[Darkest Dungeon] The Innocent - Class Feedback

Alright, great job on the mod. I'll be writing a bit of a review with personal suggestions and analysis, because I do love this mod and no one's really written one for it before.

First of all, the art and the theme, I think it's absolutely amazing. I want to play her just for the idea behind her class alone, even without the comic, and her grotesque Play form truly fits the game. Now, I've taken her on runs from Lv0 all the way to Lv6, and I have a lot to say about her and her kit as a whole.
tl;dr: I think she's a bit too overbalanced and unnecessarily restrictive.

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HERO STATS

Starting with the stats, I'll mostly be comparing her to Bounty Hunter, as he's also a Mark hero and his DMG is 8-16 compared to Innocent's 9-16 at Lv5.
I understand that the moveset must also be considered alongside the stats, but I'll touch on that later. Now, let's see what she trades for compared to BH in terms of stats:

+) +20 DODGE
-) -19 HP

With 26 HP at Lv5, she's INCREDIBLY squishy, possibly one of the squishiest of all the modded classes. The class with the lowest Max HP in the game, Occultist, still has 7 more HP than her. Surprisingly, I don't find this to be a problem. In fact, I think it's a very unique statline that really impacts how you build a team with her and how you should play her. But, this also sparks some problems, as I'll mention later on when it comes to her kit.

-) -30% Stun/Move Resist
-) -20% Bleed/Blight/Debuff Resist
-) -10% Disease Resist
-) -30% Trap Disarm

It's evident that right now, DODGE is her ONLY defensive mechanism. She not only has no above average resistances, but all her resistances asides from Death Blow are also extremely below average. These resistances are much lower than base game rogue-types, and even lower than modded scholar-types like Librarian or Philomath. At first I was thinking "Ok her Prim form has Stealth, can force Guard, and usually chills outside the 1st rank, maybe she gets more resistances when she switches to her Play form", but no, she doesn't get any. This is a much larger problem for her than rogue-types or scholar-types because she doesn't like hanging around in Rank 3 or 4. Her Play form is extremely restrictive, with her best damage-dealing move only usable in Rank 1, leaving her vulnerable to enemies with damage meant for bruiser. Sure, she has high DODGE, but with her actual bottom-tier HP and resistances, one crit in higher difficulties is usually enough to get her into extremely dire situations.

+) +1 min DMG
+) +2% base CRIT

This is a minuscule damage advantage, and as I'll talk about later when discussing her moves, this does virtually nothing to compensate for her downsides.

So what does this all mean? GUARD HER, if you ever plan to go Play. This is honestly not a bad point to her, it influences teambuilding when it comes to her. So as much as I bash on her terrible defenses, I actually think it makes her unique to run.

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MOVESET

My main problems with her comes from her kit. I'll list out my opinions on each of her moves, and provide personal suggestions by the end of it.

1) Prim Mode

I think Innocent has the opposite problem to Abomination. Abomination DREADS transforming due to the huge stress, and usually have to stay in human form as a Stunbot, because stunning gives lots of momentum and is a great preventative measure. Innocent on the other hand, doesn't do NEARLY enough to provide tempo or prevent threats in her Prim form, as 75% of the times in her Prim form, if your team has decent stress management, there is no good button to press unless you're in a good situation to transform. My most successful Innocent runs have resulted from me simply throwing her in 1st Rank and transforming ASAP to provide immediate combat benefits. For a transformation class with zero ways to transform back mid-battle, the fact that her human form has no good first round buttons for the majority of situations is a huge problem.

- Skill 1: Playtime! (Prim)

I think this is her most consistent button in Prim mode. It's a Mark + Extra Action that she can immediately capitalize on the same round after transforming. Great move, which actually provides merit for its Stress penalty.

- Skill 2: Some Tea?

