"All-in-one" Guide for Darkest Dungeon

Welcome to the "All-in-one" Guide for Darkest Dungeon!
This guide want to be a usefull guide for who want a practical guide for that will help you make the right choices like Hamlet upgrade, trinket to keep or sell, quirks, curios, provisions and much more.

Most of information and images are taken from the game or from
FANDOM Darkest Dungeon Wiki [darkestdungeon.fandom.com] and for the team building part, I mostly used that guide Party Building/Composition by Superpseudo that you can find usefull because it's going in dept in the combat system overall more than the part that I used for this guide!!

For now the guide is a WORK IN PROGRESS and I made it mainly to have a one place with all the informations that I need for my playthroughs so that I don't have to memorize everything or to juggle with differents guides/sites.
I'm happy to hear you if there is something that's wrong or if you think i'm missing something in this guide!

And now let's start with what you are looking for and...
"Remind Yourself That Overconfidence Is A Slow And Insidious Killer"

"Welcome Home, Such As It Is. This Squalid Hamlet, These Corrupted Lands, They Are Yours Now, And You Are Bound To Them"

The Hamlet is the starting point of every expedition you will take in Darkest Dungeon and upgrading it in the right way will help immensely to have a good start, you will save a ton of gold and keeping your roster of heroes full and healthy!

Always remember that heirlooms can be exchanged one with another with different ratios, so if you miss few heriloom of a certain type you can always see if you can use other ones and trade with the type that you need, but be aware that is better always to trade common heirlooms for rarest (example Crests for Deeds or Busts) and not the opposite (exaple: Portraits for Crests) if you don't know what are you doing.

Now let's see what is better prioritize to have the best start:

• First for sure is the Stage Coach Network (most of the time you can unlock lvl 2 right after tutorial if you exchange few Crests for the missing Deeds), and aim to reach lvl 3
  
• After that Hero Barracks are a must to keep incrementing the amount of heroes in your roster

• Guild is you second focus and the main use you will do for Portraits at the start of the game, aim for the Instructor mastery lvl 1
  
• Training Regimen will be the main focus after that, just dump every Portrait possible for reducing the costs of upgrading and buying Heroes skills at lower costs possible

• Along side Guild the Blacksmith is what you need to upgrade when you don't need your Deeds for the Hero Barracks, upgrading Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing at lvl 1
  
• Like Guild the next upgrade will be the Furnace to reduce the costs of weapons and armors of your Heroes trying to maxing it as fast as possible

• Sanitarium will be the next upgrade and the main use of Busts upgrading Treatment
  Library at lvl 2
  
• Medical Devices at lvl 1 or 2 depending how much you are getting diseases
  
• aim to level up Patient Cells at lvl 2 to have an extra ward slot for each treatment
  
• just level up Treatment Library to max and Medical Devices after that

After that just upgrade Abbey and Tavern for stress relief and everything else.

This section of the guide is focused on explaining a crucial strategy that can change by a lot the amount of gold earned in the game using a basic trick that most of people aren't aware of it.
Mastering this concept will make it easier to collect more loot, but you'll quickly realize can even impacts the provisions you need to bring. The drop rate increases dramatically when your torch light is completely depleted (at 0), and you can strategically exploit this in a few different situations:

• You're currently in a fight and know it's the last fight of your expedition

• You're in a fight and know you plan to use a campfire immediately afterward

In these scenarios, especially if you are in a room with a chest or a curio that rewards loot, it is highly recommended to manually deplete your torch just before landing the final blow. This will ensure you collect significantly more loot from the combat and open the chest/curio with the increased loot bonus.

You can even use this trick, if you've taken a lot of torches and no more than once per expedition, without needing to be at the very end of the run or planning to use a campfire.

"Idol, amulet or lucky charm. The simplest object can be a talisman against evil"

Now that you know how to upgrade efficently the Hamlet you are just ready to embark in the next expedition and there you will start looking for what mission to start based on reward and mainly trinkets!

In that section you will find mainly the trinkets to avoid or sell just to keep it short. Everything else will have some use or good use, just remeber that dodge is a bit useless early game, speed, accuracy, are godly and resistance, bleed/blight chance are always good.

