Monster

Players will automatically obtain 12 seed monsters and 5 Monster Lottery Tickets at the start of the game after completing the tutorial. Monsters can be obtained though questing, redeeming Monster Lottery Tickets, or as event rewards.

Starter Monsters

Initially Obtained Monsters

As a reward for completing the tutorial, the player obtains 12 monsters, each with different skills: 5 Attribute Souls (5 elements), 5 Attribute Breaks (5 elements), 1 Spirits Rise, and 1 Terror Roar, all at 1.501 in size and around the same skill percentage. Icon Name (EN) Name (JP) Rarity Size Skill % Skill Type Voicia ヴォイシア 4★ 1.501 25.1% Fire Soul Ankylocross アンキロクロス 4★ 1.501 25.0% Aqua Soul Diodrux ダイオドルクス 4★ 1.501 25.0% Wind Soul Kleptron クレプトロン 4★ 1.501 25.0% Light Soul Waruture ワルチューレ 4★ 1.501 24.6% Dark Soul Anagler アナグラー 4★ 1.501 27.0% Fire Break Yami Mizuku ヤミミズク 3★ 1.501 27.0% Aqua Break Nose Hammer ノーズハンマー 3★ 1.501 27.0% Wind Break Cowboltas カウボルタス 4★ 1.501 27.0% Light Break Whellenessia ウェルネシ 4★ 1.501 27.1% Dark Break Yanshenmei ヤンシェンメイ 4★ 1.501 3 Guts Spirits Rise Flame Dragon フレイムドラゴン 4★ 1.501 20.5% Terror Roar The monsters received after the tutorial have changed since December 4, 2018(?).

Status

Elements

Elements There are 5 main elements in Merc Storia: Fire, Water, Wind, Light, and Dark. Water is strong against Fire, but weak against Wind. Fire is strong against Wind, but weak against Water. Wind is strong against Water, but weak against Fire. Dark and Light are both strong and weak against each other. These weaknesses and strengths are applied to all monsters. For example, fire monsters will deal higher damage (>100%) to wind units, lower damage (<100%) to water units, and 100% damage to fire units. While light units deal higher damage to dark and 100% to light, they will deal <100% damage to the rest. Even so, their <100% percentage is still higher than the 3 element's <100% percentage. Depending on the individual attribute corrections of monsters and units, and/or factoring in use of Guard Runes, exact percentages will vary somewhat.

Status

Monsters share the same kinds of stats as units, mostly. These stats are relevant when facing it as an enemy: HP: The monster's health. Attack: The monster's attack power. Speed: The monster's movement speed. Attack Interval: Also known as 'rapidity'; the monster's attacking speed. Reach: Distance between the monster & unit; if the unit is within reach, the monster will start attacking it. Note: Reach & Range are apparently different. Range is how far the unit's attack can reach. Toughness: Also known as 'grit', a higher toughness means the monster can't be knocked back easily. Range: A hidden stat, the distance that the monster's attack can reach, or area of effect (AOE). Whereas these stats are only relevant when activating its Skill: Skill: The monster's skill, that can be utilized by units during questing. In total, there are 10 types of skills that affect units, enemies, or the time limit on the stage. Further detail about skill types can be found on this page. Cost: The amount of SP consumed to activate the monster's skill. Cooldown: The cooldown period after activating the monster's skill, in seconds.

Relationship Between Reach & Range

As stated previously, attack range, or range is a hidden stat to be wary of. Simply, when your unit comes within the monster's reach, it will begin attacking with an "area of effect" that is the range. Units outside of that will be safe. This is especially important to take note of during Raid, as many players depend on low HP (for Berserk Rune activation) to deal high damage. A visual guide can be found on Yugalab here. White is reach and blue is range.

Number of Hits and Targets

Number of hits Like units, monsters can do either single or multiple hits. Again, there is no change for total damage dealt. Damage from a monster with many hits will be hard for a single-hit healer to heal. While your healer's having their cooldown period, the time interval between hits in a single attack is much smaller. Thus, if your party composition includes a healer, one with multiple hits can prove more effective against a monster with multiple hits. The exception lies in Enhancer Runes, which are less effective if equipped by a multihit healer. Number of targets Just like units, monsters can attack several of your party members at a time. Just as multiple units with targets are effective against multiple enemies, strong monsters with many hits can easily deal a crippling blow on your team if any of your members come within its range.

Skin Types & Skin Interaction

Parallel to units' weapon types are monsters' skin types, which have varying damage interactions. Weapon Types' Relationship with Skin Type There are basically 2 types of monster skin with 5 levels to each type. Gun/Strike weapon types deal more damage to hard skin, less damage to soft skin. Bow/Slash weapon types deal more damage to soft skin, less damage to hard skin. Stab weapon types deal 100% damage to all skin types, but units with this weapon type have lower stats than all others. Magic weapon types deal 100% damage to all skin types, but elemental damage correction will be more varied. Skin interaction is as follows in this table:

Enhancing, Size

Enhancing While units are leveled with gold, a monster's size is enhanced by using evolution materials matching the monster's element. Increasing a monster's size will raise its HP, Attack, and skill effectiveness. Depending on what size the monster was obtained at, it can only be enhanced to a certain upper limit. Ultimately, with evolution materials, a monster's size can only reach 1.720. Sizes higher than this must be hunted for. Size The size of a monster is basically its level, ranging from 1.000 to 1.800. The game divides them into four categories like so: Size Category Value Range Standard (標準) 1.000 ~ 1.350 Large (大型) 1.351 ~ 1.550 Extra Large (特大型) 1.551 ~ 1.700 Non-Standard/Beyond Standard (規格外) 1.701 ~ 1.800

Setting Up Defense Seeds
In Guild Battle, players fight other guilds' defense monsters. Those recommended to set are those with the highest stats, reach, and range. Though, there is a trend for guilds to set monsters with low toughness but very high reach to stall the enemy guild's sortie, as they'll be knocked back more often, taking up more time for units to move within attacking reach.

Skills

Skill Types

List of Skill Types When equipped to a unit, the player can use that monster's skill during questing, as long as that unit has HP remaining, there are enemies on-screen, and, well, if the monster has a skill to begin with. Although 1★ monsters are the only ones without skills. Skills can raise party members' stats, decrease enemy stats, stun enemies, strengthen or weaken an element, or extend the time limit in certain quests. Activating a skill will also deal damage to all onscreen enemies dependent on the monster's Attack stat. If there are multiple enemies, damage is evenly distributed between each enemy. While taking advantage of this can be useful early on or in easier quests, the amount of damage dealt this way is pretty much negligible in most situations later on.

Monster Hunting & TKG

What is TKG? TKG stands not for eggs over rice, but for 天然規格外 (TennenKkikakuGai), "natural beyond standard", or beyond standard monsters spawned "naturally" in quests. TKG seeds (1.701+) can rarely drop from stages. Achieving the highest skill effectiveness (and HP/ATK) for a monster is really only possible by hunting for these gigantic monsters or miraculously having them drop out of sheer luck. Players do this by repeating the hardest difficulty of a stage where the monster appears in, over and over - a game of luck, really. With recent updates adding in auto-questing and auto-activate seed, this process has become much less tedious. Seed Collect runes are a must.