Update
Notes:
Itās been 3 months now since the last additions so itās about time I do it again. Itās been quite a slow period, not too many new monsters even though weāve had Christmas / New Year. Weāve got the start of a new cycle of garden fairies, probably with the rest coming over the next few months.
Iāve changed the notes at the beginning of the tier list where I compare the strength of different monster qualities. In recent years weāve had the power level of legendaries increase and weāve had a lot of weaker mythics so the lower tier mythics are less conquerable to top tier legendaries. Previously I had B+C = S, D+E = S- and F = A (between mythics and legendaries). Hereās how it looks now:
tier 1 = (S+, S) mythics
tier 2 = (S-, A) mythics = (S+) legendaries
tier 3 = (B) mythics = (S) legendaries
tier 4 = (C) mythics = (S-) legendaries
tier 5 = (D) mythics = (A) legendaries = (S+) super epics
tier 6 = (E) mythics = (B) legendaries = (S) super epics
tier 7 = (F) mythics = (C ) legendaries = (S-) super epics
tier 8 = (D) legendaries = (A) super epics
Additions:
These are done in order of release with mythics, legendaries then super epics, etcā¦
Hadeshoof goes in at S- for general, S for PvP and second form tier 2, with 100TU one-shot anything from two moves (one even being piercing) this has incredible sweeping power. It harshly counters protectors too. This is a must kill threat and clearly very strong. However, low defence, low speed and chrono weakness do somewhat keep it in check, which is why I donāt think this quite reaches S+ level and people here seemed mostly medium on it. In practice, I think this is actually extremely strong because hold ground means it will take two hits to kill and that will take the heat off your other monsters for a bit. When put in a team with other must kill threats I reckon it will overperform. Hadeshoof is generically powerful, pushes link shadow (alongside Onyxia) to being very playable and is yet another monster that is killing stun. In the future I think this will be seen as among the strongest mythics.
Unicera goes in at F for general, F for PvP and second form tier 1, with moves that are all situational, this is unfortunately an unplayable monster I think. It looks perfect for Dungeon Challenge, but thatās about it. It clearly counters protectors and death revenge, but weāve already got monsters for that which also offer other things. Once those enemies are gone, Unicera is basically dead weight on the battlefield. Maybe you could use her with monsters that want to sacrifice a teammate, so you kill Unicera off when there are no targets for her, but I can think of many monsters which outclass her so I canāt bring myself to put her higher than the bottom. Magical mist simply isnāt worth having dead weight in your team.
Prixis goes in at B for general, S- for PvP and second form tier 2, with high speed and very reliable killing moves (one being piercing) this is a strong, generic PvP sweeper. The restriction of caring about whether itās a teammate or an enemy with the next turn really doesnāt matter much, either way you have a good damage move and once you charge bloodthirst none of it matters (e.g. the 5 use limit on drift). This monster reminds me a lot of Suikenshi and Satomi but trading multi-target attacking / defence for higher speed and slightly more reliable killing. It will slot well into a lot of teams, the generic sweeping power is very strong, but itās not a crazy win condition.
Jurlungur goes in at S- for general and S- for PvP, with a secret skill that can pretty much win the game if there are the right elements on the battlefield this can be extremely rewarding. The rest of the moves are honestly pretty bad. As void versions I think theyāve been made a bit stronger, but they wonāt do well in this future weāre seeing of tanky / HP boosted monsters. So really itās all about the SS and whether you can pull it off, which is a risk but not a big one. When it works, being a tanky bloodthirst monster does very well. Itās hard to know exactly where to place this since itās so RNG but Iām going to settle on quite high for now.
Garden fairy gloria goes in at F for general and D for PvP, with clone ban not really affecting many monsters and nullifying strike damage not being amazing even after an attack boost+ this is overall a bit too lacklustre and slow. Vineyes are also very good at removing themselves now (while healing the team) so the SS isnāt brilliant. Itās one of the weaker garden fairies, probably bringing them down if you use it with them.
Garden fairy sakura goes in at E for general and A for PvP, with a form of stun protection that even stops Jasmine from being stunned this is a useful addition. The damage moves are a bit lacklustre (low damage assassinate, defuse needs specific targets and high HP) but 100TU knockback is a big deal and 50TU revival ritual is very nice too. Overall, looks like great support for a GF team thatās not going to make the team too much stronger but fills it out more with good stuff, similar to GF Pieris.
Utopion (s) goes in at S- for general and A for PvP, with a faster megabomb and not remaining stunned out of play this is mostly an upgraded Utopion for link shadow teams. Passing 250s is very achievable and means in practice if itās left alone itās either going to save you from some stun or wipe out a lot of enemies, much like a stronger Turbotusk. Itās not a big threat and it is slow, but for link shadow teams this looks like a very decent source of stun protection.
