I've created this thread in order to share with you my findings as I delve into the workings of the combining process. Feel free to post suggestions and share thoughts on this. With my trusty gameshark, I have already made an interesting find. This experiment involved the combining of a Mocchi and a Pixie.

First off, let me display the baseline stats for each of the possible outcomes of this combination and the stat ranking.

Baseline Stats

	Mocchi	Pixie	Manna
LIF	110	50	100
POW	100	80	110
INT	120	170	120
SKI	140	150	140
SPD	150	140	150
DEF	130	60	130

Now for the stat rankings for these baseline stats...

	Mocchi	Pixie	Manna
Highest	SPD	INT	SPD
2nd	SKI	SKI	SKI
3rd	DEF	SPD	DEF
4th	INT	POW	INT
5th	LIF	DEF	POW
Lowest	POW	LIF	LIF

For the sake of simplicity, I changed the stat gain values to all 4's (the maximum, stat gain values range from 0 -4) for both the Mocchi and Pixie (which I will be combining, the Manna (Mocchi/Pixie) is for reference).

Whenever the stat rankings of both monsters matched, I ALWAYS got a great combo from it. When I meddled with the rankings of the two monsters in relation to each other, Dadge's opinion invariably dropped. The more I messed with them, the worse the review. But if the stat rankings of the monsters matched each other, I always got the Great review. In order to measure the effects of each combination, I assigned a value to each stat according to the ranking I wanted them in. Highest = 999, 2nd = 998, 3rd = 997, 4th = 996, 5th = 995, Lowest = 994.

As I said, as long as the stat rankings matched for the two monsters, I always got the Great review. Now why did I mention the baseline stats for each of the outcomes? Because I discovered an interesting effect when I not only matched the rankings of the monsters with each other, but also with the rankings of the baseline stats of each of the possible outcomes.

First, I matched the stat rankings with the baseline stat rankings for the Mocchi. Please note that I ALWAYS combined Mocchi first, Pixie second.

	Mocchi	Pixie
LIF	995	995
POW	994	994
INT	996	996
SKI	998	998
SPD	999	999
DEF	997	997

I combined these two. Here are samples of the results...

	Manna	Pixie	Mocchi
LIF	167	117	495
POW	177	147	499
INT	399	234	490
SKI	400	307	513
SPD	422	203	522
DEF	410	126	503

As you can see, the Mocchi got the best results by far. Mocchi was the least likely result, but hold on Torey! *BG*, there's more!

Next, I changed the stat rankings to match the baseline order of the Pixie...

	Mocchi	Pixie
LIF	994	994
POW	996	996
INT	999	999
SKI	998	998
SPD	997	997
DEF	995	995

Now looks what happens...

	Manna	Pixie	Mocchi
LIF	303	407	191
POW	177	395	181
INT	184	506	197
SKI	349	465	324
SPD	213	463	226
DEF	209	388	196

This time the PIXIE comes away with the high honors. See a pattern here?

Finally, I changed the order again to that of the Manna....

	Mocchi	Pixie
LIF	994	994
POW	995	995
INT	996	996
SKI	998	998
SPD	999	999
DEF	997	997

Here's what happened...

	Manna	Pixie	Mocchi
LIF	452	244	191
POW	434	147	181
INT	437	234	465
SKI	447	359	493
SPD	465	203	477
DEF	468	126	482

This time, the Manna takes the gold...

The conclusion, the outcome with the best stat carryover is NOT neccessarily the least likely. The outcome with the best stats is the breed whose ranking of baseline stats matches best with those of both of the monsters being combined. Any comments? Until next time! :)

this is relatively convincing. what this seems to disprove is the theory that maxed monsters will not lead to great combos because the ratio of stats was unrelated to the ratio of the baseline stats. the above nearly maxed stats of the pixie and the mocchi are nowhere near the relationship of the baseline statgain of the two breeds, yet great combos result.

i say relatively convincing, because i and other ranchers have combined monsters whose stats rankings were the same, yet great combos did not result. there must be an additional factor at work in your above test. could it be that the exact match of stats had something to do with it?

i too have begun playing again, and have a few monsters raised to the beginning of prime. i have a few more that i could easily do the same with. looks like i will have something to do with them now!

