Jester/Strategy

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Tactical Analysis

The Jester is an unusual hero who has a unique combination of skills. His primary advantage is his ability to heal the stress of allies — both in battle and during camps. Battle Ballad and Inspiring Tune are must-haves in his moveset — the former offers a great offense and speed buff to let your allies exterminate enemies quickly, while the latter is the strongest single-target Stress healing combat skill in the game. A maxed out Inspiring Tune backed up by his Bright Tambourine and Tyrant's Tasting Cup trinkets can erase about 18 Stress from an ally, easily keeping stress down to a minimum, including his own. When a Jester has no target to attack or during stalling against the last enemy, he is often seen spamming these two skills to keep the party in good shape.

His damage output can be tailored towards a fairly reliable bleed skillset — Slice Off and Harvest exchange poor base damage for fantastic bleed numbers to the enemy's middle ranks. However, those choosing these moves in favour of fixing the Jester's position should pair him with heroes that can target where he cannot. A Jester with no moving skills — i.e. using Slice Off, Harvest, Battle Ballad, and Inspiring Tune — often finds himself locked into position 3 to keep his entire skill set available. Make sure your team selections around this position are fixed if you choose this option.

A lot of the Jester's skills impart a long-lasting boost to his Finale, which can deal massive damage and CRIT potential if set up correctly. However, Finale can only be used once per battle and saddles the Jester with a significant debuff lasting the remainder of the battle, so it's ideal to use it as a finishing move after you've built up enough Finale buffs from the rest of the repertoire. Building around Finale often involves giving the Jester Solo, a skill that only serves to push the Jester all the way to the front, giving him a large Finale buff (stronger than everything else in his skill set) and a mixture of defensive buffs and mark to raise his and the party's survivability before the Finale lands. The Tyrant's Fingerbone further emphasizes the use of Finale by giving him even more DODGE and SPD when he's up front and about to unleash one.

The skills Solo, Finale, and Dirk Stab move the Jester, so one should take care to use other heroes who are comfortable with being moved or fit him into a dancing party with plenty of movement attacks. Some skills like the Crusader's Holy Lance and the Highwayman's Duelist's Advance can synergize well with this, but care should be taken to ensure a key ability does not become unavailable.

The Jester has the highest base DODGE in the game (but very low HP), so he appreciates trinkets with DODGE and buffs like the Man-at-Arms's Bolster and Antiquarian's Invigorating Vapours.