Chimunka goes in at S- for general and D for PvP, with a moveset thatās a lot like Burnsalot this looks horrendous, but it has one move thatās very unique. Looting charge is basically the only reason to use this monster I think and itās basically like vengeance except without impacting the battlefield (i.e. less good). Itās also bad against any team which has summoned rocks at the back or, like many teams, has 1-2 cheap monsters they donāt care about at the back. However, there is the one caveat that if you can lock your opponent out of the game with token monsters you can create a loot loop that kills their whole team. For the tier list, Iām mostly assuming that you cannot perform the loot loop, but if it proves easy for many to pull off Iāll move Chimunka up. I really hope thatās not true because having ways to lock someone from playing is not fun. That said, the loot loop is very easy to pull off in PvE so Chimunka is quite high due to that.
Elfin dragon lilla goes in at E for general and F for PvP, with the slowest damage move, easily shut down by removing stealth and can be messed up by the best ED (fire) this is a really awkward one. I love the healing entrance to support all these, relatively tanky, ED if you pull it back repeatedly but Iām not impressed by how itās all about the sneak attack and thatās simply not going to work well.
Muscattus goes in at B for general and C for PvP, with a moveset that takes time to get going I donāt think this can be particularly good. It really needs three enemies with a neko counter on them to make nullifying strike one-shot, which is simply unrealistic because youād need complete control where you can leave three alive and kill the newly entering monster each time. Insomnia + purify is lovely and mind control is brilliant. It just takes a bit too long to get to mind control. If we get other monsters that care about neko counters then this could play very well but right now itās just a counter to sleep which the opponent needs to kill after 100-150s so it doesnāt use mind control.
Bonetalon (s) goes in at S- for general and S- for PvP, with death entrance automatically charging bloodcrave on entry and defensive mode making it awkward to kill if you donāt one-shot it this is pretty interesting. Payback killer and pullback are both situationally very strong too. Iām not a big fan of death entrance, but here it might make this monster genuinely quite goodā¦ especially if you use it in the late-game when you might be on the backfoot and killing a teammate might even help you get back into the battle better. Definitely one Iāll try out to get a better idea of how it plays.
Ushi-Oni goes in at A for general and A for PvP, with man eater and camouflage this is a pretty dangerous monster for waifu to meet. Bloodserve seems great too. Notably, you cannot use it for grabbing a quick kill and then bloodserve afterwards, it always sets Ushiās kill count to 0 after use. Against tanky monsters in the future Ushi will definitely struggle to get kills with poison eater, but the fact it sets things up with toxic entrance looks far better than most super epics. Overall, I think this just about reaches the level of being playable in high level PvP but only in the end-game with other poison monsters where it sets up teammates from the entrance and it wonāt clog up your battlefield if there are no man eater targets and poison eater isnāt going to get the job done. Ushi looks brilliant for PvE in certain battles.
Moltenpede (s) goes in at C for general and C for PvP, with chance toxic entrance into high speed and high attack poison eater this is a power crept super epic. However, these days thatās just not strong enough and the other moves are so mediocre. Getting two kills for bloodthirst is completely unrealistic. So itās not at all one for end-game players but does a fine job over other super epics for newer players in teams that care about poison.
Ebizush does not go into the tier list. For the first time ever, a new monster has come out which I do not think is noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the 0-3* categories. Basically, itās a monster which really wants to be sacrificed, because thereās no reason why the enemy team would want to kill it. There are a lot of monsters who want to kill a teammate to charge a blood move, so youād think this is good set up for those. However, the heal+shield for the team has a 100s restriction from start of battle so itās a mid-game play, which means you canāt rely on it anywhere near as much. Youād probably want 2-3 monsters which can remove it and while itās on the battlefield youāve slowed down your team with a useless monster. I feel itās too awkward/risky to use and honestly if you want to do something like this then Balancion is way, way better.
Movements:
Iām shifting some of the top-end legendaries for PvP, making some new S+ legendaries, shifting a bunch of mythics down to spread them out after the latest buffs and otherwise doing a bunch of changes. I know itās a lot to take in, but I havenāt done an update like this for a few months!
Satomi I decided that I wonāt actually move it up to S+ in PvP because Bastia has gone back up there and Iām moving Soral there instead, whoās definitely a better monster.
Mythics going up:
Deviladus moves from B ā A in general, I moved this down from S- last update and probably went a bit too far. The sweeping isnāt brilliant compared to the high tier mythics but itās reliable and the way it stays alive lets the time pass for death sentence without a huge amount of effort. Itās a good sweeper for general PvE and a useful death sentence tool for buffed PvE.
Soral, god bird moves from S ā S+ in PvP and second form tier 1 ā 2, this has proved itself to be incredibly strong in PvP. Its utility of instant pullback and removing dead weight with baby conversion is exactly what PvP teams want and itās very challenging to kill off in most battles once it gets a turn.
Persephia moves from B ā A in PvP, the damage from throw next is so good now that at 70TU and the instant setup on first turn this is a great damage dealer. Between the impending slash all and the rocks she summons, Persephia is a must-kill threat.
