Update
Notes:
The anniversary is here! That means we’ve got some new monsters that probably a lot of people got, especially since the two mythics were effectively half price. Time to find out if I think they’re any good. Also, I’m doing a big shuffling of the mythics in preparation for my annual review of the monsters which came out in the last year.
Additions:
These are done in order of release with mythics, legendaries then super epics, etc…
Soral, god bird goes in at S for general, S for PvP and second form tier 1, with no killer weaknesses, foggy entrance and the first turn setting up damage moves and making it impossible to target with yet another stealth all on the team. Killing dead weight, instant pullback and 50TU stealth all are great things to have in a team on top of the great sweeping power and difficulty of dealing with it. This is an excellent sweeper for most teams, made even better when it synergises. For example, Dusicyon to shield entering Inkfeather or with sneak attack monsters.
Chronozillion goes in at B for general, B for PvP and second form tier 3, with decent passives and fine TU sweeping moves this is a good sweeper for both PvE and PvP. It’s nothing too flashy, but gets the job done with the selling points as 100TU hit all (that sometimes gets strong) and having the option to nullify a revenge. The secret skill I haven’t tested, but is probably good if you can spare the time to use it. People were very critical of it but I think, with time, it will become commonly used by mid-range players and as filler in some top teams. I’ve tried it out in PvE and the damage is great.
Apollonis goes in at D for general, C for PvP and second form tier 2, with decent defensive passives and one-shot killing moves this is a decent enough sweeper. DCS is a bit slow, stealthbreak won’t always find targets (although becoming increasingly common) and deer smash hits random targets. So none of them are ideal, but they do the job so Apollonis cannot be ignored easily. Healing retreat and final bite are completely unsupported by the moveset so I think they should basically be ignored. I think the design overall doesn’t seem as cohesive as it should be, but the damage moves and passives are good enough it gets the job done as a sweeper.
Gabrielle goes in at A for general, D for PvP and second form tier 2, with a collection of good, mostly supportive 130-160TU moves this adds fine value while on the battlefield but nothing that’s blowing you away. Healing entrance is useful but also not special. It looks like a carefully balanced monster since the guardian angel passive can get dangerously broken in the right circumstance. For example, use scapegoat on Gabrielle after adding a lot of tokens into the enemy team. However, in practice there’s probably too much piercing around and the setup is too unreliable that what we’re left with is a slightly underpowered mythic. Like I said, the moves are good but they’re all a bit slow and if you discount the passives then you can simply get better stuff from other mythics. The SS is also unusable in PvP. However, this monster looks great in PvE (as long as the AI targets it) because enemy teams are always larger than ours, slayerbreak deals brilliant damage and drain survivor gives this a good way to kill enemies without relying on slayerbreak.
Ldiefaeth goes in at S for general and S- for PvP, with a secret skill that adds permanent dead weight into the enemy team this seems very decent. It’s also a really fun design that can piercing sweep and support very well in a setup with shadow teammates. The holy side of it is slightly weak, especially given that you want to give the enemy team a holy monster with kinslayer. However, there’s enough here that in the right setup it should be very strong and it otherwise looks great. Should be fairly common to see it played going forward.
Rexterminator goes in at S- for general and S- for PvP, with a wonderful crossover of energy and mortar, this is an effective looking sweeper. It’s slow to get going, like they all are, but having high defence, hold ground and applying both a shield and a respectable heal is very good for making it survive. Piercing mortar deals enough damage without attack boost, but laser blast needs it, so you get one quick attack after the first load then need to play it carefully with how you want to balance loading and attacking. Energy charge+ means it can heal up very quickly later on, but it’s worth noting that the 130TU on laser blast is still a bit slow so it’s actually best to load+charge if you can, which also gets two attacks ready to go in quick succession. Overall, seems like a slightly weaker Rocolossus without the protector bypassing but extra potential synergy and stun immunity.
Rabbeat goes in at A for general and C for PvP, with link stealth all and high attack for assassinate this looks quite cool, except the speed is too low and devious attack has a ridiculous 200TU so in practice this doesn’t support link shadow stealth well enough, has no FL combo potential and it’ll make very little impact on the battle because it’s way too slow with everything. Devious attack is obviously very strong with camouflage so it can’t be 130TU, but a legendary version of this monster with 70TU link stealth all, 160TU devious attack and better passives would probably be decent.
Turbotusk goes in at S- for general and S for PvP, with a bunch of strong skills and tanky stats this is a nice looking stun protection SE. Chrono weakness makes it a little easier to kill plus the low attack stat makes faststrike a bit lacklustre (true hit is still great), but for a SE this seems balanced and a monster that can’t really be ignored… which goes a long way to making it playable.
Mojincess goes into Other Notable Monsters for general and Other Notable Monsters for PvP, with a flavourful design and a really high ceiling this is a fun addition to the game. At first glance it’s an overcosted Moji but it’s still only 2 cost and if you can get a turn with it you’ll likely be able to get a Moku. Ultimately, it’s now a nice option at the back of a team if you need throw fodder and have 3 cost for that then put Mojincess followed by Moji and you might get to pull it off occasionally. In PvE this is a brilliant combo for new players that they can utilise with give turn to get a legendary.
LeBroid goes in at Other Notable Monsters for general and Other Notable Monsters for PvP, with good defence and hold ground this will survive better than you’d expect. So at a baseline it’s a fine protector and if it’s bypassed it’ll get to use some respectable moves, really wrecking the enemy team if it gets to dunk. Ultimately, this would pass as a somewhat respectable super epic but at 7 cost it’s a slam dunk in a lot of teams as a cheap protector. However, it doesn’t beat the best special rocks out there and having chrono weakness might bite occasionally. In PvE it looks great in protector spam or a controlling strategy, where it will survive to dunk.
