DARKEST DUNGEON 2 | 13 Essential Tips Before you Start (Beginner's Guide)

hey everybody it's party elite and today we're taking a look at the all-new darkest dungeon 2. it just released in early access building on but also completely changing some of the ideas from the first game where there's some familiar mechanics some revamped mechanics and some completely fresh mechanics that all come together while retaining the punishing unforgiving core that is darkest dungeon thanks to developers sending me a key i've been able to dive into these changes and pull together a set of beginners tips for you as i spend more time with the game you can expect more complex and in-depth guides and tips on the channel too alongside some runs of my own and if you'd be interested in those let me know what they like and a comment down below and don't hesitate to subscribe but as hope fades there's little time to waste let us begin our perilous journey keep the fire going the torch has always been a central element in darkest dungeon part to sustain flickering and waning a symbol of fading hope while the first game had significant benefits to the light dimming in the second you absolutely need to keep the fire alive the further you let it dim the worse your situation gets and the better your enemies will have it sure you get slight buffs when the light's low but the increased threat level of enemies far outweighs the buffs in my opinion and the chance of worsening relations increases as the light dims as well we'll touch a bit more on the relationship aspect in just a little bit but for your first few runs especially you'll probably want to keep the light alive as much as possible for as long as possible at times your characters might get status effects that mean they perform better under certain lighting conditions or perhaps more accurately put they'll perform worse under certain lighting conditions but i'm trying not to get too bogged down by specifics in today's video maybe we save that for later just keep an eye out for such status effects and see if you can't work with them or around them or take care of them otherwise you can hover your mouse over the flame at any point in time to see its current state and what that means for your party keep a relatively constant check on the torch's level and make decisions accordingly as you move through your travels at times you'll have the chance to help or perhaps ignore the locals who are suffering under the spreading evil and when this happens each of your characters might have a different suggested approach and sometimes your decision will come either at a cost or only with one benefit over another in other words you'll want to know what your current situation is so you can make the right call as to what you need most holding alt down during these decision making moments will show you exactly what you have to gain and lose and keeping the torch lit should be a high priority try not to be too paranoid about it though that you give up on other potential rewards during these encounters but think ahead before you completely ignore or overindulge the torch keep in mind where you're headed to next on the map sometimes you'll want to have the torch as bright as possible because you know a boss battle is coming up and at other times you'll be okay with the torch dimming a bit because you know you're only likely to face lower to your enemies for the next little while and you can take that disadvantage for the time ultimately though you want to make sure that neither your flame nor your lives get snuffed out manage your loathing going out to battle demons and cultists brings out the worst in many and loathing is a great representation of the toll the task is taking if the fire is a representation of your party's hope loathing is a representation of their unwillingness to go on the higher your loathing is the more challenging your engagements will get there is a very sharp spike in difficulty if both your torch is dim and your loading is high so you want to make sure to manage that loading lest you find yourself in a situation where you can't light up your torch loading in fact directly impacts the rate at which your torch dims the higher your loading the faster it dims it kind of goes with the metaphor as well an unwillingness to battle through the horrors is likely to snuff out even the slightest glimmer of hope after all the loathing goes up when you reach the inn but as you clear encounters like players cultists and resistance you'll see loathing drop so taking the easiest path is not always the best option it'll make subsequent trips between ends harder and eventually you'll find yourself barely able to keep the torch lit die to win that's right folks unlike the first game darkest dungeon 2 is all about getting right back to the very beginning every time your party's wiped with each complete wipe of your party you'll accumulate hope based on the distance you managed to travel during the run the number of regions you completed during your run the number of shrine locations you visited and the number of battles you want each of these contribute to the hope gain and as you cross thresholds your profile will rank up unlocking more valuable items traits and even character classes one thing that kind of bothers me is that i'm yet unable to find how to reset a profile rank i'd love to be able to reset back to zero at times but alas that seems not to be an option unless i'm missing something either way more normal people who don't load themselves will likely enjoy these benefits that add up over the course of multiple runs and in fact you might want to chase rapid leveling up for your first few runs maximizing the number of battles you participate in and chasing after shrines is a good way to go about gaining hope pretty quickly and any region objectives that limit your ability to pursue these can be set aside and ignored sure you won't get the reward for completing your objective for the region but you're living for the future rewards that a future party will have one that's more likely to make it to the mountain now sometimes an encounter will leave your party dismembered not entirely slain but you know short a person or two and if your party loses numbers over the course of its journey you'll only be able to recruit a replacement at the next in but even then you don't have an endless pool of randomly generated characters to swap in as you need it's not like the first game where heroes kept showing up each run has a unique set of characters one for each class with more classes being unlocked as your profile levels