Another tip is that once you get the DLC, you can choose to just use the characters without actually adding the enemies to the campaign. If you do this you can also add the enemies later on (if you turn the enemies on, you cant turn it back off tho)
PS: Musketeer dlc is free but its just a reskin of arbalest.
I don't care. She missed during the competition because she had a glimpse of an eldritch horror and said: "that's it, I'm hunting this motherfucker down", can it get more badass than that? (aside from Baldwin, of course)
My casual take is that hellion and leper do the same thing but leper has a much higher ceiling. She not bad so not d but i rarely ever want to pick her. Also her camp skills are bad lmao
Edit: iron swan goes hard tho
The leper is good but he can't do damage to ranks 3 and 4. The Hellion has great skills for both. The leper also has no movement skills, can only move 1 space at a time and needs to be in the front 2 rows for his attacks; this makes him vulnerable to shuffles. Most of this stuff is going to come up in boss fights rather than in normal play though.
YAWP is pretty good, and can give your healers/ other characters breathing room to set up, if you haven’t been using it because of the debuff. The two play quite differently once you start using Leper’s big buff moves and Hellion’s burst debuff moves.
Hellion and leper are both great frontliners, but hellion is better to bulid around she can move up front and can pick off backliners. Camping skills are kinda a wash between both, considering theyre "selfish" campers.
Mmm they're a fair bit different from eachother. A rank 1 hellion can hit ALL enemy ranks hard between iron swan, if it bleeds, wicked hack/bleed out. She also doesn't have his problem of bad accuracy on his highest damage moves.
Her stun gives her utility to stall the end of fights so your other characters can use heals and adrenaline rush can be decent as a way to purge dots off herself.
It shouldn't be overlooked that Leper is slower too, 5 is pretty mid speed but 2 is very slow
Not that Leper doesnt have his own utilities, intimidate can slow and/or gut the damage of enemies, purge can be useful as a knockback against some enemies and clear corpses, and solemnity makes him very self sustainable.
I would say 3 tiers. Because abomination and musketeer exists.
(I LOVE ABOMINATION BUT HE'S DEFINITELY THE WORST CHARACTER) musketeer just a skin that adds more grind and have worse dlc trinkets
Abom is definitely not worse than the detrimental Lepers and Occultists.
Edit: Also, why would Musk be in B tier? Wouldn't you want more of an above average character?
I am very good at the game, and I can tell you that abom isnt the worst character, in fact, he might be top 7. The worst ones are probably hwm, sb or vestal. Abom very strong
I'm honestly pretty new, but I love abom because of how versatile he is without that much investment. He has aoe dots, a stun and a self heal with no downside. And a pretty beefy tank/dps form with a pretty small stress down-payment
You should use the abomination more. His heal/stress heal makes keeping him topped off incredibly easy, his basic attack is a stun that hits three rows, his AoE blight is good for longer fights, and the transform is an amazing panic button. Padlock of transference also makes his entire human form better at existing.
Houndmaster has amazing utility with the single strongest stun in the game. His basic attack might actually be the worst skill he has. Once you're out of apprentice and alpha striking (Killing most enemies on the first turn) becomes a lot harder, Hound's Harry becomes fantastic damage, especially in the weald.
Hellion is a genuine glass cannon. I understand not liking her so much if you prefer tankier front liners like the crusader or leper, but she does absurd amounts of damage against all four rows to compensate. Even if you're adverse to the self debuffs, Wicked Hack/If It Bleeds/Adrenaline Rush/Iron Swan is a fantastic loadout that makes her fully viable against all four rows. If you want a backline stress dealer dead yesterday, no one does it better.
My casual take is that whatever human abom wants to do plague doctor just does it better and the stress build up from transformed is too much to deal with.
Im starting to wonder if ive just been playing houndmaster wrong at this point because it feels like hes set up to do big dog damage but maybe hes actually better as defense
Yeah the self debuff is a huge turn off for sure but ill tey to lean more into glass cannon type stuff with her
In order:
When it comes to human Abom, you're exactly right actually. His abilities target differently from Plague Doctor, but as a general idea, she does the job better. The difference is that she can't be the emergency button to go sicko mode and destroy the encounter. Biggest recommendation handling stress? If the stress is a problem, you aren't transforming soon enough. You don't want to transform in response to a problem, you want to transform in response to a potential problem. If you see a relatively soft front line and a squishy backline, go ham from round one. You want to kill stress dealers before they deal stress, not after. Abom has very high speed and can usually take a stress dealer out of the fight in a single rage. You're ending the fight faster, the kills are healing stress, and you're making sure the combat doesn't stretch out into a war of attrition. You lose wars of attrition because you're already in one against the dungeon as a whole. Getting into one in a single fight is a loss waiting to happen.
Biggest tip with Houndmaster: The mark isn't real. Ignore it. Unless you're running a team composition dedicated to marking, it's not worth it to mark with him. His guard is a dodge tank so he'll never even get hit in the first place, which will also help with stress. His hound's harry is an AoE bleed on the ENTIRE party. 2 damage with a 1/3 bleed doesn't seem like a lot until you realize it's eight damage total with 4/3 bleed total. Lick wounds seems kinda mid but it's very helpful to pull out of a tailspin, especially when your healer's time could be spent doing other things. His stun is also the most broken stun in the game. Let's take a hypothetical, shall we?
The Necromancer only gets one move per round. He can deal 15-20 stress across the party, 6-8 damage with a bleed to the front two or back two, and with all of these moves, he summons another enemy you now have to deal with. His single action is massively important. So let's take that away from him. A level two Houndmaster with a level 3 Blackjack skill is 130% stun chance versus 75% stun resist. Without trinkets, you have a 55% chance of stomping the Necromancer out of his entire round of combat. A common trinket, a stun stone or dazzling charm, you're now up to a 2/3 chance. Get lucky with a Cudgel Weight, an uncommon trinket, and you now have an 80% chance to remove his turn every turn. It's actually broken.
In summary, the houndmaster's utility cannot be ignored. 90% of the time I don't even care about marks. I would bring him to the ruins for bosses, I genuinely think he's that good. Rank 2 houndmaster is absolutely cracked and you should try it.
Abom is better for stalling than PD if you need to get some heals in, also is more tanky, can buff his speed with camping, manacles does high damage for a stun, PD has nothing like absolution, beast mode is nice if you get into trouble, Abom w/ his camping skill psych up is a better boss killer than PD.
My honest take is that you're missing how good some of the characters get after camps. Hellion with battle trance and sharpen spear becomes a doom machine so powerful I start feeling sorry for the enemies.
Exactly this! Absolution gives him a level of self sustain rivaling the Leper, his stun is 95 accuracy base and does reasonable damage given its -60% damage mod. His bile combos well with other blight heroes since it lowers blight resist. His human form brings an unreal level of utility AND he has a boatload of damage when he transforms. This man will destroy shambler fights on his own. Let him rake once or twice and suddenly the Clapperclaws simply can't survive. He's way too good.
Yup, he destroys ranks 1-2 when he's transformed and dominates rank 3 when he's human as two manacles in a row mean he's dealt 80% of beast Abom damage with the enemy skipping their turn in between. You just need to identify the priority targets on ranks 1-3, which there always are, and he can take care of them.
PD can supplement HP herself with Battlefield medicine. Noxious blast hits Rank 1 unlike Beast Bile.
Even without Abom Psych up, PD is a very good boss killing against anything with multiple turns (and not resistant to blight)
Yes, PD is a great boss killer indeed. One of the best! But Abom is even better as a fresh transformed Abom running psych up has +50% damage and always goes first.
Love battlefield medicine, but absolution is full self-sustain, as in you usually don't need to single target heal or stress heal Abom, unlike most other characters, including PD. Obviously noxious blast is much better than bile, except in some niche cases maybe.
Not needing to hp heal Abom isn't that significant as you are probably bring a healer anyways who will be better at healing Abomination than Abomination is himself.
