All of the investigators have their niches, gimmicks and situational uses. However, even with all of this in mind, who in your opinion is the "worst" investigator.

This was spurned by a conversation with a friend, who said that Carolyn Fern (The Circle Undone version) was the worst investigator. I kind of feel she wouldn't make on anyone's list here.

There are no bad investigators, only bad builds.

57 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

There are no bad investigators, only bad builds.

That said, there are no good Lola builds, so make of that what you will.

I don't believe there is a worst investigator, but there are definitely investigators that are hard to play. I believe the hardest to play is Marie Lambeau, because her designc and weakness are integrated into the same mechanic used as the game clock and she can put the game in a situation where the game is a loss if played poorly.

32 minutes ago, rsdockery said:

That said, there are no good Lola builds, so make of that what you will.

I don't know, I've only played her once, but she beat Umordhoth, one on one.

I'm going to assume that by worst you mean least likely to be of help completing a scenario, rather than anything to do with how fun they are to play. In that case I think I'd have to nominate Lola Hayes, followed by Calvin Wright.

Lola has a larger deck size, making her less consistent, is a frail 6 health and 6 sanity, has two copies of a signature weakness that can have a devastating effect (which can lead to her taking sub-optimal moves until both copies have been drawn), has an investigator ability which is a handicap and a perfectly average stat line (which means she'll probably have to have some way to boost her skills to pass a difficult test in any of the four disciplines). I have yet to see a Lola deck whose goals couldn't be met more effectively by replacing Lola with another investigator.

Calvin is weak early on in the scenario when his stats are low, so other investigators will probably need to carry him. Once he is set up he has great stats and Survivor tricks in case he fails, which is great, but set up for Calvin means red-lining so an unlucky Tentacle pull on a Rotting Remains or Grasping Hands can easily polish him off, leaving the rest of the party having to literally carry him out of the scenario at the end.

It's clearly the case that not all investigators are created equal, and following where that leads, if the investigators differ in their power, it must logically be possible to compare their relative power and utility. Wendy Adams is clearly a more effective investigator than Calvin Wright in the majority of situations; Rex Murphy is so good at collecting clues (the primary Seeker job) that he was nerfed in the Taboo list. Moreover, the OP isn't asking "what investigators are bad", they are asking "what investigator is the least good (at contributing to success at the game)" - even if every single investigator were a triumph of design and highly effective, there is still going to be some degree of variance in power between them as a simple function of how balance works, and therefore there would be a "best" and a "worst", even if the margins were very narrow.

But it's also the case that "best" and "worst" depend a whole lot on the situation; Mark Harrigan and Zoey Samaras are very strong characters for a 4-person party because they're really great at killing monsters, but their relatively lacking clue gathering ability means that they aren't as impressive solo. Rita Young is very reliant on getting certain cards in order to gather any clues at all, but in the right circumstances - the right scenarios - the right team configurations - she can be extremely, uniquely effective. Really, any investigator with a strong focus in one area, or any kind of support ability, is stronger with more players. Conversely, a generalist like "Ashcan" Pete is going to be a strong solo pick. Jim Culver is much better solo than Agnes Baker, but Agnes has much more raw power to bring to bear if she has a group to cover for her.

Power also fluctuates a lot as more cards are released. Skids O'Toole was rubbish when the game first came out because rogues had so little in the way of good cards in the core set. Now he's a lot stronger - but he still seems to be the weakest rogue, since his Guardian off-class does not do much for him (I think he should have been 0-2 Survivor...) and his ability is both overshadowed by other rogues' and less impressive on higher difficulties. Calvin Wright has seen a whole host of cards that seem almost tailor-made for him, so he might be more effective now than when he first came out. Conversely, some investigators are now relatively weaker than when they first appeared - Zoey languished for a while because Seekers got some more economy cards (and the other guardians aside from Mark now all have a lot of strong economy options), making her resource gain less special, but she seems to be back on the rise with some very pricey Guardian assets and some particularly good uses for her 5 off-class slots. Applying taboos will significantly shift the relative power levels of certain investigators, bringing rogues - particularly Preston - down a peg and nerfing all Seekers but especially Rex.

