There are two main currencies in Darkest Dungeon. There is gold that you will mostly spend on upgrading and healing your heroes. There are then heirlooms that are needed to upgrade buildings in Hamlet.
Your main way of earning both gold and heirlooms is to simply complete dungeons in the game. Every dungeon rewards you with a certain amount of gold and heirlooms depending on its difficulty level. There are, however, other factors in play as well that determine your rewards.
Note that you can neither purchase heirlooms with gold nor sell heirlooms for gold. That makes it all the more important for you to manage your currencies right. Spending too many heirlooms on the wrong building upgrades will likely set you back. Wasting gold on the wrong heroes will similarly limit your gameplay.
That being said, going bankrupt in Darkest Dungeon does not necessarily translate into a game over. You get new heroes at the Stage Coach every week and they are free. So, you will always be able to grind dungeons to earn your way back into the game.
The following guide will tell a few tips and tricks to help double the amount of gold and heirlooms you can farm in Darkest Dungeon.
Best way to farm gold in Darkest Dungeon
Run dungeons with Antiquarian
Antiquarian is one of the playable classes in the game. She is also the weakest hero you can pick for your party. However, the Antiquarian has a couple of special passive abilities that make her perfect for a gold farming run.
Having an Antiquarian in your party will allow you to loot minor and rare antiques from enemies and curios. Each minor antique is worth 500 gold. Each rare antique on the other hand fetches 1250 gold when you return to Hamlet. Take note that you need your Antiquarian to interact with curios to drop antiques.
Secondly, an Antiquarian increases the gold stacks in your inventory from 1750 to 2500 gold, allowing you to carry more gold from a single dungeon. Adding another Antiquarian to your party will increase your gold stacks further by another 750 gold, and so on.
You can create an Antiquarian party to run apprentice dungeons (levels 1-2) without any concern. The trick here is to create a fresh party of heroes from the Stage Coach and run them until they either die or become too expensive to treat. Then create another party to continue farming for gold.
Do torchless runs
Running dungeons at lower light levels increase your loot chances. Extinguishing your torch for Black as Pitch runs will give you a 30 percent chance of finding more gold and items.
A torchless dungeon run will, however, make enemies stronger but you will get more loot from defeating them as well.
Do note that moving around in the dark carries a small chance of being ambushed by a Shambler, a fairly difficult Eldritch mini-boss.
Ditch some of your provisions
It is common to run out of space in medium or long dungeons. When that happens, consider ditching some of your provisions to make space for more gold stacks or items to sell later on.
For example, if you are already halfway through a dungeon, you might not need the remaining torches or bandages. Your provisions only sell for a small fee after returning, so there is no point in bringing them back.
Find the secret room
Every medium and long dungeon has a chance of having a secret room. You will need a hero with a good scouting chance to discover the secret room. Inside, you will find Puzzling Trapezohedrons that can fetch 3500 gold each.
Sell your extra trinkets
Keep playing Darkest Dungeon for a dozen or so hours and you will eventually find yourself with a number of trinkets. You are not going to be using all of them, so sell them for gold.
Also, if you have multiple very rare trinkets, sell the extra ones as well unless you are planning to have three Vestals in your party.
Build a bank
If you have The Crimson Court DLC, build yourself a Bank as soon as possible to earn a 5 percent interest each week on your saved gold.
Best way to farm heirlooms in Darkest Dungeon
Know your heirlooms
There are four types of heirlooms in Darkest Dungeon and much like gold, you can farm them by completing and looting dungeons.
Something important to know is that while every dungeon drops all types of heirlooms, each location has a higher chance of dropping one type of heirlooms.
Hence, if you want to farm a particular heirloom, you must only run dungeons in its designated location. Below are all of the locations in the game and the heirlooms they drop the most.
- Ruins: Busts (needed for Stage Coach, Abbey, and Sanitarium upgrades)
- Warrens: Portraits (needed for Guild, and Tavern upgrades)
- Weald: Deeds (needed for Stage Coach, and Blacksmith upgrades)
- Cove: Crests (needed for all building upgrades)
Stick to torchless, Antiquarian runs
Most of your gold farming methods remain the same for heirlooms. Get an Antiquarian for torchless runs to increase the number of heirlooms you can loot.
Run medium dungeons instead of long
Heirlooms take up a lot of space in your inventory. Portraits have a stack size of only 3. Busts and Deeds stack to 6. Crests, being the most common, can stack up to 12.
Doing long dungeons for more loot is a mistake and not efficient at all because you are likely going to run out of space while waiting time in the dungeon.
The more optimal method is to farm medium dungeons. You can get more heirlooms in less time.
