Houndmaster/Strategy (2024)

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Overview

The Houndmaster is a strong generalist capable of doing many different things at the same time, and doing them well. His strengths include the following:

• An attack that can hit any rank with strong Mark synergy.
• A Mark that also happens to be the best PROT debuff in the game.
• Arguably the most efficient stress heal in the game.
• A Guard that boosts his own DODGE, allowing him to singlehandedly negate attacks on two heroes.
• A reliable stun that can hit ranks 1-3.
• Camping skills that prevent Night-Time Ambush, heal stress, and buff Scouting chance.
• Extremely high Trap disarm chance, and average to decent stats across the board.
• A powerful set of Trinkets that synergise with the rest of his kit.
• Flexibility: Can access most of his useful skills in ranks 2-4. Can work well in any dungeon or with any teammate.

His weaknesses, by comparison, are:

• Low base damage.
• Certain skills and builds require trinkets and/or a few levels of upgrades to be effective.

Most builds place the Houndmaster in ranks 2-4 in a hybrid damage/support role. Alternatively can be built as a pure DODGE tank in any rank.

Combat Skills

Hound's Rush

A decent attack that can hit any rank with strong Mark synergy. It has some weaknesses:

1. Average accuracy, requiring trinkets to be reliable.
2. Average-low damage, somewhat mitigated by the skill's Bleed and synergies with Mark, and Beast.

Dog Treats can also be used to solve the above two issues. And while the Houndmaster will never hit as hard as dedicated damage dealers, a decent attack that can hit any rank is almost always useful.

Hound's Harry

Niche skill: extremely effective against the Flesh, but less useful in general.

Target Whistle

The best PROT debuff in the game:

• Extremely high accuracy and debuff chance (130% at base level, the highest in the game) making it reliable even without any trinkets.
• Lasts for 4 turns instead of the usual 3.
• Comes with a Mark, letting the Houndmaster synergise with other users.

Cry Havoc

Highly dependent on upgrades: is practically unusable at lower levels, but at higher levels becomes arguably the best Stress heal in the game. A good reason for running Houndmaster in ranks 3 and 4, or at least ensuring that the Houndmaster is in ranks 3 or 4 during the recovery phase.

Guard Dog

Very powerful defensive skill. When combined with some Dodge trinkets or buffs, can ensure that half the party will (almost) never get hit. Possible use cases include:

• The Houndmaster can guard a squishy front-liner, allowing them to play more aggressively with skills and trinkets.
  • If the Houndmaster is also in the first two ranks himself, Guard Dog can nullify almost all attacks on the front line.
• Two Houndmasters guarding two teammates. With sufficient bonuses to Dodge, this can trivialise most fights in the game.
• Lastly, even in non DODGE-tanking builds, Guard Dog can be used in an emergency to save a hero on Death's Door.

The skill's main downside is that the Guard effect only lasts for one turn, meaning it needs to be refreshed every turn to be useful—thus a DODGE-tanking Houndmaster becomes weaker in other roles, like dealing damage.

Lick Wounds

A good self-heal, second only to the Leper's Solemnity in amount healed. Useful for making off-healer or no-healer parties more viable. The only thing the Houndmaster cannot do is heal his teammates, but Guard Dog and Lick Wounds together can nullify and heal a lot of incoming damage.

Blackjack

A Stun with good reach (hitting ranks 1-3), high accuracy, and above average Stun chance, boosted even higher by Cudgel Weight. Excellent for Stalling during the recovery phase. One downside is that it is only usable in the front ranks.

Trinkets

Trinket choices for the Houndmaster depend on whether he's serving in a generalist support role versus a dedicated DODGE-tanking build.

Generalist

Like most Heroes, the Houndmaster typically requires an accuracy trinket to make his attacks reliable:

• Steady Bracer can be acquired fairly early on.
• Battered Lawman's Badge: Very good accuracy, +15 as opposed to the usual +10. Solves his accuracy issues. Unfortunately it has the side effect of making his Guard weaker because of the stun resistance debuff—however this may be made up for by the trinket's many benefits.

The Bleed amount on Hound's Rush is fairly low and generally not worth a trinket to boost chance.

TODO: add more trinkets.

DODGE Builds

Not surprisingly, dedicated Guard Dog builds typically equip two Dodge trinkets. Notable examples include:

• Camouflage Cloak is easy to acquire early and remains effective throughout the entire game. Certain enemies target heroes with the lowest stun resistance, so decreasing his stun resistance actually (counterintuitively) makes him better at tanking, though also slightly worse at guarding.
• Feather Crystal increases his Speed, ensuring that he'll be able to use Guard Dog before enemies attack. See also the note above regarding resistances.
• Protective Collar, a Houndmaster-unique trinket, trades DMG for even more Dodge, and is notable for not penalising stun resistance (unlike the previous two trinkets).
• Ancestor's Coat and Wilbur's Flag are the two best-in-slot items later in the game.

A Note on the Huskfang Whistle

To summarise: the trinket is weak in general, but may be useful in some niche cases. Definitely not good to purchase early, since Comet Shards are limited, and there are many more powerful and more cost-effective trinkets available.

By its design, the Huskfang Whistle seems to address the main issue with Guard Dog builds—that the skill must be used every turn in order to have effect. Huskfang Whistle extends the duration by one turn, meaning that (at least in in theory) the Houndmaster can alternate between guarding and using another skill. However, when compared with the normal Guard Dog build, it suffers some severe penalties to Dodge:

• -10 Dodge from the Huskfang Whistle itself.
• -10 Dodge from opportunity cost: by equipping the Huskfang Whistle, the Houndmaster is not using another Dodge trinket that could give 10 Dodge, or more.
• -10 to -20 Dodge from the fact that by using Guard Dog every two turns instead of every turn, the Houndmaster is no longer stacking the Dodge buff on himself.

Later in the game, a typical Guard Dog build will have around 75 Dodge on the first turn, and 95 thereafter:

• 30 base Dodge from armour.
• 25 Dodge from two trinkets. E.g. Camouflage Cloak and Sun Cloak.
• 20 Dodge from each instance of the Guard Dog buff.

Champion-level enemies have a base accuracy of around 100, so an effective accuracy of 25% on the first turn and 5% thereafter. Using the numbers above, the Huskfang Whistle increases their effective accuracy to 65%. So the net effect of the Huskfang Whistle is to give the Houndmaster an extra action on the second and fourth turns, at the cost of suffering a lot more enemy attacks—a fairly inefficient trade.

Stacking sufficiently many Dodge buffs (e.g. the Man-at-Arms' Bolster and Tactics, or the Antiquarian's Invigorating Vapours) can make the Huskfang Whistle more viable. The Cove and Ruins also have Curios that boost Dodge by +25 and +10, respectively. But given the many trade-offs required, it is much simpler to run a regular Guard Dog build with two Dodge trinkets in most cases.

Teammates

With Guard Dog, the Houndmaster can greatly boost the survivability of less survivable front-line heroes, e.g. Occultist, Shieldbreaker, Hellion with Lioness Warpaint.