With no particular order:

1. Patrice
2. Daisy
3. Joe
4. Wendy
5. Mandy

Am I correct?

wow, that's the perfect order! those ar all my fav investigators!

No. You left out Darrell. The things he can do for a team's cash supply, and to the doom track, are not to be underestimated. Which isn't to say it's any fun playing him that way, but neither is it hoarding up clues for the Ancient One with Joe Diamond, or playing Patrice under any circumstances. The day I'll come even close to losing a game while playing her, is the day I'll consider liking her.

Avi_dreader said:

If you're going to say I left someone, then say who he should replace. Okay, Darrel is top 5, but instead of who?

shubby232 said:

who said anything about favorite? read the title of this thread.

Where are all these lists coming from?

Athenor said:

My brain.

First off I'm assuming that you are taking personal missions into account.

Patrice, Daisy and Mandy are definitely in the top 5.

I think that Joe and Wendy are strong competitors for top but Darrell Roland and Jacquelin are just as strong.

Darrell is a very around good character but his mission isn't that great. Being able to draw 2 cards is very powerful but overall I think he would be just under the rest.

Joe and Roland are very similar characters in a manner of speaking. It's so close as to which one is better.

Stats

Joe has much better speed and slightly better fight

Roland has much better will and slightly better lore and luck

Joe wins but not by much since having 5 fight is important for gate closing and a high speed is very important when there is multiple boards. Without multiple boards I'd say they are even since 5 will vs 3 is very good for 4 sanity characters and If Roland's ally grants either fight or lore he gets a 5 in a sealing stat as well.

Starting stuff

Joe has .45 auto $5 1 clue and 1 common

Roland Has 1 ally and 1 Unique item.

This one is very hard to judge. Roland has much more potential while Joe has guarantee. Again I'd have to say if else. If either Dunwich or Kingsport is In I'd have to say Roland because many of the allies from these 2 sets are insanely good. If neither is in I'd have to say Joe since the likely hood of getting a power ally/unique item is much less and Joe's fixed items are always very useful.

Personal Story.

Roland, no question. You're likely to pass it without even trying and the benifit will likely give lots of clue tokens over the course of the game. Joe has to go out of his way to pass his and the $15 he gets is about as much as one can expect to get in dollars and clue tokens from Rolands. Not to mention Joe's has a payment and is easier to fail than Roland's

Ability

Have to give it to Roland again. Assuming average dice rolls I'd have to say that the number of extra dice that Joe will get from his ability is about the same as the number of clue tokens Roland will produce with his after he completes his PS. Rolands main disadvantage is that his power encourages him to not carry too many extra clue tokens and to give his money away readily. Rolands other disadvantage is that he can't get his 5th clue token with his power however is Insumuth is in he can pick up a reasearch material or 2 and then produce his "5th" token while in other worlds. He also almost has Jenny's power if he passes off the money often. Its nice never having to worry about being trapped in a city.

It's close but I think Roland is slightly better. Clue tokens are very important so having a power that can produce them with so few strings attached is really good not to mention his amazing stats and ally to start with.

I think Jacquelin can compete for a place too. She has pretty good stats with 4 speed and 4 maximum in both fight and will. She has a high lore and sanity and starts with 2 spells making her an excelent spell caster and her enchanted jewlary helps her low stamina. She has good money and 2 clues as well. What really sets her apart is that ability of hers. Being able to manipulate the Mythos deck is insanely good. though it's been a while since I played with her I remember that last time she stopped at least 3 gate bursts and 1 rumor. 6 clue tokens for 3 seals is a payment I'm more than willing to make. I was actually getting anoyed because it felt like nothing was happening in our game. I'd actually put her on par with Wendy since if she stops 1 seal from breaking due to a gate burst then she's already saved us 3 clue tokens and at least 3 turns on average. In all likely hood she'll stop 1 gate burst and 1 rumor before any game with expansions is over.

I suppose that you mean stand alone investigators. My friends and I have an optimized team that covers all of our bases. Since all of us on here play the game differently, each of us have different needs and the investigators usefulness fluctuates accordingly, but here is our best 5.

1) Patrice Hathaway- All around game winner

2) Hank Samson- Monsters, what monsters?

3) Akechi Onyale- Gate closer supreme- "Suck on that 'Now One Can Help You Now'"

4) Mandy Thompson- Would you like to do better next time?

5) Rex Murphy (with Personal Story)- I inspire Patrice

@allstar64

Darrell's power isn't fully appreciated unless you consider the Lighthouse encounters, and the Whatley Farm encounters. Even with his personal story handicapping his retainer ability a bit, he's a powerhouse if you exploit those two locations.

