Please take a look at my team and how I play it (Covert Crawlers)

Hey all. I've been playing for awhile now and knocking on the door of level 80. I'm really enjoying my current team and I'm wondering if it is worth trying to change (read: "upgrade") to any other A+ team or try to break the ice in to the AA/+ scene. Take a look:

Lightning Bug+, 70 (2)
Berserker Mite+, 70 (3)
Parasitic Centipede+, 70 (8)
Jade Rhinoceros Beetle+, 70 (13)
Demon Bait Insect+, 70 (14)

And the "subs", etc.

Blood Suck Rampage Fly+, 70 (1)
Hell Hammer Spider+, 70 (13)
Hell Scythe Mantis+, 70 (15)

I am doing fairly well in battles with this team. I "usually" win when I'm attacked (which is how most of my battling goes down). My plan was to get skills all maxxed (or as high as possible for the dodges, etc.) I wasn't sure if I should be using any of my "subs" more regularly or what. I was thinking of trying to score a thunder or satiate spirit for Lightning Bug, and then get the Fly back in to the formation, but don't know if that's worth all that effort.

I'm trying to get in to AA's, but having a rough time. I don't have much EP to speak of. I have a huge pile of A+ monsters that I've accumulated to trade/sell, but havn't really made much. I even broke down and bought 9 dark summons worth of soul points, only to end up with 8 freakin' B monsters (5 with slumbering breath!!!) and one grand ass Scorn Black Wings. I could have vomited. I guess I should have stuck with my "play for free" style.

So I guess what I need to know is: Is this team ok? Should I work on an upgrade to Covert Winged Wyrms? Should I rock this as it is and hope Jesus gives me a freakin' AA that isn't a 16bp piece of garbage? I am working up all of the skills because it seems this team would be pretty nice for a 15bp event or something with the subs off 'tha bench.

Thanks in advance for any info and also thanks much for reading the long post!!

Ladin

Your current team's greatest strength is Demon Bait Insect+, 70 (14). and the vast majority of your defensive wins are probably solely because of that!

in terms of A monsters, which are mostly attack, rather than defense or hp oriented (like AAs), agility is far more important than anything else, because most monsters have high attack, and low def/hp (there are exceptions, but the way combos work exacerbate this in favor of attack overall).

In general, covert wyrms or equivalent level and skill are stronger than covert crawlers.

There's a great covert wyrm combo out there
leader: Quetz (impulse down is an awesome skill because there are more sin players than any other guild)
Lindwurm (Agility)
Jupiter(Demon Down, which is awesome because the top sin and psycho teams are demon teams)
Sky Dragon(IPA)
Mercury/Vritra (Vritra is stronger than mercury, but has overlapping skill with quetz, Mercury has creation down which is mostly useless since creation isn't very popular, although sometimes it's good against psycho creation teams)

This is the 5x combo that's one of the covert 'top' A-formations (the other being beasts), and sin/psychos being demons.

covert winged wyrms are arguably the best A-forms around because it has imp down/demon down against the sin demons, and demon down against the psycho demons which are the other 2 guilds top A-forms (and I think the covert beast form has demon down with seta now too, but that's only able to go up to 4x combo). And since psycho and sin players are much more common than covert, you're really getting the maximum out of your skills (as opposed to say wyrm/beast/undead down or covert down, since there are so few covert players in general, so people won't build their teams to target them)

A lot of good info in there. I really appreciate it. So, then maybe I SHOULD finish up a winged covert wyrm team? I know it is better, but is it so much better or should I try to mix it up with some AA+ stuff. I'm just trying to plan a bit ahead for more of an "end game" scenario. I started out in this game constantly "chasing the white rabbit" (as I call it; you know, constantly building new teams only to end up with a bunch of mediocre squads with low skills). I mean, at this point, it seems that you can make more ep off of selling skill stacks than off of A+ monsters. I know there are exceptions. If I could just come in to about 10 Balrogs and + and level them all up, I'd be sitting alright with ep. ARE AA/AA+ truly the end game, or are most players messing around with them in mixed formations only to end up using one of really three (by my assessment) A+ teams and maxxing them out? Thanks a lot!

