Having seen her played a bit, she's so much better than the first reaction seems to indicate. Daniela is the champion of not doing terribly much but everything still dying, a style of play you really have to lean into.

For starters, run her with lots of soaks. Whether old classics like Cherished Keepsake and Leather Coat or fancy allies like Aquinnah, Peter Sylvestre, and/or Jessica Hyde, there's plenty of ways to stay alive and tank hits. When you get hit, you hit back harder. Someone mention Bandages + Guard Dog already? Because let me tell you, that hurts.

Cards like Toe to Toe and of course your wrench reward you for getting hit. Slam into big enemies and watch them crumble. Get yourself a Fire Extinguisher and watch the enemies tremble in fear. Slot in Brute Force and Stunning Blow and you've got yourself one nasty killing machine.

I would recommend Daniela for bigger groups. I think that if you want the classic combo in 2 , you'll be fine. In 3-4 she can easily be the primary fighter and just destroy enemies left and right.

Yes, I am sad I can't run Shield of Faith or Lesson Learned in her. But such is life.

10/10 would let this lesbian absolutely murder a bunch of babies in Innsmouth again.

We have a mechanic that is unable to Maintain equipment properly... Or who is too clumsy to screw a moderately different to handle ocular to a rifle. Not to mention that she is totally unable to show up well prepared to her job. She's unable to sticking to any plan... And her ability to improvise are quite limited...

Daniela seems to be the oil-riggy-kind of mechanic where screws come the size of swimming rings. She deserves the 1 intellect she has.

Daniela may be more stronger when everybody possesses 0xp, but with the increasing of exp, Daniela's strength will indicate a downward trend rapidly. The only weapon could be thought "passing" is Sledgehammer, which is much weaker than Cyclopean Hammer. No matter the difficulty is standard, hard or expert (I think every investigor could behave well in the easy mode), the potential of Daniela is pretty limited at any time. Somebody may state that She could take Aquinnah, but this counterattack system lacks the most important component, which is Survival Knife of 2xp. All in all, this is not a relatively strong investigator. 4-1-5-2 could be strong, but this attribute advantage is little compared to the huge disadvantage of deck-building restrictions.

There are a lot of things to like about Daniela. First, she lets you play tank guardian in a way no one else but Tommy can really master. But I don’t think she’s the second coming of Tommy, I think she’s the blue/red answer to Trish.

Previously, the number one way to lock down bosses was to have Trish Scarborough use quick clue gathering to automatically evade them. And she’s still super effective at that! But her ability is limited to once per turn, and Daniela's is not. Plus, as a cluever, you might have Trish elsewhere while big enemies spawn.

And Ms Reyes has the same stumbling block that Agnes does: if you spam their powers, you will get burned by the encounter deck. Neither is particularly great at agility checks, and damage can come from locations as well as foes. Often, punching enemies first is a better option than reflexively letting them clobber you, especially without access to money-makers like "I’ve had worse".

Her 4 base will is solid, even on hard.

Daniela is an excellent partner to Aquinnah. And if you’re willing to exile cherished keepsakes and old leather coats, the sky is the limit for soak with solemn vow. But when it comes to damage, observe the Christmas rule: it’s better to give than to receive.

Edit: Having played with her a little more, her ideal events are super cheap. That cost curve, and waiting for enemies to spawn, means it’s possible to put out a guard dog (or two!), flesh ward, and a survival knife before enemies cover the board. It’s refreshing in a guardian to be able to engage enemies as a final action, knowing you’re going to do 2-4 damage during the enemy phase! Annoyingly, there’s little lvl 1-5 survivor tech that does what dogs, “Get behind me” or the hallowed mirror do. And there’s not a ton you can do about enemies that do something besides damage/ horror on a hit: if you want to assign damage to your Trusted hounds, you can’t use dodge.

Daniela is the queen of making enemies murder themselves. With TSK cards, a lot of her weakpoints go away (namely Motivating speech). Keep in mind her investigator ability has no cap per turn, at all. Guard Dog, Flesh Ward, Survival Knife, Second Wind, Toe to Toe, Motivating Speech and Improvised Shield are mandatory imo in her decks.

Early upgrades should be charisma to get two guard dogs up, and spirit of humanity x2.

With those cards alone, Daniela is now absolutely murderous, tanky and will make short work of most enemies.

But it can get even more ridiculous.

"Stand Behind Me" redirects and converts all of the attacks a friend takes over to her. Keep in mind the wording of her investigator ability: attacks you provoke. This essentially means with Stand Behind Me, your friend who previously had a very annoying enemy on them can do whatever they want as you will be shredding the enemy if it hits them (a bonus if the enemy does physical damage, as your faithful guard dog can take the hit as well, dealing a whopping two total damage to an enemy completely passively, three if the enemy hits for at least two damage).

Toe to toe does a guaranteed three damage to any enemy Daniela uses it on at the cost of getting attacked (2 from the card plus 1 from her ability), and that's before guard dogs. It is hence possible to do five damage with this one card alone with her standard set up, guaranteed.

Spirit of Humanity gives a pretty reliable two horror and two damage heal every turn at the cost of adding curse tokens. This cost can actually be yet another benefit if you partner her with an investigator using curses spells, specifically Eye of Chaos and Favor of the Moon, as you will be able to more than easily keep their curse engine full.

The best part of all of this is it plays the same regardless of what difficulty you're on. Enemy abilities rarely get enhanced at higher difficulties (only thing that really changes is the bag and the penalties for drawing bs tokens). So, Daniela plays the same on easy as she does on hard.

Shes an extremely powerful investigator with a bit of a learning curve. She's not that great at punching enemies to death with weapons, she cant discover clues outside of Evidence! and she cannot ever pass an intelligence check. But she is a very strong bruiser character when built correctly, frequently making enemies take uncapped (primarily, two from guard dogs and one crom her), 3+ damage from her passives with a ridiculous amount of healing and soak and with minimal to no set up.

I love the deckbuilding restrictions of this cycle of investigators, but I have to say I am saddened beyond words that you can't squeeze a Survival Knife in her list. It's a real shame too; it's been a long time since I got as excited about a new investigator as I did when I read this card. Who knows, I'm not terribly familiar with the Survivor card pool. There's probably some busted stuff in there for her