*Durahan- This monster seems to have dethroned the Phoenix as everyone's favorite monster, so it's about time an in-depth examination was given. This can be a VERY powerful monster if used right, with its only potential weakness being the lack of Withering moves (which are not likely to be missed). Its other problem is that in order to get a well-balanced line of attacks, the Durahan will have to float up and down through Good, Bad, and Neutral natures, and it seems like every species of it has a few techs that are very difficult to learn. Still, when combined with a good sub-type like Tiger or Phoenix (yep, it's the only monster that can get Phoenix sub- traits!), this creature's natural weakness of poor speed disappears, and its Guts Regen goes up alongside its Skill and Intelligence. The Ruby Knight (Durahan/???) is also super-powerful. ANYWAY, as far as its moves go, there's a definate tendency towards Heavy techs. Twister Slash, Triple Slash, and Rolling Slash all have about the same stats, so only one is really needed (and since Twister Slash is the least expensive by far, it gets my vote). Lightning (for those Intelligence-oriented armors out there) is also very effective, and even Power-based Durahans may want to use it alot to gain Thunderbolt (S-rank damage at only 32 guts cost, and it seems to have better accuracy than the "E" accredited it). Slash Combo is powerful and cool-looking, but it rarely connects, and Kick Combo is near-useless except to get the mighty Punch Combo (B/A/C/E, 45 cost! But it requires a Bad Nature). V Slash, Flash Slash, Dash Slash, and Swing are all well-balanced moves useful in any situation. The Durahan also tends to have Hit Techs that can do some real damage, like Blast Shot and Million Stabs. Charge and Gust Slash are useful for minor but very-accurate damage, but Air Shot is too expensive to be very useful. Out of the Sharp Techs Jumping Stab is useful and easy to get, but Sword Throw really sucks. Finally, we have Death Bringer...true, it can deal obscene damage, and wither away an opponent's guts like no other move in the Durahan's repertoire, but the VERY poor accuracy combined with the unavoidable backlash damage (that comes BEFORE the move is executed, not after, like most backlash attacks) and the 50 cost don't make for an overall good attack. The Durahan doesn't require a great deal of strategy overall, (other than using Hit Techs against Speed Demons and Heavy Techs on Tanks), which is great for inexperienced players, but being a muscle- head has its drawbacks. An Antagonizer can eat Durahans for lunch simply by zapping their guts right off the bat, and then remaining in Short-Range (for speedsters) or Long-Range (for the Defense-oriented) until its time for another dose of Withering, which the Durahan's naturally-low Speed and Guts Regen will have a great deal of difficulty dealing with. Also, if the enemy Durahan is totally centered around Power at the cost of Intelligence, keep as far away from them as you can, where their only good move will be Rolling Slash. If they concentrated on Intelligence at the cost of Power, keep in the border between Short- and Mid-Range, where they won't be able to do much of anything. Gali- By now, most people are acquainted with the relationship between Joker and Gali. The two even have similar stat gains, and are overall offense-oriented. However, the Gali comes out on top in the equation due to its vastly superior variety of moves, with which you can choose to concentrate on either Power or Intelligence and leave the other behind, unlike Joker, which needs to be able to use both types of moves in order to be a good contender. And what moves the Gali HAS! If you can develop Fire Wall and Blaze Wall into Napalm (B damage, A accuracy, only 38 cost!), you'll have a powerful short-range magic move. Red Wisp can compete with the best Withering moves, and Whirlwind-Typhoon-Hurricane can dish out big damage with comparitively little cost and decent accuracy. On the other hand, Gali's Power-based moves can also work very well. Spirit Blow, Heavy Blow, and Hashing Mask are all very useful, but relatively expensive. Giant Blow is the virtually the same as Napalm, but Power- based. Ultimately, the Gali does tend to work the same as a Joker, though- potent moves that require lots of Guts to use, so you better have the Skill to make sure that they hit. Unlike the Joker, though, if the Gali is faced with an Antagonizer, he can "scale down" his attacks back to their basic forms (Fire Wall, Back Blow, Whirlwind) and counterattack before the next round of Withering comes in. Plus, there is no real range where a Gali is at a disadvantage, as long as its move list is filled out...which is itself the disadvantage. While the Joker requires very little work to get all (6) of its powerful moves, the Gali needs extensive practice to get its most powerful attacks. Plus, it shares one of the Joker's weaknesses: No real natively good defensive stats. While it does have overall higher defensive stat gains (and more time to get them) than the Joker, you'll still need to find a good sub-type and concentrate on its strengths (fortunately, you have many more to choose from than the Joker, as well). Still, against most Galis, you should use the same strategy as against the Joker- hit them hard, fast, and often. Try to KO THEM before they kill YOU.
