Darkest Dungeon - What took so long?

[Zealot]

I was on a roll with these bosses and then I lost an entire level 2 team to the Inchoate Flesh, ugh. Almost done with the Ruins though, 2 bosses left.

[Rhyis.]

Hound's Harry is the jam against flesh 'cause of that linked hp.

[Lucavi]

I was on a roll with these bosses and then I lost an entire level 2 team to the Inchoate Flesh, ugh. Almost done with the Ruins though, 2 bosses left.

Stack houndmasters, make one of them an evasion tank (front row with eva charms; use guard once and then harry from the front row), and laugh at the hilarity.

First full party I ever lost was to the champion Pounder. My most accurate arbalest missed a goddamn shot on the matchman and that was all she wrote.

[Rhyis.]

Been plowing through lvl 5 boss lately. Only the prophet, crew, and vvulf left.
Feels good man

[Lucavi]

Good shit on the pounder. Did you have any accuracy scares?

[Rhyis.]

Had a vestal, arbalest, houndmaster, and hellion team. Walked in with battle trance buff and heaven's hairpin trinket for hellion, houndmaster walks around with a sun ring, and restring crossbow buff and bulls eye bandana trinket for arbalest. Accuracy abound. All 3 classes would consistently 1 shot the match dude when he was in position 4, which he always was 'cause I never killed the other adds. Never had the slightest problem with the fight at all tbh

Hag was the biggest pain so far but that might've been party comp and not using the trinkets I am now

[Lucavi]

Running my lowbie money farming slap-together crew (Vestal, Ante, Highway, Crusader) torchless into a medium weald to pick up some medicine. Its torchless, so I know what I'm getting into, but fucking hell. Ran into a collector (easy prey) and a goddamn shambler, and this is after I purposefully ignored (but considered after finishing the mission!) a shambler idol. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be because we had ways to shut down the tentacles and the vestal got pretty lucky with some nice stuns, but Jesus, this was not a party designed for fucking Shambler killing.

Made it out with the vial, 15k, some deeds and the vestal going hostile and yelling at the team, but it was an otherwise success.

On the plus side, the treatment/medical ward is free, so time to save about 22k on treating locked obnoxious traits that I was too cheap to fix earlier.

[Rhyis.]

I haven't gotten into locking good traits or losing bad ones yet really. I find armor/weapons/skills are way too important, and expensive, to not keep updated.
Probably be the last thing I do

[Lucavi]

Yeah I never lock until everything elsei s maxed, but I will drop shitty traits that cost me things, like money. No Kleptos or curio interactions that may get in the way of my antiquarian opening every goddamn thing in the place.

[Rhyis.]

I love that those traits even exist. Shits hilarious, albeit annoying when you lose big ticket items or pop a shambler lol

[Sirbacube]

Some traits are absolute locks if they pop. Crit chance, PROT, SPD, and even the Deathblow resist are worth locking even if you have to put together a lowbie squad to make up the costs.

Also you can lock and remove a quirk at the same time, which can save tons if you get the free clinic pop.

[Rhyis.]

These quirks look the best to me:

Melee: +10% Damage for Melee attacks, +3% Critical Chance for Melee attacks, +5 Accuracy, +5 Accuracy for Melee attacks, +10% Protection
Ranged: +10% Damage for Ranged attacks, +3% Critical Chance for Ranged attacks, +5 Accuracy, +5 Accuracy for Ranged attacks, +10% Protection

You can lock 3 so some arrangement of the above for whatever purpose I'm using the class for. Debuffs still miss so accuracy seems like the auto quirk on everyone.

[Kaelan?]

+2 SPD / +2 SPD at high light(or low, if you're into that) is an auto-lock for me. Going first is huge for avoiding damage.

I really like the area-specific and creature-specific quirks too, since I tend to run teams made for specific areas (i.e. I pretty much only ever run Crusaders in the ruins). Slayer (+10% ACC & 3% Crit), Hater (+15% DMG, -15% Stress) and Tactician (+15% DMG) are super useful, esp. if you pair em with the 'xxx Slayer' rings

[Andalusian girls]

+2 SPD / +2 SPD at high light(or low, if you're into that) is an auto-lock for me. Going first is huge for avoiding damage.

I really like the area-specific and creature-specific quirks too, since I tend to run teams made for specific areas (i.e. I pretty much only ever run Crusaders in the ruins). Slayer (+10% ACC & 3% Crit), Hater (+15% DMG, -15% Stress) and Tactician (+15% DMG) are super useful, esp. if you pair em with the 'xxx Slayer' rings

i'm not in love with the area-specific ones, but agree 100% on the speed buffs. being able to CC / kill most (sometimes all) of the enemy team before they get a turn to go essentially gets you 2 rounds in a row / combat against a depleted enemy squad and is the single most useful tactic for mitigating damage and stress. a team that goes first is almost always going to have an easier time than a team that goes second no matter the composition.

[Rhyis.]

I really like accuracy at these champion levels. Everything walks around with a gazillion dodge. Your abilities accuracy only goes up by 20 from base level to max level while your enemies dodge has gone up by 25 from apprentice to champion. If you go from a 7 in 10 chance of hitting a mob to an 8 or 9 chance in 10 to hitting a mob, that's doing you a whole lot more than possibly attacking first (speed check is still a roll) and missing.

It's all preference, but I've been having a lot of success by stacking accuracy.

[Lucavi]

Fated is busted as welll. A chance to turn any miss into a hit adds up.

[Krandor]

Radiant Update just went live on steam. For anyone who isn't up on it, besides standard patch stuff it adds a new mode called Radiant designed to reduce the grinding needed to reach endgame

[Zealot]

I'll have to get back into it, I stopped halfway through the bosses to catch every Pokemon.

[Koul]

The Crimson Court expansion releases today~

[Lucavi]

Fucking terrifying version of "Vampires" in this game. I won't spoil them, but ughhhhhh. Goddamn nightmare fuel!