Weird thing about parallel Daisy is that the two parts of her ability seem to contradict each other. If you have a lot of tomes in play at once, you want them to have static or free effects, but then for the once per game thing you want them to all have action abilities
I find myself always having ArkhamDB as seperate Tab to this videos to crossread what the investigators abilty is. Could you add the whole front side of the Investigator for viewers that dont know all the cards by heart.
Probably forgot about her. She'd definitely the most forgettable investigator. I've never had an Amina idea that I didn't just think someone else did better.
I would love to see Jim taboo'ed to say: When you draw a skull, you may treat it as a 0 (not just the modifier). When you draw a 0, you may treat it as a skull. I think that would actually open a lot of unique interactions for him. It's not game breaking or anything, but it would just add a little extra, even if it's just "I'm going to make this a skull to avoid damage from Azure Flame" or "I'm going to make this a 0 for Shards of the Void".
Gloria was fun exactly once. I hope the Prophecy of the End weaknesses will do something along the lines of kicking out cards beneath her (if any) and then if they’re all beneath her, something *real* bad happens.
Also Bottom 5 (Least favorite from each class; no particular order) -Parallel Wendy Adams -Amanda Sharpe -Wilson Richards -Jacqueline Fine -Alessandra Zorzi
I always enjoy when Justin pops in and says Hank is lacking, since it ruffles some feathers everytime. Also, that idea Bryn was having that the investigator changes stats/form as you upgrade into another class over the campaign sounds cool!
I actually had a very similar experience with Skids: first time I played arkham was Rougarou with skids and I just couldn't do anything with 3s. Now I'm playing dirty fighting skids and having a blast: genuinely think he's the best dirty fighting investigator with his card pool, stat line and a ability all being nice to have.
Lola Hayes was my first big campaign investigator, running EotE as our first campaign as beginners with core + EotE + Cho and Harvey investigator packs, and I absolutely loved the campaign. We beat it, 2p, Lola Hayes and Monterey Jack. Is she powerful, probably not. Though I would say now, after many more plays, that with the errata, she's a fine investigator and I just love her unrivalled deck building. Charlie Kane might be close but I've not played him yet, so can't say...
5. Calvin Wright. I’d probably only ever consider playing him if he was 7/7. Even then, his card pool feels kind of lame. 4. Investigators with 1 Willpower. I’m just too scared of 1 Willpower. Suzi gets a pass here, because she boosts it pretty fast. 3. Non-parallel Jim Culver. I wasn’t very big on him before the parallel version was released. Parallel Jim is so fun and cool, it just hurts regular Jim by comparison. 2. Tommy Muldoon. I live in America, so police are pretty much a no-go for me.
I forgot #1. 1. Luke Robinson. He never even had a chance, sharing a name with my brother-in-law. It’s a shame, because I really like Mystic/Seeker combination.
Geared Up/True Magick/Archaic Glyphs Daisy (Normal Front/Parallel Back) was actually the strongest 4-Player Cluver i ever built. Granted there were 3 other Players who could play Stand together Level 3 (Mark-Calvin-Carolyn) and Geared up wasn't taboo'd yet. 1st Turns were wild and from turn 2 on every Location got swept of clues in a single action.
I feel for Parallel Daisy and the Geared Up taboo. I feel she had a really fun highroll with that and it was fun to try for and made her unique, but unfortunately she really feels the taboo.
I think the thing about Hank is I wish there was more reason to push through to another version. But his stats are pretty great to start, so there’s no real reason to try to move on. Make him more meh on his first half but give him an ability to like, take 2 damage to deal +1 for an attack to move you forward to a more interesting version or something. I still like him, but can understand not.
That's the game telling you not to do force flipping, unless you really want to play him as a generalist and don't want to include survivor clue 'test at 0' cards into your deck.
So the change to the "fighty" resolute side, to make him more tempting on the flip, is lower his fight down to 5 and add "At the start of the Investigation Phase, search your discard pile for an innate/spirit card and add it to your hand." That might make him more fun.
I really like Hank. I usually go asap to his resolute version with In the thick of it, meat cleaver and ward of protection. Then try to keep yourself alive with idol of xanatos, pete and hunting jacket with graveyard recurrence.