So there's a lot of caveats, but for my money the answer is always and forever going to be Lola Hayes. Sure, you could make some builds that only she can truly take advantage of for particular effect - lots'o'tarot, for instance - and there will be board states where she can be potent, but even her best builds will rely on luck more than any other, because she has a lot more things that can go wrong than other investigators and assembling special combinations will only be valuable if you can get all the pieces together (a combo Mark Harrigan without his combo pieces is still a 5-fight beefcake who can punch himself for card draw and boosts; Lola without her combo pieces is a low-health/sanity 3-in-everything jack of all trades without an investigator ability) so you're vulnerable both to the luck of the draw and to any asset/hand/draw hate from specific scenarios. In addition, unless we see a large number of cards brought out that actively improve her and only her (to an extent, you could argue that the dual-class cards and more permanent cards do so, since they make her deckbuilding much easier to handle), she will continue to drop in relative power as more investigators are brought out, each with their own deckbuilding options, and each new unique set of deckbuilding options will shrink the possible combinations of cards that only Lola can access - imagine, for instance, if you wanted to combine Dr Milan and seeker passive boosts with Guardian support cards and some Mystic sealing and utility, to make a support clue-gatherer with sealing - well initially you would have to choose Lola, but now, Carolyn Fern also exists, covering the same area, able to do pretty much everything you wanted, and does so with a strong Investigator ability, a far better health/sanity total, a smaller and therefore tighter deck, no restriction on which class of cards you can use moment-to-moment and fewer, less devastating weaknesses. But beyond that, beyond the inherent weakness of the investigator, I don't feel that Lola makes the game better by being in it. The only times she will be a strong choice, strictly better than another, different choice, will be if she can create a uniquely powerful combination that imbalances the game, and that's still bad for the overall health of the game. And outside of those situations, she's mainly a trap for the unwary. It's certainly possible to make a bad deck for any investigator, but with Lola you have to really, really know what you're doing to make a deck that actually works properly, and I fundamentally object to anything that can lead players - new players especially - to making mistakes. I think you can still have fun building weird gimmicks with her, but I think she's a fundamentally flawed and bad piece of game design, and that's why I think she's the worst investigator.

1 minute ago, Assussanni said:

Calvin is weak early on in the scenario when his stats are low, so other investigators will probably need to carry him. Once he is set up he has great stats and Survivor tricks in case he fails, which is great, but set up for Calvin means red-lining so an unlucky Tentacle pull on a Rotting Remains or Grasping Hands can easily polish him off, leaving the rest of the party having to literally carry him out of the scenario at the end.

They shouldn't be carrying him. His main job on a team is to keep the baddies off everyone else, and probably not getting to the end. That way, in the second half of a campaign, he's starting with a stat line equal to or better than most other investigators. He'll be pulling those treacheries off of other investigators and soundly beating them.

Lola for sure. Her advantages don’t outweigh the difficulty of having to be in a role to activate or commit cards imo. She is so much fun to try to succeed with but she is absolutely the underdog imo.

Carolyn is awesome but I am a bit miffed that she has the lowest base stats in the game. Still solid though.

I also still don’t get why the extra starting xp was given to Mateo as a balance. He is no worse than anyone else and Mystic pool is really the most versatile overall.

I think if we are willing to say that there are good or strong, or powerful investigators, then it only follows logically that there are weaker ones too. Change the question to "Which investigator is the hardest to build a good deck for?" if you like. The essence is the same.

With that said, here are my picks for the top 5 worst investigators, starting with...

A (dis-) Honorable Mention: Lola Hayes. Lola gets dishonorable mention for being the only investigator on this list I have not actually built a deck and played with. I couldnt bring myself to put her in the top 5 worst for that reason. However.... there is also a reason I have not built a deck with her. Lola is a deckbuilding nightmare and while some people might feel up to the challenge, I really don't. Lola also generally wants to take all the good cards from all the classes, making her a bad partner for those who share a card pool with their group. Lola has mediocre stats, poor health and sanity, and no access to higher level cards. She only makes up for it in jank.