Ladin

Ladin wrote: Take a look:

Lightning Bug+, 70 (2)
Berserker Mite+, 70 (3)
Parasitic Centipede+, 70 (
Jade Rhinoceros Beetle+, 70 (13)
Demon Bait Insect+, 70 (14)

And the "subs", etc.

Blood Suck Rampage Fly+, 70 (1)
Hell Hammer Spider+, 70 (13)
Hell Scythe Mantis+, 70 (15)

personally, i would remove Jade Rhinoceros and Berserker Mite and put in Blood-Suck Rampage Fly and Hell Scythe Mantis, because Blood-Suck has higher attack, and DED 15 is so much more useful than IPD 13. in general, your def is pretty much non existent anyway, IPD doesn't do much. on the other hand, DED will make enemies' already non-existent defense even lower, therefore making your monsters, especially Bug, Fly, and Centipede, hit harder and defeating more monsters.

that is my personal opinion of covert crawlers.

about covert wyrm forms, yes, they're that much better. scariest formations from sin and tyranny are both demons, and they will plow through crawlers easily. wyrms on the other hand, have just as much atk as sin demons, and they benefit from demon down and, against sin in particular, impulse down.

finally, AA/+ teams. hybrid AA+/A+ teams only make sense if you have at least two AA+ monsters, and even then they're not quite end game. full AA+ forms, however, are truly end game; A+ teams have a real challenge against them. full AA+ forms have seriously high stats in all categories, but especially so in defense and health, making it almost impossible for a rank A+ team to defeat at least 3 of them on the first turn and, unless the A+ form can remove at least 3 on the first turn, the AA+ form will win. given that, those AA+ forms are anything but cheap.

You have build up a pretty good team but you're comes to the maximum potential of that team. Only maxing agi/ipa/ded would make it a bit better. imo the crawler team is lacking stat making using those skill expensive. As you mention you're better off selling those skills for ep and investing in a winged wyrm or beast team. Those team are that much better. If I remember correctly, the crawler team is about 40k atk, the other teams tops out at 58k. That's 18k attack difference. The only issue is you'll have a hard time selling this team for ep to convert to a different team.

Investing in spirit for that team is highly not recommended. For the cost of the "cheapest" useful spirit, dea you can get a maxed winged wyrm or beast team with decent skill. If you have the ep buy the spirit than you can buy the better team.

As for transitioning into AA+. The crawler AA+ are hellish and devourer. Devourer is expensive as it is highly popular with rancor AA+ team and is limited. hellish is relatively cheap but by itself won't improve your team by much. If you abandon specie and go just guild than deathblade and odin are relatively cheap. Odin in particularly is cheap for its stat but by cheap that is still 80-100ep for a AA so if you're strap for ep as you say than I would say the best option is to go after the winged wyrm team or beast team.

Kyan
Kyan's Store

Add in Dashing Mantis and Crimson Beetle Knight with Demon Bait Insect, Lightning Bug and Centipede. Dashing is Atk 7632 Def 5724 Hp 6360 Mystic Down but can be useful and isn't Dodge. Crimson is Atk 4528 Def 6226 Hp 6792, a badder for of Scythe Mantis, has the highest health of the crawlers and is the perfect lead unless you like Dashing as your leader. With this form they are at around 47k attack before IPA goes off. There is no crawler down skill yet. If you know you are battling Psyco teams, add in Berseker Mite.

I used this while I was starting to build a 5X wyrm team from scratch. Then lucked into a Tlon and got a full maxed wyrm team and other stuff for it in trade. Just working on the skills on it. These two do work very well as long as your agility is higher. It's all about who draws first in DS.

kalannar97