This guide will get you familiar with the game and introduce you to a variety of strategies and helpful hints. The more you understand about this game, the more enjoyable it becomes. To start we will talk about beginner strategy, and later focus on more advanced tactics.

First, the most important thing for you to understand when you begin this game is: sometimes your heroes are going to die and it’s better not to be attached to them. It isn’t necessary to give your recruits a new name, but you could use one that describes their skills and preferred position, so that you can quickly identify them in your roster. Many of your new recruits are going to die, but let’s discuss a strategy for getting better replacements and keeping them alive longer.

This is the place you go in town first, to find fresh new recruits that will risk their lives for an adventure. You can improve services by upgrading them, just click on the “+” symbol and increase the number of recruits that you can choose from, this is important. Later you can increase the size of your roster to fit more recruits, but initially you need a larger pool to select from.

Always check the Stage Coach when you are in town, to find new recruits that could create strong groups. You should avoid recruits with excessively bad quirks. Cherry pick the ones that will enhance your lineup and dismiss poor recruits that are too stressed out; curing stress is expensive and should only be used on heroes that you want to keep around.

You can quickly check a recruit's strong and weak positions by looking at the circles on their character sheet; the bigger circles indicate they are stronger in those positions during battle, and smaller circles mean they are weakest in those positions. Find a recruit for a position that needs to be filled, and whose skills also compliment the rest of the group.



Combat skills that have red dots connected mean that they attack all the targets in those positions with an AoE attack. As such, heroes in the backlines who can attack many positions, that have group healing, buff/debuff, or moving skills, are valuable additions to any group. We discuss positioning in more detail later in this guide.

Tip: Don’t be afraid to dismiss low-level heroes for better recruits.

There are seperate difficulties, lengths, and types of quests. Choosing the type of quest that suits your heroes is paramount to their survival, and often overlooked by new players.

Green - Apprentice (Lvl 1)
Orange - Veteran (Lvl 3)
Red - Champion (Lvl 5)

Short - No camping, eat once or twice, 6-8 rooms
Medium - Camping, eat two+ meals, 10+ rooms
Long - Camping, eat three+ meals, 15+ rooms

Cleanse, Skirmish & Explore - These quests are primarily for leveling up new recruits, and buying upgrades. You either explore 90% of a dungeon, or defeat 100% of the rooms.
Storyline & Missions - These quests invole killing a boss or completing an objective, sometimes delivering items. They tend to be the most difficult and require a strong group.

Completing a quest rewards you with gold, heirlooms and sometimes trinkets. Keep in mind what services you want to upgrade in town and choose a quest that will give you the heirlooms you need.

Choose 4 heroes that will synergize well with each other and be effective against the enemies you intend to face. Short quests don't require healers, but medium and long quests do. If you are going up against a boss, check the Boss section of this guide (coming soon!)

The formation of your group determines their efficacy while fighting. Having an organized lineup of heroes is the best way to overcome your adversaries. Typically the frontlines attack the opposing frontlines, while the backlines are providing ranged support, healing and buffing/debuffing. Let’s go over the four ranks and explain which heroes will fit them best.



(1) The 1st rank is best suited to a melee fighter. You want your heavy hitters here, such as the Crusader, Hellion or Leper. It could also be used by an evasive fighter such as the Grave Robber.

(2) The 2nd rank is suitable for a specialized fighter or short-ranged classes with AoE skills, such as the Highwayman or the Grave Robber. Alternatively, this spot can be filled by another melee fighter, but they might be moved out of position and rendered useless during a fight or when surprised by the enemy.

(3) The 3rd rank is a flanking position suitable for utility fighters such as the Bounty Hunter, Vestal or the Occultist. The Bounty Hunter can utilize a majority of his skills here, including hooking enemies and moving them out of position. The Vestal can use both Illuminate and healing spells from here. The Occultist is able to use his melee attack from this range, while providing very good support in combat.

(4) The 4th rank is mostly for specialists and supports like the Occultist, the Plague Doctor and the Vestal. Unless they are healers, you don't want to have your melee fighters on this line because it will take them at least two turns to get back to the frontlines.

Some hero skills let you move forward or backward a number of ranks. This can be especially useful if you plan on ways to change your group's positional strategy, giving access to different spells at key times during combat.

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." - Benjamin Franklin

The survival of your group depends on buying provisions that will prepare them for the quest they are about to embark upon. Don’t buy too many items, because you don't retain provisions after each quest. Food and other supplies could also be found in loot during quests.

When you’re buying food, always buy in stacks of 4 at a time. Buy a Torch for each room you expect to go through. You should always buy at least 1 Shovel to get though barricades without suffering any unnecessary affliction. Shovels can also be used to dig up graves to find treasure.

If you don’t have a Plague Doctor in your group, you should get antitoxins and bandages. Skeleton keys will unlock strongboxes to prevent setting off traps. Holy water and medicinal herbs can be used to cleanse evil from curios that you encounter in the dungeon.

Tip: For more detailed information about interactables, read the Curio Guide.

Example Provisions

Short Quests


Medium Quests

Your group can increase their chances of surprising the enemy, with spotting buffs, and maintaining enough brightness before entering another encounter. When the enemy is surprised, you get a free surprise attack against them. This can determine a fight very early on, sometimes the enemy won't even have time to react before you destroy them all.

Surprise attacks against your group can cause heroes to be out of position at the beginning of the battle which has inconvenient side effects. For instance, you could begin a battle with your melee heroes in the backlines. Increase the flexibility of your group formations by adding heroes with positional skills, or buff your spotting stats, to prevent this from happening.

