ADVANCED STRATEGY GUIDE FOR DRAGON WARRIOR MONSTERS by Yash P. Gad For the Gameboy Color Disclaimer: This work is protected by international copyright laws, and may not be reproduced in any form without express written consent from the author. Any plagiarism, in part or whole, will constitute a violation of copyright. Copyright 1999-2000, Yash P. Gad Current Versions: Dragon Warrior Monsters @ The Cerveau Café www.tiger-marmalade.com/~yash/entertainment/games/dwm.html Dragon Warrior Monsters Central members.xoom.com/dwmcentral GameFAQs www.gamefaqs.com Table of Contents: 1. Acknowledgements 2. Introduction 3. Basics 4. Monster Rankings 5. Skill Breeding 6. Team Member Selection 7. Team Selection 8. Closing -------------------- | Acknowledgements | -------------------- The breeding, and resistance, information was obtained from the wonderful FAQ by Alex Jackson. This FAQ is available at gamefaqs.com and contains every breeding combination in the game, as well as some insightful analysis. I would also like to thank Paul Green, who is a very knowledgeable Dragon Warrior Monsters player, for proofreading this FAQ. ---------------- | INTRODUCTION | ---------------- After completing the game the first time, I was greatly disappointed by how little I had actually done in the game. With the wide variety of monsters and endless breeding combinations, I still used 3 or 4 main monsters throughout the game. Each one was loaded up with the big offensive spells. Upon going back, I realized that a lot more thought could be put into making each monster. This would result in a more strategically laid out teams that would win through skill, not brute strength. I set out to make a FAQ that would explain the thought process, and provide basic blueprints on how to become a better Master Monster Trainer. ---------- | BASICS | ---------- I am assuming that if you are reading this FAQ, you have already played through a portion of the game. To recap, you are a young adventurer participating in a tournament of monster battles to save your kidnapped sister. Much like Pokemon, you will gain monster allies who will make up your party. There are really three phases that each monster will go through: 9. Getting the monster – The monster will either just join you, or will have to be enticed using meats. This can happen either in the wild or during battles with other trainers. 10. Training the monster – By fighting other monsters, you can increase the levels of your monster, making it stronger and giving it access to stronger skills (up to 8 at a time). 11. Breeding the monster – The most fascinating part of the game is breeding your leveled up monsters away to make even stronger allies. This is where the bulk of the strategy comes in. Breeding is done between males and females, and can result in different monsters depending on which is picked first (the pedigree). Offspring will start with half of the average stats between the parents. -------------------- | Monster Rankings | -------------------- There are 10 different monster families within the game: Slime, Dragon, Beast, Bird, Plant, Bug, Devil, Zombie, Material, and Boss. Each family has many different members, each with a unique set of skills. Before getting to the strategy, it is good to have a grasp of who the "best" monsters are from each family. By this, I mean the members who have the highest growth rates in the stats, and usually possess the most potent skills. After each name, I will list a short analysis of strengths and skills. Keep in mind that when I say "High MP" or "Low HP", it refers to stat growth, not the stat amount. Consequently, most of the monsters in the rankings are necessary in the breeding combinations to obtain BOSS family members. SLIME 1. GoldSlime – Hands down, the best slime. High resistance to skills, coupled with the awesome BigBang. Very high MP. 2. MetalKing – High resistance to skills and physical damage, coupled with Hellfire. Very high MP, but low HP. DRAGON 1. Divinegon – The strongest dragon. High everything, coupled with BigBang BEAST 1. KingLeo – High attack and defense, and quick to grow. BIRD 1. RainHawk – Quick growth, many resistances, and the unstoppable MegaMagic PLANT 1. Watabou – Can't get till the end of the game. Very high MP, with many odd spells such as Chance, Whistle, and Imitate 2. Rosevine – Very high MP, HP, and attack. Good mixed spells like UltraDown BUG 1. Armorpion – High attack, though not the greatest spell selection. DEVIL 1. Durran – High everything, coupled with family cut attacks 2. Akubar – Very high MP, but hard to level up. 3. Jamirus – High in everything except MP, good mixed spells. ZOMBIE 1. Servant – High everything, with