I was the first one to be a bit low on this... until I really decided to check it seriously.

Let's compare it to its obvious rivals: Rite of Seeking and Clairvoyance:

• Cost: Tie

• Icons: Tie

• Trait: Dowsing Rod << Clairvoyance/Rite of Seeking

  • Item is interesting with Backpack and shenanigans like Scavenging, Schoffner's Catalogue, Salvage, "I'll take that!", etc..

  • Charm is interesting with Sleuth though this is probably one of the weaker one of the series

  • Spell, on the other hand, benefits from cards like Uncage the Soul, Word of Command, Recharge, Prophetic, Words of Power and Grounded (3).

• Slot: Dowsing Rod >> Clairvoyance/Rite of Seeking

  • Hand slot is known to be quite uncompetitive for . Sword Cane and Sign Magick (3) are some of the best uses for that slot, and I personally enjoy Scrying Mirror. You will want 2 tabooed Ritual Candles in a deck.

  • Arcane is the core slot of . It is highly disputed, and most mystics even consider using other important slots, pay, use deck slots and experience to increase their arcane slots with cards like Sign Magick, The Hierophant • V, Familiar Spirit, etc... One thing to mention also is cards that mind your Arcane slots like Meditative Trance, Dragon Pole, Explosive Ward and Eldritch Initiation.

• Action compression: Tie

  • Dowsing Rod gives you 2 actions for 1 activation: move and investigate. This is interesting as it allows you to move to a location with an enemy and investigate at that new location without generating an Attack of Opportunity (AoO).

  • Rite of Seeking/Clairvoyance gives you 2 actions for 1 activation: 2 clues instead of 1.

• Flexibility: Dowsing Rod >> Rite of Seeking/Clairvoyance

  • Not only the Dowsing Rod allows you to also use your , it gives you a +1 skill value. This makes it interesting for investigators with access and high intellect like Daisy Walker, Luke Robinson, Marie Lambeau.

• Drawback: Dowsing Rod >> Clairvoyance >> Rite of Seeking

  • Dowsing Rod adds a doom which can be extremely rough if you are not able to get rid of it fast. You can pack Elle Rubash and potentially Sin-Eater to mitigate this. In 1 player, it will be difficult to use it as the action that adds the doom also empties the location. In 2 player counts, you will get the best out of the Rod by moving, investigating and emptying a 2-clue location in 2 actions without any drawback. If there are 3 clues on your location, you will spend 3 actions to move and investigate 3 times, which is still on par with Rite of Seeking and Clairvoyance. In a location with 4 and more clues, the best is to combine it with an event like Read the Signs or Drawn to the Flame or even Clairvoyance.

  • Clairvoyance will deal you horror, which is fine in almost every as they tend to have a lot of sanity and their assets tend to offer even more. It can end up being a lot with Shrivelling and Ward of Protection.

  • Rite of Seeking is by far the most punishing, always requiring you to investigate during your last action.

• Uses: Dowsing Rod >> Rite of Seeking/Clairvoyance

  • The Dowsing Rod exhausts and adds a doom to move. Since you probably will not want to move to another location before you empty it, we can consider that there is almost no limit to its uses.

  • Clairvoyance/Rite of Seeking will have to be renewed and paid for every 3 uses unless you dedicate efforts to recharge them.

Conclusion:
Some will argue otherwise, but it seems to me that when looking at it from a bit closer, Dowsing Rod could be a solid contender for the investigation tool for future mystics, even without any doom management tools like Elle Rubash and Moonlight Ritual.
It is especially good in 2 and 3 player counts when it is as efficient as Clairvoyance without ever running out of charge. It also works especially well combined with Clairvoyance or with events like Read the Signs and Drawn to the Flame to get rid of the doom faster.

Girish is really good... but 4xp is a lot to ask. So why would you spend all that xp when you have Beat Cop (2), and Grete Wagner (3) in your class that both bring bonuses?

The answer is infinite health/horror.

Girish Kadakia will help you succeed in a test and heal himself in the process. Leave the Hallowed Mirror in the antique store, you don't need it anymore. Pack instead an Inspiring Presence for a second use each turn and some Trusted to turn it into an almost Carson Sinclair.

Who will want to pair with Girish Kadakia?

