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[nenjin]

I generally make due because I don't rely on Rank 4 attacks for anything except the Arbalest and Plague Bearer and both of them get, like, cameos compared to the work horses of DPS (GR, Helion, BH, HM and Hound Master to a lesser degree, AB.) They all attack Rank 3 or deeper so it all pretty much works. Keeps it nice and simple, with the occasional awkward stress building fight if you have corpses turned on. I gear for max performance in DPS and healing, with some HP and prot for the tank (due mostly to the crazy KS trinkets out there.) Resists are nice and I may really do resist for the final dungeon....but I wasn't that bothered by the damage in Champion, and haven't felt the need to really tailor to the dungeon going after yet. It's been nothing 35 - 45+ crit heals can't solve, and a flat +25 to 30% damage for DPS! Anything that's stacked too much before you could heal it off in combat, pop a supply item, you're good to go.

Basically, I think careful party arrangement isn't necessary. All the classes do pretty well at the stuff they're supposed to, so just about any line up works anywhere in the traditional 1 tank 2 dps 1 healer setup.

Still, I'll occasionally run into that awkward combo. But I shuffle my parties pretty often not out of careless but necessity. Levels man, fucking character levels. Getting to take the Plague Doctor pretty much anywhere is a "perk" (although in later levels Blight does truly become rad.) Same story with the Houndmaster. I try to avoid running 1 tank and three squishies. I like to keep a BH or Helion or Abomination in that Rank 2 because it seems to soak up a ton of hits. So I have to "fit" those weird corner case classes in rather than build around them. Sometimes those quirky parties can work. Usually though it's a swift two crits to all hell breaking lose instead. Those fucking giants man. 45 point crits and up. Not even your tanks with some prot on them can shrug that off.

[Spehss _]

If we're talking about party strategies, my current favorite party is a mark party.

Spoiler: details (click to show/hide)

2 bounty hunters in the front acting as dps and tanks. Skills: Collect Bounty, Finish Him, Mark Target, and Uppercut. They mostly hit things but occasionally I'll use uppercut to stun or move an enemy back, or mark so that another party member can attack instead. They have pretty good range, able to hit up to enemy position 3 using Finish Him.

The last two ranks can have several different classes.

Houndmaster in rank 3 or rank 4 acting as a marker, dps, and occasionally healing stress. Skills: Hound's Rush, Hound's Harry, Dogs of War, and Whistle. He has good range and usually focuses on the last two enemy ranks which my bounty hunters can't reach as easily, and he tends to act faster than the bounty hunters, so he can mark a target and have the bounty hunters hit the marked target in the same turn. His marker's -%protection debuff is quite great too. The bleed from hound's rush and hound's harry can help with dealing with crowds and finishing off weakened targets. He usually gets a +% debuff chance trinket and/or a +% bleed trinket.

Arbalest in rank 4 acting as the healer, support, and back range dps. Skills: Sniper Shot, Suppressing Fire, Bola, and Bandage. Suppressing fire is great for debuffing enemies at the start of a fight and works as pretty good aoe damage, sniper shot on a marked target tends to kill back rank enemies quickly and she can provide good dps in fights such as boss fights. Bola is mostly just for letting her hit frontline targets, and again provides some aoe damage. Bandage is good for healing, albeit not as amazing at healing as vestal, the self-stacking buff is good and crits can make up for the single target only heal. Also the buff works great combined with the occultist. She gets a +% chance debuff trinket and some kind of bonus to either damage, accuracy, or crit chance.

Occultist in either rank 3 or 4 serving as a healer, support, and some dps. Depends on if there's eldritch enemies for him to hit, really. Skills are eldritch artillery, wyrd reconstruction, weakening curse/sacrificial stab, and vulnerability hex. Artillery helps apply aoe to back row enemies, vulnerability hex is good for marking, wyrd for healing, and weakening curse is good for utility while sacrificial stab may be used instead for more dps.

