Top 5 Beginner Mistakes: Darkest Dungeon 

Protip: Name your units so that you grow attached to them, so that it hurts all the more when they inevitably perish.

"You need to start thinking of your heroes as pawns and tools, instead of valued employees" Ahhh yes. The Amazon approach!

8. Thinking you're gona have fun in Champion level dungeons

Don't forget the most grievous mistake. Being overconfident

Mistake 0: Dismas and Reynauld not making it into the last chapter :(

12. Thinking arb's statistical advantage makes up for the fact that musketeer looks cooler

Not recruiting atleast 12-14 lepers is a rookie move

I used to get very attached to my units, making it very difficult for me to kick the troublemaking ones. My sollution to this was telling to myself that I was probably doing those poor souls a favor by dismissing them from that cursed estate

I will never boot my nervous kleptomaniac bois with penalties to their ACC or awful positive quirks i don't care they're my horrible problematic children and i love them and if i treat them like mere tools then the ancestor wins

The biggest change I did to improve my DD runs was to NEVER EVER touch books and bookcase, it made quirks management so much simplier.

The only two heros you baby and never boot ought to be Reynauld and Dismas. Buddies forever

Trying to unlock all the skills for every recruit. It becomes a very quick money sink in the early game and can suck away cash that would otherwise be used for armor/weapon upgrades.

I legit made it to veteran dungeons before I learned to click on the firewood to camp. I thought the game was just that brutally difficult.

Another early mistake is not re-stacking inventory to make room, like what happens at 8:35, where there are 3 stacks of torches that can be combined into 2, and has an empty inventory slot after looting. Easy to overlook.

I had a team of heroes I grew attached to, the healer was an occultist. The number of times that green 0 has appeared is baffling, but that 22 is also a lifesaver.

On Darkest difficulty; we don't boot heroes, we send them off to their deaths for that sweet sweet 5% bank income because the sigma grind ALWAYS take priority over pawns.

New player: all of my guys are so cool and I'm going to name them and grow attached. We're going to take on The world together! Experienced player: look, you're not my friend. You're my employee and bodyguard. Make it to rank 3 and I might learn your name. Until then you're spare blood.

Also: When you have a party of 4 fighting a party of 3, with a stun, you trade 25% of your party's overall turns vs. 33% of the enemies', thus already creating value, damage and movement aside. And that's not considering large enemies that are as threatening as 2 party members (which is why they're usually harder to stun).

Scouting has to be the most important stat, prevents being surprised and allows for informed decision making

6) Going into small dungeons; 6a) Going into large dungeon with "clear all battle rooms objective";

The part about overusing Vestal was more correct than a lot of people realize. I recently started a new save file, and in week 5 I got an unfortunate shambler encounter while doing a torchless sweep - I managed to kill it, but sacrificed my Vestal in the process. For 12 weeks after, no Vestal showed up in the stagecoach. Although at first I was dismayed, I quickly found out that not only do I not need her, she actually holds a lot of my teams back. Having 4 fast party members to kill 2+ enemies before they get to move means I don’t need anywhere near as much healing, and arbalest’s bandages work wonders on anybody who tanks a crit or two. Fights are so much shorter now, and I’m playing around with classes like crusader and occultist, who I never would have tried if not for the necessity. Losing that vestal was the best thing to happen to me on that save :D

Imo upgrading the stage coach early is the to go move, you never know if you’re gonna get squad wiped, so having a backup team you can rely on is always good

Me after 500 hours of playing: Interesting...

Forgetting useful item buffs like holy water and dog treats. Holy water can be a lifesaver especially against enemies like the Siren. Don’t be too attached to your dog treats. If the fight is tough, use it. Camping too late. Camp before your party is too stressed. Afflicted heroes are absolutely horrible for camping. Thinking that an arbalest with bandages or a crusader’s off-heals will carry a party’s healing. Miscalculating food needed. This typically occurs when the player fails to notice a tapeworm or a stressed stress eater. They assume that the next food check will need 4 units until it’s too late. Bringing bleeders to the cove/ruins or bringing blighters to the Weald/warrens. Generally ignoring the resistances that can be easily checked. Not paying attention to enemy types and negative quirks. Bringing heroes with Fear of Beasts to the Warrens for example because they didn’t realize that the swine folk are both beast and human type enemies.

at 5:12, here's a mistake that ShuffleFM makes, he doesn't stack the 3 torches in his inventory over the stack of 5 torches, and he therefore misses out on 1750 gold (probably still only temporarily..considering there's an antiquarian in the party.. but still...gotta minmax bro)

The one about using the A and B team is really important, I remember having an old savefile of mine where I had 5 level 6 characters and the rest were crap. That limited my learning a lot since I never cared about learning other characters, in a game where most of the fun comes from teambuilding and experimenting.

