I really hope the Musketeer is an actual class in the sequel. I always thought it was a cop-out that she's just an Arbalest skin. Plus it seems like she would thematically fit the ranger archetype pretty well.
Musketeer was a kickstarter cosmetic perk for the original backers. It wasn't until either Color of Madness or Butcher's Circus that it was made a hero of it's own (so to speak), can't remember which it's been a few years at this point.
@@OverworkedITGuy Huh? I know the backstory, but the Musketeer is still just an Arbalest skin with different animation sprites. It'd be nice if she had a whole different set of moves and a trinket pool that didn't dip into the Arbalest's
There are mods make her into an own class. Check out Arqante's "Musketeer Overhaul" or O'Nightmare's "Yet Another Musketeer Rework". Both give her a nice stress heal
I will refrain from commenting on the... **ahem** *selective* desires, but I will say this: Grave Digger and Musketeer = Hat Girls = Best Girls. No shame in liking Plague Doctor, though. (Just make sure you don't *like* like penguins as well)
I know this is unrelated, but I just came up with a theory for why we havent seen Vestal in the DD2 trailers, they're all dead because none of my vestals can stay alive for more than 10 minutes for some reason...
I fought swine king for the first time recently and took musketeer because it was the only hero that wasnt bad at the warrens and wasnt stressed. Turns out that Wilbur got really upset in that fight, he's marks didnt last one turn
There is a mod called "bandage cures bleed" that is for both classes. I can really recommend it. It makes sense and every mod that gives the game more healing variety is a win in my book. (Don't tell anybody, but I also use an occultist mod that makes his wyrd reconstryction heal at least 1 :p)
It’s crazy how much more viable that makes the occultist as a solo healer. I still wish it scaled to be at least 3 point of healing. It’s so frustrating feeling like I always need a vestal. Probably my least favorite thing about this game honestly.
Meanwhile me with my occultist as healer/dps/puller: yup lots of consistent crit on those reconstruction and all my heroes have high bleed resistant, all is swell :)
@@nightray7854 you're banking on something that is not guaranteed, in a game like Darkest Dungeon that WILL bite you in the ass at some point. He's the best proactive healer, but he has the potential to be mediocre to useless to detrimental when something goes wrong.
I still prefer to Musketeer. Like imagine you just concentrate so goddamn hard you see God, as if some higher power wanted to tell you to chill tf out.
I always take an Arbalest to the Prophet, the Brigand Pounder, the Swine Prince. she makes quick work when you set her up right and she can heal decently in a pinch if you giver her the Childhood Memory CC trinket and/or Medic's Greaves.
I'm kind of surprised to hear that a lot of folks don't like the arbalest. She's one of my favorite heroes. Her low speed helps save people on death's door before turns roll back over, consistent (if not great) damage to the back line, can turn into a real damage dealer with an array of trinkets. Hounds of War is my default, dungeon diving, ready for anything party and with her, they do a great job burning down back rank bosses before fights can get out of hand. 🤷♂️
Gotten back into DD recently because one of my close friends is experiencing it for the first time, glad you’re still making quality content. Your vids are almost as good as watching him go “this game is easy” before party wiping on heart attacks on the Necromancer.
The game has a funny difficulty curve, it gets more difficult as the stakes increase. This is true for the expeditions themselves but also in the campaign: the dungeons get harder and you are more likely to lose heroes exactly when you invest the most into them. I have taken to saying out loud the overconfidence litany everytime that ancestor tells me to remind myself, just to please the RNG gods.
The vestals illumination is one that I do like actually in one specific scenario, which is when you're going into the level five dungeon but you're guild is only at like....lvl3 skills. having the extra dodge debuf on vestal helps so much in actually getting hitchance above 40
Good luck actually getting the debuff with lvl3 illumination, which has to hit evasive enemies and then get trought their debuff resistance. Going to any champoin maybe other than short mission or "collect/break stuff" mission (because you can get lucky and just finish the mission in 2 hallways) with low lvl skills is basically a russian roulette. Except you have 5 out of 6 rounds loaded.