Number 5: Carolyn Fern. Well, I'm sorry to say she does make my list. Coming in at #5 is Carolyn who suffers from an extremely poor class choice. Carolyn's stats say she wants to be a seeker, her medic role says she wants to be a survivor, but she got classed as Guardian. Most of the higher level guardian cards are utterly useless to Carolyn, making her very difficult to level. Add to that that healing is just not something you need that much of. Typically, characters include enough self-heal or soak to keep themselves alive throughout a scenario, leaving Carolyn's entire schtick somewhat superfluous. With no access to the higher level seeker cards she suffers from not being able to get clues fast enough, or team-support well enough. She can't fight, or even evade, and Rational Thought puts the brakes on the one thing she's supposed to be good at doing. Oddly, despite being a Guardian class, she almost always finds herself in need of being protected. I did enjoy playing her and she could contribute somewhat to the team, which is why she only comes in at number 5, but at the end of the day.... you probably should have picked a seeker instead.

Number 4: Skids O'Toole. Skids used to be the only investigator with access to both Guardian and Rogue cards, which was a fun little combo. But he's not anymore. Skids has 2 main problems, firstly his low(ish) fight score. Being a rogue/guardian, a 3 combat is just pretty low if you want to be slaying monsters. And beyond that, if you are trying to use him as a monster slayer, his best stat -agility- often goes unused. With the release of some nice Rogue guns, he can still pack a bit of a punch, but he compares unfavorably to most other slayers. His other major problem is his low willpower and low sanity. A rotting remains can easily take away half his sanity pool in one fell swoop, and he can't really back himself up with Liquid Courage since that relies on willpower to be efficient. He can now pack Something Worth Fighting For, and that helps to keep him alive, but he still has a tough time. His weakness is pretty annoying as well, and his signature strength has got to be one of the worst signature cards in the game. More often than not, I ditch On The Lam for its icons. Feels bad...

Number 3: Rita Young. We're assuming you're not doing the Rita-infinite-combo here. I suffer from not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing with Rita. Her intellect is terrible, her combat is mediocre, no access to any good weaponry to help out with that. All she really does is evade very well. But evasion just isn't something that is all that helpful when compared to murdering stuff. Sure, on occasion in the Forgotten Age or so there are times when you'd rather evade than fight, but in general... Rita doesnt do enough to pull her weight. I did play Rita with a bow and found her to be okay... but I ran into problem after problem with being out of arrows at the wrong times, forcing me to waste actions to evade, reload, and attack. Rita is the first of this list to suffer from a simple issue: the survivor card pool. On its own, survivor cards just arent good enough. They can be great when combined with other classes, but when you are restricted to a pool of almost exclusively survivor cards, you have problems. In the survivor pool you find yourself very hard-pressed to find a decent weapon, or a way to get lots of clues easily. With no access to high level cards, Rita falls behind pretty fast. If all that wasn't bad enough, Hoods is a brutal weakness that Rita has a lot of trouble dealing with by herself. Her signature strength, I'm Done Runnin', is also weak. This is very reminiscent of Skids, at #4. It's easy to get Rita up to so much Agility she is an absolute ninja, but the problem is simply that that isn't good enough.

Number 2: Ashcan Pete. Again, we are looking at Survivor problems. Pete's card pool is limited to exclusively Survivor + Neutral+ 5 other level-0 cards. It's not good enough. This alone drops him to #2. No good weapons, no good way to secure clues, especially at higher XP levels. Duke can make up for it a bit, but once bigger damage numbers are needed, Duke doesn't cut it. And if Duke ever gets knocked out, Kidnapped, or whatever, Pete finds himself in a lot of trouble. While Pete is a decent solo character because of his ability to both fight and find clues at least a little bit (though he's not the only investigator who can do this), on teams he is a liability. Even with Duke around, he struggles to get the raw numbers he needs to hit a high-combat enemy, or find clues at a high-shroud location. This is getting to be more and more of a problem as things like Retaliate and Haunted start to show up more.

Number 1: Calvin Wright. It's hard to argue that it is a difficult task to make an effective Calvin deck. He has to be on death's door to before his stats are anything good, and you spend most of your deck slots trying to mitigate this crippling weakness of his terrible statline, rather than doing anything good. Your deck is going to be stuffed full of cards to try to keep Calvin alive, and cards to try to get calvin to the point where he has 4-5 stats in everything. You're left with a deck with very little useful deckspace. On top of that, add Survivor Problems. No good weapons, hard to get multiple clues, hard to spend XP on somethat that improves Calvin in a meaningful way. Calvin takes a very long time to set up, and once he is set up, he still has to be able to somehow make use of the statline you worked so awfully hard for. Any scenario where you need to move fast, deal with an early monster, or get early clues, Calvin is pure dead weight. Oh, and his weakness gives trauma. Are you kidding me? Even if by some miracle everything seems to be going well, a single mythos card, a bit of bad luck, and its TKO for this guy.

