THE MAW
THE MAW is a miniboss and a summon in Epic Battle Fantasy 5 introduced in the v2 update. It's found in a secret room in The Rapture, in the cave where the Earth Orb is found and the two-headed Zombie Hydra is fought.
Appearance
THE MAW is a pair of enormous disembodied jaws filled with jagged white fangs. The gums and roots are covered in blood, along with a small amount on the teeth themselves and a few droplets hovering in the air around them; the inner edges of the teeth have a black outline. A mass of eyeballs occasionally appear between the teeth; when THE MAW takes a powerful blow or dies outright, a single massive eye appears instead.
Like all Arcade foes, THE MAW appears with a pixelized aesthetic resembling an 8-bit video game.
THE MAW also has a notable influence with its preferred arcade room, much more so than its fellow members, with some of its tentacle protuding from the room's ground. Two Blood Bats and a Mutant Chomper also reside in this room.
Overview
THE MAW has above-average Evade and great Accuracy, but its main gimmick is its monstrously high critical hit rate, allowing it to inflict catastrophic damage despite its low base offenses. Having Brave on the party (such as through the Roasted Gloop or Beheaded Fallen summons, or Ragnarok in a pinch) will greatly reduce its damage output.
THE MAW mainly uses non-elemental physical attacks that can inflict Doom and Disable, but it also has a counterattack that deals magical Bio damage while inflicting Poison/Virus and Defence debuffs. While the counterattack isn't very powerful - especially since it lacks the enhanced critical rate of THE MAW's other moves - it can inflict a large amount of Virus stacks on harder difficulties. This is particular annoying as the Virus may spread back to THE MAW and heal it if not quickly removed; the counter also inflicts Poison on THE MAW, so removing the status is advisable if the opportunity arises.
While THE MAW takes two actions each turn, the first one will always be its multi-target Sharp Tentacles attack. This means that while a Target tank can help endure the second action, the party will still be hit by Sharp Tentacles each turn. Maintaining buffs and Regen is imperative to keeping everyone alive; Morale is relatively ineffective, since most of THE MAW's skills hit multiple times.
THE MAW's damage output spikes once its HP drops below ~69% and ~39%; its stats do not change, but Sharp Teeth and Sharp Tentacles gain more power and extra hits after each threshold. The player should try to capture THE MAW as soon as feasible so as to avoid taking heavy damage from the powered-up skills.
THE MAW absorbs both Bio and Dark, but is weak to Bomb and Holy. It is greatly resistant to all stat debuffs and immune to most status effects (except for Burn, Scorch, Stagger, Confuse, Wet, and Dry); while it is vulnerable to Poison and Virus, this works in its favor thanks to its Bio absorption. With "More Foe Resistance" enabled, it loses its Bomb weakness and becomes even more resistant to stat drops, including an immunity to Attack and Magic Attack debuffs.
Statistics
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THE MAW | EBF5 |
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| ONLY THE BRAVEST WARRIORS MAY TRIUMPH. ALL ELSE WILL PERISH. | ||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 4133* | 2.5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5.5 | 4.5 | 999 | 66 | 66 | 666 | 4 | 3 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | 150% | -50% | - | - | -50% | 150% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| - | 100% | 100% | -100% | 100% | 100% | - | - | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Name | Razor Claw | Razor Claw | Bone Spike | Bone Spike | Dark Matter | ||
| Chance | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| 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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| 0.28% per stack, up to 2.52% |
0.56% per stack, up to 5.04% |
-0.12% per stack, up to -1.08% |
-0.24% per stack, up to -2.16% |
Immune | -2.(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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THE MAW | EBF5 |
|---|---|---|
| ONLY THE BRAVEST WARRIORS MAY TRIUMPH. ALL ELSE WILL PERISH. | ||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP | Catch |
| 4133* | 2.5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5.5 | 4.5 | 999 | 66 | 66 | 666 | 4 | 3 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | 150% | - | - | - | -50% | 150% | ||||
| Status Resistance |
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| - | 100% | 100% | -100% | 100% | 100% | - | - | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| Debuff Resistance |
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| 50% | 80% | 80% | 60% | 60% | 60% | 60% | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Name | Razor Claw | Razor Claw | Bone Spike | Bone Spike | Dark Matter | ||
| Chance | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | ||
| 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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| 0.28% per stack, up to 2.52% |
0.56% per stack, up to 5.04% |
-0.12% per stack, up to -1.08% |
-0.24% per stack, up to -2.16% |
Immune | -2.(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. | |||||
THE MAW gains up to 24% extra Attack, Magic Attack, HP and Accuracy depending on how many optional bosses have been killed, medals awarded and monster cards obtained:
- +1% for each of the 13 optional bosses (counting the Sketch bosses as a single boss) for a 13% total. Bosses included are: ??.@'¬?]-?e??255, Snowflake, The Sketch Boss Rush, Sól and Skadi, Neon Valhalla, Telperion, Vulcan, Crystal Hydra, Matteus, Natalia, Lancelot, Annabelle and God.
