Unusual Monster Theorycrafting

Tarq's on my list of mons to play with eventually for GW because you know who's attacking. The most you can do with Tarq is pair him with monsters with procs. One of the most game-changing is Verdehile because he'll ATB boost the group twice, and since Tarq and Verde both build on speed, you'll likely steal a turn cycle and take 5 or 6 yourself before a slow opponent.

Problem is he's super flimsy himself. Verde is 9885hp and 505def, which isn't super tanky, and Tarq is 8565hp 362def. The def in particular is paper. While people always panic about hp only in pvp, once you have crazy hp levels in the standard lategame bruiser and super-hp-intensive support/healer builds, def still matters. Once people can't Kahli or Lushen your mons, and with immunity or vero cleanses keeping def breaks off frequently, you're left hitting targets with high def and def doesn't scale linearly. Have too little and you get butchered (which is why def break hurts so much), have a ton and you get nicked. If you look at the mons some of the highest rank players have (and bear in mind, you don't know what they're using where, but you can guess), some of them have plenty of def. Depends who they're placed with (one mon being susceptible to def-ignoring attacks might be part of a comp that can't take out your other 3, especially if it's rezzable).

The nice thing is you could surprise someone. A super fast Megan (or, let's face it, Bernard, you wouldn't need the atk buff) with a single Lushen would be guaranteed to kill a 6* Tarq in amp unless he goes spd/hp/hp. But if someone goes in without outspeeding you, or thinks they can but don't, the sheer volume of turns could be unexpected. Tarq isn't seen much. Could play with a Raoq for further gambling. Taking a bunch of turns, Raoq has the break chance when he gets teamed up on the Group Hunt, and a violent one might go berserk.

Also would work with mons with high stun chances or def breaks. Monkey kings have the 50/50 stun, vagabonds get 100% breaks (and guaranteeing a def break outside resists or will runes could be lethal), etc. You'd really want a def break so your team would focus fire.

I'd prefer a zergier mon to one of the vagabonds in a lineup like this. The new pirates would work very well with their break on their first attack. Mons that prebuff themselves with crit or atk on their first skill would do well, too, but def break is probably too important to be missing.

I forgot, Kaimann has the atk break, which that group's missing as a 4/5. My brain was swapping Bella and Darion in my head while keeping track of his team while I was questioning the Bella/Megan in a dungeon you don't need the buff strip like you do in B10.

If you don't get atk break on a DPS, you don't have a speed boost, and Bernard would fit in perfectly well for a slower group. I would personally go nuts with Baretta/Ahman/Bella/Shannon/Bernard.

And now that I'm thinking about it... where the crap is his defensive dispel. I wasn't even thinking about it before, but he wasn't bringing Kona, wasn't bringing Vero.

He said this is non-auto, so I'm assuming the idea is Baretta would 0 the boss to let dots fade?

If you're going non-auto, swap Bella with Kona and bring Bernard to cover all bases and be super safe. Baretta(L)/Ahman/Shannon/Bernard/Kona has heal, backup heal, luxury of a turn grant if manual, atk/def buff, atk/def break, spd buff, ae slow, dots, atb 0 for the boss, and the provoke on Ahman and stun on Kona's base attacks are moderate help while clearing. I still don't like the group's speed, but at least it can remove dots, unlike what he put together. Still 100% farmable of a team.

Edit - just did some googling, NickDaGreek did a video about this and the team he recommended was Baretta/Bella/Shannon/Bernard/Kona, which is the same idea. Depends on mon hp levels, tankier they are, the more Bella might outpace Ahman in the group. I don't think there would be an appreciable difference, I think Nick featured Bella because Ahman requires much more specific runes to do well, whereas Bella's %-based heal will always work the same way. Just needs a lot of speed and ideally Violent to take more turns just in case.

TL;DR the guy making the B9 guide was trying to help, but I think he's actually giving terrible advice. You would make a much better team with mons that are MUCH more useful in the rest of the game. Skip the salamander.