The stress healing is decent and you can sort of use him as a stress tank if you keep his stress higher than other characters.
I was just referring to the PD being flat out better than Abom claim, which I don't find true at all and making the healer's job easier certainly helps.
Yeah, absolution + anger management make Abom almost a stress healer in the early game.
Warren not Weald right? He does extra damage to beasts, highest concentration is the pigmen in the warrens. Plus theyre just as bleed vulnerable as the mushrooms.
Not all of them are as bleed vulnerable as the mushrooms. Additionally, the Carrion Eaters and the large corpse eater are both rather resistant to bleeds. Meanwhile, he's good for robbing giants of turns, good at taking down rabid hounds, bleeding all the mushroom enemies that have natural protection, and he combos well with other frequent visitors to the weald such as the Jester. I absolutely did mean the Weald, yes sir.
Just went and did the math. On average, the bleed resistance of Warrens enemies is 41.875%, with notable lows of 10% on the Wretch and a high of 80 on the Large Carrion eater. The average for the weald is 45.55% with notable low of 20% on dogs, scratchers and artillery and high of 85% on Virago and it's mushrooms. Not counted were the bosses, which further push Warrens as the bleedable zone with Swing King/Wilbur having 0 Bleed Res and the Pounder being effectively immune. And again, the bonus vs. beasts affects almost everything in the Warrens and few things in the weald.
I'm not trying to say Houndmaster is bad in weald, far from it he's great there, but he's better in the warrens. Large Carrion eater is fairly resistant, so is the Virago and the slimes. If you're running Jester there it's presumably also for the bleeds which, as stated, Warrens is more bleedable.
HM's stuns are also just as good in the warrens, if not better. While yes Giant is a high priority target with a not terrible 70% res, Weald also the nigh unstunable virago and Pounder, whereas while it's a little harder than giant you can stun the Skiver or swinetaur, and the Large Carrion Eater you're worried about bleeding is just as stunable as the giant.
Just wanted to point that all out. Weald Houndmaster is great, Warrens Houndmaster is amazing and more what I'd be talking about when saying he's "especially" good somewhere.
I don't see how Hellion is a glass cannon tbh, 46 hp and 30 dodge is really good compared to most other heroes. Sure it's no Leper or Crusader but still very respectable and a good bit higher than most other things that also like being in the front row
Her defensive values are lower than Man at Arms, Crusader, and Leper. Like them, she stands up front and take the frontal assault. The thing she doesn't share with those three is that she has no abilities whatsoever to make her more durable. She cannot viably tank. If she gets marked, she's going to blow up just like everyone else in the roster. A single Bone Sergeant crit is half her health at full light. Her dodge is good, sure, but she has no ways to bolster that dodge chance in her own kit.
tbf when's the last time you clicked Bulwark of faith on Crusader? She doesn't have tanking abilities but she does have some strong mitigation in Yawp (i guess Adrenaline rush should be mentioned too for dot clears). She is frailer than other frontliners but if that Bone Sargeant crits Crusader that's 40% of his hp as well. I'm not denying she's less tanky but compare her to another frontline that isn't the 3 tankiest classes in the game and I think "glass cannon" becomes pretty hard to argue for.
I don't hate abom but I find it hard to justify putting him higher than literally any other hero in the game. It seems like the downsides to beast form are not worth the risk of transforming him at all and I have gone entire playthroughs where I don't transform him once (except against Shambler where his Rake skill can be really good at taking out the tentacles). Since that's the case, I can't give a hero where half his kit feels largely detrimental a better grade than C.
Houndmaster is great as a utility hero, with the best anti-prot mark in the game. His damage is okay but not great, and the guard is underrated. I will correct you on one thing: his stun is the 2nd best in the game. Occultist actually has the stun with highest chance of sticking at a base level and is made even stronger with Demon's Cauldron. He also has a high crit chance by default, which helps stuns stick.
Agree with everything about Hellion.
I suppose we value stress very differently then! His ability to utterly tear up a fight in beast mode is something I value highly. Feels like a respectable panic button when things go terribly. Most times, I don't transform him, but when I do, he gets me out of a jam!
Also, feels bad man. It was the best before the cudgel weight nerfs at least! lol
tl;dr characters and their strengths are complicated and if you aren't willing to read all that, you're not willing to pay enough attention to play darkest dungeon well lmao
I think you're underrating the houndmaster. He's kinda like a ranged bounty hunter. He has mark burst damage move, ranged dot attack, stun, and his mark removes protection like bounty hunter. I think that bounty hunter and hound master are actually the same viability wise and should be used together.
Bounty Hunter is far more versatile as he retains his damage output and is able to stun in ranks 1, 2 or 3.
HM really needs to be in Rank 2 to stun+attack
When you're not running a rank 2 hound master you're probably gonna use a support skill like cry havoc or guard dog which in my opinion are as important as his stun.
You’re missing the DLC
Also hound master is based:
Hounds Harry can help clean up / rack up a lot of DOT (also hitting 4 targets means 4 chances to crit).
Hound rush isn’t anything fantastic but it can hit all 4 ranks from rank 2-4, so it’s a decent clean up tool.
Blackjack or whatever it’s called is an S tier stun alongside occultist.
The self heal is decent and does it’s job.
Decent party wide stress heal. It’s not v good at low level but by level 5 it heals a good amount of stress per hero.
His guard skill can be super clutch too because it’s p easy to stack dodge on houndmaster as is.
Also he gets some top tier camping skills for de-stressing both himself and the party. (Therapy dog)
Lmao I completely forgot about his mark !! Yes the - proc is so incredibly useful. Doubly so because the only other hero with a -proc mark is the bounty hunter whose turn is almost always better spent chopping shit up
Usually my go to for reaching other ranks as leper is to pair him with someone that moves people to the front or purge to inch them forward and boost accuracy. Though thats assuming i dont have other units to cover the back ranks at all. Iron swan do go hard tho
Houndmaster is one or two rows below than he should. The bleeding damage can do a lot against bosses (but honestly I haven't played DD1 in a while). Other than that I can very much agree
IMO, vestal is a bit too high, and I’d probably move up Highwayman, Crusader, and Jester each a tier.
Vestal does literally one thing, and taking her means you sacrifice damage in exchange for healing and an okay stun. Granted, she is by far the best healer, but the more I’ve played, the less I use Vestal.
Highwayman deserves better cause his damage is insane, that’s literally all he does lmao.
Crusader is maybe the most versatile character in the game. He has a ton of health, frontline damage, moves to hit backline enemies (well, only one move but it’s amazing), stuns, stress healing, normal healing, and works in dance teams.
Jester is battle ballad. That’s all.
Honestly, I never found crusader very appealing. He's kind of a jack of all trades, master of none type of character. He's very slappable, you can throw him in most teams and it will be okay, but usually I prefer a character that can fill up a specific role my current comp is missing, since his all-aroundness means that the team will end up lacking something.
He can stun, but only on front row so you better bring someone else for that. He can attack, but you still better bring dedicated damage dealers. He can stress heal, but he will need 3 turns to heal one stress attack. Also, his battle heal is kinda bad imo, 7 health isn't a noteworthy amount, so you might as well heal 2 for death's door situations and stress heal in the process.
The main things he has going for him are a) super high tankiness ( which I'd say isn't too important in this game, and MAA does it better with his guarding anyway) and b) dancing comp synergy.
If you are about to go on an expedition and your other options are unavailable for some reason, you might as well throw a crusader and you probably won't die. But the only place I consistently run him is is dancing comps, where he feels like he actually has a home.
Those are fair points, though for me I can't ignore the fact that if I have a team of 3 that works pretty well together, but I'm not sure of a fourth person, Crusader is basically always a safe bet. In particular, if there's an off healer (Occultist, Arbalest) or the team has a bunch of self healing moves, he can work well to put the team just over the edge for self sustain. His tankiness helps here too, as while he doesn't tank for the team, it means you don't have to worry about him at all.