4 will for mystics is like 4 intellect for seekers. It's workable. It's not the end of the world. Marie Lambo is workable and I feel has higher ceiling than many of her mystic friends due to that extra action, which is heaps helpful.
I'm curious how Lola would play if she just didn't have an ability or signature cards: If instead she were a featureless investigator with merely her deckbuilding rules and mediocre stats.
the fact that she has a decksize of 35 instead of 30 is already by itself a debuff (that's basically the penalty for taking versatile). If you removed all signature cards (which are 4 and make that whole deck size issue even worse), that would help, but she'd still have 3 more cards than normal. I'm not sure if by "featureless" you mean a Lola without her role restrictions, but while by removing them you would make her definitely less weak, you'd also completely deprive her of anything that makes her fun to play and anything that provides a thematic experience for playing an investigator that can interpret many roles and switch among them. The concept of role switching of Lola is good, I would argue that it's actually fun and interesting... but one thing is complicated mechanics that reward you with exceptional feats if you master them, another thing is mechanics that you need to master just to barely function at all. Instead of switching roles to overcome her limitations, Lola should switch roles to gain bonuses for specific tasks.
@@JannPoo I find her deckbuilding rules to be the most intriguing: What can I accomplish with access to any 3 classes up to level 3. Yes, the role-switching presents an interesting dynamic in theory, but the way it's implemented, you're just hard-locked out of your off-role cards. I think something softer would be warranted to really make this role-switching feel less confining. Maybe weakening the can't use abilities on off-role cards to "using abilities on off-role cards causes them to exhaust" and/or "off-role cards don't ready".
@@astutedunsparce4036 Did they mention that? I watched over that part trying to figure out what was up and maybe I missed it repeatedly, but seems pretty important thing to include. I thought there was a parallel events only Norman.
This is a great question. I have an idea of why this might be the case. Mystics use the Willpower assets (Shriveling, Rite of Seeking, Wither, etc.) to perform basic actions with Willpower. At level 0 these provide no +Willpower. Compare to Guardians, whose level 0 weapons often include a + Combat score. Guardians also have multiple level zero allies that provide a static bonus to combat while in play, see Beat Cop and Grete Wagner. For equivalent, Mystic just has David Renfield at level 0 and only when he has doom on him will he give a bonus to Willpower. Comparison: A 4 Combat Guardian with weapon asset and combat boost ally means testing at at least 6. A 4 Willpower Mystic with a spell asset needs both a Holy Rosary equivalent *and* David Renfield with doom to hit that value at base. That's 3 Assets, compared to 2. I assume Mystic's lackluster card and resource economy makes this more pronounced. Tl;dr Mystics need more cards to make up for this shortcoming because their spell assets don't give a Willpower boost at level 0, while Guardian weapons give a combat boost.
@@watalitepa1959I’m still new, but mystics get mythos cup token manipulation and this has to count for something. My wife is playing a Jaqueline right now and she can draw 3 tokens from the bag and choose which one to keep. She isn’t testing with a high score, but. Ring able to cancel a -4 token and use the 0 token is ridiculously OP. Thoughts?
@shawnfairbanks9339 Jacqueline has token manipulation printed on her card, and that certainly helps a lot. I'll admit I am not super familiar with the Mystic card pool, so maybe there are a lot of tools for token manipulation at level 0 that I'm not thinking of. That said, I think these are both different ways of mitigating variance, if you think about it. If you test high enough above the difficulty, you make it less likely to pull a token where you fail the test. It's kind of the same with token manipulation, reducing the likelihood that you draw and resolve a token that fails the skill test. Either way works, high skill value is just the more straightforward way of mitigating variance.
If you keep playing Marie as a "doom archetype" you will continue to have a bad time with her. Go past that and use doom as a splash just for the bonus action, and you'll unlock her potential. She can be legitimately quite strong and fun and the occult access is key.
If you could redesign Jim Culver, what changes would you make? Give him 5 brain and mystic 5 / surivor 2 and give him the ability to use his gator ability on teammates too?
