Darkest Dungeon®

Darkest Dungeon®

The Anointed Class Mod
el Snailo 17 Feb, 2021 @ 12:42am
Anointed - my balance thoughts
Hello, here is my couple of thoughts about this class.

Compared to Hellion (26), Highwayman (23) and Bountyhunter (25); Anointed has not even the lowest hp (24) which comes to Highwayman obviously.
HM base dmg is 5-10 while AT is 6-8. So statistically speaking he has higher roll and higher hp. Lets make quick math, say 5 hits. 5+6+7+8+9+10=45 HM AT 6+7+8+6+7=34
Okay he deals less but we have to remember its always great amount of dmg. 6 dmg is almost dead spider, dog, some bone soldiers and so on. Having always great roll is very usefull and I know that my math isnt the most accurate here about HM dmg. But whats important he has lifesteal. So each hit besides dealing 6-8 dmg he heals himself for 2 but mostly for 6 becouse you want to spend one turn to mark him. Thats the most broken part I think. He can deal high dmg and leech for 6hp at the same time. And its always 6hp its not based on some roll, its 100% each time you hit with mark you get 6hp back. Lets even say he guards somebody this makes half of your squad unkillable. Guarding ability also Heals ally for 3, Self for 4 and buffs him for additional 3 hp which would make him have more than each of dmg dealers I took for this test. So lets say you bring Holy Obligation, Safeguard, Sacred Blade and you still have one slot for something very strong. Zelous Ire for some armoured enemies, Admonish as strong AoE debuff generally usefull everywhere, or Renew which is strong 3 heal for every ally. This set of abilities makes him bodyguard with lifesteal and strong debuffs. Also bare in mind that he has 6SPD which is high, higher than Man at Arms (his similiar debuff ability) who has 3 or vestal (healing skills) who has 4. Where are the tradeoffs for having all of these?

If that wouldnt be enough his resistances are really strong. I took Hellion, MAA, Vestal, Highwayman, Bounty Hunter for this test. He has significantly higher (70%) stun resist rest of them which is almost or doubled. Blight only Hellion has same resistance, rest has 10% lower. Has 10% or 20% higher bleed resistance. More than doubled (each of characters compared has 30%) debuff resistance. Only 20% to 30%-40% is his con here for move resistance, but lets be real its not that important as the rest. So if lower move resistance is the only one tradeoff for rest of strong resistances its just too strong.

Camping skills. Remove mortality debuffs for 2, Duty of the devine for 2 I would argue about after considering the rest. I think they (edyfing sermon, hallowed prophecy) are decently ballanced. But those two have really usefull utility and cost only 2 hours which I would make up for 3.

Anyways please dont take me as harsh and picky. I like this class it looks good, has interesting backstory and skills. Also I kind of understand how it feels like to make your character more balanced, becouse it hurts me to point out each strong side of him so creators being connected to their character are for sure feeling this pain much more. But its darkest dungeon and it wouldnt be darkest dungeon with characters being too strong. For closure im ready to debate, and my regards to everyone who put his work to make this character (you too comic-maker).
Regards!
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Vintage  [developer] 6 Mar, 2021 @ 5:02pm 
Not sure why I didn't see this earlier. I need to check the discussions more. Sorry for the late reply:

-Yeah his damage is supposed to be fairly consistent. You did bring up a good point that he averages around the same damage as a Highwayman at low levels, but at high levels Highwayman will scale better with level. (Also Highwayman does end up with more HP than the Anointed does at maximum level - although he only ends up getting 3 extra and Safeguard adds extra, so that's a fairly moot point)

-I'm surprised you found Sacred Blade (his lifesteal, as you mentioned) that strong. Whilst true I suppose that it's very good damage and good healing, I did try and balance it around the Vestal's Judgement lifesteal. (To compare, Vestal heals more than the Anointed does if the Anointed isn't marked, and can hit any rank where Anointed can only hit ranks 1/2) Might tone it down a bit, will have to think on that.

-Definitely might nerf Safeguard a bit. I feel like its probably his strongest move since it puts out a good amount of healing and guards a target and makes the Anointed much more tanky. (although to be fair the bonus hp buff is only useful if the Anointed was at or near full HP, as the buff doesn't actually heal HP, it just increases his max temporarily, but I'll probably still nerf it in some way.)

-I did actually tone down his resistances a little (Bleed Resistance got nerfed) but that was before I saw this. I'd like to say that his base stun resist is actually 60%, it's just that a hero with higher resolve gets +10% to all resistances per level. Hopefully the Bleed resistance nerf does make him a bit more killable.

-Probably won't touch Duty of the Divine, mainly because it's literally a waste of 2 respite unless the Anointed happens to virtue or get on death's door, which can be kind of niche, and many would argue in favour that those 2 camping points would be better spent buffing everyone else to ensure the Anointed doesn't get too stressed out or dead.

-I might take a look at Renew again, might nerf the healing buff on it. (Although it should be fairly in-line with base game heroes. Crusader has a skill that removes morality buffs for 3 but also gives -15 stress, like a free Encourage.)

I appreciate the in-depth feedback though! Sorry I didn't find this sooner. Otherwise I would have commented earlier. Thanks taking the time to write this, good feedback is hard to come by and I appreciate you giving some!
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