Darkest Dungeon: Recommended positive and negative quirks Darkest Dungeon Guide

Last update: 20 April 2023

What should you pick

There are dozens of different quirks, positive and negative, in the game, but only a handful of those are useful, while there are some you should always stay away from.

Those which you should be interested in acquiring:

• Deadly - +1% critical chance
• Eagle Eye - +3% critical chance for ranged attacks
• Evasive - +5 to dodge
• Hard Skinned - +10% protect
• Natural Eye - +5 accuracy for ranged attacks
• Natural Swing - +5 accuracy for melee attacks
• Precision Striker - +3% critical chance for melee attacks
• Quick Reflexes - +2 to speed
• Slugger - +10% damage for melee attacks
• Steady - -10% stress damage
• Tough - +10% maximum health
• Quickdraw - +4 to speed during the first round of combat
• On Guard - +4 to speed and 5 to dodge during the first round of combat
• Unerring - +10% damage to ranged attacks
• Unyielding - +10% death blow resist

Remember, that the Sanitarium allows you to lock up to 3 positive quirks, so that they won't be replaced - otherwise, when you already have 5 of them, every new positive quirk gained by the character will replace a random, existing one. Depending on the role of a given class you should lock those quirks:

• A hero focusing on damage from ranged attacks - Eagle Eye + Deadly + Evasive; quirks are focused to maximize the damage, giving a little bonus to dodge.
• A hero focusing on damage from melee attacks - Hard Skinned + Precision Striker + Slugger; a large boost to damage and 10% additional protection, which is always a plus.
• A hero focusing on soaking up damage (Tank) - Tough + Hard Skinned + Slugger; a lot of protection, health and some additional damage from melee attacks.
• A hero focusing on the highest speed attribute (especially important in the 1st round) - Quickdraw + Quick Reflexes + On Guard; thanks to that, the hero will gain 10 points of speed for the duration of the first round.
• A hero focusing on healing: Tough + Quick Reflexes + Hard Skinned; high amount of protection and a slight increase to speed.

What you should avoid

There are some quirks in the game from which you should stay as far as possible. Those are:

• The ones decreasing the speed of your characters, such as: Nocturnal, Off Guard, Slowdraw, Slow Reflexes
• The one decreasing the damage of your characters, such as: Light Sensitive, Scattering, Calm, Tuckered Out
• The ones that forces your characters to activate Curios, such as: Ablutomania, Bloodthirsty, Compulsive, Curious, Dacnomania, Dark Temptation, Demonomania, Dipsomania, Egomania, Guilty Conscience, Hagiomania, Hylomania, Kleptomaniac, Necromania, Paranormania, Plutomania, Sitiomania
• The one that causes your hero to steal treasure, Kleptomania.