Leper/Strategy

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Overview

Leper generally wants to be placed into Rank 1 and is a disruption/utility frontliner with a secondary role of dealing damage to the enemy front line.

His strengths include:

  • Extremely high survivability thanks to his massive health pool and Solemnity
  • Taunting via Markself-marks
  • High disruption/utility with Intimidate and Purge, with Intimidate able to trivialise certain boss fights and high-damage enemies.
  • Killing bosses using Revenge
  • Killing front liners with his high base damage
  • Extremely high stalling potential.

But his weaknesses are:

  • His damaging abilities have low accuracy, the lowest of any hero skills.
  • Low damage against backliners: Outside of Intimidate dealing small amounts of damage, none of his skills hit the back line.
  • Extremely low SPD
  • Low Bleed Bleed resist
  • Position dependent: Intimidate and Purge become unusable when moved out of Rank 1, and practically his entire kit becomes unusable in the back ranks.

In most teams Leper acts as a disruptive frontliner with additional utility and frontline clearing options.

Solo/Duo Leper

Because of his high stats and self-sustainability, the Leper is one of the best heroes, if not the best, for solo and duo expeditions and can actually defeat most Bosses by himself.[1] And because reinforcements don't spawn when there are two or fewer heroes, a solo or duo Leper can effectively stall forever and heal himself with Solemnity.

Skills

Chop

Leper's highest damaging ability. It has low ACC, but doesn't usually need more than one ACC Trinket, since most frontliners usually don't have too much DODGE. Thanks to Leper's massive base damage, he can afford to hit into some protection and still deal good damage. It allows him to fill his secondary role of onetapping high-priority frontliners such as Drowned Thrall or Pelagic Grouper.

Hew

Generally the worse version of Chop. It's usually better to take out one enemy and then focus on the second enemy. With Leper's relatively limited skill space, this rarely sees usage. One niche where it can be good is Shambler to kill both Clapperclaws with just one attack.

Purge

A solid disruption tool that can be used on frontliners that can get disrupted by getting moved back, such as Cultist Brawler. It can also be used to clear corpses against enemies like Bone Bearer or Hateful Virago to prevent the uses of their corpse-related skills, or used to effectively "pull" enemies in the backline up front when the frontline is already dead. In addition to all that, it also buffs Leper's ACC by a bit and deals pretty solid damage (more than Hew single-target).

Revenge

A huge damage/ACC buff that mainly exists for boss fights. Because it requires a turn to set up, this is usually too slow outside of boss fights to be worth it.

Withstand

A solid attack-drawing skill. While not 100%, Markself-marking tends to be highly effective on higher difficulties.[2] It's also very effective against enemies with MarkMark synergy, since some of them are guaranteed to target Marked heroes, such as Fungal Scratcher. Synergises extremely well with his high health pool and Solemnity.

Solemnity

By far the best self-heal in the game, allowing the Leper to fully heal health and stress at the end of every battle. When combined with other skills like Withstand, Intimidate, or Battlefield Bandage, the Leper can even effectively outheal a lot of enemies.

Intimidate

By far Leper's best skill and arguably one of the best skills in the game. It's main use is to enable Leper to attract damage while disabling a dangerous target at the same time. Can completely shut down certain bosses.

