[DEFINITIVE] BINDING BLADE TIER LIST - HOW GOOD ARE DLC HEROES? | Darkest Dungeon 2 

Vestal: Gets D tier. (*Shuffle realising how bad she really is*) Runaway: THAT TASTES LIKE PROMOTION

MAA got nerfed with -1 base damage so is obviously F tier and useless. (Pay to win DLC shm my head)

Bonnie's heal needs to lose the bleed requirement: Heal small on normal targets, heal more when purging a bleed effect. Bam! Viable solo-healer and keeps the cauterizing wounds theme 😉

If they ever update Lepers paths I’d love to see if the paths had like different negative tokens. Like poet would be much more consistent as a support/tank if he got weaken tokens instead of blinds.

Leper and Vestal gotta have the biggest glow-downs in power from the first game.

Oh boy I can't wait to see how my favorite hero Hellion ranks! This guy seems to have a good head on his shoulders and will rate her S tier like she deserves! :(

The new paths being side grades are nice and all but it's so tedious to actually figure out what they change without having to manually evaluate all listed skills. Makes it harder to figure things out for newer players.

What if "IF it bleeds" pulled hellion forward and "Bleed Out" pushed her back, making a dance character out of her? On top of that adding to berserker a quirk - attaking bleeding units dont generate winded tokens

Even after speed token removal from HWM, take aim is still busted. Ability to generate 2 crit tokens instantly, that can turn tide of battle at anytime without any drawbacks, is insanely good. But I do agree with this tier list, mainly the crusader is powerhouse right now.

Crusader and Flagellant duo goes absolutely crazy, pick alchemist Plague Doctor and Sharpshot Highwayman as the backliners and i think its impossible to lose. But i still have more fun running Vestal rank 1, just to be mad about it later.

I really like what they did with Vestal in DD2. Consecrations are fun to play around with and I like the concept of moves scaling with conviction tokens. Her numbers just suck for no reason. The best comparison to her is Occultist. He can stack up his unique tokens way faster. Warlock can already get 2 tokens on round 2 and straight up deal 20 damage with Burning Stars. Vestal has longer set up since she has to wait 3 turns to charge her conviction but the results are still underwhelming.

In my honest opinion Jester is in the exact spot where most of the heroes should be. All of his skills are useful, all his paths (except wanderer) are good and viable and he fits in multiple roles well (not something every character needs to do but its a bonus none the less). Also in my opinion the finale damage is very satisfying as is and should stay the same if only for the satisfaction of just seeing cherubs evaporate. If it were to be nerfed it would no longer feel as good as it does which would be a great shame imo. But I must admit that encore is really good and possibly the best move in the game due to action economy, but it is, just like Jester, only as strong as your team. That means it encourages good teambuilding in a sense and really encourages creativity (unless youre just hitting double plague grenade). So in my opinion Jester should stay as he is. The only thing I would change if anything id rework virutoso and give the man 8 speed basekit to push him over the sprawl trinket usage threshold. Sincerely the #1 Jester fan.

gr got passively buffed in my opinion: her dagger throw bypasses guard and we just got a bunch of new enemies which are capable of guarding. its a small thing but i like seeing her excel at something others dont do

Vestal needs love and Runaway needs love. Crusader made that immediately apparant with his fire synergy and his "haha I'm a tank, oh have a stress heal and have a heal" I'd like Chaplain to be turned into a burn path so a more true burn team could exist. Something like Conviction has a chance to inflict burn when hit. Divine Grace does not feel good to use, flip her token mastery situation on it. Conviction lowers the health percentage requirement and the mastery buffs the actual heal amount. Poor Vestal.

We dont need more nerfs we already handling a lot of negatives on the road and negative quirks they get. No nerf hammer just buff low rated low used units or reworked paths

Absolutely agree on Runaway and Vestal. Bonnie is used for DoT and debuff, but can't be trusted as a solo-healer. Vestal's consecrations are such a cool idea, but 2 rounds of setup and lackluster damage are just not worth it. That's a bit of a gripe with the Aggressor-Crusader too. Got a buff for respierce, a buff for bonusdamage vs. burning, and a buff to heal vs. burning. You could use those for such great synergies - or just smite something 3 times and actually kill stuff.

