Here's 1000 Rocks going ino his 4th year. Building work is still really effective for him at roughly +6 Life/+12 Power. The problem right now is not the amount of damage that he's doing but his contact, especially against monsters with like 350+ speed, so we focus on hunting for a while (~+5 Skill).
The official A rank tournament is still probably above his level as he only just got into this rank, but it's not a bad idea to do a run to gauge the level of competition.
Wait, huh? What the fuck?
There's some interesting builds in A rank. Argu the Skill/Int Gamer and Lana the Life/Power Worm are scary heavy hitters, but they can't really do their thing to a guy that walks up and hits heavier and faster. Same for the tanky Terrace (Plant, Life/Skill/Power) and Gardian (Monol, Skill/Def). The real counters to 1000 Rocks' build are the evaders: Amy (Pixie, Speed/everything), who 1000 Rocks loses against, and Ryusei, the Cooler Riston (Hare, Speed/Skill/Power). Unfortunately for Ryusei, he low rolls both of the things he's good at, and 1000 Rocks emerges victorious, 6-1.
All the kids love 1000 Rocks, the huge rock golem that caves all the other monsters' chests in with a single finger.
S rank initially seems pretty barren with no optional tournaments, but the progression here is a little different to the previous ranks. You're meant to win the Official S Tournament once, after which you start getting invitations to the Big Four, the special 4-monster tournaments that Tesca mentioned at the very start of the game and I forgot all about. Beating the Big Four is how you get to Rank 10 and get to credits in MR1, which is the ultimate goal of this LP.
Happy 4th! Holly wishes for 1000 to do his best. I think he's already above and beyond what I expected of him. 1000 Rocks wishes
me the best of luck, which is new. I didn't realize monsters could do that. After that it's back to Building with some Hunt & Guard mixed in to continue evening out his Skill and Defense.
Karn shows up wanting to take 1000 to Reno. For once I've got a monster with over 600 Power, which somebody mentioned in my chat as being a requirement for some of the rock breaking in the ruins, so I decide to go along with Karn for once.
God damnit. Anyway, it takes Karn a month to find 1000, just in time for an official S rank tournament! I decide to skip this first one, because we
just got to S after barely spending any time in A. I decide to just keep working until the March tournament a couple months later.
The rafters are jam-packed for this tournament, as are our opponents' statlines. We actually end up with a pretty good debut record of 5-2. Unfortunately, so do two other monsters, and we're made to fight a tiebreaker against one of the monsters we lost to...
Here's Chuckles, the Jell/Monol. With 600 Defense and 400 Life/Power, he can both survive 1000's attacks
and hit back almost just as strong. He'll end up being a recurring character in 1000 Rocks' S rank tenure, which I appreciate. Fights against Chuckles somehow always come down to the last hit at the last second.
1000 ends up locking in a tournament win with a last-second Kick and a HP% tiebreaker. Very nice!
We get two letters: one announcing our promotion to R-6 breeder, and another one inviting us to the Monsters Cup, one of the Big Four! Nice!
While training up for the invitational, Holly tells me it might be time for 1000 Rocks to retire. He had been getting slightly lower gains from work recently, so I was worried about this. Despite Holly's suggestion, I kind of want to see how far 1000 can really go. We're at the Big Four! We should go out swinging, right?
I also get two(!) upgrades for the ranch, both costing 24k gold in total. One's an inventory slot expansion, the other is this mysteriously phrased upgrade that will help me raise my monsters better in some non-specified way. Sure, why not.
Badass title card. Monsters Cup features two S rank regulars, Baru the Naga (Skill/Power) and Lightning the Gamer (Skill/Int). Lightning defaults and 1000 Rocks one-taps Baru, so all that's left is Redondo the Dragon.
Redondo's statline is as busted as the previous monsters we've faced, and he's a real hard hitter, but 1000 manages to come out on top. Look at how close that is!
The banner for Monsters Cup shows up on the save screen, which makes me wonder if I only have to win each of the Big 4 once..? Anyway, what a run from what was meant to be a workhorse monster, huh? I keep thinking "what if I didn't fuck up 1000's Skill" but it's not like it went anywhere, it just turned into Life and Defense... Well, I'll know better for next time.
Soon after the Monsters Cup, 1000 turns 5. This makes him our strongest & oldest monster! Very exciting, very venerable.
Next of the Big Four is the Disk Cup. Another badass title card. Our opponents here are Soketsu (a kind of all-rounder Monol/Gali) and Chuckles, who's always an exciting fight. Aside from those two, we have...
Arbar, a regular ape from the zoo. He's a slippery fuck at 493 speed, but somehow 1000 makes contact enough times to get a timeout win. Arbar is also interesting in that he has the only healing ability I've seen all game, trading 50 Will for 50 HP. It doesn't really come into play as much as the dodge rate does - 1000 Rocks has like a ~6% chance to hit for most of the fight, so it's remarkable that he gets like 3 hits in.
We're R-8 now. The shopkeeper is so impressed he gives us a one-time 50% celebrity discount. We stock up on taffy and go back to work. The most cost-effective thing would've probably been to stock up on Vitamins, since those are 1000G cheaper, but I'm kind of scared of them, honestly. There's no way stat-changing items like that don't come along with some health issues.
Some more fanmail! I think this is the first one of these that's for me, and not for the monster. I'm kind of scared of a kid that wants to be a manager...
It's a bittersweet moment, though. 1000 seems to be done for good. So close to the finish line..! Well, that's okay. It was a phenomenal run, much better than anything I had in mind for him at the start. I also learned a lot as a trainer, like "tanking your initial Skill is probably absolutely never worth it".
All in all. a very solid life! Over those 5 years, he went
84-28, for a
.750 winrate. Those are killer numbers, I think!
For now, I'm going to put 1000 Rocks on ice until I get another good Power/Life guy to combine with him into a super baby.
Next update I'll set up a new monster! I have some CDs in mind...
