Black Clay
The Black Clay, also known as Dark Clay, is a foe that appears in Epic Battle Fantasy 3, 4 and 5. It usually appears in caves or deserts, such as the Kitten Kingdom Ruins of EBF3 or the Crystal Caverns of EBF4; in the latter game, it also makes appearances in Lankyroot Jungle. It was added to EBF5 in the v2 update, being one of the Classic foes fought in the Data Bunker; in a "Foe Remix" Custom Game, it can be found much earlier in one of the caves beneath the Wild Tropics.
Appearance
Like all Clays, the Black Clay is a living statue made from hardened clay in the shape of an armored humanoid with a large head. True to its name, its brown armor has black accents, including a plate on its "face" with an X-shaped sigil. It also has a large spike on its helmet and smaller ones along the bottom of its "skirt." It wields a double-bladed axe with a slightly asymmetrical head and a small spike on the tip.
Overview
As per its name and appearance, the Black Clay prefers Dark attacks, including a skill that can inflict Doom or Instant Death. This is especially dangerous if multiple Black Clays are fought in the same wave (as they often are), but can be negated with sufficient Doom/Death resistance. Moreover, the Black Clay's most dangerous skills can be sealed away by inflicting Syphon or Berserk on it, forcing it to resort to melee attacks. While fairly strong (especially their multi-hit versions), these skills all target a single player and have no special effects beyond raw damage; debuffing the Black Clay's Attack is also an option to further reduce its threat level.
In all of its appearances, the Black Clay absorbs Dark, is immune to Thunder, Bio, and Poison and is weak to Water, Holy, and Bomb.
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
The Dark Clay is one of the later Clays to be introduced (along with the Light Clay), with the threat level to match. It mainly uses partially Earth-based physical skills (one of which gains additional hits on Epic difficulty), but it's most notable for Haunt, a Dark spell which can inflict Doom and a bevy of formidable stat debuffs with every hit - and since it hits 5 times, a single cast can utterly cripple its target. Its Evade is very slightly higher than normal, although this will rarely have any noticeable impact.
If you can't kill a Dark Clay immediately, afflicting it with Syphon or Berserk should be a priority - either status stops it from using the incredibly annoying Haunt (as well as Quake, although this isn't nearly as important). With its magic sealed, it's reduced to basic axe strikes and stabs; it can do decent damage, but high Defence will mitigate this significantly.
The Dark Clay absorbs Dark and Earth while being immune to Fire, Thunder, Bio, and Poison. On the other hand, it is fairly weak to Bomb, very weak to Holy, and especially weak to Water; the latter element will deal over twice the usual damage to a Dark Clay.
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
The Black Clay uses non-elemental slash attacks, all of which strike multiple times (either naturally or by unleashing Dark Shot on hit), but its main threat comes from its spike-based Dark skills. Evil Spikes is its most damaging attack, and Death Spike has a substantial chance of inflicting Instant Death to its target; fortunately, both are single-target, slightly inaccurate, and unable to be used if the Clay is suffering from Syphon or Berserk. Aside from that, debuffing its Attack and raising the party's Defence and Evade are the best option to reduce its damage output.
On higher difficulty levels, the Black Clay enters battle with several stacks of Brave to increase its damage output via guaranteed critical hits; it also becomes immune to the party's critical hits, although this isn't too important. It lacks Dispel resistance, so this isn't too hard to remove, but be ready for its boosted damage until you can Dispel Brave.
The Black Clay absorbs Dark, nullifies Thunder, Bio, Curse, and Poison, and has a significant resistance to both Doom and Instant Death. Its weaknesses include Earth, Water, and especially Holy and Bomb. "More Foe Resistance" allows it to absorb Earth while reducing its Bomb weakness and giving it a resistance to Weaken.
Epic Battle Fantasy 5
The Dark Clay acts similarly to its EBF3 counterpart (including its barely above-average Evade), but with an increased emphasis on Dark attacks. Like all Classic foes, it ignores Lovable and cannot be affected by Enchanted or Invisible.
The Dark Clay mostly uses physical attacks - including slightly Dark-based axe strikes and the heavily Earth-based Quake - but its sole spell (Haunt) is the real issue. Although it only hits one player and the pure Dark damage isn't exceedingly high, it has a decent chance of debuffing both of their offenses and defenses by 30% on top of applying Doom with its final hit. With EBF5's new mechanics for Buffs and Debuffs, a single Haunt can completely undo the player's efforts to buff a player; in groups, Dark Clays can easily cripple the entire party on top of putting them on a Doom timer.