Noircyon moves from D ā C in PvP, divinecrane is a brilliant damage move and with link shadow on the rise this is a tempting option. It can remove dead weight (particularly good against token disruption) and be a relatively tanky 100TU sweeper. Assisted dusk from Spiritwyrm is also brutal, so if youāre able to make one safely then you can really wreck the opponent.
Mythics going down:
Atlanachia moves from A ā D in general and D ā F in PvP, I made a mistake when going back to read her so I pushed her really high. I thought early trigger would cause bomb curse moves to trigger, stunning/blowing up the whole enemy team. However, they actually just make the cursed monster die. This means there isnāt really any combo potential, she can simply either kill a teammate or hit all enemies to set up her sweeping and then sheās a mildly tanky sweeper. The set up is a bit too slow and the payoff too underwhelming compared to other mythics, but she does counter token disruption nicely.
Don Rilla moves from S ā S- in PvP, HP boost is going to hurt its damage output, but also there are more generic sweeper options now that it doesnāt stand out quite as much.
Botan-Douji moves from S- ā A in PvP, being limited to link fire teams is a big restriction and weāre getting more excellent generic mythic sweepers over time.
Aethereon moves from A ā C in PvP, this is getting outclassed by other stun protection and what it offers otherwise simply isnāt on the same level as other mythics.
Yukihime moves from A ā B in PvP
Azida moves from B ā C in PvP
Chronozillion moves from B ā C in PvP
Mechydra moves from C ā D in PvP
Nightingale moves from C ā D in PvP
Sepheris moves from C ā E in PvP, with mythics becoming way more common this monster is less useful. Timestrike and assassinate are also too low damage to deal with the high defence monsters we face these days.
Kuraokami moves from D ā E in PvP
Legendaries going up:
Elemphox (shadow) moves from B ā S- in general and S ā S+ in PvP, the control and sweeping mixed with tanky stats simply outperforms a lot of legendaries and will do well against tanky HP boosted mythics in the future. I hadnāt adjusted this properly in PvE since its buff.
Shikabloom moves from S ā S+ in PvP, there are enough beasts in the game that are very strong itās really easy to run this without a disadvantage to your team building and Shika is then clearly extremely powerful on the battlefield.
Ldiefaeth moves from S- ā S in PvP
Mantiferno moves from S- ā S in PvP
Jackolene moves from B ā A in PvP, I was probably a bit too harsh when I moved it down so far. I donāt think itās great, but itās possible to build around and go with the Vinegazer strategy to good effect against many opponents.
Legendaries going down:
Tygoron moves from S ā S- in general
Moku moves from S+ ā S in PvP, this isnāt quite what it used to be. People are packing more ways to kill tanky monsters, more knockback (next) and camouflage. Itās still great, but not the ultimate end-game slam dunk any more. Deathgazer is clearly better nowadays.
Tricranium moves from S+ ā S in PvP, this used to be super good, but tanky monsters / mythics becoming common is hurting it a lot.
Maggatsuoh moves from S ā S- in PvP
Pitayagon moves from S ā S- in PvP, definitely an underrated monster, but its restriction to link teams stops it from seeing much play and its damage against mythics is not great. As HP boost becomes popular it will really struggle.
Nulltron moves from A ā C in PvP, without stun pulse and with tanky monsters the timestrike double canāt really get kills and weāve got much better stun counter/converter options now too.
Super epics going up:
Redybug moves from S- ā S in general and A ā S in PvP, this is extremely good in reptile teams.
Abyssolder myst moves from S ā S+ in PvP, I never moved this after the release of Poseidon, but since people only ever use abyssoldiers with Poseidon these days that doesnāt make much sense and Myst is clearly the best for the combo.
Aviaeronix moves from S ā S+ in PvP, I meant to move this up a while back, itās a great counter to DR which has become more relevant over time.
Dualdragoon moves from S ā S+ in PvP, with the tranquilisers nerfed, this has proven to be a useful alternative tool many are using and itās great. It was overshadowed before.
Serazael (s) moves from A ā S in PvP, this has impressed me lots as a stun immune backstab monster in teams since it also comes with give turn itās actually hard to ignore and it takes a fair amount of effort to kill.
Vinegazer moves from B ā A in PvP
Torrentide moves from D ā B in PvP, Iāve got a new-found respect for this monster in PvP now Iāve met it a few times and found it awkward to kill plus the slayerbane punishes you pretty hard.
Super epics going down:
Blitzdragon moves from S- ā A in general
Chimeraxus moves from A ā B in general
Nereida moves from A ā B in general
Atlanteon (s) moves from S+ ā S in PvP
Saberzor moves from S+ ā S in PvP
Searguard moves from S+ ā S in PvP
Lavamane moves from S ā S- in PvP, there are quite a few options for retribution setup now, the better SE one being Buffbuffalo.
Saberdragon moves from S ā A in PvP
Saberdragon (s) moves from S ā A in PvP, this and the normal version both take a lot of effort to build around.
Searguard (s) moves from S ā S- in PvP, it really needs setup for the kill (e.g. token disruption).
Abyssoldier bulwark moves from S- ā A in PvP
