This page is for Monster enemies. For humanoid enemies, see Enemies. For Bosses, see Bosses.
Monsters are inhuman NPC's who almost always are hostile to Players at all times. The main factors that set a Monster apart from Enemies is both thematic and model-wise. Monsters include non-humanoid NPCs (anything with a custom model), and also humanoid NPC's who are clearly some types of creatures, beast, or automaton.
One of Deepwoken's finest, and arguably primary focuses, are the Monsters. Monsters consist of a wide array of threats, ranging from beasts, zombies, cyborgs, constructs, aliens, inter-dimensional entities, and even worse. They are embedded to the game as a multi-purpose tool, being a roadblock to better gear, armor, Mantra Modifiers, new areas, but most importantly: being a fundamentals check. They can tear players apart if they're unprepared, unlucky, or unskilled, and cannot be beaten without proper skill and technique. In addition, they serve as a way for a player to gauge their skills; if a player can't even beat an NPC Monster, what makes them think they can beat a boss or an entire dungeon?
While each Monster has unique attacks, behaviors, traits, and patterns, they all share one thing in common; They can be overcome. Every monster, even the strongest ones such as the Dread Serpent can be beaten with enough memorization, skill technique. (However, do note certain monsters have unique traits such as a Time Limit or Health Regeneration which actually does make them impossible without enough damage.)
The vast majority non-humanoid monsters encountered in-game have hyper armor, meaning most, if not all of their attacks cannot be interrupted from being hit by a player.
Scyphozia
In Scyphozia, monsters have differences from their Overworld counterparts, ranging from small effects to gigantic differences in how they fight, their danger level, and how they must be dealt with.
No longer attack each other based on species, instead completely focusing on players.
Benefiting from the lower gravity of The Depths, being able to jump much higher to pursue players. Megalodaunts especially benefit from this, as their jump is already high to begin with.
Being much more aware, noticing players from further away, or even behind them in certain cases.
Gaining new behaviors/abilities, such as Lionfish Cero.
Becoming much more persistent in chasing, almost never stopping their pursuit until the death of themselves or their target. Depending on your position in the depths, you might have an easier chance of escaping, or a life or death situation.
Additionally, Corrupted Monsters are able to spawn. They are virtually identical to their normal counterparts behavior-wise, however visually they have a large, persistent purple smoke aura around them, along with dealing roughly 50% more damage and having two and a half times the health compared to their normal counterparts. It's easier to see the aura on high graphics. On very low graphics, some monsters such as King Gigamed can be mistaken as not being corrupted. Ringing one of the 'Corrupted Bells' (black colored bells) in the Scyphozia increases the chance of monsters being corrupted by a heavy margin.
Attuned Monsters
Every time a monster spawns, it has a chance to spawn in with an attunement, giving it 50% resistance to its respective attunement but making it take 2x damage from its opposing attunement.
Attunement Types/Effects
Flamewreathed - Applies Burn on hit, can additionally proc Lava Serpent effects. Weak to Galebreathe, resists Flamecharm.
Frostmantle - Places Ice and applies Chilled on hit. Weak to Flamecharm, resists Frostdraw.
Galeforced - Applies Winded and/or Suffocation on hit, deals Extra Knockback, and has Increased Movement Speed. Weak to Thundercall, resists Galebreathe
Thunderstruck - Applies Electrified on hit. Weak to Frostdraw, resists Thundercall
Shadowmeld - Steals Ether on hit. 50% Resistance to Physical damage. Weak to attunements, resists basic attacks.
Certain uncommon-rare variants of monsters thematically already have an attunement tied to them (such as Fury Nautilodaunts or Crimson Megalodaunts. In these cases, they are only able to become attuned with that type of Attunement effect.
Certain Monsters have unique visual effects when attuned.
Thunderstruck Gigamed (Lightning is blue as opposed to yellow.)
Corrupted and Attuned are fairly common (and in later waves, almost guaranteed) in The Diluvian Mechanism.
Humanoid Monsters
Humanoid Monsters
Exclusive to the Etrean Luminant & The Depths: Scyphozia (Layer 1)
While most of the ways to fight a Monster are specific to what kind it is, there are generally a few good rules that apply to most, if not all monsters.
If an attack has a red aura/effect to it and a sharp sound effect, the attack CANNOT be parried normally and must be dodged. These attacks are generally slower than regular attacks (with the exception of some attacks such as Sand Knight kick), giving you more time to dodge. The only way to parry them is using Hunters Brace (not reccomended as they are only found at Summer Isle or rarely in merchant ships, and it disappears if you die, leave the server, or enter a new luminant/the depths), the Grand Fisher Plate, or the Ignition Deepdelver Outfit.