Higher difficulty levels add extra hits to the Dark Clay's Multi-Slash attack to increase its overall damage output; fortunately, it still suffers from poor Accuracy. Additionally, Haunt becomes even more dangerous by gaining a substantially higher infliction chance on all of its effects; it's guaranteed to Doom non-resistant players, and each of its debuffs has a 50-50 chance of taking hold.
A combination of Doom resistance, Brave, and Morale will block the debilitating side effects of Haunt, but a more efficient strategy is to stop the Dark Clay from using its magic entirely via Syphon or Berserk; especially when it's down to the last quarter of its HP and begins spamming Haunt and Quake. Against a lone Dark Clay, Bubble Ring is particularly effective; in addition to a very high Syphon chance and no cooldown, it hits one of the foe's elemental weaknesses (unless "More Foe Resistance" is active).
The Dark Clay absorbs Dark and Earth, but takes extra damage from Bomb, Water, and especially Holy. It is immune to Thunder, Bio, and most status effects save for Stun, Syphon, Dispel, Doom, and Instant Death. Additionally, it has 30% resistance to most stat debuffs (except for HP, which is largely a moot point since it is immune to Scorch). If "More Foe Resistance" is enabled, it becomes less vulnerable to Bomb and gains significant resistance to Water, Stun, Doom, and Instant Death.
Statistics
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
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Dark Clay | Living Statue | EBF3 |
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| An elite clay soldier. Uses earth and dark elemental attacks. | |||
| Statistics | ||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | Gold |
| 180 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4.1 | 26 | 6 | 40 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | - | -120% | - | 200% | 100% | 200% | -100% | -60% | |
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | - | |||||
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- | - | - |
| Name | Brick | Dirt Ball | Steel Plate | Dark Rune | - | - | - |
| Chance | 100% | 60% | 40% | 5% | - | - | - |
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
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Black Clay | EBF4 |
|---|---|---|
| An axe-wielding warrior which uses dark attacks. | ||
| Statistics | ||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP |
| 188 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 28 | 2.8 | 2.8 | 32 | 50 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | 100% | - | -50% | 100% | -100% | - | -50% | -100% | 200% | |||
| Status Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | 100% | - | - | - | - | - | 100% | 50% | |
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Name | Brick | Iron Ore | Solid Spike | Bottled Darkness | Opal | - | - |
| Chance | 70% | 40% | 15% | 10% | 5% | - | - |
| Status Damage | |||
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| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||
| Burn
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Poison
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Doom (if Death fails) |
 Regen
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| 7% | Immune | 25% | -33.(3)% |
| Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||
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Black Clay | EBF4 |
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| An axe-wielding warrior which uses dark attacks. | ||
| Statistics | ||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP |
| 188 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 28 | 2.8 | 2.8 | 32 | 50 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | 100% | - | 200% | 100% | -50% | - | -50% | -100% | 200% | |||
| Status Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | 100% | - | - | - | - | 50% | 100% | 50% | |
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Name | Brick | Iron Ore | Solid Spike | Bottled Darkness | Opal | - | - |
| Chance | 70% | 40% | 15% | 10% | 5% | - | - |
| Status Damage | |||
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| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||
| Burn
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Poison
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Doom (if Death fails) |
Regen
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| 7% | Immune | 25% | -33.(3)% |
| Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||
On Hard and Epic difficulties, enters the battle with 5x 
Brave.
Epic Battle Fantasy 5
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Dark Clay | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| An elite clay soldier which uses earth and dark elemental attacks. | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 297 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4.1 | 29 | 3.5 | 3.8 | 15 | 40 | 17 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | 100% | - | 200% | 100% | -50% | -50% | - | -100% | 200% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | - | 100% | 100% | - | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | - | - | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Name | Brick | Belt Buckle | Leather | Opal | Dark Matter | ||
| Chance | 75% | 35% | 25% | 20% | 2% | ||
| Status Damage | |||||
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| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||||
 Burn
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 Scorch
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 Poison
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 Virus
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 Doom(if Death fails) |
 Regen
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| Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | 20% | -26.(6)% |
| Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||||
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Dark Clay | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| An elite clay soldier which uses earth and dark elemental attacks. | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 297 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4.1 | 29 | 3.5 | 3.8 | 15 | 40 | 17 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | 100% | - | 200% | 100% | -30% | 50% | - | -100% | 200% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 50% | 100% | 100% | - | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | - | 50% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Name | Brick | Belt Buckle | Leather | Opal | Dark Matter | ||
| Chance | 75% | 35% | 25% | 20% | 2% | ||
| Status Damage | |||||
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| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||||
| Burn
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Scorch
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Poison
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Virus
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Doom (if Death fails) |
Regen
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| Immune | Immune | Immune | Immune | 20% | -26.(6)% |
| Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||||
As with all the Classic foes, the Dark Clay is immune to both Invisible and Enchanted.