Lol. I can't wait till I know enough about this game to think on such a level.

People don't invest in him because violent veromos and/or immunity is present in most conq+ defenses, so a mon reliant on not only breaking but stacking debuffs can feel very gimmicky. Kahli can hit hard and is self-reliant with the self-buff, but the higher you get the fussier hiding a very squishy DD in a pocket can be. However, since Kro needs break and his own debuffs, while in theory Kahli needs nothing, you have more flexibility creating a lineup where she can hide, which is a big difference when both would have to make sure they're invisible to the AI. Kro is also exceptionally hard to protect when many teams run a Darion or Bella, so you can't guard him with a dark tank.

I would either invest in a DD that doesn't necessarily ignore defense but is pure single target (which is what I'm building Kaz for; Jean is a staple for this, Sophia, aside from weak to the meta, the new Theomars, etc). When you start having to pick apart defenses by loading break and then nuking 1 target, best thing you can do is tinker with spd on an atk buffer, def breaker and nuker and make sure your speeds are tightly clumped and happen in thr right order. If yout break is slower than your nuke, well, that is a problem. It's a lot harder for Veromos to prevent when it all happens together, and you only need one hit with a pure nuker.

I think you could build an awful lot of monsters to hit that hard. I'd keep Sig off a burst dmg list because he (like right now) so often gets taken dungeoning and doesn't build to be a safe pocket nuke. That hp rune would really hurt him trying to gank. Tyron doesn't build directly for one-shot (it's RNG oneshot like Raoq), but a violent Tyron as atk/critd/atk or spd/critd/atk can combo between extra attacks and violent procs and do the same output as anything, it's just a bit more luck-reliant. Higher potential output, but you have to be able to play comfortably safe until it happens. He does have the luxury of self-crit-buffing and can use his AEs to stall during bad turns, like when break isn't up. And Sig's problem of being runed to do other things affects him too. Your Julien can hit extremely hard when not built to CC, and he has a lot of leeway with runes. You also have the luxury of having yours max-skilled. When you want him to be a ganker, he can live with just the atk buff, as you can build him to have 70% base crit and he caps himself on his surprise visit naturally, or use a Sieq/Aquila type buff and have a paltry 40% base while going nuts for critd subs. Much more flexible with group makeup, especially in GWs, to go with 70 base though. You would always know exactly what to expect from his strikes, which is nice.

It's true he suffers in the wind-resistant meta, but GW has a wide range of targets, and plenty of people are fire-light on at least 1 of their 2 teams. I think I actually didn't use Lushen in any of my last 3 fights this week and used Kaz in 2 of the 3, despite his crap runes, but that was more the luxury of who I chose than anything forced. Most of the time he's in one of the 6 in an offense. A lot of people are using whatever 6s they have. Plenty of teams with 2 or 3 water (or no fire) on them. When I farmed my way up to 3500 or so earlier today, to be prepped for maintaining Conq tomorrow, I used Lushen maybe... 70% of my fights or so? Places where he'd feel safe? That's acceptable. It's almost 100% below that. He just really, really needs a nice set of runes, especially a 6 star critd rune. Needs moar giants. That's true for Kro as well, though. Basically any of the gankers will want a 6 star critd rune and plenty of crit subs on their other slots.

I can't get around to him until I am content with runes to 6 my Darion, but I'm a fan of Jubelle. Jubelle's only real counter argument (besides mediocre base stats, especially hp, but that doesn't stop Darion) is that the purpose can be filled by multiple dark mons, just depends what the situation is. What I love is that he directly neuters Ahmans (not very common at all on D anymore, especially conq+, but they sneak into lower GWs) and, much more relevantly, crit Darions. Bella doesn't really care if he crits or not, but plenty of Darions have a lot of crit/critd to help their burst potential under violent. That passive is great. A lot of people have Dias from the HoH, who has crit reduction and adds Darion's dmg reduction to the group, but I don't like that he has a far less consistent break on a CD. Jubelle being able to break for you on counterattacks and every one of his own turns is fantastic.

