Darkest Dungeon 2: Beginner’s Guide | Top Tips

With the release of Darkest Dungeon 2, players are once again thrust into a dark and stressful world. While it does follow its predecessor, there are some new mechanics and features added to it.

Moreover, newcomers to the series might find the game a bit too complicated and overwhelming.

If you happen to be one of them, this beginner’s guide is for you.

Top Tips as a Beginner in Darkest Dungeon 2

There are a lot of mechanics in Darkest Dungeon 2.

To help beginners progress through the main campaign smoothly, we’ll be covering some of the most important mechanics that you’ll encounter in this beginner’s guide.

They’re as follows:

Learn How to Properly Manage Stress

Stress management is a key mechanic in Darkest Dungeon, and the same applies to its sequel.

While your HP still remains important, stress is another component that you should pay attention to, even more so than HP.

If one of your characters suffers from stress, they will suffer from various conditions that can impact your overall gameplay. It might cause various effects such as HP loss, bad perks, and even relationship loss with other characters.

To make stress management easier, you’ll want to upgrade any stress-healing move such as the Bolster skill from your Man-at-Arms character at the first inn.

Another good option is the Take Aim skill from your Highwayman character. This gives that character a chance to reduce stress not only on the character but on the team as a whole.

Prioritize Enemies at the Backline

Most of the backline enemies in Darkest Dungeon 2 can give your team a lot of trouble if left unattended throughout the duration of a battle. As such, you’ll want to focus on taking them out first.

If you have a Bounty Hunter on your team, you can use his ability to pull those backline enemies forward. This will allow the rest of your team to focus on attacking that enemy.

Alternatively, you can use a Plague Doctor to stun backline enemies and finish them off with ranged attacks.

Plan Your Route Properly

Unlike its prequel, Darkest Dungeon 2 takes you on a road adventure where you pass through various points of interest until you reach your destination.

However, this also means you’ll have to plan your route properly so you can get to where you want without any issues.

For beginners, this means you have to avoid blue paths (shown in the image above) as much as possible since they feature unnecessary fights that won’t reward you with anything meaningful.

If you choose to go to those roads, you’ll only end up injuring your team as a whole before you can even reach your destination.

You will also come across various POIs along the way, some of which are as follows:

• Oasis – Allows you to collect Mineral Spring Water which can heal both health and stress on a given character.
• The Hoarder – A shop where you can purchase a variety of items.
• The Field Hospital – A place where you can remove negative perks from your characters and also buy various healing items.
• Shrine of Reflection – A place that lets you unlock a new skill for a chosen character.

Embrace Death

This might sound weird, but Darkest Dungeon 2 is a roguelike game, so death will be inevitable, especially if you’re a complete beginner.

You have to accept the fact that some of your characters will die during your campaign. While you might be motivated to push forward, there’s no shame in retreating.

Of course, as a roguelike, the more you die, the more items and experience you can get which, in turn, increases your team’s survivability so you won’t have to die more often.

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