Advice for Optimizing Monster Loadouts / Skills

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

After reaching Level 23, I started to notice that my teams were not performing well against enemies at my level, so I decided to reset my six most used monsters. I haven't yet dabbled into equipping them, but I did make sure not to stack two similar abilities per monster unless it was for a physical / magic combination.This is my general roster with some options for buffing, healing and elemental damage, and my usual goal is to limit two roles or elements per monster, but some options like the Catzerker are pure buff and physical attack:

Green Blob
Catzerker
Yowsie
The Sizzle Knight
The V-bird / Magama-moth
Spectral Wolf

Anyway, even after trying to better investing my points, some aspects of this system still aren't quite clear to me after ten hours.

For starters, the stat-levels you can invest into with skill points--what does that do exactly? Does it increase my stats with a flat rate, a rate with every level I have, or does it do something else completely? Another related issue is that some monsters seem particularly weak later on like the bird monsters (V-something,) but I can't help but wonder if that is because those monsters have a lower total of stats, my skill points were invested poorly or if my equipment loadout wasn't optimal even with +2 and +3 level gear. (I also wonder how much the food system plays into the equation, but I would guess not as much as these other decisions.)

In a somewhat related note, are these types of monsters weak because they are meant to be replaced with other monsters over time, they don't have an evolved form yet, or will the future level cap better balance these weaker monsters?

[Conan The Librarian]

Brian-

For a good starting place, the Wiki has lots of good info, so it's worth a look: https://monster-sanctuary.fandom.com/wiki/Battles

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

For starters, the stat-levels you can invest into with skill points--what does that do exactly? Does it increase my stats with a flat rate, a rate with every level I have, or does it do something else completely?

As you might've guessed, yes, those are stat ratings. They measure how much attack / defense / magic (etc) that the monster gets each level. Yes, they're a certain amount based on the level of the monster, so it's not just "a flat amount", but "a rate with every level".

As for your main topic at hand because there's a bit to unpack, you're operating under faulty premises if you think that ANY of the monsters in this game are weak or "become outclassed later on" or "are weak because they don't have an evolution". To clarify the philosophy of this game, let me put a copy-paste that I had written:

What about evolution? Monster Sanctuary doesn’t follow the general Pokemon / Digimon formula of “form 1 – 2 – 3”; instead, most monsters don’t have evolutions. The exception is that a few monsters have “evolutions” which you can trigger through special means to change their form. This doesn’t mean that the other form is “100% better”, it’s just different. Example, you can change a fiery caterpillar into a fiery moth. Their movesets are “similar”, but the caterpillar being more defensive / team oriented, while the moth is more offensive-oriented.

The big alternative to evolution: Light / Dark shifting. Later in the game you will gain access to light / dark shifted monsters. The difference is that this is the same monster as its base form in terms of talent trees, however, it gains additional stats. The general idea is that Light Shifted will “tend” toward more defensive / team-oriented stats and powers, while Dark Shifted will “tend” toward more offensive / individual stats and powers. Alongside the base stat increase, your monster will gain a cool passive power. Sometimes these can be more simple in nature (like plus percentage of certain stats), other times these will include cool powers (like extra equipment slots, gain shields based on damage the monster inflicts, etc). This mechanic really adds to the fun of “how do I build my monster?

So no, evolutions or not makes no difference -- there will be overall few evolutions in the game, and they aren't automatically "better" than the base form, just a different form with varying kinds of tradeoffs.

For the monsters themselves, there aren't any severely underpowered monsters or monsters where "you use this early and then replace it with X later on". Monster Sanctuary doesn't have the issue which Pokemon does where "This monster has 400 stats and this one has 600", no, every monster is good and worth using throughout the entire game. So no, Vaero and its evolution, Silvaero, are great support monsters throughout the whole game.

For teambuilding, I personally look at things much different than a team of 6, but instead, look at things in the realm of teams of three. The reason you are struggling is likely because you're not focusing on inter-team synergy and just throwing out whichever three monsters you feel like from your 6. Try instead to build teams of three. Like you alluded to already, the most basic teambuilding formula is fulfilling these roles between your 3 monsters: Tank / Healer / Support / DPS.

Using the 7 monsters you mentioned above, a couple combos I'd recommend would be:

Yowie / Vaero / Catzerker

Classic combo available essentially at the beginning of the game. Yowie is the tank / healer / support -- Vaero is a support which build excellent combo and does a decent bit of damage -- Catzerker is a lovely glass cannon DPS.

Sizzle Knight / Blob / Wolf

Sizzle Knight can be build as a decent tank / support -- Blob as a good healer support with nice combo count -- Wolf can be build as a DPS

Granted, this is not exhaustive, as the game is quite flexible in its teambuilding. The key to success is recognizing how each individual monster can be build, as most monsters have more than one role / function / archetype that they can fulfill. For example, Wolf is a very flexible monster, being able to be build as a tanky self-sustain bruiser, a hybrid damage dealer, physical damage dealer, crit focused or no? You get the idea.