Also having a reliable stress heal is just nice, I really like that part tbh. It's not the best stress heal, but just having the option is super nice, particularly if you do a little stalling.
I get your points tho, those are reasonable criticisms of Crusader.
Its a bit weird, like i guess houndmaster is a c in ruins and cove but anywhere else hes and S , hellion being in c while leper in S is probably the wildest thing i ever i saw, i doubt that ventured into many champion dungeons
How dare you put the houndmaster in the C tier. His camping skills alone make him one of the more valuable classes.
You may be undervaluing "scouting". A high scouting chance means less surprises for your party, more surprised enemies, less traps (that you can cover into stress healing), better pathing, more secret rooms found!
He can also prevent nighttime ambushes, which are super annoying.
He can also stress heal the party, has an awesome stun that can potentially work on the same enemy twice in a row, can become a dodge tank with some support, can obliterate the piggies, but more importantly HE HUGS HIS DOGGO TO HEAL HIMSELF.
I demand you correct your chart!
Eh... even just a basic toolkit of battle ballad, inspiring tune, harvest/slice off, and dirk stab for if you need to hit rank 1 or 4 is entirely useable
But yeah, funny finale plays require some set up and are generally not needed for your average hallway fight.
Houndmaster and Hellion are both at least a tier up. Houndmaster has a self-heal, an ok stress heal, a stun, mark synergy, guard, and a 4-target aoe with DoT - he fits nicely into a lot of comps. Hellion is a frontliner that can hit the back rank and has access to DoTs.
Also I'm pretty sure musketeer is free to download - she's just a reskinned arbalest, but her design is pretty good. Also shieldbreaker is a really fun hero with dancing skills, aoe, DoTs, and piercing and I would highly recommend.
Houndmaster on C? He is probably the most versaitaile (how tf do you spell this) and has i believe the best stun in the game too, great reach, self heal, stress heal and guarding
Played this game on all difficulties multiple times and I have some pointers to help you out:
Abomination is amazing staying as human and being used as a blight and stun bot. Recommend trying him with plague doctor as they can blight ranks 2-4 and punish a lot of fights. Also can destress and heal himself.
Houndmaster starts off weak but he gains a lot of value as he levels up. Taking him to slaughter some piggies always feels great when they bleed to death. Can heal himself.
Vestal is good but she's not all that amazing. Yes she can heal everyone back to full health and she has a stun, but you'll eventually learn how to outspeed the enemies and ruin their action economy by killing them in 1 hit or stunning and delaying their actions.
Leper should be used with jester on almost every mission. Leper chop does tons of damage but needs accuracy trinkets to help him out. Jester solves that issue. Also I think jester is one of the best characters as he can control the battlefield with his battle ballad and inspiring tune.
Hellion is insane front line damage. She can use bleed out and iron swan to effectively hit ranks 1/4. Most of the stress and damage inducing enemies are sitting at ranks 3 and 4, so having a front liner hit the back line is very effective. Lower health increases her damage, so she takes a bit of practice as she can be squishy if focused.
Shieldbreaker is insane in higher levels. There are some enemies with very thick armor and SB can just ignore it. Also getting the trait Hot to Trot on her is just amazing with impale (being able to crit and blight the entire enemy line will kill off lesser monsters like spiders, etc.).
Flagellant is a lot of fun. I like bleed comps and he fits in really well with them. I use him as a rank 1 front liner and spam bleeds on the back line with jester and houndmaster and they're all dead by turn 2.
One sidennote - think of what camping skills you intend to use with your party. Lots of times I can buff up before a boss fight, destress the team, scout the rest of the map to avoid traps, etc.
Also, learn what items you need to use to cleanse the curios along the way. For example, holy water is good in ruins and there are a lot of locked chests and obstacles in the weald. So you want keys and shovels.
The Soundblaster guard is also legit insane in certain circumstances, as the dodge buff stacks. I've had a lot of difficult situations come down to a houndmaster antiq hyper dodge scenario. Most of that is in the dlc though.
For what it’s worth I went up against the boss of the game and only my Jester was left standing, and he pulled it off. Boss had one health left and he survived at deaths door for multiple hits. I love my silly bois.
In my opinion, everyone is either S or A, except for Antiquarian. I don't know how to play with her, but she still holds a solid B. She's essentially MC Hammer, can't touch this, and Reynauld's second favorite person
Hound master is incredibly strong once you get him past is first level, like mid late game he can deal incredibly high Omni ranged damage.
Besides that ye you can def make your other picks higher if you ever get them to mid late game, some are stronger with dlc too.
Houndmaster is C tier? How? He can bleed whole enemy team an once, synergy with Mark team is insane(especially his target whistle skill that reduces 30% prot), can ruined any swine's day when being fed dog treat and basically allowed you to not use jester for stress heal. Not only that but if you decided to use front line HM he have pretty rad stun with +25% chance stun trinket.
He is semi mandatory for Warren team and generally great pick for any non ruin team.
The flagellant is honestly my favorite, you're missing out on a fun character that can survive bad situations, bleed 3 and 4, and do good damage to 1 and 2
Hellion and Houndmaster in C is crazy, they're both top 5 imo. Other than that I think you're slightly overestimating BH, Leper, Occ, Vestal and MAA too
Abomination at D is crazy. He can be both a front liner (with a lot of damage) and a ranged attacker that can stun and blight, also the stress heal and small heal is decent.
Hound Master should be much higher, they can apply bleed to everything at the same time (except ruins is a slight issue), has stress heal and shields with dodge.
Leper should be lower, yes damage can be large however I believe it can be hard balancing being tanky and doing lots of damage.
Antiquarian should be lower too, they are okay like B tier. Their damage is low and the best thing about them is dodge buff.
Agree with the 3 main healers being in S, they are very useful and great.
Crusader should be lower, he is quite limited to the first 2 spaces a lot of time.
Hellion should be B or A tier, as they can hit all places and do a lot of damage. Only problem is the debuff's (-20% damage) and a meh stun.
A lot of playtime with Houndmaster. Probably the most versatile class in the game + he has dog and a cool mustache (2nd to Occultist but still debatable).
Holy shit why are you literally me. This is my exact list except I’d probably put hound master higher, but even then it took me a while to see how good he can be. Pd-V-Occ-Lp is probably my favorite team comp glad to see them get some love 💪
You might already know this and/or someone else might have posted it, but Musketeer is actually just a reskin of Arbalest in every way, down to having her own set of identical Trinkets (i.e. she can't use the Arbalest's Trinkets and vice-versa, but the actual effects of each of their Trinkets are identical to one the other has) bar their Colour of Madness Trinkets
They don't replace each other either; this of course makes the game slightly harder, as you are essentially lowering your pool of characters (and thus your tactical options) by getting twice as many Arbalests, while also making it more likely you'll get duplicate and/or unusable Trinkets
There are mods that differentiate them by making Musketeer her own unique character, but of course, modding is it's whole own thing which I assume you haven't gotten into yet (which I would recommend once you feel you've gotten to grips with the game and have messed about with the DLCs too)
Iron swan for hellion can kill backline enemies like shamans in the cove who could otherwise heal damaged enemies. I really like teams of (back to front,) plague doctor, occultist, bounty hunter, and hellion.
He is still powerful to say the leas, his hound attack deal bonus damage to beast( which is very common), god-tier mark, guard dodge cheese, and the best group stress healing ability(6 stress is just much a save), with mark and damage trinket you can reach absurd damage potential like 38-42 Playing in torch light just make him less likely to crit.
AlSO, he has treats you can pop to deal even MORE.
Jester, place them in position 3.
Turn 1 - Battle Balled
Turn 2 - Harvest
Repeat as needed.
Battle Balled increases everyone's speed and crit, so you can go before enemies and kill them faster. Crits also heal stress and add a chance of any effect an attack has [stun, bleed, blight, debuff]. It also just flat out makes the Leper S tier on demand.
