Monsters

Monsters are the units used in battles in the game. They are divided into several tiers based on a variety of characteristics.

Attributes / Elements

Every monster possesses a specific attribute (more common: element). There are five elements:

• Water

• Fire

• Wind

• Light

• Dark

The elements possess the following relationships:

• Water has elemental advantage when attacking Fire and Fire has elemental disadvantage when attacking Water.
• Fire has elemental advantage when attacking Wind and Wind has elemental disadvantage when attacking Fire.
• Wind has elemental advantage when attacking Water and Water has elemental disadvantage when attacking Wind.
• Light has elemental advantage when attacking Dark.
• Dark has elemental advantage when attacking Light.

Note

Technically there is a six^th element, the pure element - neutral to all elements. However this is strictly reserved for some special PvE enemies (usually bosses like the R5 one) so for all purposes in this game there are five elements of concern to the player.

Families

Monsters are grouped in families. Each family consists of five members (Water, Fire, Wind, Light, Dark). In their unawakened form the monsters have their family name plus their element, for example the Water Fairy is the water member of the Fairy family and gets the name Elucia once you awaken her.

Monsters within a family share more than just the name, for example they all look the same except for the element specific coloring. The natural star grade distribution of the family also determines the leaderskill values of the entire family. Another things monster of the same family share are the skills: all monsters of a family have the same first skill, all monsters have their own unique third skill, and for the second skill there are two skills that are distributed among the five monsters with two monsters having one skill and three monsters the other skill with the added condition of the Light and Dark members of the family having different second skills.

Notes

• Fran and Eirgar are honorary members of the Fairy and Vampire families, respectively, even though they do not share the exact family name in their unawakened form. Skilling up Fran with Fairies and Eirgar with Vampires does work. Further KEN (Bernadotte (Shadow Claw)) is just a special RYU (Striker) and not his own family, similar to how Fran and Eirgar are just a special Fairy and Vampire, respectively. However due to unknown reasons Com2uS disabled the skillup sharing so you cannot skillup your Strikers by buying Shadow Claw pieces from the Ancient Coin shop. He also has the wrong S2 (should be the same as his Fire counterpart but he has the Water one), again for unknown reasons. GingerBrave (Lollipop Warrior) on the other hand is truly his own family with only one member.
• The awakening bonus of a monster can change one of their skills up a bit so it no longer shares the exact same first or second skill as the rest of the family. Com2uS sometimes uses this to dirty fix balancing issues.
• Some older families such as the Valkyrjas have a special "elemental touch" added to their skills. While the second skill for Camilla, Vanessa, and Akroma is technically the same the debuff it applies is based on their element.
• Similar to the point above some other older families such as the Occult Girls have third skills that share a theme in the name ([Element] Guardian Angel) and work in a similar fashion.
• The Dragon family has a unique second skill for each element. They used to pay for that by having the only first skill in the entire game without any special effects however Com2uS changed that in a balance patch and gave them all unique first skills as well.
• The twin families (Boomerang Warrior and Chakram Dancer) reflect their twin design in the skills, the second skill "Spirit Focus" is shared by four members over the two families (two monsters per family), then two of each family share the same second skill, and the last member of each family has a unique skill that is closely related to the in-family shared second skill of the respective other family (the Chakram Dancers have "Chakram Crush" as shared second skill and the unique skill in the Boomerang Warriors is "Boomerang Crush" and the unique Chakram skill is "Double Strike" which is related to the Boomerang Warriors' "Triple Strike").

Family Release Dates

You can find a historic overview about when which monster families have been released in the data logs section.

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Level and Star Grade

Each monster comes at a certain star grade. The default star grade of a monster classifies the monster. The default star grade of a monster can be between 1 and 5 stars and is abbreviated as natX where X stands for the number of default stars and nat is short for natural. A monster can always only have a star grade equal to or greater than its default grade. For example the water Polar Queen is a nat5 so you will never see one with only 4 stars. The star grade of a monster can go from 1 to 6. The star grade determines the maximum level a monster can have:

Star Grade	Maximum Level	Total XP needed from level 1 to max level
1	15	15120
2	20	35822
3	25	82182
4	30	189750
5	35	446647
6	40	1005420

Once a monster has reached the maximum level in its respective star grade it can be upgraded into the next star grade through a process called evolution. This increases the star grade by one and resets the level to 1. In order to evolve a monster of star grade n to the next star grade you need to sacrifice n monsters of star grade n. For example to evolve a 3 star monster to 4 stars, you need to sacrifice three 3 star monsters. With the exception of Angelmon, every monster can be evolved.

