I told you it wasn't coming, but here it is I guess. Third in my ongoing series of analysing a mod that I didn't make, it's:
Overview of the Second


In truth, the second is probably the easiest character to grasp; certainly she was the first one I felt I fully understood, although admittedly a fair bit has changed about her since then, though her changes were not nearly so drastic as those applied to the first and fourth (I don't think any move was completely reworked)
As the first daughter I got the hang of, I guess there's a soft spot in my heart for her. That and the fact that It's really satisfying to see her crit everything into oblivion.

Presumably you know the deal by now. If you read nothing else, read these:

• If the second lands a crit, she gains another action (as well as a -100% crit debuff that can't be purged with herbs)
  
• Impose Supremacy only summons the pile of kings if you use it non-lethally (i.e. you miss or you hit something but fail to kill it)
  
• Demoralize does less damage as you level it up, but gets exponentially higher crit chance
  
• At levels 4 and 5, Demoralize also buffs the second with '+50% stress skills if stress below x' (where x depends on the level)
  
• Stress heals from crits count as 'stress skills'
  
• The second can only become afflicted, and resolve checks will always result in 'Descendant of the War'
  
• The second can only heal stress by meditating in the abbey, and has -100% stress healed from skills while afflicted.
  
• Unlimited Blades' riposte gets stronger every time it triggers (at lower levels it does no damage initially)
  
• A -100% crit debuff does not nescessarily mean you cannot crit
  
• If a move tells you it has a 95% chance to hit, it actually has a 100% chance to hit (because Darkest Dungeon is weird)

One thing that immediately leaps out upon looking at the second's weapon is that her base damage is unreliable. Ranging from 1-8 at level 1 to 6-16 at level 5, these are not numbers you want to be relying on; the low end is too low.
However, you might be aware that critical hits always do 1.5x max damage, bypassing that abysmal low end entirely. And looking at the second's weapon again, the base crit ranges from 10% at level 1 to 20% at level 5; and if you think that's impressive you've seen nothing yet.
But first, like the first, the second's weapon upgrades also come with a hidden accuracy bonus; +4 accuracy for every upgrade. This is actually fairly important because a few of her skills come with fairly disappointing accuracy values that are shored up at least somewhat by the +16 accuracy at max weapon level.
The Second's armour upgrades are... unremarkable. She's kind of middle-of-the-road in terms of her dodge/hp distribution; her dodge is decent but not amazing and she can take a few hits but she's no tank. There are also no hidden speed bonuses to be found, even though she could kind of use them.

In terms of her resistances, her move resist is absolutely attrocious at base 10%, but her bleed, blight and stun resists are above average at base 50% each; kind of the opposite resistances to the fourth. Unfortunately, the second doesn't have any meaningful move abilities and her 'move' skill can only move one place at a time, so be careful of that move resist.

And disarming traps is not her forté.

Typically I'd mention the crit buffs after the skills (or during the skills if it became relevant), but the second is kind of all about crits so...

If the second gets a critical hit on something that is neither a corpse nor a crystalline abberation, she will gain an extra turn as well as a -50% stress recieved buff and a -100% crit debuff, the latter of which cannot be removed, but wears off after a single action that doesn't itself grant another action.
It's worth noting that these buffs stack, so if you land a crit past that -100% crit debuff, then you'll wind up taking a third action with a -100% stress buff and a -200% crit debuff. Get another crit (difficult, but not impossible) and you'll be taking a fourth turn with -150% stress and -300% crit, at which point it is literally impossible for you to get another crit unless you have at least two 'the second's left hand' in your inventory after having already used one to get this far, at which point: you're just showing off.

It's worth noting that stress damage cannot actually be reduced by more than 80%, so even with a -200% modifier you would still gain stress, just not very much.

Demoralize
. . | | _ |-| . .
Demoralize is a strange skill in that it's function depends on how far you want to level it up.
Initially, Demoralize is a low accuracy high damage move that hits the front two positions, kind of like the leper's hew (slightly more accurate, but less damaging).
However, with each level, Demoralize's damage falls while its accuracy and crit chance rise. By level 5 the damage it does is negligable but it has 130% crit. This not only means that it's guaranteed to crit once, but that it can crit even when the second has a -100% crit debuff on her.
Perhaps you're not seeing the point of levelling it up that far. 'What's the point of critting if it only does 3 damage?'. Well, as you're probably aware, crits in Darkest Dungeon heal stress. From what I can tell, a crit on a non-corpse enemy will always stress heal the hero in question, with a chance to stress heal every other hero in the party (these chances are rolled seperately)

