Selecting Monsters: Mini-Guide to Rare or Unusual Skills (Pre-DLC)

The wiki is a good source for detailed information about every monster, but sometimes you just want a supplemental companion for niche skills.

So, here we are.

This was written before the DLC so I don't have the new info

Pre-Amble and Foreward

Heads up! This is just a summary supplement about rare skills and combos. For more detailed information please consult the wiki.

Here's the general format

0 Monster Zero (The Monster's Name)

Skills will be listed in the same order as the wiki: That's Attacks, Supports, Ultimates, Stat Boosts, Auras, Additional Hits and Passives

I will also only include Shift Skills if they are particularly rare or if they synergize with a rare skill.

Fake Skill (1) - This monster has the ability "Fake Skill", the (1) means it's the ONLY monster that has this skill

UA Fake Aura (2) - Has the Unique Aura "Fake Aura", which some other monster apparently has as seen by the (2)

Double Impact x5 (1) - Double Impact is a skill many monsters have, but only Fake Monster Zero here has Double Impact 5 times.

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That's how a typical monster entry might look. Some will be longer if they have lots of rare skills or short if they have nothing rare at all.

The NUMBER of rare skills a monster has doesn't make them automatically good or bad, it simply lets you know how niche they can be in team building. Magmapillar for example has a lot of rare skills, but Fungi has almost none - that doesn't mean they can't both be good.

ALSO: Due to character limits the sections aren't perfectly divided :V Oh wells

Special Note

While my intention was just to summarize rare and unusual abilities, I kinda ended up making long winded team building summaries for many later monsters.

These summaries were not the original intend or scope of this guide, but I ain't deleting them :V

The Monsters 1~10

1 Spectral Wolf

Ice Spears(5)
Ice Spear Volley(4)

Blessing(3) - A particularly rare support skill, Glory+Sidekick can add a lot of damage. Furthermore, Spectral Wolf has Improved Glory and Improved Sidekick; both of which are particularly uncommon. Overall a particularly unusual combination.

Gravity(4) - This is one of the rarer Ultimates, however Spectral Wolf is a poor user of it due to lower Magic

Life Overload x2 (4) - A powerful skill for boosting attack and magic, only 4 monsters have 2x of them. Spectral Wolf also has Health Focus for gaining even more MaxHP and Hybrid Mastery to further amp your damage.

UA Outlast (2) - This skill is so rare it should be the focus of selecting Spectral Wolf over other monsters. The other user, Vertraag, has better synergy with Age team in general, but Wolf can get more done in those first 3 turns.

UA Shatter (4) - Not the best user, but it is a freebie

Primal Rage (3) - Wolf is the strongest hybrid user with Primal Rage / Age synergy. Vertraag is stronger in the longer matches, but Primal Wolf has an edge earlier. Either way, Primal Rage is a strong enough skill to base a team around.

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2 Spectral Toad

Dark Mana Potential (3) - a very rare shift ability. All users are about equal due to high mana stats

Force of Nature(4) and Bubble Deluge(3) are rare ultimates. Spectral Toad doesn't have any rare attack or support skills, favouring solid standards.

Extra Channel (4) - Channel can be valuable if you don't itemize any mana regeneration or suffer from Chills, but it's hardly an important buff so getting it for free is valuable. Spectral Toad also has Multi-Channel for additional support. While Safecast is available, Full Offense is the preferred buff.

UA Channeling Support (2) - Very rare aura that turns channel into a heal amp. Spectral Toad is a strong healer and tank, but doesn't have Shield synergy so is best teamed with someone who can gain shields when attacking

Other: Warlock Healing combos well with Mystify, which combos with Buff Heal and so on

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3 Spectral Eagle

Light Shift Charged Up (3) - rare shift skill

UA Energize (3) - A skill strong enough to be your entire heal plan if you have multi-shock somewhere... which Eagle does have.

UA Impactful Shock (3) - While not great on its own, the combinations available are great

Charged Start (4)
Shocking Hit(3) - adding a single extra shock and blind isn't much, but Eagle also has Berserk and Charged Start to help land that initial combo starter

While spectral eagle lacks any long term charge gains, the initial charge and front end damage makes Spectral Eagle a great opener for a shock team, perhaps with Promethean.

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4 Spectral Lion

Dark Shift Heroic Assault (4)
Jewel Blast(3) - because why not?
Lifeline (3) - Rare support skill
UA Improved Regeneration (3) - Rare aura, boosts Regeneration which Lion has via Lifeline
Critical Heat (4)

Nothing particularly rare, but there's lots of On-Crit synergy available. There's only 3 monsters with both Critical Mass and Critical Boon; Lion, Orinthcopter and Caraglow

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5 Blob

Wizardry (3) - only available on 3 monsters, pretty rare.

Health Focus x2 (2): Only 2 monsters have Health Focus twice, the other being King Blob. King Blob is beefier, but it's notable

Mana Upkeep x2 (4)
Magic Proc x2 (3)

UA Plague (3): only 3 monsters have this, Blob Stolby and Toxiquus

UA Corrosion (2): only 2 monsters have this, Blob and Stolby

Slime Infestation - 100% unique, this is what this topic is mostly about... rare abilities like this. This Blob also has multi-armour break this means that 3 Blobs can very rapidly break almost all the armour, a valuable skill for Slime teams

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6 Magmapillar

Fireball Storm is rare (4 monsters)

UA Burning Desire is rare (3 monsters)

UA Improved Regeneration is rare (3 monsters), one of them being Spectral Lion... so Magmapillar might just be the best source if needed.

UA Burn Down is rare (2 monsters)

UA Severe Upkeep is rare (4 monsters)

UA Mana Bolster is rare (3 monsters)

Buffing Shielding x2 (3 monsters). Only 3 monsters have 2x Buffing Shielding, but it's not good synergy in this case due to low Defense values

Sticky Impact (3 monsters) - the only non-web user with Sticky Impact is pretty rare in and of itself

Summary: Magmapillar is a bearer of a LOT of rare unique auras related to burns so can make a good home on burn teams as the support caster

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7 Rocky (Bulboa)

Shielding Leaves - one of 4 users, has the 2nd highest defense while doing so, behind its evolution Mega Rock who is a better user of it in general

Punch Combo - one of 4 users, weakest user - but it is rare

Shieldcast (3) - rare support skill

Defense Overload x2 (4 mons) - Rocky has a lot of defense so this is a unique edge over Mega Rock, this combos well with Defense Focus on items

UA Disoriented (2) - very rare, only Rocky and Kongamato have this and could be an entire team focus

Tranquility (1) that's ONE monster, Rocky - that's it. Nature and Spirit monsters auto-weakness. Rocky is also a bearer of multi-weakness making for an interesting niche as Weakness support. Not sure if Rocky does 2 weaknesses being both Nature AND Spirit

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8 Vaero

Teamplay (4) relatively uncommon support move

UA Cleansing Sidekick (2): The only other user is Sutsune

Aerial Maneuvers (1): Wholly unique to Vaero

Armor Bypass x2 (2): Vaero and Skorch only

Summary - Sidekick support and armour penetrating wind damage, unique aura for Aerial teams

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9 Catzerker

Lifelink is a rare Shift skill

Support spell is uncommon (4), but Catzerker is a poor user of it

Precision x2 (2): First hit of an attack skill is a virtually guaranteed critical

AutoHeal x2 (1): The only one. Catzerkers don't have a lot of Magic but do have Hydrid Spec to gain some magic.

Critical Mass x2 (1): The only one. Not sure if 50% chance at 2 buffs, or 100% chance at 1 buff

Summary: A cat vampire, honestly: If you have regeneration support so that Catzerker can focus on attacking he's good as both an opener and finisher and can heal the party for a LOT via attacking. Also has Heal Mastery and a variety of common heal boosting skills. Would team up well with anyone who can turn heals into shields, making every attack a massive defensive boon (Overheal Shift Passive, for example)

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10 Yowie

Ice Hail (4)

Glorycast (2) - Both users of it are good, but Glorycast is rather dubious

Congeal (5)
Frostbite (3) - Yowie is the only one with both Congeal AND Frostbite. Furthermore, he has Fatal Upkeep which while relatively uncommon, is the only one with 4+ points of Chill synergy

Jolly Spirit (3) - Rare, but I see little utility

Health Proc x2 (5) - has some of the most MaxHP in Light Shift

Ice Skin (3) - rare, also has Taunt for incidental tanking

Summary: Kinda mundane for rarity, but has a lot of Chill synergy and both Shifts are valuable. Light shift gets up to Health 11 (up to 15 with stat ups) while also increasing max health by 12% making Yowie one of the better MaxHP stackers. However, the Overheal Dark Shift is one of the most powerful in the game. Seems to have some critical support, but honestly not enough attack/magic to capitalize on it

Monsters 11~18

11 Steam Golem

Shield Burst (4) - a very powerful and rare attack if you can maintain your shield quality. It can't crit, but it's boosted by both your Magic and by proxy your MaxHP since that determines your maximum shield strength. Steam Golem unfortunately has the lowest Magic and MaxHP of all available users.

Shroud (4) - One of the best defensive buffs

Preparation x2 (1) - The only monster with Preparation x2, so maybe give it a Pandora's Box?

Optimal Performance (1) - Since it's not a unique arua, 3 Steam Golems may enjoy 45% damage reduction and debuff resistance (depending on how it stacks)

Fuel (4)

Observe (4) - Has the most defense of Observe users,, and is the worst attacker

Auto Restore (2) - isn't a good attacker, Shockhopper better - however, removing debuffs from allies without having to dedicate an action to it is valuable

Summary: A weird haphazard mix of common abilities - but is among the better defensive supports with a strong Shield and access to Shroud

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12 Monk

Lightning Punches (3)
Freezing Punches (4)
Fireball Storm (4)

Elemental Strikes (3): I intended to ignore Ultimates when making this topic, but this one is appropriate to Monk's multi-elemental punching and it IS one of the more powerful AoE ultimates at 300% and ignoring 25% defense

UA Combat Guard (1): Unique Unique aura. Sidekick and Glory are both good combat buffs and Monk has both Multi-Sidekick and Multi-Glory

UA Martial Prowess (3): A great skill, but the users who have it don't exactly have the most dodge, it's more for supporting the other members of a dodge team (like Nightwing)

Summary: A good multi-elemental attacker who would love to have the "Blessing" support skill from an ally, which is limited to Spectral Wolf, Asura and Tanuki. Monk can even be an ok healer due to being able to critical heal and add Sidekick (3 times?) while doing so. Both Shifts are really good for Monk

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13 Grummy

He's a cute little hat.

UA Regeneration Shield (3): Functionally the same as doubling the power of regeneration, only adding it as shield. Grummy also has multi-regeneration to support it.

UA Weapon Break (3)
UA Broken Immunity (4): The idea is to apply armour break, such as via Acid Rain, and then have teammates apply their stacked debuffs

UA Age of Purification (2): Shared only with Nautilid, while Grummy isn't the strongest attacker or healer, he can be powerful support on an Age team due to being able to remove Stacks - a particularly hard thing to do in general. Also Regeneration is based on the ally's HP, not the caster's so it doesn't matter that his stats are low.

Shared Regeneration (3)

Summary: A lot of subtle combos here. Main trick is to either attack with Acid Rain to trigger debuff procs which trigger regeneration via Renumeration, or to apply shields which trigger heal procs that apply Armour Break. However, Grummy does NOT have a native ability to apply Regeneration so is entirely reliant on getting initial regeneration from an ally or via debuffing. Both Shift Skills can help in doing this. Teams well with Dark Ninki due to Shield Overheal which futher capitalizes on regeneration stacking

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14 Tengu

Fireball Storm (4)

Mana Overload x4 (1): Very powerful. Tengu already has middling attack and magic, but also bears a LOT of mana. Both Shift Skills support this strategy. Also bears Mana Focus to further amp this, hybrid mastery, 4 points of ManaUp and Mana Stability for good measure. STACK MANA

Magic Barrier (2): Shared with Manticorb. Mages start battle with a shield based on their mana... STACK MANA. Also has Magic Powered Shield so Tengu will pretty much always start with a full shield.

Exploit (4)

Summary: Tengu is the epitome of one-trick pony and it does that trick very well... Stack Mana and then Explode. His middling stats don't seem too bad when you consider all of them are boosted by Max Mana. Equipped with a Shield Generator he should be mostly immortal against anything that isn't a OHKO

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15 Fungi

Dominance x2 (1): Oi
UA Sensitvity (2): Oi
UA Poisoned Nerves (3): Oi!

Summary: Low stats and poor skills leave this duder as a one-trick gimmick, and is kinda good at it. Slime-Aggedon Ultimate combined with 3 unique or rare auras and Dark Shift Curse Chain means this little goo can apply Weakness and Poison very strongly as a first action while providing 2 tiers of Dominance plus Sensitivity for your allies to capitalize on. 4 debuffs from 2 poison and 2 weakness (a fair outcome) means about 25% increased damage for not much investment, and approximately a Combo 12~15+ right off the bat (if lucky). Has Proliferate which combos greatly with Curse Chain to rapidly increase your first action Combo meter. Example Team of 2 Fungi+Troll can destroy all game content.

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16 Frosty

Ice Hail (4)
Ice Shield (2): Scales with a factor of both magic and defense, so is a stronger user of it than Ice Blob. Being able to apply debuffs without attacking is valuable on First Impact/Single Strike teams

Spirit Strength (1): Unique to Frosty, boosts the power of buffs on SPIRIT monsters. Not a UA, but a 3 Frosty team doesn't have the defense/HP to get massively buffed.

Summary: Spirit Strength in combination with Light Shift Buff Mastery can allow for some crazy stacks, and the Spirit family does have good monsters for this... Frosty Actual not being one. Cast Full Offense on an ally and hope your 'on buff' procs let you get a high combo. Chill synergy is secondary and shouldn't be used for intentional Congeal teams. Sycophantom is a good teammate who can double-down with Trickster Spirit and Full Defense. All you'd need is a third monster who deals more damage for every buff on them (HINT HINT), or shares buffs when buffed (HINT HINT HINT)

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17 Minitaur

Freezing Punches (4)

Critical Defense x2 (5): Critical Focus and Critical Consistency also available.

Protector x2 (2): Only Minitaur and Megataur.
Weaponry (2): Minitaur and Sizzle Knight only. Further boosts your CritMod and in turn your defense.

Shared Might (3): Benefits from an ally buffing them first, but can ALSO be said buffer
Shocking Hit (3)

Summary: With the powerful Bouldertoss Ultimate Minitaur is a strong combo ender with lots of support for it including 2 stacks of First Impact and Earth Affinity. Stack Critical Damage as high as possible for additional tanking. L-Shift Equipment Mastery allows a 4th accessory to get even more CritMod. Benefits from Warrior team support and can cast Full Offense to build up Improved Assault. Brutus and Goblin King are also Improved Assault Warriors.

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18 Specter

Spectral Cannon (3): One of the strongest single-target spells, Mogwai is the preferred user

Dexterity (3): Shared with Goblin Hood and Koi. Specter would rather have Spellshield than Agility, but whatevs

Gravity (4): Uncommon ultimate

Critical Consistency x3 (2): Shared with Eldergel, boosts your non-crit damage a fair lot. Has CritMod focus as well as 2 points of Critical Defense

UA Incinerate (4)
UA Congeal (5)
Trickster Spirit (2): Shared with Sycophantom. Solid Spirit Support.

Summary: A fan favourite for being pretty sturdy and having access to a plethora of debuffs via the Hex skill supported by debuff master, but can also be a solid Wall Breaker in Light Shift by stacking CritMod in the same vein as Minitaur. Both builds are viable, but have no synergy between them... if you wanna be a wall breaker, build for wall breaking. If you want debuffs, build debuffs - don't mix.

Monsters 19~24

19 Crackle Knight

Shocking Slash (2): Shared with MAD LORD of all things, use it on Shock Teams - particularly with multi-shock and Curse Chain

Electric Surge (4): You already have the rare Shocking Slash, but it's available
Mega Protect (4)

Defense Focus x2 (2): Shared with Sizzle Knight. You can get rather tanky

UA Chain Lightning (2): Shared with Beetloid
Magnetize (2): Shared with Elderjel. Used for opposite reasons. Crackle Knight can get rather tanky and wants magnetize to direct attacks TO Crackle Knight, whereas Elderjel uses magnetize to direct attacks away from Elderjel.

UA Electrolytes (1): Unique to Crackle Knight - you can remove a lot of debuffs if you have lots of Shocks up

Armory (2): Shared with Targoat -Increases the defensive stats of equipment with fellow warriors

Chain Reaction (2): Shared with Sizzle Knight. Excellent Shock team synergy.

Summary: Lots of shock support, lacking only mutli-shock. Has a lot of base Defense so can serve as the tank on such teams. Tanks can Light Shift for an added defense item, whereas attackers can benefit from Dual Wield to apply additional shock effects via Abyssal Sword or Thorn Tendril.

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20 G'rulu

Not as good of a hat as Grummy

Acid Tempest (4)
Ion Beam (5) - Best Skill

Summary: Has multi-regeneration and multi-armour break. Doesn't have Hex, but does have Hexing Support as well as some shield synergy. Has dubious utility with Debuff Mastery and could be the dedicated healer on such a team, but overall doesn't have anything unique - use just for its high stat line

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21 Mad Eye

Best monster

Note: None of his attack lines are rare, but what is rare is that he has ALL of them. You get the single target and multi-target version of every elemental magic attack and all of them apply debuffs.

