Tanks vs. Speed Demons (repost)

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Well, I just finished using a Golem, Zilla, and Baku and my next monsters will be a Mew(Swimmer), Ducken(hopefully Cawken), and Wracky so I thought this would be a good time to post this :) So what do people think? First off, I see the tanks as being better. I mean, I think the speedy guys are just gonna cause alot of reloading because the machine gets lucky and actually hits you(pain in the butt). Whereas the only reason the tank would have to reload is if you missed your opponent the whole match through. To me this is much less of a possibility if you've raised the monster right(all monsters need decent skill, tanks included). Second, I like sticking around and playing with my opponent. In fact, with a tank I'll often give my opponent 3 strikes as I build up guts. After his third hit I go to town :) Again, this sounds like giving the opponent more of a chance to hit my speed demon therefore increasing the possibility of a reload. So it seems to me that most speed demons have to be at least somewhat one-hit wonders. I HATE one-hit wonders. It's no fun to hit one button and fry my opponent. Why even battle? So, am I wrong? Do speed demons get hit all that much? Post some opinions people :) After I'm done with my Mew I'll post my thoughts. My only regret is that Swimmer isn't very good at the Swim job :P It'd look cool :)

PS. Does anyone else mess with their opponent like the above or do people just fight?

-- Billy Newlin (venom@usit.net), December 08, 1999

Answers

In my experience any maxed out stat is about equal to any other, combat wise. When you start getting into 2 there may be some combos that just aren't effective. ex: I maxed my color pandora's life first, and it won me just as many battles in the first several ranks as any other stat, I just had fewer ko's. Obviously it would have been creamed in s rank, but thats true of any monster with only one stat of high magnitude. The next stat I built up was speed, and if you raise like I do (i.e. raise stats to lev 18-20 before switching to a new one) you'll find out as I did that speed is VERY effective at high levels, many monsters have only a 1% chance to hit even in A level battles. Part of the key is adopting exactly the kind of strategy you use with your 'tanks', let your guts get to 99 while you try to lure your oponent into making high guts consuming/low hit % attacks, plink him and save up again, unleashing everything you have in the last 10-20 seconds. The other good strategy for speed demons is withering, provided you have a cheap enough withering attack, use the same method, but instead of waiting for 99 every time, wait for your opponents to hit 40. By the time I took on the big four, the only enemy who gave me problems was loveless the durahan, his skill was too high giving him 40% chance to hit in several of his attacks. A lot of course depends on your training style AND your skill with the battle system, but as you see, speed demons don't HAVE to be one hit wonders.

-- WildCard (rincewind@uswest.net), December 08, 1999.

Speed demons get through the tournaments easier. One thing about a tank is fighting one allows you to use E hit % S force moves because they don't dodge much. Tanks also have another REALLY big weakness. Guts sucking moves. Speed demons regenerate guts and dodge so much that guts suckers mean nothing to them but there are many battles where my sleepy head only got in like one or 2 hits and couldn't do anything else because he kept having his guts sucked away.

-- Tiamat (sonofbahamut@hotmail.com), December 08, 1999.

Forgot to mention. In a one on one fight with a player controlling my tank and another controlling my speeder, the tank would win more than the speeder (not much more, but signifcantly so)

-- Tiamat (sonofbahamut@hotmail.com), December 08, 1999.

I like speed demons, but they need to be one hit wonders. I have a Phonix with 999 INT 790 Skill and 740 speed. Basically the match is all about does Flame wave hit or not.

-- Kevin Ledford (jdledf01@athena.louisville.edu), December 08, 1999.

