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[ChairmanPoo]

I don't think PROT is taken into account by the game's "AI" (I suspect monsters lash out mostly at random)

At any rate, all the "guard" skills are good insofar they reduce the number of viable targets in your group. They are DOUBLY good if the "guarder" is a character with riposte (notice that the only way a HWM can guard is via the antiquarian's skill. The one other character who can guard and riposte is the MAA, which it can do in a rather convenient fashion alternating both skills.... the only issue being that the MAA's guard ally only boosts prot, not dodge. I tend to prefer dodge tanks ever since they nerfed prot. Prot's good, but no longer godlike. All things considered, if you're going to be taking another character's hits, it's better to use dodge than prot. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread houndmaster dodge tanks. I tried them and they are very satsifying)

[Spehss _]

I think protection is more useful than dodge. Protection is guaranteed to reduce physical damage, while stacking tons of dodge doesn't guarantee that characters avoid damage. By stacking up dodge they should have good chances to dodge, maybe, hopefully, but rng is rng and shit can go wrong real fast.


Lost another leper. Was going to fight the necromancer lord. Didn't even reach the boss. The leper gets hit by a couple unlucky crits by undead and gets knocked to death's door. Next turn the skeleton cleric with the chalice gets the first move and kills my leper by throwing wine in his face. First hit while on death's door, and he's dead. Of course. He was a champion at lvl 6, too. Had to abandon the quest after that, he was one of the party's main dps dealers.

My two leper bros are reunited (in death) at last.

[Blaze]

Tried an apprentice medium Weald Dark run, double antiquarian, double highwayman. Both highwaymen had a dark bracer and moon ring, antiquarians had a single SPD trinket (Fleet florin and Quick Draw Charm, use trinket scrounge for the other slot). The idea was to PM! asap, and then have the HWM use Duelist Advance. Brought lots of food as I didn't have any healers.

So many crits... Walked away with  ~14,000 extra gold. Health did get somewhat dicey though.

1. The antiquarian's gold buff does stack, with two that makes 2500 gold per stack.
2. Any treasure spots seem to always drop at least one of their unique treasures (minor/major antique 275/1000 gold, minor antiques stack to 20). Torch sconces seem to be an exception though.
3. PM! buff does stack. (I took a Bloodletter's point blank shot for 2 damage)
4. Nervous stab is surprisingly accurate. The darkness crit buff made it moderately more effective than festering vapors. (Though the manslayer's ring from trinket scrounge probably added to it.)

I think protection is more useful than dodge. Protection is guaranteed to reduce physical damage, while stacking tons of dodge doesn't guarantee that characters avoid damage. By stacking up dodge they should have good chances to dodge, maybe, hopefully, but rng is rng and shit can go wrong real fast.


Lost another leper. Was going to fight the necromancer lord. Didn't even reach the boss. The leper gets hit by a couple unlucky crits by undead and gets knocked to death's door. Next turn the skeleton cleric with the chalice gets the first move and kills my leper by throwing wine in his face. First hit while on death's door, and he's dead. Of course. He was a champion at lvl 6, too. Had to abandon the quest after that, he was one of the party's main dps dealers.

My two leper bros are reunited (in death) at last.

I find that dodge becomes unreliable at higher difficulties, enemy attacks are just too accurate at that point. That, and it means you'll be going max torch or else the boost becomes rather meaningless.

Oof, too bad about your loss. I once lost a bounty hunter in the first fight in a cove; a double crit octocestus/seaward slash and then died from the bleed.

Sometimes when the game wants to murder you it just does and you can't do anything about it.

[Spehss _]

Tried an apprentice medium Weald Dark run, double antiquarian, double highwayman. Both highwaymen had a dark bracer and moon ring, antiquarians had a single SPD trinket (Fleet florin and Quick Draw Charm, use trinket scrounge for the other slot). The idea was to PM! asap, and then have the HWM use Duelist Advance. Brought lots of food as I didn't have any healers.

So many crits... Walked away with  ~14,000 extra gold. Health did get somewhat dicey though.

1. The antiquarian's gold buff does stack, with two that makes 2500 gold per stack.
2. Any treasure spots seem to always drop at least one of their unique treasures (minor/major antique 275/1000 gold, minor antiques stack to 20). Torch sconces seem to be an exception though.
3. PM! buff does stack. (I took a Bloodletter's point blank shot for 2 damage)
4. Nervous stab is surprisingly accurate. The darkness crit buff made it moderately more effective than festering vapors. (Though the manslayer's ring from trinket scrounge probably added to it.)

Neat. I tried a party of an antiquarian, a vestal, and two highwaymen in the front. Antiquarian basically spammed vapours for stacking dodge, vestal healed, and highwaymen mostly shot or stabbed stuff. Didn't really like it, the highwaymen were squishy and had a hard time dealing with enemies in the back rows, the dodging buffs from the antiquarian didn't do much, and vestal was meh at healing. I didn't try using riposte. Then again they were all level 0 with no artifacts.

I want to think the antiquarian is useful for a defensive support role with the dodge and protection bonuses. Maybe an antiquarian and man-at-arms, or antiquarian and highwayman with riposte. I think for any kind of defensive party a dots dealer is a must, either a plague doctor or a houndmaster to apply blight or bleed. But in higher missions it seems a healer (probably vestal) is essential for survival.

So my theoretical tank party using an antiquarian already has a 3 slots filled, with the antiquarian, a healer, and a damage-over-time dealer. I guess a man-at-arms at the front for tanking for the squishier heroes. Doesn't seem like it would work. Vestal doesn't output much damage as a healer, antiquarian is there to provide buffs, plague doctor deals good dots but is squishy, houndmaster can deal good damage and bleed but is also squishy, and a man-at-arms tank has to keep activating riposte and will mostly deal damage if enemies attack him, which isn't guaranteed.