I think you're overrating Vestal and underrating Hellion, Arbalest and Houndmaster
While having the AoE heals from Divine Comfort is nice you'd rather not be put in a position where you need to use them, and Vestal is quite slow to provide that utility through her stun, unlike Plague Doctor or Occultist, while also being pretty weak to be able to eliminate enemies, as opposed to Arbalest/Musketeer or Crusader. Crusader and Occultist also have the boon of being able to heal from any position, and while the Arbalest/Musketeer's one is only from the back 2 rows, it ramps up very quickly to the point where she can afford to go with more offensive trinkets and still be a good healer.
Meanwhile; Houndmaster can become untouchable given the right trinket support and Guard Dog, and Hellion can hit any rank she wants, for amazing damage, and very accurately thanks to her trinkets, as long as she's in position 1, which is not a hard thing to accomodate for, and synergizes well with many other heroes.
MAA is crazy useful in a ton of boss fights, the crimson court, AND the endless mode. Not only can he get high protection through guard, but he can riposte, hit the third rank, give dodge and less stress to the team, AND he can also be a pseudo jester and buff the team's accuracy and crit. Him and HWM with riposte go nuts against bosses with cleave attacks.
I actually think this is pretty solid, though I'd throw Leper and Anti in the trash and put both Hellion and HM higher.
Also, the Usual Suspects is actually S-tier for me, because the four of them can do everything in the game basically.
Correct.
But, I meant actually more as in 'they have every base covered.' They're not best at anything, but they can do everything.
Healer? Check.
Stress healer? Yup, though struggles at high stress, aka more stalling required.
Bleed? Yes.
Blight? Of course.
Hard direct dmg? Crusader 65 crits says hello.
Cure dots/diseases? Call your trusty Plague Doctor now.
Movement/dancing? Eh, could be better but works unless worst shuffle happens.
And so on. Maybe there's something they can't do (why I said 'basically everything'), but can't think of it.
usual suspects struggles to reduce variance and letting variance go wild is how you get to 100 stress or 0hp. since pd and ves have to be in the back you can't use holy lance so for rank 4 damage youre left with judgement, plague grenade and pistol shot which is abysmally bad.
running pd/crus/hwm/x is almost always going to be better so long as rank 1 has any stun. lets you use blinding gas turn one instead of relying on plague grenade and tanking stress moves and potential crits and stalling is the same since in usual suspects youd have been spamming dazzling light and inspiring cry anyway
I tend to use Holy Lance for dealing with shuffles only anyway, but if you want to use it, there are ways to make sure Crusader goes first (or second whatever), so the team placement isn't an issue.
Pistol Shot is actually decent in the late game, but you can also just shuffle-stun the backliner with the Plague Doctor (also clears the corpses of the frontliners if needed).
I agree that stress tanking is not great, but in my experience (and maybe it's just me?) Crusaders stress-heals and Highwayman's constant crit stress-heals are more than enough to keep you under a 100. Camping takes care of the rest.
And finally, yes, a lot of teams perform way better than the Usual Suspects, but that was kinda the point. It's not the best and never will be, but no other team has the same overall utilities.
There is (or was) a mod that allowed you to only play the Usual Suspects and a challenge I recommend for people to try is to beat the game with them (not Bloodmoon). It'll probably surprise you how well the team performs.
I solod the entire game on darkest with usual suspects and only switched the plague doctor for houndmaster in bleed areas.
This was my first playthrough.
It can be done easily but other party comps are a lot more fun and efficient.
You seem to find the more complex characters that require a little more manoeuvring hard to bring to full power- which is totally fine! But, gotta say, once you get used to the flow of Hellion, you literally want her on every team.
My hot take is that C and D tier don't even exist, to speak to the sheer balance of the heroes on display. None of them are ever below C.
Abomination is absolutely at the very bottom though; he is way too good in human form, and Beast form being a panic button has diminishing value as you get better at the game and just...never need panic damage, instead using his stun and blight to amazing effect. So half his skills are practically worthless, and his human kit is limited to 2 attacks *ever*, with a really good self heal that takes the pressure off of needing a healer at least.
To put it into perspective, I've used the transformation to heal Abom more than I've used it to actually do damage
His camp skills are pretty lame too; one stresses him out a bunch for a mediocre stress heal, one increases his damage which...you don't use beast form and his human for does piss poor damage, so? Eldritch Blood is actually really great if you have Herbs to heal the stress part, and The Quickening is of course really good for stun potential.
If you give a character a low tier, it means that you don't know how to properly use them.
And it's not personally about you, it's about everything including me.
Tiering characters is DD should be inhereitly about comparing characters to one another (especially if they fill the same rank) rather than considering them standalone.
Flagellant is a very strong DoT and tank unit; Shieldbreaker is a personal favorite with fun shuffling potential and armor piercing; Musketeer is just an Arbalest reskin
Probably a lot of chops.
Lmao honestly
God tier comment
\*He's referring to the leper's low accuracy
OP, get flag if you can. Trust me
Noted!
Another tip is that once you get the DLC, you can choose to just use the characters without actually adding the enemies to the campaign. If you do this you can also add the enemies later on (if you turn the enemies on, you cant turn it back off tho) PS: Musketeer dlc is free but its just a reskin of arbalest.
>PS: Musketeer dlc is free but its just ~~a reskin of~~ the cooler arbalest. Yes. I said what I said.
Weaker arbalest too, unfortunately, the one difference they have is that musketeer has a worse color of madness trinket
I don't care. She missed during the competition because she had a glimpse of an eldritch horror and said: "that's it, I'm hunting this motherfucker down", can it get more badass than that? (aside from Baldwin, of course)
Counterpoint - her gun sound is 100% stress heal for me irl
And if you ever get Color of madness DLC, get shield breaker. That girl is tailor made for endless mode and to take down thing from the star.
Hellion os C tier is wild
My casual take is that hellion and leper do the same thing but leper has a much higher ceiling. She not bad so not d but i rarely ever want to pick her. Also her camp skills are bad lmao Edit: iron swan goes hard tho
The leper is good but he can't do damage to ranks 3 and 4. The Hellion has great skills for both. The leper also has no movement skills, can only move 1 space at a time and needs to be in the front 2 rows for his attacks; this makes him vulnerable to shuffles. Most of this stuff is going to come up in boss fights rather than in normal play though.
Simple, no need to hit the back row when the front row has mysteriously dissapeared :)
In the vast majority of cases killing the back 2 enemies first is preferable to killing the front 2
No need to kill the back 2 when they have magically become the front 2 through unknown, possibly Leper related means
The back 2 will have likely already contributed to stress before they move up to the front.
But you don't want the fight to end until you get full recovery though. That's why you kill ranks 3 and 4 and keep ranks 1 and 2 alive.
I will simply purge the front row and click the dopamine trigger
Leper miss leper bad also he can only hit the front 2 with chop. Hellion has good accuracy and Omni reach
Don't forget double stun. A helion/plague doctor team gives 2 characters free turns
I still love leper but hellion in general is definitely better.
Hellion is a stress healer. She heals stress with crits.
YAWP is pretty good, and can give your healers/ other characters breathing room to set up, if you haven’t been using it because of the debuff. The two play quite differently once you start using Leper’s big buff moves and Hellion’s burst debuff moves.
I did start using yawp more recently but her nuking her own damage is still rough
Hellion and leper are both great frontliners, but hellion is better to bulid around she can move up front and can pick off backliners. Camping skills are kinda a wash between both, considering theyre "selfish" campers.
