screenshot [complete] Something Something Insidious Killer: Let's play Darkest Dungeon

[Golb89]

[Note: i DID try to put all of this under "spoiler", but after half an hour of failed attempts i just gave up]

2 hours ago, ping said:

[insert political joke]

Inserting:

 

1 hour ago, ping said:

On the way to the boss, Haze questions her life choices while smoking some medical herbs next to an Eerie Coral. She is doing God's work, driving back the corruption from this estate. Maybe, a hundred years, a thousand years from now, people will remember Saint Haze, the beautiful noblewoman who risked her life (although she better not lose it, sweet-thing) to deliver the family of man from this madness! And Saints don't consort with sinners, or prostitutes. Who ever heard of such a silly thing?

 

1 hour ago, ping said:

And here she is, the precocous waif? Meet our first "real" boss!

Guess Hanako-kun didn't come her rescue this time...

 

1 hour ago, ping said:

She always opens the fight with her Song of Desire, which has a 70% chance...

...to mindcontrol one of your heroes for two turns. I knew she would go for Specter because... well, we know how horny the Vestal is, and I guess word has reached the Cove at this point.

 

2 hours ago, ping said:

Welp, there we go boys, first death. And OF COURSE it's a named character. Who also has the crazy good Luminous quirk locked in. And who remembers what trinket we were doing this boss fight for? Yeppp.

2 hours ago, ping said:

NOT HELPING SPECTER

 

2 hours ago, ping said:

...Name suggestions for our newest recruit?

What newest recruit? She's obviously Silence who (sorta) mended her ways and came back to work for you again!

(Maybe)

(But most likely yes)

 

1 hour ago, Benice said:

I vote that we name the new plague doctor Phil.

NO.

[Benice]

1 minute ago, Golb89 said:

YES.

Fixed it for you!

1 minute ago, Golb89 said:

Note: i DID try to put all of this under "spoiler", but after half an hour of failed attempts i just gave

You probably tried this, but highlighting text and then hitting the spoiler button puts them all under a spoiler.

[Golb89]

3 hours ago, Benice said:

3 hours ago, Golb89 said:

YES.

Fixed it for you!

3 hours ago, Benice said:

You probably tried this, but highlighting text and then hitting the spoiler button puts them all under a spoiler.

I did, didn't work.

[ping]

Sorry, first come, first serve There's a good chance that Silence will still have opportunity to return once I'm upgrading the Stage Coach over the Blacksmith again, though. Plague Docs are hella good.

 

[Benice]

4 minutes ago, ping said:

Sorry, first come, first serve There's a good chance that Silence will still have opportunity to return once I'm upgrading the Stage Coach over the Blacksmith again, though. Plague Docs are hella good.

 

Eyyyyy! Thanks!

13 hours ago, Golb89 said:

I did, didn't work

The forums just do be like that sometimes.

[ping]

• Update 10: Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Spoiler

A sharper sword, a stronger shield - anything to prolong a soldier's life.

We now have enough deeds and crests to do one Blacksmith upgrade and effectively get our first adventurers to Lv. 1.75. I prioritize armour over weapons because Not Dying is a fairly important thing.

Upgrading armour from rank 2 to 3 costs 1400g with two Furnace upgrades; getting a skill from 2 to 3 costs 600g (two cost-reducing upgrades, as well). If you will, a "full" level-up (armour, weapons, four skills) from 1 to 2 will cost 5200g per hero - more if you want some flexibility on your skillset. Spoiler warning: It's not going to become cheaper for higher levels. 20000g isn't actually THAT much money in the long run.

Other than that, Specter gets some alone time to reflect on her actions.

Well, thank you for learning how to deal with an "assault on the mind" now.

After that not-so-great first bossfight, I think the correct course of action is to go to a dungeon where there's certainly not going to be another boss waiting for me. Surely, the game would give me a fair warning if there was anything noteworthy about this mission beyond "activating" three Thronging Hives (read: combine them with some torches).

The trinket rewarded for this mission is pretty darn good, not gonna lie. "Melee" translates to "Lunge" the way I play the Grave Robber, but there's where a lot of her offensive potential is coming from already. The other move that it boosts is Pick to the Face, which is kinda difficult to fit into her skillset. Besides Lunge, she needs Shadow Fade to reset position, Thrown Dagger for hitting 4th rank, and Poison Dart if she wants (or needs) to set up Blight herself.

Here's our provisions for this mission, as well as the line-up at the bottom of the screenshot. It has pretty good direct damage output, with Dismas and our Houndmaster Boneth adding some Bleed and Mark ability, if needed. With Crusader, Houndmaster (in 2nd rank) and Vestal, there's three Stun abilities available, as well.

A little quality of life thing is that in this mission, the special torches to burn the hives are stacked in one slot. Note the low number of normal torches:

Light level in the courtyard is fixed to this "Bloodlight", similar to the Farmstead's Miasma. It counts as max torchlight for the sake of quirks and trinkets, which means that Sigurd will consistently have his 10% Dmg boost from Warrior of Light activated.

But first: Take it away, Wayne June!

Great banquets and lavish social affairs were hosted here, under the stars. Despite the expectation of propriety normally ascribed to those in our position, we mocked the stoic melancholy of the moss covered fountains and cherubic statues. Our salacious trysts half-hidden in the hedgerows, our morality slipping ever deeper... into the mud.

Soaked and sinking, these stone terraces and sprawling gardens were the site of long forgotten revelry, and well-remembered regret.

First thing that springs to attention when entering the courtyard: That looks like a very, very short dungeon. Should that worry us...?

In that single hallway, we come across a Pile of Strange Bones, which Dismas' in his Demonomania immediately decides to lick (I'm sure it's supposed to say "tongue" there). It only causes a Bleed, which doesn't really hurt too much at this point.

Right before reaching the, er, final room, we get into our first skirmish against these... things...

In front, we have a "Manservant", who tells Boneth that cats are way, wayyy smarter than dogs. [Enraging Slight - causes stress, marks the target, and may pull them two tiles forward].

But since neither the Manservant (10 HP) nor the Supplicant in the back (12 HP, 20% Prot) are particularly tanky,

...the fight just ends in the first turn before the Supplicant can even take its turn.

In the room, we find a Thronging Hive guarded by three more Supplicants and one Sycophant in the back (as a non-native speaker, I constantly confuse those two names, since I didn't know either of those words before playing DD...)

The *checks notes* SYCOPHANT is fast enough to almost always get the first attack - The Thirst, in this case, which also causes some stress.

It also moves the Sycophant to the 1st rank, gives it that little extra Stun chance, and visibly changes it into its "bloodlust" form - it gets an additional skill by that, although I don't think we'll see it used during this entire mission.

[Gather the Blood]
This attack does not seem to have an additional effect, except also moving the Supplicant to the front. Everything CRAVING seems to be a running theme in this dungeon.

Nothing much to say about the rest of the fight - neither of these monsters deal a crazy amound of damage or can take too much punishment.

Hive activated. By which I and the game mean "burnt to ashes".

...are we done?

The answer is "No.", obviously. Opening the map reveals another two rooms, so this is starting to look like an acutal mission.

The courtyard is different from any other mission in two ways: One, you can't see the complete map at the start, only the adjacent rooms (two rooms here because we rolled a critical scout).

Two, these dungeons aren't randomly generated. Every Courtyard mission has its pre-drawn map and after this first little foray, they are going to be friggin HUGE.

Anyway - let's continue. The curio in the hallway are Bloodflowers, which can be dug out with a shovel for some treasure. Digging through them per hand is very likely to cause stress or even a disease.

The room curio isn't guarded by any monsters, which I think never happens in regular dungeons. The Throbbing Cocoons can be burnt with a regular torch (the Thronging Hives need a special one) for a big stress heal.

Which is quite needed in the courtyard: Unlike regular dungeons, where you will occasionally get a random small stress tick, in the courtyard, you get +1 stress on one random hero every single hallway tile.

[Maddening Whine, which would deal some stress and moves the sycophant to the last possible rank]
Hallway fight after that is just two lone sycophants. Skip.

The obligatory did-you-bring-a-shovel test.

Another quick and easy hallway fight... I'm tempted to say that I came overprepared, but I KNOW that I did not.

Another pile of bones and this time Dismas can hold back his urges. Using bandages to protect your hands, you get a little bit of treasure out of them.

Third pile of bones, and Dismas is at it again. He just gets another Bleed, nothing critical.

Reaching the next room reveals three possible (unfortunately unscouted) paths to go. Nothing to do other than check where they lead. First, let's go north.

Next little hallway fight - the Manservant in its Infallible Servitute decides to guard the Supplicant (and increas its Prot to 33%). This would be a bit more impactful if it had more than 10 HP.

Little tactical note for the day: Even though it's not particularly important in this small fight, Stunning will immediately cancel a Guard stance (not the stat boost, though).

In the background, you can see the second Thronging Hive, waiting to be burnt down as well. That's all in this direction, so I go south from that crossroad next, but we only find another Bloodflower curio and a small room battle.

MOSQUITO-BASED VAMPIRES, ARE YOU SERIOUS? READ MY FANFICTION - VAMPIRES ARE SUPPOSED TO SPARKLE SEXILY!

Next direction, next room battle. Should be no problem.

...wait, what?

Boneth is a vampire now. Huh. And he doesn't sparkle either, much to Sigurd's disappointment.

A lot of the "bloodsucking" attacks have a chance to transmit the Crimson Curse - this is where The Blood, which was completely harmless and not at all foreboding, comes into play. A hero bearing the Crimson Curse will suffer an increasing craving for it, so you better have some of it stocked. If not, they'll just die.

[Predigestion, causing a 2-point Blight and lowering Bleed resist]

Fun fact: If a Sycophant drinks a Blighted hero's blood, that Blight will be transferred to the Sycophant. Not something that comes up very often, though.

There's no further fork in the path, so we just continue onward and... Oh hello there, monster with 109 HP, two actions per turn, and unique Ancestor comment. Nice to meet you.

That's such a nifty little AoE attack you have there! Up to 6 damage! The other monsters hardly manage that with a single-target attack! Oh, and it causes stress? And a -10 Acc debuff? Golly! [Swarming Corruption]

So, meet the Crocodilian, the first boss of the Courtyard! It is... pretty scary, actually, especially if you go into the fight unprepared.

[Lurking Fear - +20% Dmg, +10% Prot]
In particular, it can punish low-reach composions VERY hard. The reeds in the first three ranks? Those can't be killed and you can't move them either (like with the Leper's Purge skill). The Crocodilian will move, though: Lurking Fear will move itone rank forward or backward, depending on what rank it's at.

You can move the Crocodilian directly, though - it's move resist is even pretty bad. Bounty Hunter or Occultist would be able to help out with that.

First few actions, the AoE Acc debuff does some work for the Crocodilian. This would have dealt some decent damage, since Boneth used his Mark ability beforehand (which also keeps the Crocodilian's Prot at zero), but both Dismas and Boneth next turn fail to connect.

To make things worse, the Crocodilian Submerges, increasing its Dodge by 35 points - luckily for only one turn. It also keeps his head down in its sprite, looking rather smug and sneaky...

I have a couple actions before it can show its cards, though - Dismas uses Tracking Shot here to at least make his future attacks more likely to connect...

...and it works rather nicely.

LESS NICELY, LESS NICELY!
[Apex Predator, which Crocodilian always uses directly after Submerge. Besides being very dangerous, it also moves the Crocodilian to 1st rank, making him much easier to hit.]

This time, however, the turnorder is my friend and Saria gets Boneth away from Death's Door immediately.

NOW BONETH'S MAD! ...here, have a doggie treat, girl.

