Between ensuring that your chosen team has the right balance of skills, resistances, and niches to allow you to actually defeat the monsters in Monster Sanctuary, it can be easy to ignore debuffs in favor of buffs and strong attacks. However, unlike in Pokemon, where status moves aren't as reliable in battle, debuffs in Monster Sanctuary are almost mandatory and shouldn't be ignored.

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There are many different debuffs in Monster Sanctuary, including Burn, Poison, and Bleed for damage dealing, while Weakness, Armor Break, Chill, Tether, and Blind all work to make the opponents less powerful in some way. No matter which debuffs you chose, however, they are all useful in their own ways.

Updated July 10, 2022 by Ryan Bamsey: Monster Sanctuary recently grew quite a lot with the release of a free DLC - Forgotten World. With it came new balance changes, game modes, and monsters. We've taken another look at the roster and made sure we're suggesting the best debuffers for all your debuffing dreams.

12 Yowie

Monster Sanctuary Yowie

Of all the early game monsters that might seem easy to ignore, Yowie is one that absolutely no one should. With skills that inflict the Chill debuff, arguably one of the best in the game, alongside the passive skill Congeal which deals damage to any enemies inflicted with Chill, as well as the passive skill Fatal Upkeep to increase that damage, Yowie is one of the best Chill debuffers in the entire game.

What makes it even better is how early you can obtain it, as it can be found right in front of Old Buran's house in Mountain Path. Add in its ability to inflict stacks of Bleed and its usefulness as a tank and you've got a great utility monster.

11 Catzerker

Monster Sanctuary Catzerker

Like Yowie, Catzerker is a fantastic monster for both damage-dealing and inflicting debuffs. In Catzerker's case, it inflicts Bleed stacks rather than permanent debuffs when its attacks inflict critical hits. Given that you can boost its critical chance very high with the right items, it's easy to turn this monster into a Bleed machine.

With passives that boost the propensity and potency of its critical hits even further, Catzerker is a reliable teammate that you can take with you throughout the entire game.

10 G'rulu

Monster Sanctuary Grulu

Both G'rulu and its pre-evolution, Grummy, are fantastic at debuffing enemies. However, G'rulu is just slightly better at it thanks solely to one of its Ultimate attacks, Ion Beam, which has a chance to inflict a random debuff with every attack of the skill. Combined with its ability to inflict random debuffs with every other attack, this can quickly become overwhelming for opponents.

Its best use, however, is for inflicting Armor Break. When combined with its Dark Shifted skill Debuff Mastery and Multi Armor Break, you can get up to five Armor Break debuffs on a single monster with relative ease.

9 Fungi

Monster Sanctuary Fungi

Fungi's design and how early you can obtain it would make most people assume that it is a fairly weak monster that shouldn't be invested in. The reality, however, is the exact opposite if you are wanting to make a team centered around the Poison debuff, with Weakness as a backup.

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Combined with its Toxin passive skill that gives every Earth attack a chance to inflict Poison, the Multi Poison skill to stack Poison debuffs, and its Dark Shifted skill Curse Chain, which can spread debuffs to other enemies, the damage done by Poison can quickly snowball in even a single turn, with Proliferate dealing chip damage all the while.

8 Stolby

Monster Sanctuary Stolby

Alongside passive Dodging skills that make it hard to hit, the Stolby is one of the more capable Poison debuffers in the game. It has the same Multi Poison as Fungi and also the very cool Mana Syphon, which will restore your party's mana whenever an enemy takes Poison damage.

Stolby fits in quite well on a team dedicated to debuffing in general. Plague spreads Poison passively and Corrosion turns Armor Break into a death sentence for the afflicted, as long as you have good damaging ailment upkeep.

7 Tar Blob

Monster Sanctuary Tar Blob

The Tar Blob is another debuffer with access to fantastic skills that synergize perfectly on a debuff-heavy team. It has Multi Poison, Multi Burn, Mana Syphon, and can even stack up some Bleed whenever an enemy takes passive damage.

Add to that a pretty decent support kit and the ability to inflict Tether stacks, Tar Blob is not a monster you'll want to pass up.

6 Argiope

Monster Sanctuary Argiope

While Argiope is more than capable of inflicting Tether and Poison debuffs, its best use might be in the most literal sense of the word debuff, as it can very easily remove buffs from opposing monsters through its Cleanse passive skills that have a 25 percent chance to remove a buff on each hit. Grab them both for a 50 percent chance to ruin an enemy's setup.

On its own, this is fairly powerful, but it is also one of only a few monsters that gets to do this, and it pairs very well with its innate healing through Bite and Poison Eater as well as the multi-target attack Sticky Web.

5 Draconoir

Monster Sanctuary Draconoir

All of the Draconov evolutions are quite powerful with both Attack and Magic skills, as well as being more than capable of inflicting debuffs when the time calls for it. However, Draconoir is possibly the best of the group, as it can easily inflict not only Blind but Bleed debuffs as well, which are much harder to get rid of than regular debuffs.

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Its ability to inflict Blind stacks is particularly devastating and can quickly result in your team taking less than half the hits they otherwise would have thanks to the opponent's attacks missing.

4 Vasuki

Monster Sanctuary Vasuki

This unassuming double-headed snake is a very potent addition to any debuff-centric strategy. It has the ability to inflict Poison and Burn, and its passive abilities empower those debuffs greatly.

Fatal Upkeep is always useful, but Vasuki also has Severe Upkeep, giving enemies Wounds whenever they take debuff damage, and Burning Desire, which actually shields the party whenever enemies take Burn damage. Give it Weaken and Toxic Feedback for even more usefulness.

3 Arachlich

Monster Sanctuary Arachlich

There are very few monsters that are capable of filling so many roles, but Arachlich is one of those few. Aside from having great healing skills and the Phoenix Affinity passive skill to revive itself once per battle, Arachlich can inflict Chill, Poison, and Blind effects very easily.

With the same Multi Chill as Yowie, along with Congeal, Chill becomes one of the most dangerous debuffs to use. Add to that the incredible usefulness of Blind and you have yourself a mainstay to most team configurations. It even has Revive!

2 Diavola

Monster Sanctuary Diavola

There are many annoying Champion battles in Monster Sanctuary, thanks in no small part to their ability to heal, shield, and attack all in the same turn. Diavola may be the single most annoying when it comes to debuffs, however, as it can not only inflict Bleed stacks when it's simply attacked by the opponent, but it can also very easily inflict Poison, Weakness, and Burn debuffs as well.

The fact that its Dark-Shifted form also has the Bleed Out passive skill, which prevents Bleed stacks from being removed after they deal damage, makes it even more deadly to use on Bleed-centric teams.

1 Specter

Monster Sanctuary Specter

Of all the damage over time debuffers available in Monster Sanctuary, Specter may be the most powerful in terms of the breadth of what it can do. Aside from being able to inflict both Chill and Burn, it also has access to both the Congeal and Fatal Upkeep passive skills to maximize damage output from those debuffs.

Give it Toxin, Cooling, and Hex, and every attack a Specter throws out there has the chance to utterly ruin an enemy's day with multiple debuffs.

While it does have Debuff Master in its Dark Shifted form, it doesn't have Multi-Burn or Multi-Chill, meaning that its teammates should have these passive skills in order to get the most out of Specter in battle.

NEXT: Monster Sanctuary: Best Shielders