Building the perfect Monstie in Stories 3 is a process that require a good knowledge and grasp of how the different game system interacts. Good thing I studied it in depth and can share this knowledge with you.
For this article, I will often use Ebony Odogaron as an example as I built a few to test things out.
- Understanding your Monstie species
- Getting the right egg
- Ecosystem Rank and Skills
- Dual element
- Getting the right genes
Understanding your Monstie species
The first thing is obviously to chose the species you want to use. But what does the species impact?
Species impacts four things:
- the Monstie base stats and elemental resistances/weaknesses
- its Bingo Amount Bonuses
- its Kinship attack
- some guaranteed attack genes (less important)
The base stats are essentially the same as in Pokemon: each species has a specific set of stats that can’t be changed no matter what. Gravios will always be a tanky Monstie while Odogaron will always be on the more glass cannon side.
The Bingo Amount Bonuses is also important to understand. Completing 1, 3 or 5 bingos will grant your Monstie stat increases based on the species. It’s for instance an important part of the « Child Labor » strategy used with a Palamute spamming Nourishing Pinecones and White Shadow with high stamina recovery as its 3 bingos bonus is +3 in Stamina Recovery.
For the rest, the attack genes can be changed with the Channeling Rite but the Kinship Attack and its element is set no matter what (more on that in the dual element section). The Kinship Attack can help you sometimes decide your build. For instance, Fruit Barrage from Bishaten inflicts various statuses, meaning it might be better to gear him towards a status build.
Understanding where your Monstie excels and where it lacks can help you increase its strength or cover for its weaknesses.
Getting the right egg
First thing to know is that an egg potency only impacts the gene pool of the Monstie. A S rank egg will only have higher chances to get better genes and more genes in its original bingo. But this means there’s no point to specifically target a high potency egg if you only want to set the species.
The only thing to check when you hatch a Monstie is its Tendencies. In the Skills page of its profile, a Monstie has a Stamina Tendency and a Skill Tendency. These are set as the Monstie is hatched and can’t be changed later.
Stamina Tendency impact how aggressive the Monstie will be in its stamina management. A Proactive Monstie will essentially burn through their stamina on their own and use Second Wind once they can’t use any active skill. An Average Monstie will tend to mix in a few regular attacks to offset the stamina loss while a Cautious Monstie will use Second Wind more often, even when they still have stamina to act, meaning you will have more stamina to issue orders when needed (but will build less kinship when doing so). As a result, Cautious Monstie might be able to use higher cost stamina moves but will also deal less damage on their own.
Skill Tendency determines what kind of the skill the Monstie will priorize on its own. A Support Monstie will privilege moves boosting its party while a Hindrance Monstie will try to reduce the opponent’s stats. And an Attack Monstie will obviously focus on more offensive skills.
Ecosystem Rank and Skills
Excursions can be used to send a Monstie in a specific Ecosystem to get 2 Stats Increases. At 3★ rank, they grant these stat buffs:
- Attack: +80 attack
- Defense: +80 defense
- HP: +120 HP
- Stamina Recovery: +5 stamina recovered each turn
These are important as they can help tweak your Monstie stats to cover for some of its weaknesses. For instance, I used an Ebony Odogaron to clear the infamous Narwa and Ibushi fight. And while it’s great offensively, it has one of the worst defense in the game. So I used the Bonuses Increases to raise this stat and grant it more chances to survive the duo random AoEs. Another example is the « Child Labor » Palamute who want a Stamina Recovery bonus to raise its Stamina Recovery to its absolute peak.
S ranking a Monstie in an environment impacts 3 things:
- its species S rank attack skill
- its Environnement Skills
- granting it a second element
Each Species has a specific attack gene that has two variants, the base one and the S rank one. Not much to note, the S rank skill can only be acquired by an egg in an environnement where the species is at S rank and has an improved stat. For instance, Draconic Flurry from Ebony Odogaron turns into Draconic Flurry+ going from 50 Power to 60. Meanwhile Night Parasites from Malzeno turns into Night Parasites+, costing 30 stamina instead of 35. This can be useful to get better genes to transmit through Channeling Rite.
Environnement Skills are skills that are linked to an environnement and are outside of the bingo system. Your Monstie will automatically learn the skills from the environnement it’s from if he’s at S rank. You can teach it skills from other environnement but only if he’s also S ranked in these environnement. It can also only have 3 Environnement Skills, meaning you’ll have to chose 3 between the 6 you want to learn. As a general explanation:
- Azuria skills help with Stamina management
- Canalta skills help with self buff duration and Head-to-Head
- Tarkuan skills help with Kinship Gauge and Riding Gauge
- Serathis skills grants buffs when you lose one Hearth
Each Environnement skill also has an improved version. This version will be triggered if your Monstie has the right genes in its bingo. As these will require specific elements genes, this means they might be better on a specific element Monstie.
