Combat Mechanics (Darkest Dungeon II)
- Combat Mechanics
- Stress
- Damage over Time
- Tokens
- Critical Hits
- Death's Door
The following page is an overview of the combat system in Darkest Dungeon II.
Rounds and Turns
Combat takes place over a numbers of rounds, and each round consists of Heroes and Enemies taking turns (also known as actions). The order in which units act is determined by their Speed.
Normally each unit has one action per round, but certain enemies (typically bosses) may innately act multiple times per round. There are also many abilities and items that grant extra actions. Certain actions, like using Combat Items, are considered free actions: these do not trigger effects that might normally trigger at the beginning or end of an action, including damage-over-time effects.
Attributes
Health
Each unit has a certain amount of 
Health, (or Hit Points, or HP) that represents how much damage they can sustain.
Most enemies will die immediately when their HP is depleted. Heroes, on the other hand, as well as certain enemies, will not die upon reaching 0, but will instead enter a state called 
Death's Door.
Speed
Speed affects the order in which units act in combat. At the beginning of each round, a round speed is calculated by adding each unit's Speed to a random number from 1 to 6. This value determines the order for that round—the higher the round speed, the earlier the unit will act. Note that the round speed is not displayed anywhere in-game. Enemies that have multiple turns per round will roll separate round speeds for each turn.
Stress
Stress is a mechanic that represents the psychological state of Heroes in Darkest Dungeon II. Many enemy attacks inflict , and may also be gained in other ways throughout the course of the expedition. Because of its increasingly negative effects at higher levels, managing is crucial to the success of the expedition.
Resistances
Each unit has certain Resistances, corresponding to the many Status Effects that can be inflicted in combat. Resistances may be modified in many ways by skills, items, and so on. Certain skills may also pierce resistances, negating a certain amount of the target's resistance value.
Damage
For calculating damage, all modifiers on the attacker are added together, then all modifiers on the defender are added together, and the final damage modifier is the product of the two sums. Critical hit effects are applied separately. Consider an example of a Hellion attacking with Howling End:
- Suppose she has 25% bonus damage from her path, two trinkets each granting 20% bonus damage, a quirk granting 15% bonus damage, and a
Strength token. Then her damage bonus is 25% + 20% + 20% + 15% + 50% = +130%, or an effective damage multiplier of 2.3. - Suppose the enemy has a
Vulnerable token. Then the enemy takes +50% increased damage, or a multiplier of 1.5. - A critical hit causes the attack to hit for the maximum value in its range, and multiplies the final damage value by 1.5.
So the total damage dealt would be 2.3 * 1.5 * 1.5 * 18 = 93.15.
Critical Hits and Critical Heals
Most hero or enemy skills have a chance to become a Critical Hit, or Crit, dealing more damage or healing more than usual. Critical hits have 20% higher resistance piercing for any Status Effects they may apply, including damage over time, debuffs, and Movement. Skills that do Damage over Time also have their durations extended by 2 turns.
Status Effects
There are a large number of different status effects in Darkest Dungeon II, from buffs and debuffs to 
Damage over Time. The vast majority of status effects last for three turns, including the current turn; and in particular, buffs and debuffs typically need to be refreshed every other turn. Unless explicitly specified, status effects listed on the wiki should be assumed to last for three turns.
Damage over Time
There are three types of damage-over-time effects: 
Bleed, 
Blight, and 
Burn. They are quite similar in function, each gradually reducing the unit's health over time. Certain heroes have particular affinities or weaknesses towards different types of damage over time. Different types of damage over time are also more common in certain Regions, and enemies within them will typically be strong in one type or another.
Move
Many abilities 
Move the user or the target. There are several different types of effects:
- Forward and Back effects move the user (or ally) towards or away from the opposing side.
- Pull and Knockback are similar effects, but applied to enemies instead of allies.
- Shuffle moves the target to a random position.
Move effects can be both beneficial or detrimental—combat skills require the user to be in a certain position, so moving can enable new skills to be used, or disable the moved target entirely.
Tokens
Many status effects in Darkest Dungeon II are represented by Tokens, which are visible below the health bar of any combatant. Tokens have a large number of interactions with skills, items, and other tokens.
Stun and Daze
Stun and 
Daze are two special negative tokens. causes the target to lose their next turn, while causes their turn to be pushed to the very end of the round. Unlike other negative tokens, which can be resisted by 
Debuff resistance, and have their own 
Stun resistance attribute.
Regeneration
Regeneration is a status effect that restores a unit's health over time.
Because it is a status effect and not a direct heal, skills that grant Regeneration are not affected by Healing Given modifiers. The recipient of may still benefit from Healing Received modifiers, but not Healing Received from Skills.
Horror
Horror is a status effect that inflicts Stress on a hero over over time.
Buffs and Debuffs
Most of the remaining status effects fall into the categories of 
Buffs or Debuffs which help or hurt the unit, respectively.
Combat Items
Each hero may equip a single Combat Item. Combat items may be used at the beginning of the hero's turn as a free action, and have a large number of different effects, from healing and buffing, to disrupting the enemy formation.