Cataclysm (4)
Acid Hurricane (4)
Ion Beam (5)

UA Toxic Reaction (5)
UA Incinerate (4)
UA Stunned (2): Shared with Elderjel
UA Demotivate (4)
UA Armour Crush (3)

Summary: Dark Mad Eye is one of the best debuffers in the game and not "too" fragile thanks to supplementary skills like Mana Shielding. Hex plus Ion Beam can apply pretty much all the debuffs very quickly, with double impact and proliferate adding even more hits. Deceptively doesn't do a lot of damage due to poor Magic Stat. The Light Shift version fixes that, exchanging debuff stacking for Charge support (Supremacy being an Aura and gaining +4 Magic stat) and still being a good debuffer if you don't need multis. Dark versions should stack effects that debuff more, like Abyssal Sword; Light Versions can enjoy any offensive line such as Charging Shield or whatever.

Basically, the king of the dedicated debuff game. Has Fatal Upkeep as well, but not Congeal so would work best with a Congeal bearing Tank... of which Yowie is probably unsuited, but Specter certainly fits well. However this makes 2 of your monsters weak to the Magic attack type so you are practically begging to get Spellshield up... Ninki Nanka being a strong contender. However both Ninka Nanka and Yowie have UA Overheal, so it's all up to preference.

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22 Nightwing

Dark Shift UA Bleed Out (5)

Bite (4)
Shroud (4): Best defensive buff

Mythic (3): Another great buff - should be used by a more dedicated support though

Evasion x2 (1): The focus of this monster... Stack Crit Chance to get amazingly high dodge. Has 3 Crit Chance Ups in kit and a point of regular Dodging to help more. It's hard to increase both Chance and Damage in significant amounts, though.

Feast (4): Good combos with bleed that you don't have a great way to apply... except

Bleed x2 (1): The other focus of this monster, Crit Chance means adding a LOT of extra bleeds.

Giantsbane x2 (4)

Summary: There's a couple of great builds here. The first is to stack pure Crit Chance until you Dodge everything, the second is to capitalize on a mix of crit chance and crit damage to get lots of Bleed stacks.

Here's the thing though, first impression would be to Dark Shift to apply lots of bleeds... Nightwings Light Shift has heal charging. While not a rare skill by itself, Nightwing has a lot of tangential heals (feast, lifesteal, healing shield, assistance+critical mass) and Charging Shield. It's not uncommon to generate a full shield just from your passive damage... although Beetloid is the better user of this strategy, Nightwing is the dodgier and stronger attacker while doing it and the only one with both Heal Charging and Charging Shield at the same time. Both shifts have the same attack power and both are valid.

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23 Toxiquus

Ohhhhhh, Toxic Seahorse! I GET IT!!!

Slime Volley (3)
Apprentice (3)

Has Overcast x2, it's not rare though but notable since Toxiquus has very poor Mana stat so it's hard to use.

UA Plague (3): Shared with Blob and Stolby

UA Improved Sidekick (4): Has Apprentice to boost it

Polluted Water (1): Unique to Toxiquus. Aquatic family aren't particularly debuff focused, but 8% is still a nice one-off

Mana Symbiosis x2 (1): An unusual skill, but helps with your poor Mana stat

Buffing Heal x2 (1): The only bearer of double Buffing Heal. Turns the Apprentice spell into practically a full heal

Center of Mass x2 (2): Shared with Darnation. Uncertain if this is affected by buffing heal procs via multi-target Apprentice or not, but it's still a damage boost to all AoEs... and having 2 of them means a LOT of added damage.

Summary: A kinda weird creature. Could be the dedicated healer on a poison team and Center of Mass x2 combined with Heal Shield and other support skills greatly offsets the relatively low power of heal wave. Best application of poison is probably the Hades ultimate which is a LOT more effective than the relatively anemic Slime Volley. Lack of stacking passives means favouring shorter battles. Dark Shift Debuff Mastery seems wasteful, and can't really capitalize on Heal Charging so is a fair user of Grey Pearl.

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24 Beetloid

This thing is like stepping on a thumbtack. If you are thicc you won't even notice, but if you are soft it's gunna sting

Light Leadership (4)
Charge Beam (4)
Enlighten (2): Shared with only Glowfly
Enchantment (2): Shared only with Vertraag

Note: If you count Charge Beam and Arcane Shield the Beetloid has 4 skills that add Sorcery... (5 with ultimate full potential). Also has Multi-Sorcery :D

UA Energize (3): Shared with Spectral Eagle and Shockhopper
Critical Sorcery (2): Shared with Megataur, but Beetloid is aaaall about the Sorcery

Charge Amplifier (5): Uncommon, but has strong support for it

UA Chain Lightning (2): Shared with Crackle Knight

Combo Shielding x2 (4): Has the most defense of combo shielders, but there are stronger

Shared Sorcery (4): hey, more sorcery support

Magic Attack (2): Shared with Sycophantom. While not great, it's FREE and adding a random buff can help in a pinch

Glare (2): Shared with Sizzle Knight. Beetloid likes to be attacked making this good support.

Summary: SORCERY, Beetloid applies Sorcery and does it well. Moreover, is one of the best chip-damage tanks in the game... as with the initial quote, you encounter a Charge Team Beetloid Tank in the Champion Keeper fight and if you don't have enough damage to get passed Beetloids defense they'll actually GAIN health from your attack... that's INSANITY. Both shifts favor different kinds of Charge tanking. Light Leadership lets you focus on tanking while you add massive charge stacks to allies (like Promethean) while Dark Mana Conflux lets you gain a lot more stacks. However, since Beetloid lacks a consistent nuke he's better off tanking and passing charge stacks on to your allies.

And oh boy does Beetloid do that well. I'm not kidding when I say if you only have low-power attacks you'll end up HEALING Beetloid when you attack them due to the synergy between Charging Shield and Revenge. Mana Symbiosis and Transfusion amping each other, Glare penalizing nukers, Buff Charging and Sheltered... It's good.

Monsters 25~30

25 Druid Oak

This thing is a freak when shifted, gaining massive amounts of stats compared to other rmonsters.

Lifechannel (2): Shared with Vasuki and infinitely better at applying it (Vasuki is for fight!)

Force of Nature (4)
Gift of Life (4)

Note: While not individually rare, has both Life and Mana Overload AND Stability for additional stats

Note: Bears both Multi-regeneration and multi-weakness

UA Demotivate (4)
UA Elemental Break (3): Shared with Ninki Nanka and Darnation
UA Restoration (3): Shared with Ninki Nanka and Ornithcopter
Shared Regeneration (3): Shared with Grummy and G'rulu

Nature's Wrath (1): Unique to Druid Oak, boosts Nature teams damage by 15%. Nature contains the high scaling Mega Rock as well as the premium wallbreaker Mogwai

Summary: All synergy is based around applying Weakness to reduce incoming damage. Renumerate, Weaken, Warlock Healing, and Hexing Support all assist in this; not Weakening Crush though due to not having many physical skills. Furthermore, as one of the Shared Regeneration users... has access to Soul Beam which is also a good attack. Has Health Focus and a fair lot of health so both shifts can help in all roles, with Curse Chain probably being more useful overall due to gaining a massive 12 Health rating. However, Lightshift goes from 2 attack/magic to 8... making them, well, actually ok at fighting. Due to absolutely abysmal Defense stat, but massive HP, makes better use of shield support - especially those that add percentile shields when attacking.

Note: Elemental Break should not be underestimated since it's more like 20% increased damage than just 10 (depending on different skills)

However, due to poor attacks (other than Soul Beam) and awkward stats the goal should be to just apply lots of weakness and then spam Life Wave and/or Soul Beam (which will be greatly boosted by your massive health stat). An Overheal teammate can assist in this. But most of Druid Oaks shared rare skills are shared with Ninki Nanka who also has Overheal as well as almost all other other good skills and better stats. Overall Druid Oak is a difficult monster to warrant based on rare skills alone.

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26 Magmamoth

Sonic Assault (3)

Critical Flames (1): Fire attacks have 10% more crit chance... unique to Magmamoth

UA Fuel (4): Shared with Steam Golem (which I think I forgot), Skorch and Goblin Pilot
Deathblow (5)

Summary: While it doesn't have much unique, it has a cool trick where it can multi-burn with Fire Shield and gain charge stacks for "not attacking", and then have those burns give everyone more charge. Should be used on Charge+Burn teams, which is uncommon compared to Charge+Shock teams.

Focus on Sonic Assault which is a very powerful skill and can also apply Weakness. Shifts don't add much so is a valid Grey Pearl user. Has a fairly good base offensive statline but is very frail, needs tank support.

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27 Molebear

Never underestimate

Light Lifelink (3): Shared with Catzerker and Akhlut

Burrow (4): Strong attacks that also buff/debuff are valuable, but this is a regular tier. Claws or Fireclaws should be the main attack. Get Barrier elsewhere...

Gigadrill (4): Like here, Barrier AND Might and an amazing 600% damage profile

Critical Ground (2): Shared with Goblin King
Critical Defense x3 (1): Unique, even Critical Defense x2 is kinda rare and Molebear has x3! This should be the focus of the build.

Rampage (1): Unique to Molebear, Beasts have 10% more Crit Chance. Beast is a robust family that LOVES to have free crit, especially things like Mogwai, Catzerker and Ucan.

Hibernate (2): Shared with Sycophantom. Seemingly useless.... Sycophantom can use it via Magic Attack

Shared Barrier (1): Unique to Molebear. Also has multi-barrier so this guy can be a good tank via Burrow. Stacking it will take a while due to not having a dedicated support skill, but pretty much every action he does adds Barrier anyway (such as Defensive Presence)

Summary: Crit Tank. Most actions apply Barrier for free, but you have 3x Critical Defense and really should focus on stacking critical. Can attack with Burrow for Claws for added Barriers or Crit Damage as needed. Light Lifelink is rare, but Dark Relentless is largely useless on Molebear since, well, the stat gain from Light Shift alone is more than the savings from Relentless :V

Benefits from an ally with Overheal if planning on offence, but unshifted Grey Pearl is also acceptable. Stack them barriers, it's possible Molebear can get to the highest possible Damage Reduction in the game.

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28 Glowfly

Enlighten (2): Shared with Beetloid
Rejuvenate (2): Shared with Kongamato

Dodging x2 (4): Helps with defense

Note: Glowfly is one of the 2x Overcast users, and has the mana to support it, but it's a hard choice due to the power of two rare support skills which aren't affected by it

Insect Charge (1): Insects start combat with 8 charges, a great opening salvo. Insects aren't the most nukey group - but it does add up

UA Forceful Sorcery (3): Shared with Elderjel and Thanatos

Blinding Sunlight (3): Shared with Sizzle Knight and Glowdra

Summary: Has the most mana of all Mana Shielders, has Mana Focus and Mana Stability. Like Tengu you want to stack Mana. Unlike Tengu this guy doesn't have a major nuke. Instead, you have a fair hybrid still in Solar Rays/Burst which can let you add both fire and shock quickly. Oh, and you have multi-shock. Electrify+Blinding Sunlight+Burning Heat is the bread and butter combo, however you also have 2 rare support buffs... the more important one being Enlighten to add Sorcery which gives 10% armour penetration to everyone via Forceful Sorcery.

While frail, can maintain shields easily and fill a number of roles. While Light Shift Buff Mastery is preferable to Dark Mana Conflux, both are valid and a Turn 2 Ultimate Solar Blaze can set up the rest of your battle

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29 Goblin Brute

Ultra Speed (4): Forgot to mention this with Vaero, but this is one of the better buffing ultimates being Shroud+Sidekick

Mega Protect (4): Crackle Knight also has this. Goblin Brute is a real tank, though

Note: Has Defense Focus and Mana Focus, but you can't really stack both. Low base stats is remedied by having a lot of stat unlocks (Defense x4 and Health x5)

Goblin Defense (1): Every Goblin has a unique aura, this one is 10% damage reduction

Protected Offense x2 (2): Shared with Kame, 20% more damage if shielded

UA Improved Barrier (3): Shared with Crystal Snail and Salahammer

Combo Shielding x3 (2): Shared with Diavola
Giantsbane x2 (4)

Reflect (4): Shared with Crystal Snail, Thornish and Vodinoy

Healing Link (3): Shared with Caraglow and Elderjel

Summary: Pure tank power and one of the best Protect users. Self-shielding with protect can add up to 3 shields to allies with Combo Shielding. Reflect is a rare skill that can add a fair lot of damage. Light Shift is preferred over Non-shifted due1 to a dedicated extra accessory being stronger than Grey Pearl, but Dual Wield can make use of off-hand Restoring Wand or Hexing Wand (or both) to get offensive with your Shields

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30 Goblin Hood

Icy Shots (2): Shared with Mimic
Pyro Cracker (2): Shared with Worm

Dexterity (3): Shared with Specter and Koi

Goblin Offense (1): Goblins get 10% more damage

UA Shatter (4)

Antipode (2): Shared with Imori
Chilling Cold (4)

Summary: Has improved Glory and multi-burn and multi-chill, as well as a good assortment of attack effects. Can be a mainstay to any team. Improved Glory is strictly superior to the non-existent multi-glory, but also benefits from it. Antipode is a strong added hit, but difficult to get multiples off. Self sufficient on both burn and chill teams, or even Fatal Upkeep Congeal teams. Has 2 points of Gold Sense so can be teamed with Aurumtail for some shenanigans. Buff Catalyst and Glory is a priority to get damage up.

Light Shift is strictly better since Shadow Proc is only a +1

Monsters 31~36

31 Goblin Warlock

Combocast (3): Shared with Mega Rock and Dodo

Occult Power (2): Shared with Arachlich - a very powerful buffing tool for Goblin or Occult teams. Occult monsters contain creatures with a lot of max HP and enjoy buffs, especially those that have Enlightened to share the wealth (Aezer)

Goblin Recovery (1): Goblins get +15% mana regen

Magic Penetration (3): Shared with Mogwai and Shockhopper, Mage monsters ignore 15% defense. Stacks, making Goblin Warlock a good support for Mogwai.

Mentor (3): Shared with Caraglow and Stolby. Combos with Occult Power to add a 5th buff.

Summary: Loves to heal, loves to attack. Can do both? Yes. Hex and Hexing Support means you are always adding extra debuffs no matter what you do. Purify grants stack relief. Works well on Necromancy teams, Age teams, poison teams, Goblin/Occult themed teams, and can even be a great healer with no synergy whatsoever due to getting to multi-poison for free. Toxic Reaction favours having a reliable Shock users to open the combo, since Goblin Warlock doesn't want to be using the weaker "Thunderstorm" unless specifically teamed up with Crackle Knight who would LOVE to have poison support on his shocks.

Light Shift tends to be better since Warlock doesn't have a major nuke for use with Mana Conflux, and the stat gains outweigh Grey Pearl. Since there will be a lot of passive debuffs your allies will be getting a small number of consistent charge stacks.

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32 Goblin King

Jewel Blast (3): Shared with Spectral Lion and Crystal Snail

Note: Has 3 Focus skills, making the King a good companion for monsters with Armory type skills (which affect Warriors, which King is one). Also has Health and Mana Overload, further amping these stat passives.

Goblin Provisions (1): Goblins heal 10% Max HP at start of turn

Heroism x2 (2): Shared with Mad Lord

Summary: Heroism x2 should be the focus due to also having Improved Assault. Might, Sorcery and Glory stacking is a valid strategy and makes the entire team strong. Can be the support, casting Power to beef up a nuker like Brawlish or the main damage dealer due to gaining absurd amounts of damage from itemization and buffs.

Loves to have teammates that spam stackable buffs. Both Shifts are ok, but weapons like Hexing, Thorn and Abyssal are better elsewhere and you're unlikely to have multiples of them. Light Eternal Heart combos well with your Overload stats. Users of Dark Blacksmithing also help.

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33 Raduga

Gemstone Rain (4)
Charge Beam (4)

Note: Has all 4 Magic Attacks that grant a buff on attack making Raduga kinda like the anti-Mad Eye

Ice Breath (4)

Mana Stability x2 (3): Shared with Lava Blob and Elderjel has x3, also has Mana Focus.

Double Impact x2 (2): Shared with Ninki Nanka. Raduga is the better user of it due to having consistent access to all elements.

Critical Boon x2 (1): The only monster with 2 stacks. Not sure if it applies a buff 100% of the time, or if it's 50% chance at a buff twice.

Critical Exploit (4)
Exploit (4)

Summary: Nothing really special, although the Rainbow defense type is very rare. Light Buff Mastery adds up on Age teams due to every single attack adding a random buff. Dark Critical Apex can get to more damage, but Raguda lacks any skills that benefit from increases critical chance other than Critical Boon... which can be a basis for a build since a lot of attacks will be thrown around willy nilly. Unfortunately, you can't have Critical Boon and Buff Mastery at the same time so you have to decide between double stacks on yourself, or random single buffs for everyone. A good teammate with Goblin King since random buffs boost Heroism and Raguda also has Heroic Party

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34 Ice Blob

Apprentice (3): Shared with Toxiquus and Goblin Miner
Restoring Shield (3): Shared with Changling and Diavola
Ice Shield (2): Shared with Frosty

Defense Overload x2 (4): Also has Defense Focus. Both shifts add the same amount of defense, but Ice Blob also has 4 Defense stat skills. Difficult to capitalize on but can be done.

