Dave the Diver: The Best Staff

Hiring the best staff in Dave the Diver is about more than picking the person with the highest starting stats. You should anticipate how much each staff member will grow and consider which one has the ideal special skills. Thankfully, you can hire new employees often!

How to Choose the Best Staff in Dave the Diver

Before you spend your entire budget on hiring the person with the highest stats, consider where you are in the game. You don’t want to empty your wallet immediately, as you’ll need some cash to buy important diving upgrades.

On top of that, you need to know what to look for when deciding on cooking staff versus noticing the optimal traits for serving staff. This includes starting stats, maximum stats, and special skills.

Note

There will be some overlap between our below categories—we want to make sure you know your options!

The Best Staff for the Early Parts of the Game

For the early parts of Dave the Diver, you should employ staff that have a low hiring cost but also have decent stat growths in specific areas. Specifically, you want to hire serving staff with high stat growths in Serving and Appeal. Whereas, for cooking staff, you want to hire those with high stat growths in Cooking.

Tip

Keep an eye out for possible staff with high Procure, but focus your money on getting serving and cooking staff first.

Based on the above criteria, we’ve determined that the best early-game staff members are:

• Kyoko (serving)
• Itsuki (serving)
• Charlie (cooking)
• Yusuke (cooking)

Hiring Kyoko as an Early-Game Server

Technically, you have no choice in hiring Kyoko near the start of the game. However, she’s pretty good if you train her!

Note

If you dismiss (fire) Kyoko, you can re-hire her later at a hiring cost of $142.

The biggest benefit about having Kyoko on board is that she doesn’t cost much to keep around and can be trained to reach decent serving stats. Notably, she gets the Drink Serving and Tip Master special skills after being trained a few times—which are both great for making money. Drink serving lets her pour drinks for customers, netting a nice bonus profit, and Tip Master makes her guaranteed to get tips, which, again, results in some pleasant extra income.

With that said, you shouldn’t keep her around for your whole playthrough. After you hire better serving staff, stick Kyoko in the waiting room.

After she’s delegated to waiting room duties, begin dispatching her every day. Her Procure stat isn’t the best; however, until you get better procurement staff, Kyoko is suitable for this role. Dispatching her every day lets you collect seasoning at a reasonable rate. There’s no point in not dispatching her every day if she’s in the waiting room, as you’re still paying her.

Hiring Itsuki as an Early-Game Server

Itsuki is a great employee to hire early. What’s more, Itsuki’s usefulness increases significantly as you train her. With the lowest hiring fee out of all potential staff (except the mandatory hiring of Kyoko and the story-related hiring of Maki), Itsuki is absolutely worth hiring immediately thanks to her awesome stat growths and high max Serving stat.

After getting trained a bit, Itsuki gets the Drink Serving and Irresistible Charm special skills. The former lets her serve drinks to customers for added income and the latter gives her a bonus +50 to her Appeal stat. Both of these special skills are handy for making more money.

Speaking of which, Itsuki has the highest max Appeal stat in the game (after factoring in her Irresistible Charm bonus) and the second-highest max Serving stat as well. In addition to being a cheap and early hire, Itsuki becomes arguably the best server in the game if you keep training her.

As you can guess, Itsuki is someone you want to keep in the restaurant at all times. Don’t put her in the waiting room or dispatch her to gather seasoning!

Hiring Charlie as an Early-Game Cook

Since Charlie has a Cooksta Rating of Diamond, you’ll need to put out an Internet Ad to get him on the Applicant List before you can hire him. However, once he does show up, you can employ Charlie for a relatively low hiring cost.

Interestingly, you wouldn’t guess it by looking at his starting stats, but Charlie can become one of the best cooks in the game because of his high Cooking growth. With that said, you’ll need to train him a few times before he starts pulling his weight in the kitchen.

In terms of special skills, Charlie gets Cooking+ (a +50 bonus to his Cooking stat) and Ingredient Prep Expert (a +5% chance to increase the number of dishes made). Since these special skills improve Charlie’s efficiency in the kitchen and passively stretch your supplies, he’s great to have on your team.

Charlie min-maxes pretty hard in that he’s not useful for serving or the procurement of seasoning while on dispatch. As such, you want to keep him in the kitchen at all times or fire him if you get a better cook (which is possible but unlikely for most of the game).

