Covert Wyrms #WhatWereTheyThinking

I'm not sure if there has been a thread on this or not yet, but I'd like to hear what more seasoned players think about the current covert wyrm "best" team, and alternate teams

As far as I can tell, the current set-up is:
Quetzalcoatl +
Attack:7464 Defense:4976 Health:6842
Raging Vritra +
Attack:5940 Defense:7128 Health:5346
Lindwurm +
Attack:6624 Defense:4968 Health:5520
Sky Dragon +
Attack:5456 Defense:5456 Health:4464
Dragon Lord Of Hellfire +
Attack:3744 Defense:5148 Health:5616

Total Stats:
Attack: 29,288
Defense: 27,676
Health: 27,788

Skills:
Agility Up
Increase Party Defense - 24%
Increase Party Attack - 24%
Impulse Down (2 so 1 is wasted)

Bonuses:
Level - 5%
Rarity - 10%
Covert - 10%
Species - 15%
Winged - 15%

Adjusted Totals (Assuming all percents are applied to base stats)
*I'm going to ignore the double health bonus that party leader gets for now, as I'm unsure if the bonus is flat or if it counts as base and then gets percentage bonus applied to it*

Attack: 51,840
Defense: 48,987
Health: 43,071
Plus a reduction in Impulse Monsters

Alternate Team:
Quetzalcoatl +
Attack:7464 Defense:4976 Health:6842
Plague Dragon +
Attack:6996 Defense:5088 Health:7632
Lindwurm +
Attack:6624 Defense:4968 Health:5520
Sky Dragon +
Attack:5456 Defense:5456 Health:4464
Hydra +
Attack:4590 Defense:4590 Health:6630

Totals:
Attack: 31,130
Defense: 25,078
Health: 31,088

Skills:
Agility Up
Increase Party Attack - 24%
Impulse Down
Decrease Enemy Defense - 24%
Venomous Breath

Bonuses:
Level - 5%
Rarity - 10%
Covert - 10%
Species - 15%

Adjusted Totals calculated as above

Attack: 51,053
Defense: 35,109
Health: 43,523
Plus a reduction in Impulse Monsters and Decrease Enemy Defense Skill (24%) and Venomous Breath Skill

Now my question is, is it worth the loss in 14k defense (29% loss from top formation) for a 24% decrease in the enemy defense plus a venomous breath hit? From what i've heard, venomous breath hits for ~8k at level 20 which can KO a lot of monsters in one hit. It also is rumored to never miss.
The other stats balance out, and you end up getting a lot more health with Plague as your leader too.

What I think: if you can get your hands on a skill spirit for either Quetz or Vritra, the winged formation is the way to go. If not, the bonus from Plague's stats and adding venomous breath to your formation is too good to pass up. If you're really miffed about the loss in defense, you can always add Dragonlord of Hellfire instead of the Hydra too.
Quick, discuss before Psycho Down Dragon is released and this all becomes irrelevant!

From the party calculator in DSBestiary. These are the numbers I got for the two teams assuming you are rancor.

Team 1: 54200atk, 43500def, 38200hp
Team 2: 49200atk, 37800def, 41200hp.

The team with vitra and hellfire has alot more attack and def. Thinks its enough to overcome the lost of -def skill and hp from plague/hydra.

Venonmous breath from what I have seen doesn't miss. I ran with Beelzebub for a long time and it has never missed with venom. It is rumored to also bypass -atk and defense though I haven't tested that. Skill leveling one now to see if that is true.

Kyan

I have everything except Dragonlord of Hellfire at the moment. Once they are all leveled, I'll do some in-game testing to see the results. I'm curious as to how powerful venomous breath is combined with 20 agility.

I can't tell you anything about the covert wyrm teams. However, i can tell you that i started the "how good is my monsters skill?" thread quite a while ago. Back then people were posting that venomous breath never misses. Since then i have been running for a long time with a catoblepas+ with venomous breath 2 (it's a placeholder, so i haven't bothered levelling it). The breath hits for 3.5-5k at skill 2 only, and i have never seen it miss even once.

Edit:
However, as you can see the hit isn't a fixed amount, so either the hit itself has a range (+skill level modifier), or it is modified by other skills. The main point stands though. It does not miss.

When I ran with Beelzebub(5). It hits for 4-6k. It seems to be determined by skill level of venom. Reported max veno hits for 8-10k.

kyan

I'm pretty sure the deal here is the combo possibility. You have the possibility of Level, Rarity, Covert, Wyrm, and Winged which is the one that is the hardest to pull off. Correct me if I'm wrong cause I am currently collecting a team for sale on that assumption.

Winged is very popular because you get a 15% bonus. You'll sell it for sure. We're theorycrafting on the benefit of using increased BP monsters and subbing in venomous breath vs the 15% bonus and what would be worth more. 10k hit on first turn (never miss) is pretty powerful, but it's hard to quantify all the data. I worked on a spreadsheet back when, but it was full of a couple minor errors. I have it somewhere, maybe I'll dredge it up sunday and plug in updated values.

At the moment Covert Wyrms is the only guild who has the Agi Winged monster (lindwurm in this case).

So u must run WINGED version, the only bad beat hellfire cuz is raid and has low stats, but he has a good skill (+party def).

You can change the skill of vritra or quetz (as you choice) for health up, decrease enemy attack.... whatever you want.

P.D: With the new AA Wyrm instead of dragonlord, this team is IMBA.

dr4ko wrote:At the moment Covert Wyrms is the only guild who has the Agi Winged monster (lindwurm in this case).

So u must run WINGED version, the only bad beat hellfire cuz is raid and has low stats, but he has a good skill (+party def).

You can change the skill of vritra or quetz (as you choice) for health up, decrease enemy attack.... whatever you want.

P.D: With the new AA Wyrm instead of dragonlord, this team is IMBA.

Health up is not a possible skill change. Decrease enemy defense is relatively expensive but probably the best skill to change to.

Changing dragon of disaster for hellfire actually lose 2k attack power from lost of both level and rarity bonus unless its AA+. I guess you can keep it at lv70 but that seems a waste of a AA.

Kyan