The BEST run ever: Darkest Dungeon II Kingdoms

     My original plan was to just do Darkest Dungeon II discussions in my UPDATES (aka my side bar blog) but during my most recent run when I collected the last two achievements to get 112 out of 112, I was also able to pull off the most overpowered run ever so here we are breaking it down.

This was much easier than the previous one. Trust me.

    It all started with the team I picked, my first run in Kingdoms 'Secrets of the Coven' I quickly realized that the new Coven/ Witch enemies love going into stealth so I decided to focus on a team that could take care of that. The Coven enemies also loved to buff themselves so a no brainer was too bring in Vestal specifically her Confessor class because it deals with buffs and debuffs. Third spot went to Plague Doctor; whom has ways of dealing with buffs and debuffs too, AOE attacks for stealth and unlike the previous Beastmen (stars of the previous Kingdoms) they are actually vulnerable to Blight. I knew my second place the minute I realized stealth was a thing and recruited Highwayman. He of course has anti-stealth tech but also importantly he puts combo on them as well which makes him the perfect partner for my first place; Leper. Leper also surprisingly has a good way of dealing with stealth, gets rid of corpses and hits like a truck if enemies have combo on them even if he is blind. With the team in place I knew I would no longer be dealing with non-stop stealth shenanigans and non-stop they were. One of the new achievements which I got during this run was 'I've Been Here the Whole Time' where you need to clear 30 (!!) stealth tokens during a run and I actually did that unknowingly because of how frequently enemies go into stealth.

I UNDERSTAND now

    However it was not just the correct team that made this run so great, it was also thanks to my Wagon set-up. Normally my Wainwright doesn't have any fancy bells and whistles, I just basically want health or stress reduction. I have watched many videos tho that has mentioned that the most OP pet when used correctly is the Reanimated Rabbit. This pet benefit was +1 speed for Food gear equipped and +1 health for each 4 pieces of food collected. Also super helpful was I got the rabbit super early so I could build my wagon around it and build I did. I made sure I got the following wagon items, Harvest Child's The Harvest's Bounty trophy (which increased my inventory storage by 25 slots), Icebox (food item = +1 speed, food stacking for better disease resist and double the quantity of food), Food Barrels (food item = +1 speed, increase food stacking even more and increase case of resolute status instead of a meltdown) and the final slot was inter-changeable with whatever needs I had. Need better food and more speed? Invigorating Stew, Need better relationships? Tea Service and take it off after we get the buffs, Need Milk-soaked Linen to cure Leper's blindness? Slap on Worktable Loom. All of this and getting them so close to each other created a perfect storm where by the middle of the run I already knew we were going to have a good time. I was able to defend all my inns as well with well placed distributions of the heroes not in the main squad and even outfitted some of them with some great trinkets too.

    Another big benefit of this run was hindsight, after completing the second Kingdoms expansion once I was now prepared for the quest steps I had to follow and how to move the quest forward, I knew how to use the quest specific item 'Witchbane' correctly, I knew how to fight the Coven specific enemies and thanks to the recent (much needed) nerf of the spiders, they were nowhere near as frustrating to fight as well especially when *SPOILERS* they become the main enemy in the game. Combine this with less emphasis on cluttering up your inventory and taking away trophy and wagon slots like the first Kingdoms expansion (I think they listened to feedback because it was not fun constantly stacking bodies in the Beastmen expansion and losing inventory space because of it).

    Finally; understanding how the 'Suspicious Few' encounters in the late game worked and being able to always figure out whom were witches in disguise (psst look for the mushrooms on them) so I never failed one of those challenges and I got the final achievement 'True Sight' pretty easily. LOL this was definitely through trial and error because doing my first run I killed more then a couple innocent bystanders but not during this perfect run.

    By the end; my squad was moving fast, had tons of health due to food stacking on top of food stacking (Vestal HP reaching 99), we had no issues dealing with witches or spiders, had not caught a disease in forever, had tons of great trinkets, only lost one militia defender and fought off every siege and when we fought the final boss of the expansion we did so well preparing for it that two of the heroes instead of having a meltdown went resolute instead and that was because I wanted them to get stressed out to see if they would resolute lol. I mean after investing all this time into building a strong squad, having them resolute at the end was the icing on the cake right.