a few offensive spells 2. WhiteKing - MATERIAL 1. GoldGolem – Easily the best material. High in everything, coupled with BigBang BOSS 1. DarkDrium – The best monster, which you can only get by many successive breedings. Very high in everything, and almost impervious to damage. *Really all members of this family are very good ------------------ | Skill Breeding | ------------------ I. INTRODUCTION While getting the strong monsters you always wanted, you may or may not have paid attention to what skills you were keeping, and what skills you were discarding. The first time I went through the game, I just kept the powerful skills, such as Gigaslash and BigBang, and didn't really bother about what else I had. I only realized later that I lost a skill I wanted for that particular monster, but getting it back would be a pain. Never fear, for I will detail the thought process for planning out your skill breeding alongside your monster breeding. II. Rare Skills Before starting our sample breeding strategy, it is necessary to look at what rare skills (mostly offensive) are out there. I am listing this first, so that we can refer to them later. I am purposely excluding the boss monster family from this, because the specific breeding pattern leading to a DarkDrium will accumulate most of these skills. In addition, it is more important to see what less powerful monsters have these good skills, because they will be more important to the skill breeding. A description of these skills can be found elsewhere, so I will just list the monsters that have them as inherent skills GigaSlash – LizardMan, MadKnight HellBlast – MetalKing, ZapBird BigBang – GoldSlime, Divinegon, GoldGolem MegaMagic – Slime, RainHawk K.O.Dance – DanceVegi, Shadow, KingCobra, SuperTen HealUs – Healer, MadCondor, Lionex, DeadNoble MultiCut – SkyDragon, Balzak The game is not centered on a handful of powerful offensive skills. Sure, it is a no-brainer to pull out your +50 Darkdrium, and just Gigaslash everyone to death. You can make the game a lot more interesting (and much more fun) by really integrating all the different types of skills into your party. III. Skill Combining A not-so-well-known aspect of the game is skill combining. This is when two or more skills will combine to give you a powerful skill, given that certain level and stat requirements are met. While this is good, it overlooks the fact that all the main offensive skills can be learned from easy to breed or easy to obtain monsters (except for BigBang, which needs monsters that are difficult to come by). So I really won't be addressing this aspect, except to say that it is definitely easier to grab or breed a quick monster and introduce this skill into your lineage, rather than breeding all the necessary combining components into your monster. IV. The Breeding Now, in any breeding, you should try to plan out your combinations in reverse order. For this example, I will use a GoldSlime(one of my favorite characters). Suppose I want him to have these 8 spells: Gigaslash, MultiCut, HellBlast, BigBang, HealUsAll (from HealUs), Revive (from Vivify), WhiteAir, and WhiteFire. Keep in mind that to get this kind of spread of skills will require a LOT of work. The reason for this is that although inherent skills are spread regardless of level, skills learned from ancestors can only be passed on ONCE THEY ARE LEARNED. So to get things like GigaSlash will take leveling up to about level 32-37, before you can pass it on. Let's work one step backwards now. How do I get my GoldSlime? I can breed either: SpotKing, KingSlime, or Metalking with a GoldGolem Or MetalKing with MetalKing Now just by looking at that, you may not see any difference. But there will be a BIG difference in the quality of GoldSlime you get. Remember, that the offspring gets half of the average stats of the parents. MetalKing are notorious for having very low HP. Breeding two MetalKings will result in a GoldSlime with VERY low HP. So, we shall go with the first one. But which combination? Let's choose the KingSlime with a GoldGolem (I like this because it avoids throwing in a MetalKing late in the mix). We have one of the skills taken care of right away – BigBang (already an inherent skill of the GoldSlime). I will break the breeding up into two parts, the KingSlime's ancestry. and the GoldGolem's ancestry. a)The KingSlime We will get one of the skills we need from the KingSlime already (Vivify), so now we need to focus on other skills. To get a KingSlime, we can use the following breeding combinations: SpotKing with GreatDrak, BattleRex, Divinegon, Unicorn, KingLeo, MadCondor, Zapbird, WhipBird, Gigantes, Centasaur, DeadNoble, or WhiteKing