Darkest Dungeon

Steam user mrbunnyban made a great guide with maps to be found here
I’ve only created a summary of the missions in this guide, for more details check out mrbunnyban’s guide on steam.

Few things to take in mind before you head off:

• Every hero who is part of a successful raid in the Darkest Dungeon will not enter the Darkest Dungeon again.
• If you choose to abandon a raid in the Darkest dungeon partway, you will suffer a random hero death. Any trinkets equipped by that hero are lost forever but trinkets in your bags are kept so unequip all your heroes' trinkets before abandoning.
• If you fail a raid in the Darkest Dungeon, all heroes gain a x2 XP Boost in the next raid. This next raid does not have to be in the Darkest Dungeon to enjoy the bonus.
• A victorious mission in the Darkest Dungeon will remove all stress from all heroes in the estate
• No obstacles, surprises, scouting and/or cleansing in the Darkest Dungeon.
• There are 4 missions so you’ll need 4*4= 16 heroes to enter the Darkest Dungeon at minimum.
• The trophy will pop when you've beaten the Heart of Darkness in mission 4.

Mission 1 “We are the Flame”

Use the map below to walk to the right with minimum dmg, the yellow room holds an ancient trinket (if you don’t have them all yet).

The boss of this mission is the Shuffling Horror is a 3 size enemy with two attacks per turn. He spawns with a Cultist Priest behind him. If the Priest is killed, the boss will likely summon a Defensive Growth repeatedly, which guards the boss and is much more annoying than the priest (which you can stun). Leave the priest alive and focus on the boss if you can stun the priest. Or kill the priest, and kill the def. growth every turn to have the horror waste one of his attacks to summon a new one, while you inflict bleed on the boss to eat away its life.


The Shuffling Horror does great Bleed damage and moves your party around (so don't bring a leper).
Side note, the Shuffling Horror is a Shamble type monster and will drop one of the ancient trinkets the Shambler can drop (if you don't have them all yet)

Supplies
All Food, all Bandages, all Holy Water, all Herbs, 16+ Torches.

Map (Credits to Steam user mrbunnyban) the map is ALWAYS the same ;This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1154x423.

Team
I picked the team balanced to have different heroes in different raids (remember you can't use them again).
I didn’t have 4 man-at-arms, so I didn’t bring one here. Below you see my team, other teams are also very doable (or even better) just don’t bring a leper!

4. Vestal, 3.Jester, 2. Crusader/Hellion, 1. Crusader

Vesal for healing.
Jester for stress relief and bleed skills, also can move around easily after enemy reshuffle
Hellion for damage & bleed skills (also bleed heal herself), also can move around easily after enemy reshuffle
Crusader as a tank, can heal HP and stress, does average damage and can use the lance for major damage and move forwards after a reshuffle.

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Mission 2 “Lighting the Way”.

This by far is the hardest quest.
When you finish mission 1 “We are the Flame”, you got 3 trinkets as a reward.
These trinkets will save you now.

In this mission (#2) you’ll need to activate altars in the 3 red rooms on the map.
These rooms are guarded by bosses (all rooms have one, the right room has two)
These bosses have an attack called “Revelation” this skill has MASSIVE damage and stress output, unless you wear one the trinkets you got earlier.
Note you have only 3 trinkets and 4 heroes. Have a Man-at-arms with you to defend your hero without a trinket. (in my case bounty hunter).

The boss is not super resistant to bleed so that’s a good thing, he does have two turns per round so debuffs and marks are not that useful.
Fighting two bosses at once, try to swap them from place (move res is low) to avoid their special attacks, then kill the Impaler first (started position 1,2, hopefully moved to 3,4) and kill the warlord second (started 3,4 hopefully moved to 1,2).

Note that regular enemies cause bleed while the bosses cause blight so be sure to be able to heal yourself of those.

Supplies
All Food, 6+ Bandages, 6+ Antivenom, 12 Holy Water, 6-12 Herbs, 16+ Torches.
Be sure to equip the three Talisman of the Flame trinkets you got as rewards from the last raid.

Map (thx to Steam user mrbunnyban) the map is ALWAYS the same ;
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 908x794.
The Red rooms are your goals, the Yellow room holds an ancient trinket if you don’t have them all yet

I went in order left, up, Right. And camped as late as possible before the upper and right fight. (so a room before the battle if possible) to get the best buffs. Also move back to starting position and then to the next room to avoid unnecessary battles.

