Dave The Diver: 15 Best Staff, Ranked

The employee staff for the Bancho Sushi restaurant in Dave the Diver turn the creatures you catch into delicious meals for various customers, so you need the best workers to complement your hard efforts. All 21 possible characters you can recruit have unique skills and stats you can improve with training. However, only a few are worth investing in to turn your catches into excellent meals.

You must pay whoever you hire as staff a personal pay rate that increases as their skill level improves through training. Staff members with higher stats have to be paid more to match their growing abilities. If you want to raise the best taste in Dave the Diver at Bancho Sushi, you should be prepared to spend money on the growth of only the best workers.

Every staff member you hire for the Sushi restaurant also demands a Hiring Fee to recruit them. While you can dismiss any employee to receive some money back, keep in mind that hiring someone else will result in another Hiring Fee.

15 Billy

Expect Tips And Clean Dishes

Billy is a staff member who specializes in Serving more than Cooking, making them a helpful addition to the overall work needed to run Bancho Sushi. This character has the Tip Master and Cleaning Master skills, giving them abilities that provide a lot of utility rather than just making meals for customers. Training this staff member to Level 15 unlocks the Crimson Fish Roll recipe for a new food item as well.

The Tip Master skill always guarantees a tip whenever a customer is served something Billy makes. Whether Billy makes his signature Fish Roll dish or cooks up an exotic seahorse in Dave the Diver.

You can always expect a satisfied recipient who leaves a few extra dollars for the restaurant’s growth. Cleaning Master gives Billy another important role, allowing him to clean up plates faster to improve service speed.

14 Tohoku

Master Of Seafood Preparation

Sometimes, all you need is an excellent chef and nothing more on your staff, a role that Tohoku can fulfill well in your kitchen. Tohoku’s Cooking stats are incredibly high even as you first recruit them, giving you someone who always makes top-tier dishes every time they clock in to work. With the Cooking+ and Cooking++ skills, Tohoku receives permanent boosts to their Cooking stat that sets them apart from other characters.

Employees like Tohoku are at their best when paired with other characters who compensate for their weaknesses. Hire others with good Serving skills, such as Billy, to aid Tohoku in other areas of expertise.

During the early stages of the game, Tohoku can help create good dishes out of the first few fish you can catch. Although you may need staff with better cooking stats to prepare rarer creatures like 3-star sharks in Dave the Diver, Tohoku also has a signature dish. At Level 15, Tohoku unlocks the recipe for Roasted Tropical Fish and Garlic that you can add to the restaurant’s menu.

13 James

Recruit A Slasher For Meal Prep

James has well-rounded stats compared to the other staff members you can hire throughout the game. As you can see in the above video by YouTube creator Randomturtle001, James functions well in the Kitchen due to his high Cooking stat, but there’s another reason why he excels there. The Ingredient Prep Master skill for this character increases the number of plates available while James works.

The abundance of dishes you can serve with James in the Kitchen area allows Bancho Sushi to serve more customers in a single night than you might expect. When paired with others in the Dining Area, James can use his ingredient prep skills to keep dishes flowing at a rapid rate in Dave the Diver. With balanced skills in other areas, James can also take on other roles if things start getting a little too chaotic.

12 Cohh

Always Receive Tips

Cohh may not have the best Cooking or Procure stats, but this potential staff member more than makes up for those traits with amazing scores for Serving and Appeal.

One of the first characters that can serve cocktails from the Cocktail serving skill, Cohh also boasts another important ability named Tip Master. Cohh will always receive a tip from customers due to this trait, giving you a consistent source of revenue.

11 Yusuke

Balance Food Prep And Item Gathering

One of the most underrated stats a staff member can have in high numbers is Procure, which some characters like Yusuke happen to excel in. According to the above video by YouTube creator Venxm243, Procure is a character trait that’s never explained to you in Dave the Diver. The stat refers to how effective certain staff are at procuring new ingredients and other cooking materials beyond what you’ve already caught.

