Cosmic Monolith

Cosmic Monolith
Group	Monoliths
Roles	Foe, Miniboss, Summon
Appearances	Epic Battle Fantasy 3 Epic Battle Fantasy 4 Epic Battle Fantasy 5 Adventure Story Bullet Heaven Bullet Heaven 2

"Matt: Oh crap, brace for... that."

―Dialogue when the Cosmic Monolith uses Doomsday in Epic Battle Fantasy 3

"Anna: Ooooh, what's that?
Matt: That's trouble over there."

―Dialogue when meeting the Cosmic Monolith in its themed area in Battle Mountain, Epic Battle Fantasy 4

The Cosmic Monolith is a recurring foe (sometimes present as a miniboss) in the Epic Battle Fantasy series, introduced in Epic Battle Fantasy 3. It has appeared in many games, including EBF3, 4 (added in the Battle Mountain update, appearing only in Premium-exclusive areas) and 5, as well as Adventure Story, Bullet Heaven and Bullet Heaven 2; it can also be summoned in EBF4 and 5.

Appearance

The Cosmic Monolith is a perfectly rectangular black prism with round indentations in its front face. It is covered in angular markings that have waves of red energy passing through them every few seconds. When destroyed, it breaks apart, revealing Dark Matter within.

Overview

The Cosmic Monolith is a powerful offensive spellcaster that specializes in the Dark element. It is best known for its very high Evade, which it can further buff in-battle, and its signature spell: Doomsday, a fiery explosion that deals immense Dark-elemental damage to the party. It also absorbs Dark and is immune to every other element except its weaknesses: so far, it has always been weak to Thunder and one other element (Bomb in EBF3 and Water in EBF4 and 5).

While Dark-resistant equipment makes the Cosmic Monolith much less of a threat (and, due to its sheer power, it shouldn't be tackled without heavy Dark resistance), it won't be completely shut down by that: in EBF3 and 5, its attacks have dangerous status effects and debuffs for other foes to take advantage of, and in EBF4 and 5, it has some abilities of other elements. EBF5 also gives it the ability to cause the Invisible status, further increasing the power of its already devastating magic.

Alternatively, the Cosmic Monolith can be Syphoned like other Monoliths, forcing it to skip turns in EBF3 and 4 or, despite having its magic sealed, magically teleport above a player and fall onto them for non-elemental physical damage in EBF5 (interestingly, the same attack also exists in EBF4, but is properly blocked by Syphon). Unfortunately, the players had no reliable means to get the status through the Monolith's resistances until EBF5 (which introduced both skills with exceptionally high Syphon chance and equipment that boosts the chance even further), barring the Equilibrium sword in EBF4, which is obtained not so long after the Cosmic Monoliths were dealt with.

Epic Battle Fantasy 3

EBF3 Doomsday, after the ≈30% damage nerf.

Found exclusively in the final two areas, the Cosmic Monolith quickly began building its soon-to-be infamous reputation as one of the hardest enemies in EBF3. Unlike future appearances, Doomsday hits the enemies along with the players (healing the Monolith and anyone else with Dark absorption), is preceded by Flare to deal light damage and a decent Accuracy debuff, and the Monolith uses it on its first turn, and every 3 turns after. With no backup players available, it's entirely possible for the first cast of Doomsday to wipe out the entire party on higher difficulties, and the Cosmic Monolith is often part of a secondary wave, when the players are unlikely to be ready for such a strong blow, possibly without a turn left to prepare any sort of defense.

Due to all of its attacks aside from one being fully Dark elemental, said resistance is a must-have for taking on these foes. Syphoning them can also be a viable strategy, though be noted that the chances of inflicting the status at best are 45%, so make sure to have a plan if things go awry. If Akron manages to summon one and he's currently not Dark elemental, Berserking the Monolith can be an incredibly powerful gambit, assuming everyone is immune to Dark as it will spam Flare and Doomsday, dealing extreme damage to all foes on the field every turn. Be aware this will also heal any Dark Clays or Skull Ghosts if they are on the field as well. For the battle with the Level 40 Monoliths at the end of the 60 Medals Area, this strategy can also be utilized as a powerful weapon to obliterate the Ancient and Viking Monoliths, but do be noted by this point that Flare, despite its base power of 10, will still end up dealing extremely high damage, likely being able to knock out the entire party if they aren't fully Magic Defense buffed or have Auto-Revive, or have broken the level cap.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

Sliced apart, with its parts falling down. (EBF4)

While the Cosmic Monolith didn't appear as an enemy in EBF4's initial version, an update reintroduced it as a miniboss of Battle Mountain, giving it a personal screen to the right of Battle Mountain's entrance. Its Doomsday attack was weakened in several ways: it is no longer preceded by Flare, it doesn't hit the enemy side (thus preventing the Monolith from healing itself), and it requires the Monolith to Charge itself for a turn (also preventing a first-turn Doomsday attack). On the other hand, it can use any of its other attacks on the same turn it Charges itself, including powerful Dark spells, a buff to its already massive Magic Attack and Evade (albeit with less of a buff to the former than EBF3's version), and even a new physical attack that warps space to drop it on an unfortunate player.