Lineup is usually one of the following, from back to front:
A H B B
O H B B
A O B B

where A=arbalest, H=houndmaster, O=occultist, and B=bounty hunter

It's been pretty successful whenever I take it out on novice level missions. Killed several bosses with the party: 8-Pounder Cannon, Sodden Crew, the Mass of Flesh, the Swine Prince, and the Sonorous Prophet. I managed to level up my 2 bounty hunters and arbalest to lvl 3 at the same time, my houndmaster is lvl2 with probably 1 resolve xp behind them. I'll be able to take them on veteran level missions and see how they do.

[nenjin]

I find Mark less than useful because it usually becomes a choice of: increase damage against one target or finish off another target. At least when it's just the BH. When it's him + Arbalest, you can turn it into a killing blow in one turn. Otherwise, it's a turn of damage delayed, and by the time you don't need to kill off enemies as desperately it's not worth spending the turn on.

Comes in useful with bosses though if they're not constantly shuffling/stunning/doing weird shit to you.

[Spehss _]

So I took my mark party on a long veteran level weald mission. Lost both my bounty hunters about half way through and had to bail. Got 4,500 gold and a bunch of deeds and crests out of it. But at the cost of my bounty hunter bros. :V

Veteran missions seem pretty brutal compared to novice. Blight and bleed damage was constantly wearing down my team, for example. I don't normally take any bandages or antivenom. Lesson learned.

[nenjin]

Yeah, ultimately I find that dropping enemies quickly is almost more important than anything, including healing sometimes. Delaying to Mark targets, even with one guy, can mean an extra crit or an extra bit of damage, reduced torch, blight, a disease, you name it. Trying to get 2 guys down in the first round really reduces the beating you take. Getting two guys down while the enemy was surprised? Almost a "free" combat.

[Boltgun]

Having a stun or two, or a dmg debuff is really important.

Debuffs are stronger than you might think because the damage is rounded down. Minus 1% will always mean minus 1 damage. The opposite is also true, plus 1% will get damage rounded up so stun buffed enemies. That's why taking a medicinal herb or two is a good idea.

I wrecked a giant and ghoul combo by having the occultist and leper stack so much damage reductions that the giant had -97%, he did crits for 4. The stress was another story but I ended the run at full health.

And yes, a stack of either bandages or antivenoms depending of the area you are going for is more health saved than a vestal sometimes.

[LordPorkins]

I still have a special place in my heart fir bounty hunters. They can deal more damage than a lepers crit.

[ndkid]

Yeah, ultimately I find that dropping enemies quickly is almost more important than anything, including healing sometimes.

I concur with this. As a wise man once said: "always get in the first shot. (boot to the head)"

Since I haven't seen them come up in conversation much, does everyone agree that the Jester is a waste of space? Someone who's main gimmick is changing rank seems mostly a recipe for messing up every other character's position. You could try and build a party around it, but it's not like the jester deals out so much damage or DPS to make that worthwhile. I've gotten to the point where I never take them and immediately sell jester-only trinkets.

[LordPorkins]

Nope! Only 3 of Jesters abilitys are moves, and Yeah, Finale and Solo do kinda suck, BUT dirk stab has the highest melee accuracy ingame (i think. Close to it anyway), his bleeding attacks are great for finishing off stubborn mid-party stress dealers, his stress heal is quite powerful, and Battle Ballad is just so freaking beautiful. After 3 rounds you get like +15% crit chance. Add that to Jesters already abnormally high crit chance and hes stress healing like crazy. Also, his camp skills are amazing, and whenever he becomes virtueous he becomes basically the Joker and just laughs maniacally as he buries his scythe in his enemies eye socket. Along with a healer, and given a few turns, he can turn your whole party into a powerhouse. My designated anti-swine king party was a jester, 2 bounty hunters, and an arbalest. Trust me, its beautiful.

[nenjin]

I find the Jester mostly useless.

The bleeds don't hold a candle to blights, they don't stack as fast, they don't apply damage as consistently over turns.

His melee attacks are weak and the dmg debuff is so high he gets less out of damage buff trinkets toward his bleed attacks than the rest of melee or ranged.

His HP is shit, and his dodge never delivers like I believe it should.

Rank switching as a party is fun until it completely falls apart on you in a bad fight.

Stress heals are nice if he's not got anything else to do, but honestly? I'd rather have someone able to do damage from that position. His turns often feel wasted unless you throw him into the front ranks.

