Hot takes are meant for criticism, no offense taken

Probably a really mild take but upgrading DoTs should give them RES Piercing

"Don't come in my house and piss on my rug..." I mean, that rug really did bring the room together, Dude.

Another reason backline damage *taken* by your team is harder to manage is because healing skills all use % heals instead of static numbers (like 4-6). Characters with low max hp also get healed for less hp per healing move.

An out of control Abomination needs to make a return in DD2. A unique bonus area where it's a town in ruin from a werewolf attack (or whatever he is). You encounter him in his beast form as a boss fight but after you defeat him he doesn't die just flees and you play his hero beacon (i can't remember what the back story levels are called, haven't played in a while!) When you complete his story with enough fights against him he regains his memories and joins the roster. With the path system I bet they could cook up some interesting interactions with normal/beast form

My newer, less hot take (probably) is that Abom should have had trinkets that have different effects depending on what form he is currently in. Like padlock of transference is good, but it feels bad that it essentially becomes a dead trinket the moment you transform. And I think that'd be a lot more interesting than whatever the hell Restraining Padlock is.

my hot(?) take is that DD2's skill descriptions are terrible. they tried to shorten them so hard with icons and trimmed bullet points that you have to hover over the whole description to understand what the hell a skill does. which defeats the whole purpose. also, DD1 absolutely disrespects your time. the only reason you need 16 guys and not 4 is because the darkest dungeon literally pulls out a message window and says "go grind 12 more guys",

My hot take is Musketeer should be added to DD2, NOT Arbalest 🗣 Also evil take time: If Leper werent a beloved meme he shouldnt have been in DD2, he feels like such an all or nothing character, either you devote tons of other resources and get a good payoff or you get NOTHING in exchange for a high healthpool.

I just wanted to add to my comment by saying that I think the Vestal is the hero that needs the most help but i don't think she's anywhere close to a liability on your team. Personally, I use her a lot (I used her to win my first Bastard's Beacon GS!) and there's things I really enjoy about her kit and things I dislike, like how she has no combo interactions. The way I look at her is how you describe your feelings towards DD 1's Abom. I'm loving the video so far btw :)

-Nice argument, FrankGulp. Why don't you back it up with a source? -My source is that I made it the fuck up! We should all be so brave and confident.

Cold Take: I wish in DD2 the DOTs damage were more varied in functionality than just damage. Its only used for countering resistances.

I think you misunderstand why people prefer 1-hour dungeon in dd1 to 3-hour run of dd2. Our brains want to finish job that was started (if our brain consider he is capable to finish it in one go). For a lot of people spending 3 hours on one run is hard in one sitting, but not impossible, so our brain is dissatisfied when we are stoping during this 3 hour run. I think closest thing to stoping playing at a tavern in dd2 is stop in a random room in a dungeon in dd1. Yes, there are almost no drawbacks in doing so in both cases, but monkey brain is displeased. Not to mention dd2 itself reinforces idea that it is a continuation, by using the same party (in dd1 player usually changes a group after each dungeon), and choosing destination at the start of the run (in dd1 there is a final destination, but people do not make a choice themself)

My Vestal take is that she's "bad" because everyone puts her at the back. Play rank 2 vestal and bring a healer, treat her as an off-tank/SUPPORT (not healer) and she shines. Personal favourite way to play her is rank 2 Seraph with 1 con and a backline that can swap places enough to generate extra tokens off of it. If she needs any buff, she needs to be WAY faster and divine grace needs some restriction lifted. Also swap the mantra effects for seraph and wanderer

Not really a hot take, but I wish DD2 had some system of incremental, high variance power gain for heroes to help differentiate runs from one another. Hot take: People are overblowing the whole stagecoach speed. It's alright, I wish they would make some distinct rare debris with good loot to look out for instead. Maybe even make these as "road encounter".

I don't know why they haven't implemented a draft mechanism for the hero trinkets. Maybe have a reward to choose one specific hero trinket after fighting a full lair? I know some of them turn the run to easy mode if the hero path is already broken, but it is really frustrating to get a hero trinket that is opposed to the path you chose (especially if you are experimenting with builds). This would also be an incentive to doing more lairs before late-game confessions.

DD2 should've been called "2 Darkest 2 Dungeon", obviously.

42:00 Speaking of 'need to bring this guy' I think specifically in the early game I feel like resentment demands Iron Swan way too hard before you get more unlocks.