[Using items doesn't consume your turn, which makes the dog treats really good in boss fights. +15 Acc and +50% Dmg!]

Things are looking up, with the Crit-heal right where it's needed the most. However, notice Saria's position?

Crocodilian used Teeth Rake on her, which pulls the target forward two ranks. And now he does it again, pulling her into first rank.

Luckily, most of my team isn't terribly fussy about positioning. Dismas can't use Wicked Slice from his current position, but otherwise, this little swap after Crocodilian used another Submerge again is enough to mostly enable every hero again.

Good dodge, too! Apex Predator has an accuracy of 90% on Saria (and 80% on Dismas), so that was quite lucky - especially since the 35% chance of Apex Predator attacking a second target procced here.

And, after a couple additional hits, it's over. Pretty close at one point - Death's Door plus AoE attack could've goon poorly very easily - but everything is coming up Milhouse in the end.

As an added bonus, we get the other half of Haze's Crimson Court set as loot - equipping both at the same time will add that +5 Crit on top of all the bonuses (and also activate full Glass Cannon mode with that HP penalty...)

We still have to go through one final hallway to reach the final Throbbing Hive - and the game just wanted to make sure that you don't forget what you're playing right now.
Traps in the court deal a flat 15 points of damage (it's a percentage of your max HP in other dungeons), causes bleed, and there's a 50% Chance that it'll spawn some monsters on top of that, although that doesn't happen here.

And that's that! Surely, that's the last we'll ever see of those mosquito vampires!

THE LAST WE'LL EVER SEE!

We also get to watch the Younger Years cutscene - and the Ancestor's Memoirs allows me to do so again after disabling the subtitles for maximum viewing pleasure. There's not really another reason to check this structur in the Hamlet, other than taking a peek at what bosses are yet to come, so it never came up before.

(The Courtyard is the audio-only speech you hear when embarking on the first Courtyard quest)

In those younger years...

...my home was a hive of unbridled hedonism. A roiling apiary where instinct and impulse were indulged with wild abandon.

A bewitching predator slipped in amongst the swarm of tittering sycophants.

Though outwardly urbane I could sense in her...

...a mocking thirst.

Driven half-mad by cloying vulgarity,

I plotted to rid myself of this lurking threat in a grand display of sadistic sport.

But, when the moment of murder drew nigh,

the gibbous moon revealed her inhuman desires...

...in all their stultifying hidiousness!

See it on Youtube here.

And that's a wrap! Crimson Court totally completed! No ever-increasing pressure to return to the Courtyard ever again! I mean, Boneth is a vampire now, but it's only the one, so I'm sure we can manage, right? It's not like Van Helsing is going to run amok or anything!

Ahem. New quirks are pretty good, all things considered, but unfortunately, Sigurd and Saria join Gawain in the Wannabe-Level-3 club.

In addition to that, Specter has gone AWOL, seeking Enlightenment. That, or buying adult magazines, I guess.

All six anti-stress activities have a possible side effect of that kind, keeping the hero out of your roster for a week or two. That does include refusing to leave the Brothel after ONLY one week, of course.

Just as I feared. Now loosed from their brackish prison, they will spread like locusts across our land.

Kidding aside, we unlocked the next Courtyard mission now, to fight the Baron. Note the "Epic" length - the game isn't kidding. The next map is practically impossible to get through in a single attempt, even if you look up the map beforehand, which I might do, tbh, because I'm not a huge fan of the Crimson Court constantly poking you to go back to the Courtyard. Instead, you'll start your second foray right where you ended the first one, and so on.

One important restriction: Every attempt costs a "Baron's invitation", which the last mission gave us one of. You can get more from the ever-increasing number of bloodsuckers that will roam every dungeon - but you can also get more infected heroes that way, increasing your consumption of The Blood.

The secondary Courtyard mission, Gather The Blood, will do exactly what it says it does, so we might have to visit that at one point if Boneth won't remain the only hero catching the curse (he won't).

The Stage Court brings the next new class that we aren't going to recruit yet. Crevecoeur has one of those obsession quirks (with "haunted" curios, in this case), but the worse one would've been Fading: -2 Spd, -5 Dodge, the mirror quirk to Myrrh's awesome Luminous quirk. Slugger (+10% Melee Dmg) would've been awesome, though.

The raw strength of youth may be spent, but his eyes hold the secrets of a hundred campaigns.

See one of those hundred campaigns - the last? - here.

The Man-at-Arms is a bulky support class - bulkier than anyone but the Crusader and Leper, in fact. Despite that, he's not glued to the front positions and can do different nice things in different ranks. He's not great offensively, though - middling base damage and no DOTs or Mark abusing attacks.

I don't really talk about camp skills in these, but the MaA has a whole arsenal of really good ones, increasing the offensive or defensive stats of one hero or even the entire party. It only lasts for four battles (which is true for all camp skill buffs, I think), but that's still amazing especially when you set it up right before a boss battle.

Lv1: 31 HP | 5  DODGE | 3 SPD | 2% CRIT | 5-9  DMG
Lv5: 55 HP | 25 DODGE | 5 SPD | 6% CRIT | 8-14 DMG

Resist%:
Stun    40 | Move   40 | Blight 30 | Bleed 40 |
Disease 30 | Debuff 30 | Death  67 | Trap  10 |

Movement: 2 forwards, 2 backwards

Standard attack with good reach, although it can only be used while standing in 1st or 2nd rank.

You know the drill. Stuns are good. The knockback can be nice, moving forward can be a bit annoying because the MaA doesn't change position with any other skill, so may have to account for it happening just for this one skill. Reach isn't too great, either.

The fact that this hits the entire enemy team is interesting. If you can't finish them on the first turn, you can at least make sure that they don't act first on the second. The higher Crit chance is honestly not too valuable, since the MaA doesn't have any other Mark synergy and doesn't really fit into a dedicated Mark team as a result.

Very straightforward. Choose a squishy and protecc.

Similar to the HWM's Duelist Advance, doing a counterattack any time the MaA takes damage (I'm not sure if skills with a -100% Dmg modifier trigger this). The Riposte Dmg penalty goes down to -20% at max level, altough the base accuracy stays at a static 90, which isn't too great at higher levels.
Still, nice skill that also combos well with Defend.

Another skill that has synergy with Defend - but note the multi-target and that the Acc and Crit affects everybody. Pretty neat, actually.

Very nice skill, as well, especially against enemies that deal a lot of stress (which a fair number of bosses do). You can combo this with the Antiquarian's +Dodge skill to reach very good avoid rates - not something you can rely on for every single enemy attack, of course, but it can subtract from the attrition quite a bit.

Our next mission shall be a Cleanse mission in the Ruins, during which nothing exceptional will happen at all. The Book of Constitution seems more like a filler trinket, to be honest, but I just feel like going on a Lvl 1 mission and setting up camp during it.

We are going to bring Sora on his first mission this week, so here's a look at the Jester's Guild and Blacksmith texts. He is going to spam Battle Ballad to increase Acc and Crit, or use Inspiring Tune to keep stress levels down. He technically also has Solo and Finale available, but that's not really going to happen.

The fiends must be driven back, and what better place to begin than the seat of our noble line?

Here's the whole line-up, although Sora and Lucy swap positions immediately (I forgot that Sora's musical skills can only be used in the back ranks).

We get a nice critical scout right away, which tells us that we do, in fact, have to backtrack for that one room battle.

[Inspiring Tune]

[Battle Ballad]

Pramanix: "Dancing an fighting - there is no difference."

Y'all know the ruins by now. I'll just go through the abilities and curios that I may not have shown already.

[Puncture - ignore and remove Guard; pull forward two ranks]

[Sacrificial Dagger - Occultist's standard attack. Low base damage, but pretty high Crit]

A little lick at the armour increases Pramanix' Prot by 15% and Dodge by 10 until we camp. It would've been better if it lasted until after camp, because reasons.
There's a 1/4 chance that the hero gets a good Ruins related quirk instead, Adventurer (-20% Stress) or Tactitian (+15% Dmg).

We catch another part of Darius' story here. We already saw the first, fourth, and sixth part at this point.

Eradicated!

Aaaand done. This comp feels a little frail HP-wise, especially with no area heal available, but it works well enough in a regular dungeon and can remove dangerous enemies pretty quickly. Sora's Inspiring Tune means that stress is absolutely no problem, too.

Aw, come on Pramanix! We've cleared the dungeon, we're only here to get rid of that... *checks screenshots* one and three points of stress on Phil and Sora!

But to calm your nerves, let's go for some overkill stress reduction, which we don't need at all, of course.

And some combat boosts just for you, Pramanix, even though nothing bad is going to happen.

The viper seeks to claim its quarry at last!

See? Just three big, venomous snakes. Nothing bad at all.

This is the start of the additional Shieldbreaker content that I've been alluding to (and that I was fishing for in a previous mission): Every time you set up camp, there's a 50% chance for the Nightmare Made Material to pop up, bringing back the Shieldbreaker to her traumatic past.

The Pliskin in front doesn't have terribly fearful stats or attacks, although Infuse does inflict a 3-point Blight. However, it starts the fight stealthed for two turns and a massive +15 Crit as long as it remains stealthed. For this fight, you can just wait it out and take a crit on the chin if needed, but you definitely want to have some anti-stealth measures in future Nightmares. Conveniently, the Shieldbreaker has one, too.

The Rattler likes to use Warning Rattle to guard one of its allies, increase its Prot by 10% (to 35%), and activate a fairly weak (1-2 Dmg) riposte.

It can also use Snakebite for some decent damage and a 2-point Bleed.

One additional danger: Your Shieldbreaker will start the fight with a HUGE, unhealable Horror status effect. This is why I used two skills on her that reduce stress - unlike the DOTs, which ignore Prot, this does reduce the stress taken to 14 per turn.

Since I knew (or at least expected) what was coming, the fight isn't particularly dangerous, despite the low HP on Sora and Lucy here. But as you can imagine - if this was an actually needed camp, we'd go into the rest of the dungeon low on HP and with a seriously stressed out Pramanix.

And the fight ends, fittingly, with another Pierce crit (the third one I'm showing this update. I might like the Shieldbreaker.) Now we're really done with this mission!

Overcoming the Nightmares will spell out Pramanix' backstory more explicitly than any other classes. Yes, it's seven Nightmares in total, although we can only get the first three in Lvl.1 missions.

We also get the Shieldbreaker's unique trinkets through these, including her Crimson Court set. This means that we WILL get all of them reliably, but we can't fish for the good ones by delaying a boss fight, like we did with the Siren.

The Aegis scales have a similar effect as Pramanix' Serpent Sway ability - block any direct HP damage, although only once instead of the ability's two charges. Still very powerful, since you can use them and do a regular action in one turn.

Overall, the loot is a bit underwhelming, but that's because about 40% of the dungeon have benn left unexplored. I was really unlucky with hunger events, so despite only using 4 food during camp, I was already completely out of food and didn't want to take the stress damage from another hunger event.

Quirks are great though! Especially the lack of any negative ones.

When returning to the village, we now have to keep an eye on our Crimson Cursed adventurers (well, the one, for now). Even if you don't bring them to the mission, their craving will increase (we'll see how that translates into gameplay sooner or later) and if there's no Blood available when they can't control themselves anymore, they just drop dead.

Luckily, they reach that point one week and only need the blood the week thereafter, and the game keeps track for you how much Blood will be consumed every week.

For now, the whole thing isn't a huge concern for us. That'll change though. Trust me.

 

[Benice]

2 hours ago, ping said:

That's a cheerful way to start the day!

2 hours ago, ping said:

MOSQUITO-BASED VAMPIRES, ARE YOU SERIOUS? READ MY FANFICTION - VAMPIRES ARE SUPPOSED TO SPARKLE SEXILY!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh my god...