For equipment and food -- those are extremely important. If you've not bothered to properly equip your monsters, yeah...you'll have a much harder time. When it comes to these things, the answer is simple: What stats do I want to improve on my monster? Am I trying to build my Catzerker for Crit since it has a lot of powers pertaining to that? Build my Yowie to stack health for better auto-regeneration (via the [Supply] passive) and better healing from its [Life Wave]? If the answer isn't super clear from certain passives (passives that clearly convert X stat to Y stat, like Yowie with health-stacking) just ask yourself what you want for that monster based on its moves. You might be tempted to think that defense, for example, is just defense, but shield moves tend to scale from that, so if you were making a defensive Sizzle Knight for example, if using [Shield] and [Protect] were key to your strategy, then stacking defense could be good. Just pay attention to the active and passive abilities, and that will help you understand how to build your monsters.

Anyway, my parting advice for the moment is to feel free to experiment. Skill Resetters are cheap (500g at the store) so you can mess around and find out what works for you. If you care to read, I have a guide which explains a variety of basic mechanics which you might find useful.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1851743162

And if you want active help and discussion, pop by the Discord, as there are plenty of experienced players who'd be happy to talk shop with ya https://discord.gg/vDg6jwR

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

Originally posted by Conan The Librarian:

Brian-

For a good starting place, the Wiki has lots of good info, so it's worth a look: https://monster-sanctuary.fandom.com/wiki/Battles

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

For starters, the stat-levels you can invest into with skill points--what does that do exactly? Does it increase my stats with a flat rate, a rate with every level I have, or does it do something else completely?

As you might've guessed, yes, those are stat ratings. They measure how much attack / defense / magic (etc) that the monster gets each level. Yes, they're a certain amount based on the level of the monster, so it's not just "a flat amount", but "a rate with every level".

As for your main topic at hand because there's a bit to unpack, you're operating under faulty premises if you think that ANY of the monsters in this game are weak or "become outclassed later on" or "are weak because they don't have an evolution". To clarify the philosophy of this game, let me put a copy-paste that I had written:

What about evolution? Monster Sanctuary doesn’t follow the general Pokemon / Digimon formula of “form 1 – 2 – 3”; instead, most monsters don’t have evolutions. The exception is that a few monsters have “evolutions” which you can trigger through special means to change their form. This doesn’t mean that the other form is “100% better”, it’s just different. Example, you can change a fiery caterpillar into a fiery moth. Their movesets are “similar”, but the caterpillar being more defensive / team oriented, while the moth is more offensive-oriented.

The big alternative to evolution: Light / Dark shifting. Later in the game you will gain access to light / dark shifted monsters. The difference is that this is the same monster as its base form in terms of talent trees, however, it gains additional stats. The general idea is that Light Shifted will “tend” toward more defensive / team-oriented stats and powers, while Dark Shifted will “tend” toward more offensive / individual stats and powers. Alongside the base stat increase, your monster will gain a cool passive power. Sometimes these can be more simple in nature (like plus percentage of certain stats), other times these will include cool powers (like extra equipment slots, gain shields based on damage the monster inflicts, etc). This mechanic really adds to the fun of “how do I build my monster?

So no, evolutions or not makes no difference -- there will be overall few evolutions in the game, and they aren't automatically "better" than the base form, just a different form with varying kinds of tradeoffs.

For the monsters themselves, there aren't any severely underpowered monsters or monsters where "you use this early and then replace it with X later on". Monster Sanctuary doesn't have the issue which Pokemon does where "This monster has 400 stats and this one has 600", no, every monster is good and worth using throughout the entire game. So no, Vaero and its evolution, Silvaero, are great support monsters throughout the whole game.

For teambuilding, I personally look at things much different than a team of 6, but instead, look at things in the realm of teams of three. The reason you are struggling is likely because you're not focusing on inter-team synergy and just throwing out whichever three monsters you feel like from your 6. Try instead to build teams of three. Like you alluded to already, the most basic teambuilding formula is fulfilling these roles between your 3 monsters: Tank / Healer / Support / DPS.

Using the 7 monsters you mentioned above, a couple combos I'd recommend would be:

Yowie / Vaero / Catzerker

Classic combo available essentially at the beginning of the game. Yowie is the tank / healer / support -- Vaero is a support which build excellent combo and does a decent bit of damage -- Catzerker is a lovely glass cannon DPS.