I think this looks totally accurate, although I will say that I've been running Poet lately and have been really blown away by how well he's been performing. Withstand + Intimidate let him taunt every turn while taking very little damage, Solemnity makes him basically immortal and makes him very good at managing his stress, Bash and his move resist means he can just outright ignore a lot of mechanics, AND his Seashell trinket (gives him -10% damage received per negative token) makes him *actually* immortal. I think that his character could use some work overall, but Poet has quickly become my favorite tank after a Stygian grandslam run with him. For context, the comp was: PD (Alchemist) | Jester (Virtuoso) | Duelist (Antagoniste) | Leper (Poet)

Great tier list! I think it's all spot on, and even though I love Leper, I agree with your placement. I personally think he's very solid and underrated (the whole Withstand into Intimidate spam tends to be really good as its basically ignoring chop and focusing on tanking), but at the same time, he's definitely not going to be as strong as others like MAA or Crusader (Although Leper's a better tank than Crusader, he is still more selfish than Crusader's teamwide support). I genuinely don't think Leper needs much changes, at most maybe changes to paths, but everything else is generally okay, every skill has its niche (Break is a bad skill, but on Poet I found myself using it much more than chop in tangle, purge is also niche but is invaluable against librarian, bash is perfect against harvest child, etc.) I personally see Leper as an inconsistent damage dealer, but a consistent tank. I still use chop on Tempest, since effectively there are opportunities when Leper gets to chop something for big damage, otherwise he focuses on tanking for the team. (Makes life easier as you don't have to bother generating combo for him) Source: Leper fan in both DD1 and DD2, where Leper literally carried both my bloodmoon run and my grand slam. I definitely noticed how squishy Crusader feels by comparison to MAA and Leper, Bulwark of Faith is really well balanced (It's not spammable, and once his block is used, Crusader doesn't have a lot of health to rely upon), but I'm loving Banneret Crusader + Ravager Hellion frontline, where both of them can taunt for the team. Jester frankly could lose encore and he'd still be very good (certainly not the current S tier monster he is), but I do admit that Encore as an ability is really too good. Fade to Black is an absurdly overloaded skill as well, and of course finale is, as you already mentioned, amazing for how easy it is to set up (unlike DD1 where you have to charge it up for like 5 episodes like Goku). Jester still does so much, and he does it while knocking off defensive tokens. On another note, I really think it wouldn't be gamebreaking for Vestal to have her stun back. Enemies generally have chunky stun resist, and I think Vestal deserves to have more utility than just being a buff bot, especially since they basically gutted her healing (and gave Antagoniste a stun on a stick, or gun in this case). It was boring having her spam divine comfort while stalling, but I think they overdid the changes to divine grace and comfort, both skills are currently rubbish for healing, mantra's more of an "oh shit" button than a heal, and PD heals for far more, consistently and cures, which is pretty ridiculous. Overall, glad to finally hear your thoughts on the new characters as well as all the changes!

Excellent video, Shuff. Something I've noticed the moment you placed Leper into C tier is just how broad our frontline options have gotten compared to the backline. Sure, you can run Leper, and I still do. But we should recognize that takes a spot that then doesn't go to MAA/Duelist/Crus/Flag, and those are... Generally easier and more functional in play, as long as you don't need Leper's self-sustain. This is in stark contrast to our mid- and backranks, where I find myself moving midrank (GR, HWM, Occ, Duelist) heroes mostly into rank 3 to slot in that extra frontliner, and rank 4 still has... Four heroes, two of which being Vestal and Runaway? And this is before considering that Leper loathes movement (he "loses" fights to combat start shuffles, doesn't synergize well with Duelist (and some others)) and is highly reliant on combo, which... Isn't something that is used a lot in the new heroes' kits, be it setting or consuming combo. He's definitely struggling, and I'm sad to see him where he is.