2 hours ago, ping said:

 

...in all their stultifying hidiousness!

IT'S A TRAP!

2 hours ago, ping said:

And the fight ends, fittingly, with another Pierce crit (the third one I'm showing this update. I might like the Shieldbreaker.) Now we're really done with this mission!

Sylvia's diary confirmed.

Also, can we name the Man-at-Arms Lawrence?

[Golb89]

4 hours ago, ping said:

Update 10: Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Spoiler

4 hours ago, ping said:

Other than that, Specter gets some alone time to reflect on her actions.

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

The obligatory did-you-bring-a-shovel test.

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

MOSQUITO-BASED VAMPIRES, ARE YOU SERIOUS? READ MY FANFICTION - VAMPIRES ARE SUPPOSED TO SPARKLE SEXILY!

LIKE THIS!

MAYBE!

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

So, meet the Crocodilian, the first boss of the Courtyard! It is... pretty scary, actually, especially if you go into the fight unprepared.

 

5 hours ago, ping said:

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

And, after a couple additional hits, it's over.

 

5 hours ago, ping said:

A bewitching predator slipped in amongst the swarm of tittering sycophants.

Though outwardly urbane I could sense in her...

...a mocking thirst.

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

I plotted to rid myself of this lurking threat in a grand display of sadistic sport.

But, when the moment of murder drew nigh,

the gibbous moon revealed her inhuman desires...

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

In addition to that, Specter has gone AWOL, seeking Enlightenment. That, or buying adult magazines, I guess.

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

The secondary Courtyard mission, Gather The Blood, will do exactly what it says it does, so we might have to visit that at one point if Boneth won't remain the only hero catching the curse (he won't).

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

The raw strength of youth may be spent, but his eyes hold the secrets of a hundred campaigns.

Hi M16A1!

(Note: NOT a name suggestion... though the temptation is VERY strong)

(Which reminds me: what happened to Honeybadger?)

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

We all know how that ended:

Maybe.

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

Every time you set up camp, there's a 50% chance for the Nightmare Made Material to pop up

 

4 hours ago, ping said:

Yes, it's seven Nightmares in total

And here is the final one:

Maybe.

(This time i managed it: i just had to set the mark spoiler first, fill it with blank spaces and then manually drag the quotes inside it while being mindful to make them respect the social distancing of at least one space between each other)

[Golb89]

[Edit]

(i.e. i posted it exactly 7 minutes ago! WHY CAN'T I EDIT IT ANYMORE ALREADY???)

Spoiler

18 minutes ago, Golb89 said:

  5 hours ago, ping said:

The obligatory did-you-bring-a-shovel test.

[Changed the time of the link from 1:22 to 1:45]

 

19 minutes ago, Golb89 said:

5 hours ago, ping said:

The raw strength of youth may be spent, but his eyes hold the secrets of a hundred campaigns.

Hi M16A1!

[Centered the image to align it with all the others]

 

18 minutes ago, Golb89 said:

5 hours ago, ping said:

Every time you set up camp, there's a 50% chance for the Nightmare Made Material to pop up

[Addendum]

... only during rate-ups though.

I can't believe i had to make a whole f@cking doublepost just for those... but then again if i hadn't i wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Golb89

[ping]

6 hours ago, Golb89 said:

(Which reminds me: what happened to Honeybadger?)

Forgetfulness happened. Fixed now. (Although I'm going to decree that the copper's name is still Boneth, the doggo's name is Honeybadger)

6 hours ago, Golb89 said:

LIKE THIS!

[orlok.png]

MAYBE!

*bishie sparkles*

I remember obliterating FF7's difficulty curve with the early Beta spell! Fun times, fun times.

6 hours ago, Golb89 said:

[shovels]

♪ Diggy diggy hole ♪

8 hours ago, Benice said:

Sylvia's diary confirmed.

Also, can we name the Man-at-Arms Lawrence?

Shieldbreaker is better though, because Lances beat Swords!

We can't, because I didn't have room to recruit him, but I'll write it down for later. Poke me if I forget when we have the room for an MaA.

 

[Golb89]

[Re-edit]

(i.e. i should stop doing these past 2am)

Spoiler

17 hours ago, Golb89 said:

(Note: NOT a name suggestion... though the temptation is VERY strong)

[Added link]

 

17 hours ago, Golb89 said:

  22 hours ago, ping said:

In addition to that, Specter has gone AWOL, seeking Enlightenment. That, or buying adult magazines, I guess.

[Changed the pic]

 

17 hours ago, Golb89 said:

23 hours ago, ping said:

A bewitching predator slipped in amongst the swarm of tittering sycophants.

Though outwardly urbane I could sense in her... a mocking thirst.

[Removed the quoted pics]

 

17 hours ago, Golb89 said:

23 hours ago, ping said:

I plotted to rid myself of this lurking threat in a grand display of sadistic sport.

But, when the moment of murder drew nigh, the gibbous moon revealed her inhuman desires...

[Same as above]

 

 

[Actual post]

11 hours ago, ping said:

We can't, because I didn't have room to recruit him, but I'll write it down for later. Poke me if I forget when we have the room for an MaA.

Putting my hands forward:

- Next eventual Grave Robber (to replace Haze in case of her premature death) will be named Skadi and the one after her Grani.

- Next Plague Doctor after Silence (already queued) will be named Gavial (you owe her after last update) and the one after her (because there most likely will be one) Hibiscus.

- Next Houndmaster (which you'll most likely need at this rate) will be named Mayer.

- Next eventual Arbalester (not like anything would ever happen to Kroos) will be Provence.

(Next eventual Antiquarian will be named Jessica, though that's probably already queued too)

Spoiler

Also, i actually peeked on the wiki and noticed that with the M16 MaA we have seen all of the playable classes now: guess no Flamethrower guy/gal after all...

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by Golb89

[ping]

@Golb89 - all noted. Honeybadger hopefully won't die from the Crimson Curse, but it's not too unlikely that we'll get a second houndmaster at some point. (And, of course, there's a million other opportunities to lose one or more characters...)

• Update 11: Healers are overrated.

Spoiler

Boneth and Honeybadger, now properly named for the gooder half of the duo, went into the second stage of the Crimson Curse. While craving, a hero will become erratic while in the dungeon, similar to an affliction caused by 100 Stress. Attack a teammate, stress them out with the obsession for The Blood, lick a curio because they imagine a drop of Blood on it, that kind of thing.

Next mission: Go for the Necromancer Apprentice. And as you may notice, go after it with no Vestal and no Occultist because Healers are, in fact, overrated.

Well, not really. This is a bit of a FOR SCIENCE! attempt, ready to abandon ship if I take too much HP damage before reaching the Necromancer. The idea is to overwhelm the enemy with sheer damage output, through Blight, bonus damage against Blight, and maybe some Mark added on top of that. Not good at handling attrition, but maybe it works well in a single big clash?

Whelp, broke again. Vincent will have to do with some abilities unupgraded - which isn't terrible, since the more important ones are at Lv.3  now.

Who could have divined the prophetic import of something as unremarkable as a twitch in the leg of a dead rat?

Welp, here goes nothing. It's a fairly long path to the boss and if I don't get a timely scout, I won't know beforehand if the boss is in the upper right or lower right room.

Executed with impunity!

Haze: "Grr! You've bled on my best coat!"

No it didn't, Haze. It's a skeleton.

The "overwhelming" start works fairly well, all things considered - I've used a bit of food to heal up Haze, but the HP damage taken has been pretty low nevertheless. Blight plus Haze's ability to deal extra damage to Blighted enemies is a pretty sweet combo.

We're still at low infestation levels, but as you see, there's still a chance to run into a group of Bloodsuckers in any dungeon. Which is honestly rather annoying right now because I'm leaning heavily into Blight to deal damage - Bloodsuckers tend to have fairly high resistances against that.

Oh well, at least we got some Blood out of it. We also get a nice scout to see that the Necromancer is in fact in the lower room.

There's still a treasure chest in room left of my current position, because I wanted to wait until I've used the Firewood and some food for camp to make room in my inventory before taking it. Which we do right now.

This group is fairly light on combat-boosting camp skills - the Bounty Hunter would've had one if I wasn't too broke to have the Survivalist teach him. But between feasting on 8 rations of food (heals 25% of your max HP) and two uses of the basic generic Wound Care camp skill (15% of your max HP)...

Towering, fierce, terrible. Nightmare made material!

...I can go into the boss fight with completely filled HP.
(nonono, Wayne June. You're thinking of something else. I don't even have a Shieldbreaker with me!)

Haze and Phil set up Blight (Haze rolled higher initiative, so she wouldn't have had bonus damage on Thrown Dagger / Lunge). Vincent tries to stun the Necromancer because he can only puke on the 2nd and 3rd rank - he fails, but it was a crapshoot anyway, since the Necromancer has 75% Stun resist.

Unlike most bosses, the Necromancer only has one action, which means that Marks don't go away as quickly. My team isn't really SPECIALIZED on abusing that, but since Haze's Thrown Dagger gets a little damage boost from this, in addition to the BH's basic attack skill gettin a huge boost, I think it's well worth setting up.

MY FANFICTION IS WAY BETTER THAN THAT SILLY SIGURD'S POOR ATTEMPT. IT'S AT LEAST THREE TIMES AS LONG! AND IT HAS ALL THE BEST WORDS! SEE? MY FRIENDS LOVE IT!

[The Crawling Dead, rolling high on its damage range of 3-5]

All the Necromancers attacks summon one skeleton enemy (Rabble or Soldier), moving the boss one rank backward every time. Problematic for teams with limited reach and generally increasing the damage that you will take.

VINCENT SMASH!

Vincent is actually not just here to puke, but to counter the Necromancer's summoning by using Rake - the AoE that increases in strength every time you use it.

Coming back to the no-healer strat: The reason why this is a semi-legit way to fight against a boss is that even a Vestal usually won't be able to out-heal the damage you take in a boss fight. They are damage races - you want to kill it before it kills you, and healing skills are most useful to get your heroes off Death's Door.

Still, I only dared doing this because the Necromancer is the first boss and as such not quite as dangerous. And even so...

Exposed to a killing blow...

If this happens twice in a row, you're still in a heap of trouble.

[The Flesh Is Willing, which targets the two front ranks and deals a fair bit more damage than Crawling Dead, which targets the back ranks]

As life ebbs, terrible vistas of emptiness reveal themselves.

This hit brings Rainecourt to Death's Door...

...but in the true spirit of a damage race...

...the Necromancer just goes down before any other monster can take a turn.

With no living sinew to actuate them, will those walking bones finally fail?

And that's the Apprentice Necromancer slain! It drops two trinkets in addition to the mission's reward, both very unremarkable (to the left is a Debuff Stone, increasing Debuff chance by +15% at the cost of -1 Spd), unfortunately.

We backtrack a little after healing Rainecourt up a little with food, to get the last treasure chest and smash open a cabinet with a shovel before getting out of there.

The trinket we've been doing all this is another of those crazy good Antiquarian trinkets - +15% HP, +50% (!!!) healing skills. Imagine that on a Vestal... On the Antiquarian, it increases her max level single target heal from 3 to 5 points. Spectacular.

Haze and Phil get some decent new quirks (Precise Striker would be great on a class that has more than one melee skill) and Haze deepens her religious mania. She now has two quirks that may force her to lick "worship" curios, but I have no idea how they interact with each other - two separate rolls, only the higher chance counts, percentages are added together... no clue.

