Darkest Dungeon/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Awesome Music: The Final Combat, the soundtrack that plays during the final battle.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Literal spiders can become the bane of a new or unlucky player. They come in two variants — Webbers and Spitters — and are often grouped together. Webbers mark a hero, slowing them down and potentially Stunning them, while Spitters gang up on the marked hero with blight-inducing attacks before the hero can react. The spiders are fast and have high Dodge, so an ambush by them often leaves one hero in dire straits, if not dead.
    • Uca Crushers/Savages are large armored enemies found in the Cove. They don't do much up-front damage, but they are well-armored and have a lot of health, so it takes a while to kill them. Their Arterial Pinch inflicts a hefty 8-10 point Bleed! They are the reasons why you want to bring Bandages into this environment.
    • What makes Champion difficulty dungeons so dangerous is the inclusion of very dangerous enemies that become priority targets, lest they wreak havoc on your party.
      • The Bone Bearer, encountered in the Ruins, is an enemy's Support Party Member. Its very presence gives its allies a passive +25% DMG, and it can buff them even further with its Wicked Surge ability. If it starts a turn with any enemy corpses around, it will reanimate them with Unholy Rally. It's also got effective Stun immunity so you can't shut it down easily.
      • The Swine Skiver is a backline enemy in the Warrens that attacks by flinging its javelins. Spit to Roast is single-target but has a very high crit rate and can stun and push back whoever it hits. Cripple Them hits almost your entire party and inflicts blight and imposes a dodge debuff which exposes them to more harm from the other Swine.
      • The Hateful Virago is an elite version of the Crone found in the Warrens. She can mark your party with Ruinous Hex or spread blight with Putrefying Breath. But if you let end a turn while a corpse is present, she will use From Death comes Life to spawn a Necrotic Fungus from that corpse, which prevents you from healing until you destroy it. She's also got effective Stun immunity so you can't avoid it without doing some corpse-clearing of your own.
      • The Squiffy Ghast is a Madman on steroids, exclusive to the Cove. It hardly does physical damage, but its maddening music will inflict Stress and Horror to your party. Its every action will slide it to the front or back of the enemy ranks, making it hard to catch. It's often best to have a Stress healer to counter its effects, but if that Stress healer is a Jester, the Ghast is programmed to focus on the Jester exclusively.
    • Frequently found within the Darkest Dungeon are Cultist Priests. They have two attacks, both deadly: Death Lash mauls your front lines, inflicting Stress and weakening their Bleed resistance, while The Finger can snipe anyone in the party, inflicting a hefty amount of Stress at base and potentially a 6 point Bleed. Getting through an encounter with them with your party still in tip-top shape is definitely difficult.
  • Evil Is Cool: Gotta give the Ancestor credit, his narrations during cutscenes and commentary during combat are well-written and pretty awesome.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • Frequently among enemy formations there will be an enemy focused on doling out Stress, but none are as irritating as the Madmen. These uncommon enemies have high Dodge and the only thing they do is torment your party with their ramblings, inflicting Stress, a Horror ailment that inflicts Stress over time, and occasionally tagging them with a long-lasting Stress-increasing debuff. They quickly become priority targets unless deadlier enemies are present.
    • Gnashers are mutated wolves that stalk the Weald (though some get used as the Brigands' attack dogs) and hunt in packs. Though lacking in hit points, they are fast, have high Dodge and their attacks have a rare chance of inflicting Rabies, a disease that worsens the affected hero's accuracy.
    • Swine Wretches, found in the Warrens, mainly attack by spewing their vomit on your heroes. The vomit inflicts low damage and some Stress, but worst of all can inflict a random Disease on the target, saddling them with crippling debuffs and mandating a visit to the Sanitarium to get them cured afterwards.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • Any of the Ancestor's lines when a hero scores a critical hit or kills an enemy. Here are some outstanding examples:
      • "Executed with impunity!"
      • "A singular strike!"
      • "Annihilated!"
      • "Back to the pit!"
    • The jingle from discovering a Secret Room is certain to bring delight to anyone who hears it — you've just found a nice stockpile of riches and maybe a rare Trinket!
  • Player Punch: When the final boss is brought below 2/3 and 1/3 health, he will use an attack called "Come Unto Your Maker". It instantly kills one of your heroes... and you pick which one.
  • That One Boss: Natural, given the game's difficulty.
    • The Hag is a regular boss that can be a pain for the unprepared. She takes the back half of the enemy formation, necessitating that you have heroes that can strike that position, while she regularly puts one of your heroes in her cauldron, rendering them inaccessible while they take damage with each action in battle. You can strike the pot to force the hero out before they get put on Death's Door, though the rescued hero will be placed right at the front and may need some reshuffling to resume formation. It's also highly possible that she cooks a hero to Death's Door, inflicts a Deathblow right after they fall out, and then puts another in the pot. If you have to retreat while a hero's stuck in the pot, that hero dies, too.
    • The Collector is a nuisance at best and a run-ender at worst. It shows up randomly in almost any environment while your current inventory is at least 85% full (a condition that is very easy to fill) and starts the fight by calling forth three collected heads in front of it that complicate and prolong the fight. Men-at-Arms heads will guard it, Vestal heads will heal it, and Highwayman heads dole out high damage. If you have good crowd control or easy access to backline damage, the Collector goes down quickly and yields great treasure; if you're not prepared for such a fight, it can bring about a terrible defeat.
    • The Fanatic combines the worst aspects of the Shambler and the Hag. If he catches your party (in a guaranteed ambush), the first thing he'll do is put a hero on the pyre, leaving you to fight him with three while they burn to Death's Door. You can destroy the pyre to prevent this and free any burning hero, but if that happens, he Turns Red and hammers you with party-wide attacks. If you are forced to retreat from battle with him (dooming anyone on the pyre to die), he'll still chase down your party and will be a guaranteed random encounter until you abort or complete the mission. Unlike the Shambler, it's quite difficult to control his appearance as it's guided by the number of Crimson Curse affected heroes in your party. Your only warning of his presence is his shadowed mug replacing the level introduction screen after you embark on a mission.
  • That One Level:
    • The "Wolves at the Door" mission appears randomly after week 40, when you've nicely built up your hamlet. It's a short but Darkest-tier mission that involves your heroes going to defend the hamlet from the leader of the Brigands. High damage, bleed, and stress is abound, complete with a tough boss fight at the end. Worst of all, since it's a Short mission, you can't use any camp buffs to make it easier. If you ignore or abort this mission, though, the brigands will ransack the hamlet and undo a few town upgrades.
    • The second mission in the Darkest Dungeon is easily one of the hardest in the main campaign. You have to light three altars, each guarded by a Mini Boss or two. Each of them possesses Revelation, an attack that inflicts 24 damage and induces 40 Stress, and they're programmed to use it once each turn. Fortunately, the previous Darkest Dungeon mission grants you Talismans of the Flame that give the equipping character near-perfect immunity to Revelation... but you only get three Talismans, meaning that someone has to go unprotected or you need someone who can Guard the fourth party member. You also have two campfires for three tough fights, meaning you'll have to do some backtracking or go through one fight un-buffed.