People: Why waste a turn stunning? Me: I have large interest in not dying

This is interesting because of certain boss designs. I won't spoil much but certain bosses try to win via action economy, by disabling a character or even summoning enemies on their side. They are relatively not a threat but instead try to overwhelm you, especially when some of them have multiple actions per turn or even shuffle your party. I honestly think this is more interesting and dynamic boss design than let's say, a boss having a lot of HP and hitting for a lot of damage.

I bet some newer player will click on this eventually and be like "Is this man talking in Enchantment table?"

Worth noting that you can afford to equip some -1 speed trinkets to Crusader without worry if you're starving for ideal trinkets. He wears them well.

I stopped playing after a bit, I don’t see a reason to start again but your videos are nice to listen to in the background while I work

there is nothing that satisfies quite like stacking speed on shieldbreaker, rolling up to a battle with 4 spiders, and killing all of them with impale first thing. bonus points if the spiders are surprised, even if it doesn't actually matter

On the stock bandit fight, pulling the gunner forward also negates the big bandit's default point blank shot, arguably among the more dangerous actions given his damage and higher hp. Punish deals relatively low stress comparatively.

Stress reduction is long term, and saves town money. Damage/crit boost/etc are short term, and can reduce damage taken/stress taken. It's situational because sometimes you have half your team close to going bonkers, and stress reduction will give you more than a buff skill. Or maybe the offensive and defensive boosts will finish the battles sooner and that stress won't matter. It's better to have options, and decide on a case-by-case basis.

I’ve found QuickDraw Charm helps Crusader and other slower allies in recovering that lost turn per battle; the negative speed doesn’t hurt because they’ll go last anyways. This to me is more important than a damage trinket or something else, because having that turn to stun, or buff, or do massive damage through the increased crit chance! A good proactive charm imo.

11:05 “Movement Skills” developed enough action economy to garner an extra turn! That’s proof in motion!

8:50 I did not know I can swap skills in dungeons

I agree with speed being important and rispote being a *Bleep* you to action economy(you can hit the enemy on their own turn without DoT.) speed helps stop turns by kills(tire since you can act before the enemy makes a move.) which gives the player an advantage(a major one. This game was meant to be brutal. You need every advantage you can get. Even small ones are useful to grab.)

I have been doing a lot of what's in this video for a while, before even watching it, and it's nice to see I'm on the right track. Scouting, killing back line enemies in the surprise round, and stalling have made even Long missions much more manageable.

I'm noticing the quality on these vids steadily improve and it's really nice to see. Love your stuff, keep doing it as long as you like it. Cheers!

One thing I do to help with action economy when surprised is I always have at least one move per character that can work no matter what position they are in. For front liners it is usually a move that does damage. For back liners usually some sort of melee attack. That way when the party is surprised each character is contributing every turn until either the fight is over or the frontliners are back where they should be.

Great explanations as always, man. I said it in one of your other videos (I think it was the Man at Arms one?) that I see this game rewarding aggression more than reaction. Like you said if you can kill one enemy you effectively remove a whole turn from your enemy team. Surprising the enemy can be nice but like you said you may take 3 or 4 hits on one character right after that. There's a lot to think about and theorycraft even after the game's been out so long. I still haven't beaten it, but it's fun to grind for a few hours every now and then. The team I have the best results with is Vestal, Jester, Highwayman, Crusader. It's pretty much easy mode but generally the way it works out is, Vestal and Crusader stun, Highwayman uses Duelist Advance, Jester will either Battle Ballad or Harvest to bleed 2 targets. 2 enemies took damage and skip a turn, DOTs are applied, and reposit is on deck. Action economy for days at the beginning, then I can spam Vestals group heal and Jester's Harvest or Inspiring Tune. Works wonders, even though you're using all the "noob" classes. I honestly haven't found a better generalized team.

You made a small imprecision in saying that Jestal is necessarily reactive, since Battle Ballad, Dazzling Light and Finale are very active. And yes, Jester will counter her stress if you Finale her.

