Hope, Zeal, and Augur all share a common mechanic where you can discard them to test at a base of 5, and the test is automatically successful. This means that the test difficulty is 0, and no chaos token is drawn, but you still get to commit cards to the test. In other words, you get a guaranteed success by (at least) 5, and you can make use of this to assuredly trigger not just cards that have if successful effects, but those with succeed by X effects. Cards with automatic successes aren't terribly common, and the cats provide a reliable, repeatable way of getting them.

Since you have to trigger a Fight / Investigate / Evade action on the cat itself, this is limited to skill cards and reaction abilities on assets. Most of the succeed by X cards are in the faction, making a / pairing an ideal investigator choice. skill cards include Quick Thinking, "Watch this!", and Nimble at 0xp, and Momentum and All In with XP. For assets, there is Gregory Gry, Pickpocketing and the Lucky Cigarette Case.

Succeeding by 5 maxes out every single one of these cards so far (except upgraded Lucky Cigarette Case), so you get the full benefit. The downside is that you forego the benefit the skill icons would have provided. This isn't such a big deal for Vicious Blow or Deduction, but something to consider for Overpower, Manual Dexterity and the like.

In the faction, you have Drawing Thin, a repeatable, stacking source of income with absolutely zero downside to using, that completely breaks the game.

Moving on.

Preston Fairmont and Wendy Adams have the best access to these cards, with Preston benefiting particularly well from the regular use of the cats' elevated stats. Preston is also the only investigator so far to be able to take Miss Doyle and All In + the upgraded Lucky Cigarette Case, guaranteeing a 5 card weakness-free draw, or a 1 in 5+ filtered draw that is (hopefully) also weakness free. (Actually, Lola Hayes can use the LCC too but this is a terrible idea, putting the cats at risk on one turn and the LCC on the other). Wendy, with her 4 and investigator ability, is a lot less impressed by these shenanigans.

In multiplayer of course, one investigator doesn't have to do everything. A player can trigger an automatic success with a cat, and the rest of the team can pile on skills. The skills above, as well as skills that are valued more for their effects than icons (Resourceful, Inspiring Presence, Eureka!, Enraptured etc) are all great candidates. Someone with Crystal Pendulum can also get a free card draw out of it just by being at the same location and predicting which way the fur flies.

As you can see, the cats are very multiplayer friendly and a great combo initiator. They are a very interesting deck choice for Preston as well, giving him a path to oversuccess other than stockpiling money. He still needs to find Miss Doyle first though, so don't neglect card draw.

P.S. There is one event that modifies an existing skill test, as opposed to initiating a new one. Sadly, tossing Zeal isn't considered a projectile attack, so Marksmanship does not work. Maybe one day we'll get a Cat-apult card?

Edit: Added Drawing Thin..

Lola is not bad.

Rather, Lola is really freaking good.

If people are afraid of her weakness then frankly they're just not playing her well. Her stat line 3/3/3/3 is just one bump away from greatness. And she can bump it a whole whole lot. In a game this week I was running her and with 25xp she had the stat line of 5/6/6/4. With the Timeworn Brand so swinging at 8 Fight. And that wasn't that particularly hard to do. Or even in a way which runs chances of exposure: I think over the course of the scenario there were maybe 2 turns where I was exposing more than 1 asset to be lost to her weakness. Which I drew once, and lost 0 assets because of it.

The formula isn't complex. Load up on cards which provide passive bonuses. Go asset light on a couple of colors and use those for Events or Skills. Harvest the best of them from every color. Profit.

Another fun card from the Erratic Fear encounter set that is troublesome, yet fun. That extra action is a great bonus, making this a card people would almost pay to play. It's very situational how good or bad this is. If you draw it on a turn when you could really use another action and you are playing a beefy investigator like Silas or Nathaniel, it's a win. If, on the other hand, you are playing Daisy Walker or Luke and you're left saying "well, I guess I'll draw a card," that seems much more bleak. At least those two might have a Logical Reasoning in hand (as it were).

Both of the reviews I've read don't really touch on the one investigator who, I think, benefits the most from Enraptured: the good dreamer himself, Luke Robinson.

First of all: he's already /, so he's most likely going to be going at least part-cluever on your team with access to good boosts like Magnifying Glass/Magnifying Glass, Death • XIII, and Dr. Milan Christopher, making the on Enraptured a helpful icon instead of a dud (unless he's investigating with alone off a asset, which... why are you doing that when good investigate events like Read the Signs exist?)

Second, and much more importantly: more Gate Box charges. Hell. Yes.

One thing to note is that Ritual Candles improves your odds of connecting with this card because you can choose to use Ritual Candles ability after seeing the token, giving you a little flexibility with your call.

Also Jacqueline Fine gets extra use from Crystal Pendulum because she can opportunistically select which token to keep.