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I don't have time to fully go into some of the points brought up (I'm late to a mother's day meal), but I will say that I consider the idea of a 5 best list somewhat misguided, unless the question is who would brings the most power to the widest variety of games. In which case I'd probably say bump Joe.

Might sound strange, but I find Jenny Barnes pretty good, too. Her stats are okay, her starting gear as well and her Trust Fund ability is a nice way to gather money. I don't know if it's easier to gain money with some of the expansions, but by only playing the core game, I always found it pretty hard to get money on a regular base. Might be a coincidence, but in our games, she always did exceptionally well.

Avi_dreader said:

Okay I just looked through those two locations. I never realized how much free time the people upkeeping the arkham wiki had. I can't see how either of these 2 locations are very exploitable.

Whatley Farm had some decent encounters and the ally not available award is sweet but placing a DH token on means that you need to be able to get encounters that remove tokens as well which seems like a waste of time. Unless you were refering to the fact that he can remove DH tokens without too much trouble but usually we're good at controlling the monsters and this is not an issue.

The lighthouse encounter that sends you to the second world is cool but if you get the ally there it closes for good so I'm not sure which encounter you're refering to since the rest seem pretty average.

The obtain Alchemy encounter, and the remove doom token encounter.

Errr... Okay, looking through the deck again I see the problem. I should have said The Rope and Anchor (the two Thomas Olney encounters). Innsmouth doesn't have any exploitable locations as far as I know, but it's been a while since I checked.

That makes more sense. The Rope and Anchor is very abuseable for Darrell. The only "Bad" enconters seem to be delayed and -1 item, lose a stamina and lose $3 but the good is very prevalent. 2 chances to remove a doom token with at least 3 dice and 2 chances to exchange all that retainer money for clues. However this seems kind of specific. He's upped from top tier to ultra top tier if Kingsport is in. I could say that Kane is ultra top tier because when the KiY is the Herald when Galekki is the AO (amusingly enough this was the case in my game yesterday though Kane wasn't in) he more or less nullifies both their powers. Yes Darrel is amazing and one of the best but I don't think he is top 5.

As for getting the alchemy he has about a 15% chance of getting the encounter, then he has 3 dice for 2 successes which is he fails he's cursed. Not only that but he needs someone else who can cast the spell(s) well. Hardely worth bumping him up in the tiers for.

Still think the investigators fighting for the last 2 places are Joe, Wendy, Roland and Jacqueline.

allstar64 said:

You dump his clues to get those successes (you also equip him with any luck boosting items, or reroll items other investigators have with starting equipment and after the first turn of shopping). He will have a minimum of two on him when you draw the encounter. So really he has five dice for 2 successes. At least. While waiting for the alchemy encounter, have him pick up the encounter that gives three items for a Dunwich Horror Token (which you can then remove while waiting).

And of course, this is overlooking the fact that he's a money machine, even before he can pull out alchemy (provided you don't fail his personal mission— just have someone else sent out to deal with the gates). After what his personal story did to him, it's a mistake to have him horde clues, you're better off making loads of cash with him and buying clue equivalent items with it from the unique item store. Darrell is the most cash heavy investigator in the game because of how easily he can gain retainers (and hunt for easy money at locations with cash encounters). More than Bob, plus he has his exploitative powers.

If you're playing the Dunwich board, he can exploit the Farm for an easy alchemical process (it's worth waiting three to five turns for it, in the meanwhile you'll still be drawing cash with his retainer), if you're playing the Kingsport board he can exploit Rope and Anchor, if you're not playing either, then you're probably playing a small number of expansions and you can probably use him to exploit main board encounters since the decks will be thin enough.

Darrell's power isn't quite as obvious as the others in the top tier, but he's very overpowered if played the right way.

---

As for Wendy, Roland, and Jaqueline...

Roland's not even a contender (although he's a good second tier character). His bonus cash and clue tokens are too slow. And the cap of his clue generation at four makes it so his ability is often inactive (and often irrelevant for gaining a fifth clue token— plus if you want to fully maximize his clue generation ability, you'll end up understocking him with clues in Other Worlds, i.e. going for exactly five and putting him in danger).

