Update
Notes:
It’s about time I finally update the tier list with the new monsters. It’s been a long time since the 8th anniversary so there are a lot to add! This is the third of the three updates I’ve done to get everything in order. Normally I list the new monsters with a bit of insight into their strategy/power but, since it’s been so long, some of these have been buffed in the meantime so I’ll also give a one-liner for how they were on release in those cases.
Additions:
These are done in order of release with mythics, legendaries then super epics, etc…
Zephyramus goes in at C for general, C for PvP, second form tier 3 and B for HP boost, with a moveset entirely about 0-5 star monsters this is always going to be held back a bit, but they pushed it hard enough that it’s a really big payoff for building that way. With 3 SE teammates even dream ender can nearly one-shot mythics but only one is enough to make Zephy a big tank so in practice what you have is a reliably tanky monster with piercing kills at the expense of team building. It’s hard to get enough time to use fledgling accelerate in PvP, but in theory what you do is power up some HP boosted SEs then as you kill enemies the new ones enter with their first move slowed. I can see this working with some SE cycles, F.D. Maeve setups or in particular teams utilising top SEs like Vulpink.
On release this was C/E for PvE/PvP. No stats boost and one fewer damage move meant this wasn’t much of a payoff, it relied too much on the SE setup working whereas now it can fall back on a piercing double kill.
Ayna goes in at C for general, D for PvP, second form tier 2 and D for HP boost, with a gimicky protector knockback, minimum defence and HP this doesn’t have much special going for it. However, it’s got generically good sweeping with stun converter to get extra turns. With double bloodcrave that’s very nasty! So don’t be fooled by the low tier position, this will perform well as a sweeper it’s just that the SS and power swoop are too niche that it’s basically just a sweeper… which we already have many good ones that offer something extra or tank well.
On release this was F/F for PvE/PvP. Stun immunity and single bloodcrave was a complete joke, it was practically a super epic. I’m a bit upset they didn’t try harder to make the design work, simply ramped up the sweeping potential and called it a day.
Giehretus goes in at S- for general, A for PvP, second form tier 2 and S for HP boost, with an absolutely nuts passive for control this has been given an incredibly underpowered moveset. It still gets kills since agile toxin poisons almost everything but anything tanky will not get one-shot. Use it like other heavy control/support mythics like Bastia, Fiona or Lilithia where you surround it with sweepers to take advantage of most enemies coming in at very high seconds. The big difficulty is finding the right team to play with it, since you need incredibly low speed monsters behind it along with enough aggression (etc.) and if it dies early then you’ll suffer from having all slow monsters. Ultimately that’s what gives it a knock down in the tier list, but it’s brutally strong when you have the collection to utilise it properly!
If you want to see the full breakdown of how it affects entrance speed by numbers check out this post.
On release this was S+/S+ for PvE/PvP. Catapult was simply crazy on this, giving it reliable piercing killing made it too easy to have a strong setup on the battlefield.
Fyrielle goes in at F for general, F for PvP, second form tier 1 and D for HP boost, with a moveset entirely reliant on meeting protector enemies to be good this is way too situational. Even when you do meet them, you need to keep the protector around to be able to continuously attack. There are simply way better monsters that also have a strong counter to protectors. I mean, just compare this to Nagandia and you’ll see it’s easily outclassed. Healing and sacrificing teammates at low TU are great when they are an extra option on an otherwise complete moveset but here we have literally everything being situational. The two nice things to see are a way to create dead weight in the enemy team so that it becomes a fair 3v3 fight and rockoid morph to remove itself. Some people might notice you can use this with OoO to remove teammates with rockoid morph but honestly we have enough sleep immunes or you can use something like Bundleblazer for that kind of thing.
On release this was F/F for PvE/PvP. This came with even surprisingly higher TU moves on release.
Stellaurum goes in at D for general, D for PvP, second form tier 2 and D for HP boost, with a permanent shield in dragon union and a return to dragon artwork this is a pretty cool design. Unfortunately it’s basically a poor man’s Gabrielle with a hefty team building restriction. Scarleguard, Megalodragon, Shadowyrm and Azida all getting union buffs did a great job of making dragon union a legitimate setup but this is more like team filler than a genuine payoff. That said, it will get piercing kills every 160-200TU while being annoying to kill and the first turn is quick enough to have an impact. In PvE I can see it working nicely with the AI hitting the shield and energy spike taking down buffed things. For PvP it needs a bigger payoff like having -50% TU on its skills with dragons’ arena.
On release this was E/F for PvE/PvP. Slower harvest charge and no shield meant this was a weaker Razoray and there was practically no reason to run dragon union with it.