We start to get more and more Lvl.3 heroes, which means that we need the next level of upgrades in Guild and Blacksmith (and we haven't even gotten the second half of the current blacksmith level yet), a lot of money to actually do the upgrades, and as a result probably another roster size upgrade just to have some more options for the Apprentice-level dungeons...

The next week's town event gives us two Occultists as potential recruits, in addition to the usual four in the Stage Coach. Not the greatest timing, since I still don't have room for even a single one (and we already have two, anyway).

Nothing major to do in the Hamlet (still saving up heirlooms), so away we go to the next location.

Which is not the Ruins; I just want to show that because we did quite a few Ruins runs before facing the Necromancer, we immediately unlocked the next bossfight there. I disagree with Vincent, I remember the Prophet being fairly dangerous. The trinket reward (a low-light specialized one for the Jester) isn't that amazing this week, so we're going to have a go at the Warrens next.

I've been ignoring the Warrens until now, mostly because the first mission seems to always be a short one, which means lower rewards and fewer treasures in the dungeon.

They breed quickly down there in the dark, but perhaps we can slay them even faster.

(oops, I forgot to reassign trinkets. That's the rather worthless Debuff stone which Rainecourt equipped after bossfight to save inventory space)

The Warrens have shorter hallways, which means less torch or food consumption and maybe fewer fights and curios, as well, although they may just be closer together than in other dungeons.

The first curio I run into is a Moonshine Barrel, which is a great one to find this early. Using Medical Herbs, it increases Dmg by 30% until camp (so for the entire mission, if it's a short one).

Boneth isn't too impressed though - stressing Rainecourt out a little (by 5 points) with this comment.

The first fight is just a bunch of Cultists, who (like bandits) can show up in any dungeon. The fight itself is hardly worth mentioning, but right at the same point, Boneth and Honeybadger reach the final stage of the Crimson Curse. They're still acting erratic, their penalties are getting worse, and if you keep denying them The Blood, they WILL die. You can be min-max-y here and let them waste away for a while, but I'd rather not risk it - giving Boneth some Blood will revert the status back to the initial Passive state.

If you give a cursed hero The Blood while they still Craving, they will go into Bloodlust instead, which gives them some significant combat bonuses while - of course - causing random actions. I think those might even be a bit worse than in the other states, but I'm not sure about that.

For now, Boneth and Honeybadger are in the passive state again.

The fight, as I said, isn't really worth mentioning.

Using a bandage, you can find a bit of treasure and (for whatever reason) food in these Racks of Blades - without it, it's quite likely to catch a Bleed.

The Pile of Bones can be cleansed with Holy Water for some loot, or licked with a very high risk of disease or gaining a negative quirk.

And finally, some new enemies! Two Carrion Eaters, a Swine Drummer, and a Swine Wretch. These pig/human hybrids are the dominant enemy type in the Warrens - they count as Beast/Human hybrids, which means that both the Bounty Hunter and the Houndmaster deal bonus damage against them with their basic attack skills.

The Drummer likes to use Drum of Doom, an AoE stress-inducing attack. It's fairly fast (7 Spd) and somewhat bulky (15 HP, enough to avoid one-shots most of the time), so it's very likely to get some stress damage in.

The Swine Wretch is always a priority target and because I'm so goddamn good at the game, we won't see why in this update.

(well, more because I don't run into a mob with more than one of them and they only have 12 HP)

The Carrion Eater's only attack is Munch, which can inflict a 1-point Blight. It also deals double damage against marked heroes and has a 12% Crit rate, which makes it situationally dangerous. (If the numbers work like I think they do, a Crit on a Marked target deals 12 Dmg)

Confidence surges as the enemy crumbles!

It's always very satisfying to kill two enemies with one attack.

Something that I don't think I mentioned: The corpses that most enemies leave behind have their own HP value, so unless a move specifically clears corpses, they may take more than one hit to clear.

The Warrens have their own negative-Quirk-removing curio in the Pile of Scrolls, going against the general rule that burning writings usually causes an obscene amount of stress.

I didn't bring any heroes with horribly bad quirks on this mission, so Boneth rids himself of his Fear of Unholy here, even though he'll very rarely run into any monsters of that type. Gitano's 1/25 chance to skip a turn probably would've been the better choice here, but Antiquarian's actions just don't have a big impact, anyway.

Traps in the Warrens deal fairly low HP damage (10% of max HP) and also cause a 2-point bleed, although Gitano resists the latter in this case.

In the last fight of the mission (there were some very easy hallway fights before this, but I didn't even bother making screenshots of those), we run into a Swine Chopper, a pretty bulky (21 HP, 15% Prot) heavy-hitter.

I'd love to show what it does, but between a Stun and some focus fire, it doesn't get a turn in this fight. I'm sure I'll have plenty opportunity to show off its moves in a future run. It's hard to be that good at this game!

(Note: I'm not that good at the game)

Grievous injury, palpable fear!

When they aren't drumming doom on the whole party, the Swine Drummer will use their Drum of Debilitation ability to mark a hero and lower their Dodge. It's a bit weird, because I don't think any of the Swine enemies can abuse Marks, but I guess he can set it up for Carrion Eaters and Cultist Brawlers?

And with this last attack by Kroos, the quest is already over.

Except that I decide to flip a coin and have her check out the Sacrificial Stone in this room: There's a 50% Chance that this causes a heap of stress, but the other half of the time, it either removes a negative quirk or gives the hero a positive Warrens-related quirk.

This was not the best gamble to take, since the Tippler quirk that it removes here isn't too impactful anyway, but I suppose it's nice fluff-wise that Kroos overcomes her drinking problem.

There we go! Fairly small haul overall, despite the Antiquarian on the team, but that's why I try to avoid short dungeons most of the time.

Quirks aren't super impactful in either direction, which I honestly consider a positive. Rainecourt can't meditate in town anymore, but his disease resist goes up; Honeybadger isn't a great pick for the Cove with or without his new quirk; and I don't really do low-light runs. Warrens Scrounger (small increase in scouting chance) is a neat little bonus when it comes up, I guess.

...Gee, you think?

Despite the other gold costs (and despite the way it didn't pay of with Myrrh...), I still want to invest money into locking in really good Quirks. Lucy here is going to have two quirks active at high torchlight: -20% stress and +2 Spd.

In addition to that, I also lock in Steady (-10% Stress, unconditional) on Rainecourt, our Bounty Hunter. With a total three upgrades to discount the price (which I think is fine, busts aren't in very high demand), that's 11550g cost in total.

The Stage Coach brings this fairly promising Crusader into the Hamlet: Fragile (-10% HP) absolutely needs to go, but it'll be nice to add the Quirk's bonuses (+10 Acc, +5 Crit) on top of the Crusader's increased damage against Unholy.

To make room, our second Bounty Hunter, Cliffheart, has to go. His Quirks would have been quite nice if I got rid of at least Weak Grip, but I think the Crusader class is more useful than the Bounty Hunter and I'd like to be able to take one on Apprentice missions now that Sigurd thinks he's too good for that.

Another soul battered and broken. Cast aside like a spent torch.

Our next mission will take us to the Cave - and maybe into the desert, given that Pramanix is coming, which is why I don't want to make this an Antiquarian run. I don't dare holding up the healer-free theme of this update, either.

The trinket is really good, too. Gawain really appreciates extra Acc and the higher stress isn't as big a deal for a frontliner, especially since he can lower it with the Solemnity skill.

The mission is potentially going to be a long one, if there's going to be room battles in the rooms in the upper right. (Spoiler: There are room battles in the upper right)

The Occultist really is quite good in the cove. The Weakening Curse can lower the Guardians' Prot and with his Eldritch Killing Incense (+6 Crit and +15% Dmg against Eldritch)...

(picture from another fight)

...added on the Dmg boost against Eldrich on his Sacrificial Stab and his already high Crit chance, he can actually do respectable damage despite his awful base damage.

I'm going to largely skip over the dungeon again, just showing the new stuff as usual (and giving a brief summary).

The Bas-Relief can only be licked (or crushed with a shovel for an immediate +100!!! Stress), with a 2/3 chance of the hero gaining a positive Quirk.

Slowdraw is not a good Quirk. In fact, it's absolutely awful. -4 Spd on your first turn, i.e. where you want to deal as much damage as possible before the enemy gets to act.

Ten internet points if you recognize why this is a very scary sight!

Answer: The Thrall will explode on its second turn, so you REALLY want to kill him before that happens, and the Guardian Guarding him could prevent that. Not this time though, because was already too Blighted to reach its second turn. For safety, though, Phil stuns the Shaman so that it can't heal the Thrall.

The Ship's Figurehead will either heal 25 Stress (which happens here) or, 33% of the time, give the hero a bonus to Dmg and Spd. No item needed.

Wrys has the Hylomania quirk, which makes him lick "treasure" curios - without stealing anything, though. Here, he's lucky as well that he doesn't proc the 1/4 chance of catching a Bleed from the Barnacle Crusted Chest.

Another journal entry - we've seen a later part of this story already.

Huddled together, furtive and vulnerable. Rats in a maze.

Nothing special happens after this, until I set up camp with three unexplored rooms left. Pramanix gives me a warning that the second Nightmare is inbound - which is nice (the warning, that is), because that means that no regular ambush can happen, so Dismas doesn't need to spend any "respite" (camp skill capacity) preventing that.

Sand and serpent choke out hope of wholesome reverie!

Flawless copy/paste! (Sorry, I just use Paint to edit the screenshots)

The second Nightmare adds a second Pliskin (the big stealthed snake) compared to the first one. Since there's two Rattlers, you can still skip any de-stealth moves without too much problems without running out of stuff to hit before the stealth runs out after their second turn.

One of the Rattlers guards the Pliskin in the back, which allows Phil to apply this weirdly placed double stun.

Although honestly, I would have preferred a stunned Pliskin (which would have been possible without the guard, since the AoE stun also targets the un-stealthed Rattler in 3rd rank). As a reminder - they have a very high crit chance while stealthed, so taking away their actions would've reduced that risk and I really don't want to take extra stress on Pramanix.

I'm lucky though, and none of the snakes' attacks crit. Which basically means that the fight unfolds largely like the first nightmare...

...albeit with some annoying back-to-back misses.

I also didn't have any stress-reducing camp skills (as in, less stress damage during the next four battles), so Pramanix reaches 80 stress before recovering a small amount with a Crit here.

Dismas and Phil's Blight finish the fight.

We get more Shieldbreaker backstory - here's the first part again.

In game-mechanical terms, we get a bit of regular treasure, an Aegis scale, and the Shieldbreaker's second trinket. Not terribly powerful, but it makes up for her low HP, at least a little bit.

We actually get fights in all three remaining rooms... Which isn't great, considering where Pramanix' stress level is at, but at least our HP levels are looking fine.

I probably said this already, but 100 stress is not an immediate danger - 200 stress is, immediately putting the hero at 0 HP. At 100 stress, a hero becomes "afflicted" in some way, like selfishness or hopelessness. It'll make the rest of the dungeon more difficult because of random actions taken, but apart from the gold cost of reducing the stress, that's it.

Anyway - yet another journal page, of which we've seen the last page already.

And Pramanix doesn't even reach 100 stress in the last battles. Second to last, another group of fishies and cultists (Thank you, Acolyte, for not stressing Pramanix here)...

...another group of bloodsuckers in the hallway (no Crimson Curse contracted, luckily)...

...and finally a couple Brigands in the last room.

And we're done!
(well, this is actually the first kill of the fight, but the ancestor quote is really good. And the other two Brigands are about to die to Blight.)

We come out of the mission with a lot of Crests - which I don't mind since I'm saving them for building a district. I think I've been spoiled by too many Trapezohedrons, because what I've been calling a "somewhat disappointing gold haul" before seems to be more like "perfectly normal".

