Darkest Dungeon 2: Best team comps

A lot of the work in a Darkest Dungeon 2 run is accomplished earlier than the run has even formally begun. The celebration creation stage, the place you select which 4 heroes you’ll be taking with you, is extremely necessary, outweighing a lot of the particular person selections you’ll make out on the street or in battle. It’s necessary to select one of the best heroes for the job, in fact, but it surely’s equally necessary to rearrange them into a celebration that is sensible, and has the interior synergy mandatory to hold you thru to the Mountain. In order for you some solutions on squads that may just do that, then learn on for our information to one of the best crew comps in Darkest Dungeon 2.

The very best crew comps in Darkest Dungeon 2

The ol’ dependable

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That is the crew comp you’ll see most frequently in Darkest Dungeon 2, and for good cause: it supplies one of the best, most balanced set of talents doable, and may get you thru runs very persistently. The truth that it’s virtually completely composed of characters unlocked by default reveals that Pink Hook Studios does have a coronary heart, someplace in there.

We’ll begin with the Man-at-Arms. On this comp he does what he does finest: lead the celebration from the entrance and assist his teammates as they carry you to victory. Vanguard is our path of selection right here, offering a strong well being and injury increase whereas the Man-at-Arms is in your entrance rank. Defender is his main talent, letting you shield one in every of your different heroes from a few assaults. That is nice when somebody is low on well being, or after they’re gearing up for a giant assault and also you don’t need them getting disrupted by standing results. On high of this we use Bolster for Stress therapeutic with incidental Block achieve, Maintain the Line to recuperate from rank disruption strikes like Categorize, and Bellow to decelerate enemies and forestall them from touchdown devastating essential hits. We high issues off with Crush, a strong attacking transfer, particularly on the Vanguard path, and one that may present essential therapeutic in a pinch.

Subsequent up is the Highwayman, the celebration’s important injury seller. On the Sharpshot path, all of his ranged assaults get a large injury increase, and we’ve chosen to lean exhausting into that right here by together with all three of them: Pistol Shot, Grapeshot Blast, and Double Faucet. All three have their makes use of in numerous situations, however earlier than you employ any of them it’s best to open every fight with Take Goal, which ensures two essential hits as soon as upgraded. Take Goal adopted by Grapeshot Blast is a dependable opening sequence, dealing massive injury to the entrance ranks whereas sustaining a Power and Crit token on your subsequent flip as properly. Double Faucet is probably the most damaging of your assaults right here, particularly on foes under 50% well being, so when you may have the prospect to make use of it, accomplish that. Pistol Shot isn’t any slouch both, nevertheless, and may attain the again ranks, making it a terrific selection in opposition to utility enemies who disguise within the again and supply assist to their allies. Lastly, we end off with Freeway Theft, a talent that may take away, and as soon as upgraded, steal, constructive tokens from enemies. That is significantly helpful in Cultist battles and boss fights, and may prevent from a number of injury if timed accurately.

The Jester is up subsequent, and he fills a number of totally different niches on this celebration. He can apply Combo tokens with Razor’s Wit, Blind with Fade to Black, Bleed with Harvest, and deal massive injury himself with Finale. Harvest is a good opener in opposition to enemies with Block or Dodge, because it hits two ranks without delay and may eat by means of these pesky tokens as a way to clear the way in which for the Highwayman to deal full injury. Razor’s Wit can arrange a double-damage Finale from the Jester himself or a heal on the Man-at-Arms by way of Crush, and it could actually additionally get the Jester in place for the previous as properly, since by default he’s unable to make use of it. Lastly, now we have Encore. This grants an additional flip to a different celebration member, and it has an enormous array of doable makes use of on this comp. One strong line is to start out the Highwayman off with Take Goal, then have the Jester use Encore on him, permitting for a direct essential hit. It will possibly additionally permit for essential heals, of HP or Stress, by concentrating on the Plague Physician or Man-at-Arms, respectively.