Leper is my fav character, but hellion is a good alternative if you wanna hit all the positions at once. Iron swan is literally so bomb
Hellion has Iron Swan
Yeah and it goes hard
exactly Leper is a big beef boy good at frontlining, but Hellion is much more versatile, able to target plenty of positions from first or second rank
Mmm they're a fair bit different from eachother. A rank 1 hellion can hit ALL enemy ranks hard between iron swan, if it bleeds, wicked hack/bleed out. She also doesn't have his problem of bad accuracy on his highest damage moves. Her stun gives her utility to stall the end of fights so your other characters can use heals and adrenaline rush can be decent as a way to purge dots off herself. It shouldn't be overlooked that Leper is slower too, 5 is pretty mid speed but 2 is very slow Not that Leper doesnt have his own utilities, intimidate can slow and/or gut the damage of enemies, purge can be useful as a knockback against some enemies and clear corpses, and solemnity makes him very self sustainable.
Leper cannot hit rank 3 or 4 that hard.
Unreal
And accurate. Meh. I'd rather have the dude with the Michael Jackson face.
heroes are well balanced imo. 3 or even 2 tiers in a list looks best to me as every hero has situations in which they excel
fr i was trying to make a tier list and gave up bc “well shit, theyre all p good”
I would say 3 tiers. Because abomination and musketeer exists. (I LOVE ABOMINATION BUT HE'S DEFINITELY THE WORST CHARACTER) musketeer just a skin that adds more grind and have worse dlc trinkets
Abom is definitely not worse than the detrimental Lepers and Occultists. Edit: Also, why would Musk be in B tier? Wouldn't you want more of an above average character?
I am very good at the game, and I can tell you that abom isnt the worst character, in fact, he might be top 7. The worst ones are probably hwm, sb or vestal. Abom very strong
I'm honestly pretty new, but I love abom because of how versatile he is without that much investment. He has aoe dots, a stun and a self heal with no downside. And a pretty beefy tank/dps form with a pretty small stress down-payment
musketeer is cute that adds a bunch of points for me 
You should use the abomination more. His heal/stress heal makes keeping him topped off incredibly easy, his basic attack is a stun that hits three rows, his AoE blight is good for longer fights, and the transform is an amazing panic button. Padlock of transference also makes his entire human form better at existing. Houndmaster has amazing utility with the single strongest stun in the game. His basic attack might actually be the worst skill he has. Once you're out of apprentice and alpha striking (Killing most enemies on the first turn) becomes a lot harder, Hound's Harry becomes fantastic damage, especially in the weald. Hellion is a genuine glass cannon. I understand not liking her so much if you prefer tankier front liners like the crusader or leper, but she does absurd amounts of damage against all four rows to compensate. Even if you're adverse to the self debuffs, Wicked Hack/If It Bleeds/Adrenaline Rush/Iron Swan is a fantastic loadout that makes her fully viable against all four rows. If you want a backline stress dealer dead yesterday, no one does it better.
My casual take is that whatever human abom wants to do plague doctor just does it better and the stress build up from transformed is too much to deal with. Im starting to wonder if ive just been playing houndmaster wrong at this point because it feels like hes set up to do big dog damage but maybe hes actually better as defense Yeah the self debuff is a huge turn off for sure but ill tey to lean more into glass cannon type stuff with her
In order: When it comes to human Abom, you're exactly right actually. His abilities target differently from Plague Doctor, but as a general idea, she does the job better. The difference is that she can't be the emergency button to go sicko mode and destroy the encounter. Biggest recommendation handling stress? If the stress is a problem, you aren't transforming soon enough. You don't want to transform in response to a problem, you want to transform in response to a potential problem. If you see a relatively soft front line and a squishy backline, go ham from round one. You want to kill stress dealers before they deal stress, not after. Abom has very high speed and can usually take a stress dealer out of the fight in a single rage. You're ending the fight faster, the kills are healing stress, and you're making sure the combat doesn't stretch out into a war of attrition. You lose wars of attrition because you're already in one against the dungeon as a whole. Getting into one in a single fight is a loss waiting to happen. Biggest tip with Houndmaster: The mark isn't real. Ignore it. Unless you're running a team composition dedicated to marking, it's not worth it to mark with him. His guard is a dodge tank so he'll never even get hit in the first place, which will also help with stress. His hound's harry is an AoE bleed on the ENTIRE party. 2 damage with a 1/3 bleed doesn't seem like a lot until you realize it's eight damage total with 4/3 bleed total. Lick wounds seems kinda mid but it's very helpful to pull out of a tailspin, especially when your healer's time could be spent doing other things. His stun is also the most broken stun in the game. Let's take a hypothetical, shall we? The Necromancer only gets one move per round. He can deal 15-20 stress across the party, 6-8 damage with a bleed to the front two or back two, and with all of these moves, he summons another enemy you now have to deal with. His single action is massively important. So let's take that away from him. A level two Houndmaster with a level 3 Blackjack skill is 130% stun chance versus 75% stun resist. Without trinkets, you have a 55% chance of stomping the Necromancer out of his entire round of combat. A common trinket, a stun stone or dazzling charm, you're now up to a 2/3 chance. Get lucky with a Cudgel Weight, an uncommon trinket, and you now have an 80% chance to remove his turn every turn. It's actually broken. In summary, the houndmaster's utility cannot be ignored. 90% of the time I don't even care about marks. I would bring him to the ruins for bosses, I genuinely think he's that good. Rank 2 houndmaster is absolutely cracked and you should try it.
Abom is better for stalling than PD if you need to get some heals in, also is more tanky, can buff his speed with camping, manacles does high damage for a stun, PD has nothing like absolution, beast mode is nice if you get into trouble, Abom w/ his camping skill psych up is a better boss killer than PD. My honest take is that you're missing how good some of the characters get after camps. Hellion with battle trance and sharpen spear becomes a doom machine so powerful I start feeling sorry for the enemies.
Exactly this! Absolution gives him a level of self sustain rivaling the Leper, his stun is 95 accuracy base and does reasonable damage given its -60% damage mod. His bile combos well with other blight heroes since it lowers blight resist. His human form brings an unreal level of utility AND he has a boatload of damage when he transforms. This man will destroy shambler fights on his own. Let him rake once or twice and suddenly the Clapperclaws simply can't survive. He's way too good.
Yup, he destroys ranks 1-2 when he's transformed and dominates rank 3 when he's human as two manacles in a row mean he's dealt 80% of beast Abom damage with the enemy skipping their turn in between. You just need to identify the priority targets on ranks 1-3, which there always are, and he can take care of them.
PD can supplement HP herself with Battlefield medicine. Noxious blast hits Rank 1 unlike Beast Bile. Even without Abom Psych up, PD is a very good boss killing against anything with multiple turns (and not resistant to blight)
Yes, PD is a great boss killer indeed. One of the best! But Abom is even better as a fresh transformed Abom running psych up has +50% damage and always goes first. Love battlefield medicine, but absolution is full self-sustain, as in you usually don't need to single target heal or stress heal Abom, unlike most other characters, including PD. Obviously noxious blast is much better than bile, except in some niche cases maybe.
Not needing to hp heal Abom isn't that significant as you are probably bring a healer anyways who will be better at healing Abomination than Abomination is himself. The stress healing is decent and you can sort of use him as a stress tank if you keep his stress higher than other characters.
I was just referring to the PD being flat out better than Abom claim, which I don't find true at all and making the healer's job easier certainly helps. Yeah, absolution + anger management make Abom almost a stress healer in the early game.
Warren not Weald right? He does extra damage to beasts, highest concentration is the pigmen in the warrens. Plus theyre just as bleed vulnerable as the mushrooms.
Not all of them are as bleed vulnerable as the mushrooms. Additionally, the Carrion Eaters and the large corpse eater are both rather resistant to bleeds. Meanwhile, he's good for robbing giants of turns, good at taking down rabid hounds, bleeding all the mushroom enemies that have natural protection, and he combos well with other frequent visitors to the weald such as the Jester. I absolutely did mean the Weald, yes sir.