Movements:
As said above, I’ve reshuffled the mythics a lot. I also did a bit of shuffling to the legendaries to get that nice bell curve shape I’m looking for with both lists. I made a lot of little adjustments to the mythics as I spoke with various people in the community and honestly it’s really hard to get right because everyone has very different viewpoints and most people want things higher (which would make the tier list top-heavy - this was something I already had to correct). I’m also especially struggling to figure out what’s worthy of going into S+ tier, if anything. I hope what I ended up settling on doesn’t make people too mad, lol.
Mythics with large movements:
Deviladus moves from S- → B in general
Lemon moves from A → C in general, yes you can build around this for sleep control but there’s so many strong things you can set up in PvE I decided this was one I should lower. Due to the piercing moves on many mythics, lots of them can offer strong things in PvE.
Mechydra moves from B → F in general and A → C in PvP, I made a mistake thinking the damage was far higher than it is. It needs all three poisoned to deal one-shot damage and in PvE the damage is very poor. The SS and sleep+stun protection it offers are great, but it’s mostly a support monster. Thanks to Duck for pointing out the damage mistake!
Wilhelmina moves from C → A in general
Leira moves from S- → B in PvP, maybe a little controversial, but she’s a little more niche use I think. We’ve got a lot of strong and controlling mythics or ones with guaranteed kills and Leira is just a bit too slow/lacklustre with the follow up plus the combos exist but are hard to get right now she can’t do mermaid’s hex right at the start of a battle.
Kunomi moves from C → A in PvP, this is a real menace to face with the fast avenge stealth and the reusable entrance is very powerful. Making the second life be stronger really has done a lot for Kunomi… she messes with your team a lot as you fight her.
Persephia moves from F → B in PvP, this got a lot of buffs since release and now one-shots most legendaries and squishier mythics on the first turn with guaranteed setup via the SS. After that it has multiple options and after only 2 kills (usually two turns, 100TU) can slash all to piercing one-shot the enemy team (3 kills for one-shotting mythics). Rebirth flexibility, great sweeping power with guaranteed setup from first turn and rockoid spawning that can interrupt enemy attacks make this a very decent package now even if it can sometimes be a bit clunky or slash all + 1-2 rocks on your side of the battlefield hands control to the opponent.
Mythics up 1 tier:
Ophidiator moves from A → S- in general and B → A in PvP
Arachnodrake moves from B → A in general
Atlanachia moves from B → A in general
Fiona moves from B → A in general and S- → S in PvP
Dragulus moves from D → C in general
Plumesilisk moves from D → C in general and A → S- in PvP
Flutterdrake maeve moves from S- → S in PvP
Bastia moves from A → S- in PvP
Orochi moves from A → S- in PvP
Dragulus moves from E → D in PvP
Lucifelle moves from F → E in PvP
Mythics down 1 tier:
Voidress moves from A → B in general
XYZ-999L moves from A → B in general
Kuraokami moves from B → C in general
Hu Shin moves from D → E in general
Botan-Douji moves from S → S- in PvP, I still think this is underrated for control and the link you’re grounded is insane but there are times it can feel lacklustre so I’m happy to listen to feedback and drop it a tier.
Prismegasus moves from S- → A in PvP, underrated by many, this felt painful to drop. It enables link teams and has excellent 100TU moves all around.
Y Ddraig Goch moves from S- → A in PvP, an excellent generic piercing sweeper but we have a lot of piercing sweepers now that also offer other things. What makes this maintain a high tier is tyrannical ruling and I won’t forget that.
Akane moves from A → B in PvP, this may yet prove to be very strong with its 150s loop of killing all enemies but its lack of any defence/immunity makes me doubtful and we simply haven’t seen it used enough to have a good idea.
Haneri moves from A → B in PvP
Kuromasa moves from A → B in PvP, very powerful generic sweeper that is excellent with give turns. I’m knocking this only because it seems best used in specific setups, but look forward to seeing it awakened to have a better idea.
Brynhildr moves from B → C in PvP
Focalforce moves from B → C in PvP
Harleking moves from B → C in PvP
Onyxia moves from B → C in PvP
Sivanna moves from C → D in PvP
Mai moves from E → F in PvP
Legendaries up:
Hanzowolf moves from S → S+ in general, last update I said maybe it’s S+… yeah let’s just do it, it can win battles by itself and no matter what the enemy buff is!
Runedragon moves from A → S- in PvP
Jack-o’-scorp moves from B → A in PvP
Otomaid moves from C → B in PvP
Mulasem moves from D → B in PvP, having seen this a lot now, I think the advantage of effectively having low TU moves is a good one. It needs to be part of a heavily poison team though.
Legendaries down:
Caesardragon moves from S- → A in general and B → C in PvP
Albakhan moves from S+ → S in PvP
Geomagnus moves from S- → A in PvP
Oakthulhu moves from S- → A in PvP
Sacrumega moves from A → B in PvP
Atlantyrant moves from B → C in PvP
Lavaronix moves from C → D in PvP
Mechaviathan moves from C → D in PvP
Noxdragon moves from D → E in PvP
Heavenswyrm (s) moves from E → F in PvP
Super epics:
Abyssoldier fokus moves from S- → S+ in general, this is a low TU sweeper that’s pretty tanky and excellent for killing buffed enemies in PvE alongside an auto-poisoner.
Vulpink moves from S → S+ in PvP, the rocks this gives is huge value, it’s impossible to ignore for long and has powerful moves in some situations.
bad bad bad
We’ve both spoken our mind about Harleking enough, but if there’s any others you think I’m not placing properly and you have the time to write something about them then please do.