Fortunately, the Cosmic Monolith is still rendered helpless by Syphon, so that should be the player's first choice (preferably with multiple sources to account for the foe's Evade and Syphon resistance). Multiple Cosmic Monoliths are best defeated using a combination of the Tsunami and Ion Cannon Limit Breaks; not only do both have high Accuracy and hit the Monoliths' elemental weaknesses, the Wet inflicted by Tsunami further boosts the damage of Ion Cannon.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Story

In EBF5, the Cosmic Monolith has significant plot relevance as the primary tool of the ultimate enemy. Following a meteor impact in the southern continent (near Redpine Town), a number of Cosmic Monolith variants (vaguely arrow-shaped, with a large hole in the middle) were deployed across the world to spy on their surroundings, controlled by a particularly large and powerful monolith that remained in the spatial rift created at the initial meteor's crash site. The radiation emitted by the monoliths drove local wildlife into a frenzy and caused powerful new monsters to appear wherever they had landed, making conditions far more dangerous than before. These disturbances prompted Natalie to make plans to investigate the source of the monoliths and find a way to stop their effects, leading to her chance meeting with Matt and NoLegs.

While the monoliths' true nature remained mysterious to most, Lance correctly guessed that they were alien observation devices and began taking measures to prepare for a possible invasion. He and his followers also managed to isolate and research a monolith, developing a number of powerful technologies from the data.

Combat

The Cosmic Monolith has gained several new tricks for EBF5. It now knows Wind and Bomb spells to get around Dark-resistant parties, inflicts Invisible with some of its skills to further increase its magical damage output, uses a very powerful physical attack if its magic is sealed off by Syphon or Berserk, and now inflicts Scorch when using Doomsday. However, since it only uses its physical attack when its magic is unavailable, it can be rendered mostly harmless for a few turns with the Enchanted status effect, which is especially useful when it charges up its signature Doomsday spell. Alternatively, sealing its magic and setting up a Target Tank with massive physical bulk allows the player to minimize the threat of its Slam; unfortunately, this move automatically removes Invisible, so that won't help mitigate the damage.

Adventure Story

In Adventure Story, the Cosmic Monolith has been greatly altered visually and gameplay-wise. Its shape resembles a Viking Monolith rather than a VHS tape (similar to EBF5's Cosmic Gigalith, although this game predates EBF5 by several years), and it attacks with fast, powerful homing fireballs in salvos of three, instead of Dark magic.

Bullet Heaven series

This section is incomplete. You can help Epic Battle Fantasy Wiki by adding required information to it.
To do: Describe the Cosmic Monolith's behavior/bullet patterns in these games

Statistics

Epic Battle Fantasy 3

	Cosmic Monolith	Unknown Machine	EBF3
	Distorts the space and time around it to avoid attacks. Destroys everything.

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	Gold
	500	4	4	6	4	4	7	420	25	200
Elemental Resistance
	100%	-100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	400%	100%	-100%
Status Resistance
	100%	70%	-	-	-	70%	100%
Debuff Resistance
	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon			-	-	-	-	-
Name	Dark Rune	Darkmatter	-	-	-	-	-
Chance	100%	40%	-	-	-	-	-

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

	Cosmic Monolith	EBF4
	A mysterious monolith from deep space. Uses extremely powerful dark attacks, and has incredibly high evade.

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP
	500	4	4	6	4	4	8	400	22	22	150	25
Elemental Resistance
	100%	-100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	-100%	100%	200%
Status Resistance
	100%	100%	100%	-	100%	50%	100%	50%	-	-	-	100%
Debuff Resistance
	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon			-	-	-	-	-
Name	Dark Rune	Dark Matter	-	-	-	-	-
Chance	100%	30%	-	-	-	-	-

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Poison	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
Immune	Immune	Immune	-16.(6)%
Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down.

Statistics with More Foe Resistance enabled.