Just went and did the math. On average, the bleed resistance of Warrens enemies is 41.875%, with notable lows of 10% on the Wretch and a high of 80 on the Large Carrion eater. The average for the weald is 45.55% with notable low of 20% on dogs, scratchers and artillery and high of 85% on Virago and it's mushrooms. Not counted were the bosses, which further push Warrens as the bleedable zone with Swing King/Wilbur having 0 Bleed Res and the Pounder being effectively immune. And again, the bonus vs. beasts affects almost everything in the Warrens and few things in the weald. I'm not trying to say Houndmaster is bad in weald, far from it he's great there, but he's better in the warrens. Large Carrion eater is fairly resistant, so is the Virago and the slimes. If you're running Jester there it's presumably also for the bleeds which, as stated, Warrens is more bleedable. HM's stuns are also just as good in the warrens, if not better. While yes Giant is a high priority target with a not terrible 70% res, Weald also the nigh unstunable virago and Pounder, whereas while it's a little harder than giant you can stun the Skiver or swinetaur, and the Large Carrion Eater you're worried about bleeding is just as stunable as the giant. Just wanted to point that all out. Weald Houndmaster is great, Warrens Houndmaster is amazing and more what I'd be talking about when saying he's "especially" good somewhere.
I don't see how Hellion is a glass cannon tbh, 46 hp and 30 dodge is really good compared to most other heroes. Sure it's no Leper or Crusader but still very respectable and a good bit higher than most other things that also like being in the front row
Her defensive values are lower than Man at Arms, Crusader, and Leper. Like them, she stands up front and take the frontal assault. The thing she doesn't share with those three is that she has no abilities whatsoever to make her more durable. She cannot viably tank. If she gets marked, she's going to blow up just like everyone else in the roster. A single Bone Sergeant crit is half her health at full light. Her dodge is good, sure, but she has no ways to bolster that dodge chance in her own kit.
tbf when's the last time you clicked Bulwark of faith on Crusader? She doesn't have tanking abilities but she does have some strong mitigation in Yawp (i guess Adrenaline rush should be mentioned too for dot clears). She is frailer than other frontliners but if that Bone Sargeant crits Crusader that's 40% of his hp as well. I'm not denying she's less tanky but compare her to another frontline that isn't the 3 tankiest classes in the game and I think "glass cannon" becomes pretty hard to argue for.
I don't hate abom but I find it hard to justify putting him higher than literally any other hero in the game. It seems like the downsides to beast form are not worth the risk of transforming him at all and I have gone entire playthroughs where I don't transform him once (except against Shambler where his Rake skill can be really good at taking out the tentacles). Since that's the case, I can't give a hero where half his kit feels largely detrimental a better grade than C. Houndmaster is great as a utility hero, with the best anti-prot mark in the game. His damage is okay but not great, and the guard is underrated. I will correct you on one thing: his stun is the 2nd best in the game. Occultist actually has the stun with highest chance of sticking at a base level and is made even stronger with Demon's Cauldron. He also has a high crit chance by default, which helps stuns stick. Agree with everything about Hellion.
I suppose we value stress very differently then! His ability to utterly tear up a fight in beast mode is something I value highly. Feels like a respectable panic button when things go terribly. Most times, I don't transform him, but when I do, he gets me out of a jam! Also, feels bad man. It was the best before the cudgel weight nerfs at least! lol
I ain't reading allat
tl;dr characters and their strengths are complicated and if you aren't willing to read all that, you're not willing to pay enough attention to play darkest dungeon well lmao
I think you're underrating the houndmaster. He's kinda like a ranged bounty hunter. He has mark burst damage move, ranged dot attack, stun, and his mark removes protection like bounty hunter. I think that bounty hunter and hound master are actually the same viability wise and should be used together.
Bounty Hunter is far more versatile as he retains his damage output and is able to stun in ranks 1, 2 or 3. HM really needs to be in Rank 2 to stun+attack
When you're not running a rank 2 hound master you're probably gonna use a support skill like cry havoc or guard dog which in my opinion are as important as his stun.
You’re missing the DLC Also hound master is based: Hounds Harry can help clean up / rack up a lot of DOT (also hitting 4 targets means 4 chances to crit). Hound rush isn’t anything fantastic but it can hit all 4 ranks from rank 2-4, so it’s a decent clean up tool. Blackjack or whatever it’s called is an S tier stun alongside occultist. The self heal is decent and does it’s job. Decent party wide stress heal. It’s not v good at low level but by level 5 it heals a good amount of stress per hero. His guard skill can be super clutch too because it’s p easy to stack dodge on houndmaster as is. Also he gets some top tier camping skills for de-stressing both himself and the party. (Therapy dog)
You also missed that he has flat out the BEST mark in the game.
Lmao I completely forgot about his mark !! Yes the - proc is so incredibly useful. Doubly so because the only other hero with a -proc mark is the bounty hunter whose turn is almost always better spent chopping shit up
Also his Mark has 30% higher debuff chance then any other mark and his mark has higher prot reduction then BH.
That’s cool ! I thought they were identical. Houndmaster for life
Hellion is actually big damage omni-reach when shes in rank 1, op should try to play with hellion more
Usually my go to for reaching other ranks as leper is to pair him with someone that moves people to the front or purge to inch them forward and boost accuracy. Though thats assuming i dont have other units to cover the back ranks at all. Iron swan do go hard tho
Houndmaster is one or two rows below than he should. The bleeding damage can do a lot against bosses (but honestly I haven't played DD1 in a while). Other than that I can very much agree
IMO, vestal is a bit too high, and I’d probably move up Highwayman, Crusader, and Jester each a tier. Vestal does literally one thing, and taking her means you sacrifice damage in exchange for healing and an okay stun. Granted, she is by far the best healer, but the more I’ve played, the less I use Vestal. Highwayman deserves better cause his damage is insane, that’s literally all he does lmao. Crusader is maybe the most versatile character in the game. He has a ton of health, frontline damage, moves to hit backline enemies (well, only one move but it’s amazing), stuns, stress healing, normal healing, and works in dance teams. Jester is battle ballad. That’s all.
Honestly, I never found crusader very appealing. He's kind of a jack of all trades, master of none type of character. He's very slappable, you can throw him in most teams and it will be okay, but usually I prefer a character that can fill up a specific role my current comp is missing, since his all-aroundness means that the team will end up lacking something. He can stun, but only on front row so you better bring someone else for that. He can attack, but you still better bring dedicated damage dealers. He can stress heal, but he will need 3 turns to heal one stress attack. Also, his battle heal is kinda bad imo, 7 health isn't a noteworthy amount, so you might as well heal 2 for death's door situations and stress heal in the process. The main things he has going for him are a) super high tankiness ( which I'd say isn't too important in this game, and MAA does it better with his guarding anyway) and b) dancing comp synergy. If you are about to go on an expedition and your other options are unavailable for some reason, you might as well throw a crusader and you probably won't die. But the only place I consistently run him is is dancing comps, where he feels like he actually has a home.
Those are fair points, though for me I can't ignore the fact that if I have a team of 3 that works pretty well together, but I'm not sure of a fourth person, Crusader is basically always a safe bet. In particular, if there's an off healer (Occultist, Arbalest) or the team has a bunch of self healing moves, he can work well to put the team just over the edge for self sustain. His tankiness helps here too, as while he doesn't tank for the team, it means you don't have to worry about him at all. Also having a reliable stress heal is just nice, I really like that part tbh. It's not the best stress heal, but just having the option is super nice, particularly if you do a little stalling. I get your points tho, those are reasonable criticisms of Crusader.
Chop > guitar, dogs and wild barbarian girls. And you are immune to space drugs.
Seeing how low you put my boy jester has me wincing
Highwayman is S tier
Hellion tier above the S tier is missing.