I wanted to further advance my take in the vid (physician in a fire team). Plague doctors megneseun rain (more with mastery or the memory) does solid damage every other turn, giving enough (but not too many) turns to recover/heal and use cc. Additionally a 4 position dot splash can be great for destroying death armour, using apply on hit trinkets, and synergizes great with a direct damage team. Additionally, a character that combos with fire (aka backdraft runaway or aggressor crusader) could put in good work to increase pds damage

I think control tools aren't weak in DD2. The control tools for the enemy are insanely powerful. Control tools made DD1 too easy so stun is purposely rare because skipping someone's turn is broken

I thought that you would say "LEPER IS NOT EVEN AN DAMAGE DEALER HE IS... WEIRD"

Beacon has a very weird difficulty curve, starting tough, then getting progressively easier with a huge difficulty spike at the end.

Survivor Runaway is an great tank with any bonus regen on your team, and frontline Orphan is more effective than it seems.

Originally my hot take would’ve been “Hellion is best girl” but this is of course an obvious objective fact. So I’m going to have go the take with PD being the most boring character from DD1, and one of the only reason she becomes more fun is because of cause of death and the greater attention incision play styles.

We need to gather every single person that said some variation of "the driving in DD2 takes too long compared to hallways in DD1" and make them play long weald missions without speed mods. Both games are pretty slow in the base experiences. I am DEFINITELY getting some kinda speed mod when modding arrives for DD2 cause I agree that it takes a while, but saying that it applies to DD2 over DD1 is just unfair to me. Edit: fixed grammar cause I can't type.

My hot take: (I don't think this is a hot take) All the tool tips and move descriptions should include actual numbers instead of a short summary. Example: Duelist paths' description of the new riposte effects. I want to see numbers and know what my character is going to do without having to go to a wiki. Also, negative relationships shouldn't re-assign the skills effected to a different number if they are already equipped. Let my skills stay where I like them on my bar.

My hot take is that I don't like the meta progression in DD2. In DD1 by week 3 once the guild is unlocked all the skills are available to me. Whereas in DD2 it's going to take me multiple runs and hours to unlock the all the skills for a party of 4. I get why they had to do that for a roguelike and its more bite sized for players newer to the franchise but man I just want to unga bunga and get to the combat at my full potential. As others mentioned I wish BR would scale down the hp so that fights would end 2-3 turns faster. 1 BR expedition roughly 60-90mins. A DD1 campaign takes me ~60hrs to complete. A BR playthrough took me 118hrs to finish and thats with setting the game to debug mode to run at x4 speed. I think the difficulty curve as it stands will make it inaccessible to most players. For DD1 I think Vestal is overrated and actually slows your team down from the main objective of killing the enemies but new or less experienced players fall into the trap of thinking they're lacking healing when in fact they're lacking damage or control and thats what is making the game difficult. I won't try to explain why or give examples.

As an avid BR enjoyer, that comment on short caverns mission and fight length hit too hard. Like what am I gonna finish first? Act 5 Stygian Flame or Complete every room fight Short Caverns mission?

I prob should’ve specified that I always play BM & my comment about CC was mainly about it feeling like a slog not being impossible. The CC enemies are overtuned when they appear in other zones (esp the Cove where you may have Blight heroes), eg, when you’ve gotta farm Baron invites. I’ve beat the game on BM a few times but I’ve also restarted a file as a result of a Cove wipe when the invite bearer did illusive exit. 😂 I do love DD1 & esp Farmstead, I just wish I enjoyed CC as much as the rest of you. I think it does serve the purpose of “filling up” that slow part of the game from level 3-5. I guess my other hot take would be shield breakers. I find them way too weak to play on BM in the beginning so I don’t start recruiting them til around Week 30 where I can get an experienced one. At Champion they’re great ofc. I wish I’d found DD2 to have as addictive of a gameplay loop but I’m not sure why I just didn’t stick to it. I may go back & give it another day

recently in BR my rapturous flagellant murdered my favourite arbalest, who'd survived so many heart attacks and deaths door checks before, she was a damn veteran I dismissed him immediately after fleeing

12:05 - Baron enjoyers, rise up 17:42 - Also a Bruiser Occultist Enjoyer. Personal favorite is to give him the Signet Ring since even a little bit of Prot goes a long way, and try to fish for a Luminous to lock in terms of innate Quirks, before looking for a Stun trinket of some kind

Shuff I have a hot take for you to react to: Derp's fanfic is the greatest piece of fiction in history. Only way to disagree is if you read it

1:13:12 DD2 new name: Darkest Dungeon Journey

Nice video NOT sleep to haha just two hours of disscussion i would have gotten alone in my head, thanks shuff your perspective about the game makes me wanna boot it again even after i killed my team with 3 memories because i JUST WANTED that region 1 trophy.

The take about Arb having setup made me think of her becoming something of a back line Leper where she is useless in ranks 1 and 2 and forced into 3 and 4. The setup could be more than combo synergy but something like a stance tokens like Duelist which would determine which of here abilities gets buffed or something like that.