UA Sub Zero (3): Shared by Silvaero and Shockhopper, valuable for chill teams
UA Improved Sidekick (4)
UA Congeal (5)

Note: Only Frosty, Ice Blob and Shockhopper bear both multi-chill and Deep Freeze to combo with it

Icy Skin (3): Shared with Yowie and Crystal Snail

Summary: While there's little unique, is a solid option on any Chill team. However, Fatal Upkeep monsters who also have Congeal such as Specter and Yowie might be stronger as standalones, but Ice Blob is better as the Chill support on a non-chill team, such as with Vasuki or Oculus who would both love to get boosted by Sub Zero.

Also has some useful mundane skills like Protector and Anti-Curse. Can also team up with Vasuki on a Non-Attack Nuke team with Brawlish where Vasuki uses Fire Shield, Ice Blob uses Ice Shield and then Brawlish uses Heavy Punch to do 40k damage

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35 Caraglow

Has 1 attack :V

Riot (2): Riot is a unique buff that gives both Glory and Might, great for physical teams. Shared with Thanatos.

Magic Proc x2 (3): Shared with Blob and Sycophantom

Healing Link (3): Shared with Goblin Brute and Elderjel
Mentor (3): Shared with Goblin Warlock and Stolby

Note: Has Critical Mass, Critical Boon, and Critical Healing

Summary: Has a plethora of generic support skills and can fit in a lot of places. Improved Glory can increase damage by a lot when it works. Has a fair lot of Critical support so can Dark Shift for Critical Apex; While Claws only has 4 hits, heal, restore, and healing wave can all get lots of criticals to add lots of buffs with Combo Buffing on top of that.

While choice of offence is limited to Claws (and Shred), having Lifesteal means heals, means critical heals means more buffs. Dark Shift is preferred for Critical Apex even when healing due to better statline, but Light Shift can still be the dedicated healer on a Charge focused team

Also has a few good mundane buffs like Empower, Mana Upkeep and Mass Protector

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36 Aurumtail

The meme machine

As a standalone, Light Shift is preferred for the extra item - but on a team of 3 Aurumtail, 3 Dark all the way.

Gemstone Rain(4)
Shield Burst (4)

Has Ion Beam :b

Note: One of the 2x Overcast users, has the mana regeneration and arcane shield to support it as well as mana upkeep

Mana Upkeep x2 (4)

UA Glitter (1): The main reason to use Aurumtail. Glitter can get very powerful on a team of 3 Aurumtails due to have 12 stacks of Goldsense, however a one-off Aurumtail can still find value on any number of teams which just their personal 4-stack. Goldsense is available on a few other monsters as well, such as Mimic and Goblin Hood having 2 each; Beetloid loves damage reduction.

Summary: Three Dark Aurumtails with high end equipment is difficult to destroy, despite having only one really valid attack... Shield Burst. Luckily Shield Burst is an amazingly strong attack and Aurumtail has Arcane Shield which is not only one of the best shields, it adds sorcery for more damage. Can find value with just their personal Glitter, where the choice between Light or Dark is more of a Choice.

A good teammate with Beetloid which loves having added shield and damage reduction. Any magical nuker that doesn't rely on debuffs will enjoy Sorcery and overall damage amplification. Debuffers on the other hand will enjoy the defensive options. Aurumtail also has 2x Transfusion and a giant mana pool, so Shield Break will usually fully generate a new shield just under its own damage.

Oh, also has Cleanse... Plus Soul Beam is one of the better combo builders.

Monsters 37~44

37 Megataur

Freezing Punches (4)

Hybrid Mastery x2 (1): The only monster with 2 levels of Hybrid mastery

Protector x2 (2): Shared with Minitaur. Good defensive utility.

UA Mana Bolster (3): Shared with Magmapillar and Diavola. Sustain buff applies both Regeneration and Barrier

UA Shield Crush (3): Shared with Darnation and Thanatos for cracking shields

Critical Sorcery (2): Shared with Beetloid.

Note: Multi-Might and Multi-Sorcery available, shared with Draconov and Thanatos. However, Megataur doesn't have any way to apply Might or Sorcery easily.

Stampede (1): Megataur exclusive. Dubious utility since the best combo enders in the beast class need more front end buffing (Catzerker and Ucan)

Note: Has Brawler+Sorcerer for applying Might and Sorcery, shared with Dracogran - however, Megataur also has Shared Might and Shared Sorcery

Shared Might (3)
Shared Sorcery (4)


Summary: Rather niche. If you can exploit an enemy's Water or Earth weakness you can rapidly add might and sorcery to your party. If the enemy has no water or earth weakness Megataur becomes a healer via Life Wave and a strong base HP stat plus Health Focus.

General lack of synergy makes Megataur a useful tool where it's needed

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38 Mogwai

The Wallbreaker

Snowball Toss (1): Unique attack, it's basically water version of Heavy Punch
Ice Bolt (3): shared with Arachlich and Akhlut
Avalanche (2): shared with Dracozul
Spectral Cannon (3): shared with Specter and Lava Blob

Teamplay (4)

Ice Breath (4)
Ultra Speed (4)
Gravity (4)

Critical Defense x2 (5): Crit Damage focus is available

Critical Liquid (3): Shared with Akhlut and Ucan

UA Shatter (4)

Magic Penetration (3): Shared with Goblin Warlock and Shockhopper

Single Strike (2): Shared with Brawlish

Summary: So what makes Mogwai the premier wall breaker? Well, there are others that have Armour Bypass (even 2 points of it) which Mogwai lacks, but Mogwai has Magic Penetration and Spectral Cannon - combined a lot more armour is ignored than others can do with Tackle. Furthermore there are a lot of passives that boost one-off nukes, of which Mogwai has a few; Severe Hit+Precision+First Impact+Single Strike+Sure Strike can make Mogwai crush for 30k~50k damage if buffed up earlier, preferably with Might and Sidekick (Joust is only available on Dodo)

While Snowball Toss and Ice Bolt are both mighty finishers, Spectral Cannon provides a very stable alternate which is also a 1-hit finisher for use with Single Strike.

Note: The Single Strike gimmick is better done by Brawlish, however Mogwai is more stable overall not having to rely on it.

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39 Crystal Snail

Light Shift - doesn't benefit much from crits and the extra health is desperately needed. Curse Breaker is just a bonus.

Gemstone Rain (4)
Jewel Blast (3)

Shieldcast (3): Shared with Rocky and Ornithopter

UA Improved Barrier (3): Shared with Goblin Brute and Salahammer
UA Channeling Balance (5)

Icy Skin (3): Shared with Yowie and Ice Blob

Reflect (4): Shared with Goblin Brute, Thornish and Vodinoy
Spiky Defense (4): Shared with Kame, Thornish and Goblin Miner

Poisoning Soil (1): Exclusive skill. Earth attacks can randomly apply poison

Summary: Relies on strong defensive statline and percentile damage reduction. One of the rare Reflect users, but weirdly the worst user of it. Has several counter-attack skills in Icy Skin+Poison Glands+Spiky Defense, as well as tanking support in Protect. I think Goblin Brute might be better overall in this role, but Crystal Snail does have a tankier stat line as well as the rare Physical Resistance.

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40 Akhlut

The hardst to spelll mnoster

Both shifts are rare and valuable

Ice Bolt (3)
Bite (4)
Ice Spear Volley (4)
Templar (2): Shared with Mimic

Critical Liquid (3)
Water Affinity (5)

Scent of Blood (4)
Mana Upkeep x2 (4)

Aquatic Predator (1): Exclusive aura. Aquatics of all types enjoy critical effects
Duality (3): Shared with Draconov and Thanatos

Precision x2 (2): Shared with Catzerker, enjoy your nuke having am almost guaranteed crit

Summary: Can be an entire team focus. Light versions with Lifelink make for great finishers where their uber-crit will heal the whole team to full (Overheal ally to turn excess into shields). Dark versions are great combo starters and can apply chill and bleed to high levels. As a Bleed Out user there's synergy with any other attacker that provides high quality bleed hits....

...Which happens to be the other Akhlut. Yes! A Team of a light and dark Akhlut greatly compliment each other. The dark one can build the combo and keep high quality bleeds up while the light one is a great combo finisher with Ice Bolt and Bite. Since you'd have 2 layers of multi-chill, a bleeder with congeal would be good... such as Imori.

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41 Blade Widow

The Toe Cutter

Light Charged up is relatively rare, only on Spectral Eagle and Goblin Pilot... but kinda hard to use for Blade Widow. Loves Dual Wield.

Note: Has Crit Chance Focus as well as 2 Crit Damage nodes. Crit chance compliments adding bleed effects via Slash or Long Slash

Scent of Blood (4): Shared with Akhlut, Vodinoy and Diavola... 3 bosses

Bounty x2 (1): Gets 4 buffs on kill, but that's dubious.

Brawn over Brains (3): Shared with Ucan and Brutus
Charged Start (4)


Summary: Brawn over Brains plus multimight means the Power spell is immediately 2 Might stacks. Charged Start can help front end damage, but Blade Widow really needs turn 1 support and to not attack until turn 2. Tricky to use effectively, but can crush once sufficiently buffed. Buff Charging further supports the buff turn 1, crush turn 2 plan. Thorn Tendril and FIshing Rod both valid items.

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42 Ninki

Support (4)

Note: Has Overcast x2 and the Mana to support it as well as Life Overload and Hybrid Mastery to boost. Even so, generally middling attack scores.

Regeneration Shield (3): Shared with Grummy and King Blob. Has Multi-Regeneration

UA Armour Crush (3): Shared with Mad Eye and Ucan.

Cascade x2 (2): Shared with Manticorb

Summary: Wants to stack Regeneration and has the abilities to do so. Magic attacks can also armour break, and debuffs add more regeneration. Both shifts are good here, but Overheal works well due to having strong heals on top of regeneration stacking. Magic Resistance is also nice

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43 Ninki Nanki

Same shifts as Ninki, both are good

Support (4)

Note: Doesn't have the best ultimates, but does have a good variety of elements to choose from

Life Overload x2 (4): Also has hybrid mastery.
UA Restoration (3): Shared with Druid Oak and Ornithopter
UA Elemental Break (3): Shared with Druid Oak and Darnation

Exploit x2 (maybe)

Summary: For the most part a straight upgrade to Ninki. Still based around stacking regeneration, however where Ninki adds shields the Ninki Nanki adds more damage. If you want regeneration as backup while doing damage - pick Ninki Nanki. If you want pure regeneration, pick Ninki.

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44 Vasuki

Ma Bae

Dark Shift preferred due to Curse Chain complimenting the excess poison+burn, but Light version had more power. Pick between power or debuff.

Lifechannel (2): Shared with Druid Oak.... but don't

UA Burning Desire (3): Shared with Magmapillar and Polterofen
UA Severe Upkeep (4): Shared with Magmapillar, Nautilid and Argiope
UA Poisoned Nerves (3): Shared with Fungi and Thornish
Acid Spit (2): Shared with Imori

Double Strike x3 (1): Double Strike is already rare, but Vasuki has 3 of them... the cornerstone of this monster

Summary: This creature is a destroyer. One of the better Tackle users and can also stack both poison and burn via Acid Spit, and can spread them thanks to Curse Chain. The Light version benefits from maximum HP, Life Overload and Life Stability to get more attack power - and is still a good debuffer, just can't spread it - being more useful for single-target.

Has access to Taunt, but don't - it's a trap. Vasuki doesn't want to be getting hit.

Monsters 45~50

45 Kame

Shield Burst (4): Does not have the magic skill to support it, but it's still powerful

Phalanx (3): Shared with Ucan and Draconov

Static x2 (2): Shared with Rainbow Blob. Having 2 stacks of static means your normal hits are pretty much as good as criticals, so no need to stack.

Note: Has Defense Overload and Defense Focus... so stacking defense seems intended. Has 7~9 base defense as well as 3 stat nodes.

Protected Offence x2 (2): Shared with Goblin Brute. Teams well with Goblin Brute as well

Carapace (1): Exclusive skill. Reptiles get 20% better heals and shields

Buffing Shield x2 (3): Shared with Magmapillar and Dracozul. Kame has the defense stat to back this up and be a dedicated buffer... but only has one buff.

Spiky Defense (4): Shared with Crystal Snail, Thornish and Goblin Miner

Summary: Should focus on Shielding via Protect to help absorb team damage thanks to a very tanky statline. Has 2 points of First Impact so Rank 2 Explosive Blast is actually better than Rank 3. Heavy punch can also make use of this and Kame does have the physical attack to support it.

Shield Burst should be saved as a backup as your only Magical attack and low magic stat, but since you have a good HP stat you can make a large shield, which makes a large shield burst, which is boosted by First Impact

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46 Sycophantom

Psychokinesis (2): Shared with Nautilid

Note: Has Neutral affinity to boost the very useful Shadow Grasp. Also has Health Focus and Life Overload and Life Stability.

Buff Celebration (3): Shared with Koi and Skorch
Exposed (3): Shared with Sizzle Knight and Draconoir
Trickster Spirit (2): Shared with Specter

Darken (4)
Hibernate (2): Shared with Molebear. The better user of it due to having Magic Attack (which is also boosted by Neutral Affinity)

Magic Attack (2): Shared with Beetloid.
Emergency Channel (3): Shared with Brawlish and Promethan
Charged Healing (2): Shared with Skorch

Summary: While the list above doesn't lend much to the imagination, there's lots of good combos with the mundane skills. Sycophantom wastes nothing while healing or buffing thanks to combos with Hexing Support and Meditation. Shadow Grasp is a very powerful skill and Syco here has lots of things to compliment it.

Sycophantom doesn't have many added hits so is good in the middle position as a combo extender. Has Cleanse, Breaking Spells and Darken to further debuff with any attack. Light Shift is preferred due to passive Barrier effects applying additional buffs. Can work on a Charge team due to being able to add small amounts easily, but pretty much only works with a Dark Slow Burn ally (Skorch, Promethean or Gryphonix) where you keep them buffed for Buff Celebration (shared by Skorch)

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47 Imori

Ice Spear Volley (4)

UA Congeal (5)
Feast (4)
Acid Spit (2): Shared with Vasuki
Antipode (2): Shared with Goblin Hood
Chilling Cold (4)
Critical Exploit (4)

Summary: Imori is a strange beast having access to several elements, but not much backup for them with the exception of Bleed, so consider pretty much only Fiery Stabs and Ice Spears. Imori needs a lot of Crit Chance items due to not having much critical support otherwise.

Has both burning heat and chilling cold, which help fuel mystify and are boosted by acid spit. Dark Imori can stack debuffs an extra point but isn't really a great mass debuffer - more intent on just Chill+Burn. If all you need is Chill+Burn and maybe a little poison then Imori is a good pick.

Imori works best as Chill+Burn support on a Bleed team, where you can Bleed with Fiery Stabs and Ice Spears, which in turn may apply Burn or Chill. Deep Wounds amps damage further.

Commenter Opinion: I didn't mean to imply he's only good on Bleed teams, only that bleed is what he doesn't get for free by just existing. No matter how you build you're still getting 3 poison and 3 burn with good chance at 2 chill outright.

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48 Qilin

Dragonskin (4)

Summary: Yup, that's it. So what's going on here? Well, Qilin may not have anything wholly unique, but has some rather unusual combinations. Has Elecrify+Cooling+Armor Shred+Hex+Cleanse+Mystify... this makes Qilin a rather impressive random debuffer when you don't need specific debuffs. Qilin also has a lot of Added Attack options making for great First Position combo starter.

As a combo starter you can't go wrong with humble TACKLE, being Qilin's strongest combo starter, although Blessed Strikes works well too. Light Qilin is the better version due to how many incidental debuffs you cause when starting combos, adding a lot of charge for your next attack. Teams well with combo extender debuffers like Mad Eye and Debuff based finishers like Troll, Kongamato, Goblin Pilot and Shockhopper

Ultimate Ball Lightning should be considered instead of a main Wind attack since those initial 8 attacks add a lot more combo and potential debuffs for your allies to work with.

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49 Sizzle Knight

The monster with a theme song

Defense Focus x2 (2): Shared with Crackle Knight. Also has Crit Chance Focus. 3 Focus skills, that's kinda a lot

UA Impactful Shock (3): Shared with Spectral Eagle and Mad Lord. Also has Multi-shock.
Exposed (3): Shared with Sycophantom and Draconoir
Weaponry (2): Shared with Minitaur. Basically the offensive half of Dark Shift Blacksmithing
Chain Reaction (2): Shared with Crackle Knight
Cleanse x2 (2): Shared with Argiope
Blinding Sunlight (3): Shared with Glowfly and Glowdra
Glare (2): Shared with Beetloid

Summary: Sizzle Knight is all about applying shock as quickly as possible and then incidentally blinding as a result of those shocks. Both shifts are good for this. Thuderstrike is your finisher once everyone is at 3+ shock stacks. Is also a mighty tank and benefits from Protection ability and Electric Field+Glare. Blinding Sunlight can add A LOT of blind, and Sizzle Knight is a lot sturdier than Glowfly and Glowdra.

Can be considered a staple - blind is very powerful and multi-shock can build combo very rapidly. Lightning Slash can add bleed, shock and blind by itself. Lightning Sphere can help add additional shocks and Cauldron can make sure they are more effective.

Crackle Knight and Beetloid are good teammates due to Chain Lightning spreading shocks around, and since Crackle Knight is already a strong shock supporter and provides Armory - the complimentary skill to Weaponry. Targoat and Salahammer both have Dark Blacksmithing and are Warriors to further boost your relevant equipment stats.