Every time I watch any of your videos guys, I always agree on so much stuff, but Bryn seems to be sort of a contrarian or whatever, 9/10 of his takes I feel are bad "ohhh I can't build a fun Lola deck, she sucks", "ohh Norman is difficult to build, I don't like him' Nothing personal, but I feel Bryn chooses things out of spite rather than good analysis or any sort of experience. Pushing Ursula to D tier when she is a functional B seeker, having Amanda at D tier, pushing freaking Darell to B tier, while he is the reason Survivors pay 10+ more XP for having Scavenging, Old Keys and Shed Light; This man is an enigma of bad takes for the sake of being different
I said the exact same thing about Hank when he was first spoiled. He's just extremely boring and his ability is essentially "make number big". It's not engaging in any way and doesn't really synergize with card effects. Easily my least favorite investigator and I haven't even played him.
Weird thing about parallel Daisy is that the two parts of her ability seem to contradict each other. If you have a lot of tomes in play at once, you want them to have static or free effects, but then for the once per game thing you want them to all have action abilities
Strangely, I could really go for some bear paws right now. And we don't even have those over here.
I find myself always having ArkhamDB as seperate Tab to this videos to crossread what the investigators abilty is. Could you add the whole front side of the Investigator for viewers that dont know all the cards by heart.
Thats what i always think, yes
I'm surprised no one picked Amina. By far, my least favourite investigator.
Probably forgot about her. She'd definitely the most forgettable investigator. I've never had an Amina idea that I didn't just think someone else did better.
by far the worst investigator. awful
Gloria should have been like Carson - a strong ability to manipulate the Chaos bag but with weak stats to balance.
I'm wondering if we'll get an investigator with chaos bag manipulation, outside of Jacqueline.
I would love to see Jim taboo'ed to say:
When you draw a skull, you may treat it as a 0 (not just the modifier). When you draw a 0, you may treat it as a skull.
I think that would actually open a lot of unique interactions for him. It's not game breaking or anything, but it would just add a little extra, even if it's just "I'm going to make this a skull to avoid damage from Azure Flame" or "I'm going to make this a 0 for Shards of the Void".
Gloria was fun exactly once. I hope the Prophecy of the End weaknesses will do something along the lines of kicking out cards beneath her (if any) and then if they’re all beneath her, something *real* bad happens.
Also Bottom 5 (Least favorite from each class; no particular order)
-Parallel Wendy Adams
-Amanda Sharpe
-Wilson Richards
-Jacqueline Fine
-Alessandra Zorzi
I always enjoy when Justin pops in and says Hank is lacking, since it ruffles some feathers everytime. Also, that idea Bryn was having that the investigator changes stats/form as you upgrade into another class over the campaign sounds cool!
I actually had a very similar experience with Skids: first time I played arkham was Rougarou with skids and I just couldn't do anything with 3s. Now I'm playing dirty fighting skids and having a blast: genuinely think he's the best dirty fighting investigator with his card pool, stat line and a ability all being nice to have.
Man do I love Marie, but i keep thinking it is probably because I leaned heavily on Astronomical Atlas and maybe I just love the Atlas
Lola Hayes was my first big campaign investigator, running EotE as our first campaign as beginners with core + EotE + Cho and Harvey investigator packs, and I absolutely loved the campaign. We beat it, 2p, Lola Hayes and Monterey Jack. Is she powerful, probably not. Though I would say now, after many more plays, that with the errata, she's a fine investigator and I just love her unrivalled deck building. Charlie Kane might be close but I've not played him yet, so can't say...
Great comparison with Kayn & Hank, would've been a cool way to approach the two evolved forms.
5. Calvin Wright. I’d probably only ever consider playing him if he was 7/7. Even then, his card pool feels kind of lame.
4. Investigators with 1 Willpower. I’m just too scared of 1 Willpower. Suzi gets a pass here, because she boosts it pretty fast.
3. Non-parallel Jim Culver. I wasn’t very big on him before the parallel version was released. Parallel Jim is so fun and cool, it just hurts regular Jim by comparison.
2. Tommy Muldoon. I live in America, so police are pretty much a no-go for me.
I forgot #1.
1. Luke Robinson. He never even had a chance, sharing a name with my brother-in-law. It’s a shame, because I really like Mystic/Seeker combination.