The only way I've been able to make Berserker work is with Deadly being locked in forcing her bleed skills to have like 40% crit when upgraded. She *REALLY* needs to be able to use "Bleedout" when in rank 2 for Berserker specifically to start shining.

Can't wait till 5 years later, someone reminds how bad your takes on the Heroes were, after the game balance and meta have already changed. Reddit will never let you forget "BH is worse HWM".

I just had a run where used Crusader as a self-healing damage sponge using the Aggressor path. With PD throwing out Magnesium Rain to enable his 20% heal on melee hit, plus reap's cleave (two hits per turn = 40% heal every turn), plus, Bulwark's regen, my boy was UNKILLABLE. I love Crus, there are so many ways to play him and it's beautiful.

I wish all characters were like Flagellant. All of their paths are useful, most of their abilities are useful, and they are just a fun character with a good gimmick.

Duelist is... incredibly fun. Wanderer dance from rank 3 to 2 with hand of light vestal, instructrice buffing highwayman, antagoniste sticking vulnerable tokens on command, flèche spamming with the General's dream. Also really glad that backline crusader is a thing again, it definitely doesn't feel as good as frontline crusader but I wouldn't have it any other way. What hasn't been fun however has been my absolutely rotten luck on my new file, granted I should have grinded speed inn items but I've been losing heroes on repeat against hastened ordained ennemies forcing death door checks before I even get to play.

Good tierlist. Well done and good reasoning

As a fix/buff for the Vestal, what if she no longer consumed her tokens? So she would ramp up over time as she got her tokens, and have stronger abilities the longer a battle goes on.

I've been waiting for this

My favorite team remains the usual suspects, and I admit that Junia in that party does some work, helping Dismas and Reynauld deal more damage and tank more efficiently with her Seraph path, but I admit her damage is basically not even worth spending a turn on and her heal overall is just bad. It's still sad

I’d be curious to see how you setup skills for certain paths. How do you build tank robber? What are crusader setups and order of skills to use: upgrade. Your stuffs amazing thank you for all your content

there was also a rework to healing items, now they heal flat values instead of percentages (mineral water heals 5, salve heals 12 and tonic heals 17) also, you want the person getting the extra turn from encore take 3 stress? that's literally just instructrise duelist's upgraded "Again!" (defense stance)

I wish front line vestal would get some love.

crazy idea to buff Runaway's Survivor path: -remove use limit on cauterize (nutty intermezzo synergy) -either A) reduce cooldown on controlled burn by 1 or B) increase damage on melee skills or C) melee skills have a chance to apply weaken/vuln

Haven't watched the video yet, but I'm gonna call it : Runaway is S+ tier

When I play with Leper, I always feeI like he needs a specific set of trinkets to make it work well, like he had some kind of blind synergy missing from his kit you needed to fix with *trinkets and baubles paid for in blood*

Love your content Shuffle, it helped me a LOT with DD1. Was wondering if now is a good time to get into DD2? I was kind of waiting for the games dlc to be released and or a sale

Honestly I think the duelist is amazing and might be OP, all her skills and her paths are really god and she can be plugged in any team with any of her paths. I love her as much as my boy Reynauld.

Nothing to add to your tierlist I think you are pretty on point and more knowledgable than me anyway. But one thing you said that struck me is how Jester is good because all of his abilities are good making him a versatile and fun hero to play. That's exactly what this game needs to go from a good game to a very good game. We have asked for Hellion and runaway skills rework for so long, I hope RH wake up on this sooner than later.

sneaky shuffle putting audrey in S for the thumbnail 😂

Good stuff :)

I love Leper, still entirely feel like he's a good character as I did use him for my Grand Slam run, but I agree with his ranking here. Unfortunately, he feels way too stagnant right now because unless you really want to play off meta, it seems like every kit is always carrying Chop, Reflection, and Solemnity and then you get two whole choices on other moves you want, which usually end up being Intimidate or Withstand.