Hiring Yusuke as an Early-Game Cook

For the most part, Yusuke has similar benefits as a cook as Charlie does. They even have the same special skills: Cooking+ (a +50 bonus to his Cooking stat) and Ingredient Prep Expert (a +5% chance to increase the number of dishes made).

However, you’re more likely to come across Yusuke earlier if you don’t want to spend a lot of money on Hiring Methods. This is due to Yusuke having a Cooksta Rating of Bronze. Although you’re likely to find Yusuke sooner than Charlie, the former has a higher hiring cost—slightly more than twice that of the latter.

Another key difference between the two best potential early-game cooking staff members is their procurement proficiency. Yusuke’s starting and max Procure stats are some of the highest in the game. As a result, once you get a better cook, you should move Yusuke into the waiting room and begin dispatching him every day. This gets you tons of seasoning in the long run.

The Best Serving Staff in Dave the Diver

As you might expect, the best serving staff in Dave the Diver are those with the highest max Serving stats—but that’s not all! We also factored in the Appeal stats as a secondary criterion. On top of that, we analyzed their special skills to round out what we’ve decided are the best staff to hire for serving.

Based on the aforementioned details, we think that the best serving staff members are:

• Itsuki
• Cohh
• El Nino
• Raptor

Itsuki as an End-Game Server

We’ve already covered why Itsuki is such an amazing early-game server. However, let’s re-examine how she’s such a dominant serving force in the end-game.

Itsuki’s Serving and Appeal stats are almost unparalleled. These impressive max stats make her a great server by themselves. With her max Serving and Appeal stats combined, she is arguably the best server in the game.

In addition to these excellent traits, Itsuki’s special skills (Drink Serving and Irresistible Charm) help her draw in lots of bonus profits consistently. Drink Serving, once again, lets this ninja serve drinks to customers for easy extra money and Irresistible Charm gives her a bonus +50 to her Appeal stat, netting her bigger and better tips.

Cohh as an End-Game Server

Right off the bat, Cohh has a notably high hiring cost and a Diamond Rating in Cooksta. This means that you’re likely to get him on your team during the middle parts of your playthrough. With that said, he’s worth the money thanks to great max stats and special skills!

Firstly, Cohh has one of the highest max Serving stats in the game—only behind Itsuki and El Nino. While his max Appeal is only slightly above average, it stacks nicely with his special skills: Tip Master and Cocktail Serving.

Tip Master makes him guaranteed to get tips for bonus cash and Cocktail Serving is like Drink Serving, but, obviously, for Cocktails—which cost customers even more. Combined, these special skills allow Cohh to sizeably boost your profit margin.

Note

Drink Serving allows staff to serve customers Tea and Beer (no Cocktails). Cocktail Serving is the opposite.

El Nino as an End-Game Server

No one expects a luchador to work at a sushi bar…but here we are. Maybe he lacked the charisma to succeed as a wrestler. That would certainly explain his abysmally low Appeal stat…

With that said, El Nino’s high hiring cost and Diamond Cooksta Rating mean he’ll be a bit tough to get on your team at first. However, once you do, you’re set!

To begin, El Nino has the highest max Serving stat in the game. Keep in mind that he’s heavily min-maxed in that the rest of his stats are mediocre. Sadly, his max Appeal is surprisingly low given his apparel and special skills. Fear not, as this doesn’t stop him from getting you lots of money. What’s more, El Nino has some added utility.

Instead of pounding opponents in a wrestling ring, El Nino helps customers pound beers back with his Drink Serving Master special skill. As opposed to regular ol’ Drink Serving, this masterclass variant allows the blue-masked member of your staff to serve Tea and Beer faster—with perfect precision—and even draws in more money (+$15) per Beer served (but not Tea, apparently).

Then there’s the Cleaning Master special skill. This lets El Nino demolish dirty dishes like some sort of hygienic hurricane! He can do so twice as fast as staff members with the basic Cleaning skill.

Overall, due to excellent max stats and special skills, El Nino is definitely someone you want in your restaurant.

Raptor as an End-Game Server

Even less expected to be working at a sushi bar than a luchador is some dude wearing a dinosaur costume—or at least the headpiece of one. Strange attire aside, Raptor is one of the best servers in the game thanks to his killer max Serving stat. Plus, he’s got some handy special skills. However, thanks to his relatively high hiring cost and Diamond Cooksta Rating, he might be hard to employ.