My hot take is that courtyard missions are fun to finish in one run

DD2 feels too linear to me (in terms of character progression during a run). I wish characters could lvl up (like DD1) or you have inn items that give buffs for the run instead of inn to inn. Also I was hoping DD2 felt like Slay the Spire, where it can be super difficult but still some ways to feel over powered / combo IMO. Thanks for the DD content shuff!

Old nightsworn required no setup for big damage, but had an impactful downside, while the new one feels like it's all about the setup (repartee to stealth), which is too slow for my liking. It allows for some fun combos, like rogue hwm with riposte having an access to taunt, but I like my graverobber teams to be fast and with little to no sustain/control.

I guess I'm not gonna feel the maa nerf that much, unless it is to the ground. I already use him mostly for utility, like leper command synergy or dancing mark stuff.

Could you make an updated highwayman guide?

Didn't know it was a hot take but, doge is a balanced, and well designed mechanic in dd1 🤷‍♂️

I really like DD2, but I think the current design of character paths is really poor. For example, Runaway and Duelist, each of these two character paths is really difficult to use. With the current high-intensity combat mechanism, players can hardly choose other constructions. As a result, there are so many changing skills, but almost no one can use them. No other changes are possible. (Maybe you can build regardless of strength, but you basically can't win in the end.) This is my experience after playing for 300 hours. I really hope the official can make changes...

Heres a hot take. People not liking DD2 made Shuff not like DD1 🥵

Edit: summary of this long comment: My personal opinions are all about me and only affect my time, my wallet, and my decisions in general. Given the lack of explanations, which as I wrote are not necessarily necessary, anyone can take what I wrote as they want. To blame me or even to laugh. That's fine with me, it doesn't concern them. It's not about anyone but me. Sorry for the additions and the length of the post but since I'm writing it I would like it to be as clear as possible even if, actually, one shouldn't use Google Translator. My bad. I'm using google translate to write this post. Just as I wrote the one commented in this video. There may be errors so I apologize if they do. From my understanding "hot takes" means opinions on a topic. Now, the basis of what I have expressed is my hours in both games, no more, no less. Certainly in another context these would be rejected, probably even with laughter, but I'm not in that situation and there would be no way for me to fit everything I have experienced into a single comment on YT. No, I didn't have any prejudice. I only drew my conclusions at the end, after many hours if not hundreds on both games, making a parallel between the two but only at the end. So no, no confirmation bias. No strawman. It is true, however, that my comment may not be clear given the way I wrote it. To be honest, the fallacy consists in wanting to use a language I don't know. I played 805 hours and one minute on DD2 (I'm missing an achievement on this one) and 894 and two minutes on DD1 (I have all the achievements of the base game, I'm missing something from the DLC but not much). I beat both the games and see the credits roll at the end. Where I was born informal opinions need no explanation. Sure, it's better to argue them but they are not facts nor anything in my original comment is intended to be taken as proven fact. It's my personal opinion. Maybe it would have been interesting to discuss the reasons but I have no reason to do so nor was I asked since only my opinion was being asked on the matter. If I'm talking in a pub or bar about a topic and I give my opinion on a topic I don't have to explain the reasons. In a school assignment, things are obviously different. Edit: It made me smile a lot when the topic of college or school in general came up. Or that personal positions have been mistaken for universally established facts. The title of the community post to which I responded was, in fact, "opinions regarding...", but I also reiterated the issue within my post. As I wrote in response to another guy in these comments: LoL. But I liked the answer all in all.

NO, NOT THE SQUEAKQUEL

Probably a hot take that can't be changed, Ordainment feels terrible to play around with, as it makes certain moves like Ounce of Prevention useless by certain buffs given by Ordainment. This doesn't affect the first 2 acts, but act 3 and later is when it becomes a bigger problem. The run is supposed to get harder over time, but it can get out of hand in a major way which doesn't feel fun to play.

My hot take is that I enjoy both of the Color of Madness boss fights

damn I got falsed :( it's fair tho I mostly use divine comfort for low max hp teams and I just feel like I survive a lot better with it on there's probably better options

That, "ok" at my comment hurt

I have no hot takes, only lukewarm takes. Wait, that's a self-own Hot take: Hellion is not that hot

Hot take: I want dd1 bellow to do damage again.

I would rather have hellion trinkets from dd1 then garbage we have in dd2 there so bad also give us a crimson court region

POG!

I like the video

Happy to see you still committed to this bad game. Much love

DD2 hot take - make it more punishing when you lose a character, maybe make it that mastery is gained over a few runs so it feels more impactful when you lose a character, currently it feels like you lose a character or team wipe and its not that bad cos its just a few memories and quirks, so you can just run it back without feeling too attached to that character. DD2 feels much more session based than DD1 being campaign based. Both are incredible games thou btw.