Black Bird
The Black Bird (also known as Swift Crow) is a recurring foe in Epic Battle Fantasy series. It appears primarily in early-game forest areas, such as Vegetable Forest (in Epic Battle Fantasy 3) and Ashwood Forest (in Epic Battle Fantasy 4).
Appearance
The Black Bird is a fairly generic-looking bird resembling a large corvid. As its name suggests, it is predominantly black, with narrow red eyes and a brown tint to its feet and beak.
Overview
The Black Bird is a fairly annoying foe, mostly for the relative lack of options the party will have when it is encountered. It uses its beak and talons for mediocre non-elemental physical attacks, but it can also kick up a dust cloud by flapping its wings. This attack deals low magical Wind damage, but its most dangerous asset is its ability to reduce the victim's Accuracy; since the Black Bird itself has high base Evade, it can become very difficult to hit. Fortunately, Black Birds can only attack one player at a time, and they suffer from rather low HP and several elemental weaknesses.
Black Birds are primarily weak to Thunder, although Ice and Wind are lesser weaknesses. They're consistently immune to Earth, but lack any other resistances, giving the party a wide range of options to take them down. If high-Accuracy skills aren't an option, multi-hit attacks are a decent alternative to circumvent their Evade.
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
The Swift Crow's offensive output isn't especially great, but its specialty lies in attrition. Its Dust attack inflicts a decent Accuracy debuff, which works with its high Evade to make it very tough to hit. The player won't have a lot of options against it this early on, but their best bet is probably Snipe with Lance's Super Snipe gun; it has high Accuracy, hits the Swift Crow's weak Defence, and partially exploits one of its elemental weaknesses. Matt can use Quick Slash to similar effect (preferably not with the Gaia Axe), while Natalie's best option is probably Thunder, which hits twice and targets the foe's biggest weakness.
The Swift Crow is immune to Earth, but fairly weak to Ice, very weak to Wind, and especially weak to Thunder. It's also susceptible to Stun and Accuracy debuffs, although the player isn't likely to have a means to exploit those when they encounter it.
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
The Black Bird is mainly noteworthy for its high Evade and ability to debuff Accuracy while dealing some minor magical Wind damage; aside from that, its only skills are single-target non-elemental attacks. Its ability to cripple the party's ability to hit it and other foes is annoying (especially on Hard or Epic difficulty, where the debuff is stronger), but high-Accuracy skills will end it in short order. Conveniently, Anna has Piercing Shot as one of her default skills; she can also find the Eagle Eye bow a little ways into Ashwood Forest to further improve her base Accuracy. On the other hand, Matt's Silver Blade has great Accuracy and weapon-elemental skills that can partially exploit the foe's elemental weakness while reliably debuffing its Evade. Natalie doesn't have as many options to counter Black Birds, although Thunder will deal great damage if it lands.
The Black Bird is immune to Earth and absorbs Dark, but it has no other resistances and a plethora of weaknesses. Bio and Ice deal significant damage, Wind and Holy are even more devastating, and Thunder attacks will be twice as effective as usual. It's also quite vulnerable to Evade debuffs, although there aren't many sources of such debuffs when it's first encountered.
If "More Foe Resistance" is active, the Black Bird becomes neutral to Ice, resistant to Bio, and immune to Freeze.
Statistics
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
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Swift Crow | Scavenger Bird | EBF3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| An evasive bird which searches for shiny gems. | |||
| Statistics | ||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | Gold |
| 80 | 4 | 3.6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 2 | 15 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | -70% | -40% | - | -60% | 100% | - | - | - | - | |
| Status Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | -50% | - | ||||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | -50% | - | |||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon | 
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- | - | - | - | - |
| Name | Light Feather | Rainbow Gems | - | - | - | - | - |
| Chance | 20% | 10% | - | - | - | - | - |
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
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Black Bird | EBF4 |
|---|---|---|
| A bird that uses wind attacks, and has high evade. | ||
| Statistics | ||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP |
| 96 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4.5 | 10 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 10 | 50 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | -100% | -60% | 100% | -60% | - | -80% | - | -80% | 200% | |||
| Status Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | -50% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon | 
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- | - | - | - | - |
| Name | Red Feather | Rainbow Gems | - | - | - | - | - |
| Chance | 70% | 10% | - | - | - | - | - |
| Status Damage | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 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% | 4.8% per stack, up to 43.2% |
25% | -33.(3)% |
| Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||
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Black Bird | EBF4 |
|---|---|---|
| A bird that uses wind attacks, and has high evade. | ||
| Statistics | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP |
| 96 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4.5 | 10 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 10 | 50 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | -100% | - | 100% | 50% | - | -80% | - | -80% | 200% | |||
| Status Resistance |
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| - | - | 100% | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | -50% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon |
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- | - | - | - | - |
| Name | Red Feather | Rainbow Gems | - | - | - | - | - |
| Chance | 70% | 10% | - | - | - | - | - |
| Status Damage | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances: | |||
| Burn
|
Poison
|
Doom (if Death fails) |
Regen
|
| 7% | 1.5% per stack, up to 13.5% |
25% | -33.(3)% |
| Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||
Attacks and Abilities
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
| Attack List | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Skyfall | Single | 16 | 
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---- | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Barrage | Single | 33/3 |
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---- | -- | -- | -- | 90% | 10% | 10% |
| Dust | Single | 12 | 
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100%
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80% | 40% |
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110% | 10% | 10% |
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
| Attack List | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Skyfall | Single | 16 |
|
---- | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Barrage | Single | 24/3 |
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---- | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 10% | 10% |
| Dust | Single | 14 |
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100%
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100% | 20% |
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100% | 10% | 20% |
| Notes: On Hard and Epic difficulties, debuff strength is increased to 35%. | ||||||||||
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 → Skyfall;
- Syphoned → Skyfall (1/2), Barrage (1/2);
- Otherwise → Skyfall (1/3), Barrage (1/3), Dust (1/3).
Epic Battle Fantasy 4
- Anything → Skyfall (1/3), Barrage (1/3), Dust (1/3).