Raptor’s Cocktail Serving special skill works nicely in concert with his Serving stat. This lets him dish out a lot of Cocktails in a short amount of time for a decent bonus income. Almost uniquely, Raptor also possesses the Wasabi Refill skill—which does exactly what it sounds like. As such, this saves Dave from having to restock the sushi bar on the precious spicy green resource.

With that said, while service is on at Bancho Sushi, Dave’s best place to be is near Bancho and the Wasabi Station. As such, even though Raptor is skilled and efficient, you’re better off placing him in a Branch location instead of in Bancho Sushi.

The Best Cooking Staff in Dave the Diver

For choosing the best cooking staff, the main trait you want to look for is high max Cooking stats. Besides that, the other stats don’t matter—but special skills do! In fact, certain skills can make a cook preferable to one that has a slightly higher Cooking stat.

Based on the criteria above, we think that the best cooking staff members are:

• James
• Yone
• Charlie
• Maki

James as an End-Game Cook

Despite both Drae and Yusuke having better max Cooking stats than James, the latter is better to have in the kitchen for a couple of reasons.

To start, Drae has no special skills geared towards being a cook. They’re great for utility and serving, but they conflict with his high Cooking; it’s hard to put him in one spot consistently and remain as efficient as other staff members. Then, compared to Yusuke, James simply has a better version of the Ingredient Prep Expert skill. This is more valuable than slightly more points in the Cooking stat.

With the comparisons out of the way, let’s delve into what makes James a great sushi chef. Possessing a Bronze Rating on Cooksta, you can get James on board early on—and for a relatively low hiring cost.

Once he’s hired, you’ll note James’ high max Cooking skill, although the rest of his stats aren’t very good. Thankfully, cooks don’t need any other good stats to sufficiently slash fish into tasty sushi.

Now let’s examine James’ special skills. Like Yusuke, he has Cooking+ (grants +50 to the Cooking stat). James’ other special skill is Ingredient Prep Master (gives a 10% chance to create extra dishes). The latter of these skills stretches your culinary resources by a fair bit, making James more valuable than many other cooks who don’t have such a skill.

Yone as an End-Game Cook

This bright-haired employee has a fairly high hiring cost along with a Diamond Rating in Cooksta to match. As such, it could take you a while to find Yone. However, once you do, you should hire her immediately!

Yone has one of the most impressive max Cooking stats in Dave the Diver, which makes her an ideal staff member to have as a cook.

In addition, her Cooking++ special skill (which gives her a whopping +100 to her Cooking stat) makes her almost unequaled regarding sushi preparation. To top it off, Yone also has the Ingredient Prep Expert skill, granting her a chance to create 5% more dishes. As discussed before, the latter skill goes a long way in stretching your supplies.

Charlie as an End-Game Cook

We talked about Charlie earlier in that he’s a great early-game cook. However, let’s now delve deeper into his end-game potential. If you didn’t hire him earlier due to his Diamond Rating in Cooksta, you’ll certainly be able to afford him in later parts of the game due to his low hiring cost.

Min-maxed into being a tremendously capable chef via his impressive max Cooking skill, he straight-up belongs in the kitchen. This is compounded by his special skills, which are, once again, Cooking+ (+50 to his Cooking stat) and Ingredient Prep Expert skill (grants a +5% chance to make more dishes). Never underestimate the importance of stretching your resources!

Maki as an End-Game Cook

Easily the best cook in the game, Maki’s recruitment is equally unique. Instead of hiring her through the usual means, you need to complete two side quests to get her to join your staff. The first of these side quests (Reticent Girl) automatically starts early in Chapter 2 shortly after completing the “Speak with the Sea People” main quest. You need to serve Maki a White Trevally Kombu Ochazuke to complete the “Reticent Girl” side quest.

The second side quest (Catch Clione) begins immediately after completing the first (Reticent Girl). This time, you need to use the Bug Net you recently obtained to catch five Cliones. When you do, you’ll then need to defeat the Clione Queen and speak to Maki afterward in Bancho Sushi to complete the “Catch Clione” side quest. Following this, Maki joins your staff free of charge.

