Much of your mid-to-late game progression will depend on how well you are able to build your team around the Rookies during the early game in Digimon Story Time Stranger. You will be stuck using the Rookie Digimon for quite a lot of time before your Agent is able to reach Rank 3 at the very least.
During this early game grind, you will need to start understanding how team synergies work and how you will want to use your Rookies to make the most of the Status Effects and Status Changes that the game comes with.
Buffs, debuffs, and effects play a key role in combat, and while you can brute force your way through in most cases, you will struggle against some of the bosses and Super Bosses.
There are a lot of Rookies that you will be able to Convert or Digivolve into early on. However, the best amongst them are very well balanced and come with both offensive and support skills.
Must have Rookies in Digimon Story Time Stranger
Here is a list of the best Rookies that you will want to Convert or Digivolve as soon as possible in Time Stranger:
5) Dracmon
Dracmon is pretty well balanced when it comes to its attack, magic attack, and defensive stats. Moreover, it comes with the Eye of Nightmares ability, which allows the Digimon to heal for 10% of the damage that it deals. So if you are looking to level them up fast with the Load Enhancements system, you can pump in a lot of bonus Attack into it, making the Digimon close to unkillable as they can just regenerate any missing HP.
You can even equip the Digimon with Venom Trap, allowing you to inflict enemies with one of the best status effects that the early game has to offer.
For Passive Traits, going Astute works as it gives bonuses to both Int and Speed. Apart from this, skills like Meditation work as it will boost INT from Round 4 Onward, and the longer the battle, the more % boost your Digimon will get.
Dracmon is very flexible with its build, and you can put on different abilities on it to make it fit your team.
4) Chuumon
Chuumon might look like the silliest Rookie around, but it has one of the best unique abilities in the early game called Cheese Bomb. The ability does physical Fire damage to enemies but also comes with a 30% chance of applying Poison.
Poison, as we have mentioned, is one of the best Status Effects in the game, which will constantly chip away at the enemy’s HP every time their turn ends. So being able to inflict that while dealing fire damage is just icing on the cake.
Moreover, you can also Convert a Chuumon that comes with the Planning Ahead skills. This skill will allow Chumon to reduce the DEF and SPI for all enemies based on the total Bonds of the Battle Members. This effect will last for 3 turns.
3) Zubamon
When it comes to making a reliable offensive tank, Zubamon will be the best option in the early game. The Digimon comes with a good bit of tanky stats, and if you can get the Counter skill on it, then Zubamon will be able to nullify almost every enemy attack once it reaches low HP (around 20-10% HP.)
Apart from Counter, Steadfast Heart is also a very good option as it will boost DEF when HP is at 90% or lower. The lower the Digimon’s HP, the higher the boost will be, and you will get +10% up to +90% for every 10 missing HP.
Zubamon also has the Twenty Dive special skill, which does decent steel physical damage and has a 20% Crit Rate.
2) Agumon
Agumon is a must-have because of all the iconic Digivolutions that it can have. Apart from WarGreymon you will also be able to get your hands on Omnimon once you fuse WarGreymon with MetalGarurumon.
Agumon is one of the best DPS options in the early game, and one of the best ways of augmenting its damage capabilities is to give the Digimon Haymaker. The Haymaker Passive Skill will let Agumon do 20% more damage every time it crits.
So, when up against Virus-type Digimon, Agumon will be one of the best options for taking them down.
1) Patamon
Patamon is the best starter Rookie that you will want to invest time in leveling in Digimon Story Time Stranger. Patamon has some of the most powerful evolutions in the game, and you will be able to build him as a support or as a primary DPS dealer.
Astute is the best Passive Trait to use for Patamon, as it will further boost both its INT and SPD gain.
Moreover, Patamon De-Digivolves to Tokomon which has a lot of branching evolutions. So if you do get Patamon at the start you can beanch Tokomon out to a completeley different Digimon.
