Personality Values and Manipulation
Monster Rancher 3 introduces personalities. Learn how these work and how to change it in Monster Rancher 3. This guide is supplemental to the large chart of personalities.
What are Personality Values?
These are invisible values (can be checked via Lexi’s Suezo’s Eye viewer) that determine a change in a monster’s personality and the development of spiritual traits during a monster’s growth week. These values change depending on what you feed your monster and how you respond to a monster’s requests and post-training greats/failures and post-battle (tourneys and rival battles) victories/defeats.
There are eight values that make up Personality:
- Temperament
- Pride
- Proactive
- Desire
- Sensitivity
- Competitiveness
- Seriousness
- Self-control
However, only three out of eight values that play a role in personality determination: Proactive, Competitiveness, and Self-control. Occasionally, Desire has a role, and Sensitivity is notable due to its importance in developing the spiritual trait Intuitive.
In order to have a specific personality, the monster’s Proactive, Competitiveness, and Self-control must be within a range of values. Whether your monster develops that personality or not depends on the RNG during the growth week, even if you have reached the required values.
Battle-relevant personalities:
Adusting for Personality
| Personality | Proactive | Competitiveness | Self-control |
| Calm | 35 to 64 | 35 to 64 | ≥ 65 |
| Careful | ≤ 34 | 35 to 64 | 35 to 64 |
| Indignant * | 35 to 64 | ≥ 65 | ≤ 34 |
| Reliable | ≤ 14 | 35 to 64 | ≥ 65 |
| Stubborn * | 35 to 64 | ≥ 65 | ≤ 34 |
| Show-Off | ≥ 65 | ≤ 34 | ≤ 34 |
Note: Stubborn and Indignant have the same effect and value requirements, but a monster can only get either, seemingly depending on the breed.
Sometimes, your monster may develop Spiritual Traits during the growth week, and just like personality, it depends on the RNG even if you have reached the required values. Some battle-relevant spiritual traits:
Adusting for Spiritual Traits
| Spiritual Traits | Sensitivity | Competitiveness | Self-control |
| Intuitive | ≥ 80 | | |
| Narcissistic | | ≥ 76 | ≤ 28 |
| Strong Heart | | | ≥ 80 |
Because some values required for a personality are close to the required values for a spiritual trait, it is possible to combo a personality and a spiritual trait:
- Calm/Reliable + Strong Heart: Both require high Self-control
- Stubborn/Indignant + Narcissistic: Both require high Competitiveness and low Self-control
Note that the value requirements for a spiritual trait tends to be higher than for a personality. Any battle-relevant personality can combo with Intuitive because Sensitivity value is irrelevant in developing those personalities.
See also
Attributes for the effects of personality and spiritual traits.
Adjusting Personality Values
Baseline values and traits may vary depending on the CD and method used to generate your monster. Examples provided are based on LegendCup's Encyclopedia save entries.
Monster hearts can significantly alter the values, as they almost average the values. Though it is worth noting that extreme values can be harder to adjust, so it is recommended to have the heart at extreme values for better results. There is no definite best personality value for hearts; it all depends on the personality you want, though high Sensitivity is always recommended considering how useful Intuitive is.
Know the monsters’ baseline personality values and plan ahead; this can save you a lot of work
Examples:
- Usazo has 12 baseline Competitiveness and is a recommended Suezo for Sharp Eyes if you plan to lower the Competitiveness of the desired monster
- Consider Leon instead of Suezo breeds for Sharp Eyes because the 80 baseline Sensitivity will greatly help with developing Intuitive, but you will need to roll out Gluttonous during growth week
- Strawberry is recommended if you plan to have both Fast Footwork and Intuitive in one monster because it has both Fast Footwork and 80 baseline Sensitivity, but be careful of the 85 baseline Proactive that can interfere with developing Careful and Reliable
- Fukazukin is recommended if you plan to have both Hard Scales and Intuitive in one monster because it has both Hard Scales and 90 baseline Sensitivity, but you will need to roll out Clean during growth week because it is a spiritual trait that can pass down to monsters with high Sensitivity
You can modify the values to extreme numbers for even better results. To achieve this, monthly feeding is key. See also
Item List.
Tips on Food:
- 4th Week Raising explanation. Freezing your monster until week 4, Unfreezing and performing an action, then Feed the Monthly Food on week 1, and Freeze again until the next 4th week. This means the monster gets the Monthly food every week instead of once a month.
- You can use the 4th week trick so that you can do monthly feeding on the monster almost every week, with minimal damage to the nutrition. This is very helpful for developing personalities and spiritual traits with values that are very far from the monster’s personality values.
- Food effects on personality values can be save scummed right before confirming the food; always aim for the maximum roll for efficiency. Efficiency in feeding helps minimize Self-Control gain for some personalities. For example, the Sensitivity gain range from Morx Mushroom is -1 to +2, so if you want Intuitive, always try to get +2
Proactive
Increase or Decrease are determined by:
- Monthly Feeding
- Post-training and post-battle responses
TIPS for Lowering Proactive:
Reliable requires very low Proactive, and having very low Proactive can help with lowering Self-Control (useful for Careful), but these values can be difficult to reach. This can be easily done by feeding Nothing, which gives -4 Proactive so long as the monster is not Fat; because this does not increase stress, combine it with 4th Week Raising to quickly lower Proactive while minimizing the damage to nutrition.