- +1% at the 50, 65, 80, and 100 medals thresholds, for a 4% total.
- +0.04% for each of the 50 Monster Cards obtained, for a 2% total.
- +0.2% for each of the 12 Arcade bosses, the 8 Data Bunker simulations, and the 5 1P Challenges in the Battle Arena; for a 5% total.
After level 33, THE MAW gains a 5% boost to Attack and Magic Attack, and a 2.5% boost to HP and Accuracy on every level-up (these boosts stack additively, acting as a multiplier). This boost caps out at level 36.
Attacks and Abilities
| Attack List | ||||||||||
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| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Savage Bites | Random | 250/7 | 
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---- | 200% | 3x | 
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100% | 300% | 10% |
| Notes: 2 hits before retargeting twice, then finishes with 3 hits on the last target. Will not target the same player twice in a row unless they have  Target or no other targets are available.
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| Blood Spurt | All | 35 | 
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25%
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100% | 5x 25% |
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150% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Only usable as a counter. Poison changed to Virus instead on Hard or Epic difficulties. Gives 3x Poison to self.
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| Sharp Teeth | Random | 140/6 |
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---- | 100% | 3x |
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100% | 300% | 10% |
| Notes: Base spell is 3 hit, so retargeting and statuses happen on every third hit. Power increased to 210/9 when <69% HP and to 280/12 when <39% HP. Will not target the same player twice in a row unless they have Target or no other targets are available.
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| Sharp Tentacles | All | 60 |
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---- | -- | -- | -- | 100% | 300% | 10% |
| Notes: Power increased to 90/2 when <69% HP and to 120/3 when <39% HP. | ||||||||||
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.
1st Action
- Anything → Sharp Tentacles.
2nd Action
- Anything → Savage Bites (1/2), Sharp Teeth (1/2).
Counter
- If HP% is lower than Blood Counter → Blood Spurt.
* Blood Counter starts at 80 and gets reduced by 20 (12 if Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled) every time THE MAW counters.
Summon
THE MAW can be captured and used as a summon. It uses Blood Spurt to hit all foes with magical Bio damage and a high chance of Virus infliction.
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THE MAW | SP | 
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| Infects all foes with a deadly virus, and deals some magical bio damage. | 66 | Cured | |||||||
| Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| All | 90 |
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100%
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100% | 5x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
Trivia
- THE MAW could be considered the "boss" of the Arcade foes for several reasons.
- It is the last Arcade foe to be listed in the Bestiary and the last one to be fought in the Arcade Boss Rush.
- THE MAW uses No/x1B instead of JECXZ Start as its battle theme.
- It is one of only two Arcade foes to appear as a lone entity, sharing this distinction with CORALIA.
- It combines the gimmicks of some other Arcade foes: monstrously high critical chance (like ROBO), attacks that improve themselves after hitting certain HP thresholds (like TOTOM), and exploiting its elemental absorption by giving itself damaging statuses as a side effect of an attack (like GLOB).
- While several Arcade foes can manifest themselves outside of their machines (usually to draw the player's attention to their hiding place), THE MAW's influence seems to be stronger than the others. Its Sharp Tentacles can be seen throughout the cavern where its arcade is hidden; after THE MAW is defeated, they appear in the Earth Orb cave as well. If the torch was lit previously, it will also have been extinguished.