Personally, I think this is the single worst move in her kit. I simply don't get the design philosophy behind this. At Lv5, her heal is only 4-4, 1 point above Antiquarian. The thing is, Antiquarian's heal is meant to be a panic button, to make a hero escape from DD. You'll much rather start out fights with Anti's much stronger disruptive, damage dealing or defensive moves like Festering Vapours, Flashpowder or Invigorating Vapours. One may think "Ok then, if it's just a panic button then so be it, what's the problem?". The big thing is, a panic button needs to be able to be accessed at any time. While running Fortifying Vapours on Antiquarian, your team should be able to keep her remaining in Rank 3 or 4 at all times, to have access to her panic heal. Not only does Innocent have no way to transform back to Prim form in her Play form to gain back access to Some Tea?, in the first place, the move can only be used on Rank 2 & 3. So you can't even access it while keeping her at Rank 1 to wait for the perfect moment to transform. In my opinion, a weak panic heal simply does not suit Innocent's playstyle, at all.

Asides from that, the Cure Horror on target and self is... ok to have, but super situational and also a bit weird. I understand that she's supposed to be a synergist, so using her with classes that inflicts self Horror is probably the intended idea, but with how restrictive Some Tea? is, like I've mentioned, I really feel like it cannot do a good job at this. And the +8% Healing Received on **herself** is really puzzling to me. Running her means keeping her alive constantly from Darkest Dungeon shenanigans, so that means preventing her from taking damage at all, as she can get into Deathblow range from 1 attack alone by a bruiser-type enemy. This self buff feels like it's just there for thematic reasons, and honestly, doesn't benefit her in the slightest.

- Skill 3: A Lullaby~

This skill has equal stress healing to Jester's Inspiring Tune, but gets stronger the more she uses it, but also propels her 1 rank forward every time she does. I think this skill is situationally decently useful, but overall, quite bad. I'm sure the idea is having her slowly propels herself to 1st Rank before transforming, while Stress healing along the way. This is NOT a good strategy. Pressing this button during the non-stalling period of combat means not pressing any button that progresses the game state to a position where you can feel comfortable healing. Darkest Dungeon encourages crippling the enemy team quickly and efficiently before being able to fix up your team, because you'll most likely not outheal, stress or physical, an enemy team of 3 or 4. This is what I meant by the Prim form provides no momentum. Not only that, when most enemies are taken out and the combat goes to the team healing phase, she's most likely had to transform anyway to join in with the killing, and cannot transform back. The design of this move and her Prim form as a whole goes completely against the optimal strategy of DD.

- Skill 4: Hide Me!

I love this move, not for what it is, but what it could become. The only problem with this move is the 60% chance to swap positions. Why? Why not 100%? This could be SO fun to build teams around. She could force Guard on Houndmaster from Rank 4 after he stuns with Blackjack from Rank 1, at the same time, this button not only moved HM back to give him back his Hound's Rush after a quick 1st round Stun for momentum, but also moved Innocent to R1, prepared and ready to transform with a comfortable 3-round Stealth on herself benefitting from any Stealth or Guarded trinkets/quirks on the side. Another example, you could play Rank 4 Crusader as a preventative measure for unlucky first rounds where you cannot take out the enemy backline in time and needs another Holy Lance. If the threats are neutralized by the 2nd round, you can yoink him right back to Rank 1 or 2 immediately with Hide Me to provide bruiser damage without needing to move up a round, while Prim Innocent moves right back to the backline exactly when she's needed in the healing phase of combat. ANOTHER example, you're fighting Shambler, it throws Leper or Arbalest out of their static ranks. Boom, out you go. If this one move has the consistency that I honestly have no idea why it lacked in the first place, this can be a very, VERY fun move for more advanced teambuilding for players who understand the game well and wants to plan ahead. So uhh... please, make it 100%. It won't be overpowered, and it requires game knowledge to best utilize, which I think is a great balancing philosophy to follow for any move. I really want to have fun with this.

2) Play Mode:

In its current form, her Play Mode is vastly better than her Prim mode. The Stress on party is surprisingly manageable, but compared to other Mark attackers, she's still not the optimal choice. To explain why, I'll be comparing her to Bounty Hunter again in a few instances. Plus, one very important detail to note, since all her skills in Play Mode has a team-wide stress penalty, all her skills should be above the balancing of what its equivalent would be on non-stress skills.

So, let's bring back the trade system.