Final however not least, now we have the Plague Physician, who serves as a healer and assist unit for the celebration on this comp. We embody each of her therapeutic expertise, Battlefield Drugs and Indiscriminate Science, as each are nice in numerous situations; the previous when coping with standing results, and the latter when coping with debuffs. Whereas Battlefield Drugs barely advantages from being mastered, Indiscriminate Science most definitely does, so get that performed as quickly as doable. We additionally use Emboldening Vapours, which lets us apply the Power standing to both the Highwayman or the Jester for an enormous hit subsequent flip. Lastly, we spherical issues off with two Blight-inflicting expertise: Noxious Blast and Plague Grenade. Each are splendid on giant targets, and may soften them up properly on your injury sellers to complete off later, however Plague Grenade particularly is extraordinarily helpful, as it could actually hit each of your back-rank foes without delay, eradicating Block and Dodge and inflicting Blight unexpectedly. Notably in Cultist battles, it is a beneficial talent to carry.

The combo meal

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Whereas our first construct emphasised steadiness and synergy, our second is extra of an all-in technique, going for probably the most injury doable within the fewest variety of turns. Hellion, Leper, and Jester are all able to massive injury, and all make nice use of Combo tokens, which the Runaway and Jester can arrange reliably every flip.

The Hellion is our frontline fighter on this comp. The Ravager path provides her 20% further well being and 25% further injury so long as she stays in that rank, two important bonuses that concurrently let her last more and be certain that your enemies received’t. Additionally they play properly together with her innate passive potential, which grants 25% further injury whereas she’s under 50% well being, and an extra 25% injury when she’s under 25% well being. On this comp, we’re funneling all of that juicy further injury into Hellion’s attacking strikes: Depraved Hack, Iron Swan, and Howling Finish. Hack is probably the most fundamental, and will probably be your go-to in most situations. It offers strong injury, and offers much more if the goal has a Combo token. Iron Swan is extra specialised, hitting the again rank completely, and is useful in battles with annoying assist models that like to hang around there. It additionally applies a Combo token when mastered, which performs very properly on this comp. Howling Finish is immensely highly effective, but it surely applies Winded and pushes Hellion again into rank 2: two issues you possibly can very a lot do with out. For that cause, it ought to primarily be used as an emergency kill button and never as a robust opener, tempting as that could be. Past injury, now we have a few assist strikes: Adrenaline Rush, which presents therapeutic and a way of eradicating the Winded tokens inflicted by Howling Finish, and Raucous Revelry, one other heal that may additionally present important party-wide Stress therapeutic.

The Leper is subsequent in our lineup of heavy hitters, and whereas he can’t do as a lot injury because the Hellion more often than not, he can take much more, which provides him a powerful defensive area of interest inside the celebration. His core attacking transfer is Chop, which offers massive injury to enemies in rank one or two, however typically leaves the Leper Blind afterwards. This may be a problem, however now we have a number of methods of working round it. Firstly, Combo tokens. Chop all the time hits, no matter Blind, if the goal enemy has a Combo token. Given how simply you may apply these on this comp, you’ll be counting on this facet of the talent loads. Secondly, you may take away Blind utilizing Reflection, a talent which additionally supplies incidental Stress therapeutic and removes the uncommon Combo tokens enemies place on the Leper. This talent will get loads higher when mastered, because it heals extra Stress and can be utilized with no cooldown, so throw a degree into it when you may. The Leper’s different attacking transfer right here is Bash. It doesn’t deal a lot injury, but it surely locks the goal in place, which might be useful, and it additionally applies a Combo token when mastered, tying in properly with our comp. We high this strong base off with Solemnity, which is an unimaginable therapeutic possibility for each well being and Stress, and Stand up to, which lets the Leper tank up and take hits for the remainder of the celebration for some time. That is significantly helpful when the Hellion is working low because of frontline publicity, or when she’s been pushed again because of Howling Finish.

