The Best Hellion Builds In Darkest Dungeon 2

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Hellion Skills

Best Hellion Builds In Darkest Dungeon 2

The Hellion is a frontline melee character in Darkest Dungeon 2. She excels at carving a bloody path through enemies, and can take a hit as well. However, many of her best Skills can leave her winded, weakening her until she's had a chance to recover.

With the right team at her back and skilled rotation of her abilities, the Hellion becomes one of the game's best damage dealers. Let's take a look at the bardiche-wielding barbarian and all she has to offer; she's a great addition to any party build!

Updated on May 19, 2023 by Matt Arnold: With Darkest Dungeon 2's release out of early access, we're revisiting all of our old class guides for the game. Starting with the Hellion, we're offering a full breakdown of Skills and useful builds for each Path. Scroll down to see what's new!

Hellion Skills

The Hellion focuses on getting to the front of the party and staying there, where she can dish out heavy damage to whichever enemy is unlucky enough to be standing across from her. Some of her attacks inflict Bleed, but she's better off letting another Hero like the Plague Doctor get the blood flowing so that she can keep swinging and capitalize on her Bloodlust Skill.

Skill	Hellion Rank	Target Rank	Effects	Mastery Upgrade
Wicked Hack	1 or 2	1 or 2	Melee attack for 4-8 damage. Five percent crit chance. Combo bonus: deals fifty percent more damage.	Deals two additional damage. Increases crit chance to ten percent.
Iron Swan	1	4	Melee attack for 4-8 damage. Five percent crit chance.	Deals two additional damage. Increases crit chance to ten percent.
Barbaric YAWP!	1 or 2	1 and 2	Both targets gain a Weakness token. Ignores and removes Stealth from both targets. The Hellion becomes Winded. One-turn cooldown.	Both targets gain an additional Weakness token. Combo bonus: Inflicts Stun on both targets.
If It Bleeds	2 or 3	2 or 3	Melee attack for 3-6 damage. Five percent crit chance. Inflicts two Bleed on the target. Combo bonus: ignores up to 30 Bleed Resistance.	Increases crit chance to ten percent. Inflicts two additional Bleed on the target.
Toe To Toe	1, 2, or 3	1 or 2	Melee attack for 2-4 damage. Five percent crit chance. The Hellion moves forward one space and becomes Immobilized. The Hellion gains two Taunt tokens.	Deals one additional damage. Removes Winded from the Hellion.
Adrenaline Rush	Any	N/A	Can only be used if the Hellion's HP is at or below one-third its maximum. The Hellion recovers twenty percent of her maximum HP. Removes Bleed and Winded from the Hellion. For the next three turns, the Hellion heals for twenty percent of her maximum HP whenever she attacks. Three-turn cooldown. Can only be used twice ber battle.	Heals an additional five percent of the Hellion's HP when used. Also removes Blight and Burn from the Hellion.
Bleed Out	1	1	Melee attack for 4-8 damage. Five percent crit chance. Inflicts four Bleed on the target. The Hellion becomes Winded. Combo bonus: Ignores up to 30 Bleed Resistance.	Increases minimum damage by two and maximum damage by one. Increases crit chance to ten percent. Inflicts two additional Bleed on the target.
Bloodlust	1, 2, or 3	N/A	Removes Winded from the Hellion. For the next five turns, the Hellion deals twenty percent more damage to Bleeding targets.	The Hellion deals an additional ten percent bonus damage to Bleeding targets. The Hellion gains twenty percent Bleed Resistance for five turns.
Breakthrough	2, 3, or 4	1, 2, or 3	Melee attack for 3-6 damage. Five percent crit chance. Ignores and removes Guarded tokens on target. The Hellion moves forward two spaces. The Hellion becomes Winded. One-turn cooldown.	Deals one additional damage. The target cannot gain Block tokens for two rounds.
Raucous Revelry	Any	N/A	Removes Horror from the Hellion. The Hellion becomes Winded. If the Hellion's Stress it five or higher, she loses two Stress. Any allies with five or more Stress lose one Stress.as well. If the Hellion's HP is at or below one-third of its maximum, she heals for twenty percent.	Removes an additional point of Stress from the Hellion. Heals the Hellion for an additional five percent of her HP. The Hellion gains 10 Death Resistance for three turns.
Howling End	1 or 2	1 or 2	Melee attack for 8-14 damage. Ten percent crit chance. The Hellion moves back one space. The Hellion becomes Winded. Three-turn cooldown.	Increases minimum damage by two and maximum damage by four. Increases crit chance to fifteen percent. Reduces cooldown by one turn.