  • Unlike the rest of his skills, Intimidate has very high ACC and is very easy to make guaranteed: a Focus Ring or Fortunate Armlet and Debuff Amulet are enough for the entire game.[3]
  • It hits every rank.
  • As with Withstand, the self-Mark Mark from Intimidate helps him draw enemy attacks.
  • It can clear and bypass Stealth Stealth, which can help against high-priority targets such as Pelagic Shaman or Crone.
  • The huge -SPD debuff gives allies more time to deal with a dangerous target. SPD debuffs synergise really well with stuns, effectively prolonging a stun or Surprise for a second round. This is especially important since it can allow other heroes to kill priority target before they get to take their actions on the second turn.
  • While it may not deal the most damage, it's high-accuracy nature allows it to guarantee hits against most enemies, which can be very important to guarantee finishing blows on already damaged targets.
  • A huge +SPD buff to the Leper himself, turning the Leper from second slowest hero in the game to an above average one. This allows him to do a wide variety of things much sooner in the following turn, like using Withstand before damage dealers get to act, Intimidate again to snipe or debuff another target or just Chop to kill a frontliner before he can act.
  • The -DMG debuff is huge and can be stacked with itself. Paired with the Occultist's Weakening Curse, it can completely shut down certain bosses, like the Swine Prince or Prophet, or high-damage enemies like the Unclean Giant, making their attacks do 0 damage and completely trivialising otherwise very, very dangerous fights.[4]
  • The -DMG debuff also helps Intimidate fill another role, being its incredible stalling potential. It lowers the enemies' damage while also dealing very low damage. This can often put size 2 enemies into the scenario where they deal no damage, but the heroes are constantly healing their health and stress with no threat of reinforcements.

Camping Skills

Let The Mask Down

Not a great camping skill, even for one point. Leper is usually not the one having problems with Stress, since Solemnity is so good at recovering his own Stress. Giving the rest of the party Stress to recover Stress that can be healed of very easily is not a worthwhile use of a Respite Point.

Bloody Shroud

A huge defensive buff for only 2 Points. This gives Leper a really good chance to resist pretty much anything, which helps quite a bit with his general idea of drawing attacks using Markself-mark.

Reflection

An incredible offensive setup skill. 3 Points isn't too expensive for what is essentially Focus Ring's stats. Similar campskills do exist, like This is how we do it from Bounty Hunter for two Points or Tiger's Eye from Jester for 3 Points. A good press if the party doesn't need recovery anymore.

Quarantine

Another great camping skill. For 3 points, it gives the rest of the party a massive stress heal with very little downside; the Leper can easily heal the self-damage with Solemnity.

Trinkets

Because of how good Intimidate is, a typical tank/support build uses an accuracy trinket along with Debuff Amulet to make it reliable. Pure tank or solo/duo Lepers typically equip two PROT trinkets which, along with Withstand used on the first turn, boost his PROT to the maximum value of 80%. Alternative builds like pure damage leper are also possible.

As with other heroes, getting lucky with an ACC quirk like Natural Swing or Corvid's Eye can make the Leper's trinket choices much more flexible.

Class Trinkets

  • Healing Armlet - Better than an empty slot. Can be used early game, until better alternatives are found.
  • Redemption Armlet - The Leper rarely cares about extra damage since ACC is much more important for him. The trinket is better than an empty slot, but will be quickly replaced by ACC trinkets or better offensive trinkets.
  • Fortunate Armlet - An incredible early find—one source of ACC is required to make his most important skills reliable. Other ACC trinkets like Focus Ring or the Ancestor's Signet Ring offer more supplemental value than the Fortunate Armlet, but the Fortunate Armlet is the easiest to acquire and can more or less be used the entire game.
  • Immunity Mask - A decent defensive trinket. The -Max HP is a small bit of HP for essentially Stun immunity and very high DoT resistance. A solid defensive Trinket to get, but usually swapped out for Recovery Charm
  • Berserk Mask - A decent trinket for offensive builds. The downsides aren't too bad because the Leper has insane recovery and +8% CRIT and +3 SPD are extremely good.

Exclusive to The Crimson Court DLCCrimson Court

  • Last Will And Testament - A solid Trinket for a very defensive Leper that focuses more on Tanking instead of using Chop. The downside should never matter since Leper's survivability is so high.
  • Tin Flute - Usually not too great since Leper has both Solemnity for his own Stress and his campskills already heal more than enough Stress.
  • Set Bonus - The conditional ACC can be a bit scary, since you can easily lose it and have Leper have 0 extra ACC, which basically turns off Chop. Simply too unreliable and Tin Flute simply isn't good enough to equip very often.

Exclusive to The Color of Madness DLCPetrified Amulet

It's outclassed by other ACC options and is not worth the shards. While conditional ACC and Max HP aren't terrible, dumping Leper's already low Bleed Bleed resist further is really rough.

