Darkest Dungeon has plenty of room for skill expression, be it tactical play or daring risks, with much of it stemming from its heroes. Heroes can be equipped with a series of skills to befit the situation, as well as camping skills, quirks (for frequent visitors of the Sanitarium), and trinkets. Trinkets can cover a hero's weaknesses, accentuate their strengths, or change their playstyle entirely. While there's a plethora of options, there are some options in each rarity that stand out from the rest.
For the sake of availability, this list will focus on generic trinkets, as they often achieve the same ends as class-specifics. Just avoid Holy Orders and Berserk Mask.
10 Common: Dazzling Charm
- +10% Stun Skill Chance
One of the precious few trinkets with no drawback at all. With stuns being such an important tool in a player's toolbox, an extra 10% stun chance is a powerful asset, especially in the early game. Resistances are calculated by subtracting a skill's chance from the enemy's resistance. For example, the chance of Dazzling Light (100%) hitting a Bone Rabble (10%) would be 90%.
Due to this, every percentage is valuable, and trinkets that subtract from a hero's chances, like the Sacred Scroll, are deceptively harmful. Even if it's only 10%, players will notice its benefit after a few expeditions using it.
9 Common: Snake Oil
- -10% Stress
Another simple yet effective choice. The next "no strings attached" stress resist trinket like this is the Book of Sanity in Very Rare. Especially with how little stress-healing heroes like Jester supply in the early game and how deadly stress can be for everyone, but the Flagellant, Snake Oil, is a great choice throughout the early to mid-game.
Snake Oil can only be found as a reward in the Ruins, but the Nomad Wagon can sell it freely. So much for snake oil salesmen.
8 Uncommon: Chirurgeon's Charm
- +15% Healing Skills
The first healing trinket available to players unless they get lucky with Junia's Head. Unsurprisingly, this is great with healers like Vestal and Occultist or heroes with sustain like Leper who don't have anything else to run. It can fall off the further players go through the game, but given that healing rounds up, a percentage boost can still be quite useful, even with smaller heals like Vestal's party-healing Divine Comfort.
For the curious, "chirurgeon" is just an old term for a surgeron. Why they would rely on a charm is questionable at best, but a game based on Lovecraft is the last place to ask questions.
7 Uncommon: Surgical Gloves
- +8% CRIT Melee Skills
- +5 ACC Melee Skills
- -20% Move Resist
- -10% Debuff Resist
As a weirdly thematic combo with the Chirurgeon's Charm, the Surgical Gloves let heroes attack with... well, "surgical precision" as the Ancestor says. Its resistance debuffs hurt, but debuffs can be removed with Medicinal Herbs, and being moved isn't always a bad thing. One hero that loves this trinket is the Highwayman, with his Wicked Slice already having a high crit chance. If he's pushed back, he can use Duelist's Riposte to return to the action as well. Well-combined with the Sharpening Sheath or Ancestor's Pen.
Other heroes can utilize this too, of course. Crusader can have a similar strategy in position 2, hitting the backlines with Holy Lance. The same applies to Hellion's Breakthrough. Leper also appreciates the accuracy boost, though he needs a move resist trinket like Heavy Boots to cover his immobility.
6 Rare: Berserk Charm
- +3 SPD
- +15% DMG
- +15% Stress
- -5 ACC
- -10% Virtue Chance
Observant readers may notice something as this article goes on: none of the listed trinkets have a speed penalty. In Darkest Dungeon, slowness is death, and its importance is not understated with speed penalties on an overwhelming amount of trinkets. Berserk Charm has severe drawbacks to stress, accuracy, and virtue, but accuracy can be buffed, and stress? How is an enemy going to stress the player when they just got one-shot on the first turn?
While it amounts to a +25% stress total that can dissuade players, Sun Ring is a great add-on for Berserk Charm. Moon Ring also works to equal effect for no-torch runs, but Sun Ring is preferable. Areas with unconventional lighting like the Courtyard, Farmstead, and Darkest Dungeon are at max Torch level by default.