*Jill- I agree with many that the Jill is one of the most underrated monsters in the game, possibly because it's so hard to obtain. It has pretty long lifespan, the ability to easily max out either Power or Intelligence and then get far in the other, and VERY easy-to-get moves (Its only Tech Chains are Clap Attack: Slap Combo and Punch Combo: Jill Combo). Furthermore, all of its moves have a lower Guts Cost than comparitive moves on other monsters, which makes up for its naturally low Guts Regen quite well (plus, if you give it a Pixie or Tiger sub-type, that weakness tends to dissapear). Snowstorm is one of the best moves in the game, too (B Force, A Accuracy, B Withering, but only E Sharpness with 45, not 50, Guts Cost). Basically, a Jill can just aim for its enemies' weaknesses (Cold Breath and Ice Spikes against speedsters, Punch Combo and Ice Wave against Tanks) with a Combo King strategy and its naturally even split between Power and Intelligence, and have several easy victories. Its main problems, however, are Speed and Skill (Unless you have Tiger or Pixie sub- types, then it becomes Defense and Life), so a Speed Demon Antagonizer can take a Jill down HARD. Fortunately for the Jill, it's one of the few monsters that doesn't seem to suffer much during a Desperation strategy, which you'll need to get out of these battles with your Win-Loss record intact.
*Metalner- Think Ghost with actually GOOD abilities. Yeah, it's that powerful...except that it's NOT Power-ful, which is a severe problem as all but one of its moves (more on that one later) are Power- Based. With its near-obscene Guts Regen, high Skill, and weak Power/Intelligence, it's a naturally-born Antagonizer. In addition to most of its moves having C-rank Withering, they also almost all have C-rank Sharpness, which can help out its poor Power immensely. In fact, if you can just create a Metalner with decent Power, you will practically OWN every tournament. And unlike other Antagonizers like Plant, it has a few very potent moves like UFO Attack and Burning Palms to occasionally make up for that Power deficit. It has the additional distinction of being a Defense-based (rather than Speed or Life-based) Antagonizer, which, combined with its Skill, screws over just about any combination of monster if that Power is good (Tanks can do damage, but they can't ever get enough will to do so, and Speed Demons can get the Guts, but can't dish out too good of damage, often. You'll need something like a Kato or Phoenix to be able to take down this thing in the "good Power" scenario). Fortunately, there ARE no Metalner computer opponents in the game, and only a master trainer can get its Power up to the point where it becomes devastating. Final Note: While Metalner Ray requires about 300+ Intelligence to stand a good chance of getting, and is therefore probably not worth it in a serious Metalner, it IS worth getting just once so you can witness the trippy-awesome animation. Plus, an A- rank Withering move on this creature is NASTY.