Man, Calvin's taking it here. But he's used to that.

His is the only weakness that gives auto-trauma (not the only trauma one, though). But he's also the only one who typically benefits from his weakness (until Tony came along).

He needs a couple of soaks, just like everyone else. Against All Odds and Rise to the Occasion are always active, even when he's sitting at 5s across the board. Fight or Flight has him fighting bosses at 9 or 10 without committing anything. The Desperate skills are almost always on.

I'd rather be playing Calvin at 4 horror and 4 damage than Roland at that, especially late in a campaign when his opening stat line is all 4s.

PS Rita is also amazing. Forget I'm Done Runnin; Track Shoes is her real signature. And she can kill like anyone can, even without Ornate Bow.

1 hour ago, Allonym said:

But beyond that, beyond the inherent weakness of the investigator, I don't feel that Lola makes the game better by being in it.

I agree with everything you say up until this point. I think Lola offers a unique playstyle, giving the player a mini puzzle each turn of what can I do with the cards of my current role, when should I switch role, what role do I want to be in at the start of the next round, how bad would it be if I draw Crisis of Identity this upkeep phase, etc. I found this really interesting and enjoyed playing as Lola, who felt very different to any of the other investigators I've played. I would probably have been more useful playing as another investigator but I had a lot of fun.

I do think Lola could have been better designed, and she is definitely not new player friendly, but I still feel that she improves the game by virtue of being a fun investigator to play. Of course fun is subjective, so I completely understand if anyone disagrees with this opinion!

20 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

I'd rather be playing Calvin at 4 horror and 4 damage than Roland at that, especially late in a campaign when his opening stat line is all 4s.

I agree with this, but the difference is that Calvin wants to be at 4 horror, whereas Roland will probably have done everything he can to not take any horror at all and possibly have some horror healing up his sleeve. So I suspect in any given game you're more likely to see Calvin at 4 horror than Roland.

I should say I haven't actually played Calvin yet. I want to soon because, like Lola, I think he will offer a very different play experience.

Lola is pretty good once you know how her mechanic works. I think people are just intimidated by it.

Also, Survivors taking up the "worst investigator" lists are laughable. Survivor is the strongest class in terms of getting things done in this game. Calvin is probably the hardest to play out of the bunch, but he becomes unstoppable in the right set up. His only issue is his weakness needs to not show up in every scenario.

The problems with Calvin are three-fold. The first is that he's really weak early in a campaign because he needs some trauma to be able to get rolling out of the gate; that's not unique to him, but it is particularly notable for him as he has far fewer things to upgrade into for exp, and his starting deckbuilding is so limited, so he also doesn't have as much potential for growth beyond trauma, compared to other investigators.

The second is that he needs to set up a lot in a given scenario. There are a few investigators who are "carries", i.e. they need the team to cover their back early on so they can go hard later in in the scenario, but Calvin is the most obvious - until he gets a decent amount of damage and/or horror, his only contributions to the game are the occasional guaranteed success (Dumb Luck to super-evade a 2-evade enemy, "Look What I Found" or Flashlight to get clues off a low-shroud location) and taking hits for other people, the former of which everyone can do and he's among the least good at, and the latter of which isn't really a full investigator's job because, again, everyone can take damage; someone like Carolyn Fern also needs to set up a lot of cards to assemble a strong engine, and also does a good line in soaking up hits for the team, but she also comes out of the gate with 4 intellect. And later on in a campaign, when he has a lot of trauma so he's got good stats from the start, the problem is still there - if he wants to optimise his stats he needs to take the right amount of damage/trauma, but then if he wants to not die to direct damage/horror (including his sig. weakness), he needs to get Until the End of Time into play (a card that, incidentally, is in the running for best card art in the entire game), and then he needs a lot of normal soak so that Until the End of Time is saved for direct damage/horror and isn't gonna have to take the hit if he flubs an attack against a Retaliate enemy or a Rotting Remains test, or to handle a Hunter enemy attack or some auto-damage. The most important time in a given scenario is usually turn 1, and being able to hit the ground running and get momentum going before the scenario can overwhelm you is often crucial; this is where "Ashcan" Pete can shine in a team, getting an early foothold on the scenario, and it's the biggest place where Calvin falls down.

