With how brutal Darkest Dungeon 2 can be, selecting anybody but the finest heroes is a mistake. On tougher Confessions and difficulties, trying to win with anything except the best is asking for a bad result. It's possible to carry any given hero to victory, but some make the path much smoother.
To be fair, even "bad' heroes can shine in a given group. Darkest Dungeon 2 does a great job of challenging the players with a myriad of debuffs, damaging strikes, and obstacles. Every hero finds their strength in at least one aspect of the game. But a few elite heroes can cover multiple bases with ease and don't need particular builds to shine while others need some love to just be average.
12 Flagellant
The combination of frontline and damage dealer is a careful balance. Characters like the Man-At-Arms do a great job of it. The Flagellant, on the other hand, does not. He has a unique healing token but only one skill that creates it. Experts using his best build will still find themselves wishing he wasn't so bent on hurting himself.
Being able to heal allies and take away their debuffs is a strong perk but the Flagellant pays with its own health and stress. The character has no way to deal with stress stacks and the self-damage can escalate out of control too easily compared to other tanks.
11 Occultist
The community keeps hoping a buff to the Occultist is coming. Yet as players try different team combinations to "fix" his healing, it becomes apparent that the Occulist needs to make too many gambles to use his best moves and those gambles often don't pan out, doing the enemies' job for them.
The hero needs to stack up Unchecked Power tokens to use his best skills but this can only be done by inflicting self-harm by getting lucky with combos. He's got a perfect build but it requires a team that protects him and saves him from himself to make it work.
10 Grave Robber
The jack of all trades, master of none title goes to the Grave Robber with no debate. The character has abilities that tank, heal, deal damage, apply buffs, and apply debuffs. Since teams have to do all of this, Darkest Dungeon 2 might seem like the perfect place for such a hero.
Sadly, the Grave Robber's ceiling is lower than any other on the list. While other heroes are unlocking abilities that make them amazing, the Grave Robber is choosing what to be average at. A great Grave Robber build can compensate for this issue but she'll still be lagging behind while other heroes excel.
9 Bounty Hunter
The Bounty Hunter is perhaps unfairly placed on this list. He's a temporary hero that costs four candles, occasionally available for hire at an Inn. Upon reaching the next Inn, he disappears and will not be available for hire for the rest of the run.
The Bounty Hunter's temporary nature is tough to justify even with the best build. He's got great damage and can give a beat-up character a chance to rest. But since he's not permanent and can't be built around, he'll never quite fit in perfectly with the group dynamic and should not be counted on. He's also not very tanky so it can be tough getting him to survive until the next Inn.
8 Runaway
Darkest Dungeon 2 doesn't give any single hero everything they need to succeed, making them rely on teammates to cover certain areas. But the Runaway comes close to doing it all with her best build as her stealth makes her tough to hit and her damage over time fire effects slowly take out enemies.
She moves ranks often and this can make her difficult to use when she changes up an ally's attacks. But players who have a versatile team will enjoy how the Runaway can situationally heal, remove stealth from enemies, take care of her own defenses, and continuously stack fire damage.
7 Leper
The Leper is a tank and raw damage dealer with an incredibly high ceiling. Players may steer clear of him because, like some of the heroes lower on this list, he comes with a drawback; he often starts with two stacks of blindness and has moves that can add blindness stacks.
The Leper's blindness can be negated by his own skills or by using up and placing combo tokens with his ideal build. He's a great tank even if he never lands a single hit and heals himself on the frontlines which is a good bonus for players that don't want to overstuff the squad with healers.
6 Hellion
Video games are perfect for medieval settings and the Hellion fits right into the style. She gets stronger as her health dwindles and has Raucous Revelry, a skill that heals herself and reduces stress levels for the entire group. She can also remove debuffs on her.
The only drawback is a unique debuff, Winded, which reduces her damage output. But she has so many moves that will clear all stacks of Winded that this doesn't become an issue. When paired with a great healer and using her best build, the Hellion is overpowered.
5 Jester
The Jester's biggest drawback is that most of his skills move him around. Players will often have a team that has preferred rank spots and he will mess up that vibe quickly. However, more often than not, the Jester makes up for this shifting around by applying more combo tokens than anyone in the game.
This is a big deal because some heroes, such as the Occultist, are terrible without combos getting set up and other heroes can have their damage get out of control, such as the Leper. The best build for the Jester quickly makes him a party favorite.
4 Highwayman
The Highwayman is as close as it gets to a straight-up damage dealer. He's got a mix of ranged and melee attacks, enabling him to have some usefulness at any rank, even the first (though his low defenses make him a liability up front).
His best build utilizes his solid attacks from the second position but players that use the Runaway or Jester may want to keep the Highwayman a mix of ranged and melee so he can attack from anywhere. He's nothing splashy, but he's got solid damage and that's an important role to fill.
3 Plague Doctor
The Plague Doctor is unlocked from the start and gamers will have a tough time finding a better mix of support and damage. The character has tremendous healing and can clear up any negative debuffs while turning those debuffs into even more healing.
If this isn't enough, the best build for the Plague Doctor enables the hero to place Blight, Fire, and Bleed on its opponents, killing bosses at little bit every time their turn comes up. So long as the character stays in rank three or four, its only weakness, low defenses, doesn't come into play.
2 Man-At-Arms
The Man-At-Arms is the undisputed king of applying block buffs to himself and maybe another at the second rank. What may appeal to players who use characters like the Runaway or the Jester is that the hero is capable of crawling back to the frontlines and can even "debuff" himself so that he can't be moved back.
As enemy damage starts to escalate with increasingly common Ordainment enemy buffs, the number of allies who can take a hit and shrug it off will dwindle. The best Man-At-Arms build has no issue absorbing these blows and reducing the stress from repeated hits.
1 Vestal
Nobody has tougher build choices than the Vestal, who has unique buff and debuff abilities that change depending on the path selected. These various paths even change the way certain skills function, altering the character's performance partway through the game.
With the right build for the Vestal, she has support capabilities that can't be contested. Her most overpowered abilities from the first game somehow make it back into the second game. Her consecrations, once placed, support the team with her needing to re-use a skill.
Darkest Dungeon 2 is available now for PC.