Choosing which Investigator to play as is a vital decision to make in the immersive, horror-themed board game Mansions Of Madness. Each one comes with unique sets of skills and abilities that make them ideally suited to particular tasks meant to keep themselves and their teammates alive and sane over the course of the game.

That being said there are some better suited to tackling the eldritch horrors you’ll face in this game than others. A lot of this comes down to your personal playstyle and the composition and size of your team, but here are those that fans seem to agree are the best or worst at survival in general.

10 Best: Father Mateo

Father Mateo has some incredible stats for a support character. He’s very handy to have if you’re entering a scenario with a lot of NPCs thanks to a high level of influence. His skill helps other investigators stay Focused.

The reason he doesn’t rank higher is that he’ll struggle on his own, he’s best suited to assisting a team. Don’t misunderstand, he’s good at staying out of harm’s way and can hold his own, but his job is to keep others in the fight and not face the horrors by himself.

9 Worst: Charlie Kane

Charlie is a politician, not a fighter. His stats are awful, making confrontation in melee or range a bad idea. What Charlie is good at is staying sane, taking spell damage thanks to his high sanity, and handling social scenarios.

That’s great if you’re in a game heavy on socializing, but bad if it’s mostly fighting and survival. If you’re handling the right scenario he can be tremendously useful with his skills in diplomacy, but if you need someone to crack skulls or shoot a gun he’s useless.

8 Best: Wilson Richards

As a handyman Wilson comes with a lot of strength and agility, making him a capable fighter. His stats lend him towards melee combat, but he can be tweaked for firearms pretty easily. He’s not really suited for anything else, but when a fight appears you want him on your team.

The reason he doesn’t rank higher is that his skill is suited for overcoming horror checks. This is a problem given his abysmal sanity which makes it very hard to handle horror checks.

7 Worst: Akachi Onyele

Akachi is a young apprentice to an old shaman who was trained specifically to combat the Lovecraftian horrors in the various scenarios. Unfortunately, her skill is next to useless in all but the most niche scenarios. It prevents her from discarding clues, which rarely happens and often isn’t a big deal for investigators like her as they can gather clues rather quickly.

She does have some decent stats with good health and high sanity, and she can hold her own in a team. But without a useful skill there’s nothing special about her that would make you pick Akachi over, say, Agatha or Triss.

6 Best: William Yorick

Considering this is a Lovecraft-based game it’s hardly surprising that a gravedigger like William would be such a capable investigator. He has a lot of health, strength, and sanity, making him a great fighter against otherworldly threats. His observation is also fairly good making him capable of tackling various puzzles.

His skill is also helpful as it causes him to gain a clue any time a monster dies ever for any reason. He’s the kind of character that can survive on his own or be a tremendous help to any team.

5 Worst: Preston Fairmont

Preston is an investigator that’s not really suited to any one task. He has good health and decent strength stats but lacks any other benefits to combat. With items he can overcome some of his weaknesses, but he’s not particularly skilled at finding those items.

The one thing he is very good at is communicating with NPCs thanks to high influence. Aside from that he needs his teammates to find and provide him with items to be halfway decent at anything else, making him more of a burden than a benefit.

4 Best: Agatha Crane

Agatha is easily the best spell caster in the game. With high observation, will, and incredible sanity she’s capable of unleashing magic on her opponents, solving puzzles, and has the sanity to help her resist any nightmares she may come across.

Her skill is a bit of liability as it incentivizes her to get close to monsters to pass horror checks in order to gain clues, which isn’t an ideal position for her given her health stat. That being said you’d be foolish not to have her on your team given her versatility.

3 Worst: Wendy Adams

Wendy is a street urchin in search of her father. While potentially heartwarming, this doesn’t make her well suited to handling the horrors of the world. Her stats are average across the board making her not bad at anything, but not great at anything either.

Thanks to her skill and high sanity she’s pretty good at avoiding danger and madness. She is good at Observation, but there are other investigators who are better. She’s basically along for the ride in any team she’s with.

2 Best: Rita Young

Rita is a capable athlete. She has incredible health, high strength, agility, and will. She’s naturally a talented fighter that can do serious damage in melee. Her non-combat skills aren’t terribly exciting, but that hardly matters in most scenarios and with the right team.

Where she really shines is her special ability. Whenever she performs a move action she can move an additional space. This gives her tremendous mobility to avoid danger or jump into the fray to protect teammates.

1 Worst: Carson Sinclair

He might be on a noble quest to care for the family he was hired to tend to, but he is considered the worst investigator in the game. His stats make him ill-equipped for dangerous situations, which is the point of the game and most scenarios.

His Observation is incredibly high and his lore isn’t too bad, unfortunately his sanity and will are a bit low making it hard for him to be a spellcaster or truth seeker. His special ability is incredible as it lets other investigators in range perform an extra action per round, but he cannot survive on his own and lends very little aid in combat scenarios.

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