Neither Tank or Speed Demon is better, both have their own strenghts and require a different raising style. The advantages to fighting with a tank is that they usually have very high power and defense and thus are able to dish out damage and recieve little in return. The down side to tanks is that they tend to regenerate will, I mean guts (does anyone else ever catch themselves referring to guts as will? I guess old sayings die hard) really slowly and usually aren't very fast or skilled and thus require that they save all their will up to 99 just for a hope of hitting an opponent. Luckily, you usually only need to hit an opponent once with a Tank to win. Speed Demons on the other hand tend to have high Skill and Intelligence in addition to their incedible Speed, and many of their moves cost only a few guts to use while draining lots of guts from an opponent. Unfortunately Speed Demons tend to lack both high Defense and Life which makes every potential attack from an opponent dangerous since one attack can usually decimate a Speed Demon. Speed Demons don't usually have to worry about getting hit by an opponent though, because of the fact that they can usually drain enough guts from an opponent to stop them from fighting back. In the end, I'd say that they are both even, but the game sems to have a predalection towards tanks, as no matter how bad a monster's To Hit is, a monster can usually always hit its opponent at least once.

-- El_Buttweasle (el_buttweasle@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999.

Of course, with either monster you can always balance them back out with the right sub-traits. Give Golem blood to a Hare and watch that defense rating rise! Give Pixie power to a Monol and that'll take care of its speed problem! Give Plant traits to either and you'll get a nice HP rating (Plus, you'll increase their overall lifespan). I find that Monols and Galis work GREAT as sub-traits, creating an overall well-balanced monster with high starting stats in most areas (Plus you get that Good/Evil thing goin' on). The big reason I stopped raising Monol and Gali sub-traited monsters in MR1 was simply that I would look across my freezer and see it all in black-and- white, which just looked bland.

-- Nate Railsback (ChimeraMan101@aol.com), December 08, 1999.

The computer gets lucky a lot in hitting and dodging. That stupid Goatrek in A-Class dodged two times in a row from Jokers S-Hit attack with a 99% chance and a 93% chance respectively. Then he hit my joker with his 12% chance to hit with that dumb roll attack. Stupid lucky computers.

-- Zack (belgrath16@aol.com), December 08, 1999.

I've done a lot of testing on this, and found that for about 60% of the time (in a speeder vs tank game) the tank will win. The only time he will lose is if he cannot connect with a hit. My Duhuran has about 500 skill, 800+ pow and 900+ def; he is a perfect tank. If he connects, he wins by percentage (that is, if you survive) and if he doesn't I can just reload. On the other hand, I have a henger with about 900 speed and 200 power, reast of the stats are about lvl 6-8. Unless my duhuran cannot connect with a hit, he will win. The henger has over 400 life, but that is rarely important.

This leads me to straw away from raising a wracky, i've seen the stats of the higher level enemies; and all have atleast 500 skill. Not to mention the 20% to hit used at 8 seconds that knocks your down to a wonderful 8 hp (poor undine =().

-- T.S.O.L. (aka_cp@hotmail.com), December 08, 1999.


I agree that if you batle two player bred monsters one on one It will be more chalenging for a speed demon to win, but as I've said, I had near max speed and max life and the only monster I had trouble with was loveless. All I usually had to do was hit the enemy once and wait out the rest of the battle (although I wouldn't sit at 99 for two long as even one lucky hit could spell disaster, so I'd wither once in a while). Another thing that those wishing to go the speed route might try is combining high speed with high defense, eschewing the traditional speed/then skill/then pow-int. Of course any monster needs at least some skill to have a chance against the joker/gaboo etc. (300+ for an s to hit atack, 500+ otherwise) but other than that mixing up stats you normaly don't bother with can be fun (with the possible exception of a pow/int monster, although even he would be good for expeditions)

-- WildCard (rincewind@uswest.net), December 08, 1999.

tanks dont have to have thier guts recharge slow....metalners have the best gut recovery in the game and thier best attributes are defense and skill.....i like metalners the best they can hit thier aponents and do alot of damage and when they get hit it doesn't do that much damage

-- y2j (y2j316_1999@yahoo.com), December 09, 1999.

Just because your monter is speed intensive doesn't mean you have to make it a one-hit wonder. I *like* it when I go into a combat against something with way better stats, the kind of thing no one-hitter will take out, and beat it anyway. There's nothing in the world like a combat where you miss 6 times in a row with your 99% chance attack, then are out of guts and have to rely on your mind to get you out of the mess you've landed yourself in. That's what this (and most) games are about, aren't they? Pitting yourself against impossible odds and winning through the speed and skill of your mind and hands.