Team
I picked the team balanced to have different heroes in different raids (remember you can't use them again) and all heroes on level 6 for the caretaker goals.
Below you see my team, other teams are also very doable (like mrbunnyban’s team which is different from mine).

4. Occultist 3. Hound master 2. Bounty hunter/Hellion (no trinket) 1. Man-at-arms

Occultist for healing, moving & cursing (and balance, I didn’t have 4 vestals).
HM has bleed skills, can heal, stress heal & guard if MaA is stunned
BH & hellion do fair damage, can cause bleed, stun and have fair HP, the Bountyhunter camp buff is also good as the enemy is size 2 (also for balance)
MaA you’ll need him for defence, and he can buff and stun if needed. Also great camp skills.

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Mission 3 "Belly of the Beast"

This is by far the easiest quest of the four. I could be a challenge if you didn't have a guide with a map, but we do have a map! and we know to kill the white cell stalk

What you have to do is to make your way south east from the start to get to the blue room (see map) and fight the boss.

The boss is a Mammoth Cyst (who you can also encounter on the way)

He has 2 actions per round- one action is dedicated to resummoning a White Cell Stalk if the White Cell Stalk is killed, which is what you want to do!

If you don't kill it, the White Cell Stalks will eventually teleport you across the map, which is the challenge of the quest.
After being teleported, the Mammoth Cyst retains the damage you dealt to it earlier if you find it again.
However, I always killed the white call stalk every turn and never got teleported, so I advise you to do just that.
You can also stun the white call stalk (and the boss) with a plague doctor.

Your main goal is not to get teleported one way or another while killing the boss, note that the bleeding resistance isn't very high so you can use that to your advantage (blight is ok too).


Map (thx to Steam user mrbunnyban) the map is ALWAYS the same:
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1570x1175.

Team
4. Plague Doctor 3. Occultist/Vestal 2. Hound Master 1. Hellion

PD for stun and blight on both the stalk and the boss.
Occultist / Vestal to heal (occ to deal dmg to the last two positions as well, I prefer him but see what you have available)
HM for bleed damage to any position (can also heal HP & stress)
Hellion does great damage to the 4th position from position 1.

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Mission 4 "Hell is in the heart"

This mission is a pure boss battle,
This boss battle has 4 stages but isn't too difficult.

Supplies; no food, no torches, all healing stuff.

stage 1.
You fight the ancient and his reflections. the Ancestor is in position 4, ignore him.
Kill his reflections asap. Once you kill one, the Ancestor will summon new ones.
However, some are perfect and some are imperfect. when you kill an imperfect reflection the ancestor in position 4 gets DMG. so kill 5 imperfect reflections to clear this stage.

Stage 2.
Now you'll fight the Ancestor & 3 Absolute Nothingness. Ignore the Absolute Nothingness and kill the Ancestor. He'll move positions each turn. Also, you can move him (he has 0 move resistance).

Stage 3.
The boss transformed into a heart.
Hit the heart to deal damage, but your hero will get inflicted to blight.
Once you kill the heart you'll move to stage 4, however if you wait long enough you'll also move to stage 4. The trick is to balance dealing damage (which will carry over to stage 4, so more damage dealt in stage 3 is better) with healing your heroes.
Remember your holy waters, and use them during your attacks.

Stage 4.
This is the final stage and so the real boss fight.
The fight is very straightforward. The only interesting part is the "Come Unto Thy Maker" skill which instantly kills a hero.
This skill is used only when the boss is on 2/3 health if you still have 4 heroes (if that's the case, choose a hero you wish to die), and when the boss is on 1/3 health if you still have 3 heroes.

You, the player chooses who dies, think about it carefully, do you need a healer who can't heal in position 2 on the end? Plan this before you create your team.

No map here, as these is only 1 hall and 1 room, no way to go wrong.

Team
See what you have left... that's the main thing, make sure you'll be able to do good damage, and heal at least a bit in the first few stages.
my start team; 4.Highwayman 3.Occultist 2.Bounty hunter 1.Leper
My end team; 2.Leper 1. Highwayman