Heroes

Learn how to manage your heroes in Darkest Dungeon. This guide covers assigning skills, understanding quirks and trinkets, dealing with diseases, and managing stress for optimal party performance.

Recruiting a hero in Darkest Dungeon allows you to manage their name, color, skills, and equip two trinkets. You can dismiss heroes using an orange icon, which may be cheaper than curing diseases. Each hero's window displays their level, class, Resolve XP, Stress level, and Quirks (positive yellow, negative red). Base stats are influenced by quirks, trinkets, buildings, and diseases.

Equipment includes fixed weapon and armor slots, plus two assignable trinket slots. Combat Skills determine hero positioning and target preferences; melee skills often suit front positions (1-2), while ranged skills offer flexibility. Camping Skills can be selected for longer dungeon runs (Short dungeons have no camping) and unlocked further in the Survivalist tent. Resistances vary by class, level, items, quirks, and diseases. Diseases are acquired after dungeon runs and can be removed at the Sanitarium.

Assigning & Removing Skills

To change a hero's skills, click the active skill and select another. If heroes have low move resistance, consider assigning preferred melee or ranged skills. If enemies might reposition your hero, keep an un-preferred skill to maintain offensive capability even from an unfavorable position. Camping skills are chosen based on need and can be replaced before camping.

Benefits of Quirks and Trinkets

Quirks provide positive or negative boosts, acquired through Curios, dungeon completion, stress relief, or random events. Active quirks modify stat colors (default white). You can remove or lock quirks, or live with them. Removing quirks or diseases requires leaving the hero in a building for a week, making them unavailable for parties. Positive quirks might not always be beneficial and can be removed. Negative quirks left untreated can become blocked, costing more to remove, and may display negative stat numbers in red.

The Trinket Inventory helps select the best items. Basic trinkets can suffice initially, but consider hero weaknesses and current enemies. For example, during Courtyard runs, prioritize trinkets that counter the Crimson Curse to survive.

Disease

Deciding whether to cure a disease involves weighing the gold cost against its impact. If a disease has minimal effect on your runs (e.g., during short dungeons with ample food), it might be wiser to leave it untreated. Removing or locking quirks, or curing diseases, requires a hero to be in a building for a week.

Stress

Stress is a core mechanic, increasing with negative effects, tough enemies, or high-level dungeons. While generally detrimental, some skills and heroes benefit from high stress. Reaching 100 Stress in battle can lead to an Affliction, decreasing stats and causing random behaviors. Reaching 200 Stress can result in hero death. Some negative quirks may increase stress in specific areas (like the Hamlet) and should be removed. Stress can be lowered through buildings, class-specific skills, camping skills (requiring Firewood for Medium runs), Curios, trinkets, and random events. Using buildings for stress relief may require longer hero absences, especially if they are over 100 Stress.