Pass through a corridor until you reach the door to the next room before you light your next torch. Keep the light above 75% when going into the next room for two reasons: 1- You will increase your chances at scouting ahead and 2- you increase your chances to cause surprise attacks against the enemy, while reducing the chance of an ambush against you.



Remembering when to ignite another torch is important while you are on your quest. When the light goes below 60%, a hero’s stress will begin to rise. Lower stress means better chances for survival, while higher stress spreads like a sickness to the other heroes, especially when one of them becomes afflicted. Camping will restore the light to 100%, while the Vestal and Crusader can increase light with their spells. The Occultist's Dark Ritual will cause a 33% loss in light.

Tip: Using a torch with an alchemist's bench will give you 100% light. This is useful to know when sending your adventurers on torchless dungeon runs, since you could find torches on the way.



Fighting in darkness is a dangerous gamble that can have great payoffs. Each degree of darkness will have the following, progressively more intense effects:

Dimlight (Below 75%)
+ Stress
+ Scouting
+ Monsters surprised

Shadowy (Below 50%)
++ Stress
+ Monster ACC and DMG
+ Loot
+ Player Crits

Dark (Below 25%)
+++ Stress
++ Monster ACC and DMG
++ Loot
++ Player Crits

Pitch Black (0%)
++++ Stress
+++ Monster ACC and DMG
+++ Loot
+++ Player Crits

Stress is a pivotal mechanic in this game. If stress levels get bad enough you could start losing heroes without anticipating it, due to an affliction or a series of critical hits that lead to a deathblow. Whenever your group gets wiped in a dungeon, nine times out of ten it's because of too much stress.

Low lighting is only mildy stressful, while sustaining an injury, or receiving a mighty blow from an opponent, can cause a great deal of stress for you and those looking on in horror. The size of an opponent, how horrifying they appear, or spells that induce fear can elevate stress signifcantly, until your heroes become afflicted.



Stress can cause afflictions and virtues, as well as quirks. Afflictions cause others in the group to be affected negatively, and change their attitudes. An afflicted hero might deny any help from his friends, or even hurt himself, becoming careless and insane. Alternatively, they could gain virtues such as vigor or courage once they are too stressed out, inspiring your group in times of utter desperation.

Brightness can slow or stop increasing stress. Enemies on the backlines cast spells on your heroes to elevate their stress, so pulling them forward or stunning them is important. During camp, some heroes can lower stress levels of your group. Certain buffs during combat can also reduce stress. When you’re in town you can visit the Abbey and the Tavern to alleviate your stressed out heroes. It’s important to reduce your hero’s stress before going out on another quest with them.

Camping alleviates stress, nourishes hunger, and revitalizes your heroes while they are on their quest. On medium and long quests you will be given camping supplies, but make sure you pack some extra food, the more food you bring to the campsite the more rejuvenated your heroes will be.

Outside of town, there's a ranger who can teach your heroes new camping skills. This is a useful service to upgrade when you have excess heirlooms, reducing the cost to train new skills.

Deciding when to camp is important for the well being of the group. You should set up a camp before your stress goes above 50. This will give your group time to revitalize and be stronger for the rest of the quest.

Each hero has camping skills that you can invest respite points into. Many camping skills are for healing, stress relief and combat buffs. Some of the skills involve avoiding the dangers of an ambush during the night, or increasing awareness for spotting enemies.

Tip: It's good to camp before your heroes get too stressed out, but sometimes you will want to have camping buffs early. In this case, it's okay to camp at the beginning of a dungeon if you think you can handle the rest without any trouble.

During camp, your heroes could be awoken to an ambush. There's a good chance to be surprised and combat will begin in the dark. You can use respite points on a hero with anti-ambush camping skills to prevent this from happening.



Tip: For longer quests, keep your heroes' camping skills in mind, and make sure you have enough healing and stress relief in the group to make it through the long haul.

You could enhance your heroes early on in the game, but you will use valuable resources on recruits that could end up dying unexpectedly. You can remove quirks, add talents, or equip better weapons and armor.

This service is useful when you need to remove a negative quirk from your favorite heroes. Use this service sparingly, especially while you are recruiting, because it is costly and time consuming. If you like the recruit and the trait is particularly bad though, it should still be removed regardless of being costly early on. Upgrading this service will lower the cost and increase the number of heroes that can be admitted at once.

This should be one of the first services that you upgrade after the Stage Coach and the Abbey. You can add new hero talents in the guild. You should improve all the damage dealing talents of your frontline fighters to make them more effective during combat. Supports should focus on improving their healing and buff/debuff talents.

You shouldn’t worry about spending gold on expensive equipment until your heroes reach Level 3 and higher. Save your gold and precious heirlooms on lowering stress, improving skills and getting more recruits. Later in the game, it will be important to have good armor and weapons to handle the more difficult dungeons.

The most game changing items are the trinkets. These items provide your heroes with enhanced traits that often have drawbacks. The rarity is either common, uncommon, rare, or ancestral. If a hero dies, the trinket will be dropped for the others to pick up. They are very expensive to purchase, so you should only use them on your best heroes. Trinkets that aren't being used will be returned to your stash when you get back in town.

For more detailed information about strategies and game mechanics, refer to the other Steam Community Guides. I intend to create a Boss Guide, if I get around to it in the future. If this guide was useful, please share it with others and give it a thumbs up. Thank you for reading the Darkest Dungeon Survival Guide, it was a pleasure to write this for you.


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