Wrys picks up a pretty bad quirk in Light Sensitive (-10 Dmg at high torchlight), which makes me consider dropping him if a nice new recruit shows up in the Stage Coach soon, especially considering that I already have another Occultist that I've heavily invested in.

I guess that's how things tend to go for Wrys, huh? Help in the earlygame and then get dropped, unless the player really wants a 5th warper.

And here's some bad news... Well, technically not yet, because the Fanatic only has a chance to appear if you bring at least two cursed heroes to a mission. But he is really, really scary. Like, "responsible for getting ping the total party kill achievement on steam" scary.

...and he's just hanging out in the Hamlet?

The Ancestor's Memoirs location in the hamlet often reflects the town event of the week (for example, mosquitos buzzing around it when the game was poking me), but I wasn't aware that the Fanatic would show up here, even with a little hint at his combat mechanics...

 

[Benice]

7 hours ago, ping said:

Update 11: Healers are overrated.

GASP! Dr. Phil has been benched?!

Whoopsie, forgot that he's not a healer.

7 hours ago, ping said:

 

...Gee, you think?

It took him a good long while to notice.

7 hours ago, ping said:

And here's some bad news... Well, technically not yet, because the Fanatic only has a chance to appear if you bring at least two cursed heroes to a mission. But he is really, really scary. Like, "responsible for getting ping the total party kill achievement on steam" scary.

Those earlygame brigands got buffed.

7 hours ago, ping said:

I guess that's how things tend to go for Wrys, huh? Help in the earlygame and then get dropped, unless the player really wants a 5th warper

Big sad.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Benice

[ping]

• Update 12: HE KNOWS

Spoiler

Character Level 2 can now be fully exploited! Although to do so, we're also going to need a lot of money, so our nest mission will just be an Antiquarian run.

Hamlet stuff real quick: Pramanix (Slowdraw) and our new Crusader get rid of their vices, but I don't put any money into locking in positive quirks this week.

Wrys does have to take his leave, I'm afraid (but I'm still glad I took him with me!)...

...because this nature-loving, dreamy girl who fancies herself a witch possessed by demonic spirits arrives in the village. Her Pictish flair really gets tied together by a quirk of which there can be only one.

(and I actually remembered to rename her! Yay me!)

The next Cove Boss, the Sodden Crew, has been unlocked after the last mission. The trinket that would be rewarded this week really pushes the Flagellant into his danger play, which I'm not a big fan of (also we don't have any Flagellants on the team right now)

Going after the Prophet in the ruins would give us a "bonus if Crimson Cursed" trinket, of which there's quite a few. Which is actually a bit annoying, since these compete with the regular very rare trinkets, so those drop less often.

But for our moneymaking mission, we will go to the Weald - it's the only medium-length mission available that isn't a boss fight.

Our team is, once again, devoid of any primary healers - Kroos and Gitano will have to do as our means of HP restauration. Both of them get a trinket to increase their healing rolls, too. (the Candle, not the Carapace, in Gitano's case)
We also bring Sora as a stress healer, not least because Gitano goes into the dungeon with a fair bit of stress. He brings some lucky dice with him, which increase his Crit chance, as well as a Dodge booster. Frostleaf comes as a damage dealer and with the Natural quirk (more HP, more Spd, more Healing received when not wearing any trinkets).

Slowly going through the list of all the classes, here's what Guild and Blacksmith have to say about the Hellion class.

Gitano and Sora have to swap their positions occasionally - Gitano can't heal in 2nd rank, but Sora can't use his support abilities in 2nd rank, either. As a bit of a band-aid solution, Sora comes with the Dirk Stab skill, which moves him forward one rank.

(pic from another battle)

And when he's in 2nd rank, he can use Finale with whatever Dmg and Crit boosts he put into it by using any of his other abilities, to either just end the battle or to move himself to the 4th position and heal some more stress if there's another (not too dangerous) enemy left.

Gitano spends most of her turns using Festering Vapours to deal a LITTLE bit of damage. 1-2 Dmg plus a 2-point blight really isn't too impressive, but at least she has full reach with it and can help finishing enemies off.

[If It Bleeds]
Frostleaf just ignores all the dancing going on behind her. She introduces enemies to her axe, intimately.

She has Bleed Out (+20% Dmg and a 3-point Bleed at the cost of a 3-turn debuff on Dmg and Spd) instead of her standard attack, reasoning that she can start battles with her other abilities if they look like they'll take more than two-and-a-half turns.

She doesn't look too good yet, since her skills and equipment are still completely unupgraded. Her accuracy isn't quite where you'd like it to be (although Sora's Battle Ballad boosts it a little)...

...and she doesn't quite have the base Dmg to one-shot backrow enemies with Iron Swan yet.

But to be fair, neither does Kroos, whose Dmg isn't too spectacular without a Mark set-up. But her and Frostleaf's Dmg is pretty much always high enough to combine for a kill.

I think we've already seen every Weald enemy, at least until we get to the second tier of dungeons, so I'll just show new curios and a couple journal entries:

Another blood-soaked page, fitting right between two that we've found already: page 3 | page 5

More from Darius, leaving only one page for us to fight.
page 1 | page 4 | page 5 | page 6

An Ancient Coffin, that's actually 100% safe to lick - "nothing of value" is the worst case. You'd hope for some treasure or (rarely) some Weald-specific positive quirk.

Camping is a little dangerous because I don't have any ambush-preventing class with me, but I'm lucky and nothing happens. These are the skills that I do use (plus Sora's full-party stress heal).

Another journal close to being finished: Here's part 3 and part 4.

Sora catches an interesting pair of diseases - I guess he waits until someone comes too close to him before biting? [Lethargy: -4 Spd]
Please don't educate me on the rabies symptoms in humans.

And that's the finale! *rimshot*

That's more like it! 25000 gold in total, plus a reasonable amount of heirlooms - that's what you want to see in an Antiquarian run.

Quirks are largely OK - Frostleaf now believes that meditation and hugging a tree while naked are the only ways to achieve inner peace. Not a big deal.
Evasive is a +5 bonus to Dodge - not a ton, but still nice. Night Owl boosts Spd at low light levels.
Only Scrattering is really bad, given that Arbalist is the most ranged class there is.

With that done, we unlock the first boss in the Weald, the Wizened Hag. She drops a very impressive-looking trinket, but it's not quite as good as it seems: Not only is it risky to keep a hero in the Wasting state, but theirs stats get penalized quite a bit: -20% HP, -4 Spd (which the Mantra does overcompensate for), -10 Stun/Blight/Bleed resist, and -10% Deathblow resist.

TL;DR: Pass. We're going after the Sonorous Prophet instead, who drops a pretty neat trinket for Vincent (and Benice, once we have room for a second Abom).

Hamlet rundown: Stress relief for Pramanix.
Kroos gets rid of Scattering, Dismas locks in Quick Reflexes (+2 Spd). Sora should've gone to the Medical Ward, but I forgot to send him.

I enter the dungeon with double healers - bit excessive, tbh, low-level adventurers actually get rarer and rarer. Although to be honest, there's some merit to having multiple healing options against the Prophet.

This filthy, toothless degenerate boasted an uncanny knowledge of my ambitions, and prognosticated to all who would listen that I would soon unleash doom upon the world.

Before the Crimson Court DLC, the Prophet might have been the only human-shaped character in the game with his eyes clearly visible. The fishy enemies do, but I don't think we've seen any human (well, "human") eyes before the Crimson Court cutscene.

The echoes of his mindless tittering reverbate maddeningly - he must be silenced!

Crit scout!
The map layout is a bit awkward, since there's three rooms that are all 5 hallways away from the entrance. Guess we'll have to check all of them.

I go to the down left corner first, unfortunately not getting a scout after this fight, but that last room is empty anyway. Oh well, that was... one hallway fight, one room fight, and some extra steps taken which means some stress and risking a hunger check. Nothing dramatic.

And we get a critical scout to confirm the position ahead of time. Two hallway fights along the way, shouldn't be a pro--

Oh. Hi.

(literally in the hallway towards the boss room, so I'd have to backtrack and suffer extra stress if this will cause too much damage to face the boss without setting up camp beforehand)

Two Collected HWMs means pretty high damage potential on the enemy's side, too, which isn't exactly welcome right before the actual bossfight. But luckily, the Prophet and the Collector both require a team with good reach, which means that I'm well-prepared to smack the Collector in the cage.

Like so!

The Collected MaA is trying to be cute here, guarding the Collector to prolong the fight...

...but Specter is having none of it and just removes the Guard with a Stun attack.

And Lucy gets a nice, big roll on his heal, which means that I go out of the fight largely unscathed.

Boom! Three-turn victory!

We find the second of the Collector's three heads - the Highwayman's, this time, including its continuity weirdness of Dismas still being alive and kicking.

The madman hides there, behind the pews, spouting his mindless drivel!

Now for the real boss! The Prophet indeed hides in the 4th rank, but unlike the Crocodilian, the pews are very much destructible.

At the start of every turn, the Prophet will mark one position on your side, giving fair warning that something bad is about to happen to Frostleaf.

The Ground quakes!

The three pews are increasingly hard to destroy - 25, 40, and 55 HP in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rank. Doing so is the only way to move the Prophet forwards (both he and the Pews have 300% Move resist) if you don't have enough reach, and also drops one piece of treasure worth 2500g for every pew you destroy.

However, wasting too much firepower on destroying the Pews is dangerous, because the Prophet has quite substantial damage output. At the end of every turn, he'll use Rubble of Ruin, which can deal up to 23 Dmg on the marked position. (position, not hero. It's possible to change who takes the damage if you have any dancing potential on your team)

And both abilities that the prophet may use during the turn can make this a whole lot more difficult: First turn, he used Eye on You, which deals quite a bit of stress...

...but, more pressingly, carries a Stun, as well. Hero At Death's Door plus Stunned Healer is not something you want to happen.

This attack has a 50% chance each of targeting one or two heroes, btw.

Ringing ears, blurred vision - the end approaches...

And if you have a hero at Death's Door, the last thing you want to see is an attack that hits your entire party AND carries a Blight - a weak blight with 1 Dmg per turn, but that's enough to trigger a death saving throw.

At least the Prophet only has one regular action in addition to the marking and the falling rocks before and after the turn.

Now, what am I doing during all of this? Well, "Damage Race" means that you can either maximize your own damage, OR slow down the enemy's output. Lucy's Weakening Curse reduces the Prophet's damage output by 15%, which would've been quite nice if I had the opportunity to stack that over multiple turns.

Phil's Battlefield Cure is also a nice skill to have in this fight, since it removes Blight from herself and the person she's healing. ...wait, is that two marked positions?

Yes it iiis~

The Calamitous Prognostication, the skill that puts down the mark(s), also has a 50% chance of targeting a second hero/position. The Prophet's damage output can REALLY add up quickly...

...especially if he gets a double Prognostication three times in a row. Oof.

See?
Luckily, I haven't been lazy about dealing damage myself...

...so this Plague Grenade is enough...

...to get the job done.

Loot! The Warrior's Cap is already becoming a little obsolete (a little bonus with no downside is nice in the earlygame, but "little" is becoming the operative word more and more), but the Immunity Mask is pretty nice. 10% HP is quite a bit, but those increased status resists are well worth that price.

Since I still have my camp available, there's no reason not to use it, if only for the stress heal by eating two rations per adventurer.

But I also collect at the very least least the treasure in the room two hallways to the north of the boss, and pretty much regain all the lost stress for my troubles.

Gold and heirlooms looted still aren't too impressive, but Leper's and the Abom's trinket are nice pick-ups.

