Riposte
Riposte is a rare defensive effect that causes the user to respond to attacks with a counterattack.
The only hero skills that can trigger are the Highwayman's Duelist's Advance and the Man-at-Arms' Retribution, although some enemies have it as well.
Mechanics
When a unit affected by Riposte is targeted by a damaging attack, they will counterattack the attacker. The counterattack, or riposte attack, is a melee attack with the following stats:
- The Highwayman's riposte attack has 85% ACC and +5% CRIT mod.
- The Man-at-Arms's riposte attack has 90% ACC and +0% CRIT mod.
The counterattack uses the base damage and critical chance of the hero's current weapon. Its ACC does not increase when skill is levelled up, making it much less accurate in higher-level dungeons.[1] However, its ACC may still be increased normally by any trinkets and buffs that boost the user's (melee) ACC.
Skills that grant additionally debuff its damage and increase its crit for three turns:
| Skill | DMG Debuff | CRIT Mod |
|---|---|---|
| Duelist's Advance | -40% to -15% | 0% to 5% |
| Retribution | -40% to -20% | 0% to 4% |
The riposte attack will be triggered even if the original attack is dodged. Likewise, the riposte attack can be dodged as well.
When an enemy is killed by a riposte attack, any additional effects from their attack (i.e. Stress, 
Bleed, 
Blight) will not be applied. Critical hits may still inflict Stress, however.
Bleed and Blight damage, being status effects, will not trigger , but abilities that apply these statuses can.
will not be triggered while the unit is stunned.
Attacks which do not inflict damage (e.g. the Madman's Accusation) will not trigger . There are also certain rare damaging attacks (e.g. the Shrieker's Shrieking Flight or certain Countess abilities) that do not trigger .
Strategy
On their own, Riposte-based abilities suffer from a host of issues, including low-up front damage and unreliability—both from the riposte attack's low base accuracy, not to mention the fact that the enemy must attack the hero to begin with. The latter is especially detrimental, since avoiding enemy attacks is a basic principle of fighting efficiently in Darkest Dungeon. However, when paired with other effects, can become a highly action-efficient source of damage and damage negation:
Guard abilities can redirect enemy attacks to the Riposting hero, thereby multiplying the number of times Riposte will trigger.
Self-marking can have a similar effect.- DODGE and PROT can help mitigate incoming enemy attacks.
There is a natural synergy, for example, between the Man-at-Arms' Retribution and Defender: the guard from Defender and the self-mark from Retribution redirect attacks to the Man-at-Arms, while the PROT buff from Defender allows the Man-at-Arms to absorb more damage. Likewise there is also a powerful synergy between the Highwayman's Duelist's Advance and the Antiquarian's Protect Me. Alone, the Highwayman has no way of redirecting attacks to himself; however, not only does Protect Me force another hero to guard the Antiquarian, but it also marks the hero and increases their PROT and DODGE. With moderate support, particularly healing, the Highwayman-Antiquarian combination is powerful enough to take on dungeons at any level.
Per attack, the Highwayman's deals more damage than the Man-at-Arms'. However, the Man-at-Arms has more ways to force enemies to attack him.
It is usually not advised to use a skill two turns in a row. This is because riposte duration only needs to be refreshed once every other turn; and furthermore, each riposte-granting skill debuffs riposte damage for three turns, so using it repeatedly will reduce riposte's damage output.
Conversely, since they can trigger multiple times in a turn, attacks scale very well with bonuses to (melee) DMG, ACC, and CRIT. DMG bonuses are especially efficient because they can cancel out the skills' innate damage debuffs.
Riposte abilities excel when facing certain bosses. Many bosses have multi-target attacks and multiple actions per round, making it much easier to trigger counterattacks. Additionally, accuracy is somewhat less important when facing bosses than in regular fights—while accuracy normally allows the player to guarantee deathblows and thereby prevent future enemy actions, this is not possible when facing bosses; it is simply necessary to deal a lot of (expected) damage over time, a role in which excels. The Shambler, Miller, Hag, Baron, and Siren, for example, are all bosses that are particularly susceptible to .
References
- ↑ This is because the riposte attack is coded as its own skill, completely separate from Duelist's Advance and Retribution. This skill has only one level that determines its base ACC and CRIT mod, so its stats do not increase when Duelist's Advance or Retribution are levelled up.