The Jester performs a lot the identical as he did within the ol’ dependable comp above on this one: he applies Combo tokens with Razor’s Wit, doubles up on highly effective expertise with Encore, and infrequently lands a killer blow himself with Finale. The latter situation is more likely right here, nevertheless, given our quick access to Combo tokens, which means the Jester will get to share extra of the highlight this time round. He nonetheless does loads of supporting although, utilizing Fade to Black to close down highly effective enemy attackers, and Battle Ballad to use Power to both the Hellion or Leper: whoever’s subsequent within the flip order. Battle Ballad additionally pushes the goal ahead one rank, which makes it a good way of reorganizing the celebration post-Howling Finish.

Lastly, now we have the Runaway. She’s at her finest in a assist function, and that’s what she performs right here, establishing enemies to take enormous injury from the Leper and Hellion, and providing situational therapeutic in a pinch. Smokescreen is her finest talent, and among the best setup expertise within the sport, making use of a Combo token, Blind, and, as soon as mastered, Susceptible, to a single foe. This all however ensures that the following Depraved Hack, Chop, or Finale that hits the enemy in query will end it off, except it’s a boss such because the Dreaming Basic in fact, whereas additionally lowering the specter of the enemy by way of Blind. Hearthlight removes Stealth from all enemies, which is area of interest at finest, but it surely additionally removes Blind from your complete celebration when mastered, which is the explanation for its inclusion right here. This works significantly properly for the Leper, in fact, however Blind can also be pretty frequent all through the sport, so it’s good to have an accessible treatment on-hand once you want it. Cauterize is an admittedly-situational therapeutic talent, but it surely’s nice when it really works, and Bleed is frequent sufficient for it to be viable. Along with these assist strikes, we’re additionally working two Burn-inflicting expertise right here: Firefly and Firestarter. The Orphan path boosts the Burn inflicted by every, whereas additionally letting Firestarter grant you a Crit token on use. Each might be helpful in drawn-out boss battles, and in between cooldowns on different expertise, however typically Runaway ought to give attention to supporting your different three celebration members on this construct.

The sunshine and darkness

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A pleasant thematic construct in addition to a mechanically highly effective one, the sunshine and darkness comp sandwiches two of the sport’s most evil characters between two of its most virtuous. The Man-at-Arms and Vestal present two-sided assist to main injury sellers within the Occultist and Flagellant right here, forming a construct that may hit exhausting and get hit exhausting in equal measure.

Man-at-Arms does what he does finest on this comp: protects your different celebration members from hazard. He does this by way of Defender and Retribution primarily, the previous of which accurately guards one other member from a few assaults, and the latter of which attracts the following two enemy assaults to him earlier than meting out injury in return. Retribution will get a pleasant increase since we’re on the Vanguard path, but it surely’s the Taunt facet we’re most excited by, because it permits us to maintain the warmth off of the Flagellant and Occultist. Bolster and Maintain the Line allow you to take care of Stress and celebration lineup disruption with ease, whereas Crush supplies a strong attacking transfer to make use of in a pinch, additionally backed by a lift from the Vanguard path. Total, the Man-at-Arms helps you retain your celebration alive, which is completely important.

The Flagellant is among the extra advanced characters within the sport, and the function he performs right here is advanced as properly. He concurrently supplies strong injury, Blight, and assist in a single twisted package deal, making him really feel a bit like a ‘darkish world’ model of the Man-at-Arms. Punish is a strong attacking transfer that inflicts Blight as properly, making it your go-to on most turns. Acid Rain capabilities very equally to Plague Physician’s Plague Grenade, letting you disrupt the enemies within the again ranks, take away their Block and Dodge, and apply some Blight to melt them up. Lash’s Reward is a self-heal and a buff multi function, finest used after a pair rounds of Punish and Acid Rain, and finest utilized to the Occultist, since he could make finest use of the Power and Block tokens. Extra! MORE! Is much like Retribution, drawing hearth to the Flagellant whereas offering him a profit in return, on this case self-healing. This can be utilized when your different heroes are working low, or when the Flagellant himself is, and it’ll work nice in each situations. Lastly, now we have Sepsis: most likely the Flagellant’s strongest transfer, offering injury, self-healing, and Blight multi function. Once you fall low sufficient to make use of this, you virtually all the time ought to, since it could actually flip the tides of a battle in a single flip.