Geared Up/True Magick/Archaic Glyphs Daisy (Normal Front/Parallel Back) was actually the strongest 4-Player Cluver i ever built. Granted there were 3 other Players who could play Stand together Level 3 (Mark-Calvin-Carolyn) and Geared up wasn't taboo'd yet. 1st Turns were wild and from turn 2 on every Location got swept of clues in a single action.
I feel for Parallel Daisy and the Geared Up taboo. I feel she had a really fun highroll with that and it was fun to try for and made her unique, but unfortunately she really feels the taboo.
I think the thing about Hank is I wish there was more reason to push through to another version. But his stats are pretty great to start, so there’s no real reason to try to move on. Make him more meh on his first half but give him an ability to like, take 2 damage to deal +1 for an attack to move you forward to a more interesting version or something. I still like him, but can understand not.
That's the game telling you not to do force flipping, unless you really want to play him as a generalist and don't want to include survivor clue 'test at 0' cards into your deck.
So the change to the "fighty" resolute side, to make him more tempting on the flip, is lower his fight down to 5 and add "At the start of the Investigation Phase, search your discard pile for an innate/spirit card and add it to your hand." That might make him more fun.
Parallel Daisy can now take Blackmail File. It is slotless and cares about Willpower.
I really like Hank. I usually go asap to his resolute version with In the thick of it, meat cleaver and ward of protection. Then try to keep yourself alive with idol of xanatos, pete and hunting jacket with graveyard recurrence.
4 will for mystics is like 4 intellect for seekers. It's workable. It's not the end of the world. Marie Lambo is workable and I feel has higher ceiling than many of her mystic friends due to that extra action, which is heaps helpful.
“Performer” is a more cursed trait than “Cursed”
I'm curious how Lola would play if she just didn't have an ability or signature cards: If instead she were a featureless investigator with merely her deckbuilding rules and mediocre stats.
the fact that she has a decksize of 35 instead of 30 is already by itself a debuff (that's basically the penalty for taking versatile). If you removed all signature cards (which are 4 and make that whole deck size issue even worse), that would help, but she'd still have 3 more cards than normal.
I'm not sure if by "featureless" you mean a Lola without her role restrictions, but while by removing them you would make her definitely less weak, you'd also completely deprive her of anything that makes her fun to play and anything that provides a thematic experience for playing an investigator that can interpret many roles and switch among them.
The concept of role switching of Lola is good, I would argue that it's actually fun and interesting... but one thing is complicated mechanics that reward you with exceptional feats if you master them, another thing is mechanics that you need to master just to barely function at all.
Instead of switching roles to overcome her limitations, Lola should switch roles to gain bonuses for specific tasks.
@@JannPoo I find her deckbuilding rules to be the most intriguing: What can I accomplish with access to any 3 classes up to level 3. Yes, the role-switching presents an interesting dynamic in theory, but the way it's implemented, you're just hard-locked out of your off-role cards. I think something softer would be warranted to really make this role-switching feel less confining. Maybe weakening the can't use abilities on off-role cards to "using abilities on off-role cards causes them to exhaust" and/or "off-role cards don't ready".
to me, i agree that jim sucks, but I've always, ALWAYS, had success with how consistent Jenny is, and how useful her 5 deckbuilding slots are
I don’t understand the part about Norman. Why can you only use events for him? I can’t find anything on his deckbuilding about that
I think they seriously misread Norman's deckbuilding.
Events Only Challenge
@@astutedunsparce4036 then he doesn't belong on this list.
@@astutedunsparce4036 Did they mention that? I watched over that part trying to figure out what was up and maybe I missed it repeatedly, but seems pretty important thing to include. I thought there was a parallel events only Norman.
@@astutedunsparce4036 thanks, I was so worried I have been playing him wrong! 😄
what's wrong with mystics having 4 brain ? Like why is a guardian with 4 fists okay, but when a mystic has 4 brain it's considered trash ?
This is a great question. I have an idea of why this might be the case.
Mystics use the Willpower assets (Shriveling, Rite of Seeking, Wither, etc.) to perform basic actions with Willpower. At level 0 these provide no +Willpower. Compare to Guardians, whose level 0 weapons often include a + Combat score.