Wicked Hack and Iron Swan give the Hellion unique coverage for a melee character, allowing her to deal good damage to any but the third rank of enemies. Empowered with Strength tokens, she can easily one-shot lesser enemies in those positions. Howling End makes for a great finisher; if the enemy survives, push back to the front with Toe To Toe or Breakthrough, then pop Adrenaline Rush to clear the Hellion's Winded tokens and get a heal!

Winded

Winded is a negative token that can only be applied to the Hellion, as a cost of using her more powerful Skills. Each Winded token reduces the Hellion's damage by one third; she can still manage with one token if you don't have time to clear it, but with two or more she becomes ineffective. In most cases, Adrenaline Rush is the best way to clear Winded Tokens, but if you haven't unlocked it yet or are running a Berserker build, Bloodlust also removes them.

Best Hellion Builds In Darkest Dungeon 2

the Hellion fights off a Pillager's attack in Darkest Dungeon 2

Once you've unlocked all the Hellion's perks at the Altar Of Hope and filled her Skill list at the Hero Shrine, she can focus on pure, raw damage or on maximizing her Bloodlust bonus. Alternately, if your usual tank options have debilitating Quirks at the start of a run, she can take a damage-soaking role through her Carcass Path.

Path	Bonus	Recommended Skills	Recommended Trinkets
Wanderer	Extra Candles at the end of the run.	Wicked Hack If It Bleeds Bloodlust Toe To Toe Howling End	Sharpness Charm (any tier) Rotten Tomato Bloodied Branch Fishmonger's Gloves
Ravager	Increases maximum HP by twenty percent. Deals twenty-five percent more damage while in the front rank. Enemy Bleed Resistance is thirty-three percent more effective. Twenty-five percent chance to gain three Bleed at the start of each turn.	Wicked Hack Iron Swan Adrenaline Rush Barbaric YAWP! Howling End	Sharpness Charm (any tier) Clotting Cruor (any tier) Empty Stein Wounding Words Sodden Sweater Dark Impulse (Bleed)
Berserker	Reduces maximum HP by twenty percent. Increases Death Resistance by ten percent. Ignores thirty-three percent more enemy Bleed Resistance. Increases the crit rate of If It Bleeds and Bleed Out by ten percent each.	Wicked Hack If It Bleeds Bloodlust Breakthrough Howling End	Bloodied Branch Shaprness Charm (any tier) Heartseeker (any tier) Leather Strop Fisherman's Gloves Clasp Knife
Carcass	Fifty percent chance of losing one Stress when struck by a Critical Hit. Twenty-five percent chance of losing two Stress instead. Barbaric YAWP gives the Hellion two Taunt tokens in addition to its other effects. Wicked Hack removes a Block token from the target in addition to its other effects. The Hellion gains a Winded token at the start of her turn. Each of the Hellion's Winded tokens has a seventy-five percent chance of spawning a Block token at the end of her turn.	Wicked Hack Barbaric YAWP! Adrenaline Rush Bleed Out Raucous Revelry	Gilded Mind (any tier) Hale Draught (any tier) Stone Mount Vanished Vanity

Ravager

The Ravager focuses on dealing heavy damage from the front rank, at the expense of a harder time inflicting Bleed plus the risk of the Hellion suffering damage over time herself. Bolstered by support Skills like the Man-At-Arms' Command or the Plague Doctor's Emboldening Vapors, the Hellion's Wicked Hack can dole out damage in the high teens to low twenties regularly - even more if you're able to add Crit tokens or Vulnerability into the mix!

Berserker

The Berserker is built around inflicting as much Bleed damage as possible, then using Bloodlust to power up the Hellion's melee attacks. Since the Hellion needs to spend a turn setting up with Bloodlust, it's a good idea to inflict Bleed using a combat item or have another Hero like the Plague Doctor or Jester take on part of that job as well.

Carcass

The Carcass is a fun build that plays very differently from the Hellion's other Paths. Since she gets a Winded token every turn, she won't be dealing nearly as much damage; however, with her excellent self-healing abilities and the extra Taunt from Barbaric YAWP, she becomes a nearly-unbreakable front-row tank.

The trick to playing the Carcass is to let your Winded tokens build up to max out on Block tokens, then use Adrenaline Rush to clear them out and swing away with Wicked Hack to keep healing. The low damage doesn't matter as long as the Hellion keeps her health up and lets the rest of the party beat down enemies!

Next: Darkest Dungeon 2: Dreaming General Boss Fight Guide