Eric Watson

While I’m still hoping to reach my next Patreon Goal to add a possible second live Let’s Play stream per week, I’ll be peppering my live Let’s Plays with some offline gameplay. To help remember what happened, and to regale you of any drama, I’ll be writing these Field Reports between Episodes.

Darkest Dungeon Episode 03 will air Monday, Oct. 15.

Week 7

I’d gained access to The Swine Prince boss of the Warrens last time, but wanted to save it for Monday’s live stream. Instead I decided I needed to try an actual Medium mission for the first time, so I knew how Camping worked.

Week Seven brought extra Antiquarians, a class I’m wholly unimpressed with. Plus I still have my full roster of 12 heroes, and can’t yet afford to expand it.

My Grave Robber, Fitzherbert, gained the Tippler trait from drinking. So far the traits that restrict or limit heroes to certain stress-relieving functions don’t seem too difficult to manage, but I could see it being a pain while I still have only the one slot in each area each week.

Vane, my Arbalest, was sent to the bar for stress-relief, and Lynom my remaining Leper to the Transept. I’m not sure why they cost different amounts of gold. Are some better stress-relievers than others?

My first Medium quest is in the Weald, with the standard Explore 90% of rooms objective. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to the Weald yet, so starting with a Medium-length mission was perhaps not the best idea.

Squad:

• Reynauld, lvl 2 Crusader
• Engerrand, lvl 1 Bounty Hunter
• Fitzherbert, lvl 1 Grave Robber
• Corbon, lvl 2 Plague Doctor

I was not prepared for how big the Weald was. Rooms were stretched apart by long stretches of dark hallways, putting a real strain on my torch and food supply. I brought a few extras knowing it was a longer mission, but I had no idea that the Weald’s whole thing was that it was very long.

There weren’t even that many fights – I went five rooms before I saw a battle, and the foes weren’t particularly strong, but I was intensely worried about my torch and food levels. At one point I was forced to let my team go hungry in order to have enough food for the camp.

Camping was thankfully intuitive. The more food I had the more I could heal, and I had a certain amount of time I could use to apply everyone’s campaign skills. Some skills cost more time than others, forcing me to carefully pick and choose. The Crusader had a very nifty stress-reliever for the whole party, while Corbon could help heal.

Camping also gave us full torchlight, but I was still staring down the second half of the dungeon. It didn’t help that it had three branching paths, two of which had over five rooms, forcing me to double back early on and waste a lot of torchlight.

As much as I like my veteran Crusader, I’ve decided that the Kleptomaniac trait is the FUCKING WORST. No less than three massive loot piles he took for himself! I was not happy about it. Towards the latter stages of the dungeon, I was using him as my only healer, with his pitiful 3HP heal keeping my backline from falling.

By the time I reached the end I was out of food, out of torches, most of my party was hovering around 50% health (darkness makes enemies a lot tougher), and I still had one room left. It was the most nervous I’d been playing the game. Thankfully the room didn’t contain a fight, and I was greeted with the quest complete pop-up. Huzzah!

As difficult as that dungeon was, I actually didn’t suffer much stress at all. I had taken a ton of damage but in Darkest Dungeon that doesn’t seem to matter as long as you survive (only stress lingers after a dungeon, as well as traits and diseases).

In other words, it was my most successful outing yet, and I was able to use my new resources to finally get the level 1 weaponsmithing upgrade at the Blacksmith.

Look for more Field Reports throughout the week. Watch my Let’s Play live streams every Monday.

While I’m still hoping to reach my next Patreon Goal to add a possible second live Let’s Play stream per week, I’ll be peppering my live Let’s Plays with some offline gameplay. To help remember what happened, and to regale you of any drama, I’ll be writing these Field Reports between Episodes.

Darkest Dungeon Episode 03 will air Monday, Oct. 15.

Week 5

I haven’t lost any heroes, but I’m also being very cautious and proactive in regards to stress and disease. I’d expanded my roster to 12, but nearly half of them were in treatment, including most of my veterans.

Week 5 brought my first special event – an extra six recruitable heroes, in addition to the three I’m offered every week! Unfortunately I’d already hit my cap, so I went through and dismissed some that I was less than enthused with, like the Antiquarian. I hired an Arbalest named Vane, and a second plague doctor named Chatwood.

I’m still embarking on Short missions and working my way up to the first boss of each region. I’m mostly picking missions based on the rewards; often the rewards are class-specific for something I haven’t even seen yet, like Hound Master.

I embarked on a Short Warrens mission with the goal of exploring 90% of the rooms. I used the following squad:

• Lynom, lvl 0 Leper
• Engerrand, lvl 1 Bounty Hunter
• Boneth, lvl 1 Vestel
• Vane, lvl 0 Arbalest

I enjoyed using a Leper as my frontline tank for the last run, but he got so fucked up with stress and disease that I dismissed him. Thankfully I have another one!

I really enjoyed the team comp here, as multiple heroes could mark, stun, and heal, and Engerrand received the Man Hunter quirk from a curio that lets him do more damage against the mutated beasts of the Warrens.

With my full healer Boneth keeping everyone topped up it was a fairly easy mission (Vane and Lynom also have healing abilities as well), but I realized the Warrens deals a lot of Stress damage, and has a very annoyingly high chance to infect my heroes with disease.

Learning which foes appear in what zones is definitely key to putting together a successful team.

Both Vane and Boneth were heavily stressed to around 50, and Vane got Syphilis! Ugh. I’ll be without my awesome Arbalest for awhile as I have to treat her disease first, then her stress level.

Week 6

Most of my roster is now back in action. I really wanted to use Fitzherbert the Grave Robber with her awesome Very Rare relic, but she had been in a similar situation as Vane, and now had to go to the bar to relieve stress after she was treated for disease last week.

With a better understanding of the Warrens, I decided to go on another Short Run. Mission Goal: Defeat 100% of Room Battles.

Squad:

• Lynom, lvl 1 Leper
• Engerrand, lvl 1 Bounty Hunter
• Dismas, lvl 1 Highwayman
• Corbon, lvl 1 Plague Doctor

I broke my rule here by not slotting in any newbies, but I was excited to have an experienced squad for once (experienced for me at least). Dismas was technically diseased, but his disease only affected Camping Skills, and Short missions don’t use camping at all (and I’ve yet to try a longer one).

This team kicked all kinds of ass. Engerrand proved incredibly useful because he did bonus damage to Humans, Marked and Stunned, and he could also Stun and Mark foes with different abilities.

Dismas is the bleeding king with a strong AOE attack, and I used Corbon’s Stunning grenade more than his actual acid grenade with good results. Lynom was just there to tank and soak it all up, and he did a fine job.

The result was one of my best runs yet, with no one above 30% stress. And still no deaths! The only bummer was Dismas getting a second disease, a nasty one that I’ll need to treat.

The good news: I officially unlocked my first boss – The Swine Prince! It’s a Medium mission. I’ll probably want to try another Medium mission first just to see how they operate. I’m also going to try and save boss runs for the live streams if possible.

Look for more Field Reports throughout the week. Watch my Let’s Play live streams every Monday.