The King in Yellow

    Thus ended the best run ever and getting all the achievements along the way just made it even better. I am mainly writing this down for posterity sake so when the game eventually screws me I know what I need to do to break it again. I feel after this run and two back to back campaign wins I might take a short break and play some other games but man I will be going out on the highest of high notes.

AV   

PIT STOP: Darkest Dungeons II Kingdoms thoughts

The irony is this is 3/4th of the team I actually used

We have just finished 'Secrets of the Coven'; the second of three Kingdoms expansions and I enjoyed the heck out of it. We also have 4 of the 6 new achievements as well so there is that.

This was originally going to be a commentary and my thoughts on it and then I realized I never did one for the first Kingdoms expansion, 'Hunger of the Beastmen'. I was then in two minds whenever to just wait for the third one, the one involving the Crimson Court and go all in or to write about the initial two expansions first. I was still under decided when I started writing this blog lol.

However looking at the release dates for the expansions so far, with 'Hunger...' coming out in January and 'Secrets...' coming out in April, I have a feeling the third and maybe final one will be out before the end of the year so we are going to just wait and do a big RAVE of all three.

Overall, this mode is really fun and the fact that its all free content blows my mind. I would have definitely paid money for a 'season pass' of DD II content. Speaking of; Red Hook is offering a ' Infernal Supporter' pack with special made skins for the heroes and the wagon which I am definitely going to buy when I have the money because 1) I love to support them for all work they have done and 2) it is not egregiously charged at all at only $5 and 3) I mean look at them!

The tiny details are also amazing in how they change not only their looks but their weapons as well.

So yeah; I have also realized I never wrote a RAVE for Darkest Dungeon II so I endeavor to make a much longer RAVE for Darkest Dungeon II and Kingdoms once the final expansion drops and I'll keep posting updates about my achievement journey in this blogs side bar.

AV

Victory: Grand Slam COMPLETED (Darkest Dungeon II)

 

Anyone who knows me knows I love me some Darkest Dungeon, both games have gotten pretty extensive coverage on my blog. The above achievement is one of the most elusive achievements for Darkest Dungeon II that I have ever attempted and I can proudly say, last night I did it.

I called in a lot of help but the main thing is I defeated all 5 of the major bosses (or as they are known in-game, the Confessional bosses) and the funniest part is it was not with the team I was attempting with it the most. That team was a Plague focused backline hitting team of Plague Doctor/ Occultist/ Flagellant/ Man-at-Arms squad but a lot of time this team would fall apart due to either Occultist notorious low health or us running into death a lot because of Flagellant. Some of these failures was talked about in my previous blog series featuring Darkest Dungeon II last year. It became so hard and made me feel so downtrodden that I stopped attempting the Grand Slam and I started playing other games. I rarely give up on something I dedicated this much time too (63 hrs since picking it back up 2 weeks ago) but at the same time, it felt impossible.

Fast forward to 2025, with the DD II 'Kingdoms' expansion and the 'Inhuman Bondage' DLC coming out I knew I wanted to get back into DDII eventually and got back into it I did, 'Kingdoms' itself was a very unique experience and finally completing that campaign even on the 'easiest' difficulty was some hard work but me and my heroes got it done (I think after I complete my second Kingdoms' run I'll write a full blog about that too). One of the biggest take-aways from Kingdoms is it is hard to keep running your favorite team because of the 'Fatigue' mechanic and basically Fatigue means if you keep using the same heroes they eventually lose up to 50% of their health if you push them too hard. Because of this I started experimenting with some new different team compositions that was not my team above. It was during this experimenting phase I finally found a team that did everything I needed and more. So with a little fanfare, let me introduce you to 'Holy Fyre' the Squad that helped me finally obtain the Grand Slam trophy.

Bringing up the rear is my trusty Vestal who I named Kassie.