The natural star grade of a monster has an influence on the rarity of a monster (see summon rate), the value of leaderskills, and the distribution of the base stats (excluding SPD) of a monster. A monster can invest a certain amount of points into ATK, DEF, and CON (constitution). Constitution is what Com2uS uses internally, each point of CON is worth 15 HP. The number of points a monster is allowed to spend is

$$1317 + 165 \cdot \text{(natural grade)}$$

so the base stats of each monster (at 6* level 40) have to obey the following relation:

$$ATK + DEF + \frac{HP}{15} = 1317 + 165 \cdot \text{(natural grade)}$$

In the table below you can see the total number of points being distributed for each natural grade.

Natural grade	Sum of stats
0	1317
1	1482
2	1647
3	1812
4	1977
4.3 (2A)	2032
5	2142

Notes

• Some monsters do not have exactly that amount of points distributed but 1 or 2 less. Nobody knows why.
• This relation holds true for awakened monsters, the unawakened version has the distribution of one tier lower (so for example a nat5 unawakened will have 1977 points to distribute but 2142 when awakened).
• Monsters that can not be awakened still obey the point above, for example Forest Keepers have nat0 base stats!
• The distribution of the points can change on awakening, for example Perna goes from 31.1% CON, 42.2% ATK, and 26.7% DEF to 38.5% CON, 41% ATK, and 20.5% DEF. Even though Perna has more total stat points available than a Fire Phoenix it has a lower DEF value.

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Awakening and Second Awakening

Awakening a monster will give it a unique name and a new look. They also gain increased stats and sometimes gain a new skill as well. Only monsters with gold stars can be awakened, silver star monster cannot. An awakened monster will have purple stars. All monsters gain 1 SPD on awakening and their stat distribution changes into their respective natural grade's tier (see the section above on star grades).

Some monster families can be awakened a second time, this is called Second Awakening (2A) and the monsters gain orange stars. To secondary awaken a monster it needs to be max skilled and have its awakening XP (AXP) bar maxed out. The base stats of a monster are massively increased when it is awakened a second time, the monster will then have nat4.333... (four plus one third) base stats.

AXP are gained in the 2A dungeons in the Dimension Hole, below is a table showing you how many AXP you gain per run.

Level	AXP per run	# of runs needed
Level 1	480	209
Level 2	600	167
Level 3	750	134
Level 4	940	107
Level 5	1170	86

Tip

Awakening a monster is independent of its level and star grade, you can do it in any order you like!

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Skills

A monster can have up to four different skills. Skills come in two different forms: active and passive skills. Passive skills have a (Passive) in their name and a [Automatic Effect] label at the end of their skill description. The skills are usually referred to based on their skill slot number with the left most being the first one. So for example Elucia's "Aqua Hurricane" is her S1, "Purify" is her S2, and "Sleep Spell" is her S3.

Skills are shared between members of a family (see here).

Leaderskills

Leaderskills are a special type of skill that (if the monster has a leaderskill) takes the fourth skill slot. Unlike normal skills leaderskills can not be used in a battle but instead provide a stat boost to your entire team which must be chosen before the battle begins. In most battles the monster at the first/leftmost position is the one providing the active leaderskill, the only exception to this is RTA where you select your leaderskill at the end of the drafting phase.

Attention

If two or more of your monsters have the same speed then the leftmost will move first. If you are building dungeon teams where turn order matters and you need a certain monster to be the lead but have it move after another which has the same speed then you need to make that other monster faster or your turn order is wrong.

There are leaderskills for all 8 stats of a monster (even though the one for CD is limited to one special monster that can no longer be obtained).

Leaderskills can be restricted by area or element, indicated by a small symbol in the top right corner of the leaderskill:

Symbol	Meaning	Works for/in
None	Unrestricted	Everything
A	Arena	Arena and RTA
D	Dungeon	Cairos Dungeon, Rift Beasts, and Dimension Hole
G	Guild Content	GW, Siege, Tartarus Labyrinth
	Water	Water monsters only
	Fire	Fire monsters only
	Wind	Wind monsters only
	Light	Light monsters only
	Dark	Dark monsters only

The natural star grade distribution of a family dictates the value of the leaderskills for the entire family. The easiest case is all members having the same natural star grade, in that case the leaderskills will have the strength of leaderskills of that star level and the higher that level is the stronger the leaderskill will be, for example the elemental ATK/DEF/HP leaderskill is 30% for nat3, 40% for nat4, and 50% for nat5.