Choosing the SpotKing's mate may seem like an overwhelming task. Many of these are hard to come by (such as the Divinegon). In this case I chose the MadCondor. The reason for this is threefold. First, the MadCondor has the inherent ability of HealUs, which is one of the skills we need. Second, the breeding combination for a MadCondor is this: LandOwl with a member of the Devil family Or A member of the Bird family with a CoilBird In this breeding, I chose the first one. LandOwl are very easy to come, and this also gives us the nice chance to breed in a MadKnight (a member of the Devil family). This will introduce GigaSlash into our pool. It really doesn't matter how you get the MadKnight, because it can be breed immediately (if over level 10) with the LandOwl to pass the GigaSlash skill. The third reason I wanted to choose a MadCondor is that members of the Bird family tend to level faster than any other family. This will make reaching the level for GigaSlash a little easier. Now, back to the SpotKing. The SpotKing by itself offers none of the skills we needed. However, the breeding combination for it offers good opportunities to get those skills. The combination is: KingSlime or MetalKing with GreatDrak, BattleRex, Divinegon, Unicorn, KingLeo, MadCondor, Zapbird, WhipBird, Gigantes, Centasaur, DeadNoble, or WhiteKing Now, it seems silly to use a KingSlime for this, so instead we will use the MetalKing. It can be bred with any of these really, though in my particular case I used the Unicorn I made with a Slime and WildeApe. The MetalKing is a little harder to get, since it requires either the breeding of 2 metabbles (which require 2 Metaly a piece) or breeding a SpotKing or KingSlime with a MetalDrak. I personally took the Metaly route, though most people might say it was easier to go the other way. In any case, the MetalKing gives you the HellBlast skill. This wraps up this half of the breeding. Now let's move to the GoldGolem b) The GoldGolem At first glance, this seems like the most trivial breeding, involving just an IceMan and a LavaMan (both which are plentiful with trainers in the wild). We are still missing the skill MultiCut, which the monster Balzak has. To get Balzak you just breed either an IceMan or LavaMan with a member of the Devil family. By breeding this balzak with either an IceMan or LavaMan as the "pedigree" (first) monster, you will get your IceMan or LavaMan back. After leveling this monster up until it learns MultiCut, it can be bred with its counterpart to get the GoldGolem. V. Comments This may seem very drawn out, but it is good to plan this way to avoid ending up with the wrong gender, or breeding away a monster you really needed. It will also ensure that you end up with the skills you need in your "Super Monster" ------------------------- | Team Member Selection | ------------------------- Now that you have seen how to end up with the monster you want (with the skills you want), we can move to the next task of building the team. The obvious goal is to make the strongest, most successful team. There are several "types" of members that you can expect to have. These can be either focused on different areas of expertise, or can be theme characters (which are just fun to use). There are really two different schools of thought on this. Some people believe that it is better to have all of the monsters on a team with both healing and offensive spells. To some extent, this is true. In crucial battles, it is necessary to have everyone with a healing spell, and some kind of offense. I am offering an alternative strategy to that. The members I have listed below are different types which can be mixed and matched to get different teams (with different strengths and weaknesses). I will talk more about this later. Below each member, I have listed a few monster types that would be ideal for this type of character. Keep in mind that the members of the Boss family will work for any of these, and are a powerful addition to any team. 1. The Healer This member should have all the best healing spells, evolved to either HealAll or HealUsAll (from Heal and Heal Us, respectively). This monster will also have some kind of spell to bring back the dead, like Revive. It will also need something to get rid of status ailments, such as surge (to cover everything). Lastly, you can't be just defensive, so you need one or two heavy hitter like BigBang, MultiCut, or HellBlast (don't get rid of all your MP by using MegaMagic if that monster is to be your main healer) or even a GigaSlash (good for taking out one big nuisance) Typical skills: GigaSlash, BigBang, HealAll, HealUsAll, Revive, Surge, Ironize, and Meditate Attack Stance: Cautious Monsters: GoldSlimes and Metal Slime sub-family members seem uniquely suited for this class. All are very resistant to enemy spells and skills, and have very high MP. There low attacks also make them better suited for this over any other class. 