- Skill 1: Playtime! (Play)

With this skill, I'll compare it to HM's Hound Rush, as they are both damage-dealing Bleed skills with Mark synergies
Trades:
+) +10% Bleed Skill Chance vs Marked (110% + 40% - 140%)
+) +3 pts/rd for 3 rds of Bleed vs Marked (Total of 9 bonus damage over 3 rounds)
+) +5 ACC (110 vs 105)
-) -1% CRIT mod, given CRIT base for weapons (16% vs 17%)
-) 8-14 DMG vs Marked (Innocent) || 14-26 DMG vs Marked (Houndmaster)
-) -1 Usable Rank (X-X-O-O vs O-O-O-X)
-) -1 Target Rank (O-O-O-X vs O-O-O-O)
-) Allies: Stress +2

I'd say this is an underwhelming skill for its downsides. The total damage over time compared to Hound's Rush (Given the Bleed sticks, no crits, and on a Marked target) is 23-29 vs 20-32. About the same damage, with less IMMEDIATE damage and much less versatility, on top of a Stress penalty. I don't find myself hitting this often unless I still have a Rank 3 to take care of (AND in case this move can actually take care of it)

- Skill 2: Biscuit?

With this skill, I'll compare it to BH's Collect Bounty, since it's obviously her main damage dealing move with Mark synergy in Play Mode
Trades:
+) +10 ACC vs Marked (100 + 15 vs 105)
+) +6% CRIT vs Marked (10% + 9% + 6% = 25% vs 8% + 11% = 19%)
+) 11-20 DMG vs NOT Marked (Innocent) || 8-16 DMG vs NOT Marked (BH)
+) Can be used the same turn an enemy in striking range is Marked by Playtime! (Prim)
+) Self: Heal 4 HP
-) -5 ACC vs NOT Marked
-) 13-23 DMG vs Marked (Innocent) || 15-31 DMG vs Marked (BH)
-) -25% DMG against Human
-) -2 Usable Rank (X-X-X-O vs X-O-O-O)
-) Allies: Stress +3

The most significant trades on the positive side are the ACC vs Marked and the self heal (due to her squishy nature), and the immediate Mark synergy, while the most significant trades on the negative side are the allies' Stress, crippled versatility, a very common tag for +25% DMG, and a significant damage decrease vs Marked. This is one of those moves that, while is evidently a pretty below-average move, you'd have to press anyway if you decide to run her. In terms of damage output, it's pretty clear that in most situations, you'd rather run BH. Sure, the immediate Mark synergy from Prim from is nice, but keep in mind that Biscuit? can only hit the first 2 ranks. When do you need fast and immediate momentum? During the first 2 rounds of combat, when you need to take out the **backline**. Bounty Hunter provides many disruptions to satisfy this purpose. He can Flashbang a backline to Stun and throw it up top, he can Come Hither to Mark for someone else to finish it off. Now, you could say that... yeah, Innocent herself can be the one to finish them off in that sense, but the sad truth is that anyone else would be better than her even in that situation. Another BH can easily 1-shot a Marked Cultist Witch that's been pulled to the front ranks. A HM has a decent chance to finish off a pulled back-rank enemy that's not resistant to Bleed that way, and in fact, don't even need the enmy to be pulled. And even after that, if faced with literally any kind of position disruption beforehand, like from Shambler, Ambushes, random Surprises, or a particularly cunning Cultist Witch, Innocent cannot even fulfill that role anymore, and must rely on the enemy being Marked, vulnerable to Bleed, and not being thrown outside of Rank 1 or 2 so that she can use Playtime! (Play) instead of Biscuits? for her to really have a good chance to finish off a back-rank enemy in one go.

Making her this weak to position disruption after giving him such low Move Resistance, all the while gimping her damage output compared to her peers really renders her a worse choice than any other Mark hero in many circumstances.

