Crystal Hydra
The Crystal Hydra is an optional boss in Epic Battle Fantasy 5. She is found at the eastern end of the Crystal Caverns; if "Foe Remix" is enabled, a one-headed specimen also appears as part of Lance's Battle Arena challenge and a few locations in the Frozen Valley.
Appearance
The Crystal Hydra is a skeletal dragon made of translucent blue crystalline material. Aside from her composition, she looks very similar to her bonier counterpart, but with a sleeker appearance (most notably on her snout), more pronounced spikes on the vertebrae and lower jaw, less horns on the back of her skull and a long, slightly jagged horn protruding from the middle of her head.
Odin, the guardian of the Warp Zone, calls the Crystal Hydra "The Queen of Hydras", implying that it is technically female.
Overview
The Crystal Hydra uses Ice, Wind, and Water skills, combining devastating single-target physical attacks with dangerous magic attacks which usually strike the entire party. She can apply various status effects and stat debuffs; while particularly fond of setting up combos with Wet, Chill, and Freeze, she can also inflict Light, Syphon, Dispel, and debuffs to Evade and Magic Defence. One of her most lethal attacks is Tail Crush, which deals massive physical damage on top of having a huge chance of Instant Death.
In typical fashion for her brethren, the Crystal Hydra's heads can be separated from her necks if they take a sufficiently powerful blow. In this state, the head replaces most of its previous abilities with powerful Holy skills to supplement its biting attacks; it also gains a significant Evade boost and changes its resistances. Slaying a head will prompt the surviving heads to revive it one turn later; all three heads should be slain simultaneously or in rapid succession to prevent this.
In terms of its elemental resistances, the Crystal Hydra absorbs Ice, Wind, and Water while being weak to Thunder, Bomb, Fire, and Earth (the latter two especially). When decapitated, she gains an Earth immunity and a Holy absorption while lessening her Fire weakness and becoming extremely vulnerable to Dark. If "More Foe Resistance" is enabled, she loses her Thunder and Bomb weaknesses, reduces her Fire weakness, and becomes immune to Bio and resistant to Dark; the latter reverts to a weakness when the Hydra is decapitated, but to a lesser degree than in a normal game.
Despite being a superboss, the Crystal Hydra's status resistances are relatively sparse, only being immune to Burn, Scorch, Chill, Freeze, Poison, Virus, Doom, and Instant Death. While highly resistant to Stun and Syphon, a dedicated status-infliction build can still use these effects to immobilize the Crystal Hydra or limit her offensive options; all other status effects can be inflicted freely, as it has no resistance to them. As such, Weaken, Tired, and Curse can be applied to greatly reduce her stats, while Wet, Dry, and Heavy can be used to increase the damage she suffers from her weaknesses - do keep in mind that high-damage blows are more likely to decapitate the Crystal Hydra, however. If a head is decapitated, Weaken can also be used to amplify its new Dark weakness.
Statistics
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Crystal Hydra | EBF5 |
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| No information exists about this monster. Presumably no one has ever seen it and lived to talk about it. | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 3542 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 555 | 24 | 24 | 222 | 15 | 3 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| -80% | -50% | 200% | -80% | - | -50% | 200% | 200% | - | - | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 70% | 100% | 100% | 70% | - | - | - | - | - | - | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Icon | 
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- | - | ||
| Name | Solid Water | Glass Shards | Sapphire | - | - | ||
| Chance | 100% | 75% | 20% | - | - | ||
| 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 | Immune | -10% |
| 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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Crystal Hydra | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| No information exists about this monster. Presumably no one has ever seen it and lived to talk about it. | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 3542 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 555 | 24 | 24 | 222 | 15 | 3 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| -30% | - | 200% | -80% | 100% | - | 200% | 200% | - | 50% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 70% | 100% | 100% | 70% | - | - | - | - | - | - | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Icon |
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- | - | ||
| Name | Solid Water | Glass Shards | Sapphire | - | - | ||
| Chance | 100% | 75% | 20% | - | - | ||
| Status Damage | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | Immune | -10% |
| 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. | |||||
The head detaches when hurt for >20% of maximum health or >5% when it's <32%, which doubles its base Evade and changes its elemental resistances to 100% for Earth, -50% (-30% with More Foe Resistance) for Fire, 200% for Holy and -100%(-50% with More Foe Resistance) for Dark.
Attacks and Abilities
| Attack List | ||||||||||
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| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Bite | Single | 100 | 
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30%
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33% | 2x | 
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Status chance increased to 66% on Hard or Epic difficulties. | ||||||||||
| Triple Bite | Single | 200/3 |
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30%
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33% | 2x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Status chance increased to 66% on Hard or Epic difficulties. | ||||||||||
| Tail Crush | Single | 250 |
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30%
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100% | 1x |
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50% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Cannot be used while decapitated. | ||||||||||
| Hurricane | All | 50 | 
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100%
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60% 50% |
2x 15% |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Before the v2 update, didn't inflict a Magic Defence debuff. | ||||||||||
| Icestorm | All | 45/3 |
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100%
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10% | 2x | 
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Bubble Blast | All | 80/2 |
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100%
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50% 60% |
2x 15% |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
Notes: Can only be used on Hard or Epic difficulties, or when catch score >55 and all players are  Lovable.
