Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
Learn the best cards, perks and enhancements in this Nightsround guide for the ideal assassination and invisibility focused build. With recommendations for different party sizes and dynamics this guide can be a quick or detailed reference for your Gloomhaven adventure ahead.
Table of Contents:
– Nightshroud Cards, Perks, Enhancements and Items Overview
– Nightshroud Cards Detailed
– Nightshroud Perks Detailed
– Nightshroud Enhancements Detailed
– Nightshroud Items Detailed
Gloomhaven Nightshroud Guide Overview
The overview section provides a Nightshroud template that balances your tools to assassinate by obtaining key movement cards and generating dark.
Nightshroud Cards Overview
- Level 1: Remove Wings of the Night, Concealed Dominance and Black Knives
- Level 2: Prepare for the Kill replaces Dancing Shadows
- Level 3: Terror Blade replaces Enervating Wound
- Level 4: Grim Sustenance replaces Dark Cloud
- Level 5: Black Arrow replaces Empowering Void
- Level 6: Swallowed by Fear replaces Terror Blade
- Level 7: Quiet Frenzy replaces Silent Force
- Level 8: Lurking Ruin replaces Cloak of Shade
- Level 9: Angel of Death replaces Spirit of the Night
Nightshroud Perks Priority Overview
- Ignore negative item effects and add two +1 cards
- Remove two -1 cards (take twice)
- Add two rolling curse cards
- Add one -1 dark card
- Replace one -1 dark card with a +1 dark card
- Add one -1 dark card (second time)
- Replace one -1 dark card with a +1 dark card (second time)
- Add one +1 invisible card (twice)
- Remove four zeros
- Add two rolling heal +1 cards
Nightshroud Enhancements Priority Overview
- Add Move the bottom of Smoke Step and Prepare for the Kill (add multiple move)
- Add a debuff (curse/disarm/immobilise/poison/wound) to the top of Doomed Breeze
Nightshroud Items Priority Overview
- Minor Stamina Potion
- Boots of Striding
- Cloak of Invisibility
- Minor Healing Potion
Gloomhaven Nightshroud Guide Detailed
In this detailed section I recommend alternative card options by level to consider bsaed on your party and playstyle although your goals remain the same to optimise movement, dark generation, assassination and avoid any loss cards as our 9 hand size cannot support these.
Nightshroud Cards Detailed
- Starting Cards: Concealed Dominance is an absolute must remove from our starting hand given it offers two burn actions with neither being useful. Your other starting cards to remove are more difficult to determine but I generally recommend Wings of the Night and Black Knives as we don’t want to use the persistent effects at our hand size so they only have one useful side.
- Level 2 Cards: Prepare for the Kill will be your favourite card and a critical level 2 card as it has dark generation on both top and bottom for combo setups with our dark focused kit. It is also an enhancement priority for additional move to ensure we can position for enemy kills and generally advance through a scenario map without delay.
- Level 3 Cards: A difficult decision for card choice your level 3 options are both being perfectly viable and one that will be influenced by party composition and dynamics. The reason I recommend Terror Blade in the overview section is the value of the large 3 push value for trap damage which can also sometimes be used defensively or setup an ally attack while also providing another large movement card. Armour of the Night is also a great card though as it adds a consistent 4 attack with potential healing and another dark generator. If you expect to take a little more damage due to the party composition I would lean towards taking Armour of the Night and ultimately you’ll replace both of these level 3 cards so don’t agonise over this decision.
- Level 4 Cards: Grim Sustenance is a clear winner at Level 4 with a uniquely useful top that will turn us invisible after a relatively weak attack (unless already invisible), this allows us to play aggressively into an enemy position when necessary to setup a future turn. The bottom loot is less of a factor as we should generally leave that to other mercenaries so we don’t fall behind but can pay dividends from time to time.
- Level 5 Cards: Selecting Black Arrow provides us something we haven’t had up to this point which is a hard hitting ranged attack to help our team if we do fall behind or simply can’t get into melee position for an attack or assassinate. With the added benefit of curse and muddle it can also reduce the overall damage our team takes as a nice side effect or allow us to go invisible with a quick initiative if we’ve overstepped in a previous round.
- Level 6 Cards: Level 6 takes the power of the Nightshroud to a whole new level with Swallowed by Fear giving us the power to assassinate any target with dark and another element. This also adds an alternative source of push if our team is desperate which makes replacing Terror Blade a good option.
- Level 7 Cards: With Eyes of the Night offering us nothing of value as the bulk of our power comes from assassinations which are not subject to the advantage/disadvantage mechanic the Quiet Frenzy card is our obvious choice with a decent bottom attack and a potential 8 attack card if we can combo invisible and dark at the same time that makes the preplanning of turns so critical to our damage output.
- Level 8 Cards: Level 8 is the hardest decision for the Nightshroud with both cards perfectly viable depending on your playstyle. I recommend Lurking Ruin as your default choice for the easy move and invisibility setup while also providing a solid attack 5 on top with some debuff potential if already invisible. Gloom Darts is still useful in a melee heavy party composition though and in particular larger party sizes where invisible is less important and you find it hard to constantly get a spot in the front line so you can stack curses, poison and damage on up to 3 targets at range.
- Level 9 Cards: Turning us into the Angel of Death your choice here is obvious with the potential to take out every normal enemy around us with the power of dark. Your threshold for using this top burn action will vary based on party size but in a full party I’d aim for at least 3 or 4 enemies in early rooms and steadily lower that threshold as you reach the later parts of the scenario. As if the top wasn’t powerful enough we get a bottom assassinate with a jump that means no normal enemy is safe.
Nightshroud Perks Detailed
The Nightshroud has some interesting perk choices and has limited opportunity to improve the modifier deck that keeps our damage in check when not assassinating an enemy. After removing -1s also add ignore negative item effects and the rolling curse cards at this point as curse is always useful to add and the rolling helps our damage output with our non assassinate attacks.
From here it’s time to turn towards the interesting add -1 dark cards and then replace them with +1 dark cards as soon as possible so its an overall gain before continuing onto other +1 options and removing zeroes. Of the other options the invisible is one of our best option given it is also +1 with the rolling priority being healing of what is left given add target and muddle are not guaranteed to be useful.
Nightshroud Enhancements Detailed
Move is our number one enhancement priority for the Nightshroud and is also a cheap enhancement purchase that is best placed on Smoke Step and Prepare for the Kill as these are our primary movement and dark generators. If players want they can consider a jump on one or both of these although this is likely applicable in larger party sizes with a melee focus as you might need to jump over enemies to get in the perfect spot.
From here any other enhancement don’t add enough utility for their cost but if you have gold then dark generation on Swallowed by Fear or if your team lacks the ability to create the non dark element you need for your elite assassination finding a bottom or top action to generate a different element is also an option.
Nightshroud Items Detailed
For starting items focus use the Boots of Striding for the added movement and the always powerful Minor Stamina Potion which will help reuse critical cards while Cloak of Invisibility adds another invisibility option for defence initially and with the right cards becomes an offensive item by empowering an attack.
After starting items players will want to keep an eye out for items that provide extra turns, recovery of cards or items and generate elements which all help us achieve our assassination objectives in scenarios.
For information and build guides on other Gloomhaven character options visit our Gloomhaven classes overview and the related Gloomhaven class tier list.