The third is that the payoff is just not worth it. Sure you could rock 5 Intellect (6 with Five of Pentacles, and 10 or 11 with Trial by Fire or The Red Gloved Man), and that's a huge number, but you don't have the tools to make the most of it. You could pick up a Cleaver (if you can handle the horror) or an Old Hunting Rifle, and maybe Winging It or Newspaper (2), but so much of your deck has to be devoted to keeping you alive so that you can survive having the damage/horror on you, and to getting the damage/horror in the first place, that you don't have much space (and draw and resources) to devote to making good use of those stats - and Survivor doesn't really have much in the way of cards, by itself, that lets you truly benefit from it, since the majority of strong Survivor cards are utility or helping you succeed when you wouldn't. 5 intellect plus boosts is decent but it pales in comparison to what Daisy can do with her base 5 intellect, together with Dr Milan and/or Deduction (2) and/or Fingerprint Kit, and so on, and so forth. He'll never fight like a guardian or investigate like a seeker, and unlike other generalists, he has to put in a lot of work to get his stats to a good enough place to provide a consistent "general" contribution.

I think he really needed an extra boost. Something like a) Until The End Of Time starts in play, and b) Until The End Of Time heals 1 damage or horror every turn (or, ooh, every time doom is placed on the agenda! So he uniquely gets a consolation prize from Ancient Evils! Sure it would suck a bit in Echoes of the Past but whatever). If you've played Calvin in Arkham Horror 3rd edition, you know that his constant regeneration and ability to keep going tirelessly in the face of lots of damage/horror makes him feel like an implacable defensive machine, and that would have been a really cool feeling for the card game and, perhaps coupled with more interesting deckbuilding, would have let him break out of having to dedicate so much of his deck to staying alive long enough to see any benefit from his ability, but instead he's relegated to a gimmick "challenge build" type character.

23 minutes ago, Assussanni said:

I agree with this, but the difference is that Calvin wants to be at 4 horror, whereas Roland will probably have done everything he can to not take any horror at all and possibly have some horror healing up his sleeve. So I suspect in any given game you're more likely to see Calvin at 4 horror than Roland.

Exactly. You can't call Calvin bad based on his stat line and his propensity for trauma because those things work differently for him.

Thinking some more, as much as I like Norman's build mechanics, I wonder if I'd have to call him the worst. Abysmal off-class stats, Seeker Intellect but can't take higher level cards. Decent Mystic, but can't benefit (as much) from Arcane Research and limited on the really good Level 0 pool. Blah signature, enemy weakness with his weak fighting/evading (Replacements only, of course). His ability is fun to play, but he has a lot of deficits working against him.

I don't count Norman since he wasn't released yet. Carolyn was pretty bad in promo form, but i think she is pretty good now she had a true release.

I'd disagree pretty strongly that Norman belongs on the bottom, although Milan finally being nerfed hit him pretty hard. Seekers have a lot of good economy, and Mystics have a lot of pricey cards - it makes for a very nice combo. He's definitely in the "trickier to play" bucket though, as you have to think about how to build him completely differently. Most investigators start by doing X, and then upgrade to get better at X. Norman's entire deck function shifts every time you upgrade him.

3 hours ago, awp832 said:

But evasion just isn't something that is all that helpful when compared to murdering stuff. Sure, on occasion in the Forgotten Age or so there are times when you'd rather evade than fight, but in general...

Evasion is often just as good as killing for a non-Hunter enemy (particularly if you get to leave the location for free immediately afterwards). It's also quite useful against bosses and enemies with Retaliate. And Rita's not just occasionally good in TFA: She really shines in that campaign, as one of the best explorers in the game.

Really liking the discussion here, thank you for the responses. I never thought of Calvin as potentially the worst, as I thought that would be universally Lola.

