How to Get Better at Darkest Dungeon

Use your heroes' roles correctly. Each of your 4 heroes in an expedition are equipped with different skills that fill different roles in combat. There are currently 17 playable heroes that you can use in your expeditions. Every hero is bound to a role with skills that allow them to excel in their positions.

• Heroes who excel in frontline combat (positions 1 and 2) include Crusader, Highwayman, Leper, Man-at-Arms, Abomination, Bounty Hunter, Hellion, Shieldbreaker, and Flaggelant.
• Heroes who excel in the backlines (positions 3 and 4) include Vestal, Plague Doctor, Antiquaian, Occultist, Grave Robber, Arbalest, Jester, and Houndmaster.

Know your heroes' stats, how stats work, and quirks along with what they do. Knowing your heroes' stats will allow you to improvise in battle and will allow you to know what is best for them in every situation. Knowing your heroes' quirks, from positive to negative, will allow you to create powerful heroes, and to prepare for the worst.

Understand the Hamlet and what you can do with it. The Hamlet is the main area of the game that allows the player to manage and upgrade their roster of heroes. The key to using the Hamlet well is knowing how to use the buildings within the Hamlet most effectively, along with upgrading them to increase their effectiveness.

• Try to use the Abbey before using the Tavern for stress relief, as the Tavern has a higher chance of giving your heroes negative side-effects.
• Use the Blacksmith and the Guild to upgrade your best heroes' skills and equipment first, as upgrading comes with a large fee to your gold.
• Always check the Stage Coach for heroes, as they can be recruited free of charge, and may come with better equipment and skills than the heroes you may already have.

Equip trinkets that are best for each hero. For example, a trinket such as Tough Ring which increases maximum protection and hit points would be best for a frontline hero that will absorb most hits.

• Trinkets that are locked to a specific class are usually very powerful and provide benefits that greatly outweigh the downsides of it.
• Use trinkets that support the overall strategy of your party.

Know which heroes are best equipped for each area, along with the difficulty chosen. Excluding downloadable content and the final dungeon, there are 4 main areas to choose from: the Ruins, Warrens, Weald, and Cove. Having the right team composition will impact your success in each expedition.

• Heroes such as the Plague Doctor and Crusader work well in the Ruins, as they consist of enemies who are susceptible to blight and holy weapons.
• Houndmaster and Bounty Hunter work well in the Weald and Warrens, as they consist of enemies that belong in the beast and human subclass whom they deal most damage to.
• Plague Doctor works well in the Coves, as the enemies are susceptible to blight, along with Occultist as he deals more damage to Eldritch targets.

Choose the right provisions depending on your expedition. Depending on how long your expedition is, choosing the right amount of provisions is important as excessive amounts of items will take up inventory space and will lead to lost gold overtime, and a shortage of provisions could mean death for your party.

• A rule of thumb is to double your provisions based on the length of an expedition (e.g., 8 torches for a short expedition, 16 for medium, 24 for long, and so on for other items).
• Knowing which items are useful for each area is important. For example, no enemies or curios require the use of antivenom in the Ruins.

Learn what curios do, and how to get the most out of them. Curios can be interacted with throughout every expedition and can be interacted with provision items to gain benefits out of them.

• Depending on your heroes' quirks, they may interact with a curio without the player directing them to interact with it.

Adjust the Light Meter based on the task at hand. If you wish to complete the expedition with minimal trouble, try to keep the Light Meter at maximum light. If you wish to gain more loot, then you may dim the light and earn more loot depending on how low the meter is.

• Be cautious, as a dimmer light will result in enemies doing more damage and delivering more critical hits.

Take out the enemy backlines (positions 3 and 4) as quickly as possible. These enemies will prove most troublesome as they are harder to reach, have higher overall dodge, and are the enemies that mainly deal stress-based damage.

• It is recommended to have at least two party members that can deal damage to the backlines.

Learn to reliably deal with stress. Excessive stress will give your heroes afflictions, which will make them forcibly act on their own. Know which enemies to take down first, along with reliably using stress-based skills that reduce the overall amount of stress your hero receives.

• There is a 25% chance that a hero will become virtuous and gain increased stats and powerful benefits when reaching 100 stress. This chance is rather low and should not be relied on.

Use camping wisely. Using the right skills and having the right amount of provisions will ensure that your team is well suited to continue any expedition. Make sure that you have enough food so that your team doesn't starve, and to use skills that are best suited for your situation - such as healing any heroes who are low of health, or de-stressing any heroes who have an excessive amount of stress.

• There is a chance of being ambushed after finishing camping. It is recommended to have a hero that can prevent night-time ambushes through skills as an ambush can mean the difference between a successful expedition and the loss of your heroes.