Sizzle Knight / Blob / Wolf

Sizzle Knight can be build as a decent tank / support -- Blob as a good healer support with nice combo count -- Wolf can be build as a DPS

Granted, this is not exhaustive, as the game is quite flexible in its teambuilding. The key to success is recognizing how each individual monster can be build, as most monsters have more than one role / function / archetype that they can fulfill. For example, Wolf is a very flexible monster, being able to be build as a tanky self-sustain bruiser, a hybrid damage dealer, physical damage dealer, crit focused or no? You get the idea.

For equipment and food -- those are extremely important. If you've not bothered to properly equip your monsters, yeah...you'll have a much harder time. When it comes to these things, the answer is simple: What stats do I want to improve on my monster? Am I trying to build my Catzerker for Crit since it has a lot of powers pertaining to that? Build my Yowie to stack health for better auto-regeneration (via the [Supply] passive) and better healing from its [Life Wave]? If the answer isn't super clear from certain passives (passives that clearly convert X stat to Y stat, like Yowie with health-stacking) just ask yourself what you want for that monster based on its moves. You might be tempted to think that defense, for example, is just defense, but shield moves tend to scale from that, so if you were making a defensive Sizzle Knight for example, if using [Shield] and [Protect] were key to your strategy, then stacking defense could be good. Just pay attention to the active and passive abilities, and that will help you understand how to build your monsters.

Anyway, my parting advice for the moment is to feel free to experiment. Skill Resetters are cheap (500g at the store) so you can mess around and find out what works for you. If you care to read, I have a guide which explains a variety of basic mechanics which you might find useful.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1851743162

And if you want active help and discussion, pop by the Discord, as there are plenty of experienced players who'd be happy to talk shop with ya https://discord.gg/vDg6jwR

Thanks for the advice. I'll try experimenting on my own again, but I'm finding almost all the random enemies in the Sun Place have been one-shotting all my units--even when I apply defensive strategies like barrier--from one or two attacks. Sometimes not even weakness-related attacks too.

Just for the record, I did use some food items that seemed okay at the time, and my usual team-make up is out of three party-members. Right now I'm getting the sense that 150 defense is way too small, which makes me think I need to stack up to around 200 defense per unit by this point in the game.

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

So I guess I should specify what exactly feels like an issue because I don't actually mind the difficulty with the Alchemists or other Keepers. The problem seems to be the world scaling and/or the random encounters themselves.

The issue seems to come from whenever I have to fight two or three types of the same enemy, which often results in all of them overwhelming one unit. This dilemma also might be attributed to the fact that I did over-level the world ahead of me by wandering around, but even now as I am one or two levels higher than the mobs I feel on even terms in terms of damage vs health. I would be curious if I would still have the same problem if the random encounters were more often limited to one unit type each.

[Fendelphi]

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

So I guess I should specify what exactly feels like an issue because I don't actually mind the difficulty with the Alchemists or other Keepers. The problem seems to be the world scaling and/or the random encounters themselves.

The issue seems to come from whenever I have to fight two or three types of the same enemy, which often results in all of them overwhelming one unit. This dilemma also might be attributed to the fact that I did over-level the world ahead of me by wandering around, but even now as I am one or two levels higher than the mobs I feel on even terms in terms of damage vs health. I would be curious if I would still have the same problem if the random encounters were more often limited to one unit type each.

I would look to different damage types and resistances. Make a team of 6 that can defend against or deal damage against a varied amount of damage types. For instance, if you are up against Kames, using magic damage is the way to go(no matter the element). Against Ninki and Ninki Nanka, you want physical(preferably Fire or Wind).
Generally speaking, you might want to avoid having earth, water or fire weakness yourself.

I believe I used(among other things) a Frosty, since it is weak to Air(not many enemies use this here) and have high magic damage(Air, Water and Neutral), so it is effective against Kame, Vasuki and neutral vs most other enemies. It's ability to chill enemies to a large degree can reduce the damage you take, as enemies are forced to use lower level abilities due to lack of mana.
Combine it with a Yowie or Imori with "Congeal", and you can deal damage based on missing mana when an enemy is chilled.
Complete the 3 man team with a physical damage dealer, preferably Fire or Earth based.
But that is just me.

Also, do not be afraid to NOT use your starter. It is strong, yes, but if what it brings does not help you in a specific area or team composition, switch it out with something that does.

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

So I guess I should specify what exactly feels like an issue because I don't actually mind the difficulty with the Alchemists or other Keepers. The problem seems to be the world scaling and/or the random encounters themselves.

The issue seems to come from whenever I have to fight two or three types of the same enemy, which often results in all of them overwhelming one unit. This dilemma also might be attributed to the fact that I did over-level the world ahead of me by wandering around, but even now as I am one or two levels higher than the mobs I feel on even terms in terms of damage vs health. I would be curious if I would still have the same problem if the random encounters were more often limited to one unit type each.

I would look to different damage types and resistances. Make a team of 6 that can defend against or deal damage against a varied amount of damage types. For instance, if you are up against Kames, using magic damage is the way to go(no matter the element). Against Ninki and Ninki Nanka, you want physical(preferably Fire or Wind).
Generally speaking, you might want to avoid having earth, water or fire weakness yourself.

