Anyone know the statistical difference between Gold familiars and the non Gold

You would have to catch a gold one and a normal one and compare both their base stats and their growth over time. I certainly haven't done this and I haven't seen any website quantify it either, other than "gold is stronger." The Japanese strategy guide might say something about this but I don't have it.

What I have read (but never tested) is that gold Familiars can always level up to 99. This doesn't affect most Familiars (except their first and second forms with lower caps), but some of the third-stage forms actually cap earlier than 99 as well. In this case in theory you can make them much stronger by continuing to level.

Orson1984 posted...

Dang thats alot of level grinding going to level 99x3 !!! Man its going to be forever before I get to see the last forms of my DLC familiars.

I still haven't decided if I care enough to actually cap their stats before evolving. There is actually a different evolutionary line that normally caps below level 10, and that's the one I'm worried about (even just 3rd-stage). The amount of experience required per level flies into the hundreds of thousands, which means raising it to 99 would take millions upon millions of experience points.

terminal21 posted...

That's what gamefaqs is for, someone will tell us the best spot for xp grinding. :>

I already know the 2 best spots for this, and while for normal Familiars (like the gold DLC ones) this won't be too bad, it still takes ages upon ages to accumulate millions of experience points.

Orson1984 posted...

Hey eghead you ever catch a

double-element gold version?

I tried once to no avail. But someone on these boards caught one almost immediately and I hate him forever. That had like a 1/2000 chance for the particular Familiar he caught, and it took him under 30 minutes if I recall correctly.

dudeitscool posted...

Are we talking those enemies that give 800XP a pop?
I saw a youtube video of that.

They give 8,000 each, yes. And you can get two at once in battle sometimes. There's another one that gives closer to 25,000 experience but he's harder to encounter and always alone (never two at once).

Ok so I looked in my inventory and I did find two of the same level 1 Familiar to compare (1 normal 1 gold, both 3rd-stage ones that I evolved from the previous form, also both single-sun alignment). To jump to the conclusion early, they mostly just seem different. I don't know if anything would change if I'd capped their levels before evolving, but I doubt it. I did level them both up quite a bit to see if anything would change at higher level. Here are some comparisons.

Level 1 stats:

Normal:

29 p. atk
24 p.d ef
27 m. atk
17 m. def
37 evasion
40 accuracy

Gold:

34 p. atk
25 p. def
25 m. atk
16 m. def
33 evasion
36 accuracy

Level 27 stats

Normal:

98 p. atk
86 p. def
89 m. atk
60 m. def
116 evasion
122 accuracy

Gold:

110 p. atk
90 p. def
87 m. atk
58 m. def
107 evasion
115 accuracy

As you can see, the gold one has a significant advantage already in physical attack and to a lesser extent in physical defense. The normal one is just a tiny bit stronger in the magical attack/defense, but basically by a negligible margin. However, the normal one has a noticeable advantage in both accuracy and evasion.

I would personally argue that the gold one wins out due to the offense and defense stats being more important, but it's not 100% clear-cut. I may have a different Familiar to do a comparison with later as well when I have more time, for a base-stage one this time. But I have to go catch a level 1 normal version first.

OmegaDL50 posted...

I never played Pokemon that much but would "Gold" monsters in Ni No Kuni be the equivalent of "Shiny Pokemon" or is this something very different. I don't even know if Shiny Pokemon had different stats, I always thought it was just a aesthetic.

Good to know that Gold versions have a higher stat point pool in compensation for their rarity.

I don't know in Pokemon because I only played gen 1, but it's definitely not just aesthetic in Ni no Kuni. If you actually add up the stat points for the comparison I did, surprisingly the regular one came out on top with 571 total vs. 567 for the gold version. However, there's another important question here that I have not explored, which is is there any randomness to how a Familiar levels? I know two of the same type will always level up in the same general fashion, but I've never taken 2 identical Familiars and seen if they level up to identical stats.

OmegaDL50 posted...

Yeah there would probably be a variable somewhere in the stats algorithm. I know that the same type of Pokemon with two different EV's can result in vastly different builds. This is from me only playing Emerald / Ruby / Saphire generation (I think this is Gen 4?)

But one thing comes to mind, If a Gold Familiar can level to 99 regardless, then wouldn't that already be a benefit to grow further beyond a standard familiar that can't get to level 99? I'd figure the extra levels would have to factor somewhere.

For ones that can't reach 99, you would think so. I haven't personally verified it. But the vast majority of 3rd-stage Familiars can reach 99.

The randomness factor would be good to test. I might try taking 2 identical Familiars and leveling them up simultaneously to see what happens.