Every squad needs a healer and whilst Vestal is not as strong in that department as she was in Darkest Dungeon, she is still gets the job done. Surprisingly what was previously my favorite path Seraph was not what I needed. I came to find the Confessor path was much better since her re-work. Sure, she could still heal when called upon but the 'Mantra' skill change meant I could finally get rid of de-buffs and her 'Illumination' could get rid of buffs on my enemies, especially annoying ones like Riposte and Dodge. Top that off with a hit anywhere skill like 'Judgement' that does good damage as well as stuns at higher levels of power helped me hit annoying rank 4 enemies pretty hard which is definitely a much needed skill in this game. Since her re-work, Vestal no longer feels like an after-thought like she did when the game first came out which is awesome because I feel she was unjustly nerfed too hard mainly because she was such a popular character (due to healing spam) in the original DD.

Holding it down for the third rank is my favorite character, the Occultist, whom I named Eli.

As stated above, the Occultist is my favorite character in Darkest Dungeon II and in running for my favorite character in the original as well (going toe to toe with Shieldbreaker) so you know I wanted him in a team that was going to obtain the Grand Slam. I didn't play around with his classes tho and went with Warlock like I usually go for and just did what I always did. Slam folks in the back rank with 'Abyssal Artillery', pulled folks closer and put a combo token on them for my front rank people to exploit with 'Daemon Pull' and of course, drop a bomb on them when possible with 'The Burning Stars'. Much like Vestal, Occultist being such a flexible support unit is what made him work in this team. However the MVP is surprisingly going to someone else. 

As mentioned, the MVP of 'Holy Fyre' is none other than Runaway, whom I named Jasper

Now I will not front. I did not know about Runaway's true potential until I was deep into Kingdoms. After a pretty steep learning curve when I tried her originally I did not like her. I did not like that despite being a 'fire' based character she was still vulnerable to fire like everyone else, her skills were counterproductive in the Sprawl aka where everyone is basically immune to fire damage and I did not like how she had to dance when she attacked. Then, I discovered 'Smokescreen' and everything changed. Smokescreen being a move you can use at any rank and it can hit ranks 1 to 3 on the enemy and inflict blind, vulnerable and combo? Blind being a key component in winning runs and avoiding damage since stuns were made into a 2 part process instead of instantly like in Darkest Dungeon? Smokescreen was also amazing because of how it works on so many enemies, even bosses. 'Ransack' was also a less effective version of 'Daemon's Pull' but it got the job done in getting enemies away from the back ranks and 'Cauterize' healing bleeding folks came in useful too. Finally her last key component was her role as the set up for my front line, with 'Smokescreen' as mentioned but her 'Firefly' cause combo and put burn on folks which my # 1 rank loved to exploit. Speaking of...

Finishing out the squad and my all rounder is my Crusader, whom I keep as his default name, Reynauld. I actually think his default name suits him so we ran with it.

I never knew until I did more research just how much Runaway and Crusader have so much synergy. Much like how Jester and Vestal formed Jestal in the original Darkest Dungeon, I feel Cruaway is a perfect pairing. I choose the Aggressor path which specializes in holy fire and low-key inspired the name for the squad. Of course, he is also our main stress healer and could pitch in with some healing when needed. In later runs when I realized he could be pushed into rank 3 by Runaway's dancing, I got to use my favorite skill of his 'Holy Lance' to get back to front and slam opponents as well but his main call to fame was 2 specific skills. 'Stunning Blow' took full advantage of the combo placed on enemies by Runaway and Occultist and put them to sleep and I found a lot of use for his 'Reap' skill which by-passed many enemies annoying death armor if they were on fire which Runaway supplied in spades and sometimes I was able to kill 2 enemies at once. Crusader was really the missing piece of this puzzle and because of how well he exploited the burn status that all 3 other members of the squad put on enemies they were truly a unstoppable team. Also I killed 2 birds with one stone (much like Reap does) and I got the Battle Hardened achievement too which requires you to apply 5 memories onto the Crusader and that was easy since we were doing the Grand Slam anyway.

There you have it, 'Holy Fyre' the team that helped me perform the impossible.

Grand Slam COMPLETED.

AV

P.S It goes without saying the narration of Darkest Dungeon I and II really helps enhance the experience and one of the reasons I love playing it with my sound turned up and not play background music like I normally do. The man who provided the narration, Wayne June is such a important part of the atmosphere of Darkest Dungeon series that it is sad to say we as a fanbase lost him on January 2025. I just wanted to acknowledge the sadness we all share and thank him for his contributions. It goes without saying, the DD games won't be the same without him. 

Rest In Peace Mr. June.