Darkest Dungeon: Cove Darkest Dungeon Guide

Last update: 20 April 2023

The Cove is probably the most dangerous and the hardest location in the game. Most of the enemies here deal a lot of damage, cause damage over time, decrease the effectiveness of your heroes, and some of them have incredibly high protection. Similar to the Ruins, enemies here are resistant to bleeding (but this time not entirely immune to it), while being extremely susceptible to blight. You will face two bosses here: the Siren and the Drowned Crew.

You should equip your party (or at least the first 3 ranks) with trinkets increasing their resistances. The best choice is the Cleansing Crystal.

Team Selection

When venturing to the Cove, you should choose:

• Occultist - his attacks deal increased damage to the Eldritch enemies, which the cove consists entirely of (apart from a single boss). Additionally, he can be used to heal your party.
• Plague Doctor - enemies here are vulnerable to blight, which makes the Plague Doctor extremely effective while fighting them. Additionally, some of the foes here can cause powerful bleeding on your characters, which the Plague Doctor can easily get rid of thanks to her Battlefield Medicine.
• Abomination - after transforming he can easily attack the third rank of the enemy group, where the most dangerous enemies tend to stand. Additionally, while in the human form, he can cause blight to the enemies standing on the 2nd and 3rd position.
• Hound Master - despite his bleeding being quite limited here, he has a powerful ability to mark enemies (Whistle), which decreases their protection as well, which will come in handy against multiple foes here. He is extremely effective when there's an Arbalest in the team.
• Arbalest - together with the marking ability of the Hound Master, the Arbalest will be able to massacre enemies with a single strike. Additionally, she is extremely effective against enemies standing at rank 3 and 4, which are dealing the highest amount of damage, while their defenses are relatively weak.
• Jester - enemies have a lot of speed here, which makes his Battle Ballad extremely effective, especially given the fact that encounters here tend to take longer than everywhere else.
• Crusader / Man-at-Arms - one of them will be useful to soak up the damage from enemies, as well as take care of one of the foes (Thrall), which often appears on the enemy frontline.

Heroes that you should not take here:

• Bounty Hunter - he deals mostly physical damage, and a lot of enemies here have a lot of protection, making him quite ineffective against them.
• Highwayman - similar to the above described, the Highwayman can only be effective against enemy Shamans, but that's it.

Provisions

Type	Short mission	Medium mission	Long mission
Food	12	16-18	18-24
Torches	8-9	14-16	16-18
Skeleton Keys	1	2	3-4
Shovels	1	1-2	2
Holy Water	0	0-1	1-2
Bandages	2-3	3-4	5-6
Antivenom	0	0	0
Medicinal Herbs	1	1-2	2-3

Without a doubt the most useful provision here is the bandage, given the fact that one of the enemies is able to cause a powerful bleeding (8 points a round) on your heroes.

Enemies you should watch out for

There's a number of enemies you should watch out for while in the Cove, such as:

• Pelagic Shaman - the Shaman is able to buff his allies, increasing their effectiveness, or simply heal them. When he is not busy supporting his team, he will surely harass your team, causing a lot of stress damage. You should take him out as quickly as possible.
• Pelagic Grouper - if there are no Shamans in the enemy team, he is the most dangerous foe. He won't be able to cause any status effect, or deal stress damage, but his attacks can hurt a lot - over 10 points of damage from a single strike is nothing uncommon here.
• Ulca Crusher - you won't be able to eliminate the enemy quickly, thanks to his immense protection (and the heals from the shamans), but you must be very careful when he uses his Arterial Pinch. After hitting the target he will cause the most powerful bleeding effect in the game, dealing 8 points (!) of damage each round, and decreasing the amount of heals received by a character by 33%. Instead of killing it off quickly, you should focus on countering his attack, by increasing the resistances of your first 3 ranks.
• Drowned Thrall - the enemy deals insignificant amount of damage and is extremely slow, but if you leave it alone for two rounds he will use his Revenge ability, which causes him to detonate, dealing huge amount of damage and stress damage to your entire team. Kill him before he can move during the second round.

Enemies that you can stumble upon in any location, and who should be eliminated, or simply taken care of as soon as possible:

• Cultist Acolyte - an enemy which is very similar to the Bone Courtier from the Ruins. He deals relatively small amount of damage, but is able to inflict a lot of stress to a hero, and is extremely fast. He should be taken care of, either by eliminating him or pulling him to the first rank as soon as possible.
• Brigand Fusilier - an enemy characterized by a lot of speed and the ability to attack your whole team if he is standing on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th position. If there are no enemies dealing stress damage on the battlefield, you should take him out as quickly as possible.
• Madman - without a doubt the number one enemy you should watch out for. He has a minimal amount of health points, but he makes up for it with his dodge value, speed and the two attacks that he can perform from any position. Both of those increase the stress of your heroes, and the Doomsay allows him to attack your whole team at the same time. Madman should be taken care of as quickly as possible.
• Ghoul - similar to the previously described enemy, he is capable of dealing stress damage to the whole team, stunning or disease a character. He has a lot of protection, which makes stunning and inflicting bleeding and/or blight the best method to take him out. Additionally, you can use the mark of the Hound Master to decrease his protection, which makes him more vulnerable to your attacks.