Loathing

""The loathing whispers....""

- -The Academic

Loathing is a mechanic present in Darkest dungeon 2. It represents evil taking over the world and it's the heroes' responsibility to fight it.

The objective of Loathing is to increase the difficulty of the expedition mainly by increasing battle disadvantage and Torch drain. Loathing has 6 phases (0 Loathing to 5 Loathing) and although Loathing can be manageable. The player should not allow loathing to reach 5 as it presents a much greater threat than any of the previous phases.

Increasing Loathing
The Loathing will naturally increase each time you arrive at the Inn. The "Doomsayer" quirk will also increase it one level through its own road banter. If Loathing is less than 3 The Inn will increase Loathing to 3. If the current level is 3, the Inn will increase the level until it reaches 4. If it is level 4, the Inn will give 5 Loathing.

Decreasing Loathing
Loathing will decrease by one each time the heroes complete a fight in Resistance Encounters, Cultist Encounters, Creature Dens, and The Lair. Heroes must complete the battles, as simply arriving and rejecting the battles or not completing the Boss of the lair will not grant the loathing decrease.

Loathing levels
Loathing has 6 (0 - 5) levels in total, its effects are listed below:

Trivia

 * Since it only occurs during road battles, if you get 5 loathing a safe road with a Resistance Encounter or Cultist Encounter node will reduce the loathing to 4 avoiding the Exemplar.
 * In the game files, Loathing is referred as "doom".