In terms of quirks, Lucy seems a little undecided about what he likes and dislikes. Ascetic was the "less healing from Occultist" quirk; Winded gives -1 Spd when below 50% HP. Both not too terrible, I guess.

...little judgemental there, game?

Anyways, Phil and (with a little delay) Sora visit the Medical Ward. There's a chance that Sora will get rid of both diseases at once - higher if you upgrade the Medical Ward, but the wiki doesn't seem to have the exact numbers. We'll see. Or rather, we won't see the numbers, because that's the issue with probabilities.

Huh, I didn't realize we were going to the Ruins THAT much, but there's the first tier 2 boss available to us.

The higher difficulty missions in Darkest Dungeons unfortunately work a lot under the theme of "Same, but higher numbers". Don't rely on it, though - there will be new monsters and some new tricks on the old ones.

More arrive, foolishly seeking fortune and glory in this domain of the damned.

We also get some upgrades for our Stage Coach. Experienced Recruits is gated behind the Guild and Blacksmith upgrades, so this is as far as we can go right now. But right now, I'm fine with just the occasional recruit skipping the stressful Lv.0 experience.

Word is traveling. Ambition is stirring in distant cities. We can use this.

Some more busts get traded in for more deeds, so that I can upgrade the Hero Barracks and actually recruit four more heroes.

Two of those spots are immediately taken by (Garin -->) Jessica and (Peccoth -->) Warfarin, the other two are reserved for two additional Vestals because healers aren't really overrated.
(seriously, multi-heal is such an incredible ability that only they have. No other class is as irreplaceable as that)

Warfarin immediately has to take a trip to the Sanitorium, because Compulsive (same as Curious: 20% chance to lick any curio) is among the worst quirks in the game. He's left with two pretty good ones though, since his Bleed focus makes him an excellent pick for the Warrens, and the pigs there count as Beasts.

Afterwards, we try to run before we learn to walk. First Veteran dungeon! And the first Long mission at the same time, because what could go wrong?!

Now, you may call me crazy and you wouldn't be wrong, buuuut...
The longer missions don't have any higher "peak" difficulty than short ones. It's about attrition and this is a line-up with pretty good longevity. Vestal for HP healing, Crusader for stress healing, Abom for Blight, and three classes with very good direct damage output.

The problem with long missions: You have to bring a lot of supplies, and since inventory space is limited, chances are that you'll have to drop a lot of the treasures you find. The direct haul that you can expect isn't too much better than on a medium-lengthed mission. Reward for clearing the mission is, however, one step above medium missions.
(If I had payed attention, I would even have had less space. Forgetting to bring keys isn't the most brightest move ever)

These salt-soaked caverns are teeming with pelagic nightmares- they must be flushed out!

Welp, here goes nothing! 14 rooms in total, and we'll have to clear all room battles. No scout, so we'll have to go north first to see if there's a battle waiting.

There is! We know those enemies, although they're called "Oracle" and "Widemouth" in their upgraded version.

The Oracles also now start the battle stealthed, which Dismas gets rid of with a Tracking Shot here, so that Saria can target it with a Stun.

The Widemouths seem to just go for higher numbers, for now.

But so do my adventurers!

...although I have to say that the damage taken is quite a bit higher than you used to expect in a single fight during the Apprentice-level missions.

First curio of the run as an Eerie Coral, ridding Dismas of his Demonomania. Which was the best one to lose, since the other ones (Tippler and Known Cheat) just redundantly lock him into drinking as his stress relief.
("He has a serious drinking problem, but that's not a problem for me" - every Darkest Dungeon player)

We run into another group of Bloodsucker in the next hallway. Infestation level has officially reached "medium", which means that we'll have to expect more of that now (and should probably start pushing into the Courtyard again soon).

I always want to end these battles quick - every attack they do is a potential Crimson Cursed hero - so Vincent goes monster mode for this one.

Vincent: "EEEEERRROARRRGGH!"
(unless I misscounted the number or "E"s, that's an exact transcription of an Abom bark)

Next room  battle is two Widemouths, two Oracles again. OUCH.
The Oracles can cast a buff (+25% Dmg and a bit of Acc and Crit) which makes the Widemouth's attack REALLY hurt.

But this time, I manage to put more healing actions into the fight while they're diminished, but not quite defeated yet, so my HP levels are looking very good. Saria's stress level already starts to become a bit worrysome, though.

Another blood-soaked page - we've seen a couple of those already at this point.
part 3 - part 4 - part 5

The next fight adds a Plated Maggot (formerly known as Sea Maggot) and an Energized (previously Deep) Stinger to a Whitemouth and an Oracle. Neither of them do anything new - the Maggot still has crazy high Prot but low HP, the Stinger can Stun and Bleed you but deals low direct damage.

The Maggot showcases a weakness of my formation, even though Sigurd gets rid of it with a crit here. Vincent is my only realy DOT-dealer, and he can only target 2nd and 3rd rank. Missing the 4th position isn't too bad, since enemies there don't tend to be too high on their Prot, but a high-prot enemy in 1st rank can take a while for me to take down.

...lookin' a bit HP poor there, Dismas.
Also standing in the wrong position, although HWM and Human!Abom both work in both middle ranks. What happened (but I missed to make a screenshot of it) is that the Widemouth does have a new trick: Its Spearfishing ability (which he uses in the back to target our back) now pulls its target forward a rank.
'nother group of Mosquito vampires (same as the one before, one Sycophant is dead already) and a nice saving throw by Vincent - that's the Crimson Curse symbol right there.

...less good saving throw by Sigurd though. Second vampire on the team...

After that fight, I decide that this is enough attrition to do our first out of two camps. Between feasting and camp skills, this allows us to heal most of our stress and HP loss.

Next room battle, in front of a Fish Idol (which I unfortunately don't have the holy water for). The Pustulent Thrall does the same thing as the previous iteration - relatively weak attack on its first turn, BOOOOOOOM on the second.

(note the Stunned Thrall in the background. Those are always the most important enemy to take care of)

The Pelagic Bulwark upped its Prot from 33 to 50%, which then goes up to 75% when he's using Barnacle Barrier to proctect another monster. It's a right pain to take down with this team, since I have no way of piercing its Prot.

Luckily, it's not insanely strong offensively. 11 Dmg isn't too much damage considering it's a Crit, even if there's a 2-point bleed added to it.

The next delegation from the Courtyard comes with a Chevalier, a pretty bulky enemy type with 29 HP and 30 Prot. It's also the first monster we meet that doesn't spawn in Apprentice-level dungeons.

I'm lucky and it doesn't land any of its attacks - they hit very hard if they do.

Next fight, nothing new.

Lots of Stun potential, though.

...'member why this is bad? Good thing Dismas has an AoE att--

-FUUU

--oh. Never mind. Shoot away!

--UUUUUUUUUUU--

--UUUUUUUUCK!!!

I AGREE VINCENT

OK, on the plus side, the other three enemies don't have too much firepower on their own, so I actually get out of the fight with a passable HP level. Still, those Thralls are dangerous...

Next up is another Bloodsucker fight (the ol' double Syco/Suppli group), which didn't reall seem too dangerous...

Ringing ears, blurred vision - the end approaches...

...until all monsters decide at the same time that Dismas REALLY needs to die.

They're rather persuasive.

So persuasive in fact, that after the fight this...

...becomes THIS, just by virtue of DOTs not vanishing after combat. In fact, Dismas even had to heal some HP by eating food just to make sure he only gets to Death's Door with the last DOT tick and doesn't have to roll against death.

Luckily, the next room is empty, so I can use the second camp to heal up.Luckily, the next room is empty, so I can use the second camp to heal up.

And also feel incredibly stupid because I use Stand Tall to get rid of the post-Death's Door debuff before remembering Sanctuary's secondary effect. Uggh!

As a result, Dismas is only at ~50% HP after Camp, but the other three heroes do better in that regard. So it's really just one healing spell away from being fine.

And to add to my feelings of stupidity, I also completely forget about the room battle plus curio south of my camping location (the blue room to the right - the left one was a curio I couldn't cleanse). Ugggggh!

Oh well. I'll have to wait until time travel is invented until I can dope-slap past ping for this.

Next fight, new enemy type: THe Uca Crusher is another very tanky enemy (59 HP, 50% Prot), that's luckily big enough to block ranks 1+2...

...which means that Vincent can puke on it (and the Oracle in 3rd rank, although the Uca takes up all the place on the screen).

...1 Dmg?
The Arterial Pinch is big reason why you should bring Bandages to the Cove even though no Curios require them to be cleansed: It causes an 8-point (!!!) Bleed, although Sigurd resists it here.

It can also use Tidal Slam to do more direct damage...

...as well as kick the target to the 4th rank and Stun them.

I should probably take Holy Lance into Sigurd's move list instead of his fan fiction to deal with this kind of situation, but that's so much less funny... And at the very least, he can still heal stress from the 4th rank.

Vincent also has to transform just to do something while standing in the first rank.

Sigurd also already becomes Craving near the end of the fight, and into Bloodlust when I give him a phiole of The Blood (immidiately, because I need the space in the inventory...). Those bonuses are pretty strong, I have to admit.

We face the same enemy comp again in what I thought to be the last battle of the dungeon. The fight itself goes fairly smoothly...

...except that Sigurd in his Bloodlust ...heals his stress?
[Using a random action is a possible effect of the Crimson Curse]

After the fight I realize the forgotten room and cross my fingers that no hunger events appear because I threw away all my food to make room for the loot from that last fight...

And I'm actually lucky! Unless, of course, it'll fire in the last three tiles...

NOT THIS TIME THRALL

[another Curse effect: Stress to the entire party during battle]

Sigurd calms down shortly after this, going back to the Passive state with its rather tame effects.

The second battle in this last hallway has another new enemy: The Slavering Ghoul is an Unholy enemy that can appear in any Veteran (and, as a stronger version, Champion) missions. It's another very tanky enemy, with 41 HP and 40 Prot.

The only attack we see it use in this fight is Howl - no direct damage...

...but it has a high chance of inflicting Horror. And a 5% chance of inflicting The Worries. Of course.
[The Worries: +30 stress taken. Not good.]

WAIT WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS THE THRALL FASTER THAN DISMASS

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!

Well, that's... not good.

Two things to mention: One, Dismas has 7 Spd (it's 2 now because Death's Door), the Thrall has 1 Spd. Initiative rolls are Spd plus an 8-sided die. I don't want to the probability maths right now, but I think it boils down to "Fuck you = ping".

Two, anybody ever noticed the little "X" in the top left corner? I guess I edit it out most of the time.

It allows you to run from battle for a stress penalty. Seems like a REALLY good idea right now.

Fun fact: The game does tell you about that button. RIGHT AFTER your first death, because when else would it.

Dismas is NOT impressed with all this: He reaches 100 stress and doesn't get lucky and get virtuous (chance for that is fairly small anyway).

Now, in this situation, one should reflect upon his or her situation: One hero is a Death's Door AND paranoid, two other heroes are also very stressed out, HP levels are low in general. The hallway battle is still there (we retreated to the previous room), and we'd have to do that plus a room battle to finish the quest.

OR YOU COULD USE THE ABANDON QUEST BUTTON!

[Hot to Trot: +25% Dmg, +20 Acc, +5 Crit on your first turn]

But seriously, it's increadibly unlikely I would've gotten through this without casualties, if at all. Sucks, becaues 11250g and 12 deeds is a lot to not get, but at least we keep our findings from the dungeon, which isn't too terrible by itself. And, of course, all our heroes will need some time (and money) to relax before I can send them out again. In fact, if Saria went into a dungeon next week, she'd IMMEDIATELY become afflicted, since she's sitting at 100 stress...

