Worth using monsters? and non human characters?

[Nox]

Are monsters worth using at all?

[Argile]

Any monster that has flying or is good at dishing out status effects is valuable. Mostly they just act as high HP tanks, though. Stick them in choke points and keep them healed up.

[Runforyerlives]

Yes and no. They have high hp but the ai is targeting them with hard hitting spells always. They are great units to draw enemy fire. Once you have higher level healing items they get kinda good. Octopuses are far better than in any other version because they get the water veil ability. They can use the specials like in water tiles. Griffons are good for hit and run and can stun. They also have a special that steal hp based on damage. Ogres are good for mages because they have high hp, but also harder to land cc with them. Mine had zero chance always. Good for blasting with damage spells though. Fairy can wear armor and a shield. They are good healers to get around harder to reach places, but have low hp. Specials can remove debuff or charm units. It can save you in a bind. They also have anoter ability that makes the enemy target them more, so you can draw units from your main healer. Lizardmen are nasty tanks with the Juggernaut that can negate one hit with a skill or Hoptile with the dodge skill. Dragons are kinda good with rampant aura and that insane hp pool they have. Cockatrice petri breath is inanely good for cc. All of the monsters (not humanoids) tend to have both melee and ranged attacks that can hit quite far. Pick up some damage buff cards and they can go through mages and healers fast. Dash is another skill that makes them good at dealing with backlines. They are a lot better than in previous versions and worth using them in my opinion.

[joaocarlos.ak472]

I use dragons as cannon fodder in some battles, I think it's worth it depending on the battle

[Ninephoenix]

I run Denam as a Beastmaster and have him buff my octopus and dragon that follow him around.
Octopuses are stupid strong, they get poison rain which does good damage in a wide area and poisons. Probably the best skill in the game. Easily my MVP unit.
Dragons are oppressive you just run them into the enemy back line and they can't do crap about them.

My lizardman Berserker hits like a truck and is tankier than his human counterpart.
Gonna try and get Golems when I can.

[Tony]

i use dragons when i must block a point.

They have a lot (really a lot) of hp, good armor, good damage, free counterattack in melee and range, a good cross breath spell

just don t expect to heal them with spells, just use the item that give 100% hp back

- little spoiler -

They hold the stairs during oz/ozma battle and honestly no other unit could have taken all the hit without dying

[Grandork]

Is it worth it? Not particularly, no. Defense was beefed up a lot on this version, so they deal roughly 30% less damage than before. But, even before, they weren't all that great at dealing damage, now they are quite bad.

On the other hand, you can recruit the Zombie version of them and have them become damage sponges. There used to be a downside of the Zombie version, in that they couldn't level, but now you can level them with charms.

It IS possible to beat the game with only Beast Master + Pets, it's just going to be harder and more annoying. You will need to learn to abuse the status effect, especially PETRIFY. Although you may have issues with GALD if you don't kill stuff.