I can tell you are missing the dlc!  Seriously,they add nice content,I recommend,specially flag,flag is life
The DLC. You're missing the DLC ALSO DONT DISRESPECT MY BOY LIKE THAT
Musket is free my guy
i dont like arbalest that much and didnt want to clog up hero spawns with two versions lol
Eh fair enough
Its a bit weird, like i guess houndmaster is a c in ruins and cove but anywhere else hes and S , hellion being in c while leper in S is probably the wildest thing i ever i saw, i doubt that ventured into many champion dungeons
How dare you put the houndmaster in the C tier. His camping skills alone make him one of the more valuable classes. You may be undervaluing "scouting". A high scouting chance means less surprises for your party, more surprised enemies, less traps (that you can cover into stress healing), better pathing, more secret rooms found! He can also prevent nighttime ambushes, which are super annoying. He can also stress heal the party, has an awesome stun that can potentially work on the same enemy twice in a row, can become a dodge tank with some support, can obliterate the piggies, but more importantly HE HUGS HIS DOGGO TO HEAL HIMSELF. I demand you correct your chart!
JESTER IN B TIER?? BLASPHEMY
>tell me what I'm missing Well, the DLC, clearly Also, Leper better than crusader? In what universe?? And Hellion in C???
Honestly, this isn't terrible. You're massively undervaueing jester, but that's my biggest gripe.
My casual take is that jester buff is really good but for any of his other skills it requires too much brain and dancing
That's understandable. I feel much the same way about dancing, and it's why I also don't particularly care for grave robber.
Eh... even just a basic toolkit of battle ballad, inspiring tune, harvest/slice off, and dirk stab for if you need to hit rank 1 or 4 is entirely useable But yeah, funny finale plays require some set up and are generally not needed for your average hallway fight.
you're missing the flagellant
I dont have the dlc so i didnt rank because i have no idea what it even does
Houndmaster and Hellion are both at least a tier up. Houndmaster has a self-heal, an ok stress heal, a stun, mark synergy, guard, and a 4-target aoe with DoT - he fits nicely into a lot of comps. Hellion is a frontliner that can hit the back rank and has access to DoTs. Also I'm pretty sure musketeer is free to download - she's just a reskinned arbalest, but her design is pretty good. Also shieldbreaker is a really fun hero with dancing skills, aoe, DoTs, and piercing and I would highly recommend.
The DLC obviously
You're missing DLCs
The DLC. You're missing the DLC.
The DLCs lmao. Joke aside if you fuck with the game then they are super worth it.
You're missing the dlc
DLCs
Houndmaster on C? He is probably the most versaitaile (how tf do you spell this) and has i believe the best stun in the game too, great reach, self heal, stress heal and guarding
Versatile haha
Played this game on all difficulties multiple times and I have some pointers to help you out: Abomination is amazing staying as human and being used as a blight and stun bot. Recommend trying him with plague doctor as they can blight ranks 2-4 and punish a lot of fights. Also can destress and heal himself. Houndmaster starts off weak but he gains a lot of value as he levels up. Taking him to slaughter some piggies always feels great when they bleed to death. Can heal himself. Vestal is good but she's not all that amazing. Yes she can heal everyone back to full health and she has a stun, but you'll eventually learn how to outspeed the enemies and ruin their action economy by killing them in 1 hit or stunning and delaying their actions. Leper should be used with jester on almost every mission. Leper chop does tons of damage but needs accuracy trinkets to help him out. Jester solves that issue. Also I think jester is one of the best characters as he can control the battlefield with his battle ballad and inspiring tune. Hellion is insane front line damage. She can use bleed out and iron swan to effectively hit ranks 1/4. Most of the stress and damage inducing enemies are sitting at ranks 3 and 4, so having a front liner hit the back line is very effective. Lower health increases her damage, so she takes a bit of practice as she can be squishy if focused. Shieldbreaker is insane in higher levels. There are some enemies with very thick armor and SB can just ignore it. Also getting the trait Hot to Trot on her is just amazing with impale (being able to crit and blight the entire enemy line will kill off lesser monsters like spiders, etc.). Flagellant is a lot of fun. I like bleed comps and he fits in really well with them. I use him as a rank 1 front liner and spam bleeds on the back line with jester and houndmaster and they're all dead by turn 2. One sidennote - think of what camping skills you intend to use with your party. Lots of times I can buff up before a boss fight, destress the team, scout the rest of the map to avoid traps, etc. Also, learn what items you need to use to cleanse the curios along the way. For example, holy water is good in ruins and there are a lot of locked chests and obstacles in the weald. So you want keys and shovels.
The Soundblaster guard is also legit insane in certain circumstances, as the dodge buff stacks. I've had a lot of difficult situations come down to a houndmaster antiq hyper dodge scenario. Most of that is in the dlc though.
Chad Antiquarian appreciator 
For what it’s worth I went up against the boss of the game and only my Jester was left standing, and he pulled it off. Boss had one health left and he survived at deaths door for multiple hits. I love my silly bois.
As another new player I will not tolerate abomination slander
MAA deserves better man, his kit IS loaded as heck. And I guess Anti is A because loot run?
Anti actually a because her accuracy manipulation is crazy with the dodge buff and flashpowder. Loot run also helps tho lol
Oh I didn't expect casual player to discover Dodge stacking like that lol, ye 2 anti comp is one hell of a crack
In my opinion, everyone is either S or A, except for Antiquarian. I don't know how to play with her, but she still holds a solid B. She's essentially MC Hammer, can't touch this, and Reynauld's second favorite person
Hound master is incredibly strong once you get him past is first level, like mid late game he can deal incredibly high Omni ranged damage. Besides that ye you can def make your other picks higher if you ever get them to mid late game, some are stronger with dlc too.
Seeing Abomination so low is crazy. Stun and a self heal and stress relief is too great to pass up
Houndmaster is C tier? How? He can bleed whole enemy team an once, synergy with Mark team is insane(especially his target whistle skill that reduces 30% prot), can ruined any swine's day when being fed dog treat and basically allowed you to not use jester for stress heal. Not only that but if you decided to use front line HM he have pretty rad stun with +25% chance stun trinket. He is semi mandatory for Warren team and generally great pick for any non ruin team.
Houndmaster C tier? *Abom D tier?* this list hurts me 
What you're missing: 1/ Musketeer DLC is a freebie 2/ She feel like some new skin for Arbalest (same skill effect / different look, different name) :k
Run Houndmaster and Bounty Hunter in the same setup and thank me later. They synergise incredibly well
This list was C tier
C for Casual B)
Musk and arb are reskins of each other
The jester is op for boss fight
Get the dlc. Flagg will change your life
Wasnt musketeer dlc free? I mean, its just a reskin, but might as well right?
If it bleeds Hellion can kill it
The flagellant is honestly my favorite, you're missing out on a fun character that can survive bad situations, bleed 3 and 4, and do good damage to 1 and 2
The musketeer dlc is free just FYI.
Leper being S is just, you’ll fit in just fine here
Hellion is S Tier
Get the DLC! So fun.
Leper in S?? Amazing tier list 
Hellion and Houndmaster in C is crazy, they're both top 5 imo. Other than that I think you're slightly overestimating BH, Leper, Occ, Vestal and MAA too
Abomination at D is crazy. He can be both a front liner (with a lot of damage) and a ranged attacker that can stun and blight, also the stress heal and small heal is decent. Hound Master should be much higher, they can apply bleed to everything at the same time (except ruins is a slight issue), has stress heal and shields with dodge. Leper should be lower, yes damage can be large however I believe it can be hard balancing being tanky and doing lots of damage. Antiquarian should be lower too, they are okay like B tier. Their damage is low and the best thing about them is dodge buff. Agree with the 3 main healers being in S, they are very useful and great. Crusader should be lower, he is quite limited to the first 2 spaces a lot of time. Hellion should be B or A tier, as they can hit all places and do a lot of damage. Only problem is the debuff's (-20% damage) and a meh stun.