For families that have different natural star grades the ratio of lower versus higher grades determines the strength of the leaderskill. If there is only one monsters with a higher grade then all leaderskills will have the strength of leaderskills equal to families that consist only of the lower grade, for example Thebae and Han have pure nat4 leaderskills because they are the only nat5 in their respective families.

Note

Sylvia has a true nat5 leaderskill despite being the only nat5 in her family. She is the only exception and this is most likely because she has to use her awakening bonus to get this advantage.

For families with two or three members having a higher star grade than the rest the leaderskills take values between the values for pure grades, with three members being a higher grade resulting in a slightly higher leaderskill than if only two had a higher grade. For example Woochi's (Taoist family: 2 nat3, 3 nat4) lead is 28% RES while Dova's (Harg family: 3 nat3, 2 nat4) is 25% (pure nat4 general resistance lead is 30%).

Skillups

Most skills in the game (except for leaderskills), including some passives, can be skilled up which improves them. The article on skillups explains how the different types of skillups work in detail. You can level the skills of monster by feeding other monsters of the same family or by using devilmon who can level the skill of any monster.

Tips

• Devilmon are one of the rarest resources in the games, you should only use it on nat5s. In rare cases using them on exceptional nat4s that absolutely need skillups to work (for example Galleon) can be okay but is a judgement call.
• The game will show a symbol over monsters that can skill up the currently selected monster in the Power-up Circle.

Attention

Skillups are completely random. From time to time there are people claiming that they prioritise S1 but in reality it is only the animation showing skillups in the order S1 > S2 > S3 > S4 when multiple skillups happened.

Warning

The Street Fighter V unit KEN (and the Com2uS version Bernadotte) are supposed to be special members of the RYU/Striker family but can NOT be skilled up by that family. They should be special members of that family since they have the S1 and S2 of the family but unlike Fran/Eirgar they do not have the same S2 as the respective element family member (usually KEN/Bernadotte should have Douglas' S2, not Moore's). We do not know why Com2uS introduced this huge inconsistency.

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Runes and Artifacts

Monsters can be engraved with runes and artifacts to increase their stats. Please see the full articles on runes and artifacts for more details.

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Stats

There are a total 8 stats each monster has, separated into 2 categories.

Major Stats

The major stats of a monster are determined by the monster having a certain amount of these stats as base stats. A lot of effects work on those base stats, for example leaderskills and runes. For example if you have a rune with "10%" for a major stat then that rune increases your actual stat by 10% of the base stat of your monster.

Attack (ATK)

ATK affects how hard a skill hits or for how much an ATK based heal heals for.

Defence (DEF)

DEF affects the amount of damage taken from most sources. For skills that scale on defence it also affects the amount of damage dealt. See damage reduction by DEF for more information.

Hit Points (HP)

HP determines how much damage you can take before dying. There are also skills that scale on either your own or the enemy's HP so it can affect the damage of those skills.

Speed (SPD)

Summoners War is a turn based game and SPD determines the turn order of the monsters in a battle. For a full explanation on the turn order mechanics see the article on the attack bar.

ATK, DEF, and HP depend on the monster's level. Usually only the stats at 6* max level are interesting and those are the ones you can find everywhere.

Minor Stats

Minor stats are (with one exception) limited to the range of 0 to 100%. Unlike major stats, minor stats are additive. If a rune says "10%" for a minor stat then your minor stat simply goes from x% to (x + 10)% (limited to 100% except for CD). The same applies to leaderskills, buildings, etc.

Critical Rate (CR)

• Starts at 15%.
• Influences the chances of attacks landing as critical hits.
• Attacking a monster while having elemental advantage adds 15% CR, attacking while having elemental disadvantage reduces CR by 15%.

Critical Damage (CD)

• Starts at 50%.
• Is not capped to 100%.
• Influences the damage dealt by critical hits. See damage calculations for more information.

Resistance (RES)

• Starts at 15%.
• Influences the chances of harmful effects being applied to the monster. See status effects for further information.

Accuracy (ACC)

• Starts at 0%.
• Influences the chances of harmful effects being applied by the monster. See status effects for further information.

Fun Facts

• Major stats have a buff for all but one stat (ATK, DEF, SPD). Minor stats have a buff for only one stat (CR). However all stats have respective leaderskills (technically even CD though the only leaderskill for that is a limited special mon that can not be obtained).
• Base SPD is the only major stat that can be an awakening bonus (+15) and CD is the only minor stat that can not be an awakening bonus.
• Base SPD of monsters increases by 1 on awakening.