Darkest Dungeon II – Suffer No Sin Update Available, Developer Q&A

Darkest Dungeon II is slated to leave early access on May 8, 2023. But before that happens, the game’s developers over at Red Hook Studios bring us a fairly exciting early access update in Suffer No Sin. On top of fixing a decent number of assorted issues and adding some new items, this update expands the game’s hero roster with the Vestal, a staple of just about any well-rounded party in the original Darkest Dungeon.

This time around, the Vestal will be acting as more of a “healer-tank” hybrid with some decent backline damage potential on top of it. Here’s a quick trailer that shows her in action:

And before we get to the actual patch notes, you may also be interested in this recent Q&A where Red Hook’s co-founders Chris Bourassa and Tyler Sigman answer assorted community questions for almost two hours:

And here are the patch notes for the Suffer No Sin update:

A new arrival at the crossroads!

Retail: 0.19.43728

The Vestal brings a potent mix of defensive support options and flexibility. Her divine Consecrations allow her to bless ranks in combat, empowering allies who occupy them.

This update allows players to unlock and upgrade the Vestal at the Altar of Hope. Visit the Shrine of Reflection to experience her origin story, told in five chapters, including playable flashback encounters.

GAMEPLAY

Heroes

• Man-at-Arms: Strategic Withdrawal’s heal effect now resolves after Riposte / Hateful Backstab damage, consistent with the heal timing on Crush
• Leper: When using Combo to ignore Blind, the Leper will now also remove one of his Blind tokens on a successful hit
• Runaway: Fixed an issue where Hearthlight consumed CRIT tokens unnecessarily
• Plague Doctor: Indiscriminate Science is now slightly more discriminate. Negative token healing bonus reduced to +5% from +10%

Shrine of Reflection

• Highwayman’s first flashback encounter has been adjusted
  • Lunging Cuff now applies Combo
  • Knee Strike now deals +100% DMG vs. Combo
  • Additional Barks

Combat

• Damaging skills that natively ignore Block, Dodge, or Guard (e.g. Pick to the Face) will now also remove one of those tokens on a successful hit
• Adjustments to Daze and Stun
  • Dazing a target who is already Dazed will now result in a Stun
  • Daze and Stun cannot exist on the same target at the same time; Stun will always take priority
  • These rules apply evenly to monsters and Heroes alike
• Controlled Burn/Controlled Burn+ now have unique token icons

UI

• Added new icon for Horror to better distinguish it from Stress
• Updated Stress Halo and Stress Crown visuals
• Added more 16:9 and 16:10 resolutions to the game options
• Updated game credits to include recent hires
• Renamed Battle Advantage Chance to Enemy Advantage Chance
• When selecting a Tutorial the scrollbar should now adjust to make sure your currently selected tutorial is visible.

Items

• General tooltip description improvements
• Strongbox: Added +8 increased stacking for Baubles
• Renamed Jumbo Storage Trunk to Spacious Storage Trunk
• Added new item type: Deliverable
• Animal parts item type changed from Currency to Deliverable
• Added 6 new items – Makeshift Javelin, Wilbur’s Flag, Bone Mallet, Pig Sticker, Locked Strongbox, and Spacious Strongbox.
• Linseed Oil Flask: Reduced change for Daze from 50% to 20%
• Rousing Ringer: Reduced chance for Daze from 66% to 33%
• Stiff Drink: Chance to convert Speed to Daze reduced from 80% to 20%
• Curing Cuppa: Added Noxious tag

Misc

• OFF GUARD region modifier renamed to DEVIOUS PLANS (Off Guard is already a quirk)
• Replaced several hard hero goals

FIXES

• Fixed an issue where some crit chances would display decimals, instead of rounding up correctly (ie 0.99% instead of 1%)
• Heroes with memories that get rerolled will now generate hero goals
• Fix for Leviathan release rank sliding
• Fixed various tooltips from going off screen
• Fixed an issue where Trophies on the stagecoach would not dither out with the coach and could be seen floating after visiting nodes and before the coach faded back in
• Adjusted some items and trinkets to better fit in the inventory frames
• Fixed an issue where sometimes Crit and Hit chances would not show properly
• Fixed an issue where the regen wasn’t triggering properly on Inert Indicia
• Fixed an issue where the current active tab on the Recollection sheet would not be highlighted
• Fixed an issue where heal previews would incorrectly multiply based on mouseover movements
• Fixed an issue where allies that participate in a hero backstory would have green indicators while targeting enemies
• Fixed some awkward UI behavior from the Crossroads
• Fix to heals on corpses when an actor dies mid skill
• Fixed which sword the Leper is using during his second combat backstory
• Fixed an issue where Altar upgrade buttons are taking hold inputs when not having any candles
• Fixed an issue where tooltips would disable themselves on turn start in combat
• Fixed an issue that helps clean up combat selection indicators when changing skills while hovering characters
• Fixed an issue with bark tails not matching the color of the rest of the bark balloon
• Fixed an issue where ambush combats, shambler combats, and herostory combats were using the wrong LUT
• Fixed an issue where the target selection indicator would get stuck active on self targeting skills
• Fix to center the Token Glossary and Tutorial Archive screens
• Fix to the patch notes screen to scale nicely at lower resolutions
• Fixed an issue where hero goal completion toasts could show the wrong portrait
• Fix to prevent enemy target indicators from animating off of user mouseover when they are acting
• Fixed a string with the Infernal Flame
• Fixed some UI scaling issues with Blessed and Cursed skills overlapping the skill bar

OST

• Added new tracks from the Altar of Hope update