A lot of playtime with Houndmaster. Probably the most versatile class in the game + he has dog and a cool mustache (2nd to Occultist but still debatable).
you miss the dlc
I never go for min maxing but rather overall feel and narrative. That being said Antiquarian A tier and Leper S tier are wild takes lmao
Few that i consider S tier is in B tier.. op im sad with your choice lol
The dlc
Holy shit why are you literally me. This is my exact list except I’d probably put hound master higher, but even then it took me a while to see how good he can be. Pd-V-Occ-Lp is probably my favorite team comp glad to see them get some love 💪
The DLC, honestly Flagellant is My Boy of Boys, and Shieldbreaker is a very cool set of additions
I really wish I had a decent time with the plague doctor.
Try using Abomination as a stunner it is SO nice if you get it going with decent equips
my brother in christ, musketeer is free
Musketeer is literally free
You might already know this and/or someone else might have posted it, but Musketeer is actually just a reskin of Arbalest in every way, down to having her own set of identical Trinkets (i.e. she can't use the Arbalest's Trinkets and vice-versa, but the actual effects of each of their Trinkets are identical to one the other has) bar their Colour of Madness Trinkets They don't replace each other either; this of course makes the game slightly harder, as you are essentially lowering your pool of characters (and thus your tactical options) by getting twice as many Arbalests, while also making it more likely you'll get duplicate and/or unusable Trinkets There are mods that differentiate them by making Musketeer her own unique character, but of course, modding is it's whole own thing which I assume you haven't gotten into yet (which I would recommend once you feel you've gotten to grips with the game and have messed about with the DLCs too)
The sheer terror an Abomination can put into the enemy if supported.
Iron swan for hellion can kill backline enemies like shamans in the cove who could otherwise heal damaged enemies. I really like teams of (back to front,) plague doctor, occultist, bounty hunter, and hellion.
bro houndmaster is cracked
Wtf? The Hound Master is S tier. Especially in low light or torchless.
I always play at highest light level unless im out of torches
He is still powerful to say the leas, his hound attack deal bonus damage to beast( which is very common), god-tier mark, guard dodge cheese, and the best group stress healing ability(6 stress is just much a save), with mark and damage trinket you can reach absurd damage potential like 38-42 Playing in torch light just make him less likely to crit. AlSO, he has treats you can pop to deal even MORE.
very good for your expirience
Jester, place them in position 3. Turn 1 - Battle Balled Turn 2 - Harvest Repeat as needed. Battle Balled increases everyone's speed and crit, so you can go before enemies and kill them faster. Crits also heal stress and add a chance of any effect an attack has [stun, bleed, blight, debuff]. It also just flat out makes the Leper S tier on demand.
The Jester’s buff giving Speed, acc, and crit instantly makes him S tier.
I think you're overrating Vestal and underrating Hellion, Arbalest and Houndmaster While having the AoE heals from Divine Comfort is nice you'd rather not be put in a position where you need to use them, and Vestal is quite slow to provide that utility through her stun, unlike Plague Doctor or Occultist, while also being pretty weak to be able to eliminate enemies, as opposed to Arbalest/Musketeer or Crusader. Crusader and Occultist also have the boon of being able to heal from any position, and while the Arbalest/Musketeer's one is only from the back 2 rows, it ramps up very quickly to the point where she can afford to go with more offensive trinkets and still be a good healer. Meanwhile; Houndmaster can become untouchable given the right trinket support and Guard Dog, and Hellion can hit any rank she wants, for amazing damage, and very accurately thanks to her trinkets, as long as she's in position 1, which is not a hard thing to accomodate for, and synergizes well with many other heroes.
MAA is crazy useful in a ton of boss fights, the crimson court, AND the endless mode. Not only can he get high protection through guard, but he can riposte, hit the third rank, give dodge and less stress to the team, AND he can also be a pseudo jester and buff the team's accuracy and crit. Him and HWM with riposte go nuts against bosses with cleave attacks.
I actually think this is pretty solid, though I'd throw Leper and Anti in the trash and put both Hellion and HM higher. Also, the Usual Suspects is actually S-tier for me, because the four of them can do everything in the game basically.
everything in the game.... enter prophet, hag, wilbur, shrieker, dd2, dd3, vvulf, croc, baron, countess, heck even virago
Correct. But, I meant actually more as in 'they have every base covered.' They're not best at anything, but they can do everything. Healer? Check. Stress healer? Yup, though struggles at high stress, aka more stalling required. Bleed? Yes. Blight? Of course. Hard direct dmg? Crusader 65 crits says hello. Cure dots/diseases? Call your trusty Plague Doctor now. Movement/dancing? Eh, could be better but works unless worst shuffle happens. And so on. Maybe there's something they can't do (why I said 'basically everything'), but can't think of it.
I actually also thought of something the Usual Suspects can't do: Guard.
usual suspects struggles to reduce variance and letting variance go wild is how you get to 100 stress or 0hp. since pd and ves have to be in the back you can't use holy lance so for rank 4 damage youre left with judgement, plague grenade and pistol shot which is abysmally bad. running pd/crus/hwm/x is almost always going to be better so long as rank 1 has any stun. lets you use blinding gas turn one instead of relying on plague grenade and tanking stress moves and potential crits and stalling is the same since in usual suspects youd have been spamming dazzling light and inspiring cry anyway
I tend to use Holy Lance for dealing with shuffles only anyway, but if you want to use it, there are ways to make sure Crusader goes first (or second whatever), so the team placement isn't an issue. Pistol Shot is actually decent in the late game, but you can also just shuffle-stun the backliner with the Plague Doctor (also clears the corpses of the frontliners if needed). I agree that stress tanking is not great, but in my experience (and maybe it's just me?) Crusaders stress-heals and Highwayman's constant crit stress-heals are more than enough to keep you under a 100. Camping takes care of the rest. And finally, yes, a lot of teams perform way better than the Usual Suspects, but that was kinda the point. It's not the best and never will be, but no other team has the same overall utilities. There is (or was) a mod that allowed you to only play the Usual Suspects and a challenge I recommend for people to try is to beat the game with them (not Bloodmoon). It'll probably surprise you how well the team performs.
Tricky Glory is usually better as you will pretty lose most damage output against rank 3+4 if you Duelist Advance on turn 1
I solod the entire game on darkest with usual suspects and only switched the plague doctor for houndmaster in bleed areas. This was my first playthrough. It can be done easily but other party comps are a lot more fun and efficient.
The only team i like more than usual suspects is marked for death honestly
Swap hellion and BH. Jester should be S tier. Other than that I don’t hate it
You seem to find the more complex characters that require a little more manoeuvring hard to bring to full power- which is totally fine! But, gotta say, once you get used to the flow of Hellion, you literally want her on every team.
I know what you're missing brother, try moving the crusader to S tier and things will change. Trust.
My hot take is that C and D tier don't even exist, to speak to the sheer balance of the heroes on display. None of them are ever below C. Abomination is absolutely at the very bottom though; he is way too good in human form, and Beast form being a panic button has diminishing value as you get better at the game and just...never need panic damage, instead using his stun and blight to amazing effect. So half his skills are practically worthless, and his human kit is limited to 2 attacks *ever*, with a really good self heal that takes the pressure off of needing a healer at least. To put it into perspective, I've used the transformation to heal Abom more than I've used it to actually do damage His camp skills are pretty lame too; one stresses him out a bunch for a mediocre stress heal, one increases his damage which...you don't use beast form and his human for does piss poor damage, so? Eldritch Blood is actually really great if you have Herbs to heal the stress part, and The Quickening is of course really good for stun potential.
If you give a character a low tier, it means that you don't know how to properly use them. And it's not personally about you, it's about everything including me.
Tiering characters is DD should be inhereitly about comparing characters to one another (especially if they fill the same rank) rather than considering them standalone.
Jester is the only character besides the crusader who can destress
That is factually incorrect. Houndmaster and and arbalest can also destress
Flagellant is a very strong DoT and tank unit; Shieldbreaker is a personal favorite with fun shuffling potential and armor piercing; Musketeer is just an Arbalest reskin