But that's not to happen. Somehow, I feel like doing a nice, easy apprentice-level mission next week. But that'll have to be next time... Thanks for reading!

(hey, Sora did get both diseases cured. Small mercies!)

 

[Benice]

On 5/26/2020 at 12:47 PM, ping said:

Wrys does have to take his leave, I'm afraid (but I'm still glad I took him with me!)...

Typical. It's always Wrys.

On 5/26/2020 at 12:47 PM, ping said:

Two things to mention: One, Dismas has 7 Spd (it's 2 now because Death's Door), the Thrall has 1 Spd. Initiative rolls are Spd plus an 8-sided die. I don't want to the probability maths right now, but I think it boils down to "Fuck you = ping".

Feels bad.

On 5/26/2020 at 12:47 PM, ping said:

 

...becomes THIS, just by virtue of DOTs not vanishing after combat. In fact, Dismas even had to heal some HP by eating food just to make sure he only gets to Death's Door with the last DOT tick and doesn't have to roll against death.

Not Dismas! He's the OG!

On 5/26/2020 at 12:47 PM, ping said:

WAIT WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS THE THRALL FASTER THAN DISMASS

OOF

On 5/26/2020 at 12:47 PM, ping said:

 

OR YOU COULD USE THE ABANDON QUEST BUTTON!

Wise move!

[Golb89]

On 5/26/2020 at 9:47 PM, ping said:

the other two are reserved for two additional Vestals because healers aren't really overrated.

(seriously, multi-heal is such an incredible ability that only they have. No other class is as irreplaceable as that)

Saiga and Nearl.

(Ironically, multi-healing was basically Myrrh's and Silence's specialty)

 

On 5/26/2020 at 9:47 PM, ping said:

What happened (but I missed to make a screenshot of it) is that the Widemouth does have a new trick: Its Spearfishing ability (which he uses in the back to target our back) now pulls its target forward a rank.

 

On 5/26/2020 at 9:47 PM, ping said:

 

On 5/26/2020 at 9:47 PM, ping said:

The second battle in this last hallway has another new enemy: The Slavering Ghoul is an Unholy enemy that can appear in any Veteran (and, as a stronger version, Champion) missions. It's another very tanky enemy, with 41 HP and 40 Prot.

 

On 5/26/2020 at 9:47 PM, ping said:

And, of course, all our heroes will need some time (and money) to relax before I can send them out again. In fact, if Saria went into a dungeon next week, she'd IMMEDIATELY become afflicted, since she's sitting at 100 stress...

 

[ping]

On 5/29/2020 at 4:03 AM, Golb89 said:

Saiga and Nearl.

(Ironically, multi-healing was basically Myrrh's and Silence's specialty)

I hope that I'll be able to accommodate that eventually. Vestals seem to be in very low supply at the moment. @Benice might be happy to hear that I immensely regret kicking Wrys at this point -.-

Apologies for the lack of updates - there's an update coming out for Europa Universalis 4 next week and it was incredibly important that I would finish my run for Kongolese world domination before that. (well, not really, since you can roll back to previous versions, but I wanted to ). I'm done now and only need to type up about half an update, so expect it to be there tomorrow or the day after.

[Benice]

Just now, ping said:

@Benice might be happy to hear that I immensely regret kicking Wrys at this point -.-

Never underestimate the Humble curate.

1 minute ago, ping said:

Apologies for the lack of updates - there's an update coming out for Europa Universalis 4 next week and it was incredibly important that I would finish my run for Kongolese world domination before that. (well, not really, since you can roll back to previous versions, but I wanted to ). I'm done now and only need to type up about half an update, so expect it to be there tomorrow or the day after.

Yay! An update will be happening soon!

Hope you had fun with the Europa Universalis game you had going!

[Golb89]

7 hours ago, ping said:

@Benice might be happy to hear that I immensely regret kicking Wrys at this point -.-

Btw, next Occultist is Deepcolor.

Nah...

 

7 hours ago, ping said:

it was incredibly important that I would finish my run for Kongolese world domination before that.

[ping]

On 6/2/2020 at 6:17 PM, Benice said:

Hope you had fun with the Europa Universalis game you had going!

Fetishist Jerusalem and Constantinople. Make of that what you will. (Anti-warning: That's just a in-game map behind that link)

The next episode is broadcasted to you directly from the White House:

Spoiler

Back in the hamlet, the first thing we do is send the battered expedition group to relax a little. Dismas and Saria have quirks that force / encourage them to visit the Tavern, so that's what they do.

Dismas is still suffering from his paranoia - afflictions persist until the hero either does one stress-reducing activity or when his stress drops to zero through passive recovery.

Vincent goes meditating, Sigurd doesn't do anything. Not that his stress would be low enough to ignore, but since he is suffering from the Crimson Court, there's a big chance that he'll spread that to whoever he is sharing a building with if he does any hamlet activity during the week.

"Nice, easy apprentice-level mission" I said at the end of the last update. Well, the game doesn't really cooperate with that... The Thing From The Stars is roaming the Warrens, and the only other non-boss mission is a long one in the Cove. The trinket reward is awesome though, so another attritious march through the cove it is!

(the left of this screen is where you can see the current infestation level, btw)

The problem: No low-level healers, so the Wrys-lovers out there have ample opportunity to gloat at me. The best I can do is to bring 2.5 semi-healers in Kroos, Corneilles, and Gitano (who again needs Sora to swap positions with her to be able to heal).

These salt-soaked caverns are teeming with pelagic nightmares- they must be flushed out!

We're dropped kinda in the middle of the map, which means that we'll have to walk a fair bit of hallways twice. I go and explore the southern half of the map first, since the furthest two rooms in that direction are five hallways away, compared to the six on the north route.

Ahhhhh... So nice to face these nice and wimpy enemies again...

Death waits for [the] sightest lapse in concentration...

Less nice! Although, the Shaman decided to buff the Stinger instead of a monster doing more HP damage, so... still mostly nice?

(Wayne June's subtitles are sometimes slightly off - they forgot the "the" here)

Dazed, reeling, about to break...

*sigh*

But, generally speaking, fights aren't dangerous on their own with this comp. The problem is, like in the Veteran expedition last time, attrition slowly grinding down the heroes.

Which means that it's very important to fully make use of the second half of the fight, where even this team comp can out-heal the enemy. (note the one Sea Maggot and three monster corpses in the background)

Sora's job is mostly to buff the team with [Battle Ballad], heal stress when needed, and use Dirk Stab to move Gitano to 3rd rank when I want her to heal HP.

Indeed, Mr June. As usual in this game, things go well until they suddenly don't - this Point Blank Shot brings Corneilles down to only 2 HP.

[Holy Lance - Point Blank Shot and Sora's Dirk Stab both moved Corneilles back one rank]
He doesn't get to Death's Door this fight, but is still only at 7 HP, so I decide to make rest already - bit early in retrospect, because it's only the third room I've reached at this point.

Dat! Datdatdat! Datdatdat! Datdatdahhhhhh!

Ah yes, the Eighties. When the men still looked like men and the women still looked like women. Like David Bowie. Or Annie Lennox. Or Boy George. Things were simpler back then.

Now, the obligatory silly mistake: I forgot to check if Corneilles has the Crusader's camp skill to prevent a night ambush. He doesn't.

This time, WE are the ones surprised, which means that our party is getting shuffled. This can also happen when you run into an unscouted fight, although it's far less likely if you're at high torchlight.

It could've been worse though. Kroos is the only really position-dependent adventurer we've brought and she can still use all her abilities in the 3rd rank. Corneilles has Holy Lance to fix his position if it had been needed, the other two kinda work in every rank.

The bigger problem is that four Gropers is an enemy comp that can deal a lot of HP damage, even in a low-level dungeon.

I still get out of this without getting in immediate danger (the Grouper will die to Blight before his next turn), but the fight pretty much undoes the camp healing.

Ahhhhhh, catharsis...

Fights after this aren't too exciting so I'll skip ahead. Old curio, new outcome: Sometimes you'll find a map in an old backpack, giving you a free scout. Here we see that all three nearby rooms have battles waiting for us...

Masterfully executed!

A rather defensive mob in the middle room: Two Guardians and (already disposed) a Groper and a Shaman.

And a trapped unlocked strongbox in the back. Always annoying when that happens, since you can't even prevent it with any item.

In the northern dead and, a more offensively-minded mob, with three monsters that focus on HP damage. You can see the how the HP bars were emptying (and Gitano's Imposter Syndrome firing), so I decide to set up the second and last camp after it.

That's better... Gitano also finds a rare trinket with an Antiquarian camp skill here. 8 Dodge seems fairly expensive for a situational buff, but this might be pretty strong in the Warrens.

The southern curio room has an Eldritch Altar, which makes me sad because I don't have any Holy Water with me to purge a negative quirk with it.

Too long; didn't type: That was the last interesting bit happening this mission. There's this one additional room battle in the northern half of the map (the old bandit trio), but it's not exactly dramatic.

That's a lot of money though! Crests as well. Very effective Antiquarian run overall, with 21 minor and 3 major Antiques found. I picked up a little more stress than I would've liked (or didn't heal it enough with Sora, I guess), but...

We now have a Puppet Theatre, running Kasperle and Seppel around the clock!

You may remember us getting a Blueprint from a town event earlier and me saying that we'd get more once we'll beat some bosses - well we didn't because I forgot that they only start dropping them in their 2nd incarnations.

Idle stress relief is 5/week at base, so the Puppet Theatre triples that to 15. This should allow us to largely ignore the Abbey and Tavern, unless we had a terrible run like in the last update, saving us lots and lots of gold.

Dismas no longer thinks that the doctors will inject microdemons into his blood and accepts that healing Tetanus probably requires a bit more than globules and sunlight shining through a crystal. (seriously, some people...)

Dismas: "I place my trust in your gnarled, warty hands."

You might have noticed that the price for treatment is higher than it used to be: Both Sanitarium and the stress reliefs become more expensive for heroes of a higher level (Lv.3 and 5 being the break points).

Next stop: The Ruins, once again. I'm still waiting for a low-level Vestal before going for the next bosses, so the only other option would've been the Cove mission, but the trinket reward for this one is really nice.

It's that "activate three altars" mission again, so three of our inventory slots are initially blocked by the items to do so.

Can the defiled be consecrated? Can the fallen find rest?

Nice, immediate double scout!

This is the exact line-up that fought against the Siren (with Phil replacing Myrrh), which I'm sure is a very good omen for things to come. Phil and Haze to cause (and, in Haze's case, abuse) Blight, Specter to heal and stun, Gawain to punch REALLY hard.

Eradicated!

Like, really REALLY hard.

This is from the fight against the monsters guarding the first Corrupted Altar. Gawain is one-shotting the Bone Conscript in the first rank, the upgraded version of the Rabble we found in apprentice-level dungeons. They're still the sword fodder that they used to be, but their basic attack...

...(Bump in the Night) now debuffs Dodge by 7 points.

The (Arbalest -->) Marksman still does the same shooty-shoot as before, with an increased bonus against Marked tagets.

The Bone Spearman is new. It Thrusts its Spear with vigor. (Which means "low accuracy, high crit". Nothing else)

Like the Guardian in the Cove, the (Defender -->) Bulwark has upped its Prot, from 25 to 45 in its case. It also gains a "Protect Ally" skill that it previously didn't have.

There's nothing more to find in this direction. 50 gold count as "nothing".

The sparkling eyes of youth - melded and made merciless!

Directly north from the starting location, we run into the Collector once again. Our team comp is... so-so against it, with Gawain having awful reach and Haze's Lunge only reaching to the 3rd rank.

To help with that, Gawain tries to Purge this Collected HWM to the 4th rank, which doesn't work right away because of the OTHER problem with the Leper.