Jacqueline is an excellent character... However she's still only second tier. Her ability, if used to prevent a gate burst, essentially amounts to a saving of three clues (which is usually only used once per game). That's an inadequate clue generation ability compared to Luke, Roland, Akachi, or Rex. Perhaps something horrible might come up that you'll want to bounce, but just remember, that puts you back another two clues. Playing a game with Jaqueline essentially requires you to seal a seventh gate in exchange for extra safety. ::Shrug:: it's a good deal, but it's not game breaking. (Personally, I'd much rather have Marie and a two extra doom token ancient one).

As for Wendy, I think you're deeply underestimating her if you're considering this. Essentially she starts the game with eight clue tokens, the ability to race to almost any location within a turn through any blockade, amazing luck, and near invulnerability from the attacks of monsters (provided you crank up her sneak to maximum before throwing her into a gate). Turn one you send her to wherever the second clue appeared (so she'll have five clues). Turn two you send her to an open gate (if it's a low modifier you use your clues against it, if it's a high modifier you use your elder sign against it). Turn four she's out and has one gate trophy. Turn five, send her to another gate. Turn seven, she seals her second gate. She now has two gate trophies. Turn eight, send her to the Science Building to pick up the clue there and trade her trophies. Turn ten, she now has another five clue tokens, send her to another gate. Turn twelve. She's sealed her third gate... Of course, this presumes she can pull off three other worlds without needing to heal. Maybe yes, maybe no. Let's add in three more turns just in case (of course, sanity/damage prevention items and find gate can cut this time wasting probability, and allow this process to occur even faster). Anyways, the point is, She can seal 3 gates in between ten and fifteen turns, while reducing the doom track by one, and, hopefully, picking up something useful in the other worlds due to her excellent luck. That's her basic function. Playing Wendy by herself is almost as good as playing three other average investigators (and in a way she's still better than that, because she only counts as one investigator in terms of outskirts, monster limit, and gate limit).

She can be used to pull of strange strategies as well, as she can function as a blockade in the streets and cluster monsters on her, potentially saving a street sweeper time in certain conditions, or preventing some monsters from moving, if necessary (i.e. to a vortex). ::Shrug:: and if you're able to get someone else to seal at about the same time she's ready to seal a second gate, you can get an additional $10 with her.

---

By the way, Joe is only considered a top tier character because his extra die per clue token ability allows him to blast Ancient Ones in final combat. Especially if he is blessed, has a shotgun, or both. Basically, if you have him horde clue tokens, he'll do a forty to fifty die attack on the first round of combat. If blessed, that's 20-25 hits. Even in a four player game, that's six off the doom track. A fairly devastating attack. However, it'll usually be quite worse than that, because if a team is serious about killing the Ancient One with Joe, they will hunt through the common item deck for a shotgun (really not that hard to do, due to the abundance of inexpensive items in the common item deck). The entire common deck can be cycled through in thirty three turns (i.e. it would take three investigators 11 turns— although it's unlikely that would be necessary, since A) they'll start with a few common items, and far more importantly B)one of the two shotguns are very likely to turn up before then). Anyways, with a shotgun and a 40-50 blessed die attack, you're likely to have about eight more successes. ::Shrug:: and really you can do even more damage with him if you're really intent to... There are 48 clue tokens after all... He's the nuke of the Elder Gods... And of course, in 1-2 player games, he cuts through them like butter. And in three player games, he still can annihilate them pretty fast. By moderately gearing up, he can probably take them out by the second turn (without a shotgun).

---

Disclaimer: I would never gear up with Joe, and I don't exploit Rope and Harbor (it makes the game too easy).

Alright, well I'm throwing this out because I can. According to the stats report, the five most effective investigators are the following.

Mandy Thompson
Patrice Hathaway
Carolyn Fern
"Ashcan" Pete
Jacqueline Fine

Discuss.

Just to note, the next 5 (as in 6-10 in most effective) are the following.

Joe Diamond
Wendy Adams
Darrell Simmons
Minh Thi Phan
Kate Winthrop

So while it is clear that Joe, Wendy, and Darrell are great investigators, they do not seem to be in the top, where Carolyn, Ashcan, and Jaqueline seem to have taken those spots. Daisy is actually ranked 38th for most effective, so while she apparently has amazing abilities, people are unclear on how to use them effectively to win the game. Daisy is also the most used investigator from the Kingsport expansion, but yet the only investigator from Kingsport she is only more effective than is Charlie Kane.