5 Rare: Slayer Rings
- +25% DMG vs Beast/Eldritch/Human/Unholy
- -8 DODGE
This may be cheating a little, but the Slayer Rings, such as Unholy Slayer's Ring, are nice to have. Though the hit to dodge can hurt heroes like Grave Robber, the majority of heroes simply don't care. What's a 40% PROT Crusader going to do if without 8 dodge, get scratched twice? These rings are especially nice when going against bosses, as they'll get the most usage out of the damage then.
Every area in the game has a variety of enemy types, but they do have significant biases. Unholy for Ruins, Warrens for Beast, Weald for Human, Cove for Eldritch. The situational nature of these rings does diminish their use somewhat, but a "free" +25% damage is great nonetheless.
4 Very Rare: Focus Ring
- +10 ACC
- +5% CRIT
- -8 DODGE
Putting a Focus Ring and Ancestor's Pen on a Leper feels like cheating. Especially when combined with Jester's buffs, any hero that struggles with hitting the mark will do great with the Focus Ring. Arbalest loves it; Crusader loves it; Hellion likes to dodge but still doesn't mind it. The main appeal of the Focus Ring's massive accuracy boost is that it almost guarantees that the party's damage can one-shot priority targets like Bone Courtiers or Hags.
Focus Ring also works well with just about anything. It can be combined with the Berserk Charm for massive damage, cover the crit penalty from Brawler's Gloves, or Dismas' Head to simply remove enemies from existence. Its lack of stress penalty leaves plenty of options and stands as one of Darkest Dungeon's overall best trinkets.
3 Very Rare: Tough Ring
- +10% PROT
- +15% MAX HP
- -15% DMG
- +10% Stress
Some heroes simply don't need damage. Picking off low-health targets is useful, but so is not having to heal the Man-at-Arms because of how absurdly tanky he is. The Tough Ring is the support alternatively to the Focus Ring, being useful on just about any tanky character. It's also quite good for Flagellant when combined with a trinket like the Bleed Amulet to improve his bleed chance.
Given her disinterest in damage, the Tough Ring is also exceptional on Plague Doctor. However, when combined with her mandatory Blasphemous Vial, it totals to a +35% stress penalty – enough to make a player Afflicted themselves.
2 Ancestral: Ancestor's Coat
- +15 DODGE
- +10% Stress
First, let it be said that the Ancestor's Pen and Musket Ball are on this list in spirit. They're just such obviously good choices, that to include them seems like a wasted slot. The amount of damage potential they give for such little drawback is simply disgusting and should be the first trinket(s) given to any damage dealer.
With that aside, Ancestor's Coat is the unequivocal dodge trinket, giving the most out of any generic trinket. Dodge is only useful when invested in properly, but for dodge-heavy heroes like Jester or Antiquarian, it's a great survivability tool. The best user of Ancestor's Coat, however, is Houndmaster. At max level, it increases his dodge by 50%, 30 to 45, and his Guard Dog skill gives him 10 dodge each time he uses it.
This is a true-to-word lifesaver in fights like the Prophet and Swine Prince. Get the Flagellant to Death's Door, guard him permanently, and let him rip through the boss with bleed. Just watch out for AoE attacks.
1 Ancestral: Ancestor's Pistol
- +15 ACC Ranged Skills
- +3 SPD
- +10% Stress
The Ancestor's Pistol gives a unique combination of bonuses: accuracy and speed. The only other generic trinket that offers this combo is the Prophet's Eye, and for good reason: every hero wants it. Supports like Plague Doctor and Vestal enjoy it especially, being able to do their thing and be accurate in doing so. Damage dealers like Arbalest may be conflicted between this and Focus Ring, as taking both would sacrifice a damage trinket without mods. Ignoring the high dodge chance of squishy targets is great either way.
The one downside to this trinket, past the paltry +10% stress penalty, is that it's restricted to ranged attacks. Though, this is probably a good thing; Berserk Charm is broken enough. There's nothing stopping an enterprising player from taking both trinkets on a Point Blank Shot Highwayman though.
Darkest Dungeon is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.