Ever find yourself wishing you had some guidance to all the locations in Darkest Dungeon 2? If so, we’ve made this Darkest Dungeon 2 Location Guide for you. If you’re just beginning you are now doubt asking “What location should I go to?”, and it is one that you should continue to ask yourself as you keep playing. Sometimes it’s hard to determine which locations to go to in Darkest Dungeon 2, and not having a gameplan can cause your runs to end prematurely. In this post you can learn what each location can provide you in order to better make decisions on where to go on a given run. That way you can determine the best locations for Darkest Dungeon 2 based on their features and uses.
Throughout your journey you generally want to look for trinkets and mastery points to slowly increase the power of your party as you progress. In Darkest Dungeon 2, mastery allows you to upgrade your hero’s abilities by spending it at inns, making it valuable at all stages of the game. Trinkets are items that you can equip to a hero, up to a maximum of two per hero. They provide positive and usually negative effects, so it’s important to continue to search for optimal trinkets for your party. Throughout your progress your heroes will suffer disease and accumulate negative quirks, and unfortunately there are few opportunities to remove them. You will encounter all of this as you travel through the various locations in Darkest Dungeon 2. This guide takes you through all the different types of locations you can encounter in Darkest Dungeon 2 and how you should utilize them!
All-Around Great Location Choices
For our Darkest Dungeon 2 Location Guide we thought we’d start off with some great all-around locations. The following locations are great choices throughout the game. They can be useful from early to advanced game play whether your party is just starting or at expert level.
Academic's Cache
The Academic’s Cache is an extremely good choice in the early game due to the possibility of trinkets and food. Later on or once you have decent trinkets for all of your heroes, I prefer going to other options that allow you to earn mastery.
Field Hospital
Certain diseases and negative quirks can be crippling for heroes that have them, and The Field Hospital is one of the only ways to remove them. You can also buy medical combat items or heal your heroes here. However, I rarely heal my heroes here since they automatically heal on the road, and Field Hospitals are expensive enough already. That said, make sure you have plenty of gold before deciding to go to one!
Hero Shrine
These are almost a must-take if you are new to Darkest Dungeon 2. The Hero Shrines give a guaranteed mastery point for free, but more importantly you choose a hero in your party to permanently unlock another ability or two. Having more abilities allows you to customize or optimize your party more, which is hugely important when creating your party at the crossroads. However, once all of the heroes in your party have every skill learned (which takes a while to happen), Hero Shrines will just grant one mastery point, making this location far worse.
Assistance Encounter
If your torch is getting lower with no way to replenish it, Assistance Encounters are great for getting a little more to get you to the next inn! Alongside increasing your flame, you also have chances for stagecoach equipment and food, which are great items to get before going to an inn. The screen shot here shows “The Desperate Few” which is an example of one of the assistance encounter locations you can find in Darkest Dungeon 2.
Situational Location Choices
The locations featured below are good locations for specific scenarios in the game. These might come in handy if you need a specific combat item, mastery points, or other trinket.
Creature Den
If you are in need of mastery points or combat items, Creature Dens are very effective at giving you both of these. The creature parts item also provides a random bonus effect (there are multiple different effects) upon arriving at an inn, which can sometimes be extremely useful if the bonus aligns with any issues your party has. Aside from the creature parts, the enemies themselves in Creature Dens are easily managed if you have ways to cure bleed and blight, so it’s a good idea to have combat items such as antivenom and bandages to counteract this. Even though they might be easy to defeat, these enemies are good at giving your heroes diseases, which makes Creature Dens slightly risky.
Hoarder
If you have too many relics or gold on your hands, The Hoarder is the best place to go for some trinkets, combat items, and inn items. Inn items are always nice to have if you still have inventory space, and good combat items can be the difference between a winning fight and a losing one.
Lair
Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, but Lairs can vastly speed up this process. The vast majority of my runs end due to myself believing that I could take on the Lair boss when my party wasn’t up to par. Different teams are effective against different lair bosses, so it’s important to know which boss you will be fighting before you delve into the final level of a Lair. I never recommend attempting a lair boss in the first region since your party will need at least a few mastery points in order to deal with these bosses. Above is a screen shot of “The Great Library” lair from Darkest Dungeon 2.
Resistance Encounter
Resistance Encounters are a good location for reducing loathing, which will accrue as you arrive at each inn. This is an important factor to look out for, because when your loathing level gets above 2 it will start to have downsides. Resistance Encounters will also provide a small amount of loot, however it’s more of a side bonus. The main reason you should go to this location is if you need to reduce loathing. Pictured above is a shot of “The Towering Feast” which is an example of a resistance encounter from Darkest Dungeon 2.
Cultist Encounter
Similar to Resistance Encounters, Cultist Encounters will lower your loathing upon victory which makes them a good choice when at high loathing levels. They can also provide you with the possibility of mastery points, cultist trinkets, and general loot, but they are usually more difficult than Resistance Encounters. Simply put; more danger but more loot. Pictured above is “Oblivion’s Ingress” an example of a Cultist Encounter from Darkest Dungeon 2.
Extremely Situational Location: Academics Studies
The Academic’s Study is a coinflip which can benefit one of your heroes or massively harm them due to the mixed quirk. The trinkets you can obtain from this location are also risky to use since they have a chance of granting a negative effect instead of a positive one during combat. It is a high risk location, and the reward you can get is usually not worth it. There is a possibility that The Academic’s Study will allow you to fight The Shambler, which grants a few powerful Otherworldly Fragments combat items upon victory. The fight is worth taking if your party is quite strong, but overall this location is far too random and risky to go to in most scenarios.
Conclusion
After all of that, it’s important to know that each region has its own unique properties, including which locations are more common than others and the amount of path options you have. Detailed information is on Darkest Dungeon 2’s Altar of Hope Retail News, but here’s a quick rundown of the regions:
- The Foetor: Guaranteed creature den, more academic caches and assist encounters, less oases and field hospitals.
- The Shroud: Guaranteed watchtower and oases.
- The Sprawl: More hoarders and field hospitals, less academic caches, no oases or creature dens.
- The Tangle: Guaranteed creature den, more oases and academic studies, less watchtowers, hoarders, and field hospitals.
We hope you’ve found out Darkest Dungeon 2 Location Guide useful. In summary, there are no truly bad locations in Darkest Dungeon 2, however by thinking diligently about which locations you should go to can optimize the risk/reward in your runs. And when in doubt, head to the all-around great choices for the most consistency. With this in mind, hopefully you can have a smooth trip to The Mountain!
