Crystal Golem
- "This golem's a goldmine of natural resources! I should've brought a pickaxe instead of a sword!"
- ―Matt, Epic Battle Fantasy 4
- "*It appears to be grumpy from having been woken from a long slumber, but it's hard to be sure due to a lack of facial expression*"
- ―Epic Battle Fantasy 4 v3
The Crystal Golem is a powerful dweller of the Crystal Caverns, and the second boss encountered in Epic Battle Fantasy 4. It blocks the only available path to Whitefall Town, and thus has to be dealt with in order to progress.
Appearance
Similarly to other Golems, the Crystal Golem is a large, hulking monster made of rock and minerals. However, unlike other Golems, who are all bipedal, it has a quadrupedal anatomy, using all four of its limbs for support. Its forelimbs are two massive slabs of rock, while its relatively small hind limbs are formed from a pair of smaller rocks stacked on top of each other. It has a small head and a short tail on opposite sides of its enormous, block-like body.
As its name suggests, the Crystal Golem's body is dotted with crystals of varying shapes and colors. Its right limbs are dotted with spiky red crystals, with three serving as the "toes" of its hind leg. Its left limbs have similar arrangements, but with blue crystals instead of red. Its tail features several large yellow crystals, and its head features two smaller yellow crystals for eyes. Most notable of all, however, is the round crystal embedded in the golem's back, which appears to have some sort of swirl pattern and changes colors to denote the boss's current elemental affinity.
Unlike all the bosses in the v3 update of EBF4, the Crystal Golem and its Battle Mountain counterpart notably does not have any personal dialogue, but has its actions dictated in the quote box.
Overview
The Crystal Golem's most notable characteristic is its ability to switch its elemental form, cycling through Ice, Fire, and Thunder (in that order) every time it is hit. As mentioned above, its current element is indicated by the big gem on its back; blue indicates Ice, red indicates Fire, and yellow indicates Thunder.
The Crystal Golem attacks with a combination of physical and magical skills based on its current element. Some of its skills can summon Bits of a corresponding element, and its affinity also changes some of its weaknesses and resistances.
- Fire form: absorbs Fire, weak to Thunder, neutral to Ice
- Ice form: absorbs Ice, weak to Fire, neutral to Thunder
- Thunder form: absorbs Thunder, weak to Ice, neutral to Fire
Regardless of form, the Crystal Golem is always weak to Bomb and Water; on the other hand, it absorbs Earth and is immune to Poison and Wind. It has the standard boss immunity to Stun, Freeze, Syphon, and Death; it is also immune to Burn and Poison.
Defeating the Crystal Golem on Epic difficulty will reward the player with the Rock Miner medal.
Statistics
Crystal Golem | EBF4 | |
---|---|---|
A golem which has lived underground for millions of years. Uses either ice, fire or thunder attacks; its elemental properties change when it is hit. Summons elemental bits. |
Statistics | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Base Statistics |
Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | |||||||
2600 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 4.2 | 3.5 | 300 | 40 | 40 | 200 | 50 | |
Elemental Resistance |
||||||||||||
Variable | Variable | Variable | 200% | 100% | -50% | 100% | -50% | - | - | |||
Status Resistance |
||||||||||||
100% | 100% | 100% | - | 100% | - | - | - | - | - | - | 100% | |
Debuff Resistance |
||||||||||||
50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% |
Item Drop Rate | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Icon | - | ||||||
Name | Emerald | Ruby | Topaz | Rainbow Gems | Opal | Amethyst | - |
Chance | 50% | 50% | 50% | 100% | 50% | 50% | - |
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 | -33.(3)% |
Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. |
Prior to the Battle Mountain update, Crystal Golem had 2500 base HP instead.