16 hours ago, rsdockery said:

Evasion is often just as good as killing for a non-Hunter enemy (particularly if you get to leave the location for free immediately afterwards). It's also quite useful against bosses and enemies with Retaliate. And Rita's not just occasionally good in TFA: She really shines in that campaign, as one of the best explorers in the game.

She's amazing in Carcosa as well. Even when a particular enemy moves twice per round, she's one step ahead. And for the first time, I interviewed all the guests. Her one real weak point is Investigating for things other than clues (I had no problem with her getting clues).

Carolyn is fantastic. That's crazy talk. She's one of the best support characters in the game for the real low Willpower and low sanity brutes like Roland, Mark, Finn or Skids. Also she turns Agnes into a monster. In addition she's a great resource generator and she's fantastic at investigation. She's mediocre to bad at fighting, but the people she likes to pair with are all really great at fighting so that's not really a problem. Her promo cards were subpar (that weakness is crippling), but now that she's released her regular cards are amazing. That was a big boost for her. I easily got through Carcosa with a team of Carolyn and Ashcan.

Calvin is not bad. In fact he reaches some insane heights of broken. He's just inconsistent, and is very hard to pilot. They keep releasing good tools for early game Calvin though to prop him up until he starts taking damage. Also I agree with C2K that I'd never put any Survivor in the worst slot since the cards they have access to are usually pretty game winning. If you absolutely need to pass a hard check the Survivor is usually your best shot. They also have a ton of card draw and recursion to boot which is always a sign of a strong faction.

I'd say Lola is probably the weakest. She has some great character build options, but her weakness is crazy and her large deck makes her pretty inconsistent to boot. I've never felt great about any deck I've built for her, and honestly I kinda just stopped. I should circle back but there are so many investigators now in the game and I've seen nothing new released that would make her experience any different.

On 7/16/2019 at 7:15 AM, CSerpent said:

She's amazing in Carcosa as well. Even when a particular enemy moves twice per round, she's one step ahead. And for the first time, I interviewed all the guests. Her one real weak point is Investigating for things other than clues (I had no problem with her getting clues).

Rita is also incedible in The Circle Undone.

Sure, she doesn't want to be investigating clues too offen given the haunted locations, but put her alongside a Seeker and she'll absolutely shine at exploration and enemy control. I can't think of a TCU scenario (besides Scenario 1) where my Seeker was actually endangered by enemies - Rita always had them covered.

With her high agility, she basically has a once-per-round, almost-certain-to-succeed 'Action: an engaged enemy misses a turn. Deal one damage to it, or travel to a connecting location'. That turns big enemies into complete jokes, and allows her to kill smaller enemies really quickly (and without much risk).

I think Lola has become increasingly "good" as the card pool has increased.
You can now build a functional deck of Neutral Assets and Class Events and make her Signature Flaw pretty much irrelevant. It costs . . . an extra discarded card. How awful! And it allows to leave those great Class Assets to members of those classes who do not have to worry about discarding them because of a Flaw.

Carolyn may have issues solo, but on a team she is ridiculously useful. She keeps everyone sane AND well stocked with resources. Yeah, yeah she isn't discovering clues or killing monsters, but . . . nobody else has to burn actions taking 1 resource. And they don't have to worry about a Tentacle and a Rotting Remains killing them. Or even soaking 1 Horror here and there from Enemies. Further, when stacked with poor helpless Peter Sylvestre, Carolyn can run up her own resources soaking Horror, leaving her able to "break out" the Keen Eye and go cluever at a strategic time near the end of a scenario.

Those same factors should raise the value of all Investigators, leaving, as has been suggested, only Investigators that are harder to play rather than ones who are "bad".

I think Carolyn can become one of the tankiest investigators in the game. She can take Level 5 Deny Existence and Cheat Death 🤣. Though actually I found working towards 2x Beat Cop Lv2 and a Charisma helps shore up her meager fighting. And then there is Blood Eclipse, which can be a big attack if needed. Put in some Dynamite. With all the healing and cancellation, she can stick around.

You can also take some seeker/mystic clue gathering cards to increase your clue gain. Or you can take Protective Incantations to increase your odds at succeeding tests.

There could be a solo build out there. Its no Wendy Adams, but its not impossible I think.

Heck, just running a couple of Something Worth Fighting for or True Grit on Carolyn has saved many a lives. And if you're going the Peter route, you should have no problem playing them.