If you're looking at the best investigator from each expansion you have Mandy, Wendy, Patrice, and Jacqueline. I have a feeling that while investigators like Joe, Wendy, and Darrell have amazing abilities they really only have an effect on their own characters, while the other characters seem to have group affecting abilities (re-rolls, shared use of clues, sanity healing of characters, getting items back for characters that lost them or recycling clue generating materials, and preventing mythos cards) and that really seems to have a better chance of creating an effective winning strategy than characters who have abilities that affect just themselves. Although to be fair, Joe, Wendy, and Darrell are the next three investigators, and they are pretty high on the list, so they do seem to have some benefit as well.

First time I'm hearing that an Eldern Sign only benefits yourself.

kroen said:

Right, except an elder sign is an item, and I was talking about abilities. And her ability is actually better if you hold onto the elder sign, which is detrimental to the group. Plus her personal story requires her to hold onto the sign longer anyway.

johnwatersfan said:

It really doesn't matter if you use the elder sign to seal the 1st gate or the 3rd (or 4th) gate, the result is still the same. And an Elder Sign is not just an item. I'd rather start with an elder sign than most of the "abilities that help everyone".

kroen said:

Okay, but this is the topic about the 5 best investigators, not the topic on what 5 investigators would kroen like to play. I was just pointing out that according to the stats, Wendy is not one of the top 5 investigators. And the ones that are, seem the abilities seem to benefit the team. And yes, Wendy does start with an Elder sign, but it is possible for other investigators to start with an elder sign as well. It is not possible for other investigators to start with an ability to allow for re-rolling of failures.

johnwatersfan said:

how dare you dislike Wendy!!!!!! I know other could start out with an elder sign, but that is pretty rare, in my opinion. though one of my favs is Monterey Jack, cause I could fish out elder signs with him in a breeze (I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean)!

johnwatersfan said:

The stats have no significance other than saying which investigators are most effective for the players who are frequent contributors to the stats, taking their play styles into consideration. In other words, there's major sampling bias. Which isn't to say that the stats are occasionally fun to look at, just to see how other people are doing, but they are somewhat meaningless beyond that.

johnwatersfan said:

(1) What does "most effective" mean? On the stats page, I'm assuming it means: (number of times involved in game victory) / (number of times played).

(2) What is the range of dates for all stats used?

The reason I ask, is because the majority of the "top 10" are base game investigators, each one of which has 2-3 years of involvement with this stats page over the other 2/3 of investigators now in play. Does everyone on the stats page own Innsmouth? I wager there is even a good chunk of contributing diehards who refuse to buy Kingsport. The only reason Pete is higher than Wendy is because he's older and EVERY AH owner has a Pete.

But wait! Patrice is one of the most recent Investigators! How did she get on the top 5 so fast? That goes to question 1. In most cases, the resulting number is a fraction. But when you play with Patrice (and I would ask the diehards to contest this if they can), YOU NEVER LOSE. You just DON'T. Patrice is the only Investigator who, when played as printed, yields a result of ONE in regards to question 1. It would seem that Wendy and Minh have equally impressive win ratios, considering how fewer games they have been involved with than the original 16.

When it comes to black-and-white contests like "Best Investigator", the stats page simply has "unfair" data. Maybe after Kingsport and Innsmouth have been owned by every player for four years, Pete will slide down to where he belongs.

jgt7771 said:

That's right. So Carolyn's 70 percent means that she's won 334 out of the 477 games she's played; Patrice has only won 140, but she's "more effective" than Carolyn because even though she's won even fewer games overall than Sister Mary, she's only appeared in 189. Older characters probably do have an advantage insofar as people are more familiar with their strategies and so forth (and a countervailing disadvantage insofar as some of their games are probably with less experienced players, but this brings us back to Avi's point about external validity)

I used to have similar feelings about the statistics page. It never made sense to me why Daisy was so low. I used to think it could be that the ancient ones in Kingsport are some of the most difficult ones out there, so overall games that have the option to use her would be more difficult. However, she has been used the most of any Kingsport investigator and she is very low on the list. I know that there is a lot of sampling bias as not everyone who plays the game contributes, however, I still would have thought that Daisy would have been higher on the list.

For the top ten, I'm willing to shuffle. In fact, I'm not even sure if those in the top on the list are really the best, but I was curious to see how the stats agreed with what people thought.

I guess the thing I find most interesting about the stats is how people say how overpowered Daisy is (which compared to Patrice, it seems less so), but yet she's so far down the list on the stats page.

Another erroneous assumption involving the most potentially powerful investigators is that players will use them at full power. They don't just auto-play the game (except for Patrice, to some extent). And of course, some players will deliberately tie their hands behind their back because they don't consider easy victories legitimate (i.e. having Daisy search for Call Ancient One, and just blitzing the Ancient One in final battle with it).