Darkest Dungeon II - Hero Paths: The Flagellant

The Flagellant

"Zealotry - an undying blight upon the soul."

"Sacrifice and sensation to the last!”

Trade blight for debuffs! The Maniac path provides the Flagellant with a series of abilities that allow for flexible positioning. The Maniac Flagellant can work just as well positioned towards the back of his party as he does in the front. This hero path specializes in debuffs and disrupting enemy abilities, allowing you to knockback targets, and apply Weak instead of Blight. This path will also allow you to take negative tokens from your team and pass them along to enemies. Maniac directly affects the following skills: Punish, Acid Rain, Sepsis, Lash’s Gift.

The Maniac path may not provide direct buffs or positive tokens to other Heroes but it still packs some potent healing and control options as a support unit or tank as skills like Deathless, Undying, and More! MORE! are unchanged from Wanderer.

While Punish can apply Combo to a target, the knockback effect will often leave them beyond the reach of melee characters that would make use of it, such as the Hellion or Leper. Conversely, Maniacs can work well with ranged Heroes such as the Grave Robber or Highwayman, as the repositioned monster is often well-placed for a stunning Pistol Shot or CRIT Thrown Dagger. If the Leper is a mainstay in your party lineup, the Maniac can still pair well with him by using Lash’s Gift to steal his Blind tokens, keeping him free to deal damage.

The negative tokens stolen from other Heroes, or those picked up while under fire during More! MORE!, can then be passed along to the enemy via Sepsis. In moments of desperation, you could even steal Stun from a Hero and sacrifice the Flagellant’s next turn (or clear it with a Vestal’s Ministration). Just be careful when throwing Taunt tokens around as those will affect the targeting options of your other Heroes.

If you’re less interested in using Sepsis, the Searing Scripture trinket can still be useful for clearing up negative tokens you acquire via Lash’s Gift or Endure while the Flagellant is busy with other actions.

"Let me but sample the bitter taste of death"

Sacrifice your health for greater power! The Exanimate path allows the Flagellant to focus on greater DOT damage. This path is best played in the front 2 ranks and allows you to hit enemies with extra blight when your health is low. You’ll also be able to remove negative tokens and set yourself up for powerful attacks with Crit tokens. Exanimate directly affects Punish, Acid Rain, Sepsis, Lash’s Gift skills.

The Exanimate path is all about fighting best when things are at their worst. Below 50% HP, Punish – which already has increased reach – gains increased Blight, as does Acid Rain. Sepsis can deal massive damage to a heavily Blighted target at the cost of any remaining Blight on them but, again, requires that the Flagellant have less than 50% HP. Lash’s Gift becomes a self buff usable only below 20% HP but it now grants Strength, CRIT, and clears all negative tokens to set the Flagellant up for a big hit.

To facilitate remaining at lower HP, Sepsis no longer provides a burst heal; instead, it will heal an Exanimate only up to the 45% HP marker, keeping them under the threshold required for their improved skills. If you’re willing to risk relationships, triggering the Toxic state at max stress will immediately drop the Flagellant’s HP to optimal levels for this path. More! MORE! will draw damage to the Flagellant to get things started but may also heal him too much when upgraded.

Consider teaming this path up with other Blight-capable Heroes such as the Plague Doctor or Grave Robber in order to drive Sepsis damage to new heights. Alternatively, pairing the Exanimate with other DOT dealers in general can provide a lot of support ammunition for the Plague Doctor’s Cause of Death skill.

The Emancipation trinket provides additional punch at even lower HP and reduces Bleed RES, which can be useful for keeping your health low. However it may have some issues with Lash’s Gift, as the small heal from that may push you above Emancipation’s threshold if you aren’t already on, or very near, Death’s Door at the time.

"I am purged of beauty, empty of all but blight"

Strike enemies down with the Scourge path. Scourge is focused on getting the Flagellant to a Toxic state even more quickly, and keeping the Flagellant in the fight longer. This path directly affects Sepsis, Deathless, Suffer, Lash’s Gift skills, and has a different, more powerful Toxic state.

The Scourge path can be a relationship killer but it’s also an invaluable tank path that makes the most of the Toxic state by restoring (or reducing) the Flagellant’s HP to a higher value than normal and increasing the amount of Blight he can deal for the remainder of combat. This bonus also affects the Blight inflicted by Toxic tokens, capping out at a massive 9 Blight counter! Activate More! MORE! and watch that Blight quickly spread, setting you up for a wide range Necrosis follow-up.

Suffer now steals Horror and Lash’s Gift self-inflicts it, providing ways to not only reach the Toxic state quickly but making it more likely to happen at the start of the Flagellant’s turn, leaving him free to make use of his best low-health abilities immediately and safely.

Sepsis performs similarly to the Exanimate path version but does not consume Blight if the target has Combo. It no longer provides any healing for the Flagellant either; fortunately, the Scourge’s version of Deathless allows him to heal both himself and another Hero at the same time while operating in the front ranks. Pairing a Scourge Flagellant with Combo support and another Blight-capable Hero can deliver some serious pain, while teaming the Flagellant up with a back row supporter like the Vestal can make for a one-two healing punch.

His Prison is an obvious trinket choice for the path, providing additional counter Blight and an offensive bonus for More! MORE!, as is the Corrupting Cleaver for ensuring that the Toxic Blight sticks. If you’re going to destroy your relationships, you may as well get the most out of it!

Community Impression

We recently asked our community on Discord and Twitter what was their preferred path and why. When put to a vote, there was a clear front runner on Discord, with the Scourge path being the favoured option with 194 votes! This was followed by Maniac with 115 votes, and Exanimate coming in 3rd with 95 votes. There was also a strong showing for the Wanderer path in Discord, with this write-in ballot option getting 73 votes overall.

It was a close call between the 3 hero paths on Twitter. In the end, Scourge took the lead with 40.4% of the votes, Exanimate had 30.5% and Maniac came in a close 3rd with 29.1% of the votes.

"they are all bangers tbh. really depends on who i'm surrounding him with but i think Exanimate is probably my default choice" - @caterwaulgames

"Maniac solely because of Punish+' big knockback and combo. The token stuff is great as well." - @qaser71

"Exanimate has been crucial in many builds. Takes DoTs from other team members and has great resiliency with moves." @HeisenWookie

"Scourge is godlike" 😍 - @Vudak_

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read the Hero Path blogs. If you would like to be more involved with discussions on hero paths come over to our Discord server! We would love to hear your thoughts on The Flagellant's paths, what trinkets you use, and any suggestions you may have.

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https://discord.gg/darkestdungeon