I feel like Runaway isn't given enough credit. Between PD levels of dot damage (dragonfly is just frontline grenade w/ combo application, firefly is backline noxious -1. Controlled Burn is also great vs multi-action bosses) positional flexibility, a very loaded utility button in Smokescreen, a strong heal that - while conditional, no region in the game is short of bleed, and underappreciated self-preservation(that albeit demands a mastery point), that while I agree a couple of her moves absolutely need some love (Hearthlight / Backdraft) I feel like her weaknesses are a bit overstated and doesn't feel like she's in a rough overall state at all imo

Mister shuff 17,000 of us DO have joint custody of Reynauld :)

Honestly duelist isnt rocket science u can just run antagoniste in defensive stance 24/7. Disengage turn 1 until u upgrade touche. Then every other turn between meditations u have touche to apply weaken, disengage to reposition (i really like dragonfly spam) or upgrade for double blind, the boot to disrupt enemy positioning or upgrade to stun, and flick to delete those pesky rabid dogs. All u *need* to upgrade is meditation to become an effective dodge tank. Not to mention the defensive passive lowers debuff resist which helps ur entire team instead of just duelist. Blistering bugle absolutely slaps on this path tho because u dont have to worry about switching to defensive stance before using meditation to get taunt. Now u can choose to ignore block, apply vulnerable, apply combo, and riposte. I think i was right in thinking the high risk/high reward playstyle of intrepide doesnt have good enough reward to ever be worth using tho. I got her to +120% damage dealt, +5% crit after stalling for 10 rounds. I hit a crit flick for 30 damage, which isnt even enough to oneshot the shackles of despair......

I just want Bounty Hunter at the crossroads. I miss my boy.

Mr. Shuffle, Vestal's Seraph path is really quite good. Toss down a consecration or two, dance around them with the three other characters, fully charging her bad girl tokens every turn. I was nuking monsters with fully juiced judgement and even mace bash consecutively. I grand slammed this way and was blown away with how powerful and fun her kit really is. This all gets really out of hand with pocketwatch or jealous whisper. Otherwise, I agree. Her other skills and paths need a lil buff.

i just woke up thanks for a vid SHUFF!

Coming from a player that has done a moderate amount of play (120 hours), HWM feels like a light S simply because of his target flexibility mixed with kit. I play safer than perhaps I need to, but for many situations, the safety of having 3 people able to hit any particular rank compared to 2 people is a big selling point. HWM slots in easily as that guy who might not have the most diverse kit, but does something that is always impactful (non-type damage and just hitting) extremely well. He also is easy to make decisions for and use, while someone like Flagellant (or MaA to a much lesser extent) requires game knowledge and/or forethought. Press button, hit anywhere, thing go boom or shrivel up. Any chance you could (or did) discuss your personal picks for standout Positive Quirks like The Jinx?

That thumbnail shuff.

I can't be the only one that thinks Ravager and Berserker's names are mixed up, right? Like... "Berserker" sounds like the one that wants to just run at you and hit you in the face, up close and personal, with a lot of raw HP to soak hits and moreso deliberately take the damage needed to get her rage +DMG boost. Conversely, "Ravager" sounds visceral, raw, contemptuous almost. You'd think that'd be the one ravaging her enemies more methodically with precision brutal hits that cause them to bleed out and die.

Runaway got some buffs in the beta branch today.

I'd say Duelist earns her A-Rank. Omni strike on touche, fletche hits hard and at least since my comps usually run MAA or Crusader im usually able to setup strong meditation/preparation turns pretty reliably. Idk, maybe she's too slow in later acts but I'm seeing consistent success in acts 1-3.

Honestly feel Duelist if a safe A if not with possibility to love up or down (maybe up cause I think her skill ceiling is high that usually means she has room for optimization and skilled play to make her even better)

I think for the vestal healing if they change it in the next update that it should replenish flat number heals for example instead of percentages which will be a nerf to tanks but a buff for low health heroes, divine Grace should heal 15 hp and with 2 conviction tokens heal additional 5 hp and full conviction heals another 5 hp so in total a hero is receiving 25 health and should have a cooldown of 1 turn on mastery with this new healing added to her kit makes her a reliable healer similiar to occultist

Duelist is the best Dps/Debuffer in the game, its honestly shocking what you can do with her and makes Leper look like a joke, her low HP is her only drawback.