Take extreme caution if you decide to run from a monster, especially at low health. Many Monsters have tools specifically designed to catch runners, such as the Megalodaunt's long-range coral spear, which slows you down when hit. If you absolutely have to run, be smart about it. Abuse buildings or terrain and other obstacles to your advantage or defend against such long ranged attacks. Additionally, many Monsters are MUCH more intimidating compared to their actual attacks. Even if they LOOK scary, many Monsters have much lower stats than their infamy/appearance would suggest, for example: Owl only has 1.5x the health of a Thresher.
Practice makes perfect. Try and fight Monsters in situations where you have little to no risk of dying, such as the Megalodaunt cave (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZD9Akn0gjM). Being unprepared is worse than fighting the Monsters themselves. The absolute worst thing to do possible is to jump into a fight with a Monster you've never fought, or even worse, never even seen before. While many Monsters are indeed weaker than they look, others are the opposite and are deceptively strong. For example: Despite Blizzard Knights looking somewhat spindly and near identical to their (much weaker) Sand counterparts, they have the most health of any non-boss Monster.
Monsters are affected by most things a player would be affected by, including:
Potions
Status/Elemental Effects
Flinging
Grabbing Mantras/Crits (e.g. Legion Kata crit or Jolt Grab)
Most monsters can be staggered. While humanoid NPCs can be posture broken, most monsters can be Staggered (on rare occasion, some can both be Staggered and posture broken). Depending on your ability to deal ARMOR DAMAGE, hitting a monster drains their armor bar (Ironsing works to drain their armor, metal enchant doesn't). When armor bar is empty, the monster will be stunned for around 4 seconds, unable to do anything. This is represented by the red spark that appear on them, a noticeable sound effect and them becoming motionless. During this time, they lose all their resistances and cannot attack or defend themself, but once they wake up from stun their armor is fully regenerated.
All monsters have 25% physical armor and in some cases up to 50%. However humanoids dont have any armor and tanky by their hp. (Info from Arch_Mage)
PVE Scaling
If you have looked at Monster's health on their pages, you might have noticed how they have absolutely absurd health, like how the Megalodaunt apparently has 1000 health. What's happening here? At max, a weapon does like 30-50 damage, does it take a max player 20 to 34 hits to kill one? Not really.
When you level up, you automatically gain bonus damage during PVE, which is currently around (10.38% x 3). This bonus damage applies to every NPC and Monster and is applied on every level. This is why even when someone does not upgrade their weapons damage, they still are able to kill Monsters much faster than a lower level with the same weapon damage. This scaling very quickly becomes crazy in its own right, (to cope with the Monster's crazy health, of course), and towards the endgame, people can kill monsters with thousands of health in a few hits.
Calculating how much health a Monster has from just your damage alone won't be correct, you need to factor in your Power.
Formulas
The formulas that you need to calculate how many hits are required to kill a monster are the following:
Example: If you were to fight a a Stone Knight with 9000 health and 55% resistance to slashing, using a weapon that does 40 damage per hit, while having 10% Damage VS Monsters and being at level 20, you would do:
Trivia
Creatures have predictable and easy to learn attack patterns.
Most creatures have the means to catch a Player who runs, an example being the Megalodaunt's ranged attack, or the Rock golem's beam attack.
A handful of the creatures have materials that are required to make certain equipment or items. (e.g. Sharkscale Glider and most Outfits)
NOT all attacks can be parried; Buy a Hunter Brace at Summer Isle to be able to. (Ignition Deepdelver armor also works for this.)
Some creatures will fight each other; Multiple can fight at the same time. These can be either intentional through events like the Megalodaunt vs. Rock Golem event in Upper Erisia or if the monsters just happen to find each other. See this in action here and here.
Some variants of some creatures are limited to The Depths, and others are only in The Overworld. (e.g. Thunder Nautilodaunts spawn only in the Depths)
Most unparryable (red flash) attacks of monsters are accompanied by the Perilous attack sound from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Additionally, some unparryable attacks are also accompanied by a red Blindseer eye. The reason/lore behind this is unknown, but it may be just for more visibility (especially to low graphics players that cannot see as much particles).
There's a rare easter egg with an unknown chance that a Metal Gear solid alert sound will play when a monster notices a player.
