Joint battle

Joint battles are an alternative battle style in Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World in which the player takes on a giant foe using multiple teams of monsters. These battles appear in the game's main story, and also have their own parallel set of Monster Arena challenges and can also be played in multiplayer.

In a joint battle, the HP and MP of every monster in a four-slot party is combined into a shared pool, and the monsters all experience status effects together. The whole group also acts at once, but each monster still takes its own individual actions.

In story battles, the player's four reserve slots form a second party that is controlled by the computer, but in other modes the player only contributes one party, with NPC characters or other players supplying up to three other parties. In total, up to 16 monster slots can participate in a joint battle. General orders can be issued to computer players.

In addition to an HP bar, the enemy monster also has a Rage Gauge that fills up as it takes damage from attacks. Monsters also have pet peeves that cause the gauge to fill up faster than usual. When the gauge is full, the monster becomes enraged, both dealing and receiving extra damage for two rounds. It is up to the player to decide whether to focus on defending from this onslaught or to press the attack to take advantage of the giant monster's defence debuff. After its two-round tantrum, the enemy must spend one round resting before returning to normal.

In the joint battle branch of the Monster Arena, rather than competing against other monster wranglers as in the standard format, battles are entirely cooperative. The player and three computer-controlled wranglers team up against a single giant monster.

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