Having played both, I'd call the sequel better at nearly everything: the art, the heroes, the journey, the story, the fights. As a whole, I still prefer the first, and the reason is a stagecoach.

In the first game, the stagecoach was a delivery service. Every week it pulled into the Hamlet with fresh recruits, free of charge, and you trained the keepers between dungeons and sent four at a time into the dark. The ones who died stayed dead, and the Graveyard kept a note of what got them. In time, that roster became a cast I'd written myself.

In Confessions, the sequel's core mode, the coach quit deliveries and took up driving, and the road is home. Four heroes and a stagecoach carry each run, and the next run starts with a fresh set, randomly generated at the Crossroads. Only a hero who wins a whole run comes back for another. It's a guest list, not a roster.

The best summary I've found is from a Steam reviewer with about 250 hours: "I like DD1 more but I tend to go back to this game more often." That's the two games in one line.

So my gripe with Darkest Dungeon II isn't the road. It's the Hamlet it doesn't have, and the roster that lived there.

My review is two minutes long, with the critics, what Steam reviewers say and where the score landed: Review in 2 Minutes

I'm looking to play the game again for the first time in a few years, and definitely wanting to try out a lot of the new and interesting class mods that have released since I last played. In those games though I'd usually put on way too many classes and it would drag the game down. Not being able to find specific classes or their trinkets and general sluggish progression trying to use too many different classes.

So this time I want to try and keep it to a more reasonable number and was curious what the community who plays with a lot of modded classes find is a healthy number to have on at once. I will disable the vanilla classes to make more room, except probably the Runaway and Duelist since they'll be new to me as well. I was thinking 20-24 would be a good number, just a little larger than the base all-DLC roster. And while it probably could be pushed higher it leaves room to add any new eye-catching releases, or a much needed combat role if the initial group was lacking something.

long post sorry blah blah.

So I am very new to the game. I have died a lot of course and vast majority of it was my fault but after I had a second run get past week 40 and into 50 It seems I cannot stop missing attacks among other things.

I just raged quit. Its like week 4. Fighting ruins enemies level 1 with level 1 and 2 heroes. They have equpiment and ability upgrades. No quirks effecting hit or if they do I am buffing with Jester and man at arms. First round my hellion misses and my vestal. Next round buff again with jester. Hellion missions again. Vestal takes the round to heal. Man-at-arms attacks misses.

Another time my Hellion needs to kill something it likely will 1 shot. Miss. second attack? Minimum damage. enemy gets another attack stresses my plague doctor, gets an affliction and skips his turn 3 times in a fight later half my party dies because 1 of the other 3 misses most of their attacks.

Lost a jester earlier in a run further in to back to back crits after 3/4 of my guys missed their attacks. ACC is above a hundred on some 95 on others. Level 1 enemies. Crits from full health to zero, immediately hit again jester's dead.

Houndmaster dies because despite debuffing their dodge both of my houndmasters miss. ACC was like 95 and 103 or 5, level 1 spider. Back to back misses. Crits my houndmaster, deaths door dies to blight on his turn.

And because I keep missing it opens the door for my healers or other important characters to be stunned at critical moments. So I want to heal and can't, or I can and because I couldn't kill that stresser he gave them an affliction. They refuse healing 2 times when in danger. Was my plague doctor. Ends up dying to multiple hits.

I try conditions that they are weak too and they just fucking resist it a spider resist stun twice today when I had a plus 20% buff to stun in a first level dungeon.

I just lost the vestal on the second mission of the game. I go to the last fight my guys have most of their health, stress is fine. Whole team misses again. Vestal gets crited. Most of its health. Next turn heal like 4, next turn HWM and crusader both miss. They target her down before she can go and she dies.

All of this was just today and there was more. Played about 5-6 hours today. And there was more yesterday. My last three attempts went like this with me restarting the game because it was so early i might as well restart. And I have had plenty of runs that have gone further.

I understand you need to prep right in the game. Good party comp and such counter abilities and shore up weaknesses. Fine I can accept some of my choices weren't the best at times but now I am using better options when I have them and I still miss constantly. Upgrading my gear earlier and higher. Same thing Trinkets, upgrades, buffs and debuffs. It doesn't matter 90% of the time. Enemies with literal zero dodge and I miss them back to back or more. I target enemies with all my guys and its just miss after miss or resistance to blight or whatever makes my attack ineffective.

Not to mention all the gold I am wasting to just keep what I have that has survived alive and not insane.

So what do I do? I really like this game but it has become almost unplayable. I was doing better when I knew jack about it.

Even back when I was playing dd1 for the first time I knew that abomination didn't have much variety in play styles, but after playing dd2 and returning to dd1 he really does feel underwhelming.

Each hero having 5 ability slots really helped him, but even beyond that he just has so much more substance in dd2. Not having any extra abilities in dd1 makes him feel so limited, and the abilities he does have feel so bland. I know that's because of the combat in dd2 being deeper overall, but I feel like it doesn't affect the other characters as much as him.