2. The Handyman This member is just helping everyone on all fronts. He will be equipped with a healing spell, and maybe a revive. The main thing will be a bunch of increasers, like SpeedUp or TwinHit. These will improve everyones attacks. Also, he should have some good attacks of his own. A good person to have megamagic, because after he builds up everyone, he can unload what he has left. Would be nice to have gigaslash too. Typical Skills: SpeedUp, TwinHit, MegaMagic, Increase, Surge, Surround, Hustle, Revive Attack Stance: Mixed Monsters: Monsters that are suited to this would have good stats across the board, and especially good MP. Also, you need a high agility, to ensure that these effects reach your party and your opponents before the action starts. For this, I would suggest members of the Bird family, such as RainHawk or WhipBird. 3. The Overkill Well, for those that don't really care about a finesse win, they just need someone that can quickly dish it out. This person should have all the awesome attack spells (BigBang, Multicut, MegaMagic, GigaSlash, HellBlast). Also, a good physical attack such as QuadHits would be useful too. Any supplemental attack spells would be good. Typical Skills: BigBang, MultiCut, MegaMagic, GigaSlash, Hellblast, QuadHits, Revive, WhiteFire Attack Stance: Charge Monsters: The ideal monster for this would have a very high attack, coupled with average MP. This would cover both physical and spell based attacks. My choices are from the Zombie family, particularly the DeadNoble or Servant. 4. The Dragon One of the theme characters. This character will have almost all of the breath based attacks (BlazeMost, PalsyAir, SleepAir, PoisonAir, WhiteAir, White Fire) as well as BeDragon. In addition, this dragon character will have SuckAir, to increase breath attack effectiveness. Like most theme characters, this monster will have StopSpell (or even DanceShut or ThickFog)to prevent any offense other than the big bad breath. Though for any theme character, it is good to keep like 1 or 2 spots open for an offensive (Bigbang, Multicut, GigaSlash) or defensive (HealAll or HealUsAll) skill, since the opponents may have a counter for your specialty. Typical Skills: WhiteAir, WhiteFire, BeDragon, SuckAir, SleepAir, PoisonAir, HealUsAll, StopSpell Attack Stance: Charge/Mixed Monsters: It seems silly to use anyone other than a member of the Dragon family for this. Dragons increase well in all stats, and work well with this set of skills. 5. The Dancer Another interesting theme character. This character will have all of the dance attacks (K.O. Dance, LifeDance, RobDance, PaniDance) and some spell stopping attacks (StopSpell, ThickFog, or MouthShut). I would include some theme style attacks, like HighJump, SideStep, or BigTrip. Again, for any theme character, it is good to keep like 1 or 2 spots open for an offensive (BigBang, Multicut, GigaSlash) or defensive (Healall or HealUsAll) skill, since the opponents may have a counter for your specialty. Typical Skills: K.O. Dance, LifeDance, RobDance, SideStep, BigTrip, PaniDance, GigaSlash, StopSpell Attack Stance: Charge/Mixed Monsters: There is one "dance" monster (DanceVegi), and it is fun to have the theme complement its name. It has a high MP and Agility growth rate (like any good dancer would). 6. The Caller Since there are not that many different Call skills that this member would have, this class ends up being a modified HandyMan. The Call skills are YellHelp and whatever "evolution" of TatsuCall (Bazoo, Samsi, Diago) you have. Good person to have MegaMagic (to unload after doing its initial TatsuCall and maybe a few YellHelps) Typical Skills: YellHelp, BazooCall, Chance, SpeedUp, MegaMagic HealUsAll, Revive, TwinHit Attack Stance: Mixed Monsters: Only a few monster have TatsuCall as an inherent skill, but I would be more inclined to choose one of them. This included WhipBird, DeadNoble, and GoldGolem. 