Very underwhelming card, to be honest. Artwork is awesome, skill icons are good, and when you see a 5xp event you immediately go "wow this gotta be good". Well, it ain't! So for 2 actions, you get 4. That is basically it, this card gives 2 actions, and all without any boost or anything else. Also, you need to control a Melee asset, it can't be a gun or something else you had in mind. It is very difficult to understand the logic behind why this costs 5xp, when in the same box we got Hand-Eye Coordination which gives you 1 action for 1xp, meaning that for 2xp you get, well, this?! After all is said and done, i think i have found an explanation for this card, so hear me out:

There is a janitor over there at FFG. He works night shifts ofc, and has keys to open-up and clean each room in the building. Some years ago, and i think around the time when Innsmouth was being released, he started messing with us and started doing some "funny" things. So, when our designers distribute what will they do, they arrive at their office and what can they see? Some of the cards are already designed!!! "Sweet", they think! In their head they think the other designer has designed the card already, so even if they see the card they just read through it really fast and think "okay, he must have play-tested it so i won't complain", but little do they know that it wasn't the other designer, IT WAS THE GOD DAMN JANITOR WHO PUT IT TO COST 5xp!!!! He didn't know shit, he doesn't play this game, but he heard the others talk about XP and stuff like that, and when he was f*cking around with cards he saw those dots under the number and he thought "they won't notice that i've placed some dots there!". And those dots are, ofc as we play the game so we know, the experience cost of a card.

When all is said and done, we get cards that are so weirdly costed that it makes no sense, like Flute of the Outer Gods, Signum Crucis (which they realised after 2 years and changed it to 0xp), Blood Will Have Blood, Quickdraw Holster, Rod of Animalism, Clean Sneak, Katja Eastbank etc. In this campaign he got into the room couple of times, as we can see in the cards like this one Flurry of Blows, Stir the Pot, Providential, and ofc let's not forget that one time he said "fck it" and deleted all the new text that was supposed to be on the Fire Axe and just typed in "Fast" as a funny joke describing how fast he comes in and changes things without anyone noticing.

I think after all is said and done, FFG has really gotta do something about that guy, as before that guy started messing with us we would get maybe some cards that are completely out of the way, but in the last couple of expansions there is some weird shit happening around XP costs and effects, but not in all cards, just some so they don't figure that guy out, but i have figured it out!!!

Janitor, if you're reading this, know this = we will get you and feed you to a Shoggoth, you son of a....

This card blows: I'm genuinely flabbergasted how this got past beta test, let alone get printed. Somehow the design team thought "Yeah, no, this definitely deserves to cost 5 exp"

I will say one thing in favour of Flurry of Blows: it actually would be a decent card at level 0 if you are specialising in using melee weapons. If you are committing your entire turn fighting, then yeah, an extra 2 actions to strike enemies is decent if you can work around the drawback with the fact you won't have action left to take when you play this, but this cost 5 experience

You know what you can get for 4 exp? Fang of Tyr'thrha, which does 4 damage for 1 extra resource in one action (AND can teleport you anywhere that is revealed, mind you!)

And before somebody comes and say some stupid crap like "Oh but this is gated behind an high exp cost because it gets better the stronger your melee weapon is", by that same logic should that mean Venturer should cost 5 exp because it can replenish ammo on the Lightning Gun and Flamethrower?

I always thought the Guardian's design philosophy and card pool always had a consistent issue that only got worse with each release: that Guardians, the class specialised in fighting monsters and tanking, sucks A$$ at fighting monsters and tanking.

While every class got more tools to deal with monsters on their own and also gain extra survivability (I think the biggest moment where Rogues got more resilent is when both version of Precious Memento got printed), Guardians have been either consistently getting highly situational fighting assets and events that are simply not great in practice or support stuff that doesn't help them kill crap. It is just... Sad to see this class becoming the worst of the bunch, outdone by basically everyone else on a regular basis.

Now, thankfully there are still good cards in the Guardian card pool, even added by Hemlock Vale (thank god for Hand-Eye Coordination), but this should be a wake up call: Guardians NEED better weaponry and more consistent tools for fighting. And before some smart alec comes with the argument of "B-But this is based on Lovecraft Mythos, you can't just shoot a Shoggoth in the eye and kill it!" I'll reply: I don't care. This type of thinking does not work in this type of game, period. Arkham Horror LCG is not a bloody Lovecraft story, it's a pulpy action-adventure take on it, and something like that NEEDS some Investigators that are capable of snapping the neck of a ghoul with their bare hands! And I can assure you, the same people bringing this absolute nonsense up are the same that are perfectly fine with Daisy shocking Umôrdhoth to death as a prank when he puts one of his tentacle on a doorknob or Darrell flashing his camera in Yig's eyes and then kicking him in the trouser snake

Anyway, rants is over: sorry for the antagonistic tone, but I'm honestly sick and tired of these design choices and as I said before, I find Flurry of Blows to be the culmination of this utter garbage balancing.