Guardians also have multiple level zero allies that provide a static bonus to combat while in play, see Beat Cop and Grete Wagner. For equivalent, Mystic just has David Renfield at level 0 and only when he has doom on him will he give a bonus to Willpower.
Comparison:
A 4 Combat Guardian with weapon asset and combat boost ally means testing at at least 6.
A 4 Willpower Mystic with a spell asset needs both a Holy Rosary equivalent *and* David Renfield with doom to hit that value at base. That's 3 Assets, compared to 2. I assume Mystic's lackluster card and resource economy makes this more pronounced.
Tl;dr Mystics need more cards to make up for this shortcoming because their spell assets don't give a Willpower boost at level 0, while Guardian weapons give a combat boost.
@@watalitepa1959 i see, that makes sense yeah, thank you for the explanation
@@watalitepa1959I’m still new, but mystics get mythos cup token manipulation and this has to count for something. My wife is playing a Jaqueline right now and she can draw 3 tokens from the bag and choose which one to keep. She isn’t testing with a high score, but. Ring able to cancel a -4 token and use the 0 token is ridiculously OP. Thoughts?
@shawnfairbanks9339 Jacqueline has token manipulation printed on her card, and that certainly helps a lot. I'll admit I am not super familiar with the Mystic card pool, so maybe there are a lot of tools for token manipulation at level 0 that I'm not thinking of.
That said, I think these are both different ways of mitigating variance, if you think about it. If you test high enough above the difficulty, you make it less likely to pull a token where you fail the test. It's kind of the same with token manipulation, reducing the likelihood that you draw and resolve a token that fails the skill test. Either way works, high skill value is just the more straightforward way of mitigating variance.
@@watalitepa1959 indeed
Interesting. Mandy and Calvin were so much fun to play.
Wowie, look at that! There are actually other Edmontonian investigators out there!
Acting as an entire profession BURNED
If you keep playing Marie as a "doom archetype" you will continue to have a bad time with her. Go past that and use doom as a splash just for the bonus action, and you'll unlock her potential. She can be legitimately quite strong and fun and the occult access is key.
If you could redesign Jim Culver, what changes would you make? Give him 5 brain and mystic 5 / surivor 2 and give him the ability to use his gator ability on teammates too?
Every time I watch any of your videos guys, I always agree on so much stuff, but Bryn seems to be sort of a contrarian or whatever, 9/10 of his takes I feel are bad
"ohhh I can't build a fun Lola deck, she sucks", "ohh Norman is difficult to build, I don't like him'
Nothing personal, but I feel Bryn chooses things out of spite rather than good analysis or any sort of experience. Pushing Ursula to D tier when she is a functional B seeker, having Amanda at D tier, pushing freaking Darell to B tier, while he is the reason Survivors pay 10+ more XP for having Scavenging, Old Keys and Shed Light;
This man is an enigma of bad takes for the sake of being different
Bottom 5 Investigators (2024): Skids, Marie, Jim, Jenny, and Lola (Mystic and Rogue are my go to classes so most critical to them)
Yk who's NOT in my bottom 5 least favorite investigator list? Bear Paws
I really want to know more about Bear Paws. I’ve never seen them before.. Canadian thing?
Is that an Edmonton shirt? My hometown
I guess you guys are from Edmonton. That's pretty coo
Yup, it is!
Lola + Carson + Preston run?
Sorry, Brynn. Marie is now really fun and powerful. Love ya but you gotta play her again.
LETS GO BEAR PAWS
How would you feel about Lola if she had all 4's?
Bryn has Norman as number 1??? Is he insane?
I don’t consider Suzi to be canon, like Bryn doesn’t consider Parallel Investigators to be canon
Fuck yes more lists
Travis didn’t pick Ursula?!!
I said the exact same thing about Hank when he was first spoiled. He's just extremely boring and his ability is essentially "make number big". It's not engaging in any way and doesn't really synergize with card effects. Easily my least favorite investigator and I haven't even played him.
Parallel and customizable simply do not exist for me =)
Praying for a parallel Lola >
Parallel investigators went from "wow that's cool" to "wtf is that" really fast. I even stopped printing them
The recent 5 have been really cool though.
2 constants in (PBG) life, awesome Arkham videos and always under-rating Marie :D