*Plant- This is the very definition of an Antagonizer strategist. In fact, in MR1, my Plant/Monol was my first monster to move beyond a one-dimensional fighting style: None of my other monsters could beat Gabarn (a nasty Magic/Naga), but my little Metallica managed to pull it off by blasting it with Toxic Pollen and Toxic Nectar constantly to keep it from getting up the guts to do anything, and keeping Gabarn distracted with a Steady Hook (called "Root Combo" in MR2) here and there whenever it had spare guts, just to eat up time. I'll say this right now: Root Combo deserves and accuracy rating of S+++, and if you somehow miss with this attack, your Plant REALLY needs more Skill. Plus, as I said before, its lengthy animation can help run out the clock on a withered opponent, and if you actually have good Power, it can be your best weapon against Speed Demons. The biggest problem a Plant can have is when it's facing a monster that it can't wither effectively, which is when you fall back on Face Drill or Plant Combo (for the Power-oriented), or Seed Gatling (for the Intelligence-oriented). Possibly its most awesome attack is Life Steal. It may have only C-rank force, but you can make up for that with high Intelligence...the main thing here is that it's a C- accuracy DRAIN move!! That's right, you can guzzle out an enemy's HP with ease with this thing, thereby easily making up for a lack of any move packing B-rank or higher force! In fact, it's worth the trouble to have a Plant be Bad long enough to get this, and then reform to Good for Seed Gatling, thereby giving you one of the handiest monsters in the game! As for beating a Plant, though, your strategy is to basically try to nail it as soon as the match starts with a good move (Plants always have high Life, and sometimes either good Defense or Speed, but never both, so take that into consideration). *Tiger- Although Tiger is a faithful monster in the beginning, it pales in comparison to other critters once you get experienced in the game. Still, a decent Tiger can work wonders if used right...but neither a One-Hit Wonder strategy OR an Antagonizer works well here, so your best bet is to be a Combo King. Although Tiger has no S- or A-rank Force moves, most of its moves are very accurate, have at least moderate power (and Blizzard, with C Force, B Accuracy, D Withering, and S Sharpness, is nothing to laugh at). Paired with its very high Guts Regen, it can load on the damage in drawn-out fight, and as long as it has enough Speed to keep avoiding attacks, it will probably drop an opponent just before the timer runs out. If it's a first-gen monster, you're probably best off just working on Speed, Intelligence, and Skill, but if it comes from a long line of monsters, the Tiger/Golem can be an all-around powerhouse whose actually GOOD Power can cause major damage with Stab and Combination while taking full advantage of its super-accurate Charge and Roll Assault. In fact, all of its moves have better Sharpness than similar moves on other monsters (especially Ice Bomb. Care to name any other creature that can do an attack with S-rank Sharpness for 15 Guts?). Another nice thing about the Tiger as a beginning monster is that no ONE strategy is really needed for it: You can just use standard opponent-specific tactics (Hit Techs against Speedsters, Heavy techs against Tanks, Sharp Techs against high-Life opponents), or no real strategy at all to take down opponents. For dealing with a Tiger as an opponent, on the other hand, it's best to stay at dividing line between Short- and Mid-Range, since most of those moves are kind of unimpressive (all of these moves have poor Force, and poor-to-average accuracy). Unless it has Golem or Monol sub-traits, it probably doesn't have too good of Defense, (and Plant could give it high Life), so just use high-accuracy moves to pound it. Ironically, the best creature to take down a Tiger...is a Tiger (Accuracy that cancels out Speed, and lots of Sharpness to add extra power to its moves).
*Jill- Although originally underrated (since hardly anyone had raised one to spread the word), Jills have now taken their rightful place in the Monster Rancher community as one of greatest monsters available. It's one of the few creatures that can easily max out both Power AND Intelligence, and it has high Life, and good Defense to help it along (not to mention a big lifespan to build it all up), but its poor Skill and Speed DO bring it down from absolute awesomeness (is that a word?). Its below-average guts regen can be helped with a Tiger or Pixie sub-type (which also helps its Speed and Skill at the cost of some Life and Defense), though, and as for Techniques, it's a real breath of fresh air. It has a well-balanced set of good moves with only two small tech chains (Clap- Slap Combo, and Punch Combo- Jill Combo), so you can easily grab them all on a first-generation monster, and overall, they don't seem to cost as much as similar moves on other characters, due to their more "basic" nature (Jills attend to the basics in order to keep cost down. Ice Wave doesn't have a Withering rating, and just does straight-forward B damage, D Accuracy, and E Sharpness for only 19 Guts). This can really make up for that naturally-low Guts Regen. Plus, Jills also have one of those really powerful Special Techs like Jell Copter (Snowstorm has stats of B/A/B/E for only 45 cost! YEAH!). Again, Jills don't call for any really odd strategies to win with, and their balance of Power and Intelligence make them natural-born Errantry-Monster-Killers (Too bad you have to have one of those to get a Jill in the FIRST place). When facing a rare Jill opponent, look for its weaknesses right off. Did the trainer neglect its Power? If so, hang out in Mid-Range and it won't be able to do much (except Wither you). Did the trainer neglect its Intelligence? If so, keep as far away from it as you can, and you'll probably be fine. If they attended to both, then just hammer it with Heavy Techs or Wither away at it (the second strategy, combined with the Jill's low Skill, will probably keep it from landing any hits).
Home
LC