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50 Koi

Dexterity (3): Shared with Specter and Goblin Hood
Lifeline (3): Shared with Spectral Lion and Diavola

Mythic (3): Shared with Nightwing and Kanko

Mana Overload x2 (4): boosts damage somewhat, also has Mana Focus and hybrid mastery and Mana Stability. Seems to favour stacking Mana, but Koi does have good base Mana.

Buff Celebration (3): Shared with Sycophantom and Skorch. Koi might be the best user due to having access to a lot of support skills.

Charge Amplifier (5)
Mana Proc x3 (2): Shared with Glowdra. While Koi only has 3 added attacks, they are all the same type making it easier to amp up and it happens to be the same type as the stats Koi wants to stack.

Transfusion x2 (5)

Summary: Has multi-glory and a lot of overlapping support skills which also contain Glory. Buff Catalyst further boosts personal buffs and can gain Charge stacks from criticals, with Critical Boon adding more buffs. It's a nice little circle. Good to team up with someone who has Improved Glory... or Monk with their Combat Guard. Monk and Koi seem to be true teammates. Buff Celebration is also a good skill, but hard to use well... luckily Koi also has Charge Amplifier to make Charge support possible.

Light shift is probably better, since Shadow Proc isn't on any good combo-starter monsters - but the stats are up to you.

Monsters 51~55

51 Tanuki

Shielding Leaves (4)
Imitate (2): Shared with Changeling

Blessing (3): Shared with Spectral Wolf and Asura

Note: While Anti-Curse isn't that rare, Tanuki has Anti-Curse and Light Curse Resist so is pretty dang debuff resistant. Also has Antitoxins to remove more debuffs.

Empower x2 (1): The only monster with 2 layers of Empower
Jolly Spirit (3): Shared with Yowie and Skorch

Sheltered Nature (1): Exclusive Aura. Nature creatures start with a shield of 25% MaxHP... nothing special

Summary: Virtually immune to debuffs the Tanuki has a weird mix of passives that don't seem to favour any particular strategy other than Glory stacking. Tanuki might be the best Variety holder due to Imitate letting him use any skill......... unless that doesn't work like that. Has Mass Restore and Full Restore to further penalize debuffing teams.

Rainbow defense is useful here. Tanuki favours Earth attacks and Imitate can be kinda weird

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52 Kanko

Shroud (4)
Warcast (2): Shared with Worm

Mythic (3): Shared with Nightwing and Koi

Critical Defense x2 (5): Also has Crit Damage focus and critical consistency, seeming to favour Crit Damage. Also has 2 levels of Overcast and a huge mana pool to use with it for added damage. Can land very big critical hits.

Dodging x2 (4): Shared with Glowfly and Stolby, Worm has x3

UA Martial Prowess (3): Shared with Monk and Aazerach, has 2 levels of Dodge to help.

Summary: Warcast is rare, and Kanko has multi-might and multi-channel to boost it. Has Combo Buffing x2 to further boost buff actions and Heroic Party to compliment those buffs. Buff Catalyst and Buffing Restore boost buffs further.

For damage Precision, Center of Mass, and 2x Giantsbane combo very well with Kanko's AoE skills.

Both Shifts are ok. Dark might be slightly better.

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53 Dodo

Sonic Wave (3): Shared with Kongamato and Shockhopper

Joust (1): The only monster with joust, Sidekick+Might
Combocast (3): Shared with Goblin Warlock and Mega Rock, Channel+Sidekick

Note: Has helping hand, which also adds Sidekick. Also has multi-sidekick. Has Health Focus and 4 health nodes and good health basestat so can get to a rather high about of Max HP. Light Shift helps get a 4th accessory to boost defense higher

Supply x2 (1): Supply is a strong start of turn heal and Dodo has 2 of them.

Wildlife Conservation (1): Exclusive aura, birds and beasts take 10% less damage
UA Sensitivity (2): Shared with Fungi, weakened enemies take more damage
Channeling Balance (5): Not that rare, but gains Channel via Combocast.

Summary: Has a lot of ways to apply Sidekick and has Combo Buffing x2 to compliment adding more buffs. Has both Breaking Spells and Weakening Crush to add Armour Break and Weakness by alternating physical and magical abilities. Center of Mass boosts AoEs and Bolsters adds more and more and more buffs... Life Wave is a good heal boosted by Dodo's great HP stat and, well, every heal can also add Sidekick.

Seriously, this guy is ALL about Sidekick. Also has Taunt, which is kinda ok due to being beefy enough to take extra damage without having to be a tank outright. Both Shifts are ok.

Would like to be the Sidekick of a monster that benefits more from Sidekick, but there aren't any monsters that have multiple sidekick supports such as Cleansing Sidekick or Improved Sidekick at the same time. Buckler can be considered on your main fighter to gain another layer.

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54 Kongamato

Sonic Wave (3): Shared with Dodo and Shockhopper
Flamestrike (4)
Sonic Assault (3): Shared with Magmamoth and Shockhopper

Rejuvenate (2): Shared with Glowfly

Arcane Obliteration (3): Shared with Ornithopter and Aazerach

Notes: Has Hybrid Mastery and a rather high hybrid stat line.

UA Disoriented (2): Shared with Rocky

Prehistoric Screech (1): Exclusive Aura. Aerial and Reptile monsters deal more damage, and even more damage against Shields

UA Improved Regeneration (3): Shared with Spectral Lion and Magmapillar

Doublestrike (4): While only having 1 of them, it's a very powerful skill. Proliferate can boost weakness procs

Summary: While can open with Rejuvenate to setup for the rest of the battle, Kongamato has a very strong attack line and should be attacking... particularly with Sonic Wave and/or Sonic Assault. Has Weaken, Multiweaken and Armor Shred so can apply these debuffs pretty consistently while also having Weakening Crush for physical attacks.

The whole trick is to apply Weaken and Armour Break rapidly to gain buffs via Mystify. Dominance boosts damage, Heroic Party boosts damage and Disoriented can outright cripple enemies that already have some sort of hit penalty (like Worms). Both shifts are valid.

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55 Ucan

Neither shifts are particularly useful so can be a Grey Pearl user

Pinch (1): Exclusive attack, very powerful 2x265% statline and applies armour break

Water Surge (2): Shared with Thornish. Attacks that also buff are special and rare, and this one applies TWO buffs... both of them actually being good on Ucan.

Phalanx (3): Shared with Kame and Draconov

Water Allegiance (1): Exclusive bonus. Your neutral attacks become water type and you ignore water resistance. This means you don't need other elements, but you can end up in a pickle against enemies that are weak to neutral since you can no longer neutral. Also has Water Affinity and Critical Liquid to boost higher, as well as 2 focus skils in Crit Chance and Defense. Defense Overload also adds a little offense.

UA Armour Crush (3): Shared with Mad Eye and Ninki. Spreads armour break around, and his guy loves armour break

UA Weapon Break (3): Shared with Grummy and Aazerach

Defense Proc x3 (1): The only monster with 3x Defense Proc, further cementing stacking Defense.

Critical Break (1): Exclusive skill, the first critical of an attack adds amour break

Brawn over Brains (3): Shared with Blade Widow and Brutus

Shared Might (3): Shared with Minitaur and Megataur

Summary: An absolute offensive monster. Bears both MultiMight and MultiArmourBreak to absolutely devastate enemy walls... possibly even on par with Mogwai. Needs to be stacking defense to succeed, but one item can be Crit Chance related to make use of Crit Chance Focus. Since all your attacks are already water you enjoy 10% more crit outright plus an additional 20 from Precision... which favours strong singular hits; which is what Pinch kinda is. It's not as dedicated as something like Heavy Punch, but it is still a beefy 530% and always adds armour break

Water Surge is the perfect Gravy for this greased craeb... adding stackable Might and a little more damage reduction. Could cast Phalanx, but why buff alone when you can attack to buff?

While a little weak on the healing side, Restore plus Critical Heal does do a good job of removing debuffs in an emergency. Also has some slight Bleed team support with double stacks from Slash, or strong reliable bleeds from Pinch. Benefits from an ally with Broken Immunity or Elemental Break - although I'm not sure how Elemental Break interacts with Water Allegiance.

Monsters 56~60

56 Brawlish

Freezing Punches (4)
Punch Combo (4)
Burrow (4)

UA Shatter (4): Shared with Spectral Wolf, Goblin Hood and Mogwai

First Impact x4 (1): This is the skill dreams are made of. Multiplies that Heavy Punch damage by 2.

Single Strike (2): Shared with Mogwai

Emergency Channel (3): Shared with Sycophantom and Promethean

Summary: Brawlish has one job - Heavy Punch. He does so much damage that Berserk and Severe hit are virtually guaranteed. Also cannot be dodged thanks to Sure Strike, which increases crit chance somewhat along with Critical Freeze+Shatter. CRAAAAVES Glory, get Glory support going. Can concede some damage to use Blessed Strikes to buff self just fine, but if you want to capitalize on Single Strike he needs to go last after bring buffed twice.

Users of Ice Shield are good teammates since they can apply chill without counting as an attack. Also teams well with a dedicated offensive buffer like any of the numerous users of Full Offence. Single Strike is also valuable in Keeper Battles since your "one less action" is kinda a benefit to your opening Single Strike.

You don't need to build around Single Strike... it is good, but the 4x First Impact are more than enough to let you see amazing 40k critical hits. Regardless of how you use him he needs to be ending combos, not starting them. Has Mystify and Brawler, but it's hard to get benefit out of them. Same goes for Buffing Restore. Weakening Crush is unlikely to proc as well, but it won't be missed on this guy.

As for Shifts - both are valid, but I'd give it to Dual Wield for getting just a little more Crit and Attack in there. Also, while not the best source of bleed - can provide QUALITY bleeds for use with Dark Bleed Out - making Brawlish+Vodinoy+Akhlut a decent combo

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57 Thornish

Water Surge (2): Shared with Ucan. Great skill in general

Note: Life Stability grants defense from HP, has ok HP stat but 4 Health Plus nodes as well as 2 defense plus nodes.

Fish Scales (1): Exclusive Aura - When a fish is hit, apply a bleed. Pretty standard, combos well with Vodinoy and a source of Dark Bleed Out.

UA Poisoned Nerves (3): Shared with Fungi and Vasuki. Also has multi-poison

Spiky Defense (4): Shared with Crystal Snail, Kame and Goblin Miner
Revenge x2 (1): The only monster with 2 stacks of revenge, get charged
Poison Glands x2 (1): 2 stacks of poison glands doesn't even make sense

Reflect (4): Shared with Goblin Brute, Crystal Snail and Vodinoy. Thornish also has Taunt, but enjoys the team support with Vodinoy so can use defensive skills to protect whoever the 3rd monster is.

Recover x2 (1): The only monster with 2 tiers of Recover. Thornish has the max health to support this.

Disease Control x2 (1): The only monster with 2 tiers of Disease Control

Summary: While a little squishy on the first turn, once the debuffs are up this tank is unsinkable. Can fit in any number of teams as primary poisoner, tank, self-sufficient healer and overall nuisance. You'd wish Akhlut was a FIsh, but he's not... still, teams well with Vodinoy for Bleed support, which Akhlut can also benefit from as an Aquatic (if not a fish). Vodinoy+Thornish+Akhlut combo!

Also has a few mundane skills like Mass Protector that help with the tanking. Light Shift helps more via base stats, but Curse Chain can help if you only want to tank via incidental Taunt procs and want to focus more on damage.

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58 Nautilid

Charge Beam (4)
Whirlpool (2): Shared with Elderjel, good at removing debuffs since weak to debuffs.

Psychokinesis (2): Shared with Sycophantom

Note: passvies favour Defense stat

UA Age of Purification (2): Shared with Grummy, helps clean up harmful stacks
UA Severe Upkeep (4): Shared with Magmapillar, Vasuki and Argiope, but doesn't really have any way to use it well.

Trickster Buffing (2): Shared with King Blob... an extremely useful skill if you have debuff potency from an ally (such as from the Cauldron item) - moreso since you get buffed by attacking.

Copy Shield x2 (2): Shared with Manticorb. Only works via Arcane Shield on self though.
Brains over Brawn (2): Shared with Elderjel
Darken (4)

Summary: Charge Beam is the focus here, buffs from attacks are nice and you have multi-sorcery. And while there is some poison support in the passives, Nautilid can't compete with dedicated poisoners like Vasuki. Instead, use the very cool Shadow Grasp to absolutely cripple bosses.

Has Copy Shield x2 and multi-sorcery and arcane shield, making Nautilid a good user of arcane shield (which also debuffs due to Hexing Support). Also has Darken to add even more blind stacks. Brains over Brawn is dubious due to not having access to Might to convert into Sorcery, a buff that is already readily spammable here... so it's more of a bonus.

Dark Shift seems the way to go, even without many standard debuffs... it's better to bet on Toxin+Armor Shred+Electrify while casting Whirlpool or Shadowgrasp and just praying it works out. Cauldrons required. Dark Shroud is a fair ultimate here.

Has Debuff weakness so is kinda a debuff magnet - Whirlpool is really handy here.

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59 Silvaero

Teamplay (4)

UA Sub Zero (3): Shared with Ice Blob and Shock Hopper
UA Improved Sidekick (4): Shared with Spectral Wolf, Toxiquus and Ice Blob
Charge Amplifier (5): Strong enough to mention

Pecking Order (1): Exclusive Aura. Every attack by a bird has an extra hit. Lets bird teams build up a lot of combo. Unfortunately, Silvaero lacks other combo building skills other than Sidekick.

Summary: Aerial Strike is a great attack and has the passives to back it up. Pecking Order could be strong if Birds had a powerful combo ender or if they had more than trivial numbers of additional attacks outside of Sidekicks.. Has 2x Combo Buffing so Aerial Strike will add more buffs, and Charge as a result of those buffs, charges+bleed from criticals.

Both shifts are good. Cascade+Dark Critical Apex work well together. Light Holy Presence can help share the buffs from using Aerial Strike. Also has Heroism and Heroic Party to get more damage from buffs and even ignores a little defense.

Can work in a team of 3x Silvaero just fine, teams well with Griphonix. Changling can work as a position 1, building up combo for Silvaero who can extend that combo for someone else.

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60 Elderjel

Whirlpool (2): Shared with Nautilid, however Elderjel is resistant to buffs already

Critical Consistency x3 (2): Shared with Spectre.
Mana Stability x3 (1): Combined with Mana focus you can get a lot of defense out of your mana stat... and you NEED it due to having the worst base defense in the game at 1 bar.

Note: Crit Damage could be an option, but it's hard to stack alongside Max Mana which should be the focus.

Golden Age (2): Shared with Mega Rock
UA Forceful Sorcery (3): Shared with Glowfly and Thanatos
Magnetize (2): Shared with Crackle Knight
Blood Magic (2): Shared with Sutsune, combos with Deep Wounds
UA Stunned (2): Shared with Mad Eye

Brains over Brawn (2): Shared with Nautilid
Aeons (5): Notable due to high max HP
Healing Link (3): Shared with Goblin Brute and Caraglow

Mana Buffer? What's that?. (2): Shared with Manticorb... gain a shield equal to 300% of mana lost.

Summary: A weird HP tank with no defense. Magnetize can help keep shocked monsters off of you, and teamed with Crackle Knight you'd have Magnetize working from both ends (Crackle Knight wanting to get hit). However, defense CAN get rather high if you can get enough maximum mana.

Mana Buffer seems like it would scale well with Light Mana Donor, but it doesn't seem to. It could just be because the rather wimpy shield added gets destroyed rather quickly.

Still, Elderjel has 3 reliable elements and a small bit of synergy with a number of teams including Shock, Bleed, Shielding, Necromancy and Age. Kinda hard to pick a lane with it.

Monsters 61~64

61 Manticorb

Wizardry (3): Shared with Blob and Draconoir

Exploit Party (3): Shared with Dracozul and Rainbow Blob
Magic Barrier (2): Shared with Tengu

Cascade x2 (2): Shared with Ninki
Sorcerer (5): Notable for having other Sorcery support

Mana Buffer (2): Shared with Elderjel
Copy Shield x2 (2): Shared with Nautilid

Shared Sorcery (4): Shared with Beetloid, Megataur and Glowdra

Summary: Manticorb is an interesting creature. Kinda like an anti-version of Mad Eye, perhaps even a long distant cousin. Outright it has major Sorcery support so is good on magic focused teams, particularly those with a good mix of elements to choose from to make use of Exploit Party. Magic Barrier isn't really good enough to build a team around, and should just be considered a little front end safety.

However, there's some juiciness to be had here. Mana Buffer generates a personal shield based on how much mana you burn or lose (in the case of Mana Donor), and is helped by having Copy Shield x2. Burning your mana helps protect your team. Light Shift Mana Donor can help you burn more mana for more shields. Too bad that this game lacks a spell similar to "megamagic" that burns all your remaining Mana.

On the Dark side you have Critical Apex. A pair of Cascade buffs means your long combo chains are going to ramp up hard, especially those that have a chance of gaining bonus combos... which Manticorb does well. Manticorb lacks stackables like multi-chill or multi-shock, which could help with the 7 hit Freeze, but the big spell to use is Ultimtae Ion Beam. Manticorb has Hex and Bleed, so those 9 hits are going to ramp up fast in terms of crit chance and bonus damage. Altneratively, Cataclysm will almost always exploit a weakness to gain Sorcerer stacks for sharing. Manticorb also has useful added hits like Proliferate which can apply more than once per action.