	Cosmic Monolith	EBF4
	A mysterious monolith from deep space. Uses extremely powerful dark attacks, and has incredibly high evade.

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP
	500	4	4	6	4	4	8	400	22	22	150	25
Elemental Resistance
	100%	200%	100%	-100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	200%
Status Resistance
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	50%	100%	50%	-	-	-	100%
Debuff Resistance
	-	-	-	-	100%	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon			-	-	-	-	-
Name	Dark Rune	Dark Matter	-	-	-	-	-
Chance	100%	30%	-	-	-	-	-

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Poison	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
Immune	Immune	Immune	-16.(6)%
Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

	Cosmic Monolith	EBF5
	An alien machine from deep space. There's crazy amounts of dark energy stored in this thing! Dark resistance is critical!

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP	Catch
	500	4	4	6	4	4	8	500	25	25	200	25	3
Elemental Resistance
	100%	-80%	100%	100%	100%	100%	-80%	100%	100%	200%
Status Resistance
	100%	100%	100%	100%	50%	-	100%	-	-	100%	50%	100%
Debuff Resistance
	-	40%	40%	40%	40%	40%	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon
Name	Dark Rune	Dark Rune	Lecko Brick	Dark Matter	Red Pill
Chance	80%	80%	30%	15%	2%

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Scorch	Poison	Virus	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
Immune	Immune	Immune	Immune	Immune	-16.(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.

Statistics with More Foe Resistance enabled.

	Cosmic Monolith	EBF5
	An alien machine from deep space. There's crazy amounts of dark energy stored in this thing! Dark resistance is critical!

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP	Catch
	500	4	4	6	4	4	8	500	25	25	200	25	3
Elemental Resistance
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	200%
Status Resistance
	100%	100%	100%	100%	70%	100%	100%	-	-	100%	100%	100%
Debuff Resistance
	-	40%	40%	40%	40%	80%	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon
Name	Dark Rune	Dark Rune	Lecko Brick	Dark Matter	Red Pill
Chance	80%	80%	30%	15%	2%

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Scorch	Poison	Virus	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
Immune	Immune	Immune	Immune	Immune	-16.(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.

At the start of the battle, randomly picks one element between Fire, Thunder, Water and Bomb, the chosen element's resistance gets changed to -80%.

Attacks and Abilities

Epic Battle Fantasy 3

Attack List
Attack	Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
Flare	All	10		----	100%	20%		160%	0%	10%
Notes: Is immediately followed by...
Doomsday	Everyone	130		100%	--	--	--	200%	10%	10%
Notes: Allies will only be hit for 3 power. This combo attack is used at the first turn, and then each third turn. Prior to the 2016 update, Doomsday instead had 180 power and 90% element degree.
Pulsar	All	70		100%	50%	30%		100%	10%	10%
Antimatter	All	50		100%	100%	--		100%	10%	10%
Notes: Unlike Lance's Antimatter, this one does not center its damage on anyone and instead spreads it evenly, and has higher element degree and higher Dispel chance.
Buff	Self Allies	--	--	----	--	70% 50%		--	--	--

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

Attack List
Attack	Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
Doomsday	All	250		75%	--	--	--	300%	10%	10%
Notes: Used every three turns if able, indicated by the Charge status the turn prior.
Pulsar	All	60		100%	30%	20%		115%	10%	10%
Antimatter	Centered	80		75%	--	--	--	120%	10%	10%
Slam	Single	160		----	--	--	--	100%	10%	10%
Buff	Allies	--	--	----	--	50% 50%		--	--	--
Charge	Self	--	--	----	--	2x		--	--	--
Notes: Charges to cast Doomsday.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Attack List
Attack	Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
Slam	Single	180		----	--	--	--	100%	10%	10%
Notes: Can only be used when Syphoned or Berserked. After the v2 update, also removes Invisible from the target (this effect ignores Bless).
Space Distortion	Single	80		40%	100% 50%	30% 5x		100%	10%	10%
Notes: Is only used immediately after Charge on Hard or Epic difficulties. Before the v2 update, had 40% chance of 3x Invisible, and was 50% elemental.
Distortion Field	All	40		50%	100% 25%	20% 5x		100%	10%	10%
Notes: Before the v2 update, only inflicted 3x Invisible.
Pulsar	All	60		100%	50%	2x		115%	10%	10%
Notes: Before the v2 update, status chance was only 40%.
Energy Barrage	All	50/2		100%	--	--	--	100%	30%	10%
Shockwave	All	45/2		100%	20%	1x		100%	10%	10%
Charge	Self	--	--	----	--	3x		--	--	--
Notes: Will cast Space Distortion immediately after using this attack on Hard or Epic difficulties (unless catch score >55 and all players are Lovable)
Doomsday	All	150		75%	100%	5x		300%	10%	10%
Notes: Requires and expends Charge.
Buff	Allies	--	--	----	--	30% 30%		--	--	--
Notes: Both buff strengths increased to 50% 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

• Syphoned → Nothing;
• First turn and then each 3rd turn or/and Berserked → Flare;
• Otherwise → Pulsar (1/3), Antimatter (1/3), Buff (1/3).

