How to manage stress and affinity in Darkest Dungeon 2

What causes stress, how to reduce stress, what is affinity and what bonuses can be obtained, how to strengthen relations between characters in a squad

Like the original game, Darkest Dungeon 2 has a very nagging and sometimes annoying stress mechanic that will cause your heroes to “die like flies” if ignored. You will be to blame for this, not the characters who put themselves in danger during long journeys, battles with bloodthirsty cannibals and dark cultists, and eating not always fresh food offered by the owners of taverns.

Monitoring and managing stress is one of the most important tasks that need to be addressed during the passage of the game. How effectively and efficiently you manage stress will affect the success of the entire campaign. It is important to note that even with the most powerful gadgets, consumables and equipment, your heroes will inevitably die with a high level of stress.

Overview of the stress system

To see how many stress points a hero has, take a look at the scale under the health bar. This scale consists of ten points filled in white, each of which is 1 point of stress.

The first three dots look smaller than the rest. That’s right, this is a “safe” level of stress – as soon as the larger dots start to fill, it’s time to sound the alarm. Characters with high levels of stress are more likely to squabble with each other while traveling or fighting, which reduces their affinity – another important parameter, which we will discuss below.

When all ten points are filled, the hero will have a nervous breakdown. This is the worst case scenario. Not only will he lose most of his affinity with all allies, but his health will be reduced to a critical value. In combat, this is a real nightmare. If this happens, you can most likely forget about the victory. Fortunately, after a nervous breakdown, all stress is removed from the hero.

How to Reduce Stress

The first step to managing stress levels is to understand where it comes from.

1. Stress will randomly increase or decrease during the journey when your heroes play pranks on each other or fight. If their stress level is – (part of the big dots are filled), the likelihood of a quarrel increases significantly, which will lead to an increase in stress for all characters involved in the scandal
2. Heroes who interfere with each other in combat due to strained relationships also accumulate new stress points.
3. Some opponents use attacks that increase the level of stress.
4. Certain enemies can inflict terror, which increases the hero’s stress each round and works similarly to DoT conditions – burn, bleed, and corruption.
5. Some items in the tavern can cause a random increase in stress. For example, a barrel of whiskey, which can either reduce or increase a team’s stress levels.
6. Some combat items cause an increase in stress in exchange for other benefits. An example of this is the Adrenaline Tonic, which increases stress in exchange for powerful healing.
7. The death of group members greatly increases the stress level. Especially if the character had a good relationship with the dead hero.
8. Once at a crossroads while traveling, the characters often say something (a “speech bubble” appears) indicating which path they would like to take. If you choose their path, their stress level will decrease by one point. Otherwise, the stress level will increase by one point.

Here are some options to reduce stress levels:

• One of the main ways to reduce stress is to use items from their inn. For example, poems (poetry). They should be used to keep the group’s sanity high.
• Many heroes have techniques that relieve stress. The Plague Doctor has an Ounce of Prevention, the Warrior has Fortify, and the Jester has Inspiration Time.
• Probably the best hero ability for healing stress is Ounce of Prevention, but first you need to improve this skill. In general, this should be your priority (of course, if there is a Plague Doctor in the squad).
• Maintaining high intra-party affinity is another great way to manage stress levels. When your heroes understand and help each other in battle, they become more loyal, the stress level decreases (or at least does not increase).

What is affinity and how to manage it

Perhaps the main difference between Darkest Dungeon 2 and the original is the emergence of a relationship system. Your squad consists of four different heroes, and certain relationships are built between each two that affect so many things in the game. Relationship management is difficult, but important to learn, because if the characters start to quarrel and accumulate stress, a domino effect can work, which will be fatal for the entire group. Fortunately, you can do a lot!

Proximity or affinity is the relationship between two characters. The indicator can be positive (for example, Love) or negative (for example, Suspiciousness).

1. If the affinity is positive, there is a chance that beneficial events will occur during the battles. For example, one hero can substitute and take damage instead of another. Or one character can heal another. Another may perform an additional attack to avenge the injury of their ally.
2. In Darkest Dungeon 2, positive proximity is indicated by yellow text and icons.
3. When proximity is negative, there is a chance that your heroes will interfere with each other in combat. For example, one hero will not be able to activate the support skill on allies (only on himself).
4. In Darkest Dungeon 2, negative proximity is indicated by blue text and icons.
5. You can check the current relationship of the hero on the character screen on the tab with the same name. Each character has a bar of six “diamonds” below their name, which indicates progress towards a new level of intimacy.
6. When this bar reaches six positive or negative “diamonds”, the relationship will change. You will be notified of this change with a sequence in which the relationship of the pair is checked. The key to relationship management is tracking the diamonds and making the right decisions.

How to manage affinity

Affinity changes in a number of situations:

• Random changes in affinity occur as one moves towards the Mountain. They seem to be more likely to get worse on the high stressed heroes mentioned above.
• Random proximity changes can also occur during combat. They are often associated with random effects that occur depending on the level of intimacy of the couple, and this leads to a deepening of the trend (if the relationship is low, it will continue to deteriorate, and vice versa).
• For example, a couple in love can heal each other in a fight, which will bring the characters even closer. Conversely, the Hated Couple can block each other’s movements, aggravating the hatred.
• When you encounter (for example, in the Lair or encounter with the Cultist), you must choose one of the heroes’ plans. Sometimes the characters will agree with each other – if you choose one of these plans, they will become even closer. However, if the hero does not agree with the chosen plan, then the relationship between the couple will worsen.
• You can tell if the hero will approve of the currently highlighted plan – he will have a yellow aura on him. If he does not approve of the plan, the aura will be blue.
• Keep an eye on group affinity – if a couple is in danger of breaking up, try to make choices that both characters approve of.
• There are many items in the inn that can affect proximity. Some of these, such as a deck of cards, can improve or degrade a couple’s closeness. As you level up your account, you will gain access to much better and more effective items in the tavern.
• When suffering a nervous breakdown (which happens when 10 stress points are accumulated), the hero loses a certain amount of intimacy points with each of the available allies. To avoid this, you need to learn how to manage stress. We wrote about this above.