Overall, Manticorb is one of the stronger position 1's for building combo for later nukers, but also can serve as a mana battery for hungrier teammates who have trouble keeping their mana up (like Vasuki). Light Shift should team up with heavy Overcast users like Glowdra or Polterofen while Dark Shift should have Cauldron support to build heavy combo chains. Without ultimates can still serve as a mini-mad eye who can spread shields around pretty quickly and would love Shield Burst finishers to capitalize on the combo build.

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62 Goblin Miner

Coal Toss (3): Shared with Salahammer and Polterofen
Burrow (4)
Lava Wave (3): Shared with Lava Blob and Polterofen

Apprentice (3): Shared with Toxiquus and Ice Blob

Goblin Smith (1): Exclusive Goblin aura, it's kinda like Dark Blacksmithing for goblins

UA Incinerate (4): Shared with Specter, Mad Eye and Rainbow Blob

Mystify x2 (2): Shared with Mad Lord
Spiky Defense (4): Shared with Crystal Snail, Kame and Thornish

Summary: Has multi-glory and multi-armour break, and incinerate can help convert burns into armour breaks. Of the monsters that use Heroism to get damage from buffs and skills like disease control to contain enemies, Goblin Miner sits in the middle where he can apply a lot of buffs and debuffs to benefit from weaker versions of both.

A middling defensive statline allows him to Taunt occasionally without risking overkill and can be backed up by Light Divine Shield while you stack Glory via Forge. Dark Debuff Mastery works very well, especially if you have a multi-burn ally to add more burns that you can turn into armour break. Make use of Debuff stacking to gain Buff stacking thanks to having 2 layers of Mystify. Burning Heat helps since your main burn skill, Coal Toss, isn't actually FIRE and your fire skills don't burn... but both fire skills are useful as Lava Wave is a decent AoE and Lava Rush is one of the premier wall breakers if the target is already burned.

Goblin Miner has some incidental Charge stack abilities, but it's kinda hard to work with. Has lots of buffing support and a singular buff... Glory. Basically Blazing Glory

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63 Salahammer

Coal Toss (3)

Glorycast (2): Shared with Yowie
Teamplay (4): Shared with Vaero, Mogwai and Silvaero

Legion (3): Shared with Draconov and Thanatos

Note: Has a lot of status nodes to work with as well as Crit Chance Focus and Health Focus on gear, which stacks nicely with Dark Blacksmithing. Has both Life Overload and Life Stability to get damage from Health and Hybrid Mastery to boost them.

UA Improved Barrier (3): Shared with Goblin Brute and Crystal Snail

Critical Buffs x2 (1): The only monster with 2 stacks of Critical Buffs

Summary: Salahammer is good for Heroism focused teams where he can stack a lot of buffs with combo buffing. Open with Legion to boost everyone's damage and defense, hope for some combo buffs that are nice and then gain Charge via Critical Buffs x2 and Buff Charging (Crit Chance helps)

Salahammer wants to buff early, but doesn't want to KEEP buffing... Use your initial buff and then start attacking. However, there's lots of monsters that have multi-buffs that they don't care to use on their own and Salahammer fits the niche of buffing on their behalf quite well. Light Shift lets you stack every buff an extra time, and Dark Blacksmithing scales very well with teams that have an Item Focus in their kit (such as Mimic). Either way Salahammer's base statline is very middle-road in every category which serves him well in the buffing role.

Can find a place on Charge teams due to generating a lot of personal charges by buffing the team, where he doesn't need to attack until Turn 3 or so while Charge allies do most of the front-end damage. Promethean and Beetloid for example.

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64 Lava Blob

Spectral Cannon (3): Shared with Specter and Mogwai

Mana Stability x2 (3): Shared with Raduga and Elderjel (who has 3).

Note: Lava Blob also has 2 layers of Critical Consistency that I feel are kinda wasted here. Has Overcast, Mana Overload and Mana Focus. Lava Blob has a terrible base defense stat so gaining Mana can very much increase it by several factors. Also has Critical Defense, so I guess "some" critical damage can help.

UA Wildfire (2): Shared with Goblin Pilot. This skill is the cornerstone of this monster's repertoire. Has Multi-burn and dominance to capitalize on it.

Note: Only has 2 additional hits, but they're both Mana Proc.

Initial Burn x2 (1): The only monster that burns twice

Summary: Burn! The ability to spread debuffs is good and fire is no exception. Lava Blob also has lots of ways to apply burns; In addition to outright starting with 2 burns (which can spread) you have attacks to add more, Kindle and Critical heat backed by Precision.

Once the target is sufficiently burned Lava Blob is an ok healer with Encapsulate... not the best, but it's available. Should instead shift over to using Cleansing Flame to remove enemy buffs. Combined with Buff Stealing (Aezer?) you can be adding crazy amounts of burn.

As for niche plays, while Lava Blob looks like a Magic user is actually a Hybrid. Has the rare Spectral Cannon but doesn't really need it thanks to Lava Rush filling the same role (except against Fire Resistant targets). Has a very strong mana pool to boost stats via Overload and Stability (and mana focus) as well as Overcast... so while Lava Blob is a good combo starter by adding multiple burns, is also a good combo finisher thanks to high stats overall and powerful nukes in the form of Explosion and Lava Rush.

Can find homes on multi-burn teams, but is strong enough to also be the sole burn supporter without focusing on it - such as with Vasuki, Mad Eye and Specter who love to apply generic debuffs. Both shifts are valid, but Dark has the edge in this case due to superior offensive statline and the +15% damage combos well with finishers like Explosion. So basically, Light Shift if being a combo starter and Dark Shift as a finisher

Monsters 65~69

65 Glowdra

Charge Beam (4)

Note: Has Overcast x2 and Mana Focus and 4 magic nodes. Multi Sorcery and Multi Shock. Also has Mana Proc x3 which is only shared with Koi

Initial Shock (4): Shared with Spectral Eagle, Glowfly and Shockhopper

Blinding Sunlight (3): Shared with Glowfly and Sizzle Knight
Shared Sorcery (4): Shared with Beetloid, Megataur and Manticorb

Summary: Little special here, but has a variety of good Sorcery and Shock related skills. Has electrify and burning heat, combined with blinding sunlight can add a lot of incidental debuffs - but kinda sorta wants to be sharing sorcery... but doesn't have a source of sorcery other than Charge Beam. So basically Glowdra is mostly about spamming Charge Beam and passing the buffs onto the team passively. The 3 Mana Procs seem to favour stacking Max Mana. Overcast x2 greatly boosts damage, and Glowdra does have the mana to support it.

Both light and dark shift can work, they have the same magic attack although the dark shift has more mana. Light Buff Mastery can let you get more sorceries off and could fit on a Heroism team with it, but like Salahammer instead of having 2 multi-buffs or Fungi/Troll with 2 multi-debuffs, Glowdra has a multi-buff and a multi-debuff and should work with that. Or, in other words, Glowdra is basically Lightning Salahammer.

Overcast x2 does favour Dark Mana Conflux to build incidental Charge stacks. Can serve a similar role as Beetloid thanks to being able to generate large Charging Shields and has incidental shock and blind. Beetloid is more defensive, Glowdra more offensive.

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66 Draconov

Phalanx (3): Shared with Kame and Ucan
Miracle (1): Exclusive ability? Adds Sorcery and Glory to party... weird

Legion (3): Shared with Salahammer and Thanatos

Notes: Has neutral affinity, hybrid master, health focus, mana focus, life/mana overload and life/mana stability. This guy is a BEAST of itemization... Dark Blacksmithing and Light Equipment Mastery compliment this.

Duality (3): Shared with Akhlut and Thanatos. Has both multi-might and multi-sorcery

Dragon Blood (1): Exclusive aura that lets Dragons regenerate every turn.

Note: Has 5 additional hits, which is a lot; and has combo buffing as well.

Summary: Some unique skills. The focus is the very VERY high item scaling, particularly for Health and Mana. Both shifts help this. Having 2 multi-buffs is good on Heroism teams and having a whopping 5 additional hits makes Draconov a great combo starter.

There's a little trouble since Draconov doesn't have an attack that also adds a buff, and the buffs he has aren't the same as his stacks... I mean, they are but they are on separate buffs. Draconov would really love to have the "Power" spell... which isn't that rare, but it's not really on much that Draconov would like to team with...... except perhaps Changeling. A team of Draconov, Vasuki/Imori and Changling would be able to buff and debuff with impunity. The Duality aura does help though, and he has the Legion ultimate.

That aside, Draconov has crazy high stats and valuable resistances. Light shift has more added stats, but Dark shift has Blacksmithing which works wonders on teams with multiple Focus stats.

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67 Dracogran

Base stats - the monster

May or may not have Lifechannel

Life Overload x2 (4): Also has Health Focus, 2 health nodes and 9* base health

Summary: Has combo buffing, but shouldn't be manually buffing - make use of having both Brawler+Sorcerer to punch some buffs onto your team. Dracogran has a LOT of stats as well as Light Equipment Mastery and Dark Blacksmithing to boost stats even higher, particularly health. Also has both Heroic Defense and Heroism and Improved Assault

Basically, The Dracogran has everything the Draconov wants and vice-versa so they make splendid teammates. Dracogran DOES have attacks that also apply buffs in the form of Heat Shimmer and Aerial Strike and powerful support from Cleansing Flames. A Team of Draconov, Dracogran and something like Darnation, Mega Rock or particularly Thanatos can get a LOT done.

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68 Asura

Punch Combo (4)

Blessing (3): Shared with Spectral Wolf and Tanuki.

Note: Has both Full Offense and Full Defense, and ultimate Full Potential and multi-sidekick and multi-glory

Demonic Theft (1): Exclusive aura, Occult Monsters steal buffs when they attack

Double Strike x2 (2): Double Strike has potential to be the best added hit and it's rare, Vasuki is the other with at least 2 (has 3)

Summary: Both Shifts are poopy so consider Grey Pearl if you don't think you'd benefit from Dark Dual Wield. However, if you put Asura in the middle of your team (position 2) he can buff buff buff buff buff BUFF BUFF BUFF. Seriously, has 2 multibuffs, helps occult monsters steal buffs, has access to 4 amazing buff skills, has an attack that also applies a buff (Blessed Strikes). Buff Catalyst, Assistance, Heroic Defense, and Meditation makes Asura the premier buff stacker

Additional hits are scant, but has 2 levels of Double Strike which can randomly cause amazing combos... however Asura really should be buffing. Neither shift adds significant stats so shift only for ability.

Also, Heroism teams are not quite as good as Dominance teams since Dominance teams have x2 in the form of Fungi and is an aura effect while the only x2 Heroes are Mad Lord and Goblin King and is NOT an aura, the aura form is Heroic Party and doesn't get up to x2 on anyone. Asura also lacks "Mentor" which would work well with his strong single target buffs... plus Dominance is already 3x stronger than Heroic Party.

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69 Skorch

Rare Dark Shift Slow Burn (3): Shared with Promethean and Gryphonix

Life Stability x2 (1): Health becomes defense. Also has Health Focus and Crit Chance Focus so could enjoy a Blacksmith teammate

Buff Celebration (3): Shared with Sycophantom and Koi

UA Fuel (4): Shared with Steam Golem, Magmamoth and Goblin Pilot

Jolly Spirit (3): Shared with Yowie and Tanuki

Armour Bypass x2 (2): Shared with Vaero

Charged Start (4): Shared with Spectral Eagle, Blade Widow and Promethean

Charged Healing (2): Shared with Sycophantom

Summary: Has multi-burn. Slow Burn is a very rare ability and Skorch can build a lot of Charges quickly thanks to getting charges from pretty much every action except getting struck. Enjoys added Crit Chance and has the focus for it, but would rather stack Max HP... so a singular Crit item should be enough.

Wants to spread burn quickly to go back to healing, luckily has Firestorm and/or Inferno to assist in this. Has 2 tiers of Armour Bypass so scales very well in the arena and can be your primary healer, with added synergy on Charge based teams... Beetloid+Promethean+Skorch can get to crazy levels of power, or you can take all 3 Slow Burners by switching Beetloid with Gryphonix.

Niche: Skorch is the only burn monster that benefits from Charge so is the best user of UA Fuel and should pretty much always be glued to Gryphonix and/or Promethean in general. However, Skorch doesn't NEED to rely on Charge and can generate random buffs with critical boon and critical buffs with critical healing... being a more offensive version of Salahammer

Monsters 70~73

70 Stolby

Gemstone Rain (4)
Dodging x2 (4)

Note: Has both Mana Stability and Overload, but no focus to stack it. Has Debuff Resistance and Anti-curse so can act like Tanuki as a debuff tank. Also has a ton of different heal spells that also remove debuffs.

UA Mana Syphon (1): Hey, an exclusive aura that is also a unique aura... that's kinda unusual in itself. Poison causes allies to generate mana... this is not that good of an effect, but also has multi-poison so it might add up.

UA Plague (3): Shared with Blob and Toxiquus. Stolby loves the poison
UA Corrosion (2): Shared with Blob.

Summary: Corrosion stacks amazingly well with Fatal Upkeep, especially where poisons can be added, stacked and spread and Stolby does all 3. Teams well with Vasuki/Imori (Acid Spit) or any of the Fatal Upkeep users (Specter, Mad Eye, Vasuki again, Oculus, Yowie) or any Congeal user (Specter, Imori, Yowie). Corrision also increases Shock damage, which Fatal Upkeep doesn't.

Has Proliferate which can lead to additional hits, but isn't as good at combo building as other users of it. Can rely on Toxin+Breaking Spells to add debuffs while turning around and healing with Mentor+Bolster to add multiple free buffs (Mentor works with Arcane Shield)

Dark Shift should be the main focus, Stolby is already rather tanky due to having good resistances and statline and doesn't really gain much from Light Shift stats. Dark Overheal, on the other hand, can greatly extend the lives of your team - especially when you have as many quality heals as Stolby does.

Can be considered the Poison version of Skorch, trading Charge for Armour Break. Works well on teams that want to stack lots of poison, such as Dominance teams (with Fungi, for example)

Niche Combo: Generates Mana from poison, which isn't that good on its own, but thanks to Transfusion you heal when you gain mana. Unfortunately there's no other monsters with both transfusion and multi-poison... if there was, then Stolby's passive plus Dark Overheal would stack up nicely.

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71 Ornithopter

0/1 Flying; Artifact Creature

Arcane Diffusion (3): Shared with Aazerach and Vertraag

Shieldcast (3): Shared with Rocky and Crystal Snail

Arcane Obliteration (3): Shared with Kongamato and Aazerach

Wind Allegiance (1): Unique skill, although Ucan has the water version of it. Converts your neutral attacks into wind and lets you bypass wind resistance. Excellent in almost all situations.

Critical Current (1): Increases those wind attacks by 10%

Punishment (1): Exclusive aura. When you remove a buff from an enemy, chance at added hit. BTW: Ornithcopter shreds buffs rather easily

Tailwind (1): Exclusive Aura. Aerial monsters have 7% more crit chance

Combo Buffing x3 (1): Wowzers!

Summary: Has multi-sidekick. Has the very powerful Arcane Diffusion spell, which is converted to wind and then boosted by passives. Chilling wind is the only standard debuff skill otherwise. Is also a uniquely good user of Arcane Barrage ultimate which is an extremely good combo builder and then applies a massive shield to self.

Copter's defense is high, but health is low so shields should be easy to maintain - particularly passive shields. Dodging synergizes well with Tailwind and you can form a massive dodge train with Nightwing and one of the Martial Prowess monsters like Monk, Kanko or Aazerach. This stat line also makes Copter kinda immune to poison and burn damage. Shocking Current is always in effect since all attacks are wind.

Punishment is a strong enough aura to build a team around, harmed only by when the enemy doesn't use buffs ever. In addition to having a mass dispel, has cleanse. As for buffing - Ornithcopter has THREE Combo Buffing... also has a lot of passives that provide random buffs like Critical Boon, Critical Mass, Critical Buffs. And luckily, also generates passive shielding thanks to Charging Shield, Mana Shielding, and Copy Shield.

Neither shift is particularly exceptional and both are Charge focused. Offensive stats are pitifully low so focus on being an absolutely exceptional buffer.

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72 Polterofen

Coal Toss (3)
Lava Wave (3)
Dragonskin (4)

Note: Has Overcast x2 to help with damage, and a really high mana pool along with imrpoved mana regen and mana focus.

UA Burning Desire (3): Shared with Magmapillar and Vasuki. Has Shield Aura and multi-burn to support it.

Volatile Shield (2): Shared with Goblin Pilot... real talk; I didn't know this skill existed.

Mana Charging x2 (1): Only 5 monsters have Mana Charging at all, and Polterofen has 2 of them.

Summary: A very square statline makes usage kinda a mystery... however, this monster loves to generate mana. When you generate mana you gain charges, and you gain a shield when you gain a charge. Burning Desire and Shield Aura further fuel the shield, sheltered protects the team even if you only have a tiny shield. Also can apply burn really easily thanks to Burning Heat and Kindle.
Two layers of transfusion heals a lot, which then becomes more shield! Defensive Presence is a free buff every turn, which turns into more shield.

So, what's with all the passive shielding? Well, Volatile Shield. it's basically like casting a slightly weaker version of Shield Break... FOR FREE!!! As such, I must recommend the Light Shift version unless making a full Blacksmith team. Teams up well with other passive shielders like Aurumtail and Beetloid. Stack Mana Regeneration to generate tons and tons of extra Charges.

