Darkest Dungeon: Difference between revisions

* [[Ascended Meme]]: Wayne June, the voice of the narrator/Ancestor, recorded a set of ''Darkest Dungeon''-themed [https://web.archive.org/web/20161015201237/http://www.darkestdungeon.com/ancestral-bestowment voice notifications] for streamers. It includes some [[Shout-Out]]s to ''[[Undertale]]'', ''[[Dark Souls]]'' and "Truly, this is the Dankest Dungeon."

* [[Announcer Chatter]]: The Ancestor provides commentary on battles, encounters and town events, but he doesn't really "chatter": he makes ominous, portentous comments about victory and/or doom.

* [[Arc Symbol]]: The "Stress" symbol (which is, incidentally, an "arc symbol" with lines through it, resembling a thorny halo) begins to figure more and more prominently on enemy attire and the architecture as the heroes plumb greater depths of the dungeons.

* [[Armor-Piercing Attack]]: The Shieldbreaker's "Pierce" skill and Grave Robber's "Pick to the Face" skill completely ignore the [[Damage Reduction|enemy PROT stat]], making them highly effective against enemy tanks. The Shieldbreaker's "Snake Eyes" Camp buff also allows her allies to temporarily bypass up to 15% of enemy PROT.

** The Shrieker is a giant crow mutated by the corruption of the Weald. Defeating it is very difficult due to its high Dodge and PROT, on top of the fact that [[Time Limit Boss|it escapes in four turns]]. However, your main objective is usually to destroy its nest to reap great treasures, alongside any Trinkets you would normally get by surviving four turns. Managing to defeat the Shrieker offers little reward other than increased chance of beneficial Shrieker Quirks.

* [[Book Ends]]: "Ruin has come to our family." It's the first thing you hear when you start the game, {{spoiler|and the last line of the post-final boss cutscene.}}

* [[Combat Sadomasochist]]: Flagellant is a sort of extremist monk who becomes stronger via self-mutilation. It's not pretty, but it works, the pain making him a [[Blood Knight]] bruiser who [[Determinator|does not know when to quit.]]

* [[Cosmic Horror Story]]: Creepy ancient manor? Check. Eccentric ancestor unleashed horrible eldritch things from beneath it? Check. {{spoiler|The end of the world is inevitable, if not now, then some generations later? Check. Things become even more cosmic in ''The Color of Madness'', where you fight incredibly alien monstrosities.}}

* [[Obvious Rule Patch]]:

** Stuns forced an enemy to skip its turn, and if you've stunned the entire enemy party you basically have a free turn for setup or to heal. This led to players stalling battles by chain-stunning stragglers so that they can top up the party with [[Combat Exclusive Healing]]. The strategy has since been nerfed by making combatants harder to stun in succession, and by adding a chance for enemy reinforcements to arrive if the player drags out a fight for too long.

** A battle with the Shrieker could be trivialized by deploying a single Grave Robber and spamming Shadow Fade to stay Stealthed until the Shrieker flies off. A patch in 2018 allowed all of the Shrieker's skills to bypass Stealth to counter this strategy.

* [[Pig Man]]: The Swine King and his minions are incredibly ugly versions of this found in the Warrens. According to the Ancestor, these are the result of his attempts to summon beings from the "outer spheres" using common pigs as vessels. Clearly, it didn't go as he planned... This area is not based on a Lovecraft work, but on William Hope Hodgson's ''[[The House on the Borderland]]'', a work that did inspire Lovecraft.

* [[Posthumous Narration]]: The Ancestor is implied to have committed suicide shortly after writing the letter that summoned the Heir, but that doesn't stop him from commenting on everything that his Heir does. {{spoiler|Or maybe he's not so 'posthumous' after all}}.

* [[Random Number God]]: Hitting, critting, dodging, blighting, bleeding, debuffing, stressing, hero deaths and in some cases ''healing'' are all based on rolls of the dice. The player can upgrade hero equipment and skills, and use trinkets or certain supplies to improve their odds, but rarely is any action truly ''certain'' to succeed.

 

{{tropelist|page=The Crimson Court DLC}}

* [[Climax Boss]]: The Countess is the final boss of the Crimson Court, and her defeat unlocks the ability to treat the Crimson Curse as you would any normal disease. Prior to this point, anyone afflicted with the Crimson Curse is stuck with it until you beat one of the Crimson Court bosses.

* [[Cursed with Awesome]]: The Crimson Curse adds another layer of management, as you must collect vials of The Blood to sate the cravings of your heroes when they inevitably get affected by it. Giving The Blood to anyone in the craving stage of the Curse temporarily puts them in Bloodlust, which bestows potent buffs but also causes them to act erratically as if they were Afflicted.

** Several skills now inflict Stress on top of what they normally do. Every hero also has a base 0% Virtue chance to make inflicting Afflictions a viable end goal for Stress-based builds. If a hero is Virtuous but still hits 200 Stress, they will suffer from a Heart Attack normally like everyone else.

** Bleed and Poison no longer cause Deathblows; the opponent must deal the killing blow by themselves. Repeated Deathblow attempts will deplete a hero's Deathblow resistance until they get taken off Death's Door, such that five consecutive attempts ''will'' kill a hero. Several skills also gain a bonus to inflicting Deathblows to make it easier to finish anyone off.

 

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