Crystal Golem | EBF4 | |
---|---|---|
A golem which has lived underground for millions of years. Uses either ice, fire or thunder attacks; its elemental properties change when it is hit. Summons elemental bits. |
Statistics | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Base Statistics |
Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | |||||||
2600 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 4.2 | 3.5 | 300 | 40 | 40 | 200 | 50 | |
Elemental Resistance |
||||||||||||
Variable | Variable | Variable | 200% | 100% | -20% | 100% | 50% | - | - | |||
Status Resistance |
||||||||||||
100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | - | 50% | - | - | - | - | 100% | |
Debuff Resistance |
||||||||||||
50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% |
Item Drop Rate | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Icon | - | ||||||
Name | Emerald | Ruby | Topaz | Rainbow Gems | Opal | Amethyst | - |
Chance | 50% | 50% | 50% | 100% | 50% | 50% | - |
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 | -33.(3)% |
Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. |
Attacks and Abilities
Attack List | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
Ice Punch | Single | 70 | 50% | 66% | 2x | 100% | 10% | 10% | ||
Notes: May be used only by the Ice form. | ||||||||||
Fire Punch | Single | 70 | 50% | 66% | 2x | 100% | 10% | 10% | ||
Notes: May be used only by the Fire form. | ||||||||||
Thunder Punch | Single | 80 | 50% | 66% | 1x | 100% | 10% | 10% | ||
Notes: May be used only by the Thunder form. | ||||||||||
Icicles | Single | 80/2 | 50% | 10% | -- | 85% | 30% | 70% | ||
Notes: Also summons an Ice Bit. May be used only by the Ice form. | ||||||||||
Fire Crystals | Single | 70/3 | 75% | 30% 23.33% |
3x 20% |
100% | 10% | 10% | ||
Notes: Also summons a Fire Bit. May be used only by the Fire form. Prior to the v2 update, this attack had 69/3 power and 23% debuff chance per hit. | ||||||||||
Big Spark | Single | 50 | 80% | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% | |
Notes: Also summons a Thunder Bit. May be used only by the Thunder form. | ||||||||||
Icestorm | All | 26/3 | 100% | 1.66% | 2x | 100% | 10% | 10% | ||
Notes: Also summons an Ice Bit. May be used only by the Ice form. Prior to the v2 update, this attack had 1% status chance per hit. Prior to the Battle Mountain update, this attack instead had 78/3 power. | ||||||||||
Firestorm | All | 28/3 | 100% | 10% | 2x | 100% | 10% | 10% | ||
Notes: Also summons a Fire Bit. May be used only by the Fire form. | ||||||||||
Thunderstorm | All | 25/5 | 100% | 3% | 1x | 115% | 10% | 10% | ||
Notes: Also summons a Thunder Bit. May be used only by the Thunder form. |
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.
The battle always starts with the gem being blue.
- <49% HP → Passively summons a Bit based on current elemental form.
- Ice form → Ice Punch (1/3), Icicles (1/3), Icestorm (1/3);
- Red form → Fire Punch (1/3), Fire Crystals (1/3), Firestorm (1/3);
- Thunder form → Thunder Punch (1/3), Big Spark (1/3), Thunderstorm (1/3).
All Bits summoned will be the same level as the Golem.
Strategy
Equipment
The player should arm themselves with skills that target the Golem's common weaknesses or skills of many elements. Skills that hit multiple times will only complicate the fight even more, so it is not recommended to use them. As for equipment, the player can wear equipment resistant to one element in particular. Alternatively, the Crystal Staff (staff) and Red Dress (female armor) can resist all three of the Golem's elements at the same time.
The player should also have plenty of Burn, Stun, and Freeze resistance, with the latter two being particularly important.
Battle
The Crystal Golem's main advantage is attrition; between its powerful attacks and Bit support, it can cut through the party's HP in short order. On the other hand, its constantly-shifting weaknesses force players to repeatedly change their attacks. This also makes multi-hitting attacks such as Thunderstorm incredibly risky (especially if they hit the weakness of one form but are absorbed by another form). In addition, the Golem's immunity to Burn and Poison makes it unable to be damaged over time.
In order to beat the Crystal Golem, you should exploit the fact that its attacks are determined by its element; try to force it to adopt an element that your party is most resistant to. Doing so will greatly reduce the amount of damage the Golem can inflict. Protect is useful in this fight as even with proper resistance, the Golem's physical attacks still hit very hard, courtesy of being partly-elemental. The only difficulty in this strategy is the reduced potential for offense of your own - all of your attacks should be organized to ensure that the Crystal Golem always shifts to the same element by the time its turn comes around.
Another option is to target the weaknesses common to all of the Crystal Golem's forms: Water and Bomb. Lance's Air Strike, Anna's Aqua Arrow, and Matt's Geyser/Flood could all come in handy here, with the latter two potentially setting up combo opportunities for Thunder and Ice attacks if the Golem shifts to the right element. On the other hand, it may be harder to control the Golem's element with this tactic.
If the players do not have resistance to Stun and Freeze, Thunder Bits and Ice Bits should be dispatched whenever they appear. Both of them have a high chance of inflicting one of these status effects, seriously crippling the party.
Finally, make sure that you save immediately after beating the Crystal Golem, for reasons that should not be disclosed yet.
Trivia
- In the introductory cutscene for EBF4, the Crystal Golem is identified as an "Ancient Living Rock Formation".
- Although the Crystal Golem is the third boss in the series with the ability to change its elemental properties (the other two being Giga Golem and Akron), it is the only one that has no control over its shifts, only changing its affinities when hit.
- The Crystal Golem takes a lot of inspiration from Giga Golem, a very similar boss in Epic Battle Fantasy 2. Both are large rock monsters with multiple elemental affinities and a close relationship to the Bits, and similar movesets consistent of strong melee attacks and slightly weaker magic with varying targeting types.
- At the start of the battle, Matt's comment about the Crystal Golem may be a reference to Minecraft, a popular PC game where the player collects resources from various areas to use in crafting. In Minecraft, a pickaxe is used to mine stone, whereas a sword is mainly useful for combat.
- The Battle Mountain update introduced a stronger version of the Crystal Golem: the Diamond Golem, which is another reference to Minecraft. This is further implied in the medal gotten by beating the Diamond Golem: "Die For Diamonds".