Hard to tell what monster generates the most passive shields... Beetloid is certainly up there, but I might have to give it to Polterofen. BTW: Is also a powerhouse thanks to 2 layers of Overcast to help drain that mana (so you can regenerate it). Can also support Single Strike teams with things like Brawlish since you can apply Burn without attacking via Fire Shield.

Oh, has multi-barrier.... gravy.

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73 Oculus

Cute

Light Shift Leadership (4): Shared with Beetloid, Targoat and Spinner

Sticky Threads (2): Shared with Argiope
Sticky Web (3): Shared with Argiope and Spinner

Note: Has defense focus and static, but not much for extra stats. Also has proliferate to build combo.

Intelligent Swarm (1): Insects and Constructs gain a charge when they buff or debuff. Good combos to be had. BTW: Beetloid is both Insect and Construct

Summary: Not much for rare abilities, but this thing should never be underestimated. Has Hex and Ion Beam - a dangerous combination. Will almost always have full shield thanks to Saboteur, will gain random buffs from hex, kindle and electrify debuffing. Toxic Reaction can convert some shock into free poison, has fatal upkeep to ramp that damage up even higher.... and doesn't even need support to do it.

Both shifts are good, but need to be considered carefully. Light Leadership can let you build charge for your allies... but the only charge building skill Oculus has is Meditation - this kinda forces Oculus to be a healer and/or tank, but doesn't really have the max HP to support it without shields; luckily has good strong shields. Dark Shift is preferred since Debuff Mastery compliments Hexing, Ion Beam and all the random debuffs you'll be adding.

If you are not interested in debuff stacking, you have Sticky Threads and Sticky Web for Tether support, which absolutely cripples bosses. Once you get to like 5+ stacks of tether the target can't really do anything any more... they are already dead. It's so incredibly difficult to remove large stacks of tether as well, luckily Oculus has Purify so can be a good counter to other Stack users.

Monsters 74~78

74 Mimic

Rare shift Mana Potential (3): Shared with Spectral Toad and Vertraag

Icy Shots (2): Shared with Goblin Hood
Templar (2): Shared with Akhlut. Especially useful here since Mimic is a mighty attacker and weak only to magic.

Ring Focus (1): The only one. Focus skills help plan your monsters, and Ring Focus might be the strongest one at a massive +80%. Rings are also a good way to stack a singular stat.

Note: Has a fair lot of stat nodes including 3 of each crit, crit damage, health and mana. Critical Defense reduces damage and has 2 layers of Critical Consistency. Defense is increased freely via Life and Mana Stability. Can also physically attack with every element.

Summary: Dark Shift. while being able to have an extra ring seems good, there's no way it can compete with the almost doubling of your mana pool which in turn IS your defense and damage. Stack Critical Damage as high as you can with Impact Ring. Vital Ring is another fair option.

Middling defensive stats means any tanking that wants to get done needs a lot of Mana to do it. Mana Shielding helps a lot with this making Mimic a good combo starter. Critical hits can incidentally add bleed and random buffs which in turn fuel Heroism. Mana Regen is good to have excess of even though Mimic has both improved mana regeneration and mana upkeep. Having an ally with Mana Conflux can help keep your mana pool high.

Niche: Aurumtail is a rather good teammate thanks to Glitter (Mimic has Goldsense x2) and 2 layers of Mana Upkeep as well as shield sharing. Mimic would build the combo, position 2 would extend the combo or buff and Aurumtail would nuke with Shield Burst. Also teams well with Plague Egg or Akhlut who appreciate added debuffing (or bleed) and provide Mimic with more mana.

Of note, Mimic has Healing Shield but no heals... except for 2x Transfusion (mana regen). If you are set on using Light Shift with 4 rings (or 3 rings and a doubling down item like Cauldon) then having a Blacksmith ally will further multiply your stat line. Supply aura will also provide a modest heal.

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75 Goblin Pilot

Light Charged Up (3): Rare shift shared with Spectral Eagle and Blade Widow

FIreball Storm (4)

Trap: Has both Shield and Fire Shield and they're in separate trees... DO NOT TAKE BOTH

Note: Has Critical Base which is a weird skill, you get +15% crit chance as long as you don't equip any crit chance. So this is equal to a free Crit Ring+5 as long as you don't use anything else. Has Defense Focus and Defense Overload so stacking Defense while enjoy that free crit is a good place to start

Goblin Science (1): Goblin Aura. Every Goblin gets 2 charge for every goblin.... does that mean 3x Goblin Pilots get 18 Charge every turn?

UA Wildfire (2): Shared with Lava Blob. lets you spread fires
UA Fuel (4): Shared with Steam Golem, Magmamoth and Skorch

Volatile Shield (2): Shared with Polterofen
Supercharged (2): Shared with Promethean

Summary: Has Kindle, Armour Shred, Initial Burn to debuff, which turns into shield - and sheltered can reduce damage once shielded (and charging shield keeps your shield up as you build charge). Goblin Pilot alone will always generate 2 charges just from his goblin aura.

Meditation is usually not that helpful, Goblin Pilot has Fire Shield and Power spells to work with it. Is a Dominance owner so debuffing equals more damage. The rare Supercharged ability will greatly boost your magic stat... so make sure to take one of the Magical attacks if going this route.

Niche: I haven't tested if this works, but it seems like 3x Light Goblin Pilots would generate 18 charge every turn from aura, maxing out both Supercharged and Charged Up while giving everyone many shields for Charging Shield which can be cracked down with Volatile Shield. Dark Shift debuff mastery is acceptable due to the ease of adding Burn and Armor Break, but doesn't natively boost them any more than that.

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76 Shockhopper

Sonic Wave (3): Shared with Dodo and Kongamato
Sonic Assault (3): Shared with Magmamoth and Kongamato

Note: Has Mana Focus, Mana Overload, Overcast and Mana Stability. Doesn't have the biggest mana pool though

UA Sub Zero (3): Shared with Ice Blob and Silvaero
UA Energize (3): Shared with Spectral Eagle and Beetloid
UA Frostbite (3): Shared with Yowie and Ranbow Blob
UA Toxic Reaction (5): Mentioned for high shock support

Magic Penetration (3): Shared with Goblin Warlock and Mogwai

Note: Has both Multi-chill and multi-shock, has dominance to boost and proliferate to build combo.

Chilling Cold (4): Also has Shocking Current

Auto Restore (2): Shared with Steam Golem. Attacking removes your debuffs
Initial Shock (4): Also has Initial Chill

Summary: Shock and Chill... that's it. Does it very very very well, stacks them really high. Has dominance to abuse it, disease control to abuse it, removes your own debuffs without having to waste turns healing. Has a wide array of unique auras related to chills and shocks and can fit well on any team that likes those effects. Also applies incidental armour break and poison thanks to other passives.

Niche: With Magic Penetration you can be the combo builder for Mogwai who can absolutely destroy with a finishing move. Sutsune is an interesting team mate as they can let everyone build qualify bleed effects thanks to doing more damage with magic penetration and blood magic. Sutsune needs a tank due to being made of sugar glass but once chill sucks out all the enemy mana you should have no problems building infinite bleeds.

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77 Targoat

Light Leadership is somewhat rare

Note: Tackle.... has Tackle

Full Protect (2): Shared with Vodinoy
Armoury (2): Shared with Crackle Knight, Dark Shift also has Blacksmith to boost this

Note: Has Attack Mastery x2, this is unique but unremarkable since Targoat wants to be tanking and doesn't have the best attack stat... combo shielding and combo buffing are appreciated.

Summary: Targoat is a tank, possibly the best tank. Has a TON of shield synergy, the rare Full Protect, gains lots of extra stats from Armoury and potentially Blacksmith. Has a pair of good resistances and is weak only to Magic as a type, which is mitigated by Barrier and Spellshield form Full Defense.

Light Shift is the dedicated tank, especially for Charge teams, since taking all the team damage builds ton of stacks thanks to Revenge. Incoming damage can be reduced thanks to Heroic Defense so Targoat enjoys getting an earlier buff before using Full Protect... perhaps from an ally that can turn buffs into charges. Also gains charges from Meditation when using Protect.

Dark Shift has the very strong Blacksmithing skill to boost stats and combos with Armoury, particularly on Warrior teams. Since Crackle and Sizzle Knight are already tanky, something like Darnation or Minitaur are more appropriate... although there's nothing wrong with the duo of sexy knights.

As extras, has a lot of general support auras like empower and Charge Amplifier (which is amazing for Light Shift) as well as Protector and Mass Protector at the same time. Multi-barrier for more tank.

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78 Dracozul

Iceclaws (1): Exclusive attack, it's just claws in water form
Avalanche (2): Shared with Mogwai
Dragonskin (4): also has Quicken

Note: Evasion and crit damage seem like a way to go, but mana focus, overload and stability seem to favor mana. Get both?

Exploit Party (3): Shared with Manticorb and Rainbow Blob
Dragon Mastery (1): Exclusive aura, all dragons apply debuffs with attacks based on element. Can even apply armour break and weakness.

Buffing Shield x2 (3): Shared with Magmapillar and Kame

Summary: Has multi-chill, multi barrier and multi sidekick. There's not many monsters that have 3 multis. Unfortunately Barrier and Sidekick aren't on the same skill, as Dracozul has Dragonskin and Quicken instead of Teamplay. Sadly there are no dragons with Cataclysm or Elemental Strikes. Teams with Mogwai.

Monsters 79~82

79 Troll

Corrosive Jabs (3): Shared with Darnation and Mad Lord

Thick Skin (1): Exclusive. You take 10% more fire damage, but resist everything else 20%

UA Broken Immunity (4): Shared with Grummy, Rainbow Blob and Mad Lord. Combos well with Troll's multi-poison and multi-armour break, and cauldron can help more.

Cave Dwellers (1): Exclusive aura. Beast and Occult regenerate 10% max hp. Stacks with Recover
Giantsbane x2 (4)

Devour (2): Shared with Diavola.

Hexed Touch (3): Shared with Moccus, has Taunt to support it.
Initial Armour Break (3): Shared with Rainbow Blob and King Blob
Deathblow (5): Basically the same as Heroism, but for debuffs... and a lot stronger. Much like how Dominance is better than Heroic Party

Summary: Rather tanky thanks to high levels of regeneration and damage reduction from non-fire attacks. The key to this monster is the combination of two multi-debuffs and dominance, which combos with Deathblow. Troll is one of the better finishers on Dominance based teams because of this. There is a VERY powerful team of Fungi+Fungi+Troll which has 5 layers of Dominance and 3 Multi-poisons to add debuffs. This means each and every debuff increases Troll's damage by 20%... and you can stack dozens of them. Also has Hex, poison glands, hexed touch and armor shred to compliment this.

Giantsbane isn't much in singles, but 2 of them is equal to most other mastery skills since it increases regular damage by 10% outright (and 40% if you exploit a weakness). Can be a strong tank thanks to high passive regeneration, healing shield and Disease Control combined with massive debuffs.

As for shifts, Dark seems the better option since curse chain will spread more debuffs which in turn protect the Troll thanks to Disease Control

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80 Brutus

No Weaknesses, except for his own mana pool (zing)

Power Focus (1): Exclusive skill. Can only be used on self, but it raises a shield and then doubles the damage of your next attack

Critical Essence (3): Shared with Draconoir and Thanatos

Note: Has several Mana Plus nodes to boost mana.... seems like a waste compared to itemization. Also has Neutral Affinity which combos with Critical Essence. Health Focus and Life Stability improve survival.

King of Beasts (1): Exclusive aura. Kinda a reverse aura since it's allies that boost THIS monster, as long as they are beast. Also gives a little debuff resistance to all beasts. Like Goblin Pilot I'm not sure if a team of 3x Brutus will self-stack

Energy Conversion (3): Shared with Promethean and Gryphonix

UA Forceful Might (2): Shared with Mega Rock, also has Multi-might for support

Observe (4)
Brawn over Brains (3)

Summary: Can fill a number of roles. Has good buffs and multi-might to help the team. A usage of Power will get Might on everyone (and maybe Sorcery). If time isn't of the essence then Power Focus is always worth using... it builds combo when you use it, generates charge thanks to meditation and shields the party thanks to Observe. Can also build combo with Beating's 8 hits, but lacks added hits to get to crazy numbers so should probably use Blessed Strikes for Glory.

Once set up, finisher! Has Heavy Punch which is boosted in crit and damage from stat passives, First Impact increases its damage by 30% (x2), Sure Strike makes it undodgable and increses crit damage by another 10. Since that massive punch is likely to kill anything you'll benefit from Severe Hit+Berserk follow through.

Hard to pick teammates due to not having any synergy at all; shield sharers like Aurumtail could work. Improved Assault helps a little. Mogwai can benefit from King of Beasts while also enjoying the added armour pen from Forceful Might, but Mogwai wants to end fights not start them. A team of Mogwai+Brutus might work. Mogwai would finish while Brutus is using Power Focus and Mogwai would build combo while Brutus finishes with heavy punch. Third party member should be a combo extender like Vasuki/Mad Eye/Oculus/Shockhopper who can greatly ramp up combo with debuffs and proliferate. Targoat also works since they can tank to build combo, generate charges with leadership and doesn't afraid of anything

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81 Mega Rock

Very strong statline

Lightning Punches (3)
Shielding Leaves (4)
Punch Combo (4)
Combocast (3): Shared with Goblin Warlock and Dodo

Note: Has Defense Focus and Defense Overload, as well as Improved Mana Regen. Base statline already has a lot of Defense with Light Shift having 11*. Static can be considered a safe +20% damage

Static Glory (3): Shared with Diavola and Vertraag
Golden Age (2): Shared with Elderjel
UA Forceful Might (2): Shared with Brutus. Has Multi-might and multi-channel

Note: Would love to have Warcast on an ally, which is just Kanko and Worm

Primal Rage (3): Shared with Spectral Wolf and Rocky. Greatly helps with Age stacks
Static Mass (4): chance to gain a random buff when you don't crit.

Summary: High statline makes Mega Rock similar to the higher dragons. Has great utility from Shielding Leaves and the defense that to abuse it, and gaining 2x Defense procs (and shielding an ally with Combo Shielding). Can hypothetically tank with Protect (share it with combo shielding) and Forge is nice to have on Glory focused teams... which is counter-intuitive since Mega Rock has Static, Static Glory and Static Mass implying that you don't want to be landing criticals too often.

Can add incidental debuffs with Kindle, weakening crush and electrify which are bolstered by Mystify. Mega Rock doesn't have a main way to add Might, having to rely on Brawler. Luckily Mega Rock has access to 3 elements (and neutral)

Neither shift adds a ton of stats, but Light Shift seems a tad better. I wish there were more monsters that Shadow Proc would be good on, attacking combo builders (Koi?) Uncertain if Light or Dark is tankier due to the distribution of defense and health involved

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82 Argiope

Sticky Threads (2)
Sticky Web (3)
Shroud (4)

Note: Has defense focus and hybrid mastery, can't really go wrong with anything

Extra Channel (4): Shared with Spectral Toad, Draconoir and Vertraag
UA Channeling Balance (5): Notable due to having extra channel and multi-channel

UA Severe Upkeep (4): Shared with Magmapillar, Vasuki and Nautilid. Even though it doesn't stack, it didn't stop me from using both Argiope and Vasuki for the entire end game. Wound is powerful but TERRIBLE in application... Severe Upkeep makes it absurdly easy.

Sticky Impact (3): Shared with Magmapillar and Spinner
Initial Poison (3): Kinda lame here, but welcome
Cleanse x2 (2): Shared with Sizzle Knight, you can very easily dispel enemy buffs

Summary: Should mostly be using Sticky Threads to do damage and rapidly stack Tether, however is a pretty fair healer...... with only 1 heal, and it's an ultimate. You really should use Dark Shroud to extend Tether stacking. So, how do we heal? Well, there's Toxic Feedback, Lifesteal, Autoheal and Buffing Heal/Shield. Defensive Presensce adds random Barriers. Warlock Healing can turn your incidental healing into a glut of debuffs, and you even get Weakening Crush and Sticky Impact to add on. Random heals will also turn into Sidekicks. All buffs can also add Channel.

But for the most part Argiope has one very useful strategy - Turn 1 Shroud, Turn 2+ Tether. In addition to gaining random buffs, adding random debuffs you shred your own debuffs and purge enemy buffs. Of the tether users Oculus is better at random debuffs thanks to Hex and Spinner is better at straight up damage

Monsters 83~86

83 Arachlich

Hello Darkness...

Shadow Storm (4): Shared with Moccus, Draconoir and Aazerach
Shield Burst (4): Has the most magic of all Shield Burst users, but the lowest health for shielding

Occult Power (2): Shared with Goblin Warlock - Strong shield and 4 random buffs is nice

Mana Overload x2 (4): Also has Mana Stability to improve defense. Light shift gain a ton of Mana

Necromancy (3): Shared with Moccus and Plague Egg. Necromancy isn't a Unique Aura, btw
UA Blood Drive (2): Shared with Mad Lord. Good enough to base a team around

Feast (4)
Congeal (5)
Initial Poison (3)

Sabotaeur's Shield x2 (1): Gain giant shields when debuffing

Summary: One of the better Congeal users thanks to Blood Drive. Bleed turns to heals via feast and has multi-chill to keep the numbers coming. Does have a variety of shield support skills as well as a mix of on-crit effects like critical freeze, bleed and sure strike. Armour Bypass adds a little damage.

