit points and lets you skip dedicated healing classes like the Vestal.

While the Blackjack skill can cause stun, it does very little damage and requires putting your Hound Master in the front position, so it's essentially only there for situations where your lineup has been changed against your will.

On the camping front, Hound's Watch will make it less likely for your group to get annihilated by surprise attacks that mess with your formation, and Therapy Dog is a good choice for lowering the stress of all your companions at the same time.

Jester

Preferred position: Slot 3 or Slot 2

Role: Bleed / Movement

The Jester is easily my least favorite hero, who only gets thrown in when everyone else is busy at the tavern or abbey. He has high speed, but incredibly low health, and overall the Jester just isn't as useful on either the utility front or the damage front as any other hero.

Both the Harvest and Slice Off skills cause bleed, so that can be useful against monsters with a high Protection skill. The Inspiring Tune skill also lowers one character's stress by 10, which is helpful at any time during a dungeon delve.

Some of his skills are just straight up useless, like Finale. This skill requires the Jester move to the front to attack and then significantly lowers his damaging and dodging capabilities for the rest of combat.

The Jester does have some interesting camping skills, though. Mockery for instance, is helpful if one character hasn't been taking stress damage, as it lowers three companions' stress levels by 20 at the cost of raising one hero's stress by 20. Turn Back Time is another decent stress reducer to consider taking.

Leper

Preferred position: Slot 1

Role: Damage / Self-Healing

Although slower to act than the other heroes and starting with a low accuracy as a level 0 character, the Leper unquestionably has the highest base damage output as well as incredibly high health.

He makes an excellent front line fighter when you don't need the Crusader's anti-undead bonuses. For a real powerhouse of melee damage, there's no reason not to take the Crusader and put the Leper in Slot 2 as well.

At later levels, the Leper's accuracy goes steadily up, so you will no longer have to burn a round using the Revenge skill to ensure he'll actually hit what he swings at. Until he levels up though, you'll want to equip your Leper with trinkets that increase accuracy and speed if possible.

Chop is your base attack skill that's absolutely critical, but don't discount Hew either. It does less damage, but hits both front line enemies at the same time, offering the opportunity to take down two damaged monsters at once. Solemnity is another must-have skill, since it makes the Leper a self-sustaining class that doesn't need a Vestal or other healer to keep him alive.

For the fourth skill pick, Solemnity is incredibly useful as it lowers the Leper's stress and makes him take less damage. Purge is also a decent pick if you don't have a Plague Doctor in your party and want a way to clear out corpses quickly.

Man-At-Arms

Preferred position: Slot 2 or Slot 1

Role: Damage / Defense

With high health but middling speed, the Man-At-Arms is a decent front line fighter option, but is frequently outclassed by both the Leper and Crusader, who deal more base damage. When both of those classes are dead or being treated at the Sanitarium though, the Man-At-Arms is a good choice.

Crush is obviously the basic skill you have to equip for damaging front line enemies, and from there your choices are simply how you want to buff yourself or debuff the enemy. Rampart is a good utility skill to select, as it does less damage but messes with the enemy formation and can stun an opponent.

Retribution is a good choice if you have other classes who deal extra damage against marked targets, while the rest of the skills have less utility function than you'd think. Defender raises a character's Protection skill, which is helpful against enemies that deal loads of damage, but frankly it's a better idea to kill a dangerous foe outright than to waste turns protecting against it.

Bellow, Bolster, and Command can be helpful if you keep missing or get hit too often, but again it's usually more effective to kill an enemy than to buff yourself to make the combat go on longer.

Occultist

Preferred position: Slot 3

Role: Damage / Utility / Healing

Although sometimes unpredictable, the Occultist is one of the best all-around classes to be found in the game, due to the high level of versatility offered. With an Occultist you can ditch a Vestal, as he has the possibility of being a better healer, and in specific focused instances he does a very respectable amount of damage.

First and foremost – pick up Wyrd Reconstruction if your Occultist didn't start with that skill straight off the stage coach. It can heal up to 12 points of damage, but is offset because it occasionally causes bleed damage to your own party. In most cases this won't matter, since you are likely to still heal more than you injure, but it's always a good idea to equip bleed resistance trinkets on the rest of the party when employing an Occultist.

Next up, Abyssal Artillery is the best skill the Occultist has, since it hits both back row enemies at the same time for moderate damage. When employed in conjunction with other back row ranged attacks, it can make quick work of enemies hiding behind the bigger front row monsters.

If you put the Occultist in Slot 3, Sacrificial Stab is a must have for extra damage opportunities -- otherwise Vulnerability Hex or Weakening Curse make for decent (if not overwhelming) debuffs. Vulnerability Hex can also be useful if you utilize classes that deal extra damage to marked targets. Daemon's Pull in general is much more useful than the debuffs, however, as it removes corpses and lets you control the order of the enemy positioning.

Plague Doctor

Preferred position: Slot 3

Role: Utility / Damage

The Plague Doctor's health isn't amazing -- although not nearly as low as other support classes like the Jester -- but he has a high speed to offset that drawback.

If you put the good Doctor in the third slot, you should absolutely invest in the Incision skill. Not only does this allow sudden death blows against weakened enemies, but it's useful for adding the bleed effect on stronger foes or enemies with a high Protection stat.

Emboldening Vapors is fairly useless in most cases, unless you are specifically building a party around buffing one strong character. Blinding Gas on the other hand is one of the most useful stun abilities in the game, since it hits both back row enemies at the same time. Disorienting Blast is another excellent stun option, and has the added bonus of clearing out corpses, although it only hits one enemy at a time.

With those skills locked down, from there you need to decide if you'd rather have the ability to cause blight with Plague Grenade or Noxious Blast, or instead have Battlefield Medicine on hand. This latter option only heals a tiny amount of damage, but it gets rid of both bleed and blight without having to use any provisions, and that's a huge advantage if you ran out of money or didn't properly prepare for the quest at hand.

For camping skills, Leeches will save you a ton of money, since it gets rid of diseases without having to visit the Sanitarium. Although it uses a lot of time, Experimental Vapors is also a winner for high health restoration.

Vestal

Preferred position: Slot 4 or Slot 3

Role: Healing / Utility

When quoting from the scriptures doesn't work, a spiked mace always helps. With both middling health and speed, the Vestal is an all around excellent pick to sit in the back of the party, especially in the earlier segments of the game.

Mace Bash is an fantastic skill to invest in even if this character remains in the back, as it means the Vestal won't be helpless and ineffective if your lineup gets rearranged and she ends up at the front. Divine Grace is a must-have, as it is one of the strongest healing abilities. Judgment is another excellent choice, as it can attack any enemy and even heals the Vestal a small amount.

From there, your fourth skill choice depends on whether you want to focus on stunning (Dazzling Light) or debuffing (Illumination or Hand Of Light). Don't forget both Illumination and Dazzling Light increase the overall light level as well.

For camping skills, Sanctuary prevents ambushes and should be picked as soon as possible, while Pray is a clear winner if most or all of your party consists of Vestals, Crusaders, and Lepers. 

Let us know if you've found any other skill combinations that work well, and tell us your preferred party lineup!