up you select four at the start of your run and if one dies that's it that class is no longer available for the rest of the run now if you have other classes unlocked they might randomly appear at the next in and only then can you refill your ranks if you don't have other classes unlocked you're out of luck now that doesn't mean you should just abandon your run when you start losing people after all the distance traveled is a huge part of what adds to your hope at the end of a run and even if you don't fancy your chances in battle you can at least get your steps in for a future party all about positioning if you're familiar with darkest dungeon you'll be familiar with the importance of positioning in combat there are four slots on either side of the screen each of these slots occupied by a combatant on the left yours on the right your enemies depending on the character class and abilities they have available to them they'll be able to perform various actions when in combat based on where they're standing this is why picking the right position for your party members right at the start of a new run is so important it makes a tremendous difference to every encounter you can quickly check what position a character works best in by looking at their skills and observing the pips here the size of the filled in portion tells you just how effective they are from that specific spot and which target they're best used against now what the game deems as effective might not be the same as what you deem effective where the game might be looking at say damage output you might want to take a look at damage over time effects or debuffs or healing capabilities all options that might be restricted to actions that are in turn restricted to certain positions so to be sure you're satisfied with starting positions hover over each skill listed under the character and see where exactly they can be used from and what effects it has and where it can target some skills target your allies while others only target one of a few spots on the other side of the field while others still have an area of effect shown by pips that are joined like so use all this to determine the right starting placement as an example you might have a character who's better near the front but maybe they have a skill that they can only use from a spot further back that causes damage to an enemy adds a super helpful status effect to your character and automatically moves said character ahead all the same time are they better starting right at the front or are these extra effects worth putting them in a weaker overall spot for that initial use of a valuable skill in the case of the highwayman for example the duelist advance is absolutely worth a starting position further back since it not only causes damage but gives him a counter attack stack to cause damage to his attackers for the next couple turns remember that ranks fill from front to back and this goes for enemies too the spots closest to the center will always be filled by a target and should a target die and their corpse be removed the person behind that target will move up to take their spot so keep that in mind when you're looking at these skills too something that can only hit the last spot on the other side of the field may well be useless by the end of or even by the middle of an engagement and on the flip side something that can only hit the first few spots will pretty much always be handy outside of when corpses are taking up spots and getting in your way remember then not just to position your characters appropriately right at the start of a run but also to reposition them using either skills or the move action mid-battle to maximize their performance too actions might push and pull characters around it's not like they stay rooted to their position and sometimes the enemy will very much drag you into unfavorable positions that you'll need to use your skills or move action to get out of stay on your toes move around find the optimal positions and destroy the enemy mind the map the map in darkest dungeon 2 is much more involved and integral than the one in the first game the paths are a lot more dynamic and there's plenty more going on when you arrive at a new region there's a percentage chance that you'll scout ahead letting you know what lies in the immediate vicinity using the m key to bring the map up you can click and drag to see exactly what your path might entail sometimes forks in the road will come back together shortly after splitting and at other times one path might divert for a few steps costing you a few opportunities that you might not wish to miss so keep an eye out on the next few steps at the very least especially if your scouting was successful whether you had said success or not though you should try and find the closest watchtower engaging with watchtowers scouts ahead for you and that will not only reveal potential nasty surprises but it might also ensure you meet your goals for the region sometimes your goals will involve only taking a limited number of a certain kind of engagement and you want to make sure you don't waltz into an extra one by mistake losing potential benefits otherwise scouting also lets you know how safe the road between key points of interest are marked in green are the safest routes but if they're marked in blue you're more likely to see a road battle before you arrive at the point itself that's right major engagements are highlighted at the various points but between two points there can always be a road battle the equivalent of a hallway battle from the first game and you can tell if one's going to happen or is more likely to happen if the road is marked in blue versus green while at times you'll want to chase these road battles for the extra loop drops and gain to your profile's hope if your party is already badly hurt and stressed out you'll probably want to avoid these to make it to the inn on the other end you'll want to keep an eye out for shrines too these will let you pick a single character and unlock a next skill for them and though they might stress the character out they'll also add to your profile's hope gain at the end of the run and again those unlocked skills stay available for the character in future runs right from the beginning encounters can boost your food stores and torch levels and they can also net you some great items but they can also cost a great deal of stress and potentially damage relationships beyond that they can at times cost you other resources too sure but stress and broken relations can quite directly cause your death so i figured i'd