Stalling

Most battles in Darkest Dungeon consist of two phases, a rush phase in which the party tries to kill dangerous enemies as quickly as possible, and a recovery phase in which the party heals and de-stresses in preparation for the next battle. Taking too long to recover, however, incurs combat delay penalties (typically called stall penalties or stalling penalties) intended to punish the player for delaying too long. Stalling penalties consist of increased stress on the party and enemy reinforcements spawning.

Conditions

The party is considered to be stalling for one round if the following conditions are met:

• There are two or fewer enemies alive, and none of the enemies are large (taking up two spaces or more).
• The party uses one or zero active skills that round:
  • A skill is considered active if and only it deals damage to the enemy, with only two exceptions:
    • The Occultist's Vulnerability Hex deals damage but is not considered an active skill.
    • The Jester's Solo is considered an active skill even though it deals no damage.
  • Note that heroes only need to use two active skills to prevent the stall penalty. This means that they can hit corpses or miss their attacks without incurring any stall penalties.

Aside from the above conditions, stall penalties will not be incurred in the following situations:

• Any boss battle.
• Any Farmstead expedition.
• The first tutorial expedition to the Ruins.
• There are two or fewer heroes in the party.
• The enemies include snakes from The Shieldbreaker DLC.
  • This includes both snakes appearing in the Shieldbreaker's nightmares, as well as snakes appearing afterwards in normal hallway battles.

Penalties

Normal

Stalling penalties are incurred when stalling for multiple consecutive rounds:

• After stalling for two rounds in a row, a hero will bark to notify the party that stalling penalties are about to occur.
• If the party stalls for a third round, the entire party will suffer stress.
• If the party stalls for another round after that, then reinforcements will spawn.

Reinforcements can consist of any enemies that may appear in the current dungeon. Reinforcements will not drop additional loot when killed.

The stalling timer may be reset at any point by using two active skills, as described above.

Accelerated

Certain enemies accelerate stall penalties. If all remaining enemies belong to the list below, then stalling penalties are incurred in the following way:

• After stalling for one round, a hero will bark to notify the party that stalling penalties are about to occur.
• If the party stalls the next round, reinforcements will spawn immediately, but no stress will be dealt.

Strategy

Stalling is a powerful tool for recovering during the middle of an expedition. In an ideal situation, the party can kill all but two enemies, then alternate between healing and attacking. For example:

• Use two weak attacks on round 5.
• Heal on round 6.
• Heal on round 7.
• Use two weak attacks on round 8.

Or alternating every other turn, in the case of accelerated penalties.

The existence of stalling penalties leads to a number of low-damage skills being highly valued for their ability to prolong the battle as much as possible without incurring stall penalties—the Bounty Hunter's Uppercut, the Occultist's Weakening Curse, the Leper's Intimidate, just to name a few.

There are also a number of relatively less harmful size 2 enemies—for example, the Bone Captain, the Large Carrion Eater, and the Swinetaur, against which the party can stall indefinitely.

Game Options

Combat delay penalties can be disabled in the gameplay options. This setting cannot be altered in Stygian or Blood Moon game modes. Disabling these penalties also blocks the Strict Mode achievement:

Image	Name	Description
	Strict Mode	Complete the game with default difficulty options