For *Marked for Death* I would spec out the Occultist with a Feather Crystal and and other quirks/trinkets that give him Speed and/ACC, - Ancestors Pistol/Prophet Eye, Quickdraw/Luminous etc. I would shoot for a turn order like - Occ/HM/BH/Arb That way the Occultist regularly goes first in your team to mark for Houndmaster, but he csn also- outspeed prime targets like Stress dealers and the Swine Skiver. Then the Bounty Hunter marks for Arbalest if he doesn't have to clean up after the Houndmaster. Which is a regular occurrence in the Warrens or with other buffs to attack and crit.
One funny thing I found out about arbelist is that her crit rate is so high, and she is so good at killing stress invokers that she is actually very resistant to stress and can lower it on herself quite effectively while preventing a lot of it from coming in. In that regard she feels like a mini leper. Actually now that I think about it she is basically a leper light. She can heal, not as well but can use it onallies, she can stress heal with crits, she deals very high DMG if set up, and does to the backline what leper does to the frontline. They even have the same weakness of out of position difficulty
ngl musketeer best girl for the musketeer trinkets you can just not download the mod for her or just get some mod that disables either character and trinkets, but im fine with getting loot for both as i run them both good videos as always
I really wish you could just choose to have arbelest or musketeer. It really sucks having to have an entire extra set of equipment for a character you might not even be using. I know you can just turn musketeer off, but I like musketeer's aesthetic better.
Really enjoying these guides! Very helpful. Also, I appreciate your avoiding spoilers. A lot of people would assume with the number of hours you have and how long the game has been out that the optimal guides discuss what character vs. particular boss, but I really appreciate that you don’t! Thanks again for great guides. 🙂🥦🦖
For the mark team: I run Occ rank 2 with ancestor's pistol + demon's cauldron. That way he's always going first with the + speed and always landing his stuns and debuffs. Being the first to hit the - dodge on his mark is key when bursting down really dodgy characters like the weald virago or pig skiver. Houndmaster goes rank 3 to focus more on dps and open up the option to stress heal end of match
I dont watch these videos i know almost everything about dd but i just like to come over listen to your voice and like the video, and i do appreciate the work you put in these thats what i call quality youtube video
So... What im understanding here. Dont take arbalist unless you have a bounty hunter or houndmaster to mark targets. Alway have in slot 4 Sniper shot, flare and heal are core. And do whatever it takes to keep her on the back line. If only there was a hero that had a move ability like crusader/helion that could also mark.
Tome, blindfire is a bit like breakthrough for the hellion: Great on paper, but in practice the skill slot is worth way more and you want to just put them in their prime positions manually where they can shine. Like, if a shambler shuffles my party, I don't want to blindfire with my musketeer, I want her to be in rank 3 or 4 to be able to get that damage going. In the "marked for death" team I therefore give her the mark as her 4th ability. That way I can give all my guys bonus speed and it's ok when she goes early. Both houndmaster and bounty hunter profit a lot from marks, so I never fully understand why people are so bummed out about arbalest going first/second.
Also Musketeer has realy weird looking head. When other characters show more of their faces during combat, Musketeer is a straight profile. Compared to other characters its like she is looking on some random bullshit beyond. To be fair if their was some mechanics to put Musketeer and Arbalest in the same squad, like a rivalry betwen two markswomen, that could be kinda cool.
Hello, I just got DD when it came on summer sale, and I have found your videos so helpful! Thank you for all the time you spent making these videos. I know that i am super late to the party, but thank you just the sme. It has helped me make sense of the unforgiving style. This game is so much fun! I am thinking about getting the second one, but I heard it is so fundamentally different and also my crappy laptoip might not be able to run it. xD Cheers!
really hoping for a houndmaster guide, cause i have a hard time getting value out of him besides using him against warren bosses for his mark and anti beast damage
Might try to meme it up with double Antiquarian and a Man at Arms. For that heal to give good value it has to keep stacking on one character and I can't think of another way to set it up so it does.