- Skill 3: SING~

There is no comparison for this move. Being able to Stun any Marked enemy with Occultist's Stun Change is pretty great. If you manage to dish out enough Marks on the first few turns, she can do actual significant disruption on par with Plague Doctor. But this comes with a huge *however*, as using this move even once locks her out of hitting Biscuits?. This problem goes back to the unnecessary lack of versatility on Biscuits. Theoretically, you'll most likely only need to hit this move once per battle if you would like to use it at all, or maybe once more during the stalling phase, where you'll most likely not need Biscuits? anymore, so why restrict Biscuits? like that? This move would be fine if kept the same, but provided that Biscuits be changed to allow usage in Rank 2. There are a few instances of moves restricted to R1 in the game. For Leper and Hellion, they are both heroes who do not want to be moved at all. For Highwayman, Point Blank Shot is only a way for him to return to his favorite positions, as you don't... start out with PBS. For Shieldbreaker, her R1-only moves that actually moves her out of position are extremely powerful moves that can finish the fight incredibly quickly. Biscuits? fits none of those. It's not so powerful that it would be unfair from Rank 2 (even if the +20% DMG modifier tells otherwise at first glance), while the existence of SING~ and A Lullaby~ shows that Innocent is not meant to be a static character either. C'mon now, justice for Biscuits.

- Skill 4: SEEK!

Ok, a Mark skill that bypasses Stealth but doesn't De-Stealth, and bypasses Guard but doesn't Break Guard... why? It also has a MUCH below average Pull chance compared to moves like Come Hither or Daemon's Pull. Yeah, the move does have additional Move Skill Chance vs Marked but... that's wayyy too cumbersome for simply pulling a back-rank enemy. You could say that Playtime (Prim) into SEEK! is a good first turn move if the enemy in Rank 3 is either the Bone Courtier or the Pelagic Shaman, since they're virtually useless at Rank 1, and you'd be correct, however, I'd much rather see the move have a good Move Skill Chance in the first place, for versatility's sake. The Mark also only lasts for 2 rounds for some reason, which I cannot understand. Usually a Mark lasts for 3 rounds and provides some kind of bonus effects to make it not simply a 1-1 trade for bonus damage. SEEK! only has a low chance to Pull, which would probably fail for most unmarked enemies in Champion, it bypasses Guard and bypasses Stealth but doesn't break any of them for support (So you can't even hit it with Biscuits? after pulling), it does have a fair base damage at 6-10 but above that it stresses all of Innocent's allies for +2. Again, a skill you will need to hit if you do run Innocent, but overall very confusing in terms of design philosophy.

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Camping Skills:

I think her camping skills are good. Maybe for 5 Respite Points, Tale of Heroes should provide -15% Stress DMG Received or -50% Stress Inflicted on Party for herself instead, but I wouldn't complain if it stays the same.

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Personal Suggestions:

So hopefully I've managed to point out exactly what I feel is strange or lacking about Innocent with her playstyle. To be more constructive, I will be proposing some personal suggestions for you to consider. It's not like I've playtested any of these, I'm simply basing these skills off my personal experience and knowledge on the game thus far, so take them with a grain of salt.

- General

I think the fact that her Prim form is a pure healer/stress healer while her Play form is a control/damage dealer with no way to change back except for a CoM trinket is pretty counter-intuitive, considering the normal flow of combat in Darkest Dungeon. As the way you described her in the description is that she supports a "more defensive playstle where you 'play with your food'", I propose an innate mechanic where Innocent changes back to her Prim form after 3 turns in Play form. This way, nothing is stopping the player from taking a stress penalty from Playtime! (Prim) again if they want to finish their meal, or simply stay in Prim form, as after 4 turns, if you "play with your food", most battles would have either already gone to the stalling phase, where her recovery abilities shine. It would actively encourage playing with your food as well, since you should then buy time until she transforms back so you can get some extra heals and stress heals in.

- Playtime! (Prim)

Eh, let's keep it the same. No complaints from my end.

- Some Tea?

Make it usable from all ranks. Free up the teambuilding for a synergist type character. The Heal amount can stay the same, or maybe buffed to 4-5, if she's just meant to be an off healer. Then, I'd say give the +8 DODGE buff to herself, and make the Healing Received a bit bigger, about 15-20% or so (So about half of Arbalest's), and apply it to the target. Now, she can heal decently, and given Aunty's Fine China, she can be a main healer by herself. I'd say the multitudes of side effects on a 4-5 heal compared to Crusader's 5-6 heal would be fair, seeing that Crusader has so much more bulk and resistances than her, and can do much more things than her in Prim form.