Additionally, at levels 4 and 5, Demoralize gains a self buff for '+50% stress skills if stress below n' that can stack to some fairly absurd numbers very quickly, as well as a small self stress heal.
at these levels, using demoralise maybe three times can completely remove about 80-90 stress on the second and up to about 18 stress on the rest of the party if you're lucky.
With regards to the 'if stress below n' part of that buff, that basically exists to stop you from abusing this skill while afflicted to continue giving massive stress heals with 'Shared Desire'

One final thing. Using Demoralize transfers the horror from all other heros to the second. This is always good, since the Second can heal almost any stress on her in a single turn if she's not afflicted, plus she has a few skills that can pass that horror onto your foes.

Impose Supremacy
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Like Demoralize, Impose Supremacy is a move that does less damage the more you level it up, trading damage for increased crit chance, so depending on your style of play, you might not want to level it up too much. At high levels, though, this becomes a move with a crit high enough to potentially move three times in a turn.

Now, Impose supremacy is a pretty strong skill with a confusing downside. If you use it and fail to kill the targeted enemy (and there is a free spot in the enemy formation), you will summon a 'pile of kings' to the opponents' side of the field in the first position. this is a slow but terrifying enemy that can thankfully be removed by successfully killing an enemy (or corpse/abberation) with 'Impose Supremacy'

The pile itself deals hefty stress damage, as well as having permanent riposte and about 1000 hp. Every move it makes decreases its max hp, though, so if you somehow wind up in a situation where it's the only remaining enemy, don't despair.
Also every time it uses its riposte, it debuffs its own stress damage and accuracy, so it gets weaker the longer it stays around.

Finally, the pile passively debuffs the other surviving enemies with -20% stress damage inflicted and -20% crit. Clearly it feels that it should be the only thing inflicting significant stress on your party. I think the pile also tries to inflict bleeds on the other enemies when it attacks, too. A smarter girl than I might be able to use this to their advantage, but frankly the stress it deals scares me a bit too much to try to use it to my benefit.

It's worth noting that Impose Supremacy's accuracy doesn't scale up with level, so in champion dungeons (especially places like the warrens) you should definitely bring accuracy increasing trinkets if you plan to use this move.

Unlimited Blades
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A rather strange move, Unlimited Blades should very much be used with care, as it is very bad for your health.
What it does is that it removes all actions from everyone except your target, who suddenly finds themself with 6 actions. Bear in mind that 'everyone' includes your other heroes.
Speaking of your other heroes, they all gain a round of stealth, while the second herself gain a round of riposte.
I believe that the tooltip reffers to this as 'the duel', which is a fairly apt name in honesty because the second and her chosen target are now going to attack one another for six turns or until one of them is dead.
At first, the second's riposte does no damage. However, it gets exponentially stronger as she uses it, and generally after dodging or taking 3 attacks whatever she was duelling will be dead.
Do Not Use This Move On Bosses, You Will Probably Die.

Upgrading this skill not only increases the riposte's starting damage (from -200% to -100%), it also allows her to target more positions with it. At level 1&2 it can target positions 1&2, at levels 3&4 it can target positions 1,2&3 and at level 5 it can target any position.

Again, only use this move if you know what you are doing. The second's base health and dodge are above average, but use this on the wrong type of enemy and you could very quickly find yourself on death's door feeling like an idiot. Don't use it on any enemy that can stun you, either; the second's stun resist is high but not insurmountable and if you get stunned you lose your riposte.
I'm not going to give you a list of things to use this move against because it really depends on your team composition and how bulky you've made your second.

Verdict
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In some ways, Verdict is like a better verson of Impose Supremacy. It does even more damage, with a 60-80% damage modifier. 0-20% crit isn't exactly as reliable as the other moves, but it's still far better than anything you'll find in the base game and typically culminates in a 40-60% chance to crit after modifiers.
This move is also stressful for the second, though, so you're not going to be wanting to use it every turn (generally speaking, anyway)

Verdict is also one of those moves that transfers horror from the second to the target.
And with 110 to 155 base accuracy, you'd almost have to be trying to miss this move.

If you're not afflicted, you'll generally want to use this move when you've already crit, since that negates 50% of the stress gain. If you can, use it after critting twice so that you barely get any stress. It's also sometimes wise to use this move straight away to hopefully crit a boss for 50+ damage and then hit it again. This can be used either at the start of the boss fight or in an attempt to finish it off quickly if things get a little hairy.
If you are afflicted... see the affliction section for more details.

