Which is better?

Since it's tough for some people to get a full formation of either AAA monsters or Ex, which would be better to incoporate into an existing AA+ formation?

I'm going to say neither would improve your formation.

A little more constructively, I'll say that "it depends". It depends on your formation's species. It depends on whether you have a winged formation. It even depends on how much points you're willing to invest in bp. While you will undoubtedly be giving up level and rarity either way, you can keep species, guild, and winged. One important point: if you choose to mix Ex/AAA/AAA+ and AA+, be sure that you have at least two monsters that you can mix, preferably ones high in def and health, and that they match your form's species(incidentally, Grand [Demon | Brute | Wyrm | Crawler | Undead | Beast] will not break the regular [Demon | Brute | Wyrm | Crawler | Undead | Beast] combos. That's the silver lining to those species being affected by regular species downs).

You seriously think "it depends" is more constructive than "don't mix, it'll lower your stats"?
You see the guy's sig... are you telling me his stats wouldn't be better if he replaced that AAA leader with a AA+ brute?

Yes, Steve, I do think that it depends is much more constructive than just "don't do it". If you're gonna give advice either way, please go a little more in depth than just "don't do it". Do something more like "I advise you not to do it because..." and then go on to explain your reasoning. Besides, I did say to use at least two AAA/Ex monsters. It's the same principle as back when A+/AA+ were discussed, before we had partial combos. At least two monsters of the higher rarity are still needed to offset the loss of combos, and at least now you'd only be losing ~15.5% instead of ~21% in atk and def, and you'd be gaining 5% health, 8% accuracy, and 15% dodge in exchange. Still weaker than a full AAA+/S4Ex, but hopefully strong enough to handle most AA+ forms. Frankly, for myself I'd hybridize with Ex, and get health up+ and ipa+.

I agree that the loss of stats is something to consider, but do keep in mind that he's trying to make up his mind and for that he needs information. One other thing to consider: not everyone has the same playing style, even among the diehards like the users still on this forum.

I would have figured that "... because of loss of combos" was implied and obvious.

So you're suggesting that someone who can't afford a full AAA+ form should go with EX because of the plus skills? Unless SOS start growing on trees, I don't see how that's any more affordable.

And you know as well as I do that the base accuracy and dodge rates are so low, tweaking them by percentage points barely registers. Can't even begin to compare to the atk/def combo loss.

I don't mean to give you a hard time, but between this thread and the "folks at low bp missions can get the event AAA for cheap", your advice lately seems kinda off.

Now I know that SoS/+ aren't cheap, but neither is AAA+ and random spirits galore to get health up on it, and ipa spirits aren't cheap either. On the one hand you have spending quite a bit on SoS/+ and on the other hand you have to face 24m evolution cost, 200-400 for the AAA regs, and sky's the limit on the cost of spirits. At least the S1Ex aren't nearly as expensive and you just need a fair bit of sac fodder. Even if you can't afford a full form, if you can afford two skilled AAA+s, you can afford 2 S4Ex monsters with maxed skills, and their skills are more powerful. Plus, 100 bp vs 200 bp, which would you take?

Oh, and even if it seems obvious to you about the loss of combos, don't you think that since a question is asked you should perhaps give the guy a more detailed answer? Either he knows that he'll lose combos and wants to know how to go about mitigating the loss, or he doesn't in which case you should tell him about it. But either way, he's looking for something a bit more than "don't do it".

On the subject of dodge and hit, the initial values are enough that a combo giving 8% or 15% isn't as insignificant as you think. Dodge is initially 20 for all monsters, 15% brings it 23. 8% on accuracy is even bigger of an increase, as a AAA+' s is 59 initially, iirc. That makes 63 after an 8% boost. I can tell you from personal experience, the increases to dodge particularly can be very annoying when they are deployed against you. Sometimes they even cost you the fight.

Again, I would think twice before hybridizing rarity, as I always weigh how many points I lose vs the gain in accuracy/dodge. Most of the time I don't consider it worthwhile, but it's not my call this time. It's TreyDobe's. All I can do is give him information to consider.

Armitaage wrote:On the subject of dodge and hit, the initial values are enough that a combo giving 8% or 15% isn't as insignificant as you think. Dodge is initially 20 for all monsters, 15% brings it 23. 8% on accuracy is even bigger of an increase, as a AAA+' s is 59 initially, iirc. That makes 63 after an 8% boost. I can tell you from personal experience, the increases to dodge particularly can be very annoying when they are deployed against you. Sometimes they even cost you the fight.

Relica can also make these stats more impactful to a battle. Just sayin'...

Well so far I got 2 max stage 4 EX's now and trying to sell Cybele so i can get a few more EX's worked on, I appreciate the comments and insight everyone has posted here.  My hybrid form in terms of power compared to my full AA+ brute form that I use as my main might be slightly weaker in terms of attack but it's a bit stronger in defense, the thing that made my defense fairly good is the fact I had an agi monster in it which made all my AA+'s go first as well as my AAA causing me to win in defense more than losing it.