Just lost a begginer shambler in my first run of the day after waking up in my new town. No pre shuffle, didn't turn on the torch, forgot clappers don't die after killing shambler, didn't retreat on time because of that and lost a leper, miss timed my finale and did all of this without trinkets. Truly a lesson to be learned.

A HUGE one I went through was that short dungeons are not easier than medium ones when you have weak healing (hp and stress). Having the break and having good camping skills makes the entire dungeon way easier to get through since you basically have a reset mid way through.

I really really needed this.... Like 2 years ago

One beginner mistake I made for a long time was ignoring the antiquarian. If you read through her move set, she seems to be the crappiest of all the heroes, almost exclusively weak moves that don't combine to a well rounded kit, so she can not fill any of the traditional "group spots" an rpg-player thinks of (damage dealer, crowd control, healer, tank, support). It's not that her kit is entirely useless, you just always have a hero who could help you out more in combat. What you don't see unless you use her (though the voiceover comment when hiring her hints at it): She increases the maximum inventory stack number for all valuables and she finds special antiques in chests and combat loot that also stack and are worth a lot of gold. If you are struggeling to plunder enough gold to buy the upgrades and treatments for your heroes, the antiquarian will help you out, you'll easily get 50%-100% more gold out of a dungeon run with her. Also, her ability "protect me", which forces a teammate to guard her and boosts that teammate's protection and dodge is really strong with a dodge-tank who has the riposte ability to strike back at the attacker (like man at arms or highwayman), so she isn't as much of a dead weight in combat as it seems on first glance.

I was gonna say that people, including myself when I first started, don’t upgrade the stage coach. Having an extra 4-6 heroes each week as an option with a bigger roster early game is huge

That favored teams rule is especially true. The game forced me to learn that after just my first foray into the dungeons. The starting team of the Crusader, Highwayman, Plague Doctor, and Vestal wasn't half bad, but then, say, the Plague Doctor is too stressed to go into the next dungeon, but the others still have a little fighting spirit in them. That forced me to experiment. Who could I put in the third slot? Maybe a Jester, or an Occultist, or a Houndmaster. Learn your heroes' quirks. Learn their skills. Learn their stats. What skills synergize well with each other? What quirks are gonna mean the difference between victory and defeat? What trinkets will make this hero so much better? How does this hero synergize with the others in the lineup? Find out all that for yourself. Experiment, and have fun.

I’ve found you can get away without bringing bandages and antivenom in dungeons if you have some healing skills IF THE DUNGEON IS APPRENTICE LEVEL. When you start veteran dungeons those bleeds and blights REALLY stack up so make sure to be able to stop the massive damage over time with a recovery item

A big one is knowing when to back out of a dungeon imo. I notice noobs powering through really horrible situations in hopes of clearing the dungeon at the end. Sometimes a run is just unsavable and it's better to press that X button than to risk losing your trinkets, heroes, and collected loot.

8:28 What? I didn't realize you could set up camp with the loot page open like that. In hindsight, I should've known. I've used items just to clear space with the loot open before....

I started playing yesterday and made pretty much all of those mistakes in my first hour. So in my second hour I pretty fixed all those points.

I haven't played much but I can totally agree that losing a turn to stun a dangerous enemy is way more important, especially early on, than anything else that character can do

6. Not using quad Leper squad

6. Not experimenting with different moves. It took me so long to try Grave Robber and even then I used her from rank 3 as a sniper working with PD to blight backline enemies. I then discovered shadow fade. Other examples include holy lance, flashbang, hands from the abyss, battlefield medicine, harvest, and bleed out.

I've always relied on jesters, but I prefer having a plague doctor in the back lines. The plague DoT deals so much damage

69. Not having abom only roster

Just want to thank you for this video. For my first few dungeons I was getting afflicted every single time and it almost always went horribly. Now most of the time I do really well and I rarely ever get an affliction. Every boss I’ve killed has gone smoothly as well. I’ll probably go back to being terrible whenever I try veteran dungeons though.

11. Running and having more than 2 people in your roster.

50:not buying enough shovel/key/holy/antivenom/bandage/torches incases of loot curios or troublesome situation

I disagree with the statement to not make teams, because your units will level up out-of-sync, so you may have very high level units with very low level units and you end up spending more time with low level units and leveling them up. although that can sort of happen anyways if a high level character dies, you can still create teams to mitigate this effect

11. Having curio open and clicking on the firewood

Haven't played this game in over a year, this video got me back in. Thanks for the motivation!

