r/darkestdungeon

Lately, and I'm not entirely sure why, I've started to realize just how genuinely pathetic the Ancestor really is.

It's not that I didn't understand what he was before. I always knew he was a rich, arrogant psychopath who destroyed everything and everyone around him in pursuit of forbidden knowledge. But for years, I think I accepted that at face value. He was the grand architect of the tragedy, the brilliant madman, the man who pushed too far and paid the price. I never really stopped to think about what that actually says about him.

But over the last few months, I've found myself revisiting a lot of his dialogue, and honestly, the more I think about him, the more pathetic he becomes.

This is a man who spent decades pursuing ultimate knowledge. He sacrificed countless lives, burned through unimaginable wealth, committed atrocity after atrocity without hesitation, and destroyed his family, his estate, and entire communities in pursuit of truth. He crossed every moral boundary imaginable because he believed there was something greater waiting at the end of that road.

And then he finally gets there.

He discovers the truth of the universe: the answer he spent his entire life searching for, the revelation that justified every horrific thing he had ever done.

And what does he do with it?

He gives up.

That's it.

After all that ambition, all that obsession, all that cruelty, his grand conclusion is essentially that life is meaningless because we're all going to die anyway. The man who spent decades pushing beyond every conceivable limit reaches the ultimate truth and responds with the kind of nihilism you'd expect from a teenager who just discovered philosophy last week.

What truly shattered any romanticized image I had of him, though, was realizing how often the Ancestor accidentally describes himself. The best example, for me, is his speech about the Fanatic. I used to love that speech because it's delivered with such absolute conviction and contempt. And I still do. But every time I hear it now, I can't stop thinking that he's not describing the Fanatic at all.

He's describing himself.

"A man consumed by a mythology of his own making." "A worldview propped up by desperation." A fanatic incapable of nuance, convinced that his own obsession justifies every atrocity committed in its name.

The Ancestor spent his entire life pretending to be a man of boundless curiosity and cosmic ambition, but beneath all the grandiose language and theatrical self-importance, he was just a profoundly empty person. He had no real conviction beyond satisfying his own curiosity. No greater purpose. No vision. No imagination. The moment he finally received the answer he had spent his entire life pursuing, he discovered that he had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

He wasn't some tragic seeker of forbidden truths. He was a lonely, narcissistic clown who destroyed the world searching for meaning and then abandoned all pretense the instant he realized the universe wasn't going to hand him one.

And I have to admit, I think that's what made me love him even more.

He's not terrifying. He's not profound. He's not even particularly intelligent in the way I once thought he was. Underneath all the cosmic horror and theatrical grandeur, he is simply nothing: a man so utterly hollow that, when confronted with the ultimate truth, he found himself incapable of doing anything except surrender to it.

"Victory, a hollow and ridiculous notion."

Perhaps. But I don't think anything in Darkest Dungeon is emptier than the man who says those words.

And honestly, I think that's absolutely brilliant.

Just finished a run with this comp and am now working on a grand slam, wish me luck.

I wanted to share this comp because I have not had this much fun playing DD2 in a long while and this comp was a lot of fun to play with, especially because there are so many trinkets that you can use to make them work. I'll talk about the party 1 by 1 and note some of their weaknesses (which, while few, are fairly serious.) Starting from the back rank, moving to the front, here is the comp:

- Alchemist Plague Doctor

Despite her nerfs the alchemist is still one of the best back line dps heroes, of which there are sadly few (here is hoping the 2027 DLC has hound master or arbalest!) The skills I use are noxious blast, plague grenade, emboldening vapors, battle meds, and indiscriminate. The blight skills are there to dunk on the front line and back line respectively, and battle meds is the DOT clear while indiscriminate is the main healing ability (of which this comp can make very good use of.) I noticed in my run she was struggling to apply blight and there is not much room in this comp for bleeds outside of the bleed trinkets, but I was able to solve that by giving her emboldened vapors since there are a few really strong abilities in this comp that get a huge benefit from the damage increase.

- Dead Eye Grave Robber

This was the last slot I filled. I needed a really good pos 3 DPS and dead eye is a perfect fit. I use flashing daggers, thrown knife, pick to the face, shadow fade, absinthe. She is really here to hit things really hard and the main ability I used was flashing daggers, since those last two ranks are harder for this comp to hit than most, and it benefits greatly from PD's emboldened vapors. It's also an all around great ability and won't eat a combo token in the event you don't want to. You could take poison darts in exchange for pick to the face, and it would work very well in this comp, but it isn't totally needed and pick is a little more consistent. In any case, both abilities are there to clear block tokens and hit the front rank.