Better.
Gawain: "The tide rises. And the tide falls."

Leper has the BEST quotes.

The Collected Vestal [Headstrong] and the Collector itself [Life Steal] are being annoying and restore the boss' HP to full...

...but there's no way they can outheal my damage output, right?

RIGHT?!

...well, yeah, they actually can't. Especially once Gawain can finally start hitting the Collector. (even though he's low-rolling here)

But this IS a party comp with a lot of DPS, especially once the Blights stack up.

There we go! Haze even dodged the HWM's final attack, so I'm going out of the fight with a decent HP level on everyone instead of a Grave Robber close to (or at, if she's crit) Death's Door.

Next fight, first Bloodsuckers of the week, next Vampire. Ugh.

Impressive!

At least it's a very strong vampire. (is that a good thing?)
Gawain: "Petals must fall."

The next two upgraded enemy types:
The Bone Noble (upgraded from the Courtier) still deals a lot of stress (see: Specter) and now also debuffs Crit a little bit (-3%).

The Bone Veteran is a bit bulkier than it was as a Soldier, with its Prot increased from 15 to 25. It also starts the fight stealthed for two turns. Its base damage almost stayed the same (3-8 --> 3-10), but it now has 11% Crit.

(note: Not sure if I mentioned already, but Crits always do [1.5 * max Dmg], which makes them extra impactful on high damage ranges)

[Foul Warding]

Rest of the dungeon goes smoothly. Near the end, Gawain becomes Craving. I do give him the one phiol of The Blood eventually, more to make room in the inventory than anything else.

Nice haul overall, and good quirks. Hot to Trot gives Gawain a mean first strike: +25% Dmg, +20 Acc, +5 Crit on his first round.
Fairweather Fighter is difficult to maintain, but something to keep in mind; Tuckered Out (and I'm sure we can fluff that into Specter's personality so far) isn't too impactful on a support character.

Clearing the dungeon gives us some boosts if we go to the ruins again right away...

...and I do, actually, but just for a quick, veteran-leveled Antiquarian run. Nothing fancy.

I bring Lucy along as a Healer, since Saria is getting rid of The Worries disease and Specter is destressing in the Gambling hall. I think I've already shown the Occultist's blacksmith text, but not these three.

Infestation level has risen to High, which makes these Throbbing Cocoon curios spawn in any dungeon. You can't burn them as stress relief like you can in the Courtyard; they're just here so that you can poke them to stir up a group of Bloodsuckers to fight. And the reason you may want to do that is that you need more Invitations to do the main Courtyard mission than just the one you get from the initial quest, and Bloodsuckers will sometimes drop them at higher infestation levels.

First group of monsters consists of three Twitching Maggots, which are basically the same as their weaker counterpart. Weak damage, low stress, low stun chance; but also high crit rate and a chance to transfer a disease. Here, they just die before any of them can take an action.

Next up, some bandits. Or rather "Outlaws", which is how their upgraded versions are called.

The Cutthroats largely do the same, which is to say "fairly high damage to one or two heroes".

The Fuseliers also largely do the same, which is to say "fairly low damage to the entire party". It still adds up, especially if you don't have a Vestal for AoE healing to counteract that damage. They're also the next enemy type that picked up the art of stealth.

Gawain picked up the art of obscenely high damage. Bloodlust helps.

We pick up the next part of this little warning to not fight the Shambler unprepared - here's parts one and two.

We also make a lucky find - two lucky finds, actually, since that's a negative quirk waiting to be removed in the background - Jute Tapestry is a very rare drop that (as far as a very quick google research tells me) can pop up in any loot (treasure, curio, or battle) that you find.

Gawain has a couple negative quirks locked in, so he takes the Eldritch Altar, which rids him of his Egomania. Can't complain about that.

Also can't complain about Gawain picking up a +10% Dmg quirk that affects literally all his attacks. Dayyyymn.

Reaching Lv.4 isn't a particularly big deal, and it won't even when we upgrade Guild and Blacksmith. Lv.4 and 6 don't unlock new skill or equipment tiers, so it only improves their resist percentages by 10. And it also brings them closer to Lv.5, at which point they'll only ever go into Champion-level missions.

Back at the hamlet, we get another Town Event bringing another two potential recruits, but I don't really fancy another Bounty Hunter. If I could just get a Vestal already, that'd be grrrreat...

Grrrrrrrrreat.... (Before I have to disappoint any naming requests: I don't get any of those ugly, non-vestally failures)

OH WELL
Gawain makes a trip to the Sanitarium - only him, because he'd have a high chance of infecting any other adventurer visiting the same building in the hamlet. His positive traits are honestly insanely good, and I'm considering locking in Hot to Trot later as well. Photomania (-20% Stress at high torchlight) is amazing, too, but I'm hesitant to invest that much money into a single character and the Leper can stress-heal himself, anyway.

Gawain: "Why the leather straps?"

Phil stocks up on her #thoughtsandprayers despite the Puppet Theater, because I might want a nice and strong team for a bigger expedition next week (Cliffhanger! Yay!)

To prosecure our war against the Swine, we must first scout their squalid homes.

Fuckin' Gentrification. ("Everybody who knows the term "Gentrification" is probably taking part in it" - Che Guevara) (Mark-Uwe Kling, actually, but he likes misattributed quotations)

Anyways, another Money Run it is, while also bringing Jessica and Warfarin to Level 1.

I think we got the exact same thing on our first (and only, until now) run into the Warrens? Very early Moonshine Barrel, boosting Corneilles' Dmg by 30% until Camp, or rather for this entire short expedition.

In our first battle (Kroos got hurt by a trap), we get surprised. Which surprised me so much that I almost missed the screenshot. This can happen every time you walk into a battle that you didn't scout beforehand, although the risk is very low on high torchlight. Players doing a torchless run (as challenge or to get more treasure) will always have to account for this happening, though, which means that Lepers and Arbalests are very risky classes to bring for them.

In this case, we haven't been hit too hard, though, especially since Kroos hasn't been shuffled at all. Jessica manually moves back one rank and Corneilles uses Holy Lance to fix the whole thing - it doesn't matter one way or the other whether he or Warfarin stands in 1st rank.

[Punish] - inflicts a 4-point bleed and reduces Bleed resist

[Ball and Chain] is a great Janis Joplin song, but also carries Stun and Knockback.

[Rain of Sorrows] - hits the two back rows, but only deals a 3-point bleed.

Warfarin: "Guided by pain! Favoured by the Light!"

How quickly the tide turns!

Last time, I always managed to kill the Swine Wretches before they could take their action. This time, they do their Vomit. Ewwww.

Getting hit will (understandably) stress the adventurer, but there's also a 1/3 chance that they will have to roll a saving throw against Disease on top of that. The crit rate is pretty high, too - hardly matters in terms of HP damage, but it's more stress damage.

Pictured: Two friggin Maggots being a royal pain in the butt with their Stuns and Diseases. Two other Maggots went down beforehand, but  these two were much more annoying than this enemy type has any right to be...

[Vampiric Spirits: -50% Debuff resist]
[The Fits: +3 Spd, -5 Acc, -5 Crit] - one of those diseases that also give a bonus

The twisted faces of the damned, piled high and cloaked in malice!

...can I file the Collector under "standard battle" already? Because I seem to run into it all the time this playthrough.

Luckily, it isn't too resistant against either DOT effect, which means that everyone except Corneilles can pile their damage on it. Corneilles meanwhile uses his Stun to reduce the damage output of the summoned Collected.

A predator is often blind to its own peril.

Honestly, once you learn to pay attention to your party comp's reach, the Collector isn't too big of a problem anymore. At least as long as you don't get crit by the HWM. Or just run into it right after a tough battle. *tempts fate*

[Exsanguinate] - stronger version of Punish that also heals the Flagellant. Can only used when below 40% HP though.

But that's largely the dungeon. Stress has been piling up a bit more than I'd like, both by enemy crits and because I didn't focus the stress dealers as much as I would have with a Vestal or Occultist on the team.

As a result, I once again chicken out of a potential Shambler fight, even though it would've been an excellent opportunity to show off heart attacks and party wipes.

Meh.

This one's interesting though - iirc, Kroos already has +2 Spd at high torchlight, which means that she's actually pretty fast now despite the Arbalest class's low Spd base.

Oh, and it seems like Corneilles has been repressing something...? That, or we go with Eclipse's explaination and he keeps telling the workers that THEY WILL ALL GO TO HELL IF THEY DON'T REPENT and they finally got fed up with him.

Finally, this was the first run I did after the (gratis) Butcher's Circus DLC was dropped. Unfortunately, the accompanying update also made the performance drop quite a bit - something that the devs are aware of, but haven't been able to fix yet. It's not unplayable, but still annoying, so I might wait a little while if there will be a fix soon. We'll see - for now, thanks for reading!

 

[Benice]

25 minutes ago, ping said:

Fetishist Jerusalem and Constantinople. Make of that what you will.

Oh my good gravy.

26 minutes ago, ping said:

Back in the hamlet, the first thing we do is send the battered expedition group to relax a little. Dismas and Saria have quirks that force / encourage them to visit the Tavern, so that's what they do.

The caretaker should really get a new job. But at least he's not self-flagellating!

32 minutes ago, ping said:

so the Wrys-lovers out there have ample opportunity to gloat at me

Spoiler

 

38 minutes ago, ping said:

 

That's quite the mouthful.

43 minutes ago, ping said:

There we go! Haze even dodged the HWM's final attack, so I'm going out of the fight with a decent HP level on everyone instead of a Grave Robber close to (or at, if she's crit) Death's Door.

What, no heads? I conclude that this mission was a waste!

53 minutes ago, ping said:

That, or we go with Eclipse's explaination and he keeps telling the workers that THEY WILL ALL GO TO HELL IF THEY DON'T REPENT and they finally got fed up with him.

Sounds like something Corneilles would do.

Also, if we do get another plague doctor, can we name her Jean?

The reason being:

Spoiler

 

 

[Golb89]

Spoiler

9 hours ago, ping said:

 

9 hours ago, ping said:

We now have a Puppet Theatre, running Kasperle and Seppel around the clock!

 

9 hours ago, ping said:

We pick up the next part of this little warning to not fight the Shambler unprepared - here's parts one and two.

Pretty sure we got the whole thing now (or at least the 5th piece too)

 

8 hours ago, Benice said:

Also, if we do get another plague doctor, can we name her Jean?

No.

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Golb89

[Benice]

2 minutes ago, Golb89 said:

No.

Spoiler

 

I like how often my Doctor names make you use this gif.

I take it that you'd rather not be aPhiliated with my doctor naming?

[ping]

9 hours ago, Benice said:

I take it that you'd rather not be aPhiliated with my doctor naming?

Dr NO.

(Plague Doc has a rather long waiting line right now. Silence, Gavial, Hibiscus, Jean. We'll see how many PDs I'll get killed, so Never Say Never. The other names that I've written down are Benice (Abom), Lawrence (Man-at-Arms), Skadi and Grani (Grave Robber), Mayer (Houndmaster), Provence (Arbalest), and Saiga and Nearl (Vestals).

9 hours ago, Golb89 said:

Pretty sure we got the whole thing now (or at least the 5th piece too)

We have most parts of Darius the Highwayman's journal, who also ran into the Shambler. I try to keep track of the pages, but of course it's very possible that I'll forget to copy some imgur links into that text document.

[Benice]

6 hours ago, ping said:

who also ran into the Shambler

Is the Shambler supposed to be a significant boss or something? This game seems to really want you to think it's particularily threatening.

And since we don't have any more Highwaymen name requests, I vote that we should name the next one Batta.