Are you saying that if one knows the order of stats for the desired baby monster,then one should align the stats of 2 full grown monsters to the same ratio of the desired outcome?
ie-if the breed to be created has stats at birth like this-levels 2 3 4 5 3 2 for example,then we train two monsters to match this ratio.....ie-High Skill,next Int,Power,Speed,Life,Defence......is this the idea?
I'm not quite sure what you are saying here but I feel confident that you will soon be posting a thread titled something like "How to get a great combo".............Good work DP
This system will apply to half-done monsters I assume?

--"the above nearly maxed stats of the pixie and the mocchi are nowhere near the relationship of the baseline statgain of the two breeds, yet great combos result."--

Not quite, remember that one must distinguish the difference between stats and stat GAINS. Normally, the stat GAIN values of the Mocchi and Pixie are this.

	Mocchi	Pixie
LIF	2	0
POW	2	1
INT	2	4
SKI	3	3
SPD	3	3
DEF	3	0

Since stat GAIN values also affect the outcome of the combo, I changed all of the values to 4 for the purpose of isolating other factors involved in the combining process. Leaving stat gains as is will introduce a factor that the Japanese call "correcting", which complicates things a bit. The altered the stat gains values to avoid this for the time being to keep things relatively simple.

--"the above nearly maxed stats of the pixie and the mocchi are nowhere near the relationship of the baseline statgain of the two breeds, yet great combos result."--

Yeah, that's basically it. The parents breeds must be relatively compatible at first though. Remember, I altered the stat gain factors of the above monster to force compatablity. Pixie and Mocchi don't normally combine well.

2nd quote from my post

--"the above nearly maxed stats of the pixie and the mocchi are nowhere near the relationship of the baseline statgain of the two breeds, yet great combos result."--

D'oh! Wrong one! This was the quote I intended.

--"ie-if the breed to be created has stats at birth like this-levels 2 3 4 5 3 2 for example,then we train two monsters to match this ratio.....ie-High Skill,next Int,Power,Speed,Life,Defence......is this the idea?"--


Apparently, the levels of the stats as in 1-20 are irrelavent, just the order of stats from highest to lowest.

So far, this is far from authoritative, as it focuses on just one factor of combining. Stat GAIN levels bring into effect the "correcting" factor, which I hope to cover later.

For the record, I just raised 2 Market Mocchis side by side combining every year. They slept every week, and were fed fish, no items in inventory except glue. The stats of the offspring were identical to the parents every time regardless of age.

So, age is apparently not a factor.

Hmmm... as if combining wasn't interesting enough already...

So as an outline... the monsters should have similar stat gains and have stats in the order of the stat gains of the baby monster that you want to get?

The monsters should have similar stat gains and have stats in the same order as that of the BASELINE stats of the baby monster you wish to obtain.

Here's a short glossary:

Stat order - This is as I have explained before, it's the ranking of each stat from highest to lowest

Stat gains - This is determines the ablity of a monster to gain points in each stat. The game ranks these from 0 (meaning it's horrible at gaining points in that stat) to 4 (Excellent gains)

Baseline stats - This is quite different from stat gains. These are basically the minimum stats that a baby monster can start out with. Market monsters ALWAYS start with baseline stats. The baseline stats of other breeds can be determined by repeatedly combining the same breeds to get the breed in question (e.g. Combining Arrowhead/Joker with another one to get an Arrowhead/Joker). When you do so, you may notice that the offspring's stats will gravitate towards certain values, those are the breed's baseline stats. Baseline stats do not always correspond with stats gains, the most notable example being a Mock's LIF.