highlight those specifically if your characters are diseased or they've developed certain quirks you can have them removed as well or you can also make good perks into permanent ones as you can see the map is doing a lot more weight lifting in darkest dungeon 2. gone are the moments of tranquility where you can choose where each party member goes at your leisure now you need to plan ahead making sure you don't lock off access to essential destinations you need to make sure you mind your driving driving definitely needs to be fixed up a little the controls are a little janky and you'll want to adjust your options to make sure you can actually maintain control of your vehicle you'll really want to swerve and hit as much debris on the road as possible these can often be the source of items that can mean the difference between life and death and since you can't shift your wagon into reverse gear you'll want to be careful now there is reason to believe that hitting debris will sometimes add to your people's stress but i'm not 100 sure of that just yet and i want to do a bit more experimentation before i can confirm that that is in fact what happens but i can say that from time to time yes when you hit some of the debris you will gain some items more important than missing or hitting debris though is missing your exit on this highway to hell remember how i said some missions will limit you to how many of a specific kind of engagement you're allowed to have yeah imagine losing out on that goal because your carriage decided not to cooperate rather than anything else the map and the icons on screen will tell you which path leads to what kind of destination so keep an eye on those and if you find yourself at the wrong spot just slow down get yourself in a position and very cautiously pick the right path standard wasd controls apply keep an eye out on your party as well though when you get to a crossroads if you slow down for long enough they'll express their preferences and choosing with or against those preferences will have positive and negative consequences buying and using items items can provide much-needed reprieve from the constant onslaught of the road but they work a little differently than your inventory in the first game relics and baubles still exist and are still used as currency at times you'll spend these to help the local populace with their struggles and as with everything else it becomes a bit of a balancing act of choosing to save your relics and baubles for your own needs or spending them in the hopes of staving off stress re-lighting the torch or acquiring random sets of items etc etc otherwise they can be used to purchase trinkets combat items and in items either at the inn or on the road trinkets can be assigned to your characters on the character screen right clicking on their portraits at any time outside of combat will allow you to add up to two trinkets to the character and depending on the trinket you'll see buffs potentially at the cost of some debuffs and you'll also see limitations as to who can use the trinket certain character traits or statuses can prevent a trinket and in fact any item from being used by that specific character try and keep in mind the type of damage your characters do when it comes to assigning trinkets that can buff damage type and try and keep in mind the kind of damage you might be facing when it comes to trinkets that can buff damage resistances a 10 or 20 percent change either way might not sound like much when the damage numbers are so small especially but every little bit counts they cannot be assigned or removed in the middle of combat so make sure to do trinket management before you find yourself needing trinket management if you catch my meaning anytime you see a blockade on the road piled up rubble that's all the way across the entirety of the road touching that is going to throw you into a battle so maybe before you dive into that battle take a moment pull up your inventory right click on some of your characters to see what trinkets they have and make sure you've got everything assigned properly before you push into that barricade and engage in combat trinkets never go away you can assign remove and reassign them as you wish but you'll always have access to them unless you shift click on one to remove it from your inventory something that you'll opt to do from time to time when you start running out of space for higher quality items down the road combat items are different in a few ways for one they take up a slot in the combat tab two they are single use only unless you have multiple of the same item in a single stack in which case you can use them as many times as you have them to use of course but once a combat item is used it disappears from your inventory and from your character's combat item slot for good so a stack of two will permanently become a stack of one when one is used and eventually a stack of none when the second one is used finally compared to the passive trinket buffs combat items are an active skill meaning you have to decide when to use them and how fortunately their use is a free action while normally a character can only do one thing per round with combat items they can technically do two if the combat item has a suitable use at the time of course some items remove status effects like bleeding while other items act as a free attack others still will remove all corpses with a single free action and on and on with all sorts of versatile utility because they're single use try and save them for desperate situations don't waste them all on battles against mooks and try to preserve some for use against higher tier enemies specifically with that said don't be afraid to use them when needed they're meant to get you out of desperate situations and they won't do you any good just being stockpiled in your inventory looking pretty finally in items can only be used at ins the stopping points between your hellish road trips where you can rest and recuperate these items include food for healing games for distressing and getting along and more sometimes they can only be applied to one character by clicking and dragging the item on them and other times multiple characters can be involved instead i can't stress this enough use your in items don't hesitate you will get more the in is the only chance you'll get it using them and the status effects and benefits of these items cannot be understated you can always buy more in items the world is always littered within items there are in items for grabs everywhere so yes use them freely use them often stress can absolutely kill