Courage isn't fearlessness, it's standing in the face of fear. Heroism isn't toying with your opponent, it's handing someone's behind to him that thought he could toy with you. My advice? Pick monsters that are bad combinations and take them to those S-Class battles. And stop resetting! There's a certain nobility in honesty, and this game has no time limit--no penalty for not winning.

-- Lao (darklao@hotmail.com), December 09, 1999.


On the topic of speed demons having to be one-hit wonders, nonsense. I have a bow-wow that is in my hall of fame. Max speed was his game and with only 350 str he wasnt going to knock anybody out. He lost a few fights here and there, but loveless wasnt that much of a problem. I just withered him with my song and tapped away at him. I didnt do much damage, but since he never touched me, I didnt have to. I would take a speed demon with a decent withering attack anyday over a tank. And yeah, its kinda fun to toy with some opponents.

-- AG (thundarr99@hotmail.com), December 09, 1999.

Get a load of my ninja kato...... Int=999 Pow=133 Lif=545 Def=390 Ski=999 Spd=999 Yep,I can dodge attacks and dish out punishment at the same time.So,my monster might be a tank and speed demon!:)Oh yeah,it lived for 8years5months

-- Beast (galrepellent@hotmail.com), December 09, 1999.

Nate, use Nagas instead of Monols to breed your monster to the "Dark Side". That'll add some color to your freezer. *grin* Nagas are at least as good as Galis at balancing out stats, and usually give REALLY good Guts regeneration.

As for Tanks vs. Speeders, I favor fast monsters, but I also work their Life and Defense HARD. That way I can survive one hit, and that's all the Tank usually gets. I don't like any monster to have less than 250 in ANY stat.

-- Richard Ryley (ryley@phan.org), December 09, 1999.


Beast, that kato isn't that good. A kato has mainy powerbased attacks, so a high intellegance only effects a handful of attacks. Your monster also has a low life and defense (for an 8 yr old monster anyway). (As if you didn't see this coming..) I bet my duhuran 800+ power, 500+ skill, and over 900 def could take it out.

-- Sexx Laws (aka_cp@hotmail.com), December 09, 1999.

Hey,laws.U think u got what it takes to beat my kato!NO,I don't think so!I mean look at your low skill.You know my def and lif is not bad already for a kato!

-- Beast (galrepellent@hotmail.com), December 10, 1999.

With 500 skill and you have 999 speed? I only need one slash or dash to connect and your a road apple (now how many people know about road apples). I could always use my hopper and make you scream UNCLE !

-- I'm Phased (aka_cp@hotmail.com), December 10, 1999.

What rubbish!!!!!!!!Your low-skilled durahan can never defeat me.You know my best is on the the third range.I'lll take u out for my tornado claw before you can say your A,B,CS!

-- Beast (galrepellent@hotmail.com), December 11, 1999.

What kind of a Monster is Loveless?

-- Ty (TyGuy22786@yahoo.com), December 24, 1999.

loveless is a durhan

-- not sure (notsure@hotmail.com), December 24, 1999.

Hey I'm Phased you like Beck. I've noticed you have Mellow Gold so you can get a Moo. Most of my monsters end up tanks but thats because I raise a lot of Golems.

-- Fritz 7 (Ghostman12@hotmail.com), December 24, 1999.

i kow this is old, but i have to post. i love speedy people!! i hate to see my monster get constantly hit, it just gets on my nerves, i get satisfaction in seeing the other monster miss!!!

and another thing, when my monster hits sombody, and it does crappy damage, i see that as an insult, as, my monster cant do any decent damage, i like to see the monster easily KOed, it makes my monster look strong, it not just that, its that i think my monster is crappy when it doesnt do any good damage (good damage to me is more than half, great is 90-100%)

and i hate to see my monster miss, i think i hate that most. i hate fightning with my jill that has 340 somehtin ski, even tho, my snowstorm usually hit 2 outta 3 times! i guess im just lucky, but

anybody else agree?

-- trey (treymjb@aol.com), March 31, 2000.



-- The Man (djedmond@@pinenet.com), April 12, 2000

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