Hunting the elusive Metal Slime enemies in a Dragon Quest game is a long held staple of the series. SInce its inception, metal versions of the basic slime enemy have been sought after, primarily because they offer bucket loads of experience should you manage to take them down. Unlike other games however, where taking down a rare or elite enemy might simply take depleting a larger health pool, the rare enemies here are tremendously elusive. Not only are they often difficult to locate, but their special defences mean that they’ll only take 1 HP of damage from a regular, non-critical attack. Thankfully, there are two generally accepted methods of taking the solid little beasts down…
Metal Damage Method
Unless you’re somebody very committed to taking down Metal Slimes, or indeed you’re somebody with prior experience with DQ titles, then this is likely to be your first method of taking down these flighty beasts. As noted, these silver blobs will only take 1 damage from regular attacks, but this can be increased to 2 by using metal specific skills, like Metal Slash. Now, these numbers obviously sound very low, however the regular Metal Slime opponent has only 4 HP max, so a few attacks will be able to defeat one. Ideally you’ll have a few party members with access to one of these skills, which is quite likely given that the Sword is a popular weapon with early classes, and it’ll make your life a great deal easier when it comes to farming for experience and levels.
We should note that this is not a viable way to deal with Metal King Slime, and is also pretty unreliable versus Liquid Metal Slime. These enemies are found later in the game and often have 8 HP or more, with the King Slime in particular having 16 HP. This means that, whilst it’s technically possible to take them down with enough hits for 1-2, they’ll almost certainly flee before you claim victory. For these, you’re going to want the critical option, detailed next.
Metal Slime Damage Skills
- (Sword) Metal Slash
- (Boomerang) Metalicker
- Multi-hit attacks, like Multithrust (Spear) or Flailing Nails (Claw). These hit random enemies 4 times in a row, however if they’re used versus a single target, it can equal 4 HP of damage to a Metal Slime, assuming every hit lands…
- The ‘Attribeauty’ Fan model will deal additional damage to Metal targets.
- The ‘Falcon Knife Earrings’ Knife model will attack twice, but only deals tiny amounts of damage, which works out just fine for Metal Slimes.
- All ‘Metal’ crafted weapons will ensure damage is done to Metal enemies.
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Critical Method
The second option for dealing with Metal Slimes is to deal critical strikes with skills. This is because the metal enemies will have their defences completely ignored by the critical attack, causing the attack to deal max damage, instantly defeating them. Theoretically then, we have the damage capability to deal with them in one hit, the only thing that’s left then, is landing an attack on the evasive things!
Happily, Dragon Quest has prepared for such things by including 50% critical strike skills. You may have noticed these skills, such as the Spear skill Thunder Thrust, which have the aforementioned 50% chance to critical strike. Now, this might seem like a bit of an RNG flip, and perhaps you think this isn’t worth your time, however the key message here is that this also means that the skills have 50% chance to hit, and if they do then they will crit. This is higher than your normal chance to land even a regular hit on Metal Slime enemies. Essentially, every time you cast one of these skills, you have a 50% chance to immediately kill the slime, no matter the type. It is also worth noting that these skills only exist on either the Spear or Axe weapon, so it’s worth considering this when you decide which weapon to prioritise with early vocation choices. Happily, both the Axe and Spear are very powerful weapons in their own right, so they’re definitely worth some early investment!
As noted above, this method is nigh on required in order to take down Liquid Metal Slime and certainly Metal King Slime. Normal methods of damage will not deal enough damage, and you’ll likely find that they flee before you can finish them off. It’s much better to stick with this critical method, since it just requires a single successful landing of one 50% skill.
Metal Slime Critical Skills
- (Spear) Thunder Thrust
- (Axe) Hatchet Man
- It’s possible to attempt critical regular attacks with a unit that has high Deftness, like Ranger or Thief, however even at a very high level these cannot reach the 50% chance of the above skills. At best, they may reach 13 – 14%.
- Technically speaking, weapons with a chance of Instant Death work in a similar way, however they will have a much lower chance of activating and are restricted to the accuracy of regular attacks. It’s a long shot, but throwing these on a character that doesn’t have a critical or metal skill is better than nothing.

Categories: Dragon Quest IX