I get attached to my units all the time and that's why when I find the same one with better stuff I kick my old one and rename the new one and switch color palette.

Never understood how and why people think stuns aren't worth it. In the VAST majority of games I've played across every genre stuns are extremely useful and often even overpowered. It is so ingrained in my brain to always use a stun when I can, that I never thought someone would not use them in any game.

Just got the Ancestral edition on PSN for a measly $8. Haven't started yet but these all sound like some good things to keep in mind. Thanks.

Good tips, wish I'd had them when I started playing a couple months ago! I tended to fall into thinking of certain heroes as good for one thing and didn't explore their other capabilities. Good example was thinking of Plague Doctor in terms of blight, and ignoring his awesome stun abilities and healing that also removes blight/bleed. A well-trinketed Occultist can be a very effective healer, and while I admit to being a "Jestalist," the Houndmaster's stress reduction is arguably greater because he has a chance to affect everybody.

I'm a beginner but learned a key lesson last night when I had my first team wipe. Know the game mechanics. I was at the end of a Lv3 map mission lost 2 to heart attack and deathblow then my line collapsed and I had a PD who could not do anything. Despite that my Occultist was able to kill a team of 3 and the beast dropped all my trinkets my team who died had. I was in the next to last room with those (mainly gold trinkets) and could have left with that but thought I had to clear the mission to keep stuff so I went into the last room with 3HP and you can guess what happened. Even though I wiped the mission cleared and I got the reward but had I known I could keep what I had it would have been smarter to just leave when I got those trinkets off the boss. Lesson learned. Love your guides btw.

From my own personal experience, here are some tips: -if you have the dlc with blueprints, buy the bank as soon as possible -upgrade the buildings in this order armor/weapons then sanitarium them stagecoach. Screw the camp -antiquarian is good early game for cash so prep a good party -if there is a new vestal in the stagecoach, recruit her -kill stress givers first

Paying attention to things like this and the "1 mistake people make with each hero" video, enabled me to build a party with a skill set that killed the collector in 2 rounds without him even getting a move.

I'm about to be at 30 hours played on the game, and I've only really recently gotten back into it with a fresh playthrough, this was pretty helpful; and fun to watch

As a new player, i can proudly say ive not done a few of these, ive been booting back and forth for when i have a ton of poor quirks i dont want to fix, i also really enjoy stunning, especially stunning the stress booster enemies. And i tend to full target those with my single target unless i can get some aoe on them

69. Playing Crimson Court

I find with number 1 its worth going for the first few price upgrades since they're cheap and save a lot of money in the long run if gotten early

This was incredibly helpful and now I'm off to watch more of your DD videos (subscribed)...

Oh wow, props for a quick and efficient video, great job!

I'm returning back to DD after a few months break. These tips were good for me remember. I keep playing the game on and off again so my skill is always at 2/3rds of what it was when ever I left off. I love this game a ton and keep forgetting why I just sometimes focus on something else for like a month.

Half of this tips will help with DnD tactics. And the last one - with corporate management of some soulless corporation. "Why I need to bother with helping this workers when I get 10 new resumes every week. They are just pawns and resources".

Good tips have been playing on and off since 2018, and considering starting a new campaign and actually finishing it as I have never gotten to the darkest dungeon. Excellent tips

Started last week cuz it got put on game pass. Randomly tried it nd being a Souls fan I absolutely loved the challenge. Bought all the dlcs too

It took me a long time to cut the cord from Vestal in every group. Once I started using other healers I started really having fun & feeling satisfied with improving at the game. I had to get out of my comfort zone first.

I definitely have favourite teams but I usually toy around with the members until I have an effective lineup and then start making a new team

I really think you hit the nail on the head with A and B team. Not only is this game not designed to be played that way and you will struggle if you are trying to force that but you are also preventing yourself from having tons of fun. I used to have that mentality getting into the game but quickly realized that I have the most fun in this game is when I experiment. I just make sure to have a balanced team that can attack all of their positions effectively and that my team is also not too dependent on their own positions, and go with that. I also make sure to have some way to heal other than eating so one healer is a must or at least to have everyone who can heal themselves. In some cases I put together really weird and unlikely teams out of desperation thinking "Man, if these survive I don't know" and they end up having some really non-intuitive synergy where they steamroll everything in their path and I end the run with next to no stress or HP damage.

You should also mention there are group names if you make a specific team build. It would be a good idea to record all of the object interactions to show which items go to which object. I also took note there are days you can create bonuses for completing certain tasks in a dungeon; all saints day, silence in the crypts and care givers convention to name a few.