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

• Spent 2 turns without Charge status → Charge on the same turn;
• Syphoned → Nothing;
• Charged → Doomsday;
• Otherwise → Pulsar (1/4), Antimatter (1/4), Slam (1/4), Buff (1/4).

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Action

• If Syphoned or Berserked, <49% HP, catch score >55, and all players are Lovable → Surrender;
• If Syphoned or Berserked, catch score >55, and all players are Lovable → Nothing;
• If Syphoned or Berserked → Slam;
• If Charged → Doomsday;
• Otherwise → Charge (1/4);
  • If a randomly selected ally has at least a 10% Evade buff → Distortion Field (3/16);
    • Chooses best elemental spell based on active party's elemental resistance → Pulsar/Energy Barrage/Shockwave (9/16)
  • Otherwise → Buff (2/8), Distortion Field (1/8)
    • Chooses best elemental spell based on active party's elemental resistance → Pulsar/Energy Barrage/Shockwave (3/8)

*Charge will immediately be followed by Space Distortion on Hard/Epic, unless catch score >55 and all players are Lovable.

Counter (only if Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled)

• 100% and <32% HP → Slam.

Summon

Epic Battle Fantasy 3

Although the Cosmic Monolith isn't a summon per se, the Dark Rune item (which the foe drops with 100% chance) has the same effect as the summon in later games — casts Doomsday. It can be viewed as an one-use summon ticket.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

The Cosmic Monolith summon can be obtained from a chest guarded by a fight that looks like a Cosmic Monolith in the Battle Mountain, one screen to the right from the entrance. Prior to the v3 update, it was instead located in the farthest chest in the Danger Room of Waste Disposal Plant.

Upon being summoned, the scene changes to view the Earth from space, where dozens of Cosmic Monoliths appear, and slowly descends toward Earth. A Monolith obscures the scene by passing over it, which cues the cut back to the battle. The Monolith descends in front of the targeted enemies, shines, and then disappears, only for the ground to erupt into black flames, completely obscuring the scene. Using the summon for the first time awards the Space Invaders medal.

	Cosmic Monolith							SP
	Targets all foes.							150	Cured
Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
All	450		75%	--	--	--	300%	10%	10%
Note: Prior to the Battle Mountain update, it had 100% element degree instead.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

The Cosmic Monolith can be captured and used as a summon. It casts Doomsday on all foes, dealing significant magical Dark damage with high Accuracy; moreover, it inflicts two stacks of Scorch.

	Cosmic Monolith							SP
	Nukes the battlefield with a tremendous dark magic blast, which hits all foes.							111	Cured
Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
All	300		100%	100%	2x		200%	10%	10%
Note: The Scorch status effect was added in the v2 update.

Trivia

• In EBF3, the Doomsday spell has a status effect chance set for it, with this chance getting increased from 10% to 40% on Epic difficulty. However, Doomsday does not have any status effects attached to it, so the status effect chance never comes into play.
• Before Regirock and Regice had their resistances fixed, with 400% absorption to Dark in EBF3, the Cosmic Monolith had the highest elemental absorption of any foe in the entire series, beating out both of the Glitches, Vulcan, and more.
• With other EBF3 Monoliths having beam attacks that match their color theme, one could expect Cosmic Monolith to simply shoot a black beam instead of casting Doomsday. Interestingly, a black beam attack does exist within the game, used by Akron's raised form instead. (Alternatively, the small non-damaging red laser, and thus Doomsday itself can be considered as the expected colored beam.)
• The Cosmic Monolith's design, powers and alien origin are a reference to the Monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• A few objects in the Epic Battle Fantasy series share the Cosmic Monolith's color scheme, such as the Dark Rune item and the M.O.A.B.
  • In EBF5, many mechanical foes were redesigned to feature similar glowing lines, including Lance's new hovertank, the Neon Valkyrie.
  • Lance's Shadow Blaster was confirmed in EBF5 to have been built using reverse-engineered Cosmic Monolith technology.