Feeding Info
- 2 Favorites and 1 Nutrition: -2
- 1 Favorites and 1 Nutrition: -3
- If monster's form is fat, Nothing does not change Proactive
- Nothing: -4
Competitiveness
Increase determined by:
- Post-training and post-battle responses
Decrease determined by:
- Monthly feeding (Potato and Vine Grass)
- Post-training and post-battle responses
TIPS for Increasing Competitiveness:
Competitiveness is easy to lower but can be difficult to increase.
- Avoid developing and giving hearts with extremely low Competitiveness values, unless you are developing Show-Off or the monster starts with too high Competitiveness for the desired personality
- Take or even force training Failures so you can access post-training responses and have the opportunity to increase it; best done on baby monsters
Self-control
Increase determined by:
- Monthly feeding (food must be at 1 or 2 Likes AND 3 or 4 Nutrition)
- Refusing a monster’s request
Decrease determined by:
- Monthly feeding (food must be at 4 Likes AND 1 Nutrition)
- Accepting a monster’s request
TIPS for Lowering Self-Control:
This value goes up very easily, but is very hard to lower and may lead to your monster developing Gourmet if you rely solely on monthly feeding.
- Develop a monster heart with extremely low Self-Control; if the monster heart has Gourmet due to reliance on monthly feeding to lower Self-Control, do not worry as it will not pass down
- Lower Proactive to 15 or below; when you try to enter the low Proactive monster to a tourney, the monster may back down (can be savescummed before confirming the participation) and Fleria will ask if you still want to enter the monster to the tourney. Choose No to get -1 Self-Control.
Note that you can only lower Self-Control this way once per week, so for maximum results, try having the monster at higher grades so there are more tourneys in a month to try. This works best for developing hearts for Careful personality, and even when developing Careful personality on the monster, this trick can help you keep Self-Control in check.
Feeding Info:
- 1 or 2 Favorites and 3 or 4 Nutrition: +1
- 1 or 2 Favorites and 1 or 2 Nutrition: 0
- 4 Favorites and 2-4 Nutrition: 0
- 4 Favorites and 1 Nutrition: -1
Sensitivity
Increase or Decrease determined by:
- Monthly feeding (Morx Mushroom)
TIPS for Sensitivity and Evolution:
Morx Mushroom spam for Intuitive can easily cause evolution to Morx subbreeds and interfere with maintaining or evolving into a desired non-Morx subbreed.
- To maintain a desired non-Morx subbreed, simply save a lot so you can move out of Morx right before the growth week
- To evolve into a desired non-Morx subbreed, save scum for +2 Sensitivity each time you feed Morx Mushroom to avoid feeding too many of the mushrooms; Once Sensitivity hits 80, start feeding the regional food of the desired subbreed and use the freeze/unfreeze trick to bump up the regional food count if necessary; it is easier to evolve into the desired subbreed on second growth week. See Evolving
Feeding Info:
- Potatoes: 0 to -3 (random)
- Morx Mushrooms: 0 to +2 Sensitivity (random)
Considering Evolution
Evolution into another subbreed will not change personality values. This is why starting with a different subbreed can help with developing the desired personality and spiritual traits, because a monster’s baseline personality values vary depending on the subbreeds. For example, if you want Intuitive on Anubis (30 baseline Sensitivity), start with Galum (75 baseline Sensitivity) and evolve it.
NOTE that you cannot evolve a monster into a special breed, but special breeds can evolve into other regional subbreeds, so they can be good as a starting monster that you want to evolve into something else.
See full details on how Evolution works.
General FAQs
Can I pass down personality?
No. Monster hearts only adjust the personality values individually. This is why it is perfectly fine (and even recommended) to have a monster heart with undesired personality; it is the individual value that counts.
Can I pass down spiritual traits?
Yes, and there is a rule: the monster that is to be given the heart with the spiritual trait must have reached the required personality value for the trait. For example, if you have a monster heart with Intuitive, it will not pass down to Palasaulo (10 Sensitivity), but will pass down to Warabi (90 Sensitivity). Whether it passes down or not depends on RNG.
My monster develops a different personality (e.g. values are in the range for Careful but the monster develops Modest instead)?
This is possible because the personalities have overlapping values. Sometimes the monster can even have two personalities at once, but one of them will go to the trait list instead of the personality slot. The solution is to save scum until the monster develops the desired personality.
When are these traits locked in a monster?
The third/final growth week is the last time a monster will experience personality change and develop/lose spiritual traits. Past that, there will be no change and it does not matter if the values fall out of the range.
Disappearing spiritual traits?
During growth week, a monster may lose a spiritual trait. Save scum to avoid it.
Data on post-training and post-battle responses?
The change in personality values via these responses vary depending on the monster’s breed and personality and some unknown factors, so this is mostly trial-and-error by saving before choosing the response. The only known universal response is the post-great training response “Great Job,” which reduces a monster’s stress without altering personality values.
Does shop food (e.g. Nitro Juice) affect personality values?
No. However, Gassy Potato and Moak Soup will cause changes to the nutrition blocks during monthly feeding, which will affect Self-control gains.
Credits:
DocBio's writeups
1 &
2, and Lexi