The Occultist is our main injury seller on this comp, relying primarily on his devastating Burning Stars talent to demolish your foes in a single hit. His immense energy comes with two important tradeoffs: his personal frailty and lack of well being, and his reliance on Unchecked Energy tokens, which put extra stress on his already-limited life by often making use of the Burn standing to him. Due to this, a number of this comp is devoted to defending the Occultist from hurt in order that he could make one of the best use of his excessive energy stage. The Burning Stars requires two Unchecked Energy tokens to make use of, so we’ve included Chaotic Providing right here as a simple technique of producing them. Mixed with the Warlock path, it’s doable to generate two Unchecked Energy tokens a flip with Providing, which can permit you to use The Burning Stars each flip, because it doesn’t have a conventional cooldown. For turns when the Stars don’t fairly align, now we have our different expertise. Weakening Curse is a perfect setup transfer, making use of Weak alongside a Combo token, whereas Abyssal Artillery and Daemon’s Pull are different ranged assaults that profit from the Warlock path whereas supplying you with further choices. Pull particularly is nice, as it could actually carry pesky utility enemies to the entrance, inside vary of the Man-at-Arms and Flagellant.

And to high off our morality sandwich, now we have the Vestal. She performs a assist function right here, utilizing the Seraph path to maximise the ability of her Consecration expertise, then utilizing mentioned expertise as a lot as doable to spur the opposite crew members on to victory. Consecration of Mild boosts injury, and will subsequently be utilized to the Occultist in the beginning of each battle, because the 5 turns it lasts needs to be sufficient to spice up two to a few makes use of of Burning Stars. Consecration of Fortitude can be utilized on both the Man-at-Arms or the Flagellant, whoever wants it extra on the time. It raises defenses, and is right for supporting the tanky playstyle we use on the frontlines. We additionally run Mantra, which is a strong therapeutic talent with a large utilization window, due to the prolonged lengths of our Consecrations. These three expertise will probably be what Vestal is utilizing more often than not, however her different two slots permit for some extras. Illumination removes each Stealth and Dodge, which might be useful to make sure you don’t miss with The Burning Stars, and Judgement is a strong ranged assault that may hit any rank, and deal first rate injury after you amass two Conviction tokens by utilizing your Consecrations. With the Vestal, it’s best to cycle between establishing Consecrations, eradicating Block and Dodge with Judgement and Illumination, and therapeutic with Mantra when mandatory.

The rogues’ gallery

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Our ultimate crew comp is one in every of our most advanced: a group of the darkest-hearted heroes within the sport, organized into a celebration that makes intensive use of motion expertise and off-kilter techniques to win the day. When you’re searching for a extra dynamic and attention-grabbing technique to play Darkest Dungeon 2, then that is the celebration for you.

We start with high-damage favourite the Highwayman, albeit on the Rogue path this time reasonably than his regular Sharpshot. As a Rogue, the Highwayman will get a big injury increase whereas in rank one, in addition to a free Riposte token after every use of Level Clean shot, a robust talent that may solely be used from rank one. Because of this, we begin him out in rank one, however he’ll be leaping forwards and backwards between one and two for many of every battle. This is because of Level Clean Shot, which sends him again a rank, and Duelist’s Advance, which brings him ahead one. Neither of those expertise have cooldowns, so you may swap ranks at will. Whereas up entrance, you’ll typically simply be utilizing Level Clean Shot and fading again once more, whereas in rank two you may have extra choices. You need to use Pistol Shot to achieve extra of your enemies, or arrange for elevated injury with Monitoring Shot and Take Goal. He’s efficient in each ranks, however his place additionally determines which expertise can be found to our subsequent hero in line, the Leper.

