Darkest Dungeon was released in 2016 by Red Hook Studios, attracting a following for its gothic style and grueling difficulty. While initially released for PC alone, it later expanded to consoles and iOS, testing the mettle of gamers on all platforms as they form a party of four heroes to tackle crumbling ruins, infected warrens, and the depths of the Darkest Dungeon.
Darkest Dungeon is ultimately a game of tactics, with the player's victory largely amounting to skill, patience, and the cohesiveness of their team against whatever foe they face.
6 Crusader
When asked for the best hero to face the Ruins with, almost every Darkest Dungeon veteran says the same: Crusader. His main attacks deal bonus damage against Unholy enemies, and he can support the team with stuns, healing, and taunts as needed. He can fit into most parties with ease and offers potent camping skills, boasting ambush prevention, Mortality debuff removal, and a massive destress with Zealous Speech.
But as one may expect, Crusader is slow, standing out as his primary weakness, similar to Leper. While this can be a boon at times, having a hero die because their healing came too late is very demoralizing. Due to this, relying on stuns from heroes such as Vestal or Plague Doctor can make Crusader's life much easier.
5 Vestal
While there are some choice exceptions, Vestal is never a bad choice for a party composition. She has access to Stealth removal for high-level dungeons,bonus damage to Unholy for more offensive play, and healing. Lots and lots of healing. When combined with trinkets like the Salacious Diary, she can save her allies from certain death while keeping tankier heroes like Crusader topped up between turns. Vestal can also benefit religious heroes with her Pray and Chant camping skills, offering significant stress and damage resistance to religious heroes, plus a weakened bonus to any that aren't.
As a simple support hero with healing, stuns, and debuffs at her disposal, Vestal is without many glaring weaknesses, only lacking movement abilities to recover from repositions or shuffles. For the more offensively minded, she can also use the Profane Scroll trinket to become a "Battle Vestal," dealing strong damage and great healing, but only as long as she's in position 2.
4 Plague Doctor
A prime choice for beginners and veterans alike for blight, and since the Ruins' enemies are largely immune to bleed, business is booming for the Plague Doctor. As well as offering alchemical mayhem, she can also stun enemies, clear corpses, and buff and cure allies as needed. Both her stun and blight have the options of a stronger single-target attack or weaker, but still potent, double-target attack, making Plague Doctor strong against both powerful enemies and weaker ones. She can also clear corpses, barely leaves any as it is due to blight damage, and can remove diseases while camping, which is nice.
As with most backline heroes, however, she struggles when forced to the frontline, such as with a Shambler's shuffle. This is a fortunately rare occurrence in the Ruins, however, so players can stack up blight and stuns as they please.
3 Grave Robber
Thanks to her range of utility, great damage, and blight synergy, Grave Robber is an incredible choice for the Ruins. Pick to the Face ignores high PROT enemies like Bone Defenders, while Lunge can pick off squishy backliners before they get a chance to act. For support options, Toxin Trickery is a safe pick, especially when combined with Plague Doctor's Emboldening Vapors for buffing shenanigans. Her Poison Darts' blight resist debuff also plays well with Plague Doctor's kit, as well as Lunge's position change covering her immobility. The two go very well together.
Grave Robber is a somewhat squishy hero, however, and access to Stealth can only go so far. Her typical loop of Shadow Fade into Lunge can also throw allied backliners out of position, leaving players with the ultimatum of high damage and putting their supports at risk. This can be circumvented with good preparation, but it's still good to keep in mind when building a party with Grave Robber.
2 Abomination
Abomination is good everywhere. He has a stun, blight, sustain, hefty amounts of damage, and a knockback for good measure. His Human form has ready access to a stun and multi-person blight, acting as a budget Plague Doctor with an extra blight resist debuff, as well as a free HP and stress heal as a 'pass turn' button, while his Beast form is more damage-focused. His Beast form, while consistent, doesn't offer much past an attack that does more damage each time you use it, a high crit attack for potential stress heals, and a debuffing knockback.
The issue with Abomination is that he's a selfish hero. He causes stress on transformation, has camping skills that are barely worth unlocking, and has no way to buff his allies without causing stress but has plenty for himself. Despite this, Abomination is still incredibly effective no matter where you put him, mostly because players can't get their party stressed if the enemies are already stunned or dead.
1 Bounty Hunter
While usually seen elsewhere, Bounty Hunter is surprisingly powerful in the Ruins. He has strong stun synergy with Finish Him, can slow enemies to assist Crusader with Caltrops, and has three, count 'em, three ways to displace enemies. His camping skills are also incredible, offering powerful buffs to allies and himself, as well as supporting options like scouting and surprise chance. The most notable benefit of Bounty Hunter is Come Hither, which can completely nullify any Bone Courtier by dragging them into the frontlines.
Bounty Hunter has a few flaws, but they can mostly be written off. He relies on stun or mark to deal damage on his turn, so plan his target beforehand. Planned Takedown is less effective in the Ruins since Bone Captain has high PROT, so blight it instead. Bounty Hunter isn't Geralt of Rivia, so mod the game beyond recognition.
Darkest Dungeon is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.