Should be considered for Blood Drive on Chill teams, although any user of Fatal Upkeep would love the added bleed. Added bleed effects are numerous but of low quality so doesn't need to be on a dedicated Bleed team... but won't complain about supporting Akhlut, Shockhopper, Dracozul or Mogwai (or hey, Spectral Wolf if that was your starter)

Arachlich is good on the aoe healing so Light Shift can help. Dark Shift can do a little more damage if your only intent is to spam Shadow Grasp

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84 Moccus

Shadow Storm (4)
Dragonskin (4)

Note: Has health focus, life overload and 3 health plus nodes. Light shift also adds ONLY health as well as Light Eternal Heart to boost max HP further.

UA Curse of Weakness (2): Shared with Diavola. Also has multi-weakness
UA Demotivate (4): likes using Weakness debuff so it's not wasted here
Necromancy (3): Shared with Arachlich and Plague Egg
Initial Weakness (2): Shared with King Blob

Hexed Touch x2 (1): Hexed Touch is already rare, only on Troll and Mad Lord... but Moccus has it TWICE. Also has Taunt to support it.

Summary: Have you ever punched a wall so hard that YOU vomited? That's Moccus. Already a decent tank ,the ability to spread lots of disease and weakness is rather cool. Can apply armour break and more weakness with Weakening Crush and Breaking Spells.

Attacking options are rather limited, being only Earth and your choice of poison or weakness... but you also have Shadow Storm for aoe blind which is good enough to use just by itself. There's not a lot of monsters that are comfortable with even a singular stack of blind and it doesn't really stack well (except against Champions)... so Shadow Storm is a good place for Moccus.

On the other hand, if you dodge a hit you aren't spreading diseases via Hexed Touch. Necromancy is a powerful skill and Moccus does have Revive to abuse it. Added "Anti Curse" helps resist the added debuffs from Necromancy while gaining all the benefit. It is uncertain how 3x Necromancy stacks...

Both shifts are kinda ok - Light is also about maximizing your HP stat while Dark is more about spreading disease. Unfortunately, weakness isn't exactly the best one to spread and Moccus would really love a teammate that can spread multiple debuffs quickly like Oculus or Mad Eye

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85 Promethean

Dark Shift... why aren't you Dark Shifted yet? Even the stat line is better

Lightning Punches (3)

Note: Has Health Focus and Defense Focus as well as Life Stability and Defense Overload. It's a little tricky to stack both, but there's lots of items that are good here. Also has Neutral Affinity, but Thunderstrike should be the focus (although Heavy Punch is amazing)

UA Shock Charging (1): Exclusive to Promethan, and hey... it's unique so no 3x Promethan shenanigans. When an ally triggers shock gain 2 charge

Steampunk (1): Not a UA, but still exclusive. Constructs apply shock. hey, Promethan has multi-shock... shocking

Energy Conversion (3): Shared with Brutus and Gryphonix. Heal when you use Charges

Charged Start (4): Since you definitely have Slow Burn these 7 starting charges will last a long time.

Revenge (9): Notable due to how much love Promethean has for added Charge
Supercharged (2): Shared with Goblin Pilot... you'll be over 15 stacks, trust me

Emergency Channel (3): Shared with Sycophantom and Brawlish

Charged Rebirth (1): Exclusive passive... when you die to resurrect once and gain health based on charge stacks

Summary: Promethean is a meme-machine made out of literal machines and at least one meme (I see you, Victor). You stack Charge. That's it. If you are planning a Charge team it should have Promethean on it unless you have a very specific plan. Also adds shock and can abuse multi-shock to gain charges. Loves getting (thunder) struck to get more charges via revenge.

With Slow Burn its easy to keep those charges, it's not uncommon to be rocking 50~90 charges by the third turn which equates a ton of extra damage. Teams well with Occulus and Beetleoid where their respective passives greatly improve the power of shock, charge, debuffs and overall combat quality.

Also benefits from Light Leadership leads who can pass on Charge stacks. This includes Neetloid, Oculus, Targoat and Spinner which ALL have great synergy with Promethean even without Charge due to the extra effects they can provide. Beetloid is also a Revenge user so they can lead the team to crank dat. Targoat is another excellent teammate due to Charge Amplifier.... oh, which Beetloid also has! Crackle Knight is also a good teammate for overall shock support and electrolytes to remove debuffs that Promethean will be a vacuum for. Toxic Reaction can come from Oculus or Shockhopper.

I think I named every monster with shock on it, but Promethean really is the anchor that makes such teams work

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86 Draconoir

Like most dragons, has the shift combo of equipment mastery and blacksmithing and strong base stats

Shadow Storm (4)
Wizardry (3)

Note: Has Crit Chance and Crit Damage Focus, overcast, critical defense, and hybrid mastery. Like all monsters with multiple focus skills they enjoy Blacksmithing support. Critical Essence boosts the Blinding skills

Exposed (3): Shared with Sycophantom and Sizzle Knight. Can readily apply blind easily
Extra Channel (4): Also has multi-channel

Critical Poison (2): Shared with Mad Lord...... but why does this skill exist and why here?
Darken (4)

Summary: Can spread buffs around thanks to combo buffing and critical mass, and enjoys the damage reduction from heroic defense. This monster should be focusing on Blinding enemies. However, Soul Beam is a very good attack to have here and Bite can deal a lot of extra damage.

No idea why Critical Poison is here... i mean, if this monster had other Critical status effects it'd make sense, but why just poison? Not really a complaint, just really unusual. Aside: Has anti-curse which is a good team skill.

Monsters 87~91

87 Spinner

Amazing stats except for defense and both shifts are excellent, lending spinner to a wide variety of teams.

Counterfeit (2): Shared with Changeling. Pay attention to what your enemy uses and you can gain access to technically unlimited potential

Sticky Web (3)

Note: Has a very large assortment of attacks. Has Crit Chance Focus and lots of stat nodes for criticals as well as the Evasion skill which turns crit chance into dodge. Crit chance also lets Spinner apply bleed effects.

Double Strike (4): Rare and powerful combo builder. Also has Critical hybridization x2, normally not that great but Spinner craves crit chance

Variety x2 (2): shared with Worm. 1 Variety is kinda lame, but 2 is nice. Not sure if Counterfeit lends itself to infinite variety or not.

Sticky Impact (3)
Critical Edge x2 (1): Get them crits, bruh!

Summary: Everything here is good. It's very hard to pick a lane. Light benefits from a large amount of Critical Chance to build charges for the team with Leadership. Dark benefits from a large amount of Critical Chance to apply lasting bleeds. Double strike can build large amounts of combo if you're lucky (ask Vasuki). Has Deep Wounds to boost bleeding as well as, well, bleed. Every hit has a chance to add poison and tether as well.

Counterfeit is an oddball skill, but it's essentially having 3 extra attack options for free. Has a superior offensive statline so you can really abuse it. Also has Cleansing Flame if desired.

If anything, Spinner has almost TOO many things it can do. Its only weakness is a pitiful defense stat, so offset that with some items. Both shifts raise defense only to 3*. Shell and Gauntlet are nice items, but so is Cauldon which I recommend for pretty much any debuff related team that relies on random procs. A teammate with Light Supremacy can help Light Spinner gain charges that are further shared via Leadership.

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88 Plague Egg

Necromancy (3): Shared with Arachlich and Moccus
UA Demotivate (4): Shared with Mad Eye, Druid Oak and Moccus. Also has Multi-weakness and makes a fair compliment to Moccus with overlapping multi-weakness and Necromancy

Mana Upkeep x2 (4): Helps provide mana to the team

Hex x2 (1): Only creature with 2 levels of hex, also has cleanse.

Curse Transfusion (1): Exclusive passive. Helps to counter enemy dominance auras

Summary: The last of the Necromancy Trio, Plague Egg is all about rapidly applying random buffs. While can focus on Weakness the same way Moccus does, doesn't mind spreading the joy. When healing or reviving there's hexing support, healing shield, saboteur's shield, heal mastery, copy shield and purify to boost. You also heal by attacking with Auto Heal.

If planning on using Necromancy the Plague Egg also has Anti Curse (shared with Moccus) to remedy the debuffs applied by it, mitigated further with curse transfusion. Plague Egg also has Dominance and is a great one-off user of it.

Both shifts are ok, but the dark has the needed survival. Overall best on Dominance focused teams where Eggy can be the main healer behind a tank who also can debuff and has dominance......... like Moccus. Curse Chain users help such as Vasuki offensively, Thornish defensively.

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89 Sutsune

Lightning Assault (2): Shared with Vodinoy
Flamestrike (4)

Note: Crit Chance Focus combined with Evasion. Stack that Crit! hybrid mastery boosts damage slightly and Sutsune has alot of base damage to work with.

Feast (4)
Blood Magic (2): Shared with Elderjel
UA Buff Steal (2): Shared with Aazerach
UA Cleansing Sidekick (2): Shared with Vaero

Summary: BLEED. Everything on this monster either applies bleed or extends bleed. Buff Steal is also a very nice skill to have. Multi Sidekick and Cleansing Sidekick are ok as well and compliment Sutsune's hardcore offensive stats. Hunt increases crit chance slightly, feast heals off bleeds and blood magic turns any attack into more blood for the blood god.

Unfortunately Sutsune is about as sturdy as a blood clot, only 3* when shifted. Either stack a lot of Crit chance to get more Evasion or stack Defense. Also, Blood Magic affects all Mage and Occult monsters. There's a lot of overlap there. A teammate like Mogwai can finish a combo and hope for an amazing critcal that applies a very powerful bleed... or not since it's only a 40% chance. Blood Magic favours consistency rather than nukage

Sutsune has Cleansing Flame and Cleansing Sidekick to help Buff Steal... steal buffs. Is also a good healer thanks to a lot of passive healing via feast and deliberate healing with revive, mass restore and full heal. Wouldn't mind being on a sidekick focused team... but most sidekick users are glass cannons with only Dracozul and Dodo having a good defensive balance.

Can team with Asura just fine, same goes for Stolby. Could team with Mogwai as long as a solid tank like Targoat is taken. Can also team with Nightwing and be a horrid dodging machine. If you can't afford a tank then Goblin Warlock or Arachlich can use Occult Power to buff Sutsune up and profile a quality shield. Manticorb also covers weaknesses nicely and enjoys critical hits.

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90 Darnation

Corrosive Jabs (3)
Burrow (4)
Corrosive Blast (1): Exclusive attack, hits everyone for a chance of armour break. Basically the physical version of Acid Tempest

Defense Overload x2 (4): Does have the base defense to back this up and 4 defense nodes, getting up to 12* defense at most

UA Shield Crush (3): Shared with Megataur and Thanatos. Also has Multi-might and multi-armour break, a powerful combination.

UA Elemental Break (3): Shared with Druid Oak and Ninki Nanka. Has every element except lightning so can easily work with it... but in this case, it doesn't matter

Hard Shell (1): Exclusive Aura. Insects and Warriors take a little less damage and resist criticals.

Adaptive Evolution (1): Exclusive Passive. If the enemy resists your attack, gain might and apply armour break

Center of Mass x2 (2): Shared with Toxiquus, your AoE skills hit the "priority" target a lot harder.

Summary: Odd case of high attack and good generics like armour bypass, giantsbane, aging+aeons. Adaptive Evolution+Elemental Break are the stars of his monster since you can weirdly target resistances on purpose (or use an AoE where at least 1 monster resists) to gain Might and apply Armour break which Darnation can multi... Center of Mass x2 further increases AoE proficiency. Has a few minor bonuses like Lifesteal, Cleanse, Static and Static Mass.

Has a low health and mana pool so neither shift is particularly strong, but Light might be preferred.


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91 Thanatos

Riot (2): Shared with Caraglow.
Legion (3): Shared with Salahammer and Draconov

UA Shield Crush (3): Shared with Megataur and Darnation
Duality (3): shared with Akhlut and Draconov
UA Forceful Sorcery (3): Shared with Glowfly and Elderjel

Backstab (1): Exclusive passive. Deal 20% more damage to enemies at full health.
Shocking Hit (3): Shared with Spectral Eagle and Minitaur

Summary: The glassiest of glass cannons. Light shift gets 2* defense... 2. That's it. Large HP pool isn't gunna save Thanatos from poisons and burns which will crush through it rapidly. Has the rare Dark Shift Heroic Assault, but it's not a particularly good one since Critical Chance is relatively easy to stack.

Thanatos is somewhat special in having 3 multi-buffs (Glory, Might and Sorcery) while also having the passives that compliment them so is a very useful tool to have on Heroic Assault/Heroism based teams. As a healer there's warlock healing to apply debuffs with hexing support. Has the potentially powerful Backstab passive, but doesn't really have the opportunity to use it since he should be applying buffs for the team and those buffs turn into debuffs which may include burn/poison that block Backstab from working. However, if you are just farming then opening with Ultimate Fatal Cut is all you really need.

Monsters 92~95

92 Rainbow Blob

Rare shift Light Mass Mystify (3): Shared with King Blob by proxy, and Diavola

Static x2 (2): Shared with Kame, not criticals are stronger. Also has Life Stability and hyrbid mastery

UA Toxic Reaction (5): Being mentioned due to later overlap
UA Incinerate (4)
UA Igniting Gas (2): Shared with Mad Lord
UA Frostbite (3): Shared with Yowie and Shockhopper
Exploit Party (3): Shared with Manticorb and Dracozul
UA Broken Immunity (4)


Note: When shock does damage, inflict poison. when poison damages, inflict burn. when burn does damage or when chill is added, inflict armour break. Armour break increases debuff chance by 25%. Also has Dominance.

Initial Armour Break (3): Shared with Troll and King Blob
Critical Exploit (4): Shared with Raduga, Ninki Nanka and Imori
Death Blow (5)

Summary: Light Mass Mystify is very rare, but Dark Debuff Mastery is also acceptable... Rainbow Blob has a solid list of Unique Auras that are all about the spreading and causing of status ailments. The preferred opener is Shock, but any ailment is good and Rainbow Blob has access to everything. Has a lot of overlap with Mad Eye and compliments them nicely.

An absolute unit on Dominance and Heroism related teams due to the overall consistency in debuffing, both actively and passively. Pure debuff dominance teams prefer Dark debuff mastery for added stacks, but Heroism teams prefer Light for the easy application of buffs via mass mystify.

Of note, Rainbow Blob does not have any multi-buff or multi-debuff or improved buff/debuff skills... instead, is all about rapid spread.

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93 Changeling

Changeling has solid 6* in every stat, 7* in light shift... so you can use Changeling as a baseline when planning around stats. Both shift skills are good, with Dark having better offensive stats

Imitate (2): Shared with Tanuki
Counterfeit (2): Shared with Spinner

Restoring Shield (3): Shared with Ice Blob and Diavola

Note: Has Mana, Defense and Life Overload so pretty much any stat gives you more attack power. Has critical base to get crit chance as long as you don't equip any crit chance, which you shouldn't anyways in this case due to the 3 overload skills. Also has 4 crit chance nodes in kit for a total of +35% crit chance just from kit.

Additional Hits note: Has a very high 5 additional hits, and one of them is proliferate so Changling is a VERY good combo starter when using debuffs. Also has Combo Buffing x2 so is a great combo starter when buffing as well.

Observe (4): Shared with Steam Golem, Brutus and Diavola

Summary: Changling is a great combo starter and has a lot of passive support for building combo with either buffs or debuffs. Heals apply shields, sidekick, random debuffs via hexing support and warlock healing. Also is assisted by debuffing with saboteur's shield and hex. Lifesteal, buffing heal and buffing shield also protect the team without having to actively cast heals and shields.

Changling is a slight bit better in the buff department than the debuff department and can be the premier combo starter on Heroism parties. Has the rare and useful Restoring Shield to remove debuffs from your team and the niche combo of Imitate+Counterfiet to get an unlimited selection of combat options... although I have no idea how Imitate and Coutnerfeit interact with the Variety skill (which is also has)

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94 King Blob

Note: Can have a variety of shift skills based on how you make one. Light can have Heal Charging, Light Instinct, Supremacy or Mass Mystify. Dark can have Curse Chain, Shadow Proc, Dark Instinct or Debuff Mastery. Plan ahead.

Note: Has Health Focus x2 and life overload as well as 3 health nodes... King Blob can get a huge amount of MaxHP thanks to a base 10* HP stat. (11 in Light shift). Defense is kinda low, but both shifts raise it the same amount.

Slimy Support (1): Exclusive Aura. Slimes are 20% better at healing and shielding. Also has Shield aura to boost this another 10%

UA Regeneration Shield (3): Shared with Grummy and Ninki. Also has multi-regeneration. (but all 3 do)

Initial Armour Break (3): Shared with Troll and Rainbow Blob
Initial Weakness (2): Shared with Moccus
Static Mass (4)
Trickster Buffing (2): Shared with Nautilid, also has Fatal Upkeep
Chilling Cold (4)

Summary: An absolute beefcake of a healer. This is the most dedicated dedicated healer there is. Heals will trigger warlock healing and bolster and also purge stacks with purify. Buffs will heal thanks to buffing heal and attacking is still ok thanks to attacking benefits like static mass, remunerate, chilling cold, toxin and auto-heal. Also has Fatal Upkeep for a smidgen of added damage.

Boosts shielding a fair lot, but does not have any passive shield support outside of auras and can only apply them manually via Arcane Shield. However, there's lots of ways to apply multi-regeneration including helping hand. King Blob is weak to debuffs so will probbaly be using the Restore spell often.