Dispatching Yusuke to get additional cooking materials will give you great ingredients for new dishes, including the Deep-Fried Eggplant Shrimp Meatballs unlocked by the character at Level 15. Yusuke shares the same skills that James has, Ingredient Prep Expert and Cooking+. However, Yusuke has slightly higher Cooking and could be a great addition to your staff due to his unexpectedly high Procure trait.

10 Yone

Hire Someone With The Highest Cooking Potential

Although Yone doesn’t have very high Serving, Procure, or Appeal stats, they are capable of perhaps the highest Cooking score possible. With an astounding 901 max Cooking, no one is faster at making orders, making Yone a character who can keep up no matter how busy Bancho Sushi gets. Some of Yone’s unique skills can improve this trait even further immediately as you hire them.

Yone comes with the Cooking ++ ability and the Ingredient Prep Expert trait when you hire them. Cooking ++ permanently increases Yone’s Cooking stat, up to an extra 100 points, to make them the fastest cook you can hire in Dave the Diver. The Ingredient Prep Expert skill marginally increases the number of plates available, allowing servers to keep up with Yone’s extremely fast preparation of orders.

9 Maki

Starting Chef Always Has Great Potential

The first person you ever have on the staff of Bancho Sushi is Maki, a character who always has one of the highest Cooking stats in the game. While she does not gain much in other categories, Maki does surpass any other character you could recruit to the restaurant when Cooking stats are compared. Although you will need to hire other people to make up for her weaknesses, Maki can always be a mainstay of the kitchen.

Maki cannot be dismissed and is completely unpaid for her service, even as she helps you gain the Smallspotted Dart Kajime Soup recipe at Level 5 and the Trevally Nanbanzuke recipe at Level 15.

Maki even has the Cooking+ and Cooking++ skills on top of her already absurd max Cooking stat she receives when fully trained. Similarly to Tohoku, you can make complex dishes through Maki to satisfy a wider variety of customers looking to try your most interesting catches. Having an expert in one area of the restaurant from the beginning of Dave the Diver also means you don’t have to spend money to recruit Maki.

8 El Nino

Serve Quality Drinks With Your Food

The luchador El Nino offers the Cleaning Master skill in the same way as Billy, but the most interesting trait for this character comes from the additional Drink Serving Master ability. Drinks can be difficult to sell perfectly unless a member of your staff actively in the Dining Area has this ability. El Nino can perfectly serve matcha and beer without error, helping customers and raising how much money you make.

Despite the large amount of money you have to spend to hire El Nino, this character will likely be used for the rest of the game due to his incredibly high Serving stat. El Nino is up to help anywhere in the restaurant, making him a versatile member of your team beyond only cooks. When paired with someone who has a high Appeal, it can create an unstoppable duo in the Dining Area that always leaves a good impression on customers.

7 Raul

Have The Most Balanced Staff Member Possible

Raul is the only character in Dave the Diver whose stats are all equal in value, creating a staff member capable of doing anything well. Although Raul won’t specialize in any category, he can be used to support other members of Bancho Sushi’s staff who struggle in some areas. You could have Raul cook, serve, or procure ingredients, all while building regular customer satisfaction consistently.

Another good reason to have Raul on your staff is his Ingredient Prep Master skill, which greatly increases the number of plates available in Bancho Sushi. The plates you have with this ability are far more than the Expert variant of this skill would provide.

On top of this, Raul also has Master Drink Maker, making any drink he makes sell for a much higher price than nearly any other character could muster.

6 Raptor

Offer Customers Some Prehistoric Service

Raptor fulfills a role close to El Nino with a higher Procure stat, making this dinosaur-mask-wearing staff member great for dispatching on runs for more materials. This character is a fantastic choice for later stages of the game when you unlock more complex mechanics for the restaurant. Raptor has Cocktail Serving and Wasabi Refill, two rare skills that are not shared by a majority of the other potential staff.

As stated in the above video by YouTube creator Grown Up Gaming, cocktails are specialty drinks you want to have one character dedicated to when serving customers. Having someone automatically refill wasabi also helps you from having to do it manually, allowing you to focus on other situations throughout a service. Raptor also helps you gain three unique recipes over time – the Boiled and Deep-Fried White Shrimp, the Rice with Purple Sea Urchin Sushi, and the Fried Onion Cuttlefish.