Nightsword GR with duelist is S Tier Fun

I think Crusader is S tier. He does it all. Tank, heal, stress heal, damage (direct AND DoT), dance. He's just very generically good, and that kind of flexibility means there's almost never a situation where he's bad. He's not MAA, but he's close. I'd say Leper is B tier. He can be good, but he comes at a steep teambuilding cost, and what you get for it is about A tier strong opposed to the S-tiers that are OP out of the box. But his tanking ability and general unkillability is pretty universally useful. Runaway has to be better than C tier. Maybe high B or even low A. She does too much. Her DoT is huge, smokebomb is loaded, and cauterize, if incidental, is a pretty thick heal.

Would have put vestel a bit higher. I use her mainly to buff and it works really well

Baby Tick the only team I need

2/ my top 3 favorites in S tier with Reynauld (the third) in A lfg

I have a question regarding Occultist’s Ritualist path. I’ve heard over and over how good it is for the curses, but I’ve also heard over and over again how this game is driven by DPS and “set up” paths aren’t really that hot (such as Hellion). What makes Ritualist worth using with that in mind?

i know you give explemple of team and build , but, can you make a compilation of them ? now that we can save our compo ? please QwQ

what does the orange/dark yellow text mean for hero abilities? I noticed some only get that when you put a mastery point in them, but i dont know what it affects

I agree on vestal. I tried to get usual suspects achievement. And she contributed little to the team. At best she removed dodge and gave crits. Other than that she mostly took damage for the team with guard.

and the furtive bounty hounter, so easily forgotten

I think the most annoying character gimmick has to be Leper. The Blind occurs way too often IMO. Leper shouldn't start the battle with Blind, and also make it 50% and 25% chance to blind after attacking. Or maybe give him a skill that gives him blind immunity for 2 - 3 round or something.

S tier is the unannounced upcoming juicy expansion that fundamentally changes how you play the game.

Not me trying to make Vestal good the last two weeks and then finding this video :(

POG!

I don’t understand why highwayman doesn’t have a designated melee class. Rogue needs to give him damage in position 2, and maybe some bleed chance instead of the de buff which is chancy. I’m thinking+15% damage in rank 2, and then +30% in rank 1.

They should add a flame that disables all positive tokens and nerfs any and all things that are good in the game, caps hero damage to like 10, caps the stagecoach to one wheel and one armor, disables pets, limits trinket slots to 1 and call it the torturers flame. With an achievement the true masochists.

Man, I wish Leper was higher, he's the one thing that's saved a lot of my runs and it hurts to see him so low QWQ

Jester Encore + Seraph double consecration + dance team is pretty good. Vestal D tier without jester agreed

When it comes to duelist, I say give her some more time, you guys haven’t played with her long enough to understand her to make a call on whether she’s good or not. So for that reason, if there was a “Unsure” tier, I’d put her in there.

Finally sharpshot got the rank he deserves!...huh? who the fuck is highwayman? pretty bad misspelling there brother.

I think the duelist is a C : Yes she can do amazing stuff BUT she has too many conditions. As a dancing character, she has to be in the right spot AND she needs to be on the right style to do what she has to do for the team.

I love Bonnie. But I can't disagree, she needs some love.

And of course 5 hours after this Redhook put out a patch buffing Runaway lmao.

ngl, not using vestal actually saved me........ plague doctor is so much better, and I can fit better stress healers on my team too! Too bad I lost two of my heroes on the mountain boss cause I forgot to switch skills XD

Struggling so hard to get Usual Suspects to succeed at an expedition.