You can think about Cru like a proactive character, or at least reactive part of proactive team, if you consider stuns not trading+side effects your turn for enemy's, but trading one party member's turn+side effects for Crusader's. For example, high speed character stuns an enemy instead of killing them (dealing damage), two slow speed characters kill the enemy (at which Cru exceeds a lot with holy lance), and that's it, no turns for Cru being lost. Same idea with recovery: stun an enemy, enemy skips turn, Cru gets heals, next turn any high speed characters finishes enemy. No turns lost, considering you have character speedy enough. And even if you don't you can time any dot so it finishes the enemy instead. And btw stuns are only work that way ("trading turns") when you are 100% absolute guarantied to hit them. That is, attack gets hit at all (ACC-DODGE), target has low enough stun res (try to 100% stun a maggot lol), and you have enough buff to stun chance to get it 100% (weakest to stun enemies have 50% res to stun on champion, and most heroes's stuns have 140% chance). It's not that simple, even if your chances are 90%, one of your stuns out of ten are going to be weak turn or even useless one if you miss or the attack has no other effects (double stun and both res, or move+stun res). And while normal attacks easily compensate for that by only needing ACC for the attack to have full effect (PROT gets countered by dots and/or debuffs, dots usually easy enough to 100% hit if you use them on right enemy, I think there is no enemy which has high PROT and strong res for both dots), any side effects need to bypass enemies's resistances.

While I agree that reactive is less good, something like zealous speech is so good at clearing up the one stress hits you typically take per battle- as in your stun vs inspiring tune example.

Thank you. I wish you had a dedicated speed guide. It is most confusing thing for beginner to intermediate.

You are cute

Also I like using the terminology from chess when a piece is "overworked". That means when one piece protects two important spaces it seems all good until it will have to move to one of those spaces then the other will be exposed. Same when one chacacter is overworked that means they have to do two crucial jobs at the same time that only they can do, that means when they are the protector but also main damage dealer, when you'll be forced to protect in intensive fight you will have none main damage dealer e.t.c..

You're guides have been super helpful, this video just reminded me of how I play Xcom similar concept on action economy there

Great explanations! I think the next talent I have to figure out is looking at enemy speed and my own potential damage to learn to select targets appropriately -- something that in and of itself can help action economy as well.

Great discussion, gives some insight to how i play since my playstyle is alrdy more proactive and reactive when necessary. I should probably invest a bit more on some movement skills and out of all the skills my favorite is riposte. I have the duelist and xiao mod which adds more people who has the skill and its amazing to see enemies get downed by a counter.

I find it curious that you can spend 30 minutes here (and longer elsewhere) talking about action economy, and not at all mention how cleaves factor in.

"Attacking the enemies plans is the highest form of warfare"- Sun tzu

14:50 I don't know mate. I would say in many situations Plague Grenade is better. Especialy when you have two stress dealers on back. DoT goes before enemy move so very often I am able to kill one or two without them stress my team. Anyway great video 👍

10/10 thumbnail Edit: 10/10 video

Jfc the crits in this video hahaha

In the same vein as your Anti-MAA example, not all enemy turns are of equal worth (no need to convince anyone of that, I hope), which would make even a flat out "stun one target" move, if it existed, viable. You would use it if the character has nothing "better" to do and the enemy units move is potentially really dangerous.

nice video buddy

For someone like PD where you can either stun or blight, which is the better option to do turn 1? Because the stun is great, but the blight also means an enemy will be dead sooner, right? Not sure how the math ends up adding up for that. And yeah, action economy is why I'm not super big on mark comps, because even despite mark skills applying a debuff it still feels like I wasted a turn since I didn't do damage. At least come hither does a little damage and forces movement which makes it nice for screwing with backliners.

How do you feel how this video relates to dd2? In terms of denying enemy turns stuns are hard to come by, so someone might try to rely on blind. But that 50% to miss means it's pretty unreliable. I feel like unless you can stun it's just better to do raw damage with characters that can only blind or do damage, like plague doctor. The only time blind feels useful to me is when you blind an enemy's aoe attack, like the bandits cannon

Shuffle you going to get the tabletop version of DD? I got my pre order paid for and am hyped for it.

I am quite familiar with the concept of action econ, as an avid DnD Monk player, stuns are devastating, in any game

Kill backline first, got it......Kills Wilbur 0_0

I want to to start a run with crimson court dlc. should i enable the dlc from the beginning or when?

How does speed get you more turns? Every thing takes turns no?

Tempo is actually a chess term as well. 👌

Thumbnail is stronk

first time i've seen anyone call BRP Call of Cthulhu an awesome system, lol great vid tho

I hate the "move" button

It’s still nice it’s see darkest dungeon content. Even if it’s so old. (Plus I need to watch something for my interest in this dated game.)

worst man at arms and vestal ever. i bet he took them out of his collection.