- Scourge Flagellant

I slept on the Flagellant paths, guys. I think they are pretty damn good. That being said, I do not like Flag as much in DD2 as I did in DD1 and I feel like aside from his sustain ability he does not have much going for him, which is not great. That being said, this comp needs a strong defensive anchor and no one does it better than Damian (eat shit, Barristan.) Flag uses more than 5 abilities, FYI. The ones I use throughout the run are punish, acid rain, endure, lash's gift, and more. Depending on the boss, I will swap punish or acid rain for sepsis during boss fights since it is a boss killer. PD should be stacking huge amounts of blight and Flag will just add to it, so once you get up to ~10 blight or so you can use this (ideally with a combo token) to deal huge damage. This is basically required against bosses so make sure to switch before you fight something big. Endure is your main stress heal ability and lash's gift will heal the stress off himself. Gift is also the only ability I don't recommend upgrading. The main reason to use it is for the stress and hp heal, and usually you want the hp to go to flag since he gets hit the most. The crit tokens are secondary to using this and are also inconsistent so using this on an ally is generally not super good, so you can really save a much needed mastery point on this ability.

- Rogue Highwayman

My favorite DD2 character. Dismas, my beloved. Dismas is here to kick ass and take names. While the others are hammering away at the enemies, Dismas capitalizes on it and goes for the kill whenever possible. The abilities are point blank, wicked slice, grapeshot, take aim, duelist advance. On turn 1 I almost always take aim, especially after upgrading it for the bonus riposte damage. However, if the other team has dodge or block tokens up, grapeshot is usually a better opener. Point blank is for bosses and wicked slice is in case you need to stay in rank one. Usually, you will take aim, point blank/grapeshot, advance, rinse and repeat. Nothing flashy, just fuck 'em up. You could take open vein in place of wicked slice, or make him a yellow hand and apply bleeds for PD, but losing execution 2 on wicked is a huge detriment, but I don't think either choice is wrong. I will be trying open hand for next run, but again, point blank and grapeshot are the highlights of this class, and the skills I am trying to make use of.

- The highlights

This team just feels unstoppable after you pump mastery points into them. Grave robber opens with a flashing daggers, then PD and Flag hit them with a plague grenade and acid rain, and boom, back line is dead or dying next round. Dismas takes aim and then hits them with a grapeshot which always feels satisfying. Big enemies tend to be more challenging, but facing the big ones alone after you clean up the small ones makes them way easier to handle. And any time things get messy, Flag can taunt or you can use take aim or absinthe and follow it up with indiscriminate science for big heals.

This team can make use of a lot of different trinkets. PD can use blight trinkets or healing skill trinkets, Flag can use any of the numerous defensive trinkets, and GR and HWM can use offensive trinkets. I actually snatched seaman's boots (armor or dodge when moving, speed dependent) and gave them to Dismas. He had 2 speed due to his quirks and the sharpness charm trinket, so he was farming block tokens out the ass which was a huge boon and gave him a lot of survivability that he honestly did not need to begin with. There are a lot of trinkets that would work really well and I found myself trying different combinations till I landed on some really strong ones.

It also will take on any of the bosses in the game. It will struggle against librarian just a bit but could feasibly take him down. I would avoid the sprawl with this comp anyway, the trinkets there aren't much good to us unless you want to apply burn for PD, which isn't super good compared to other trinket options. Otherwise, the other bosses and mini bosses are fair game. I wiped the dreaming general with ease, and I also defeated death, collector, and shambler all in the same run.

- The Drawbacks

Alright, here's the truth. This comp is a little slow. If PD doesn't apply blight to the back line (a miss or a blight resist) you will be looking at a long fight. GR hits hard but that blight is the difference between death on round 2 or round 3, which is a big fuckin difference. This team also gets shafted hard by block tokens early on. If there is a block token up, grapeshot loses a lot of value and alchemist can no longer clear block tokens so you will usually be clearing them with GR or Flag, which will just slow you down. This team has a lot of sustainability but it can be very slow going if you make a mistake or the RNG is against you.

This team is also heavily reliant on mastery points. Grapeshot, take aim, duelist advance, flashing daggers, indiscriminate, more, endure, sepsis, and all the other various damage abilities all want those mastery points, and the ones you should get first are more than 2, which is a problem if you noticed that you always start with 2 mastery in region 1. Personally, I would upgrade more and indiscriminate first so that you have enough sustain to carry you through region 1 when you are fighting chirurgeon and clearing creature dens. You really need about 5 or 6 mastery for this team to really evolve into the unstoppable force it is, which is a very huge detriment, but not impossible to handle.

Also the team is pretty squishy. In my run GR ate a crit from a pig and was one shot to death's door. Absinthe is good for just such cases but if you have multiple enemies go in a row like that it can be brutal. Dismas can farm block tokens but otherwise Flag is the only one who likes getting hit at all, which can cause its own problems.

I will update this post later in my grand slam attempt and will likely make changes but I wanted to share it because I just had one of the most memorable and most fun attempts I have had in DD1 or DD2 because this comp was just so fun to use.

I am currently on a very good Stygian run, lost only 1 level 0 hero so far and every quest was a success with tons of loot brought from every single one of them. I was just wondering if i should be a bit less conservative with my gold cuz i have about 52k and it is only increasing even while using stress facilities and not compromising on skills and gear, healing a neg quirk every week and disease too when needed. I was wondering if i should be still this conservative or should i start spending on locking positive quirks and prioritizing heirlooms on quests? I am asking cuz i heard gold inflates on upgrades massively later in the late.

I’ve got everything, besides cosmetics, unlocked