Tenguko goes in at S for general, S for PvP, second form tier 2 and D for HP boost, with passives that help get it a turn and set up a double-kill, that’s already looking strong. It also provides stealth for your team, can heal a teammate if needed and with no restriction add an extra monster into your team that’s your choice from the enemies. This is the kind of monster you can very easily slip into your team to have some mid-game stun for control while also packing a huge amount of power and flexibility. Shapeshift is the big move here, since you can often grab an enemy that helps in the current scenario and it also sets up a second entrance at the end. The only downside is you need to be prepared for the enemies having stealth so you cannot have multi-target moves on your monsters ahead in the team. This is clearly the best stun monster in the game in my eyes. It’s also very well designed by having remover and it’s a nice touch that the artwork is one of the best waifu designs.
Eirlys goes in at F for general, C for PvP, second form tier 3 and S for HP boost, with a moveset so focused on support in a game where having threats is crucial it’s hard to be considered strong, but Eirlys does enough. Having mostly hold ground teammates should make them a pain to kill. Sacrificing teammates will also trigger the heal, plus unlock the spirit shield move. Eirlys gets a 50TU kill on the first turn (note you can target a teammate to make this a full heal). Obviously accelerate team+ is a huge move that should definitely be used ASAP then all the moves become ridiculously fast and swift hit all is genuinely decent DPS.
On release this was F/E(or F?) for PvE/PvP. This got a significant upgrade across the board to amplify what it was doing, the kind of buff I love to see.
Shi Na goes in at B for general, D for PvP, second form tier 3 and D for HP boost, with 90% chance to revive when killed and sometimes being impossible to target this can be a huge pain to kill. However, the compromise is it has low speed, minimum defence and is a bit restricted with its moveset. It’s a bit hard to evaluate but I’m settling on it being pretty low because I think most teams can either ignore or disable it and the low speed means it doesn’t make much impact. If ignored it can get two 160TU piercing kills but then gets stuck unless it has more stuff to sacrifice. Yinyang harmony is double-edged because it slows down your own team so you probably want to use Shi Na where you create throw fodder and have monsters looking to sacrifice teammates.
Isoldelle goes in at A for general, S- for PvP, second form tier 3 and A for HP boost, with a revenge that guaranteed kills probably multiple enemies and pretty reliably killing at 130TU from reasonable speed this is clearly a very strong generic PvP monster. It can even remove dead weight to super charge itself and allow nullifying one-shots, something very prominent and necessary with recent design (just look at this monster’s revenge to see why!). It even has a piercing one-shot for when you want that. In the tier list this forms a very clear line for what other mythic generic sweepers need to compete against. It’s why the likes of Berry and Satomi have dropped to A tier. The only reason I didn’t put this in S tier is because it doesn’t sweep faster than 130TU or do a game-warping effect like we see in the top two tiers (the revenge does do that, but the opponent can ignore it).
Candy goes in at C for general, E for PvP, second form tier 3 and D for HP boost, with a moveset restricted to just a single critical move at a time that requires practically a link team to pull off this is very awkward to use with probably too little payoff. I did a proper breakdown of how awkward the moves and team building which you can read here. The short version is I think this can only work in holy+shadow teams. With the right setup it’ll feel great because the passives are strong and you get 80TU pseudo-piercing kills, but that’s still basically a weaker Rhinedragon and for a lot of work. The design is mostly a more restricted and weaker Elemphox (shadow). It’s a shame, because I think the concept here is novel to have every killer weakness with killer immunity. I wish the three elemental moves were literally a single move, with the different effects being which element pair you had in your team then Candy had two other active moves.
Eonarx goes in at A for general, S+ for PvP and S for HP boost, with full defence, hold ground and effectively team turn on the first turn while having pretty reasonable speed this monster is overpowered. It’s one of the top choices for HP boost since it has such a huge impact on the first turn. Sure, enemies get a turn as well but if you’re using this in 6th-8th slot with a bunch of threats in front then you should be able to deal with all the enemies before they actually get their turn. This also has void dual slayerbane as an incredibly useful move for where design is heading, which requires two targets to one-shot at the beginning but after time passes Eonarx gets stronger and only one enemy needs a kill. True hit and slash all also become very strong with time, meaning Eonarx is a tanky monster that cannot be ignored. 100TU shield self + potentially some allies is surprisingly efficient and works well with the moveset because you want teammates to die instead so void dual slayerbane can be used, or otherwise true hit to become strong enough to one-shot without critical.
Xanacorn goes in at A for general, B for PvP and B for HP boost, with a moveset clearly designed before the change to stun this sadly isn’t as strong as it could’ve been. This really wants to get two kills but relies totally on its own stun and requires use in link storm, so it’s a payoff that’■■■■■or miss… not a good place to be. That said, link stun pulse is a great set up for one kill then instant link stun flash can let you kill anything stunnable that was on over 100s so in theory it can grab kills efficiently then void bloodthirst as a tanky sweeper. XYZ-999L or other ways to remove stun counters is crucial to make this work. When it does work it’ll feel great, but link storm has become harder to play since you can no longer overload on stun and lining up that second kill with instant link stun flash might be tricky (the lowest TU move for passing time is 130). It’s worth noting in PvE this can very easily grab the kills, particularly by skipping behind enemies to get multiple kills with tempest annihilation after the SS.