By selecting the Poet path, we relegate the Leper to extra of a assist function than a damage-dealing one on this construct. With much less injury however extra self-healing, he can afford to spend extra time taking hits for the celebration reasonably than dealing them out himself. We nonetheless carry Chop, in fact, because it’s fairly highly effective even with the injury discount, and it’s good to make use of on the off turns in between self-healing and assist strikes. Stand up to is significant, and will often be your opener, because it lets the Leper tank by means of a number of hits for the celebration. Solemnity and Reflection are your self-care expertise, nice for preserving well being excessive and Stress low in an intense battle the place the Leper is taking a lot of the warmth. Intimidate is an unimaginable assist transfer, appearing as one other supply of Taunt alongside Stand up to, whereas concurrently weakening any goal’s subsequent two assaults. It additionally, bizarrely, lacks any type of cooldown or use restrict, which means you may spam it with impunity when you’ve exhausted your provide of Stand up to to maintain the taunt prepare chugging alongside properly. It does require the Leper to be in rank one, nevertheless, so that you’ll must time it proper, and use it when the Highwayman has slipped again to rank two.

Subsequent up is the Grave Robber, the celebration’s resident Stealth professional. Whereas selecting the Nightsworn path reduces her well being by 20%, it supplies an enormous 50% injury increase whereas in Stealth, making the target of this construct clear: purchase Stealth, and assault from it as typically as doable. To realize this, now we have two expertise: Lifeless of Evening and Shadow Fade. The previous requires an enemy corpse to make use of, but it surely supplies therapeutic and corpse clearing alongside two Stealth tokens. The latter is extra accessible, however supplies no further advantages, exterior of sending the Grave Robber again two ranks. When you’re in Stealth, the standard line is to make use of Lunge, adopted by Pirouette on the following flip. Each of those are high-damage expertise with excessive Crit charges, which mix very properly with the 50% injury increase that Stealth affords the Grave Robber right here. They permit you to focus down the enemies within the entrance ranks, earlier than retreating to the again to attend out your cooldowns. Additionally they each transfer you round, Lunge ahead by two, Pirouette again by three, which means they’ll unlock some position-dependent expertise for our final celebration member, the Runaway. Whereas these are the Grave Robber’s core strikes, we additionally run Poison Dart for a dependable assault possibility that can be utilized with out altering rank, for turns when doing so would mess up bigger plans.

Lastly, the Runaway rounds issues off, adopting a Burn-focused moveset alongside the Arsonist path, for apparent causes. She retains Smokescreen and Hearthlight from her moveset in our combo meal comp, to assist the damage-dealing efforts of the Leper and Highwayman, however this time she leans tougher right into a Burn theme with Managed Burn. This is a wonderful talent that units a everlasting hearth in an enemy rank, inflicting Burns over time. She will solely use it from rank three onwards, which means you’ll must shift her place by way of the Grave Robber, however that is simply performed with both Shadow Fade or Pirouette. Past this she makes use of Firefly and Firestarter for full Burn protection, letting her carry down her vengeful flames on any enemy, wherever it’s. The Runaway ought to alternate between setting fires and establishing injury, utilizing Smokescreen at any time when doable, and softening up enemies with Burn on the off turns.

So there you may have it: one of the best crew comps in Darkest Dungeon 2. These 4 celebration setups every have a number of inner synergy, a coherent gameplan, and, most significantly, the capability to get you to the top of a run. Some are trickier to grasp than others, and a few will probably be extra attention-grabbing to play over a number of runs than others, however all 4 will serve you properly in your quest to achieve the Mountain.