• Vincent Lee, of course, use his ability to get +2 and receive an On the Mend at the end of the test. He will be the perfect soak for your Bonesaw. You will always want to leave a bit of damage/horror on him to trigger him and end your Bonesaw attack with a damage on him.
• Carolyn Fern, who will make a good amount of resources out of Girish Kadakia if she finds a way to regularly deal horror to him. Forbidden Knowledge and Meat Cleaver are good options. The good thing with the latter is that you get the horror when you initiate the test so that you can heal it in the same action (and heal a horror on yourself at the end).
• Guardians that would be interested in using more than 1 stat, like Roland Banks or Leo Anderson with a Blackmailed Damning Testimony, Sister Mary and Lily Chen who would want to use their .
• Carson Sinclair to bring his statline to an acceptable number once a turn for a test and compensate for his lack of health/sanity.

This card was printed exactly as designed during Arkham Nights 2020, and that is amazing news.

3 experience per copy is a steep cost, so let's see the reasons behind.

The obvious:

• Flashlight (3) has 1 more supply
• Flashlight (3) now supports evasion tests
• Flashlight (3) logically gains an icon to commit.

That is alright at best. Supporting evasion is good, but except for a few evade-focussed investigators like Finn Edwards, Rita Young or Kymani Jones, this is unlikely to find many homes.

The less obvious:

• Flashlight (3) is not an anymore, and is instead a . This opens so many doors.
  • This means that Flashlight (3) can now be used on any investigate or evade action triggered by events and other assets
  • It especially shines in the succeed by X events like Pilfer (3), Breaking and Entering (2), Lockpicks.
  • Flashlight (3) is now one of the centrepieces of the "Difficulty 0" archetype. Not only it reduces the difficulty itself, but it adds onto other difficulty reduction effects like Winging It, Impromptu Barrier, Old Keyring (0) and (3), Lantern, Stealth and Stealth (3). As pointed out in the comments, it also works with The Skeleton Key, which guarantees every test difficulty to be 0.

Conclusion:

If you are planning to play the Difficulty 0 archetype, with Shed a Light and Exploit Weakness (reducing the evasion to 0), Flashlight (3) is going to be a must-have. As this archetype is mainly , this means that you'll probably use Scavenging (2) as well.

The other archetype that could use this card is if you plan to investigate/evade using the succeed by X cards and that has access to Scavenging (2) to replay it constantly.

Who will be playing this?:

Any investigator with Scavenging (2) and who would want to use Exploit Weakness can take Flashlight (3) and will get value out of it. Out of them all, the investigators that I see taking the best out of Flashlight (3) are:

• Darrell Simmons the master of the Difficulty 0 archetype.
  • Standalone deck example
• Wendy Adams as she can easily dispose of Winging It through her ability and play Shed a Light with her Wendy's Amulet and play Scavenging (2)
• Preston Fairmont with his 1-1-1-1 stat line, who can Double, Double Shed a Light and with Lola Santiago, you will actually have 2 so automatically succeed means triggering Scavenging (2).
  • Standalone deck example
• Rita Young and her new Breaking and Entering (2)
  • Standalone deck example
• Minh Thi Phan using Arcane Insight, Shed a Light and Scavenging (2).
  • Standalone deck example

With the permission of @Kelega from the Miskatonic Malcontent, I want to share this external link that breaks down in detail and with graphs on which traits to choose for every campaign up until TSK.

The author shows:

• What traits appear the most in each campaign
• What traits do enemies have in each scenario of each campaign
  • What is the best combination of 2 or 3 traits to cover most enemies in each scenario of each campaign
• What traits do treacheries have in each scenario of each campaign
  • What is the best combination of 2 or 3 traits to cover most treacheries in each scenario of each campaign

Warning This is full of spoilers, of course, but as Grizzled is mechanically made for guessing what the most common trait used is, if you have already been to this campaign and want to tech your deck, then this is all you're looking for.

For 6xp (Always Prepared and an additional Trait), you can either build yourself a repeatable enemy management tech or a 2-card constant +3 against treacheries.

Auto include in any Amina deck. One of the most common issues with playing a doom-based deck is that your fellow investigators will complain that your cards are adding to the doom total. Deafening Silence solves this problem by moving the doom off of your cards.