Attacks and Abilities
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
| Attack List | ||||||||||
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| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Slash | Single | 24 | 
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30%
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-- | -- | -- | 120% | 10% | 10% |
| Multi-Slash | Single | 45/3 |
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30%
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-- | -- | -- | 90% | 20% | 10% |
| Notes: On Epic difficulty, attacks 5 times, each with 15 power as usual, raising total power to 75. | ||||||||||
| Quake | Single | 50 |
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50%
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-- | -- | -- | 120% | 10% | 10% |
| Haunt | Single | 35/5 | 
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100%
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80% | 300% 300% 300% 300% 3x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Each hit inflicts one ailment, selected at random, Doom is twice as likely to be selected. | ||||||||||
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
| Attack List | ||||||||||
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| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Slash | Single | 22 |
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---- | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Is immediately followed by casting Dark Shot on the same player. | ||||||||||
| Triple Slash | Single | 45/3 |
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---- | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Fence | Single | 36/4 |
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---- | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Dark Shot | Single | 25 |
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75%
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-- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Is used only in conjunction with Slash. | ||||||||||
| Death Spike | Single | 40 |
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50%
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50% | -- |
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90% | 30% | 10% |
| Evil Spikes | Single | 55/6 |
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50%
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-- | -- | -- | 90% | 10% | 10% |
Epic Battle Fantasy 5
| Attack List | ||||||||||
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| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Slash | Single | 55 |
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25%
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-- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Multi-Slash | Single | 75/3 |
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25%
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-- | -- | -- | 80% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Power increased to 125/5 on Hard or Epic difficulties. | ||||||||||
| Quake | Single | 70 |
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75%
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-- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Haunt | Single | 15 15 15 15 15 |
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100%
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33% 33% 33% 33% 50% |
30% 30% 30% 30% 3x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: All debuff chances increased to 50% on Hard or Epic difficulties. Doom chance increased to 100% on Hard or Epic difficulties. | ||||||||||
Battle Logic
The following describes general logic of the enemy and attack patterns, with chances of each attack to be used. Conditions are listed from highest to lowest priority unless specified otherwise.
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
- Berserked → Slash;
- Syphoned → Slash (1/2), Multi-Slash (1/2);
- Otherwise → Slash (1/4), Multi-Slash (1/4), Quake (1/4), Haunt (1/4).
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
- Berserked or/and Syphoned → Slash (1/3), Triple Slash (1/3), Fence (1/3);
- Otherwise → Slash (1/5), Triple Slash (1/5), Fence (1/5), Death Spike (1/5), Evil Spikes (1/5).
Epic Battle Fantasy 5
Action
- If Berserked → Slash;
- If Syphoned → Slash (1/2), Multi-Slash (1/2);
- <24% HP → Quake (1/2), Haunt (1/2);
- Otherwise → Slash (1/4), Multi-Slash (1/4), Quake (1/4), Haunt (1/4).
Counter (only if Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled)
- 33% → Slash.
Additionally, like all the Classic foes, the Dark Clay ignores the Lovable status on players.
Summon
Epic Battle Fantasy 5
The Dark Clay can be captured and used as a summon. It casts Haunt on a single foe, hitting them five times for modest magical Dark damage; moreover, each hit has a high chance to debilitate the opponent; in order, they inflict Doom and severely debuff Attack, Magic Attack. Defence, and Magic Defence.
Although the Dark Clay's damage is fairly weak and its Dooming potential is completely overshadowed by the party's other options (since it can't benefit from status-boosting equipment), its powerful debuffs make it extremely versatile and a highly recommended choice for the player's summon roster. Its defensive debuffs help set up punishing damage combos and capturing attempts; in the latter case, it pairs well with the Putrid Worm or NoLegs Doll summons. Its offensive debuffs are effective at drastically reducing a foe's damage output unless they're highly resistant to such stat drops. Applying Weaken and Curse can help maintain the debuffs in longer battles; the former also gives the Dark Clay's damage a small boost.
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Dark Clay | SP | 
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| Casts a dark spell on a single target, giving them doom status, and debuffing their attack, magic attack, defence, and magic defence. | 62 | Kept | |||||||
| Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Single | 52 52 52 52 52 |
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100%
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100% 100% 100% 100% 100% |
3x 70% 70% 70% 70% |
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100% | 10% | 10% |