This are the trinkets to avoid running an expedition for it or buying beacuse they are bad and most of the time you will sell them. Always avoid them if you have a better choice
Notes: TCM trinkets aren't considering Farmstead endless run where some of that trinket could perform good

"Wealth beyond measure, awarded to the brave and the foolhardy alike"

Before starting the section about every area and tips to deal with them, in every dungeon you will find curios to interact with using bare hands or provisions.
This section is for curios that are shared by every area

"As the fiend falls, a faint hope blossoms"

Now let's watch some enemy type that are shared by every area.

This type of section will be ordered by Priority focus, Noticeable Skill of that enemy and some Notes about it.

Cultist Acolyte

Priority: High

Notes: Stress dealer for excellence and shuffling the party, focus him

Cultist Brawler

Priority: Medium

Notes: Debuff increasing stress, plus some bleeding

Brigand Cutthroat

Priority: High

Notes: Bleeding and damage dealer, focus him and take him down

Brigand Bloodletter

Priority: Medium

Notes: Aoe bleed and stress and high damage for the rank 1. Stun him and push him back

Brigand Fusilier

Priority: Low

Notes: Reducing dodge, easy to manage with Riposte

Ghoul

Priority: High

Notes: Stress debuff, stress, horror, stun, disease....don't need to say anything less than KILL HIM FAST

Madman

Priority: Medium

Notes: Stress debuff, stress, horror, high dodge try to focus him when possible

Gargoyle

Priority: Low

Notes: Stun, shuffle and high prot but not much a threath

Bone Rabble

Priority: Very Low

Notes: Dodge debuff at higher difficulty but it isn't a threath, just ignore him

Maggot

Priority: High

Notes: Disease, Stress and stun are a good amount of reason to kill them fast

Webber/Spitter

Priority: Medium

Notes: Spitter do more damage and webber have a stun and mark ability both stacking blight. Focus Spitter first to reduce damage taken

Pliskin

Priority: High

Notes: Stealth at start of the fight and high crit when stealthed, just remember to equip Expose and Puncture before camping to de-stealth and break guard for an easier fight

Rattler

Priority: Medium

Notes: Dangerous when guarding Pilskin, just remember to equip Puncture before camping

Adder

Priority: Low

Notes: huge health prot and heal, last in focus. Be conscious of his stun

Chevalier

Priority: High

Notes: High damage, stun and high bleed damage, try to keep him stunned (low stun res) when you manage to kill other enemies and if possible kill him

Gatekeeper

Priority: High

Notes: High dodge, summon enemies and stress make him a target you should focus

Sycophant

Priority: Medium

Thirsty Form

Bloodlust Form

Notes: Stress, Crimson Curse, Stun and even higher damage on Bloodlust form. Low Hp make them easy to kill but they are quite dangerous if managed bad

Supplicant

Priority: Low

Notes: Immune to stun, high health pull. Not much dangerous compared to others bloodsuckers

"Pace out the halls of your lineage, once familiar, now foreign"

Ruins is the first dungeon that can be explored. It's a crumbling castle full of undead, cultists and necromancers.

In this section will be covered every detail to prepare doing expedition in Ruins, starting from what type of team fits better vs this region, than what provisions to bring, what curios you can find there and every enemies you can encounter.

Bonus DMG vs Unholy

Blight is effective

You can use knockback, pull, and shuffle abilities to move enemies out of position, forcing them to use weaker attacks. Enemies such as the Cultist Brawlers[darkestdungeon.fandom.com],Bone Defenders[darkestdungeon.fandom.com], Bone Courtiers[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] and Bone Arbalists[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] Veteran Dungeons
The Bone Captain[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] can be countered with a strong stun and/or with a tanky hero in rank 1. Champion Dungeons
The Bone Bearer[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] can be countered by using blight attacks, because enemies that die to blight don't leave corpses and therefor cannot be resurrected by him.

Provisions are an hot topic in the Darkest Dungeon community because it's full of opinions and different playstyles, difficulty settings, rank of the expedition could change the amount and the type of provisions you take with you.

My objective is to give a general advice to the amount and type of provisions that you should take with you, explaining why you need it so you could make your own choice.

The amount could be affected to the difficulty setting (Stygian/Bloodmoon deplete faster on new areas increased to 7 instead of 6) and could be higher if you use the stragegy I've explained in the Loot Tips at the start of the guide.