Keep in mind Darion and Jubelle both need specific speed ratings. If they're the only break, then they absolutely have to be faster than your nuker, so if you use a bunch, that's gonna be a bit of a pain. Break going after the nuker is a giant mess, can't ever have that. If you're running two breaks, like Bella alongside one of those two, I would want Bella and the atk buffer (if there is one) going first, then the vagabonds, then the nuker. You can't ever guarantee break landing under one application, or Bella might be an unfortunate speed (faster than an enemy Veromos, or your nuker is slower than an immunity buffer). If Bella is slower than an immunity/invinc buffer, then he can sieze, and you'd want your vagabond going before the nuker. This is better if Darion is with Bella (or another dark breaker is with Jubelle) because otherwise they're likely going to hit separate targets when AI controlled. Assume a team has Chloe/Darion/Veromos on it plus some 4th. If Chloe outspeeds Bella (and that is all but guaranteed), and she doesn't laser, immunity goes up. Let's say Bella siezes. He's going to sieze Veromos. Then Jubelle goes. Jubelle is stupid. Jubelle does not understand Darion has immunity still up, Jubelle just knows Darion is a light mon, and Jubelle hates light mons. If Jubelle were Darion, Darion would still be stupid, but it wouldn't matter that Darion was stupid, because the monster he hates is the one that got siezed. That being said, having split element breakers means you have to be more careful with how you orient your line-up to tank (Bella + Darion means I bring a dark tank, Bella + Jubelle means I need dark+light or I suffer random-target breaks).

One nice thing is that Jubelle will play nice with Bella if Bella breaks. Jubelle will go after the broken dark tank if one was brought, you can't have what happens when a fire mon ignores a def-broken water mon. Worst he can be is neutral, so he'll hit that def-broken neutral target and pile on before your nuker hits it. If they only brought a light tank and not a dark tank, Bella will hit someone random, and Jubelle will skip the person tanking his break like a champ.

Zinc for PVP (as opposed to PVE, more on that at the end) I don't like just because while you wouldn't put him in an AD (any def-scaler is so Lushen bait), so you'd only have to bring him out if there wasn't ignore defense present, he still scales off his defense, and the two most common def breakers in PVP (til... forever, really) are light. He'll be a magnet for them, and unlike Jubelle, will absolutely be crippled. I mean, no one likes being broken, but living armors hate it. He won't have good hp, even if you do def/def/hp to add some survivability, and his def will tank like a rock under break, and his damage will tank accordingly. At least Copper is wind, and ignore defense is uncommon on ADs, so if you have a dark tank for Bella or Darion, he actually can function as a tanky DPS. Most teams aren't pure fire, they just have fire in the mix, like Chasun/Kumar/Darion/Veromos or something. That's on the low side, could have the Fire AA in there, or Chloe, or Perna, or lots of choices, but it actually seems pretty rare to have more than 2. Defense works fine in PVP when it isn't broken or ignored. If you've ever hit a likely double-def runed Archangel without break or ID, especially with godly runes, you hit them for NOTHING. There was a DPS Velajuel I once faced that was probably def/critd/def and mons were hitting him for under 1k (this was a long time ago, but I never forgot how stupid it felt, and I had no break with me). Veromos is one of Copper's best friends, as is Jubelle, keep them breakers away. Nothing he can do about Anavel, though, aside pray that she'll glance. I'd also be terrified of Ritesh. Any AE def break you can't hide from.