He's easily the weakest character in the game in my book.

[Spehss _]

Bear in mind I have little experience playing anything higher than novice level missions. I can't say how well classes scale in later game.

That said, I like jesters. Good for dealing with stress. I used to use them purely as a support in the back, using battle ballad and inspiring tune. A recent patch made it so he can use inspiring tune in the 3rd rank, so now he can actually use his two bleed attacks sometimes AND play the lute. His camping skills are great to relieve stress, and the recent camping skill buff adding stress resistance for 4 fights is even better. Best buddies with an abomination that transforms regularly.

I think his bleed skills are pretty good compared to blight. Damage used to be lower if I recall correctly, but they buffed it to 3 points of damage a round and 2 points of damage a round at lvl 1 instead of 2 points a round and 1 point a round. A plague doctor will obviously be dealing more dots with blight, but the grave robber or abomination inflict about the same blight damage as the jester deals in bleed damage, at least at level 1 skills.

I'm pretty sure that if an attack that inflicts dots crits, the dots will get 2 more turns of damage. So a bleed attack that deals 3 pts/round for 3 rounds that crits will deal 3 pts/round for 5 rounds, or 15 damage total instead of 9 damage. And jester has good crit chance.

[LordPorkins]

Also, whenever he crits he imitates my own maniacal laughter perfectly.

[Blaze]

I find the jester only really useful for stress relief, but the Houndmaster can fit in that job and has a bit more utility otherwise.

Speaking of houndmasters, I think I just made a ridiculous damage dealer.

Spiked Collar, Legendary Bracer, Unerring, Weald Tactician, Eldritch Hater, and Rabies (which I just got by accident).

The first three work and rabies work anywhere, giving +55% damage.
In the Weald or against Eldritch creatures, that brings it to +70%.
Against Eldritch creatures in the Weald (Fungus stuff and Slimes) that's a +85%.

It's enough to nearly negate the damage penalty for Hound harry (-80%), so I can hit the entire enemy party for full damage in almost any row. To top it off I can use a dog treat (+100% DMG) to shred bosses parties or Mark+Hound Rush (+100% vs Marked, calculated to 285% with dog treat) to annihilate single targets.

[nenjin]

Blight scales up faster than Bleed. At like Rank 4 skill, Blight is 5 damage a turn up to 15 per turn, Bleed is 3 a turn up to 12. Bleed reduces in damage faster. Blight continues to do higher damage for longer. Granted, bleed attacks actually deal damage when the attack that applies them hits, but, short of crits that damage quickly seemed swallowed up by Blight's higher overall damage.

Plus tons of shit likes to resist bleed at average to good levels. Other than the Warrens, most stuff seems more vulnerable to Bleed. So whereas you might have to buff up the Jester's bleed with a trinket to get consistent application, Blight doesn't really need it.

The Jester isn't terrible. I think it's a "fun" class. I just think that in terms of damage, virtually everyone does it better and faster. Stress healing is the only real thing he has going for him above everyone else. Basically, use Jester if you like playing risky or doing risky things like having Clown Shoes try to Dodge tank, or if you like that 4th rank buffer. (I don't use them, frankly. More damage per turn > buffs.) Otherwise, I think almost every other damage class gives better results. I sort of feel similar about the HM, but, he can attack any rank from almost any position, self-heals, has an active defense ability and a great debuff. (Forget Marking for damage. Marking for reduce Prot is arguably just as good if not better.) He's way more flexible than the Jester without having to change ranks or debuff himself for the privilege.

That said, I ALWAYS forget to give the dog their treat during boss fights. Always.

[Boltgun]

I treat the jester like a combo character who's role is to buff, debuff and (stress) heal. Exactly like the occultist who never used the damage attacks.

For example, I put it in first rank for a finale then spam battle balad. With a leper, that compensates the low damage.

However, my favorite combo for now is leper/occultist, laying damage debuffs on the stronger hitters while the other two chars attack the weaker targets, then throw evade debuffs and chop, chop, chop. The leper being slow made it easy to time the debuffs.

The one char I have trouble with is the highwayman, he's not bad by any means but unlike any other chars, I cannot fit him in any team synergy.