I have a Hound Master, not sure if I should replace the missing Occultist with that. I am planning to try a 'marky party' with arbalest, occultist and 2 Bounty Hunters, but I'm waiting for the Occultists. I've only defeated one Ruins boss, Apprentice Sorcerer, but that went great with my best 2-trinket ruins party (Plague Doctor, Vestal, Highwayman, Crusader). In a previous game I tried going into the warrens and weald with my ruins parties (variants on The Usual Suspects with one resting character replaced with any character that can cope in their position), but it was clear my party was nowhere near good enough to get through more than one combat without massive stress damage or otherwise using up too many resources.

I plan to get level 1 or 2 dungeoneers for a warren-specialized party (I'm one class short) and maybe do some quirk-fixing. It's still difficult to hold onto a couple of ruins parties and add in new classes, but that's the next stage. I generally dismiss a dungeoneer each week, and load up new ones, but dismissing the new ones if not good enough, so I empty the stagecoach each week to have new choices. My aim, just completed, is to get adequate (far from perfect again) trinket pairs for my ruins parties. I have a few level 3 veterans, but I can't afford to fix their quirks yet, so I tend to dismiss dungeoneers at level 2 when they start to be disruptive.

Okay, so my basic strategy is to form adequate (far from ideal) expendable parties for the ruins, and keep trying the level 1 dungeons, short and medium, to get my new dungeoneers to level 1 and 2. I still only have 3 new dungeoneers at a time and 15 slots for dungeoneers, so I'm limited in what party combos I can achieve. Deeds are pretty rare in the ruins, so that limits your upgrades requiring them, but at least you can go into the ruins as much as you like and earn cash without getting more stress than you can afford to remove - although if it gets too bad or the bad traits are a problem I dismiss the dungeoneer - and the upgrade heirlooms for the sanitarium, etc. First, all areas but the ruins seem to be extremely dangerous and require a lot of game knowledge, whereas in the ruins it's not too difficult to find an okay party combo, even with few upgrades. Here's what I've come up with, in my own early game (no veteran dungeoneering yet).

Anyone fancy adding some early game help to their guides, or writing a new guide for the early game alone? There are several good guides for the middle and late game, but I could find only one for the early game (which suggested a party combo I tried and found to be awful, even in the ruins).

Darkest dungeon best party combos