I'm watching this again as background noise and it got me thinking about Arb. I think I already said I would give her mark all the stats HMs mark has, (but keep the positional weakness), but I would give her better debuffs. Bola : Instead if the awkward front row shuffle, it should debuff Move Resist and Stun chance by a small amount. Like starting at 10% and capping at 15% and keep all its other properties. Supressing Fire: Call it Smoke Screen or Caustic Shot and add a Bleed/Blight debuff, perhaps in exchange for a nerf to the ACC debuff? Now you have syngery on par with the likes of Crusader without stepping on anyone's toes. Like she now has something other to do than heal and shoot in the Marked for Death crew, including another Arb if you can stack the debuff. You also get fun synergies with 2 cleave moves like PD, Flag, and Hellion that wouldn't break the game. I also would give PBS a stun chance, possibly at higher ranks, like how. Think of the possibilities! Arb/Arb/Hi/Hi PD/Arb/Flag/Hell
How would you even run Marked for Death with caltrops? Who goes in rank 1, the occultist? And then you can guard him, and have access to stuns on 3 of your characters between flashbang/blackjack/abyss.
Just wanted to note that the speed difference between arbalest and the rest of the heroes on your marked for death is not bigger than 3. From my experience, that’s kind of a problem, since there’s a good chance that arbalest will go first in the first place. If she doesn’t, it’s likely that occ goes first, which leaves you the second worst mark if you wanna set with him. But let’s say you heal with occ, then the speed difference between arb, hm, and bh is not bigger than 2, which makes it so that the chance for arb to go first it’s almost a 1 in 3. See where I’m getting at? What I’m trying to say is that maybe you want a speed difference between arb and hm or bh of I’d say at least 5. Personally, that is my biggest problem with mark teams, it just takes a lot to have a good speed synergy between the setter and the dmg deliverer. I guess a combination of quirks, camp skills, and trinkets can give you that, but at that point I would just bring jestal (jester + vestal) plus 2 strong dps ( strongest combination in the game imo). Just my 2 cents on that.
Arb is pretty close to the others in speed, but she has to still beat 2 or 3 other people in speed which isn't as common. You're right though that they are a pain to set up to be consistent, which is why I usually just run something like the hybrid team. 1 mark, 1 sniper, the rest is control.
To be perfectly honest, not taking Sniper's Mark on the Arbalest unless you're fighting a boss is a huge mistake Imho. In the context of the marked for death team archetype that is. Sure, it's the worst mark in the game and not being able to mark slot 1 is painful. However the marked for death archetype's biggest strength ironically enough is actually its flexibility. Especially the version you presented or any other version using the Occultist. The ideal scenario is to go max speed on your Occultist to maximize his chances of going first and than using his own mark, than following it up with the HM/BH or whoever else you have in this team. In most situations 1 or 2 attacks from these characters will be enough to kill the marked target, especially if they happen to crit, at which point your Arbalest doesn't have another marked target to hit which means she either uses her Sniper Shot without a mark which just feels bad or marks the next target herself for the HM/BH to follow up on the following turn. While this clearly isn't the ideal scenario, the Arbalest's piss poor speed kind of forces it on occasion. Especially if you want to play it safe and not let enemies live longer than they need to, allowing them to take a turn before the Arbalest gets to move and finish them off. When the Occultist doesn't go first(which happens often enough even when he's built for speed) than the HM/BH uses their own superior mark than the Arbalest will be sniping the marked target unless another the other of the 2 miraculously 1 shots the target himself. I find that this flexibility is actually a must have to make the marked for death teams viable in non boss fights, as otherwise you're wasting way too many turns not doing much and/or letting enemies take unnecessary turns and suffering the consequences. Also in terms of the second rank Occultist>>>HM.
On your marked for death team. I’m not sure why you didn’t have occultist in rank 1 and BH in rank 2/3 with HM in rank 2/3. I would also disagree with you about HM having the best mark. I think BH getting a significant boost in speed to increase his chances of going 1st next round is more important than 10 protection.
I prefer marked for death to have occultist up front, but this is the in game named team that new players might stumble across so I wanted to help them learn that specifically. It's definitely better mixed up for sure
Another reason the Arbelest's mark sucks: The -dodge debuff is the only -dodge debuff in the game to last 2 rounds. Every other hero skill that applies -dodge lasts 3 rounds, or 4 in the case of the Vestal's "Illumination" skill.
Bola is kinda underrepresented here. Its a move skill over being a cleave. There are many common mobs that go from a pos2 threat to a pos3 joke. Cultist becomes stumbling scratcher, Fungals become harmless swipers, and when the pos3 moves forward into its place, if you can crit kill or DoT kill the pos1 for no corpse, you suddenly have a Bone Courtier or Bone Arbalest or Palagic Shaman in the front which are useless. This isn't as useful a tactic in the warrens or cove, those enemies fight on in all ranks.
Hey Shuffle, just curious. Have you 100% Darkest Dungeon? And if so, do you have any tips on how to do so with relative ease? A lot of the achievements on steam are quite grindy...
in all your team building examples, your arbalest has a +4 accuracy in their stats. where is that coming from? because it's not coming from the trinkets and i don't see any flat +4 accuracy quirks either. . .
@@ShuffleFM oh okay. I just have the base game, none of the DLC yet, so i'm not familiar with all the stuff in the dlc like flagellant and shieldbearer and districts and crystalline trinkets
I've used "not another musketeer rework" or whatever it's called and I like it. It's been a minute since I did a mod run so I can't remember the specifics
Arbalest to me is the clear worst hero award winner: - She's slow, but wants to go fast with heals, flares, occasional marks, and to outpace backliners. - Her damage is very situational and only high direct damage. She is very niche, she can't be dropped into a lot of team comps like other (better) heroes. She needs to be built around, if anything. - Can only hit the backlines, impossible to hit position 1. - Flare is garbage 99% of the time. All 4 tier destealth is overkill. The stress heal is randomly tacked on, instead it should debuff enemy accuracy (or dodge). - Bola is never used. She's too busy to use it and it's underwhelming. Why doesn't it reduced dodge and/or stun? Thematically you're immobilizing someone with tangling wires. - High HP but low dodge begs to pair her with a healer but she's best used with markers and stunners to set up her damage. Her mark debuff is just dodge, which isn't needed because of her high accuracy. Maybe giving it an accuracy penalty would make it unique. - Bandage should heal bleed and/or blight. Rename it to something like "first aid". This way she can be paired with Occulist, especially since he has a good mark as well. She's just all around terrible. Personally if I want someone to hit tier 3-4 I get Plague Doctor. She does Arbalest's job better. Only downside to PD is she's blight heavy, but there's workarounds like Abomimation and Grave Robber pairings. Arbalest suffers too much from marks being underpowered and being randomly all over the place in design.
I used to think this too, and she probably still is the worst in terms of design, but I think she has enough going for her to be useful. Marching plan is incredible and she can function as a solo healer with medics greaves. Those alone are worth a slot imo
@@ShuffleFM I'm going to try her out again today. My problem is that she's very finicky to team build with. I'm going to take her into the Prophet fight with PD, Crusader, and Hellion. Arbalest is going to be healing majority of the time after hitting the backline with Hellion during the dungeon. PD is there to stun and blight everything to stall bandages/banners. Crusader is my default slot filler because of his flexability with stun and stress heals. I don't mess too much with markers besides Houndmaster so that's probably a chunk of why I think she's underpowered.
