Antiquarian

"She searches where others will not go, and sees what others will not see."

The Antiquarian is one of the playable Character Classes in Darkest Dungeon. The Antiquarian is by far the weakest class in the game, with relatively weak (if at least usable) attacks, leading to sub-par combat performance. As a supporting character she's surprisingly useful; she can heal party members, bolster their dodge rates, and perform nominal debuffing on enemies. Most notable, the Antiquarian is a highly useful mercantile hero who boasts a number of unique properties than can help a party earn gold on an adventure:
 * Firstly she increases the amount of gold you can carry in a stack from 1750 to 2500. Every subsequent Antiquarian will further increase it by another 750 (for a theoretical maximum of 4750 with a full Antiquarian party).
 * Secondly is that she causes unique loot to drop. These are Minor Antiques, which are worth 500 gold each and stack to 20, and Rare Antiques which are worth 1250 each and stack to 5. Antiques will only be looted if the Antiquarian interacts with the curio. Rare Antiques, being more expensive than their minor counterparts, are less likely to be dropped or looted. The exact ratio is 1:6

Combat Skills
"A scholar, researcher, and keen archaeologist, The Antiquarian is not well suited for combat. She is, however, an expert in self-preservation - by making herself scarce in a fight, or demanding an ally protect her, she ensures her survival. If direct combat is unavoidable, The Antiquarian can use her fulminating censer to heal and invigorate allies...and to toxify attackers."

- The Guild

* Forcing a Guard on an Ally will cause them to forfeit any other guards they were previously doing. Meaning for instance, that the Man-at-Arms' and the Houndmaster's Guards cannot be simultaneously applied to the Antiquarian's guard (buffs stack however).

Tactical Appraisal
The Antiquarian's low combat performance belies her utility on the battlefield. While her damage output is one of the lowest of any class, she makes up for it in other areas, and the Antiquarian is usable in several different roles depending on what skills she's given.

As a character who bolsters the amount of Gold you bring home, however, she's great for supporting early operations to finance your adventures, and her abilities are almost entirely centered around boosting the party's survivability. Throughout her career, her Fortifying Vapors ability is as strong as the Plague Doctor's Battlefield Medicine, though it lacks status recovery. This allows her to take some of the heat off a party, especially one whose members are otherwise self-healing, like the Leper, Abomination, or Hellion. Because her other effects focus on damage mitigation, she can actually help maintain a party by making it take notably less damage than it might otherwise.

Her other abilities play into her "Survival-Boosting" nature and are comparatively strong. Invigorating Vapors is a useful ability that boosts the entire party's dodge rate by 3; as it gets stronger it actually makes her more viable, because she can boost the natural dodge rates of your characters by that much more, and it stacks with itself, making it potentially possible of boosting the party's dodge rates by a significant degree. Get Down! gives an even larger boost that works extremely well against enemies that like to use Marks. Perhaps the most interesting ability she has is Protect Me, which has the dual benefit of not only reducing your available number of targets but of significantly boosting the defense of the Antiquarian's bodyguard. This can be extremely strong with characters who wouldn't ordinarily be able to guard someone, but will nonetheless enjoy the benefits of the massive PROT boost, such as the Leper, Hellion, or Crusader. Flashpowder is another useful ability that synergizes well with her ability to bolster party defense, its only real downside being that it's single-target only.

Her combat abilities are easy to overlook but are still nonetheless useful; Nervous Stab, though weak, can hit almost any target, and though both the damage and blight effect of Festering Vapors is weak, the effect can hit the whole battlefield and is still a useful effect for residual damage. The Antiquarian is one of the few characters whose combat abilities aren't too shaken up by row, allowing her to work from anywhere except the front.

Make no mistake, however: This character is all about boosting the amount of gold you bring home and defensive support - not out-and-out fighting. She's at her best when she helps a party minimize or avoid taking damage in the first place and mitigating that damage further thereafter. Use her correctly, and as a utility character she may surprise you with how effective she can be.