Garden fairy Rosa goes in at D for general, A for PvP and B for HP boost, with +50s on every non-G.F.'s entry and damage potential entirely reliant on having a G.F. teammate this is clearly one for the garden fairy setup. Vigor demoralise is super generic and vigor double repulse is great on a 55% speed monster. That said, what it does otherwise is extremely slow if you want to Hellbud more than one enemy and you have to be playing a lot of garden fairies to ensure it doesn’t get left alone or slow down your own team. I think this ultimately makes a garden fairy team much stronger, but locks you into it very hard that you better have all the best ones! It does a much better job than G.F. Mizu at controlling the battlefield because there’s less drawback.
Arbustodon goes in at E for general, S- for PvP and A for HP boost, with high speed and raw man-eater this is clearly an anti-meta monster that is a popular choice for top level PvP and probably not great elsewhere because the moveset is clunky. I’ve seen almost all users putting this in the FL which I find odd because it has camouflage entrance and instant purify. I wasn’t sure how well this would do, but I see a lot of people using it so it must line up pretty well. The fallback of 180TU piercing sweeping that requires throw fodder isn’t ideal. Any input people have I’d appreciate. EDIT: Feedback said this should be higher, adjusted A → S- in PvP.
Cyclophina goes in at C for general, A for PvP and S for HP boost, with an extremely complicated moveset to line up and play with, Cyclophina is turning this game into an educational one. Using it at the back of the team is the way to go and since the buff to odd breaker it does piercing kills pretty nicely and reliably enough. It tanks like mad too, so is often awkward to deal with. That said, it’s basically another spin on the Moku design where it tanks better but kills single targets. I’m not super sold on it but it’s clearly playable and easily slots into any team.
Helioseer goes in at D for general, E for PvP and D for HP boost, with a two weak damage moves and the rest of the moveset revolving around sleep (even sleeping your own team!) this is super awkward and usually ends in disappointment. In theory you can play this in mid-game then sleep enemies that have stuck around with dreaming touch and after gaining control you have sleepless nightmare to clear through a bunch of enemies. Using dormant barriers to sleep your team is a terrible idea because it can’t realistically set anything up. I built a team around this trying to make it work properly and it was clearly the worst monster in my team. Occasionally it could use sleepless nightmare but most of the time it was useless and when it worked it was often because the opponent didn’t know the moveset. This needs some serious buffs to make its design work properly.
Skeleviathan (s) goes in at C for general, A for PvP and D for HP boost, with high speed this is an obvious callback to the pre-nerf Skeleviathan but with the nerf it probably should’ve got instead: payback revenge rather than petrify. However, it also comes with minimum defence and no buff from the protect move which means it’s much worse than the original design. There’s definitely value from being such a fast protector with payback revenge but with so many protector counters around it averages out a bit. It’s far from the meta-defining monster original Skeleviathan was but I think it’s a little better than the low speed petrify revenge it is now.
Sir. Lancerat goes in at A for general, S+ for PvP and D for HP boost, with fun artwork, lore and cool synergy with Muscattus and Sageroom it’s a shame this moveset is spoiled by an absolutely broken design of pushing all enemies back by 300s if you use it in the end-game with something behind that can quickly bring it back into battle, even reliably becoming 600s push back if you can revive it. This has swiftly become recognised as the strongest end-game and likely getting nerfed soon. Regardless, this puts it in a clear S+ for PvP for the time-being. I hope the change is where the SS can only be used if you have X monsters remaining, so it can’t so easily be chained immediately.
Garden fairy citrus goes in at C for general, A for PvP and D for HP boost, with a very powerful slayerbane all and 120TU repeatable piercing when with garden fairies this is a great addition for the setup, especially alongside either earth G.F. because they’re protectors. Not much more to say about this, it’s a decent sweeper for the setup and shouldn’t be used outside it.
Flutterdrake azure goes in at B for general, A for PvP and D for HP boost, with 100TU one-shot moves and cryo revenge as a serious punishment for its killer this is a great flutterdrake sweeper. The issues are it has nothing else going for it, it’s very squishy and if left alone it becomes dead weight. Healing F.D. Maeve is only good in some situations. If you have a lot of flutterdrakes in your team then this is a worthy addition, otherwise it’s best avoided.