I believe I used(among other things) a Frosty, since it is weak to Air(not many enemies use this here) and have high magic damage(Air, Water and Neutral), so it is effective against Kame, Vasuki and neutral vs most other enemies. It's ability to chill enemies to a large degree can reduce the damage you take, as enemies are forced to use lower level abilities due to lack of mana.
Combine it with a Yowie or Imori with "Congeal", and you can deal damage based on missing mana when an enemy is chilled.
Complete the 3 man team with a physical damage dealer, preferably Fire or Earth based.
But that is just me.

Also, do not be afraid to NOT use your starter. It is strong, yes, but if what it brings does not help you in a specific area or team composition, switch it out with something that does.

I have tried to vary my approaches with around 12 monsters, but once I started reaching the level 20s it became kind of a slog to level them up. (Yes, I know the Level Up tokens exist, but I'm saving those for the future.)

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

I don’t know how much this changes things, but after two hours of skill resetting, setup combinations and I swapped out one party member for mass weakness, I was able to beat the last story trainer battle at the max level. So yeah, three plus hours of attempts and resets in total.

Level 29 setup:
Spectral Wolf
Pyteradactyl-thing
Green Blob
Sizzle Knight
Serpent
Catzerker

Also, I hadn’t tried out the shifting mechanic at all, so maybe that is a factor I should have considered too.

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

And yes, I have it all recorded if needed for more details. lol

[Conan The Librarian]

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

Also, I hadn’t tried out the shifting mechanic at all, so maybe that is a factor I should have considered too.

That is a big factor as shifting increases the overall strength of your monsters. See here for details if you like: https://monster-sanctuary.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Shifting

[Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic)]

Originally posted by Conan The Librarian:

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

Also, I hadn’t tried out the shifting mechanic at all, so maybe that is a factor I should have considered too.

That is a big factor as shifting increases the overall strength of your monsters. See here for details if you like: https://monster-sanctuary.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Shifting

From what I gathered, you can’t “unshift” a monster, only Switch them, and there are only a few stones, so I didn’t feel comfortable upsetting things further without knowing who to choose.

[Conan The Librarian]

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

Originally posted by Conan The Librarian:

That is a big factor as shifting increases the overall strength of your monsters. See here for details if you like: https://monster-sanctuary.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Shifting

From what I gathered, you can’t “unshift” a monster, only Switch them, and there are only a few stones, so I didn’t feel comfortable upsetting things further without knowing who to choose.

As mentioned in my guide, once you've beaten the Alchemist (Zosimos) at the top of the Sun Palace, you unlock the shifting feature. This means that shifted monsters will start appearing in the wild which you can catch just like normal. Since you can find a lot of monsters shifted in the wild, you only need to bother using your shift items for things not found in the wild such as:

Spectral Familiar

All champions (minus Minitaur and Monk, as they're found in the wild).

Note that there IS an unlimited number of shift / switch stones in the game as they're found in Reward Box Level 2, which can be farmed via the Infinite Arena (or PvP rewards, but Infinite Arena is simplest).

[Taggerung559]

And while you can't "unshift" a monster, it's generally fairly easy to just go and catch an unshifted copy of something if you need to (though currently unshifted monsters are objectively worse than shifted ones, so not sure why one would feel the need until something is implemented to change that).

[Grincito]

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

The issue seems to come from whenever I have to fight two or three types of the same enemy, which often results in all of them overwhelming one unit. This dilemma also might be attributed to the fact that I did over-level the world ahead of me by wandering around, but even now as I am one or two levels higher than the mobs I feel on even terms in terms of damage vs health. I would be curious if I would still have the same problem if the random encounters were more often limited to one unit type each.

I am facing the same problem with the Elderjelly thing. It literally one shots my team. I tried about 20 times, changing strats and using varied strats. Can't beat the thing, it just decides to one shot 1 of my monsters, and rip.

[Conan The Librarian]

Originally posted by Грин:

Originally posted by Brian (The Schmaltzy Cynic):

The issue seems to come from whenever I have to fight two or three types of the same enemy, which often results in all of them overwhelming one unit. This dilemma also might be attributed to the fact that I did over-level the world ahead of me by wandering around, but even now as I am one or two levels higher than the mobs I feel on even terms in terms of damage vs health. I would be curious if I would still have the same problem if the random encounters were more often limited to one unit type each.

I am facing the same problem with the Elderjelly thing. It literally one shots my team. I tried about 20 times, changing strats and using varied strats. Can't beat the thing, it just decides to one shot 1 of my monsters, and rip.

Try this thread for help on Elderjel https://steamcommunity.com/app/814370/discussions/0/2803982773084339549/