In that case, they are fairly infrequent and you would almost certainly have them sorted out long before you decided to take the Darkest Dungeon itself. Originally posted by LaserGuy:I think the mechanics of the nightmares make much more sense if you're starting from a new save. Thank you for the detailed answers and tips nonetheless ! TL DR : the SB is certainly a nice hero and the nightmares are an interesting mechanic, but to my taste it isn't good enough that I'd use her rather than any other hero who doesn't require that amount of babysitting when push comes to shove. My Shieldbreaker had a nightmare earlier while camping on the first level of the Darkest Dungeon, which cost me the life of a Bounty Hunter, which in turn eventually snowballed into my stygian run's failure by reaching the 12 deaths cap (as a consolation prize, I still managed to beat that first DD level with only 3 (virtuous) heroes left). In my experience the champion encounters were especially hard-hitting, combined with the increased importance of RNG at that level. I am still not convinced of the overall efficiency of bringing a Shieldbreaker who isn't done with her nightmares in a medium/long mission, since it effectively requires you to build the entire party around it, but I suppose at least it is doable.

Regardless, it gives you an idea of how both the fights (and the rewards) progress. Failing that, have at least one de-stealther and pick priorities apart.Īs far as I remember it's 3 nightmares in novice, 2 in veteran and 2 in champion - something to that effect. If you wish to trivialize the battles, use anti-stress camping skills for your SB's (and trinkets too if you desire), grab yourself AoE (if you don't want to slot in de-stealth abilities) such as Hellion/PD for front & back double-stuns (they hit regardless of stealth), Leper (Hew), Occultist (Artillery) etc etc. You can't use Laudanum outside of the Darkest Dungeon as far as I remember - but you can use everything and anything else, be it bandages, anti-venom etc. I'd say out of the 7 you generate, only 2 are somewhat questionable - the rest are quite juicy and help with certain playstyles. You start with basic green-quality trinkets and work your way up to her 2xSet pieces (Crimson Court quality). The loot is 'meh' because it's progressive.

The battles aren't that difficult at all, provided you see them coming and plan ahead - not so much when you're encountering them for the first time and haven't put together a comp or resources to handle it in an efficient manner (can kick your backside this way). It is actually very handy this way as you determine when to go for them and can plan appropriately, generating pretty solid trinkets for her whenever you desire, rather than having to grind them the standard way via missions with no set pattern, or clearing the Crimson Court for everyone elses. The mechanic in question is how you generate her set-trinkets. Is there something I'm missing here ? Do flashbacks stop after you've beaten them a certain number of times ? I really like the character design, but this is just too much of a hindrance to make her a viable option for important runs imo. If you're relying on a single dedicated healer, place them in rank 4 so that they're safe from the Adder stuns.

Stuns can help keep damage from their ripostes down, so PD is (as usual) a good choice for preventing damage and curing blights, although she'll be deadweight in terms of damage outside of Incision. Pliskins lose almost all of their raw damage if you can push them to the back ranks.

Shieldbreaker has a camping skill that will let most of your team's damage pierce their PROT if you don't want to bother with DoTs. The snakes are weak to Bleed and have innate PROT, so triggering the nightmares when you have a bleed/stun-heavy team isn't a bad idea. Using both methods can allow you to keep stress neutral at the cost of Jester losing all his actions to stress healing. You can make the stress much more manageable by stacking stress resist camping buffs on the Shieldbreaker Jester can also help in keeping the stress down since he heals stress and applies a stress resist buff. You get three nightmares for Apprentice missions and two each for Veteran and Champion.

Shieldbreaker darkest dungeon