# Arena ranks Claude Fable 5.2 first in Agent Arena with a +30.4% net improvement

> Original title: Big news: Claude Fable 5.2 (Max) by @AnthropicAI takes #1 in Agent Arena with an unprecedented lead: +30.4% net improvement, about 1.6x t...

- Source: Arena
- Published: 2026-11-11T17:23:38.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/d1bvf7bkqkzb6jwiten51z8sc
- Original: https://x.com/arena/status/2120568144687460434

## Summary

Arena says Claude Fable 5.2 (Max) from Anthropic ranks first in Agent Arena with a +30.4% net improvement, about 1.6x the second-ranked Claude Opus 5.5 (Max) at +19.5%. The ranking is based on 4.7k real-world agentic sessions, and Arena says Fable 5.2 also ranks first in Code, Chat and Work. Arena reports a median cost of $7.3 per task, and the post says Anthropic's API pricing for Fable 5.2 is $8/$40 per million input/output tokens, down from $10/$50 for Fable 5.1.

## Why it matters

The post gives the full leaderboard, cost per task, and category breakdowns, so readers can compare the ranking against rivals and the prior version.

## Post

Big news: Claude Fable 5.2 (Max) by @AnthropicAI takes #1 in Agent Arena with an unprecedented lead: +30.4% net improvement, about 1.6x the #2 model Opus-5.5, across 4.7k real-world agentic sessions from our global community. It's also #1 in Code, Chat and Work.

A major leap over Claude Fable 5.1 (Max)
- Rank: #5 → #1, Net improvement: +14.8% → +30.4%
- Median cost per task: $7.7 → $7.3 (6% lower). The API pricing $10/$50 → $8/$40 per million input/output tokens (20% lower)

vs. The Frontiers
- #1 Claude Fable 5.1 (Max): +30.4% | $7.3/task
- #2 Claude Opus 5.5 (Max):+19.5%) | $5.5/task
- #3 Gemini 4 Carbon (High):+17.0%) |  $1.5/task
- #6 GPT-6-Astra (Max): +14.5% | $6.0/task

Breaking down performance across signals:
Fable 5.2 improves over 5.1 across all four reported signals, with particularly large gains in user satisfaction and steerability.
- #1 Praise vs. Complaint , +73%, biggest jump vs +41% the next model.
- #1 Steerability: +33%
- #1 Confirmed Success: +22%
- #3 Bash Reliability: +14%

#1 across all major categories
- #1 Code: +34%
- #1 Work: +31%
- #1 Chat: +27%
- Versus Fable 5.1: Code #6 → #1 (+19.8 %), Work #4 → #1 (+15.8 %), Chat #6 → #1 (+12.0%).

Huge congrats to the @AnthropicAI team on this incredible release!

![](https://badinfluence.news/api/img-proxy?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FHW3FRz1awAAaI0Q.jpg&mode=thumb&exp=1794700800&sig=b96b74809e5fa145)

## Quoted post @claudeai

> Introducing Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Mythos 5.2, designed to tackle the most daunting technical challenges.
> 
> They’re capable collaborators on ambitious projects in many fields, and show improvements in areas like coding, reasoning, and vision.

https://x.com/claudeai/status/2119867114450268322