Dual element
Doing its own section on that one as there is a lot to cover.
If your Monstie is at S rank in an area, it will get this area element. This will change its appearance but also grants its different buffs and demerits.
Using a move from an element your Monstie doesn’t have reduce its performance by 60%. If your Monstie gets the corresponding element with the dual element system, it negates that debuff, meaning it will be as powerful as a regular Monstie from this element. This was tested with a fire Ebony Odogaron and a Dreadking Rathalos, both species having the same attack value: they effectively deal the same damage with fire moves. There’s no direct offensive benefit to only using one element, a fire Ebony Odogaron deals as much damage as a regular Ebony Odogaron.
Going dual element can alter the Monstie element weaknesses. There doesn’t to be a general rule and it seems to be more species based but sometimes, an elemental weakness can get increased. For instance, my dual element Ebony Odogarons are weak to all elements aside from dragon which they highly resist. Meanwhile, the original Ebony Odogaron is neutral to all elements with a high dragon resistance. The element resistance/weakness multipliers are as follows:
- Extra weak: 150% damage taken
- Weak: 125% damage taken
- Neutral: 100% damage taken
- Resistant: 90% damage taken
- Highly resistant: 70% damage taken
The other issue with going dual element can be gene splicing. As your Kinship attack element can’t be changed, you might want to use two different elements in your bingo, lowering the performance of both elements as you will complete less overall elemental bingos.
Getting the right genes
At this point, you have your Monstie, you’ve selected its element, tendencies, environnemental skills and stat increases, only thing left is to chose which Active and Passive skills to give it through the Rite of Channeling.
Obviously the first priority might be to give it one Attack of each Type to make sure you can answer to any Head-to-Head coming your way. Using the « Select Genes from List » feature is great for this as it provides you with all the intel you could need. You press L3 on a controller or V on a keyboard to see all the skills existing, even those you don’t have. Pressing then □ or F will show you from which monsters eggs and in what environnement you’ll be able to get this gene. It’s especially useful to see if a S rank version of an attack skill exists.
When selecting your Active Skills genes, keep in mind the stamina management of your Monstie. As explained before, having high skill cost on a Proactive Monstie might leave you unable to issue commands when a Head-to-Head comes.
Once the Active Skills are set, you can add the Passive Skills. This is where Egg Potency comes in play when getting eggs from nest as there are multiple ranks of these skills and higher potency eggs have more chances to give you more genes and at higher ranks. Also use the Skill listing to make sure a gene exists. As of the game release, Stamina Surge and Stamina Boost only exist as L skills, there’s no XL version of those. So no point in hatching 1000 eggs searching for Stamina Boost (XL).
Passive Skills can be used to push even higher your Monstie stats or cover for its weaknesses. For instance, I sacrificed some dragon bingos on my Ebony Odogaron to give it All Elem Def Boost (XL) to increase its elemental resistances and Health Boost (XL), specifically to deal with Ibushi and Narwa random AoEs.
Noteworthy Passive Skills
Attack Power
| Skill Name | Element | Type | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Element] Atk Boost (XL) | [Element] | Power | Damage +20% for attacks of the corresponding element |
| Critical (XL) | Dragon | Speed | Crit Rate +15% |
Stamina Management
| Skill Name | Element | Type | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stamina Surge (L) | Thunder | Speed | Stamina Recovery +3 |
| Stamina Boost (L) | Water | Power | Starting Stamina +15 |
Survivability
| Skill Name | Element | Type | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health Boost (XL) | Neutral | Power | HP +20% |
| [Element] Def Boost (L) | [Element] | Tech | -20% damage taken on attacks from the corresponding element |
| All-Elem Def Boost (XL) | Neutral | Tech | -10% damage taken on all elemental attacks |
| Self-Heal (L) | Fire | Speed | 20% of total HP healed each turn |
| Crit-Heal (L) | Dragon | None | 33% of total health healed on critical hit |
| Divine Blessing (XL) | Neutral | None | Medium chance to only take 50% damage |
| Tenacity | Ice | Power | Allows to survive one fatal hit and heal 50 HP |
| Panacea (XL) | Dragon | Power | Can negate abnormal statuses |
Status
| Skill Name | Element | Type | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inflict Rate Up (XL) | Neutral | None | Status Inflict Rate increased |
| Salt in the Wound (XL) | Neutral | Power | +10% damage dealt against monsters afflicted with statuses |
Kinship Gauge Management
| Skill Name | Element | Type | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soul Kinship (XL) | Neutral | Power | Kinship Gauge fills faster |
| Partner (L) | Thunder | Speed | Kinship fills faster under 50% health |
| Critical Kinship (M) | Thunder | None | Kinship fills on critical hit |
| HtH Master (XL) | Ice | Tech | Kinship fills faster on HtH |
Les Carnets de la Wycadémie 