I wonder if the antiquarian could use "protect me" on another hero, then have the man-at-arms protect the hero that's guarding the antiquarian. So if a monster attacks the antiq or the guarded hero, it attacks the man-at-arms, and triggers riposte. That's 3/4 party members covered.

[Blaze]

If I was going on a dodge-focused party...

Arbalest, Antiquarian, Houndmaster, DPS (Bounty hunter seems likely due to marking capability, though a leper can fit).

Essentially,  Arbalest uses suppressing fire to lower enemy accuracy or do damage, houndmaster guard dog's the DPS, antiquarian PM!'s the houndmaster or even flashing powder to further reduce enemy accuracy, and the front DPS does their thing.

The houndmaster's dodge would skyrocket, letting him dodge most attacks (He'd be 100+ after the second round, even higher with dodge trinkets; ancestor coat is +15). Since guard dog lasts 3 turns, they could protect both the Arbalest and BH or just mark the target. This is in addition to the Protection buff from the antiquarian.

You could do something similar with the man at arms replacing the HM. Crt/DMG trinkets for the MAA, he defends one character and gets PM!'d by the antiquarian. Those two alone would push him to 50% protection in the first round at level 1 (Dunno about the antiquarian, but he gets 45% protection at level 5; antiquarian is 32% at level 3). 75% of non-AOE attacks would be redirected to the MAA who's prot would soak it up and he'd riposte for crits to negate stress damage.

It's a bit slower as he has to riposte before guarding, but the damage should more than make up for it. There's also the issue of bleed/blight stacks, so you'll need bandages/antidotes. You might possibly switch out the arbalest for a plague doctor, since that'll both prevent the DoT damage and slow down the enemy with blinding powder while you get your riposte/guard up. You can replace the front DPS with a leper or something, maybe even a hellion for YAWP to stun the front row.

Edit: Looks like PM! overrides the original defender target, so this all goes out the window. And no, using PM! on a defended target doesn't redirect it to the MAA.

Let's theorize:
Man-at-arms, antiquarian, 2xDPS. All at level 5/6.
Man-at-arms gets Guardian shield for +10% prot in the back row. (Tough ring might be better and can work at any row though).
Man-at-arms guards 1 DPS, protection is now 55%.
Antiquarian uses PM! (Estimated at 40% at level 5?) For 95% protection.
Hard-Skinned (Quirk) would push that to 100% Or any other protection trinkets really.

[Spehss _]

Got a decent party (lvl 0 to 2) that ran the ruins a couple of times in a row. Antiquarian, vestal, highwayman, and man-at-arms. Antiquarian mostly uses protect on the highwayman, or uses vapours or blinding dust to buff or debuff. Vestal heals. Highwayman stabs stuff and uses duelists advance in combination with antiquarian's protect to proc riposte. This combined with a slugger perk (+10% melee) and stacking +% damage from trinkets and camp buffs makes his counterattacks reeeeally dang good. Especially when it crits. Man-at-arms uses retribution and guard ally to protect the vestal and proc riposte, and occasionally hits things with a mace or stuns with rampart.

Stress was an issue during a long mission but I managed to handle it via camping.

It's really satisfying to go up against enemies with aoe attacks and watch the man-at-arms and highwayman counterattack in unison.

I am looooving the antiquarian's treasure finding ability. Got 22,000 gold out of a long ruins mission. She's proving to be pretty good at buffs, too. Or at least she doesn't seem as much of a dead weight as I first thought. This may be a result of man-at-arms' and highwayman's ripostes making up for her lack of dps.

[askovdk]

I lost a level 5 team 
However, it gave me a business idea, so let me present:

Free to play Darkest Dungeon!

Everything as in the current buy to play except for an additional feature:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

On a theoretical level I find the idea 'interesting'. - I don't like it, but exactly how would it be bad?  Nobody forces you to buy revival gems, and if you don't, then you get the current game for free.
(Hmm, with such a business model many people would be suspecious of the crushing increase in difficulty, - i.e. it would feel like a scam about getting players to invest time in their heroes, and then the game kills the heroes to pull real money.    )

[Bauglir]

That would be the most evil possible development, with the possible exception of "If you lose a NG+ the game wipes your hard drive". The "nobody forces you to" argument has never really held water with Skinner boxes.

[Blaze]

I give it 8.5 hours before someone turns it into a free mod.

[LordPorkins]

....you...
Are suggesting....
DD should go freemium...

Dude. No. Just. No.

[Mephansteras]

You've found a new way to torture fans of Darkest Dungeon. Well played. Well played.

[Aoi]

Also, revives get more expensive each time and there's a risk of failure that steadily increases. Normal failure just fails... critical failure makes them permanently dead. Or a really expensive guaranteed revive. At any time, there's also a different purchase that'll reset the cost and failure rates, but those are pricy too.

[nenjin]

I somehow want to amend the thread title for this lark, but I don't have the room to not put in something that would have people popping in going "WHAT?!?!"

[umiman]

I somehow want to amend the thread title for this lark, but I don't have the room to not put in something that would have people popping in going "WHAT?!?!"

Do it like a Gawker headline.

Dankest Dungeon Free 2 Pay Possible?! You Won't Believe How They Could Do It!

[Boltgun]

Also, revives get more expensive each time and there's a risk of failure that steadily increases. Normal failure just fails... critical failure makes them permanently dead. Or a really expensive guaranteed revive. At any time, there's also a different purchase that'll reset the cost and failure rates, but those are pricy too.

I'm already not a fan of micropayment but dice rolls micropayments should be plain illegal.

Btw, met the siren. She did nothing. NOTHING. Boo!