"Excise the fungal tumors and the land may yet live"

Weald is a stagnant, overgrown forest inhabited by bandits and the victims of parasitic fungus and hags.

In this section will be covered every detail to prepare doing expedition in Weald, starting from what type of team fits better vs this region, than what provisions to bring, what curios you can find there and every enemies you can encounter.

Bonus damage vs Human and Eldritch

Bleed is effective
(cure disease camping skills)
The Weald is one of the more likely places to catch a disease

The enemies here take advantage of marking synergy.
Fungal Scratchers[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] will focus on marked heroes and use a more powerful attack, 'Rend the Marked', against them. The Arbalest 'Flare' ability removes marks.

Alternatively, instead of removing marks, you can choose to tank the damage. These are heroes that can apply a +PROT buff to themselves, and even Mark themselves, too. The Flagellant in particular benefits from being marked, because taking damage allows him to use his powerful healing abilities Veteran Dungeons
(is also good at tanking)
Besides getting 'Rend the Marked' to death, the other way you're likely to die in the weald is to the Unclean Giant[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] and his powerful 'Treebranch Smackdown' ability. The Man-at-Arms Guard ability applies such a strong +PROT buff, that it allows him to eat crit Treebranch Smackdowns for breakfast

Champion Dungeons
The Hateful Virago[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] can be countered by using bleed attacks, because enemies that die to bleed don't leave corpses for her to transform into mushrooms that block healing

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

Warrens are a maze of aqueducts and cellars inhabited by beasts and man-pigs always ready to fight.

In this section will be covered every detail to prepare doing expedition in Warrens, starting from what type of team fits better vs this region, than what provisions to bring, what curios you can find there and every enemies you can encounter.

Bonus damage vs Human and Beast

Bleed is effective
(Cure Disease camping skill)
It's really easy to get diseased here from the curios and Swine Wretches[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] Veteran Dungeons

The Swinetaur[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] can be countered with a strong stun , or by using the Man-at-Arms to guard and take the hit Champion Dungeons

(they can reach the back)
There is an enemy named the Swine Skiver[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] that needs to be killed immediately

"The smell of rotting fish is almost unbearable..."

Cove are waterlogged caverns inhabited by fishmen, creatures of the sea, and undead.

In this section will be covered every detail to prepare doing expedition in Cove, starting from what type of team fits better vs this region, than what provisions to bring, what curios you can find there and every enemies you can encounter.

Bonus DMG vs Eldritch

Bonus DMG vs Unholy. There are only a couple of unholy enemies that appear in the cove, but they are very high-priority targets.
Specifically, I'm talking about the Drowned Thrall[darkestdungeon.fandom.com]

Blight is effective Veteran Dungeons

The Uca Major[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] inflicts a powerful bleed, so you can counter it by bringing a Plague Doctor and using 'Battlefield Medicine' to cure bleed. In fact, doing this enables you to infinitely stall off of the Uca Crusher Champion Dungeons
(Bring Medicinal Herbs for Hellion's 'Revel')
The Squiffy Ghast[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] can be countered by bringing stress-healing heroes. You might also consider bringing Laundanum, a usually not very useful provision item

"In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings..."

Because of how risky the Darkest Dungeon is, try to go in with fully upgraded heroes, and buy all of the provisions that you can. There is no nighttime ambush in the Darkest Dungeon, so don't worry about that. Don't worry about Shovels and Keys, either.

Bleed is effective

Taking a lot of stress damage is basically unavoidable, because you run into enemy compositions that have too many stress-dealers in them, like multiple Sycophant[darkestdungeon.fandom.com] or Manservant[darkestdungeon.fandom.com]. Also, heroes that have the crimson curse can stress each other out. On the other hand, there are some curio interactions that greatly assist in managing stress

The Vestal and the Man-at-Arms improve your team's survivability. Because the Courtyard is difficult, playing it safe with them isn't a bad idea
The Courtyard is brutal, but your progress is saved, so even if you have to abandon the quest, the next time that you return you will resume from the spot that you left off at. It may take multiple visits to reach the boss, but when you finally do, you can create a different team specifically for that boss.