Oh, actually I forgot to add one thing: "Skids" O'Toole also gets to take an extra action (without having to end his entire turn after taking it, mind you!) by spending 2 resources once per round, and he can use that action for ANYTHING, not just attacking with a melee weapon

Let me repeat that: an investigator, from the core game, has a better version of an ability of a FLIPPING level 5 card

Let that sink in.. (with just the small reminder Third Time's a Charm is a better version of Wendy's ability and only cost 2 exp)

Edit: As TheNameWasTaken pointed out, you take an extra fight action and then resolve 3 more, so you actually get 2 extra attacks by using this card than you normally would: this still doesn't justify the exp cost in my opinion, but it does at least put it on the same level as Skids' ability, given Skids gives you an extra action you can use to do anything, while Flurry gives you 2 extra actions just to fight, so Skids' main power is more versatile than this card, which in my opinion makes it better. There is also the whole issue that attacking 4 more times makes it more likely to fail more attacks, as Arkham is a game where the odds are stacked against you: the more skill checks you take, the higher the risk you run into revealing certain tokens, which is another reason Butterfly Swords are so garbage.

While not for everyone, I've had great results with Sister Mary & Holy Spear You get 4 uses of the the +4 & +2 damage without needing to seal tokens. This is particularly great when there are already a bunch of sealed on Holy Spear or you don't have the bless tokens in the chaos bag. In this scenario, 2 resources & 2 actions can deal upwards of 12 damage!

While it's good at boss clearing & removing victory enemies, it can also be used when you get overrun with monsters. Each Fight can target a different monster at your location.

Overall, I was happy using it, but it's likely slightly overcosted in XP since you already need to buy the Holy Spear.

As a fun thought exercise, I decided to calculate what's the most damage Flurry of Blows could do. Results are below.

ASSUMPTIONS:

• The investigator using Flurry of Blows (hereafter referred to as "The fighter") is paired with an investigator who plays Shrine of the Moirai on their location.

PROCESS:

1. The fighter plays Written in the Stars, discarding Vicious Blow (2).
2. The fighter plays the second copy of Written in the Stars, discarding a second Vicious Blow (2).
3. The fighter triggers Shrine of the Moirai to recur both copies of Written in the Stars.
4. The fighter plays both copies of Written in the Stars, discarding two copies of Strong-Armed.
5. The fighter plays Flurry of Blows, choosing Butterfly Swords (5) as the Melee asset.
6. First activation: +8 to skill value (+2 from asset, +6 from cards committed by Written in the Stars), succeeds by >1, deals 7 damage (1 from the attack, +2 from each Vicious Blow (2), +1 from each Strong-Armed).
7. Fighter chooses to fight again, +8 to skill value (+8 from cards committed by Written in the Stars), succeeds by >1, exhausts Butterfly Swords (5) to deal +1 damage, 8 total damage. Cumulative damage: 15.
8. Second activation: +8 to skill value, succeeds by >1, deals 7 damage. Cumulative damage: 22.
9. Fighter chooses to fight again, +8 to skill value, succeeds by >1, deals 7 damage. Cumulative damage: 29.
10. Third activation: +8 to skill value, succeeds by >1, deals 7 damage. Cumulative damage: 36.
11. Fighter chooses to fight again, +8 to skill value, succeeds by >1, deals 7 damage. Cumulative damage: 43.
12. Fourth activation: +8 to skill value, succeeds by >1, deals 7 damage. Cumulative damage: 50.
13. Fighter chooses to fight again, +8 to skill value, succeeds by >1, deals 7 damage. Cumulative damage: 57.

Grand total: 57 damage dealt.

And all it took was 19 XP, 11 resources, 11 cards, 2 decks, and the stars aligning perfectly!

This card is generally weak and not worth 5exp, but the combo i see is with Sledgehammer, immidiate 24 damage, so it kills basically any boss immediality. Due to that, the only point of taking those are campaings that require a boss to be killed, like NotZ or PoC.

For a 5xp card, the least they can do is "ignoring all costs" instead of the ridiculous "without paying its → cost", which will at least open up possible combos with Holy Spear or Sledgehammer.

FYI: Pushed to the Limit, a 0xp card which was released in the same expansion, "ignoring all costs".