I think legitimately if breakthrough had bleed on berzerker then there would be less problems with the bleed skill synergy. Currently all her dancing options for going up don’t do any damage or bleed and you just always want to take toe to toe mastered for the utility over anything else. It’s legitimately disappointing to see how rigid building hellion has gotten because of how her paths work and I just wish they would have more of her skills change based on paths. Why doesn’t carcass add some utility to her, like maybe make raucous revelry better or something. Rn she just feels like ravager only, why even pick another path unless you’re going for a gimmick team built around her. Like I’ve won with berzerker multiple times but it’s always with jester or duelist doing all the heavy lifting for her movement and lost damage without ravager.

I just unlocked Leper and he stood by himself against that fucking grabby goobler of the deep. Self healing and massive damage from time to time solo almost won the boss fight. Has he been buffed since this video?.

I disagree on Vestal « Divine comfort ». It is an easy snowball perk. It’s allready one of the only consistant healing for squichy heroes (and there are a lot of them). Plus it is really easy to find her item that basicly 2x the healing on this spell making it heal for 15 hps on / 3 turns for the 4 heroes. It makes the all team invulnerable to most dots like this spell is to me the best healing spell of the game by far. Easy healing, consitant, and giving space to more agro plays. And when you see the other party healing perks in the game she’s doing really well. If you ever tried to play plague doctor as solo healer it’s just hawfull. And the occultist is doing terrible to.

Chop feels so underwhelming. In DD1 it was my favorite leper ability. Now it does like 6-8 dmg

There are so many little issues with vestal its just sad. I can think of a couple of changes id like to see. -It would be nice if illumination generated combo like highway mans tracking shot does. Maybe just on confessor if its too much by default. -Both Chaplin and Confessor Mantras have a weaker version of their mastery effect by default so you arent forced to burn a token to play the path at the first inn (who decided this was ok) -Confessors hand of light should work in at least 3rd rank to make it usable. -Id love to see confessor gain conviction in a unique way, maybe each time a negative is placed by her and teammates for example? -Mantra for confessor can activate on any character with a negative token instead of consecrations. -confessor judgement gets burn and 100% damage on mastery -Chaplin Hand of Light always taunts and isnt trinket locked -Chaplin Sanctuary keeps the stress heal on mastery (how did it somehos get nerfed on tha tank class) -I think it would be cool if Chaplin got a method of applying guard to 2 allies instead of just one to really take advantage of her Mantra. Maybe change her defense consecration to give her the buff and guard an ally? could be cool. -Seraph is fine but id love it if her mastered Mantra also applied the consecrations effect one last time. Also just general buffs to divine grace and mace bash and hand of light please.

How do you even nerf take aim at this point. IF you take the 2 crit tokens from this move you basically make it useless. the 2 crit tokens are basically what makes this more useful than hitting with an attack for 3 turns. It does feel kind of unfair that this move has only benefits while leper has to take vuln token just to get a strength token and a low chance for a crit. Maybe change it to : take aim gives : speed dodge crit / take aim + gives : speed dodge strength crit and 50% chance for crit the next 2 turns. slow this move by giving it a longer CD like 2 or 3 turns so you only use it 1 or 2 times in short fights. that way you can either keep the ball rolling with grapeshot or use it on big hits like point blank. basically make the double crit a maybe not a guarantee. I feel like Duelist is getting the short hand with her 1 crit buff

I was hoping for more damage out of my favs and nothing. meh

Let’s gooo

leper is S tier despite in game performance because he's the biggest chad in the party

Why doesn't anyone talk about how helpful Mantra is? On Seraph it becomes a 50% health with no health requirement. Quite helpful when you have multiple characters on the ground.

Make Bleedout usable from rank 2, so Berserker is decent without omnireach

what about seraph vestal :(

They really should start buffing characters instead of nerfing them. Vestal and runaway are a joke and Hellion barely exists but clearly lowering MAA's damage is truly more important

Man at arms nerfs were pointless lol, hes still the best.

My boi

why did you do this to x character

I actually clapped like a fucking seal when you ranked the Flagellant what is wrong with me

Where is headhunter?

S tier literally is a party I beat the game with

What if encore gave the recipient a daze? It conceptually makes sense, since an extra action would tire you out. I know this is pretty impactful, but I think it’s needed

Grave Robber in A is biast asf.. B is Okayish