7. The Hitman This guy is ready to lay the smack down on anything he encounters. This member will have maybe 6 or 7 of the 10 family cut attacks. By narrowing down the number of these he is using, he can keep a bunch of attack up attacks like TwinHit or Chargup, or Berserker. To go with the theme, may want a Gigaslash or Defeat. Typical Skills: MetalCut, DevilCut, DrakSlash, CleanCut, SmashSlime, ZombieCut, GigaSlash, TwinHit. Attack Stance: Charge Monsters: The ideal monsters for this class will have very high attack growth. The two best attackers, in my opinion, are Gigantes and Grizzly. Either would work for this. 8. The Nullifier This monster will be there to essentially neutralize the enemy party. The specialty of this class is to remove spell, breath, and dance ability, and make their physical attacks useless (making them sitting ducks). The main skill nullifiers are StopSpell, MouthShut, and DanceShut. To get rid of physical attacks, there is Radiant and SandStorm. To lower their stats, there is Curse (which does random things to them), Defense and SlowAll. And to just keep them from doing ANYTHING, there is BigTrip and WarCry. Another good person to have MegaMagic, since they can unload once the enemy is neutralized. Typical Skills: StopSpell, MouthShut, DanceShut, Radiant, MegaMagic, BigTrip, Curse, Defense Attack Stance: Mixed Monsters: Really any good, FAST, spellcaster would work. They need to be fast to get these effects out before the enemy attacks. 9. The Elemental Master These monster will take 1 or 2 of the elements and will pool various attacks from them. The reason for this, is that there is usually at least one or two resistance groups that monster families are weak to (besides the MegaMagic and GigaSlash ones), and it might be helpful to have these available. The FAQ by Alex Jackson breaks down the resistances into several main groups. Pick 1 or 2 groups, and then flesh out the skills with enhancers (like for breath attacks). Fire 1: BlazeMost, FireSlash, BigBang Fire 2: Firebolt Explosive: Explodet Wind: Infermost, VacuSlash, MultiCut, WindBeast, Vacuum Thunder: Zap, BoltSlash, Lightning, HellBlast Ice: IceBolt, IceSlash Fire Breath: WhiteFire Ice Breath: WhiteAir Poison: PoisonHit, PoisonAir, Grouping things like all the Fire, or maybe 2 of the Fire and one more, would work out well. Attack Stance: Charge Monsters: For an Ice Master, maybe a Blizzardy or IceMan. For a Fire Master, maybe a Phoenix or LavaMan. For Thunder and Wind, maybe ZapBird, WhipBird, or WindBeast. And for Poison, a Poisongon. Remember that after a lot of breeding, most of your final monsters will max out their stats (or get really close), and so the stats really won't become the deciding factor in what class that monster should be. It then becomes a matter of preference. ------------------ | Team Selection | ------------------ Now that you have seen some of the different types of members, I will outline what different teams can be made from combinations of these members. There are really infinite combinations, each which could work given the right planning and strategy. I will add more as this type of strategy becomes more widespread. Team 1 – The Castle Monster 1 – The Healer Monster 2 – The Overkill Monster 3 – The Hitman I call this the castle, because it always reminds me of the relationship between wizard (healer), knight (overkill), and archer (hitman) in the castle siege of any good medieval legend. 2 offensive, one good defense to back them up. This is probably the most common team combination, at any point in the game. Team 2 – The Circus Monster 1 – The Dancer Monster 2 – The Caller Monster 3 – The Nullifier I call this a circus because it represents the grouping of a bunch of weird skills. The Nullifier here will block the enemy, allowing the use of odd skills. The Caller will probably go in for the most damage with the MegaMagic. A hard team to play (though very entertaining). Something nice to tinker with late in the game. Team 3 – Circle the Wagons Monster 1 – The Healer Monster 2 – The HandyMan Monster 3 – The Hitman/The Overkill Representing the obviously defensive posture of "circling the wagons", this team relies on the offensive power of the Hitman/Overkill to win. Although not a good team to use late in the game, this formation is handy when starting out early in the game with one REALLY good monster and a few mediocre ones. Team 4 – Tag Team Monster 1 – The Healer Monster 2 – The Overkill Monster 3 – The Dragon Two great offensive powers, protected by a trusted Healer. Very strong late in the game. Team 5 – Earth, Wind, and Fire Monster 1 – Ice and Wind Master Monster 2 – Fire Master Monster 3 – The Hitman This team relies on the fact that the two elemental masters will be able to really whack most enemies. The Metal Slime sub-family will be taken out first by the Hitman, so no need to worry about those. ----------- | Closing | ----------- In closing, I really enjoyed making this FAQ. I hope that it will prove useful in playing Dragon Warrior Monsters, and making the most unstoppable monsters. Please let me know if you think any additions can be made to it, and I will put it in and give you credit.