5 Masayoshi

Gain More Materials And Use Them Quickly

The potential staff member, Masayoshi, is an amazing cook, capable of using their high Cooking to make orders very quickly. However, the high Procure stat is far more interesting for this character, as it allows them to be sent off to gather better materials than other hires. This combination of skills can lead Masayoshi to produce rarer dishes faster, appealing to some customers who are hard to get orders for.

Similar to Yone, Masayoshi is also an ingredient prep expert, which means that Bancho Sushi has more plates available. This gives you more space to create rare dishes from elusive materials collected by Masayoshi on his Procure runs. Furthermore, Masayoshi has a rare trait called Dispatch Master, which can be used to gather more materials than usual for orders through the Dispatch action.

4 Mitchell

Receive The Most Tips From Good Service

Despite their terrible Procure stat, Mitchell is still one of the best staff in the game due to a ridiculous Appeal score. Anyone’s Appeal is tied to how satisfied your customers are after being served by a particular member of staff, leading directly to how much money they leave in tips. Higher appeal leads to more money from Bancho Sushi’s business, allowing you to afford more as you continue improving it.

When trying to optimize who you have on your staff, try to consider having someone with a specific specialization like Mitchell paired up with a balanced employee to help cover each other’s weaknesses.

Mitchell has a Serving+ trait, giving him an extra 50 points to his Serving. With the Drink Serving ability, he is one of the few staff members who can serve matcha and beer to customers, making him a perfect choice for the front of the bar. The high Serving and Appeal combine to help raise Bancho Sushi’s overall Rating, allowing it to grow a higher reputation in Dave the Diver.

3 Pai

Gather The Most High-Quality Ingredients

Those looking for someone with the highest Procure stat should look no further than Pai, one of the staff you can hire with extremely balanced traits. This potential hire can do a bit of everything, with decent Serving and Appeal scores combined with above-average Cooking. With such a high Procure, Pai has a greater chance of finding rarer ingredients from missions to help you make more diverse dishes at Bancho Sushi.

Pai also has Cooking+ and Serving+ as his unique abilities, giving him an extra 50 points in both Cooking and Serving.

This makes the staff member even more versatile, letting him create food and dish it out to customers reliably. You can have Pai anywhere in Bancho Sushi and perform well, making him a perfect addition for anyone who needs just one more position fulfilled.

2 Itsuki

Invest Time To Recieve Max Profits

At first, Itsuki may not seem like a very good option for your staff, costing next to nothing to recruit and having a 1 in each stat category. Thankfully, this character immediately proves their potential by having some of the strongest max stats in the game if you choose to invest in her growth. Boasting some of the highest Serving and Appeal, this potential staff member can easily become a reliable person on your crew.

As you unlock night fishing in Dave the Diver and Bancho Sushi grows, you’ll need more money to expand and accommodate your new catches from underwater expeditions. Itsuki has the Drink Serving skill, giving her a way to prepare matcha and beer like El Nino. Another benefit comes from Itsuki’s Irresistible Charm ability, which allows her to increase the restaurant’s Charisma and boost the chances of customers tipping.

1 Drae

Destined To Be The Restaurant’s Manager

Drae has the highest total max stats of any character in the game, making them not only a perfect fit for Bancho Sushi but also a great person to make the restaurant manager itself. Drae can cook, provide excellent service, procure new ingredients, and have plenty of appeal to keep customers returning. The flexibility in Drae’s abilities allows him to be a great staff member in any role you want him to take on.

This character also has Cleaning and Cocktail-Serving skills, adding to Drae’s versatility. Like Raptor, he can man the station in the Dining Area that serves drinks to make complicated cocktails or simply clean dishes for more food to go out, similar to Billy. The best staff in Dave the Diver you can recruit are the ones who can consistently provide much-needed help to Bancho Sushi in nearly any circumstance.

Source: Randomturtle001/YouTube, Venxm243/YouTube, Grown Up Gaming/YouTube