Midline Disruptor
. . | | _ . | | .
Probably the most niche move in her moveset, Midline Disruptor does decent damage with a high (but not guaranteed) crit chance, as well as moving the second forwards one and debuffing the entire enemy team's stun resist.
Now, the second doesn't have any stun skills, especially not any that she can use from the first position. She also has no way to move herself back into the second position again short of the 'move' skill, which is less than ideal.
That doesn't mean that this move is bad, it just means that it's very situational and team dependant.

Shared Desire
| | | . _ | | | | (allies)
If the crit stress healing wasn't direct enough for you, the second also has a more standard stress healing skill.
Shared Desire is an absolutely huge stress heal on it's own, but if you combine it with the stacks of '+50% stress skills' from Demoralize it becomes probably the strongest thing in the game, capable of healing in excess of 100 stress per use.
However, on use the second has an 80% chance to take stress damage equal to the amount she would heal (before modifiers); hence, like Verdict, you generally want to use this move after having crit once or twice that turn so as to negate much of the massive stress intake.
Considering level 5 Demoralize's 130% crit modifier, this should not be too hard.

Shared desire also transfers horror from the target to the second and heals the target 0-1, for a 50% chance to save someone from death's door.

Longilus' Wound
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Once upon a time this move was the counterpart to Midline Disruptor, moving the second back one place and hitting both the positions that Midline Distruptor couldn't. It also debuffed prot, if I recall.
These days Longilus' Wound is not so special, as it no longer moves the second nor inflicts debuffs of any sort. It still transfers horror from the second to the target, though.

It's just a damaging move, in effect. It's crit chance is abysmally low compared to the second's other moves, so you'll generally just want to use it as your last action of the turn if you want to avoid stressing yourself out with either of Verdict or Shared Desire.

I used to run this move instead of Verdict, and that's fine so long as you don't have a pressing need to hit the third position.


The second can move only one position in either direction with the move skill.


"Disillusions."
The second has the standard three camping skills, as well as a 0 cost skill that forces her affliction (more on why you would want to do this later)
she also has two cost 2 skills that grant two self explanatory items:
-The Second's Left Hand increases your crit by 100% for one turn.
-The Second's Right Hand provides maximum stress resistance until your next action.
Obviously the Second's Left Hand is a bit absurd, allowing you to chain four attacks in a row with the second (with a bit of effort) or have any other character crit their attack (assuming they don't miss). The Second's Right Hand is more niche, but can be used to immediately block the self stress of the second's more powerful skills if you don't have the ability to build up stress resist with crits.


"Armageddon has come, the End within my blade."
I probably don't need to say this by now, but there are no virtues for the second. upon a resolve check, she will become afflicted with 'Descendant of the War'
Past this point, it is impossible to heal stress on the second except by meditation, and her stress intake is reduced to its minimum.

Apart from that, she gets a debuff for -100% crit and something like +60% damage (forgive me, I don't really have the time anymore to go and get a second afflicted to research this, this is basically all based on memory), so now the only moves that can crit are Demoralize and Impose Supremacy, neither of which you particularly want to use while afflicted.
On the other hand, Verdict is kind of insane now, so there's that. it's damage can read something like 5-64 (which seems great until you roll 7s repeatedly), and the stress it gives you is nearly totally negated.
Basically, while afflicted, the second becomes unreliable. Her attacks have the potential to do more damage than her crits previously, but they could also do almost nothing.

More worrying, though, is the fact that, unlike the first and fourth's afflictions, the second has no qualms about messing up the rest of your team.
She will take basically any opportunity to stress out your party for +20 stress each, which pretty quickly leads to disaster.
It's ironic, I suppose. The second is so good at keeping everyone's stress down including her own, but if she does get afflicted then suddenly she starts doing rather the opposite.

The afflicted second will also refuse healing, but it would typically be a waste of time healing her anyway since while afflicted she gets a sizable max hp boost and a good chance to heal herself at the start of each turn.
Also ironic, I suppose. She becomes completely self-sustaining, shunning all her companions, but her most powerful move, Verdict, cannot be used in the first position.

In my opinion, the second's affliction is fine as a last resort in the last battle, but the stress to the rest of the party makes it unsustainable, even if you have another dedicated stress healer like a jester. Hence I never really use force the affliction, but I'm not averse to just spamming verdict in boss fights until she hits 100 stress (and then continuing to spam verdict)



And that's it. The second was the first of these characters that I 'mastered' (if I can even be considered to have mastered her), but that doesn't nescessarily mean that she's easy to understand.