Notable Neutral Trinkets

  • Focus Ring - A solid, standard ACC Trinket. The -DODGE isn't too much of a downside due to his high recovery.
  • Sun Ring - As above, but with less ACC, more DODGE and +stress. Again, the extra stress isn't much of a downside due to his high recovery.
  • Ancestor's Signet Ring - A great late-game trinket; the +ACC makes his skills reliable while the +PROT synergises with his role as a tank.
  • Debuff Amulet - Required to make Intimidate reliable.
  • Move Amulet - Similar to Debuff Amulet but for Purge instead.
  • Recovery Charm - A great defensive Trinket that can be swapped around between party members to get even more value, while also giving good defensive value.
  • Barristan's Head — A great PROT trinket. Can be acquired early on and used the entire game. The stress downside is negated by Solemnity.
  • Heavy Boots — Another excellent easy-to-find PROT trinket. Move Move resist is great for Leper, and -SPD doesn't really matter for a tank Leper because he is already so slow.

Quirks

Leper generally likes Quirks that increase his defenses, such as +Bleed resist or +Blight resist to increase his tanking potential, offensive Quirks that boost his damage output or even Speed Quirks to get quicker Intimidate uses.

Good Quirks

  • Accuracy Quirks - If enough +ACC is already provided by Quirks, Leper can run much more flexible Trinket loadouts focusing on utility/damage instead, allowing for extremely potent builds
  • Defensive Quirks - Incredible to further bolster his defensive abilities.
  • Speed Quirks - Help him take out frontliners quickly or allows Intimidate to get faster value
  • Offensive Quirks - Damage or crit, if it allows Leper to hit harder using Chop, it's a good have.

Teammates

Occultist is a fantastic pairing. Weakening Curse combined with Intimidate allows for extremely quick damage negation to set up incredible stalling. Occultist's Wyrd Reconstruction can also fill up Leper's huge Healthpool with a single use, given that it highrolls. In addition to this, Vulvernability Hex can debuff the Dodge of high-dodge targets, allowing Leper to set up guaranteed onetaps.

Plague Doctor is an especially potent pairing in Cove, allowing for incredible disruption against the usually difficult to handle Pelagic Shaman by utilizing Intimidate alongside Blinding Gas. Battlefield Medicine can also negate Leper's low Bleed Bleed resist by cleansing Bleed Bleed on him. Her Blight Blight can also clean up the enemies with Protection that Leper can struggle with.

Arbalest is another fantastic pairing, providing payoff for the disruption Intimidate provides by killing backliners. The main draw for this duo is their defensive ability though. Battlefield Bandage can keep stacking on a taunting Leper to increase his self-sustain to absurd levels. Rallying Flare can also clear any stuns that find their way onto Leper and clear the Markself-mark in a pinch. Suppressing Fire can also combo with Intimidate to make damage-dealing backliners unable to deal damage crit and hit consistently at the same time.

Leper in different regions

Ruins

Apprentice

Overall Leper is not a terrible pick, but not outstanding either.

Veteran

  • Bone Soldier gaining Stealth Stealth gives Intimidate an additional upside alongside always being great against Soldier's on-hit damage.
  • Bone Spearman is a great target to push back using Purge, since he can't use his most threatening attack in Impale while in the backline. Similarly Intimidate is a fantastic tool to counter Spearman'sHowever, Spearman will still use Spear Thrust to potentially push Leper out of position.
  • Bone Captain is a fantastic addition for Leper. Being a size 2 enemy allows Intimidate to lower his damage to gain extremely high stalling potential, since Captain doesn't deal Stress or Damage over time.

Overall Leper is a good pick.

Champion

  • Bone Bearer makes Purge even better. Being able to clear Corpses is a huge advantage and allows Leper to deny Unholy Rally which would otherwise keep reviving skeletons. Killing enemies with Purge also doesn't leave any Corpses, which is quite nice to finish off enemies in the frontline without the threat of being revived.

Overall Leper is a good pick.

Warrens

Apprentice

Overall, Leper is an okay pick.