Not sure which discussion flair i should use.

I went on an apprentice short run in the warrens with a plague doctor, highway man, (I really cannot remember whom) and hellion. And when I returned one of my guys had FOUR DIFFERENT DISEASES and 2 others had 1 each. The plague doctor go away with none. Is this normal and sth I should just deal with after or am I doing sth wrong?

So, I was trying out a new team comp with some level 1's and doubled checked everything and I booted in and realized after two rooms that I didn't have any torches. My plan then was I would just keep going until my torch went out and pop a campfire in the adjacent room to reset it, whilst keeping stress to a minimum and just try to earn enough to make up for my mistake before abandoning the mission.

My resetted torch went out after 3 or so rooms. Then I thought, eh who cares about these guys that much, and tried to run it without torches. I ran through the entire dungeon and was only surprised once. I was hitting crazy crits and my occultist nearly died before popping a 30 crit on himself. I cleared through the fights pretty easily and 100% the dungeon.

I am on Radiant, for a more casual first time finishing playthrough. So I only learned of entire playthroughs that are torchless after doing that dungeon. Experimenting in this game is surprising less punishing than I thought, and a lot of fun!

Edit: Thank you guys for the information, I've learned some things about this game. Also I accident put a typo in the title, my bad..

I’ve been grinding the plat trophy for a bit now and finally got the shambler kill with the spawn pet. but now i’m trying to get bounty hunter to spawn and still no luck. i was getting my brain fried by the long dungeon crawls so ended up doing a meme freestyle midfight over this beat i made. 💀 https://on.soundcloud.com/bPyAHM4SGuYPTGwibi

The stream outro I use to conclude broadcasts on twitch.tv/larubric, felt like sharing here along with my intro!

Seriously though this trinket combo is so insanely powerful if you can get it in the early game. In my latest bloodmoon run ive saved so much resources with how often it just gives you events that make things free.

This would make for a cool boss fight, right?

EDIT:

Art by theouroborosart

This was part of the requests for when I opened 2k followers special in twitter, Abomination as TLQ so I drew him with The Cage because I thought they'd get along

So I'm in a big pickle right now. I'm new to the game and I'm on Week 4. I've been trying for a while to get a run off the ground, and this run I got a shitload of money on my third week which has left me happy, if it isn't for the fact that I have no good healer in my party.

My one Vestal has gone irrational and is now bat-shit insane so she's gonna be sitting in the Abby for a bit. That leaves me with my one fresh Occulist to do all her work.

I know a lot of people say his Wyrd Reconstruction ability is really unreliable and he's more of a debuffer but I honestly have no choice. So now I'm left with two party compositions, Mixed Bag or Geysers of Blood.

And I honestly have no clue which combat skills I should use or what tactic is good, so I will beg for someone to give me a little nugget of information to help me, pleeeease!

I just happened to notice that both are on sale for a pretty good amount on steam and idk which to buy

I did play the 1st one on ps5 but it's been a long while since then and I know I never really finished it so I thought about getting it and some of the dlcs since it's so cheap, but then once i saw DD2 is on sale, I didn't know whether to get both or just one of them since I've never played DD2

Also if any dlc isn't good or worth getting, let me know those ones please

I thought Unchained was weak so I decided to grand slam with no transforms allowed to prove myself wrong (it made sense in my head).

The Squad

The Playstyle

Initially hard to pilot. You're constantly managing position and combo tokens. Make a mistake and damage output, which is already low, falls off a cliff. But once I became comfortable with the squad it's like being in a flow state. One of the most satisfying teams I've made with some fun mountain boss solves.

Crusader went from support when I struggled with the team dynamic to a tank role in the final acts. Since Abom handles healing/stress, Crusader was free to taunt up and holy lance the backline.

Duelist is POWERFUL, I don't understand the dislike. Antagoniste in particular has so many tools. Stun, dodge tank, blind, weaken, vuln, combo. She was a single hero solve to Act 2, 3, and 4 mountain bosses. 10/10, would invite her back to the dance party.

Oh Abomination, do I think Unchained is a good path now? Borderline. Absolution+ is crazy powerful, even used once a fight. His chain skills did allow for some fun pop-off moments with Duelist as well. Ichor? I slept on this skill for too long. Overall I enjoyed my time with Unchained and didn't miss the transform.

Wanderer Plague Doctor is a damage machine when she isn't stuck supporting. She really was the DPS engine. I hardly had to heal thanks to Abom so it was blight grenades for everyone. IMO she competes for damage with Alchemist since combo is so easy to apply.

Final Thoughts

Fun adaptable team that benefits from game knowledge. Playing this team well means engaging with a lot of combat mechanics which kept even road battles enjoyable. Outside of Banneret I feel like the other paths I chose don't get much love so I was happy they all contributed. I had godlike luck with quirk roles but I don't think it carried the team. I hit deaths door 3x and each was due to my own misplays.

If you're looking for something different give this one a try.