Maki is the most heavily one-dimensional staff member in the game, as she’s only good at cooking. With that said, you don’t need her for anything else, so put her in the kitchen so that she can flex on every other chef—including Bancho! Her amazing max Cooking skill is great on its own, but it’s amplified by her two special skills: Cooking+ (+50 to her Cooking stat) and, redundantly, Cooking++ (+100 to her Cooking stat). It’s hard to believe she only had a Silver Rating in Cooksta.

The Best Procurement Staff in Dave the Diver

Procurement employees aren’t going to be doing much inside your restaurant. They’ll be collecting seasoning while perpetually on dispatch so that you never run out of Soy Sauce (and other important ingredients).

With this in mind, you only care about their Procure and Appeal stats, as the former affects the maximum amount of seasoning retrieved while dispatched and the latter relates to the minimum yield in this regard. There are a couple of important special skills to keep your eyes peeled for—although they aren’t very common.

Considering the information above, we think that the best procurement staff members are:

• Pai
• Yusuke
• Masayoshi
• Davina

Pai as End-Game Procurement Staff

Pai uses his years of experience to snatch up tons of seaborne goods for you—at a fair hiring cost. Don’t underestimate him on account of his Bronze Rating in Cooksta, as he outclasses many other potential employees as a procurement-specialized staff member. Sometimes gray is gold!

The main reason Pai’s a decent choice for procurement staff is his high max Procure stat. A solid secondary reason is his middling Appeal stat.

However, his special skills aren’t focused on procurement at all (Cooking+ and Serving+). Despite this, Pai is still a great choice for dispatching due to the aforementioned traits.

Yusuke as End-Game Procurement Staff

We covered Yusuke as one of the best early-game cooking staff members in Dave the Diver. Interestingly, as you get further in your playthrough, Yusuke’s usefulness as a cook decreases while his potential as procurement staff increases.

Note

Yusuke is still a very good cook—but there are better ones!

Thanks to a low hiring cost and a Bronze Rating in Cooksta, you should employ Yusuke early and keep him around indefinitely. Once you get more skilled cooking staff, put Yusuke in the waiting room and dispatch him as often as possible. His max Procure stat is the highest in the game, so you certainly want to make use of this!

Although Yusuke’s high Procure can net you lots of seasoning, his low Appeal means he may sometimes return with little in hand. This isn’t a big deal, as he’s still worth paying for his services.

Sadly, like Pai, Yusuke has no special skill geared towards procurement (Ingredient Prep Expert and Cooking+).

Masayoshi as End-Game Procurement Staff

With a rather large hiring cost for someone with a Bronze Rating in Cooksta, you’ll initially wonder if Masayoshi is worth the money. As procurement staff, he is totally viable! He’s also not bad in the kitchen. You can consider hiring him as a cook before moving him to the waiting room later.

First off, he’s got a great max Procure stat. Next, while his Appeal is fairly low, it’s not as pitiful as Yusuke’s—meaning it’s less likely for Masayoshi to return with a meager amount of seasoning after being dispatched.

The biggest benefit of hiring Masayoshi is one of his special skills: Dispatch Master. This skill means Masayoshi always brings back two more seasonings than he would without possessing Dispatch Master. His other skill, however, is not useful for procurement (Ingredient Prep Expert). When you can, stick Masayoshi in your waiting room for frequent dispatching.

Davina as End-Game Procurement Staff

Although her max Procure stat isn’t as high as Yusuke’s or Pai’s, Davina is the best staff member for procurement. Let’s begin by pointing out that she has a low hiring cost and a Bronze Rating in Cooksta. This means you’ll find her early on and can afford to hire her right away. In turn, this means more chances to dispatch her in your playthrough.

The next reason she’s perfect for procurement is her high max Procure and Appeal stats. Since they’re both impressive, her maximum and minimum seasoning yields per dispatch are always going to be high. As such, she’s guaranteed to bring lots of resources in.

Lastly, she’s got the ideal two skills for full-time procurement: Irresistible Charm and Dispatch Master. The former gives her a +50 bonus to her Appeal and the latter means she’ll bring back +2 seasonings when dispatched. You’ll always want this spunky adventurer out looking for supplies.

Now that you’ve got the best staff in Dave the Diver, you should focus on giving your food the Best Taste! Skilled employees and sumptuous seafood are the two most significant parts of running a sushi bar. Once you improve in these crucial areas, you’ll reach the Diamond Rank in Cooksta faster than a swordfish can strike!