Which Shift skill to get it entirely up to preference. The Light auras favor debuffing so is better performed by their respective source blobs (Lava Blob and Rainbow Blob) where the Dark Debuffs are relatively unreliable for King Blob. As such I think Light Instinct or Heal Charging might be the best options

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95 Worm

Team17 go!

Pyro Cracker (2): Shared with Goblin Hood
Warcast (2): Shared with Kanko

Ballistics x3 (1): The only monster with balls and has 3 of them. The damage amping is very VERY strong here.

Dodging x3 (1): The only monster with 3 dodges, providing needed survival

Crit Damage x10 (1): Yes, 10 crit damage nodes. Very hard to get them all. Also has Critical Defense to offset low defensive stats (Light shift gains a lot of defense proper, but still has low HP making Worm particularly vulnerable to Burn damage which it's also weak to)

Worm Troop (1): Exclusive aura. Worms regenerate 10% max hp and mp. Worm is the only worm though, unless maybe Nidhogg gets a crossover. Chanlging can benefit, but this is not much better/worse than Mana Upkeep in general

Note: Has 2x Combo Buffing and 2x Combo Shielding, but little way to use it. Also has attack proc, which while not special on its own - worm does amp it a lot

Variety x2 (2): Shared with Spinner. Since worm is a one-shot nuke this is just outright a great passive this time. Has Berserk and Severe Hit to reinforce this

Lucky Hit (1): Exclusive passive. Crits have a chance to double-crit for 77% more damage.

Summary: Nuke. With 10 points of crit damage and multiple skills that amp damage, a critical hit from Worm can deal potentially a total of +375% damage (more or less depending on if using pyro cracker). Misleadingly tanky due to high levels of dodge and critical defense

Worm using Ultimate Rocket Launch is a good farming monster since you are likely to ohko every wild monster team most of the time. As for Shifts, Curse Breaker can be important if you don't have a debuff dispeller on your team as Worm is particularly vulnerable to burn damage. Dark Shift has 11* attack and Shadow Proc. Worm is one of the few good users of Shadow Proc for actual damage.

Monsters 96~99

96 Vodinoy

Mo' like Vodinoying, heph heph hep hep hep

Ice Spear Volley (4)
Lightning Assault (2): Shared with Sutsune
Full Protect (2): Shared with Targoat

Note: Lots of stat passives. Defense Focus, Health Focus, Mana Focus, Life Overload x2, Defense Overload x2, Mana Overload x2 and Critical Base x2. This makes Vodinoy and extremely powerful unit on Blacksmith teams which can crank Vodinoys already great offenses even higher. It's hard to get them all, though.

Scent of Blood (4): Shared with Akhlut, Blade Widow and Diavola
Hunt x2 (1): Two tiers of hunt give the team +8 Crit chance

Lord of the Deep (1): Exclusive aura. Fish and Aquatics apply small bleeds with every crit. Has huge crit chance already and splatter+deep wounds to boost

Reflect (4): Shared with Goblin Brute, Crystal Snail and Thornish. It's Vod's only passive

Summary: Can fill a number of roles thanks to great statlines, stat passives, skill set and auras. Both shifts are good since Light Eternal Heart will further amp Life/Mana overloads and Dark Assault shield will be fueled by Vodinoy's amazing base crit chance of +38% (as long as you don't equip any crit items)

Works well on bleed teams, particularly with other Fish/Aquatics (such as Akhlut), works great on Blacksmith teams where his Focus stats can generate a ton of added damage, and can even be a main tank with the rare Full Protect skill, returning damage with Reflect (which Targoat doesn't have)

The Blacksmith option might be the better option due to middle of the road base stats, despite being boosted heavily by equipment, but anything goes. Vodinoy's biggest weakness is having too much utility and not enough skill points to get everything you might want.

If interesting in Dark Shift, Vodinoy and Magmapillar are the only two monsters with both Assault Shield and Combo Shielding. Full Protect tanking does build an ok amount of Combo for Brawlish to critical off of as well and Thornish's Fish Scales can help add even more bleed (although the presence of 2 tanks might be over doing it)

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97 Aazerach

Shadow Storm (4)
Arcane Diffusion (3)

UA Martial Prowess (3): Shared with Monk and Kanko
UA Weapon Break (3): Shared with Grummy and Ucan

True Darkness (1): Exclusive aura. Adding blinds also has a chance to add additional debuffs
Spirit World (1): Exclusive aura. Spirit monsters have +8% dodge

UA Buff Steal (2): Shared with Sutsune

Darken (4): Shared with Sycophantom, Nautilid and Draconoir

Initial Darkness (1): Exclusive passive. All enemies start the battle blind

Transfusion x3 (1): Only monster with 3 tiers of transfusion, turning mana gain into a healthy heal

Summary: All about blinding and blind support. Also has multi-armour break and multi-sidekick. Is also a good duder for dodge support even though there aren't many Spirit type monsters that care about Dodging - you can still just cast Shroud or something (which Kanko has, is a spirit, and likes dodging). Nightwing is the dodgiest bat in the universe, moreso than Zubat, so can also be helpful here. Dodging grants additional buffs via Martial Prowess. You can also gain buffs with the very cool Buff Steal UA which can be abused by the Arcane Diffusion attack or Arcane Obliteration Ultimate.

For the most part, adding blinds is enough and you can rely on passive effects from Darken, Warlock Healing, Cleanse, Assistance and Auto Heal to do the rest of the work. Also has the useful Mass Restore and Helping Hand spells.

There's no real counter to mass blind spam aside from, well, that it only works 40% of the time. Still, taking 40%-ish less damage every turn is good. Aazerach is a little light defensively so the Light Shift is preferred for sharing buffs around and is a good recipient of buffing ultimates like Legion (although Ninki Nanka or Nanko are probably better in this role).

Dark Curse chain is good at spreading deuffs, but like the game constantly says... Stacks are not debuffs, making the only applications Breaking Spells (armour break) and Warlock Healing.

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98 Diavola

Has the rare Light Mass Mystify, and is also a Dark Bleed Out user. Gigantic base stat pool

Shielding Leaves (4)
Spore Cloud (4)
Lifeline (3): Shared with Spectral Lion and Koi
Restoring Shield (3): Shared with Ice Blob and Changeling
Weakening Shield (1): Exclusive attack. Shields all and applies 2 stacks of weakness

Note: Has Critical Consistency x2, Critical Base and Critical Defense... make of that as you will

UA Mana Bolster (3): Shared with Magmapillar and Megataur
UA Curse of Weakness (2): Shared with Moccus; both have multi-weakness
Scent of Blood (4): Shared with Akhlut, Blade Widow and Vodinoy
Static Glory (3): Shared with Mega Rock and Vertraag. Also has Multi-Glory

Sprawl (1): Exclusive aura. Every nature monster action applies a random buff and non-offensive actions also apply a debuff.

Combo Shielding x3 (2): Shared with Goblin Brute. Shields are strong, although only Light Shift has the base defense to use it well.

Thorns (1): Exclusive passive. Chance to apply a quality bleed when struck
Devour (2): Shared with Troll
Observe (4): Shared with Steam Golem, Brutus and Changeling

Summary; A good all-rounder. Can apply bleed easily with Bleed and Thorns, with Dark Shift ironically being better due to having WORSE defense since Thorns is based on the damage received. Attacks can also apply weakness or burn.

Can build combo rapidly with either Shielding skill and combo shielding x3, debuffing also can build combo well with proliferate and multiple potential debuff procs. Can weirdly team well with Dark Druid Oak thanks to easy access to multiple tiers of Regeneration and a massive defensive line. A team of L-Diaolva+D-Druid Oak+D-Mogwai should be able to cripple most teams. Also works well on bleed teams as primary healer/shielder/tank. Lacks a dedicated tanking ability, but something like Elderjel can use magnetize to help shift some damage towards Diavola who can in turn counter with Thorns and benefit from Blood Magic... the 3rd party member would need a defense stat of 5* or lower to work with this strategy.

Can also hold a place on Dominance teams with Fungi where the multitude of multi-weakness will prevent any significant incoming damage.

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99 Gryphonix

Dark Slow Burn (3): Shared with Skorch and Promethean

Igniting Stings (2): Shared with Mad Lord
Support (4)

UA Burn Down (2): Shared with Magmapillar, critical to Burn focused teams

Energy Conversion (3): Shared with Brutus and Promethean
Phoenix Heritage (1): Exclusive Aura. Aerials and Birds inflict burn with every action - impressive
UA Restoration (?): Complimented by multi-regeneration

Critical Hybridization x2 (3): Shared with Akhlut and Spinner, a strong added hit

Reborn from Ashes (2): Shared with Spectral Eagle. Works on revives and being revived, and has some charge support.

Summary: A mighty support for any team, especially burn focused ones. Has multi-regeneration and restoration for support and strong revival support. Skorch is a likely teammate due to the combination of multi-burn and charge stacking and multi-burn really should be stacked highly thanks to Burn Down greatly improving it... although some multi-burn teammates don't mix, so a Fatal Upkeep ally might help more, such as Specter or Mad Eye who also have Debuff Mastery. UA Fuel can be gained from Skorch or Magmamoth comfortably.

May also form a nest with Plague egg where the Necromancy can combo with Reborn from Ashes - although Spectral Eagle might be better in this role. Stolby also has some overlapping support with Corrosion, poison and the ability to resist debuffs that really hurt Gryphonix.

Monsters 100~101

100 Vertraag

Dark Mana Potential (3): Shared with Spectral Toad and Mimic

Arcane Diffusion (3): Shared with Ornithopter and Aazerach. Also has both Heat Shimmer and Snow Veil for self-support

Enchantment (2): Shared with Beetloid

Note: Might just have the highest Mana cap with Dark Vertraag having base 11*, 4 nodes to bring it up to 15, Mana Focus and Mana Stability to capitalize on it.

UA Channeling Support (2): Shared with Spectral Toad
UA Outlast (2): Shared with Spectral Wolf

Master of Time (1): Exclusive Aura. Greatly powers Aging based monsters
Static Glory (3): Shared with Mega Rock and Diavola
Extra Channel (4): Shared with Spectral Toad, Argiope and Draconoir

Note: due to having lots of buffing support, buffs on attacks, multi channel and multi sorcery its no surprise that Vertraag also has Heroic Party. Combo Buffing x2 fuels this

Static Mass (4)
Purify x2 (1): Only monster with two tiers of Purify, in case you are worried about tether, bleed or blind

Summary: The Master of Time is all about outlasting. Has support for Aging focused teams which is a good archetype, heroism teams which enjoy having a pair of multi-buffs as well as free channels and barriers from passives... it's not unusual for a team with Vertraag to be quickly capped on every available buff.

Vertraag also enjoys Dark Mana potential and a massive mana pool (one tier higher than Toad and Mimic). Light is a little tankier and can help remove debuffs passively if you don't need to worry about dedicated debuff removal. Is natively resistant to debuffs and weak only to neutral. Can also readily dispel enemies with Arcane Diffusion if needed.

Heroism seems like the better team focus since there's no way to "Age" any faster aside from Necromancy. A Trickster Spirit ally such as Specter or Sycophantom can compliment Vertraag nicely

When asked for an opinion on how to use Vertraag, Torun responded with "TRY STICKING UGLY %!%^@ HEAD INTO YOUR %(!$ !(%&&#@ @(% AND @!($(! IT!!!"

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101 Mad Lord

All the base stats help mitigate his weakness to everything. Both shifts are good and neither is particularly overwhelming

Igniting Stings (2): Shared with Gryphonix
Corrosive Jabs (3): Shared with Troll and Darnation
Shocking Slash (2): Shared with Crackle Knight
Toxic Slash (1): Exclusive attack... it's long slash with poison
Acid Tempest (4)

Note: Has the 4 elemental affinity passives to boost all elemental damage by 10%, and hybrid mastery to increase his already impressive attack line.

UA Blood Drive (2): Shared with Arachlich. Debuffs cause bleeds
UA Impactful Shock (3): Shared with Spectral Eagle and Sizzle Knight. Shocks are stronger
UA Igniting Gas (2): Shared with Rainbow Blob. Poisons add burns
UA Broken Immunity (4): Shared with Grummy, Troll and Rainbow Blob

Hexed Touch (3): Shared with Troll and Moccus
Heroism x2 (2): Shared with Goblin King, loves buffs
Mystify x2 (2): Shared with Goblin Miner, loves debuffs

Critical Poison (2): Shared with Draconoir. Crits add poison

Summary: Debuffs become buffs and Mad Lord enjoys both, having two stacks of Heroism and Mystify while getting added damage from Death Blow. Can be a mainstay of Heroism or Dominance focused teams easily and is even somewhat self-sufficient thanks to a high statline and benefits like Toxic Feedback and Lifesteal

Poison seems to be the more important debuff based on passive skills, so the exclusive attack Toxic Slash might be your main attack - but they are all good and all help. Mad Lord is also weak to everything... which by proxy means NOTHING, and is resistant to debuffs. Dark Shift is a slight better due to Debuff Mastery, but either/or. While doesn't have Dominance aura himself, can easily capitalize on it.

Being weak to everything means it will be a little more difficult to heal Mad Lord up, so percentile heals or shields like Occult Power or Regeneration can greatly extend battle. Troll is an excellent teammate providing a strong percentile heal via Cave Dwellers and the dominance aura and multi-debuff stacks while also being a Deathblow user. Moccus or Nautilid can also provide Dominance aura while benefiting from Occult related buffs.

The Ends and Glossy Glossary

Please don't make me edit, the character limit is already very tight and that's why there are so many extra sections.

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If I forgot something feel free to comment and if I overlooked a combo that is unique to a few rare mixes of monsters.

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Here's a short glossary of some terms I used that might not be apparent

Heroism Party: Heroism is the ability to gain additional damage for every buff you have. This includes Heroism itself, Heroic Party aura and Heroic Defense. Any attack that provides excess buffs such as Soul Beam or Aerial Strike are appreciated. Fueled by multi buffs and buff mastery and any passives that also provide buffs.

Dominance Party: Dominance is the aura that increases damage for every debuff the enemy has. This is fueled by multi-debuffs, debuff mastery, warlock heal, hex, hexed touch and so on. Deathblow also increases damage.

Charge Party: Focuses on building and using Charge skills. Promethean is the exemplar in this role. There is a very dangerous team of Beetloid+Promethan+Oculus which can generate a crazy amount of charge and has all the support to stick around.

Combo Starter or Position 1: Sometimes I make mention to "team position". Position 1 is the leader of your party and first to act. They want to build the combo high for your other teammates. Additional hits increase your combo, but there's not many monsters that have more than 4 additional hits... the exceptions are rare and powerful because of it. Most added hit effects only trigger once, the exceptions being Sidekick with multi-sidekick, Proliferate when you have ease of debuffing (such as Vasuki), and Double Strike due to randomness (which includes Vasuki). I'd say Vasuki is the best position 1 monster due to massive combo building potential, although Mad Eye is also great thanks to Ion Beam and Hex being such a nice combo-combo

Combo Extender or Position 2: These are monsters with more power, but lacking a proper finisher. They go in the middle of the party. They should be what you think about when after your first monster attacks you need to think if you have enough damage to finish off the target, wound a different target, or if you need any niche buffs/debuffs. Tanks usually go here since protective abilities aren't needed if your nukes go off well so you can decide if they need to use protect or attack.

Combo Finisher or Position 3: There are the monsters with the major nukes that want to go last. They are also the dude you tend to leave out in the first round of a Keeper Battle. If you are combo-nuke focused this is where your chad Mogwai or Brawlish go... if you are not nuke focused then this is where your aura-stackers go. Shockhopper is a good example of a position 3 used for their aura rather than their nuke

Note: The actual team position doesn't matter since you can just press L1 or R1 to attack in whatever order you want, it's just for convenience

[Doodle The Pengun Overlord]

Man, the team I cleared most of the game with (while 5-10 levels lower, AGONY) was a light Catzerker, Caraglew, and a Dark Yewie... Welp, I now know why the struggle at the tower...

[Windless Bear]

May not be up to date, but was still a great read. Appreciate the Vasuki love.

[Blind]

There's DLC? well, guess i'll play again... i'll edit the title tho

[Majber]

is this updated to dlc?

[Blind]

By passing charge stacks I mean generating charge stacks, but for your allies. It can very easily generate charge, but with the Leadership skill its allies also gain those charge stacks

[snow_clone]

Great guide! I'm confused about your suggested role for Beetloid: what do you mean by "passing charge stacks on to your allies"? Thanks.

[Blind]

> For Vertraag, he also has "Aura : Charge Amplifier -> All Charges stacks in the party are 40% stronger".
I think it's a not UA that only one creature has

You are correct, however 5 monsters have it and that was the cutoff point for me marking rare skills without secondary support.

[Jaune]

For Vertraag, he also has "Aura : Charge Amplifier -> All Charges stacks in the party are 40% stronger".
I think it's a not UA that only one creature has

[Windows Vista]

Thank you!

[Jaune]

About Yowie crit rate, it's not to deal damage with it, it's just to trigger Critical Boon and Critical Freeze (which can then apply armor break with Frostbite)
If you want to get banana with this, you can up Beating to hit x8 + x2 health proc, which with the proper team and Glory from Glorycast means both an assure Freeze stack + around 5 random buff for your team, which fuels Heroic Party.
Basically, his crit chance is used to support, not to dps.