This varies from campaign to campaign how good it is, but there are some general rules of thumb to keep in mind regardless:

1: A lot of hazards target multiple players, so even though your less likely to be the one to draw the hazard, each cancel you make 'counts more' in higher player count games. This is a mixed bag to be sure, but one player spending 1 health and 1 sanity soak to cancel something that may say.... cost 4 actions across the team once a game still is better than canceling that for 3 health and 3 sanity to save 3 actions.

2: A lot of hazards target speed, and a few target will. Quite a few also just don't allow you resist them at all.

3: A lot of hazards target your stuff, do lots of damage, or steal your actions or slow you down in some major way. There are a few not so bad hazards, but for the most part they pretty spoooooky.

This combined with the relatively good soak to cost ratio if you just use it as soak, the fact its a rare horror soak in body, and body isn't a common slot work for it: The ability to say 'nah' to the encounter deck is huge. The big things that stick out are its an XP card and guardians tend to be XP hungry (Though survivors tend to have plenty to spare) and both guardians and survivors are the most likely to have good uses for their body slots due to having the flamethrower for guardian, and leather coat for survivor.

Guardian wise, Leo Anderson might want this. As someone with lots of allies they don't exactly need soak, but they often really struggle with hazards due to their terrible speed resulting in them having to dump resources out of hand or let their friends die to handle some jungle fauna. Maybe that is why his entire previous expedition died? Due to the fact Leo is already asset heavy this may be tough to fit in, and while Leo has great econ options he also tends to run expensive, so its a tossup. Probably for sure in Lost Age though.

For Survivors, Calvin always could use more soak tools, and this lets him double up a slot for that, maybe freeing up the trinket space from sanity soak to something else. And eating a hazard early could really mess him up. Again, if its already a hazard heavy campaign he may want it.

Overall, it feels like the soak is nice, and definitely a big reason you take this, but you never take it JUST for the soak. The soak is the value add for when your not getting hazards. Your character probably should care about both (if it just canceled 3 hazards a game it would be terrible after all), but if the campaign really lacks hazards (which is rare but happens) you shouldn't take this.

There is one more thing worth mentioning though: This is a 2 XP card, meaning its accessible cross class. This opens up a lot for certain characters: Skids, Diana, Joe, Agnes, Mhin, and Preston can all take this, and it actually is somewhat interesting on some of them.

Skids is very poor, sure, but we also know his sanity is super fragile, and having access to soak for that can help him out a lot. The tempo hit from a lot of hazards is also very spooky.

Diana can use the last activation of this as a cancel, and unless she uses Robes of Endless Night or runs Bandoleer this serves as her main use of a body slot and makes an already tough character able to say no even more 'no-y.'

Agnes likewise really can take lots of horror as her base version, and wants things to damage as her parallel (though her parallel is likely going to want to use a leather coat to do this, she can use the sanity at least to tank her weakness).

Finally, for Preston, bypassing tests is a big part of his play, and this lets you do that quite often. Preston is rich as well and has the least trouble playing this of any character with access to it, meaning he might legitimately be the only person who wears a fire suit around say... The Silver Twilight Lodge manor. With awful stats mythos phase can be rough on him when tests come about unless he expends resources in some way to bypass them, which means that being able to say no to a test with a degree of failure downside really can save his bacon. Finally, and most critically, there is an extreme synergy with Darkhorse Preston due to him being able to take a Fireaxe with it, which definitely means someone is going to name a deck "Firefighter Preston" and toss Flare and Fire Extinguisher in there just to complete the set.

Buried Secrets is, in most cases, a mild weakness. Resolving it takes a single by testing a stat that Monterey is inherently good at. Even if you fail, you get to decide if you want to try the test again or take 2 horror and shuffle the weakness back into your deck. You know it's a generous weakness when even the worst case scenario isn't all that bad.

Let's break it down:

• Buried Secrets has a revelation effect, so it goes into your threat area immediately after being drawn.
• The ongoing effect is that you, the Monterey Jack player, can no longer move if your current location can be investigated. If it can't, (Locked Doors for example) you can move but the no movement-clause will kick in as soon as you reach a location that can be investigated.
• To make Buried Secrets go away, you have to spend an action and pass a single investigation test. If you pass, the weakness is discarded and that's that. Remember that you can investigate locations without clues on them.
• If you fail, you may take 2 Horror and shuffle the weakness back into your deck. Or you can let it be and just try again. That's mighty generous for Arkham Horror.
• Buried Secrets is your threat area, so any other investigator can activate the . If they fail the test, they get to decide if they'll take the horror damage or not. If they do, the weakness will be shuffled into your deck (not theirs). Having friends around will milden Buried Secrets even more.

In almost every case, you will draw this weakness while unegaged and on a 2, 3 or 4 shroud location. Then you can simply pass a single test with the odds highly in your favor, and be on your merry way. (Or you get get a friend to help you out, either a smart one one with a decent chance to pass the test - or a dumb one with two spare Sanity).

But if you're unlucky, there'll be an enemy engaged to you, one that needs to be evaded first. The guardian is three locations away. You'll fail the first evade, pass the second but then you have to spend your last action on getting rid of Buried Secrets. You're stuck and the enemy will re-engage in the enemy phase, so you'll need to spend yet another action evading it before you can move on. And you'll be muttering "Man, this weakness sucks!". But the very next round, your friend playing Marie Lambeau draws Baron Samedi. And you'll think "Okay, Buried Secrets is really not that bad."

A Practiced card that can't be used with Practice Makes Perfect ..but potentially still very good as it is likely to be very helpful for evasion occasionally while still being at least +2 to investigate for most people who can use it and even better for some.

The discard effect on this weapon is certainly interesting, with it's automatic evades and pairing nicely with Scavenger. Thing is though, that's just an extra little novelty of this deceptively good weapon.

Consistent +1 damage on attack, without any restriction, cost or drawback, is pretty rare. It's only found on 5 other weapons, those being: Holy Spear, Cyclopean Hammer, Sledgehammer, The Hungering Blade, and Timeworn Brand. All of them cost more resources to play, four of them cost more exp, and three of them take up 2 hand slots. This weapon not only gives that consistent extra damage(with a small combat boost even), but it's cheep (both resources, and exp) and keeps your other hand free. It's a bit funny, comparing a random fire extinguisher to an ancient relic sword of legend, but yet...here we are. The biggest drawback to this weapon is the lack of combative investigators with access to 3 pip Survivor cards. Daniela Reyes, with her inherit 5 combat, is the most obvious choice but it's also a great weapon for the other Survivors who like to pick fights (Yorick & Silas). If you're looking for easy access to reliable +1 damage, and your playing an investigator who can actually use this, this is a very...very solid choice.

Other people are writing interesting analysis and ideas. I have something different for you all to consider. Let's take a look at 3 notable permanents that we can combine to create the dumbest build in the world.

In the Thick of It

Versatile

Forced Learning

Now why are doing this you may ask? Wonderful question, but I'll need to bring up an important ruling first. Crystallizer of Dreams has a clear ruling in its interaction with The Painted World that says that forced abilities take priority over other replacement effects.

Now let's consider Patrice Hathaway. By using Versatile to bring in Forced Learning (thanks to the xp from thick of it) we are able to replace Patrice's signature ability with "Draw 2, Discard 1". You'll also have a 62 card deck size. To be clear, this is not a good idea, but it is hilarious and does allow you to laugh at both the watcher and much of the Dunwich encounter deck. If you actually decide to do this, please let me know and let me see your deck because I am sure it will be amazing.