Veteran

Overall, Leper is a good pick.

Champion

  • Swine Skiver is a massive threat, since getting hit by Spit To Roast can immediately disrupt Leper for the rest of combat by pushing him all the way to the back and stunning him. In return, Leper can't do much, as he isn't fast enough to use either Purge to try and push frontliners behind Skiver or Intimidate to lower Skiver's massive damage potential.

Overall, Leper is a mediocre pick.

Weald

Apprentice

Overall, Leper is a fantastic pick, since he's the best hero to taunt the Scratchers using Intimidate

Veteran

Overall, Leper is a great pick since he can still kite Scratchers and counter Giant and Crone very easily.

Champion

Overall, Leper is a great pick for much of the same reasons as in Veteran.

Cove

Apprentice

Overall, Leper is fantastic for Cove, as the multitude of dangerous frontliners with no Protection make his frontline clearing ability quite valuable.

Veteran

Overall Leper is still fantastic for Cove, as he becomes one of the best ways to deal with Pelagic Shaman alongside his amazing frontline clearing against the various high-threat frontliners. Be mindful of Uca Major and bring Bandages or a form of Bleed Bleed clearing, such as Battlefield Medicine.

Champion

Leper gets even better. The many low-Protection high-priority enemies make Leper feast in the frontline while also being a fantastic counter to Pelagic Shaman.

Exclusive to The Crimson Court DLCCourtyard

Apprentice

  • Most enemies have no Protection, with the exception of Supplicant, who is by far the least threatening enemy. They do have high Dodge in return though, which can make Chop a bit unreliable to land. If he can get enough ACC, Leper is fantastic to take out almost everything this region can throw at him.
  • Intimidate takes a bit of a backseat, as not many enemies can actually hit for larger numbers. Most of them rely on Stress and are extremely easy to take out quickly due to low HP. It's still a very consistent finisher and can slow down priority targets when the frontline is clogged up by low-priority Supplicants.
  • Purge can be a very good option for damage, due to its higher ACC compared to Chop.
  • Manservant can pull heroes in front of Leper with Enraging Slight, disrupting his positioning.

Overall, Leper is a fantastic pick for Courtyard if you can get his ACC high enough to hit the enemies with higher dodge.

Veteran

Overall, Leper is a fantastic pick if you can get his ACC up. He can be a bit clunky against Chevalier, but Intimidate is always good against something that hits hard.

Champion

Exactly the same as in Veteran.

Exclusive to The Crimson Court DLCLeper with Crimson Curse

Leper is a fantastic user of Crimson Curse. The general Disease-immunity can be extremely useful when drawing disease-causing attacks, such as Rabid Rush.

Passive

The extra SPD helps all of his skills to get used quicker, allowing for more value from both his disruption and taunting. The defensive downsides are barely an issue for him, as he can easily stomach a -10% Max HP cut. The lower BleedBleed resist is also not a big deal, as his is very low anyways.

Bloodlust

Bloodlust is when Leper really shines. The massive 4 SPD allows him to outspeed a lot of enemies he has no business outspeeding normally. This allows him to remove Stealth Stealth quicker, get more value from Markself-mark as he goes before the enemies that would've normally taken their turn before the taunting was taking effect. It also makes Chop usable a lot sooner, helping him clear priority frontliners such as Pelagic Grouper before they can act.

The +dmg is obviously fantastic for Leper. Chop hits obscenely hard, often simply onetapping things through Protection with Bloodlust active. This is extremely powerful in Bossfights, as Leper can quickly delete the Health of any Boss within his reach.

The Act-Outs can prove to be more of an upside as well, since Leper moving forward due to an act-out when moved back can be extremely useful. Usually though, he will simply stress out the rest of the team or hit them with his high damage act-out attack.

References

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOP2_jyYc7Q&list=PL9fBOVW0Qwa8j6pH1DRomPI26YyQQkz6t
  2. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/q4j0gc/some_selfmark_love/
  3. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/1665xo0/average_hit_chance_per_acc_value_per_region_for/
  4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnkoIicwxn8



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