What the numbers say about Diligent
Every manager who sees “Diligent” on a scout card pencils in the same story: steadier discipline, a hero who does the work, maybe faster gains on the training ground. The datamined table tells a much shorter story. Diligent maps to no combat-AI parameters at all. The discipline column it seems destined for belongs to other traits entirely: Professional and Methodical at +0.15, Tireless at +0.12, Vigilant at +0.10, Steady at a modest +0.08. Diligent appears in none of those rows, nor in recklessness, kill hunger, or anywhere else the fight engine looks.
So the trait that most sounds like a work ethic leaves the combat AI alone. Its effects sit around the fight: on the training benches, at forks, in how found gear is handled, and in the hall.
Once the delve starts
Inside a fight, your Diligent hero freelances exactly as much as their real discipline inputs allow, chases wounded targets per their actual kill hunger, and sticks to formation no better and no worse than an identically-built hero without the trait. With only four heroes in a party, every action matters, and it is tempting to read purpose into a report line (“she held her position all delve, that’s the Diligence”), but the engine offers the trait no dial to turn. Discipline behaviour comes from discipline coefficients, and Diligent holds none.
Around the fights it does act. At a fork, the game counts Diligent among its careful leaders (Diligent can never appear with Reckless, and a Diligent hero who is also Hot-Headed does not count). A careful leader scouts both ways before choosing, and when the party is hurt takes a side room only 10% of the time, against 20% for an ordinary leader. With found gear, if you give the “Gear up now” order, a Diligent hero still packs a find away for the quartermaster instead of putting it on in a corridor, like Professional, Methodical, Humble and Team Player heroes. The find goes to the best other hero it suits, or comes home unworn.
The training ground is where the word means the most. In the v2.1.8 build, a Diligent hero’s assigned Yard work is multiplied by 1.1, alongside the Veterancy learning modifier; Professional carries the same 1.1. The two stack, so a Diligent Professional learns 21% faster on the benches. Earlier builds had no such hook, which is why older versions of this page called the trait empty. Plan your training pipeline with that 10% in mind, and remember that it touches assigned bench work only. Delve combat is unaffected.
Valuing Diligent on the market
Treat Diligent as a development trait. It costs you nothing in combat, so it should never disqualify a recruit, and on a young prospect with room below Potential the 10% faster bench work is a real, if modest, return. On a finished veteran with nothing left to gain, what remains is the careful leader, the free roof repair and a quartermaster option at retirement: small, but more than nothing. Refuse to pay a discipline premium for it: a recruit priced as though the card said Professional is paying for formation discipline that Diligent does not give.
At Sworn Oath time the calculus is the same: the trait gives the hero no combat leverage in the renegotiation and gives you no reason to fight for a renewal you would not otherwise want. Negotiate on performance, wages and age, exactly as you would for a trait-blank hero.
What the 10% does and does not touch
The multiplier sits in the learning factor for assigned Yard work, the same place Veterancy’s up-to-1.25× lives. It does not raise Potential, it does not lift a personal attribute ceiling, and it does nothing for a hero who is not on a bench. A Diligent pupil still stops at the same ceiling as anyone else; they simply get there sooner.
That makes the trait most valuable exactly where the Yard is busiest: a guild with more prospects than benches, where finishing one hero’s growth faster frees the bench for the next. Read the training guide for how benches, Hone and Mentor interact before counting on it.
For an ordinary signing, compare the candidate twice: once with the trait line visible and once without it. If your ranking changes only because “Diligent” sounds productive, return to the actual attributes, age, potential, assignment plan, and wage before offering the contract.
Around the hall
- “The Roof Gives”. When rain gets through the hall’s roof, you can put a Diligent (or Methodical or Tireless) hero in charge of the repair. It costs nothing and works as well as paying for the proper fix; the hero takes 10 fatigue and gains 3 morale.
- Expeditions. The long expedition contract lists Diligent among its liked traits, adding 5% to the hero’s suitability.
- Council. When a retiring hero joins the Council, Diligent adds 4 toward the quartermaster’s post (Methodical adds 6).
- Festivals. +2 in the wit discipline. See Crowd-Pleaser for how festival scores are built.
- Easy delves. A hero sent on an ordinary delve far below their level can lose morale over it. Diligent gives 6 more points of patience before that starts, so a Diligent hero minds an easy job later than most.
- Flavour. On pair duty the hero speaks with the “exacting” voice.
Diligent can never appear with Reckless or Insubordinate.
Version history
From v1.9.6 through v2.1.8, Diligent has carried no combat-AI coefficient in any build this wiki tracks. The training, fork, gear and hall hooks above are read from the 2.1.8 code.