I see a lot of new players buying max Provisions every dungeon "just to be safe". I would advise learning what you need for each dungeon and taking Provisions accordingly. You realistically will never need more than 3 shovels for example

I would also say "Not knowing when to retreat" the game has a lot of opportunities for you to damage control if things start to go south, use them

How I broke my habit on favorite teams (and you do kind of have to break rule one and spend a little on the stage coach so you get a better number of new troops) was I limited myself to one adventure of each class at a time. If I had one crusader that was it. He had to die or be dismissed. So after a while you're really starting to invest more into the guildhall and smith so you can get those abilities so you learn what works really well and what works in a pinch. Don't sleep on Man-At-Arms he is a really good gap filler in a lot of teams.

I made the mistake about the heirlooms, I feel like I was close to the enlightenment on this by myself so thank you for making it a couple games faster. Stalling is super op because I don't die. I do undervalue spd a little because it's bs sometimes like they'll have 2 spd and I have 5 and they go first, IDK how the turn thing works. I think most of my teams don't usually involve Antiquerian and M-a-a which is the only thing I know I should change but usually don't. I should boot more.

I started to realize I took too long in fights when I fought four spiders and wasted all my truns buffing. I lost a dear comrade that day and had to exit the dungeon, to fucking spiders.

I really enjoy using the Bounty Hunter's grappling hook to pull certain enemies up front so I can use a more tanky character to smash them.

I’ve died enough to learn most of this but the first tip would have been very helpful to know the first time I played :/ Great video! Can’t wait to see the 5 tips new beginners make in Darkest Dungeon II

I personally started buffing my team on the second playthrough because i wasnt aware that some of the buffs are really usefull so in my first playthrough i was just going for clean power attack

Don't forget not backing out when someone is at 130 stress, that cost me a ton of characters

7. not doing it for her (graverobber)

Thank you for this! I've known about darkest dungeons for a while but I've finally been able to play it for the first time this week. If somebody who has more advice please feel free to tell me. Other than that, this is really helpful cheers :)

Just started this game, this helps thanks, just subscribed

Best tip : always have the wiki open on the curios page, there are some curios you don't even want to acknowledge their existence

*I only do pro gamer moves, I pick the funniest team name*

I know how to use a good chunk of the roster, but I still have favorite I almost always try and use. Crusader in the front line with the basic sword swing, the double page attack, the healing move for emergences, and a stun. Either abomination behind them or the highway with sword slice, gun attack, crowd control gun attack, and bleed slice. Vestal in the third slot either stunning, healing, or maybe using judgement. And a musketeer in the back with basic shot, duo front shot, side arm, and mark move, or a plague doctor with single and multi hit blight moves, battle field medicine, and that stabbing move, which I move vestal and plague around.

Yeah, the Vestal/Jester combo was something I did... then I watched another streamer doing moving stuff and started playing around. It really does make the game more fun to experiment. The thing about negative quirks... I figured that out right off. I honestly love to see a severe but meaningless negative quirk since it means something worse won't take it's place lol

I have, like, 800 hours in this game. And this is damn good information. Even for me, because sometimes I forget.

13. Underestimate champion elite enemies, especially Swine Skiver. Question: I'm currently on my first Stygian run, currently on week 15. How many upgrades to the Stagecoach would you say is enough, and just focus completely on the Guild/Blacksmith from then onwards?

Medium length dungeons -> over-buy food -> focus stress heal camp skills. Clear the dungeon first. Camp. Feast. Prevent nighttime ambush and then hammer stress heals. You'll rarely have to do recovery in town. This doesn't apply to runs that go south of certain bosses where you'll want damage up camp skills, but for 90% of runs, you can home as good/better than you left.

More Darkest Dungeon content please. Just got the ancestral edition on sale and i'll take all the knowledge available for a better start.

Not using/forgeting trinkets, bad decision in supplying the team Yeah that's me. It's I who forgot trinkets, didn't brough torches and brough food for short mision beacouse i forgot it's medium one. Yeah… i'm bad

Using modded classes/stats in your first campaign is a mistake cuz it messes with the overall game balance.

I am one of those who try to remove every quirk from their characters, I never even thought about booting them, this is a tip I'm going to definitely apply!

This video called me out on my mistakes, and I'm thankful for it.

Not believing in Dismas

The first time I played Darkest Dungeon (which I did in the intermediate difficulty, not radiant), I learned the 4th mistake the hard way. I got cheeky and confident I could take a shambler... None of my level 6 heroes made it out of there alive

great tips! I'll keep them in mind

Thank you for the tips!

7. Getting hit

9. Running mods. 10. Running too many mods.

Such calm and good advice while in the background the poor Musketeer is just getting smacked around like a toddler with Parkinson’s trying to box Mike Tyson.

Lifesaver lol getting into it now and this video has been helpful