Chimerauk goes in at S for general, A for PvP and A for HP boost, with good speed and double sendback this has interesting combo potential but by design it’s a super tanky protector which can duplicate itself as long as the enemies can’t kill it. I was super high on this on its release, but in PvP players can simply kill it too easily even when it has HP boost that it’s only a short distraction and the babies have to stun boom. In lower level PvP this is likely not the case, so it should do very well there! In PvE I believe it should work properly so I’m putting it high for that. What you should do is combine it with healing and then try to fledge the babies to keep the chain going, using the buffed union attack for easy kills. It reminds me a lot of pre-nerf Redybug but not quite as smooth with the design.
Flutterdrake pure goes in at F for general, C for PvP and D for HP boost, with ghost buster as the only damage move this is all about supporting F.D. Maeve by giving her a turn instantly on entrance then pulling back the other flutterdrakes that have beneficial entrances for Maeve. Purify + insomnia with high speed covers your setup from sleep but to be honest Maeve already does that fairly well with insomnia and flutterdrake swap. Switch friend is good for removing itself once it won’t have any value, which is pretty frequently. I don’t rate this one highly, but it’s a popular role player in Maeve setups.
Flutterdrake lilac goes in at D for general, D for PvP and D for HP boost, with 100-130TU one-shot moves and a punishing revenge this is much like F.D. Azure, but the moves are situational and blood move needs two kills. This one is too hit and miss and the entrance for Maeve is a bit situational too. I think I’ll call this one a miss.
Flutterdrake oak goes in at E for general, A for PvP and B for HP boost, with roaring entrance + protect focus this is a surprisingly annoying protector to deal with in a F.D. Maeve setup where it will also shield Maeve twice. That means the opponent needs to do a lot of work to kill Maeve once this enters, especially if it’s HP boosted. Sendback and knockback are also great utility to have on roaring entrance. This is still mostly for Maeve setups like the other new flutterdrakes but if you want to, say, run F.D. Clover and sleep lock then this on top of F.D. Salvia (the shadow protector) can create an annoying wall to get past.
Atramenthus goes in at B for general, S- for PvP and A for HP boost, with headhunter, beast hunter and bloodcrave this is weirdly good at tackling the PvP meta and it can remove dead weight teammates too. That said, what this really wants is to be used in a full plant team and that simply doesn’t have enough support yet. So I think it’s somewhat playable now but you’re better off using other monsters until we can build proper teams with it. At that point you should HP boost it and wreck the waifu enjoyers.
Flutterdrake mint goes in at B for general, S- for PvP and D for HP boost, with powerful entrance passives, and generically good moves this is a clear standout from the F.D. Maeve support flutterdrakes in my opinion. It’s fairly decent in other flutterdrake teams too.
Flutterdrake ash goes in at S- for general, A for PvP and B for HP boost, with F.D. Maeve getting camouflage and a piercing kill getting set up on this monster’s first turn in just over 50s this is another great one for the Maeve setup. It can piercing kill every 180TU which is pretty decent, plus can become tanky with HP boost. The venom fangs move will sometimes come up, particularly in PvE for guaranteed kills.
Gummy dragon peach goes in at A for general, C for PvP and B for HP boost, with a better summon prototype move than the others and melancholy maul being generically very good this is a decent inclusion to the gummy dragons, but sadly I am still very doubtful you can actually pull off the moves that require two Vanillawhelps… especially in PvP! The other G.D. move is so niche that unfortunately that puts this monster in an awkward spot where it can create Vanillawhelps better than the others but probably falls even flatter than the others in the long run. That said, shadow is more common than most elements so counterstrike will have more targets. Overall I think it ends up a tiny bit above average for the gummy dragons. When we get the final one I’ll try them all out and re-assess the setup.
Zomboid goes in at notable for general, notable for PvP and worthy of consideration for HP boost, with a revival chance that sometimes triggers way more than you’d expect (e.g. 5+ times) this is a hugely annoying protector to face that a lot of people are enjoying taking a gamble on. It’s weird to see a 6 cost monster that sometimes is responsible for your win in PvP, but RNG can be like that. Of course, half the time it dies first time and you might as well have a 1 cost rockoid in that slot. It has minimum defence so even with HP boost it dies fairly easily but it’s definitely proven to be a good enabler for some powerful monsters that just need a bit of time to get going.
Santa Cloid goes in at notable for general and notable for PvP, with good defence and unwelcome gift this can cause some annoying disruption but feels a little overcosted if it’s going to die too easily and summoning Yuki isn’t particularly strong because they can usually be killed easily before they get a turn. You’re probably better off with a Dualdragoon or other disruptive monster but I still think it’s borderline enough to be worthy considering.
Ladyroid does not go into any tier list, with a funny “lady of the night” reference I like the design but surviving until a turn is too unlikely in most scenarios that it’s mostly a very overcosted rock. She needs a pimp or a proper establishment to raise her defence before she becomes worthy of consideration.
Movements:
None at all this time, they were done in the previous update post.