Camping Skills
"A researcher never rests! The Antiquarian surveys the campsite, obtaining supply items and even trinkets that the party may have overlooked. Her peculiar utterances and strange powders have been known to put minds at ease, and strengthen corporeal hardiness."

- Survivalist

On Trinket Scrounge
* The trinket produced will be randomly taken from the trinket pool, however Ancestral trinkets and other Unique trinkets (i.e. from the Madman or Collector) cannot be found. The trinket will most likely be of common rarity. Exact percentages are: These rates are not affected by the level of the antiquarian nor the difficulty of the dungeon. Longer dungeons simply grant more camping opportunities, and the heroes don't have to complete the dungeon to keep the scrounged trinket (they just need the inventory space for it). Given the sale prices of trinkets, each camp opportunity should net an overall average of 1245 gold per antiquarian. A "backyard camping" team of 4 antiquarians who enter a dungeon, use all their firewood to scrounge, and then abandon the mission will make mild to moderate amounts of relatively risk & stress free cash, assuming they sell all the trinkets (and survive a couple battles). The main penalties to abandoning medium and long dungeons are advancing the week, and taking some stress (which they will reduce with the next backyard camping "adventure"). (minus the cost of food for each camp)
 * (very) Common : 10/25
 * Common : 7/25
 * Uncommon : 5/25
 * Rare : 2/25
 * Very rare : 1/25
 * Medium Dungeon: ~5,000 gold
 * Long Dungeon: ~10,000 gold
 * Darkest Dungeon: ~20,000 gold (though abandoning these missions has other costs)

If you can survive the battles to reach the first room, and any nighttime attacks, then this may be a good way to gather lots of random trinkets in search of the ones you want, selling the rest for relatively easy cash (as you don't need to fight many battles). However, simply completing missions may be better, for leveling up heroes and collecting heirlooms, etc.

Equipment
"The Antiquarian wears no armor to speak of, instead relying on the power of the innumerable ancient charms and relics she has collected in her travels. Her eye for rarities is enhanced by the unsettling properties of her censer's vapours, which can offer some utility to the party in...problematic encounters."

- The Blacksmith

Each Hero has trinkets unique to them that only they can equip. The Antiquarian has seven; 2 uncommon, 2 Crimson Court and 1 common, rare and very rare. Unlike other heroes whose trinkets are only one or two different types of items, her trinkets all different sorts of curios and artifacts, befitting for her status as a collector.


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District Bonus
The Crimson Court DLC adds Districts to the Hamlet, some of which confer passive buffs to heroes.


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Customisation
As for every hero, the Antiquarian has four different colour palettes to choose from: red, purple, pink, and orange.

Barks
Critical Hit = "My will is without equal!"

- Antiquarian

"My eyes find all weakness!"

- Antiquarian

Selfish = "If only I could sell your skins, that I might profit marginally from having met you."

- Antiquarian while Selfish.

Powerful = "I will tear victory from the maw of doom!"

- Antiquarian while Powerful.

"...and thus they will crumble, like ancient stone."

- Antiquarian on buffing party's damage thanks to being Powerful.

"Stir! Rise and stir your resolve!"

- Antiquarian on buffing party's damage thanks to being Powerful.

Vigorous = "My will is brilliant and terrible!"

- Antiquarian becoming Vigorous

"These wounds weren't as bad as I thought."

- Antiquarian healing herself while Vigorous

Final Boss (spoilers) = "So I'm the final antique, yet there will be nothing around to collect..."

- Antiquarian

Trivia

 * The Antiquarian was previously known as the Merchant during development.
 * The Antiquarian was inspired by the Silk Road as voted by Kickstarter backers.
 * The beta patch that introduced the Antiquarian coincided with International Women's Day on March 8th, 2016.
 * The predetermined name of the Antiquarian is Katharine, Who or what it references is currently unknown. It is possible this name was chosen because of its semantic provenance from the greek goddess Hekate, patron of crossroads, entrance-ways, magic, witchcraft and knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants.