Why Femme Fatale Is Arguably the Best 'DD' Party

Darkest Dungeon is a game about "making the best out of a bad situation." Because of this, it's first and foremost a strategy game. From skillfully allocating gold and resources on treatments, to knowing when to give up on a bad run, DD will test your planning and strategic ability. A huge part of this process is figuring out which members of your team to send out together on runs. Certain heroes can't be paired with others, like the Abomination and the Crusader, others simply don't fit well together, because none have the ability to hit the fourth slot enemy. After taking into account all of these considerations, the Femme Fatale lineup—consisting of the Hellion, Grave Robber, Plague Doctor, and the Vestal—is the best go-to team.

Now, clearly, there are situations and run types that pair better with specific heroes. For example, the Hound Master is the most useful in the Warrens and a Jester might be a vital member of a long run to keep stress down. What I am referring to is your basic short or medium run with a basic task of exploring 90 percent of the rooms or completing 100 percent of room battles and some of the more specific tasks like collecting medicine or activating shrines, as well. I would argue that they do well in early boss battles as well but, of course, that will be situational and can be better or worse depending what trinkets you have, etc.

The Hellion

Key Combat Skills: If it Bleeds, Wicked Hack, Iron Swan, YAWP

The Hellion is a great first slot tank. She does a lot of damage with a fairly high accuracy rating on all combat skills, making her a great asset in battle. What is special about the Hellion is her Iron Swan skill, which allows her to hit a fourth row enemy slot. Few other first slot tanks can hit fourth, or sometimes even third, slot enemies. If it Bleeds is a great skill, as well, because it can make your enemies bleed, which will kill them in a few rounds if left untreated. However, this move is only effective on enemies that can bleed, making it less than ideal for skeletons. If you come across a Hellion with all of these key combat skills, or are willing to use up gold on unlocking these skills, then it's worth keeping her in your roster, for sure. She is an asset to any party, especially with Iron Swap equipped. The only caveat with the Hellion is that most of her moves work best from the front row slot and she can become mostly useless if pushed back in the line by an Eldritch push or pull. This is also true of most first slot tanks.

Key Camping Skills: Sharpen Spear, Battle Trance

While the Hellion's best camping skills are self only, they do a lot to bolster her combat skills in the following few battles. This only increases her usefulness in combat and is definitely worth the time, assuming your party is otherwise in good shape and doesn't need extensive healing instead. Sharpen Spear is particularly nice as it increases her crit chance by 8 percent in the next four battles with no downsides. Her other two possible camping skills, Revel and Reject the Gods, have a fair amount of downsides and generally end up increasing overall party stress or otherwise hindering your party in later battles. I would stick to Sharpen Spear and Battle Trance.

The Grave Robber

Key Combat Skills: Pick to the Face, Lunge, Shadow Fade, Thrown Dagger

The Grave Robber is an incredibly versatile and effective hero. She pairs well with many combinations of heroes, and she can be used in any slot depending on the skills of the surrounding party. The Grave Robber is hands down my favorite hero, because of this chameleon ability and her ease of use. She is able to handle both surprises and Eldritch push or pull without needing to waste a turn on moving back and forth, due to her Lunge and Shadow Fade skills. Lunge is a great way to move the Grave Robber forward when she is pushed back, and Shadow Fade will move her back when she is pulled forward in the slots. Both attacks seamlessly move the Grave Robber through your slots while still doing damage to the enemy. Thrown Dagger and Pick to the Face are her best attacks, damage-wise, and have very high accuracy. Both Thrown Dagger and Pick to the Face can be used in three of the four hero slots, adding to her versatility and effectiveness. Another possible combat skill is Poison Dart. I find this to be useful at times, as well, because of the blight factor which makes killing enemies much easier, even though it doesn't do much straight damage. However, if you are pairing her with the Plague Doctor, then this isn't a necessary skill to posses. Her crit chance is also pretty high and she can often help overall stress levels a little bit with her crits.

Key Camping Skills: Gallows Humor, Night Moves

While Gallows Humor may seem like a bit of a gamble with only a 75 percent chance of lowering full party stress, the rewards can be worth the risk. However, I think strategy in the use of this skill as a bad roll will increase your party stress by 10 points, which can be the difference between a restful camping session and a new affliction. Night Moves, on the other hand, is always an incredibly useful skill. This skill is self only, but it increases scouting chance by 30 percent, which is certainly a useful advantage. Getting a good scouting outcome can change the tide of a bad run pretty quickly. Another possible camping skill is Snuff Box, which actually isn't a bad skill either. It can remove a disease from your Grave Robber and one companion. This is really useful if your party has diseased members, which is more likely if your heroes regularly play with dead bodies, but it can save you some gold at the sanitarium later, since you don't have to pay to remove that disease.

The Plague Doctor

Key Combat Skills: Noxious Blast, Plague Grenade, Blinding Gas, Emboldening Vapors

The Plague Doctor is a great supporting hero with her moves working best from the third and fourth slot. I prefer her in the third slot, as that is where the majority of her moves are active. Her best skill is her ability to blight enemies. Blight is a slow, but sure killer and can effectively wipe out targets without you even having to hit them. This is important, because it gives you valuable time to heal up your party while your enemy slowly meets his end. Both Noxious Blast and Plague Grenade can blight an enemy. Blinding Gas is a good move to pair with blight because it is a stun move, which can incapacitate your enemy, making them even less of a threat while the blight does it's job. In a pinch the Plagues Doctor also has a really small heal that only cures one HP at a time, this really isn't very helpful, unless your healer is stunned while someone is on death's door or, god forbid, killed off.

Key Camping Skills: The Cure, Leeches

The Plague Doctor has a variety of good camping skills aimed at healing party members, or themselves. The Cure is particularly handy, because it costs very little time and can remove a disease on one party member, and increase their disease resistance by 20 percent. This can save you gold by eliminating a disease and also helps prevent further diseases to that party member, which is nice if they have a quirk that makes them predisposed to touching dead things. Leeches are also a low time cost heal. This skill removes blight and one disease from a party member. This can be extremely helpful if you have run out of anti-venom and have a party member who is continuing to take damage from blight. This can be especially helpful in the Weald and Warrens where blight is everywhere.

The Vestal

Key Combat Skills: Judgement, Dazzling Light, Divine Grace, Divine Comfort

The Vestal's usefulness almost goes without saying. Every good run needs a healer, unless you are simply going on a short dark run to acquire more loot. I prefer the Vestal over the Occultist, because the Vestal's healing is more sure and does not have the potential to incur bleeding. The last thing you need is a hero on death's door who gets healed two HP only to have them right back on death's door, because the bleeding killed those two points immediately. The Vestal is useful in other ways as well, particularly in her full party heal, Divine Comfort, and her stun ability, Dazzling Light. Her accuracy is decent and she does have some damage ability to enemies, but her usefulness is primarily as a healer. Being a religious character, she can not be paired with the Abomination on runs and she can only reduce stress at the Abbey. Her best slots are the third and fourth, making her easy to pair with heavy hitters who need to be in the front three slots or with the Arbalest, who tends to do well in the fourth slot.

Key Camping Skills: Bless, Chant, Sanctuary

The Vestal has some really important camping skills, Sanctuary being a must. Sanctuary protects your party from a nighttime ambush which is worth the four time cost, being surprised while camping will ruin any other stress reduction and healing that you spend your time accomplishing. While the Vestal's skills all have a pretty significant time cost, they are all really good skills with no downsides. Bless is good, because it ups accuracy and dodge for one companion in the next battle. Chant is really helpful if you find your party taking a lot of stress damage, because it not only lowers stress in the moment but makes one companion 10 or 20 percent more stress resistant. That is always a good resistance to have on any run. Especially, if you aren't using a Jester to help lower stress in the midst of combat.

So, why the Femme Fatale?

It just makes sense. The Hellion is a great first slot choice with the ability to hit all four enemy slots with a good amount of damage and bleed chance. The Grave Digger is perfect in the second slot, assisting the party with her crit chances and her ability to move the party back into the correct order without wasting turns if they get shuffled around. She can also assist through her scouting ability. The Plague Doctor takes the third slot and assists the party with her high blight chance and stun moves. She can also play a major role in camping. The Vestal is the icing on the cake with her healing ability, especially that full party heal, and her camping skills.

These four ladies just work together really well to achieve their goals and complete your quests.