I have a huge soft spot for non-farmable L&Ds, I will eventually build every single one I get. I just wouldn't expect much from Zinc for PVP for consistent use when so many teams would have you staring at your mons, thinking, and going, "Well, I can't bring Zinc...", I should record how many teams *don't* have either Darion or Bella that I see in Conq. I mean, it still happens. You'll still see people ranking that haven't been pushed back down, or the sheer mon quality is scaring people. Chloe/Zaiross/Perna/Velajuel all together. Bring water and counter us to death, IF YOU DARE. (I dared. Chloe lasered and Kaz one-shot the slowest Zaiross in the world, it was hilarious.) If you do build him, when it's safe to use him, I think he'd be a great despair user everywhere, including PVP. I think his shortcomings are almost entirely meta-based, not kit-based, so whenever he did get to come play, he'll probably do very well.

Now that I'm checking your box again, the only tanky wind you have at 6 is Briand, and while Briand will be built to take hits, if you're bringing a Briand to soak fire damage, the person that's in danger of dying is the one that can rez. That's no good. If you wanted a rez option, you'd bring Briand when it *wasn't* a fire heavy team, like if Veromos is soaking a Darion or Bella's breaks and is at risk of being spiked. It's also very nice when your wall can do something besides be a wall (and while a Despair Briand can both debuff atk and get a bunch of annoying stun and heal suppression procs, that 1) assumes he's on despair, not violent, and 2) is a lot of RNG). Or, at least, be an amazing wall like Ermeda. Chasun will soak while healing. Ramagos soaks while threatening to gank back. Copper can do the same thing, and function with direct instead of % heals like from an Ahman or something because he's so hp-efficient. He won't be as good as Ramagos with heavy fire, but if a team has 1 scary DPS and it's fire, that's 3 remaining good targets for Copper to take out. He might be a worthwhile project for you if you tucked a wind armor away somewhere. Also is a pretty decent speed when clearing aiden hell (or chiruka, not sure what crazy rune requirement he has for that though) while on vamp, and it's lenient on runes, so he has farming as a fallback if a PVP gank source / fire tank (while juking break) didn't work out.

He won't have as much information about him as Copper, but I believe Zinc will also have vampire-farming as a fallback, only he can do it basically any scenario. Vamp def-scaling mons are some of the most efficient in the game. I had a friend with one repped, but it was replaced months ago. Don't think I ever tried Aiden hell with it (Faimon would be a bad idea, break would suck), but it would not be outside the realm of possibility. Aside from that, he also would have very, very high potential for HoHs and ToA. DPS are in real danger in those situations, any hp or def-scaling DPS is wonderful in there. A despair-user with double AEs that debuffs both atk and defense that will actually be able to take a hit is very handy. You might find you get more out of him in PVE. I plan on building Copper (and a Zinc if I ever get one) specifically for that kinda stuff.

I started building Gorgo a couple of times but lost interest and "disappeared" him. He just doesn't have enough in his kit to retain my interest. If his ATB reduction was AOE, maybe ... And with such a heavy need for fodder, well, he's overshadowed by better monsters. [Sorry. None of this seems like useful info.]

Thanks for mentioning Sieq. I think that is an appropriate monster to highlight, for the reasons you mentioned. I started seeing that name come up on SW forums and seeing him in some pretty good arena speed teams. So I picked out a likely looking puppy from the litter of them that is generally laying around and awoke and locked him. He's so easy to skill and level. Mine's almost ready to 5* just from keeping him in the exp pool and throwing a hound at him now and then. Let's continue this discussion when our Sieqs mature. Mine is runed swift/blade. But they are just funky runes I threw on him to level past 3*. Not sure what people consider optimal runes on him nowadays. Anyone else rediscovering this starter monster?

I am guessing that when your opponent does not have a speed leader you put Bernard in as lead for his 30% wind damage skill.

What makes Sieq less of a priority for me is that my Konamiya is already a fast 6* and he buffs my Lushen. Sieq adds the crit buff. So I am still leveling him. But Kona is doing a decent job filling that role ATM.

Rage/Blade sounds amazing. I may swap mine on free rune removal day.