you stress and meltdowns are serious business having your stress bar fill up is much more punishing in darkest dungeon 2 than it was in the first game i would argue that stress management is almost more important than hp management partly because when hp hits zero you can still use one of your various abilities or items to bring health back up and there's plenty you can do to prevent yourself from hitting that zero in the first place no matter your efforts though it can all be undone when stress maxes out a meltdown will cause a huge drop in hp and that's just free damage you're taking without your enemy having to do much for it unlike the first game stress doesn't have a heart attack element to it and death doesn't come when you fill it up a second time it might give you a coronary condition as a player when it happens but the in-game heart attack mechanic is gone stress accumulates when a character takes damage is hit by certain status effects or has a disagreement with one of their companions while on the road stress can be reduced by seeing success in battle through you know critical hits for example through rng events in the middle of combat through status effects and perhaps most easily and predictably through the use of certain say it again in items use your in items now stress carries over from battle to travel modes and it stays with you even after you arrive at and leave an inn it is persistent it follows you you have to actively work on keeping it down hp meanwhile regenerates as you travel so if you spend enough time away from combat just traveling through sort of the safer paths as described earlier when talking about the map you might actually regenerate to full health when you arrive at an inn you can eat some food and regenerate further there are many ways to keep hp up stress though stress will kill you and if it doesn't kill you at the very least it'll strain your relationships relationship management relationships between your party members are an absolutely essential thing to keep an eye on good and poor relations between them can have as you might expect positive and negative effects and while they might seem mundane or minimal at first they will come up at the most opportune and inopportune moments to either stab you in the back or lift you up at any point in time you can right click on a character and go over to the relationship tab to see exactly how they feel about other characters in the party yellow pips are positive blue pips are negative and grey pips are just neutral relationships work like a number line hits to relations will reduce yellow pips down to zero before racking up blue pips while improvements to relations will reduce blue pips before adding yellow and relationship changes can often be quite drastic especially when a meltdown occurs when the relation hits its cap in either direction a new relationship forms between the two characters positive ones include things like inseparable respectful amorous etc etc while negative ones include things like suspicious tumultuous hateful and so on while pips themselves have little direct impact when these bonds are made positive or negative is when you'll start seeing the effects positive relationships can provide buffs to each other random healing reduced stress extra damage on upcoming attacks while negative relationships make people stress each other out reduced combat efficiency prevents actions from being taken and much more all at the behest of rngesus whether positive or negative you don't directly take advantage of relationships by choice it's really up to the dice gods and while the dice gods do giveth boy do they taketh away there are a few things you can do to keep relationships healthy letting the flame dim too much will hasten deteriorating relations during any of these but making aligned decisions during encounters can strengthen bonds shown with the golden highlight around characters but be warned they can damage bonds too shown by a blue highlight around characters participating in activities together at the inn using in items that you should always use can help with a slim chance of course of hurting relations as well and performing certain support actions during combat seem to help relations as well randomly at times conversation in the wagon will improve or hurt relations too though i'm not yet sure if there's anything you can do to trigger these more often outside of character traits healthy relationships will keep your party supporting each other helping them survive the tougher ordeals do not downplay or underestimate the value of good relations and keep checking on how your party members feel about each other and try to keep them positive if not at least close to neutral at worst lots of things cause negative impact to relationships few things result in positive impacts it is very hard for a relationship to recover from a poor spot dot over direct damage damage over time is an invaluable tool and you should make sure to apply it in great doses whenever possible effects like bleeding burning blight etc will apply damage to a character every time their turn comes up for a number of rounds as shown by highlighting the icon or by holding alt while hovering over a character the damage that'll be dealt is shown here as well and once a character is hit by one of these damage statuses only the use of items or special abilities can remove them most enemies cannot remove these effects and while direct damage is typically a range of damage dealt with a chance to miss these dot effects will always hit for the listed amount of damage with no chance to miss for each of the turns this guaranteed damage should not be scoffed at especially as the going gets tough and your enemies start to get abilities that can help them dodge or otherwise reduce the damage they take one way or another from a direct damage attack keep in mind that these dot status effects do stack so if you've used one action from one character that causes a certain type and amount of damage per round and another character comes in with the same type of damage the two amounts will add up this goes for different types of damage too bleeding and burning burning and blight bleeding in blight or whatever combination it might be dot status effects can also free your party members up in subsequent terms if you know you have a guaranteed amount of damage going through when a target's next round comes up you'll be able to tell if it'll survive to perform an action or not see dot damage happens at the start of a character's turn so it can eliminate them before they can do anything naturally