Best Tips For Stress Relief

Stress is a critical gameplay mechanic in Darkest Dungeon 2 that tests the mental fortitude of heroes as they face off against all sorts of horrors on their treacherous travels. High levels of stress can break heroes’ resolve and reduce their combat effectiveness, making it essential for players to master stress relief if they want to beat Death in Darkest Dungeon 2.

From learning how to reduce stress during expeditions to equipping the best stress heals and items, the following tips ensure that players have an excellent understanding of keeping their party members sane and healthy. Prepare a torch. The road to the Mountain lies just ahead.

Related

Darkest Dungeon 2: All Crusader Skills, Ranked

The Crusaders has joined the expedition thanks to Darkest Dungeon 2’s The Blinding Blade DLC, and his skills are as potent and versatile as ever.

10

Prioritize Stress Management Instead of Healing

The Only Sustainable Way to Survive

The first key tip to remember when playing Darkest Dungeon 2 is to prioritize stress management over healing. Constantly trying to heal heroes is not a winnable strategy, especially when facing tough enemies on higher-difficulty chapters.

Unlike in Darkest Dungeon 1, healing health is more manageable in the sequel. However, maxing out stress can lead to Meltdowns that significantly reduce a hero’s health and impose negative quirks, making it much harder to recover. Keeping stress in check is far more crucial to survival.

9

Eliminate Stress Dealers

Take Down Key Threats to Regain Control

Some enemies in Darkest Dungeon 2 primarily focus on inflicting massive stress rather than physical damage. Ignoring them can be costly because they keep stacking stress damage on heroes (or the entire party with Horror) every round. This can quickly spiral out of control, forcing heroes to have Meltdowns.

Hence, stun or disable stress-inducing enemies like Ghouls, Drummers, Cherubs, and Deacons in the first round to stop them from applying stress. Do not worry too much about taking physical damage from other enemies. Use front-line heroes or tanks like Man-at-Arms or Leper to taunt and mitigate damage while the damage dealers eliminate stress dealers.

8

Land Crits to Heal Stress

Restore Composure and Boost Morale

In addition to dealing massive damage, critical attacks heal small amounts of stress in Darkest Dungeon 2. Heroes like Highwayman, Duelist, and Hellion have a good chance of stress-healing themselves multiple times during a fight. Hence, when building damage dealers, prioritize upgrades or items that increase their critical hit chance.

7

Choose the Least Stressful Paths and Choices

Check What the Heroes Prefer

Whenever the Stagecoach reaches a crossroads, carefully evaluate the available routes and choose the path that the majority of heroes prefer. This will not always be unanimous. Check the speech bubbles over the heroes to see their preferred path. Taking a route a hero likes or dislikes will cause them to take or heal stress damage. That said, players should avoid dangerous routes if their heroes are suffering from high stress.

Additionally, when given dialogue choices after reaching specific locations such as creature dens, refrain from choosing the ones that induce stress points.

6

Visit Field Hospitals to Remove Negative Quirks

Remove Negatives, Lock in Positives

Field Hospitals are rare location nodes that restore health, cure diseases, sell healing items, and importantly, manage quirks. They are the only places where players can lock in or remove quirks in Darkest Dungeon 2.

While most negative quirks can be ignored, some like Boisterous, Cowardice, Needler, Pacifist, and Hemophobia can make stress relief pretty difficult. Hence, remove them from Field Hospitals provided that players have enough relics to spare.

Related

Darkest Dungeon 2: Each Confession (& Their Differences)

As players go through Darkest Dungeon 2, they’ll get a choice between which Confessions to face but precious little information about each one.

5

Bring Stress-Healing Combat Items

For Critical Stress Heals

Heroes can loot and purchase combat items for various effects, including stress heals and stress resistance. Laudanum is the best consumable in this regard, removing Horror and reducing 1 stress point from an ally. It is typically useful against tough enemies or bosses that continuously inflict Horror. It also allows stress healers to use their other skills instead of being bound to giving stress relief in every round.

4

Equip Stress-Resistant Trinkets

Boost Resilience With Shiny Ornaments

There are a few trinkets that grant stress resistance or stress heals. While not the best trinkets to have in Darkest Dungeon 2, they can be useful if players are running heroes without major stress-reducing skills.

3

Have the Best Stress Healers

Easiest Way to Deal With Stress

The Jester is the best stress-healing hero in Darkest Dungeon 2. While a bit difficult to play for beginners, a good Jester build typically follows the Virtuoso hero path with Inspiring Tune. The former increases stress resistance for the entire party at the start of each round, and the latter removes Horror while reducing three stress points for any hero.

However, the Jester is not the only one with strong stress-healing skills. Several other heroes also have powerful skills to keep them or the party from losing their sanity.

2

Gain Positive Relationships at the Inn

Foster Bonds to Unlock Powerful Synergies

Focus on buying Inn items that improve relationships between heroes instead of improving their combat capabilities. This is one of the easiest ways to gain stress relief. Heroes with positive relationships in Darkest Dungeon 2 are less likely to cause stress to each other by bickering on the road. They also remove more stress points from each other during combat.

Your changes have been saved

My List

My Favorite Games
My Played Games
My Games Wishlist

Darkest Dungeon 2

Systems

Franchise

Darkest Dungeon

Released

May 8, 2023

Developer(s)

Red Hook Studios

Publisher(s)

Red Hook Studios

Engine

Unity

ESRB

t

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

Expand

1