Diana Stanley, Surprisingly Versatile and Transparently Strong | ARKHAM INVESTIGATOR DISCUSSION #44

[@GuerricSamplesGames]

Feel like it's worth dropping a little PSA just to clarify how Deny Existence and Terrible Secret interact: Because Terrible Secret uses the "For each [make a choice]" templating, each point of horror it deals counts as a separate instance. Meaning Deny Existence can never cancel more than a single horror from Terrible Secret This is a change implemented a few FAQs ago, so a lot of older content talks about Deny Existence as being able to fully cancel Terrible Secret. But that hasn't been true for a year and a half or so

[@RatherIncoherent]

@@GuerricSamplesGames Huh, does that also mean that stuff like Occult Lexicon bypasses 1 damage/action enemies like Longest Night? Also, totally forgot this FAQ update and cannot say that I like it. Are there wider implications or was this done specifically to make Diana and Mary's weaknesses much worse?

[@GuerricSamplesGames]

​@@RatherIncoherent It's sort of a mixed bag of a change. On the one hand it makes Diana and Mary's weaknesses much more potent, as well as a variety of treacheries. On the other it has positive ramifications for Blood-Rite, as you noted, is much better for Carolyn (each point of healing from Earthly Serenity now triggers her reaction separately), Bandages is stronger against for each effects, and there's more I'm not recalling. Also in a more philosophical sense, I think you can look at the three main "forms" of damage/horror (incremental, lump, direct) and the three main forms of protection (soak, heal, cancel) as existing in a sort of venn diagram relationship where each form of protection is good against two forms of damage. Before the for each ruling cancels were bleeding into a third portion of that venn diagram a little too much, and now they're more balanced compared to the other forms of protection.

[@Nerdmeetsyou]

​@@GuerricSamplesGames I like the new change. As it makes many protection cards and potential future protection cards more nuanced. And this was probably good for the long term health of the game.

[@GuerricSamplesGames]

One deck I'm surprised not to see mentioned is bless Diana. The fact that you can abuse Sacred Covenant to draw a card and gain a resource every round provided you find a bless token is very strong. She definitely struggles a little to construct a proper bless package around that interaction, but it's a strong enough value engine that I would have expected to see it shown off as one of the various versions here

[@RatherIncoherent]

I actually just misremembered that interaction as getting taboo'd lol. It 100% deserved a mention.

[@Chiungalla79]

Proper bless package for her is easy. She loves Holy Rosary (2) and can take Ancestral Token.

[@GuerricSamplesGames]

@@Chiungalla79 the problem isn't enabling the bless. It's that she doesn't have any great bless payoff, at least not better than anyone else doing similar things. She doesn't do Blesschester better than Mary or Jim, she doesn't do symbols matter bless better than Mateo, and she doesn't do paradoxical better than Kohaku. Not to say you shouldn't run Bless Diana, just that she's not doing it especially well, so you're effectively running an okay deck that happens to have one great value generator

[@Chiungalla79]

@GuerricSamplesGames I think cards and ressources are GREAT value. 🤷‍♂️

[@Chiungalla79]

The best thing about her needs a little bit of spoiler protection. One of my best experiences in AH was taking my ex-cultist to become the new leader of a cult in a playthrough of Broken Circle. Few endings ever felt as good.

[@Ahoge-dono]

Surprised no mention of the Delay the Inevitable and Twilight Blade infinite reursion combo since there's no timing window on when the Event is discarded and activation of the Twilight Blade's effect; you can loop that same Delay with Diana's ability. This essentially lets Diana face tank unkillable non-massive Elite infinitely as long as she has two resources. Also Read the Signs also has "ignore" in it's text. While depending on the scenario it becomes sort of a niche cancel, but it does come up.

[@thepwn121]

Thanks for the Ursula video follow up. I dont know who Diana is, nor do i care about her Terrible Secret, but she took up most of this ursula video.

[@Fogshaper]

I thought you couldn't really Deny her weakness. From how I understand it, each of the cards underneath her is a seperate instance of horror, and Deny only gets to cancel one of the Horror on Terrible Secret.

[@ChenowethGames]

That's a newer ruling from a couple years ago. You can see it on the Arkhamdb page for Terrible Secret.

[@dragonhawk00]

One card I've always thought about in Diana is Empower Self. Its probably mediocre at best but it would be interesting to get all 3 plus her basement set up to be 6/5/5/5

[@moldybones142]

Dark Insight is a *lot* better than Ward of Protection. Ward only hits treacheries, while Dark Insight hits treacheries, enemies, and weaknesses. Dark Insight also cancels ALL effects, not just revelation effects (goodbye surge!). You’ll still probably slam it against the first thing you can, but it’s wildly flexible.

[@natang.delyra9583]

Father Mateo moves up in the tierlist once again! I'm playing him right now with Crystal Pendulum and it almost feels unfair, it's basically a lucky cigarette case that increases your most important stat! I'm looking forward for his Investigator Discussion after you playtest him!

[@n.kirkevans6256]

When ranking Ursua v Diana, player count is key. Solo or even 2h Ursula is aces. Vice-versa for Diana. The latter is strongest when part of a larger team that can give her room to set up. For Ursula, higher clue counts messes up her game plan.

[@WayOfHaQodesh]

Really wanna see somebody make Doom matters work in mystics. Diana seems very cool.

[@GuerricSamplesGames]

@@WayOfHaQodesh It's by no means optimal, but you can make a very solid flex Diana using the doom charms. They let her hit the ground running by using her fist/book while you build up your willpower, and the only upgrades you really need to put into it are Elle Rubash. So it's a very low xp engine you can use if you need to be mindful of your xp total or if you just want to make sure most of your xp budget can go towards Deny (5) and so on. Similar to the doom build shown off in the video it takes advantage of Cat Mask's potency, but with different enablers

[@sevento7]

I think low A-Tier is really fair for Diana.