though actually getting that dot status on a target isn't just a matter of simply clicking on them picking the right targets this might seem like a very basic tip but hey it's a beginner's guide video after all the smallest mistake can become the most expensive as a run goes on as you start dealing with more and more challenging enemies especially every turn they're allowed to live and take actions is a turn that can lead to your demise remember that outside of status effects a damaged enemy hits just as hard as they did when at full health don't leave targets close to death finish them off if their health is low keep an eye on the move order in a battle to see if you should prioritize one such target over another but don't leave the enemy standing just so they can hurt you again physically or mentally apart from this you should prioritize backline enemies as they're typically the ones that act to support they'll buff their allies debuff your characters deal aoe damage or pull your party members around these things can often be a lot more troublesome than a bit of damage here and there so you'll want to try and get rid of those backline support enemies sooner rather than later as per the previous point try to get dot effects out as early and as often as possible having one enemy be hit by guaranteed damage every turn means your characters can be freed up to target somebody else sooner than they otherwise might when picking a target for said dot status effects though keep an eye on the target's resistances when you hover over an enemy you can see exactly what they're resistant against the higher this number the more likely they are to resist the application of that status effect and the more likely you are to have wasted your turn try to target those most susceptible to a type of status effect first and this applies not only to dot status effects but also to skills that force a target to be pushed around keep an eye out for other status effects that might reduce your efficiency some targets will have boosted dodges or better block chances while at times your own characters will have their damage output produced by status effects just because a target is near death doesn't mean it's automatically the ideal target though if it dodges a heavy hitting attack you've just wasted your turn maybe take this opportunity to poke it with a weaker attack to trigger the dodge instead saving the heavy hitter for later one final thing to keep in mind when picking targets is that death's door applies to enemy characters just as it does to your party members when hp hits zero the target can still act and it can potentially hurt you it can heal itself or it can be healed by one of its friends this keeps them in the fight when you might have thought them taken care of while every enemy character doesn't have access to death store quite a few of them do only the milkiest of moocs don't really so be prepared for death's door and don't be surprised by it when it happens and takes you out so you're trying to figure out which target to hit but you're struggling to keep up with all these icons which one's dodge which one's block and what does this bear trap mean again the token glossary holding g brings up the token glossary and until you get familiar with what all these icons mean you can bring this up on any screen to understand how your attacks might impact the situation at hand this is a short tip yes but when you're first starting off it's by far among the most useful ones knowledge is power knowledge is also half the battle the other half you're very likely to lose so at least win this half by pressing g and understanding what all this means understanding mastery leveling your characters up in darkest dungeon 2 is a somewhat simple affair with the progress of one character who comes at the cost of others rather than gaining xp your party will gain mastery points after accomplishing certain tasks such as winning combat encounters and these mastery points can be used to upgrade any unlocked skill for any character when at the end but keep in mind that these upgrades do not carry over to future runs just the current one since mastery points are a shared resource it means you have to prioritize between all your character skills and hovering over your options will tell you exactly what additional benefits you have to gain from each one i'd recommend ounce of prevention and bolster as the first two to upgrade since they help reduce stress and they help fight off or resist status effects after you have these two focus on upgrading at least one skill per character before picking seconds or thirds for the same character when a character dies they take those spent mastery points with them so don't put all your eggs in one basket of the four starting characters apart from ounce of prevention and bolster you'll want to upgrade poison dart and duelist advanced first at least that's my two cents poison dart upgrades to cause more damage and helps take care of those pesky backline enemies more quickly too duelists advance meanwhile is amazing as a starting skill to begin with when upgraded it can help your highwayman dodge and counter-attack more often i don't think i have to explain how both of those things can ensure survivability of not just the highwayman himself but the rest of the party too there you have it 13 tips to get you started on the right foot i hope they help you see success in darkest dungeon 2 and if you have any thoughts of your own you'd like to share feel free to do so in the comments down below if you'd like to see more darkest dungeon 2 on the channel there's definitely plans for it so don't hesitate to subscribe for it and other strategy gaming content as well as always a massive thanks goes out to all of the channel members and patrons who've been supporting the channel on a monthly basis y'all keep us alive and running smoothly and of course a big old thanks goes out to each and every one of you for watching until next time cheers [Music]

Channel: PartyElite

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Keywords: Darkest Dungeon 2, Darkest Dungeon 2 guide, darkest dungeon guide, darkest dungeon 2 beginners guide, darkest dungeon 2 tips, how to play darkest dungeon 2, darkest dungeon 2 how to play, how to play, beginner's guide, beginners guide, tips, tips and tricks, darkest dungeon tips and tricks, essential guide to darkest dungeon 2, essential guide, essential tips, darkest dungeon tips, strategy games 2021, partyelite

Id: iWHoCzZ7fuE

Length: 31min 1sec (1861 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 28 2021