- A Lullaby~

Making this viable as a 1st turn option button would be ideal, to allow more strategies than just pressing Hide Me! for setup or immediately transform every time. She's relatively fast, so a small ACC & DMG buff would be appreciated. As opposed to Jester, her usage of A Lullaby~ is inherently limited, as she moves forward every time she uses it, so making it give a stronger bonus than Jester's -20% Stress Damage Received is warranted. For specificity's sake, let's say... +5 ACC & +10% DMG.

- Hide Me!

Make Innocent just guaranteed toswap her position with the target. That's it, great stuff. I've already explained how fun this move would be if that were the case.

- Playtime! (Play)

I probably should've explained this above, but why didn't I compare this move with If It Bleeds instead of Hound's Rush? Well, because the running theme with Play form Innnocent is that her moves are ineffective on non-Marked targets, so I needed another Mark synergy move for that. The original Bleed chance of this move shows that. 110% Bleed Chance at Lv5 will be resisted by most enemies in Champion level, and all that's left then is 8-14 DMG. Since, just like all moves in Play form, Playtime! (Play) has the inherent negative of stressing out the whole team, if we just raise the base Bleed Chance further, we can balance it out using If It Bleeds as the base. So let's say the base Bleed chance against non-Marked targets is 125% (while lowering the bonus Bleed chance to +35%, equal to Hound's Harry), which is a relatively low number that won't get resisted by almost everything known to man, If It Bleeds deals 7-13 DMG + Bleeds 4pts/rd for 3rds (140% Chance). In Innocent's case, Playtime! (Play) would deal 8-14 DMG + Bleeds 3pts/rd for 3rds (125% Chance) vs NOT Marked and 8-14 DMG + Bleeds 5pts/rd for 3rds (150% Chance) vs Marked while stressing everyone else for 2. In terms of ranks, If It Bleeds can be used from X-O-O-O to hit X-O-O-X, while Playtime! (Play) can be used from X-X-O-O to hit O-O-O-X, I'd say that's fair.

- Biscuit?

First, it needs to be able to be accessed from Rank 2. It doesn't do enough while being put alongside the Innocent to warrant a 1st place lock. Even then, let's make it a move worthy of putting in a Mark for.
I'll bring up another modded class, Marvin Seo's Falconer. Quickshot has 110 ACC, +24% CRIT (inclusing Weapon base), deals +75% DMG vs Marked and buffs the Falconer for +4 SPD, and it's the lowest number of +DMG vs Marked I can find. Innocent has higher base DMG, but also Biscuit?, unlike Quickshot, is designed to hit Rank 1 & Rank 2, where all the tanks are, so let's balance it out and give her a total of +75% DMG when attacking a Marked target. Factoring in Biscuit?'s +20% DMG modifier, that makes the effect be as such:

X-X-O-O || O-O-X-X
ACC 100 | DMG +20% | CRIT +9.0%
+55% DMG vs Marked | +15 ACC vs Marked | +6% CRT vs Marked
Self: Heal 4 HP
Allies: Stress +3

To translate into numbers, that's 11-20 DMG against NOT Marked but only with 100 ACC. Against Marked, it's 115 ACC, 16-28 DMG & 25% CRIT vs Marked. Compared to BH's Collect Bounty having 105 ACC, 15-31 DMG & 19% CRIT vs Marked, given that we traded ally stress, bonus damage against Humans, ACC vs non-Marked and a usable Rank for more damage against non-Marked, a self-heal as well as a bunch of ACC & CRIT vs Marked, I'd say it's a fair trade.

- SING~

With Biscuit? being able to be used at R2, honestly, I find nothing to change about SING~. All its problems stems from it locking out Biscuit? after all.

- SEEK!

I'd punch up the Move chance to be a bit lower than Come Hither, at 125% or 130%, depends on how much you think a trade for breaking Guard AND Stealth is worth, because that definitely should be added as well. If it deals a bit of damage, Pull 2 at a slightly lower chance, breaks defenses in Guard & Stealth, I'd say it's a good trade for a party stress and an additional party stress to unlock the form in the first place. If so, the 2rds of Mark as opposed to 3, similar to Come Hither, is warranted.

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And that's it. I truly love the idea of this mod, and that's what compelled me to make over 4000 words worth of feedback like this. I think she's super cool & thematic, and would love it if I could enjoy actually playing her further.