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| Judgement | Single | 130 |
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100%
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-- | -- | -- | 150% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Can only be used while decapitated. Doesn't heal the user. | ||||||||||
| Seiken | Single | 180 |
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100%
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25% | 1x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Can only be used while decapitated. | ||||||||||
| Syphoning Winds | All | 40/3 |
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100%
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33% | 1x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Status chance increased to 100% on Hard or Epic difficulties. | ||||||||||
| Ice Shards | Random | 220/4 |
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100%
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25% | 3x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Status chance increased to 50% on Hard or Epic difficulties. | ||||||||||
| Respawn | None | -- | -- | ---- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Notes: Spawns a new head with full health to replace a dead one. This ability requires a turn to passively "charge" it after a head has been killed, separate for each alive head. Does not take up the head's action, cannot be used if unable to act due to Stun (or catch score >55 and all players being Lovable while it's Syphoned). The new head will be at the same level as the user.
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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.
Action
- If Syphoned, catch score >55, and all players are Lovable → Nothing;
- If catch score >55 and all players are Lovable → Syphoning Winds (3/12), Ice Shards (3/12), Icestorm (2/12), Hurricane (2/12), Bubble Blast (2/12);
- If Syphoned or Berserked → Triple Bite;
- If the head has been decapitated → Triple Bite (1/3), Judgement (1/3), Seiken (1/3);
- <49% HP → Triple Bite (1/5), Syphoning Winds (1/5), Ice Shards (1/5);
- If playing on Hard/Epic → Icestorm (2/15), Hurricane (2/15), Bubble Blast (2/15);
- Otherwise → Icestorm (1/5), Hurricane (1/5);
- Otherwise → Bite (1/6), Tail Crush (1/6), Syphoning Winds (1/6), Ice Shards (1/6);
- If playing on Hard/Epic → Icestorm (1/9), Hurricane (1/9), Bubble Blast (1/9)
- Otherwise → Icestorm (1/6), Hurricane (1/6).
Counter (only if Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled)
- If the head has been decapitated → 100% → Bite;
- Otherwise → 25%;
- If Syphoned → Bite;
- If catch score >55 and all players are Lovable → Icestorm (1/3), Hurricane (1/3), Bubble Blast (1/3);
- If playing on Hard/Epic → Icestorm (1/3), Hurricane (1/3), Bubble Blast (1/3);
- Otherwise → Icestorm (1/2), Hurricane (1/2).
Additionally, whenever the number of Hydra heads is lower than what it was at the start of the battle, the Hydra will charge up her Respawn ability and then use it on the next turn (neither the charge up or the actual Respawn take up the Crystal Hydra's action). Respawn cannot be used or charged if the Crystal Hydra is unable to act, either due to being Stunned or due to her catch score >55 and all players being Lovable while the Hydra is Syphoned.
Strategy
The Crystal Hydra mainly uses Ice and Wind attacks, making resistance to those two elements helpful; once her heads are decapitated, they'll mainly use Holy attacks instead. As with the Zombie Hydra, Death resistance will stop Tail Stab from being an instant kill, but high Defence is recommended to survive her raw damage. Freeze/Chill resistance will reduce the risk of losing turns to her Ice attacks, especially on Hard/Epic where she can use Bubble Blast to set up a Wet + Chill combo for a guaranteed Freeze. While her initial weakness to Earth is removed when decapitated, Natalie's Dark Pulse and Pulsar can both inflict Heavy to make the most of the vulnerability while it is present; if a head becomes decapitated, she can continue using these spells to hit its new Dark weakness. Alternatively, Fire can be used to badly damage the Crystal Hydra before and after her heads detach from their necks; Limit Breaks like Nuke and Supernova are useful options to finish them off.
The Sacred Land weather is active for the battle; depending on who it affects, it can drastically improve the party's chances of survival or make the Crystal Hydra much harder to wear down. It may be a good idea to use a weather-changing effect if the costs of allowing Sacred Land to remain active outweigh its benefits.
Because of the lengthy battle, it is recommended to take full advantage of Weaken, Curse and Tired. The Crystal Hydra has no resistance to these status effects and no way to remove or counteract them, so they should have a lasting impact on the battle.
Like the other Hydras, the Crystal Hydra's heads all have to be killed within a short time to prevent them from reviving each other. That said, if only one head remains and it has too much health to be killed in 2 turns, Anna's Spark Arrow can be used to Stun-lock it (this will require at the very least 2 pieces of status-increasing gear and Good Luck to be guaranteed), which will prevent it from reviving the other heads.
If the player just wants to clear the fight, Ion Cannon with a status build is guaranteed to Stun all of the heads; from there, the player can spam Sharpen with the Nano Machines equipped to keep them perpetually stunned. If the Nano Machines are unavailable or Sharpen isn't fully upgraded, Anna and NoLegs can assist the Stun lock with their respective status builds; the former should use Arrow Rain with Thor's Hammer, while the latter can use Swift Slash with the Neon Lightbulb.
Summon
The Crystal Hydra can be captured and used as a summon. She uses a powered-up Triple Bite on the target, dealing serious physical Ice damage; it has high Accuracy, but no special effects.
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Crystal Hydra | SP |
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| Bites a foe several times, for super massive physical ice damage. | 92 | Cured | |||||||
| Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Single | 600/3 |
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100%
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-- | -- | -- | 150% | 10% | 10% |