How does capturing enemies really work?

[Bob of Mage]

I know you throw them into your base panel, but what is the math to firgure out if you can capture them?

[Blueberry Cheesecake]

Never captured before, but I think the level of your characters should be much higher than the monster that's gonna be captured.

[chaoticenigma]

don't even need to be higher level in the first game or even the original PS2 version of Disgaea 2.

If you have enough lower level monsters, you can eventually work your way up to a 9,999 capture without needing any 9,999 levels yourself.

Definitely going to miss easy level 9,999 captures in the second game since I know they made the cap based on Adell's level in the PSP release that PC is based on.

[red255]

what happens is...math.

first the monsters MP gets turned into damage. if the monster has a lot of MP its just going to kill a number of people in your lineup. random damage, ignores defense.

then your surviving Team fights the monster in an automated battle. stats vs stats.

if they win you capture the monster. if you could drain its MP first you'd have a better time of capturing it but I don't believe theres anyway to do that. so instead just have a bunch of units to suck up the MP bomb so your survivors are enough to capture it.

[Zefar]

I've had several of level 80 units and trying to capture a level 22 Rune knight but it failed every single time. No idea why because I could kill it in one hit.

Trying to capture unique enemies doesn't seems to be possible. Tried to do it on Mid Boss on a NG+ but he'd just wreck the panel and kill everyone inside it. At level 6 vs level 100+ units.

[chaoticenigma]

because the ability to capture humanoid units wasn't added to the series until either Disgaea 3 or Disgaea 4(don't remember which). So any attempt to capture one will just result in the base getting destroyed.

[red255]

yeah you can't capture humans or things flagged as bosses.

[ᛉᛏneon@stralᚨᛉ]

Through a lot of trial and error I got the general idea how to capture monsters.

-You cannot capture humanoids.
But you can capture monsters within -0-60 lvl above your highest level ally at the base.
-If monster has equips on it, it makes a huge difference, for example you can capture 114 Lvl Manticora at the early Palace bc it wears no gear, having lvl 75 as your highest. But cant capture lvl 95 who is wearing gear. You can possibly steal gear from them to make it easier to capture.
-Before you merge two mobs into one for higher Lvl for capture have them use up their SP while lower level, so you receive less damage.
- If you attempt to capure a questionable level good indicator is I've noticed if they destroy the panel they come back with 100hp left out of lets say 2000. That means you are one or two character away at your ally base to finish it off next time and capture it.
-There is a good chance the higher kill number of the mob you are trying to capture takes less allies at the base to do so
- last but not least you cannot seem to capture a monster of higher rank if you havent captured the Vannila version of them yet. Meaning if you have no previous versions of the monster even if its your level lets say lvl 80 Death, you cannot untill you have previous versions.

Thats all I can think of atm hope it was helpful.

[Dragoonseal]

So... can you take the Pokemon route and weaken the monster a lot before throwing them in? Do status effects help?

[chaoticenigma]

If there is any sort of level related rule, I'm not sure what it is. I've captured a 5000 when my highest was only a 3200, so there's a lot more room for being underlevel if your gear is okay(mostly unleveled Nemesis on monsters and store bought armors).


I think it's purely stats based in this. Well outside of needing to have killed the monster before so that it is creatable normally.

Which is why once you can beat a recruitable Ex boss, you can then get some decent monsters. You can easily cheese Priere, which then lets you beat Marjoly, which might let you beat some of the others, then you have several Ex Bosses on your party that let you capture higher level monsters, then using those to go higher.

[red255]

Originally posted by Dragoonseal:

So... can you take the Pokemon route and weaken the monster a lot before throwing them in? Do status effects help?

you could try lowering its stats I guess. are their stat lowering spells?

again the main thing is surviving its MP damage to your roster.

[ᛉᛏneon@stralᚨᛉ]

Originally posted by Dragoonseal:

So... can you take the Pokemon route and weaken the monster a lot before throwing them in? Do status effects help?

I'm not sure about status ailments, I don't think it matters. But the lower HP you can get them at the higher the chance for sure.
Good thing to keep in mind though is even if you get lvl 100 mob to capture, chances are its good-for-nothing to Avarege lvl 100. If you were to make the same monster as Distinguished by the time its 100 it will be 2-2.5 x stronger at the same level.
Capture them not to use really unless you want...but to capture more and higher level mob next.

[Dragoonseal]

Right.

The method I remember hearing about a long time ago was (roughly): there's some stage you could combine Nekomatas to high levels, and you'd first capture a few at say level 500, then use those to capture some at 1000, then use all those to get ones at 2000, etc. Until you get some 9999 Nekomatas to transmigrate into whatever you want.

[ᛉᛏneon@stralᚨᛉ]

Originally posted by Dragoonseal:

Right.

The method I remember hearing about a long time ago was (roughly): there's some stage you could combine Nekomatas to high levels, and you'd first capture a few at say level 500, then use those to capture some at 1000, then use all those to get ones at 2000, etc. Until you get some 9999 Nekomatas to transmigrate into whatever you want.

Yeah I think its Cave of Ordeal 3 I have not gotten there yet, pretty sure thats what everyone is talking about though

[chaoticenigma]

Originally posted by Dragoonseal:

Right.

The method I remember hearing about a long time ago was (roughly): there's some stage you could combine Nekomatas to high levels, and you'd first capture a few at say level 500, then use those to capture some at 1000, then use all those to get ones at 2000, etc. Until you get some 9999 Nekomatas to transmigrate into whatever you want.

This was Disgaea 2 where there were enemy level up geo panels, and it was possible to just stay back and let them level up as needed. You won't be able to do this on the PC release since they changed max capture level to whatever your main character's level is in the PSP version, and the ports are based on those.

[eruciform]

the disgaea 1 doublejump guide covered this - it's the only place i've found

Originally posted by DoubleJump Guide:

The beginning of the battle is waged with SP. The amount of damage the monster does is based on his level. A level 100 monster will use magic which takes 100 SP for each attack to attack your allies one at a time in random order. How much damage each of his attacks does to each character is based on your character’s stats versus his (Int vs. Res, etc.). When the monster runs out of SP, they’ll start attacking with their weapon. At the same time, your characters will be attacking him. The amount of damage you do to him is also based on your level. A level 100 ally will do a magic attack using 100 SP to attack the enemy. Therefore, it is advantageous to have your better magic users inside the base panel when you try to capture the monster

http://www.angelfire.com/vt2/pokemonthunder/disgaea.pdf

thus, if you don't have a lot of mages, or you're trying to capture things with high RES, you need to resolve that issue first. get more mages or capture something less resistant to magic. the monsters in Ordeals3 are VERY high RES.