Tanuki Dog

Tanuki Dog
Group	Dogs
Roles	Foe, Summon
Appearances	Epic Battle Fantasy 4 Epic Battle Fantasy 5

"Hmm, I thought alcohol was supposed to be bad for dogs. I guess I know nothing."

―Matt, Epic Battle Fantasy 4

The Tanuki Dog is a foe in Epic Battle Fantasy 4 and 5, and a summon in the latter. In EBF4, it appears mostly around the desolate parts of Ashwood Forest; in EBF5, it tends to be found in the Mystic Woods.

Appearance

Based off real life tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog), the Tanuki Dog has the structure of a canine and brown fur. There is a patch of reddish-brown fur near its eyes and at the end of its long fluffy tail; it also has dark brown paws. A red string is tied around its neck, holding a white flask marked with a red kanji 酒 (sake, meaning alcohol). The flask contains an apparently potent alcohol and is sealed with a brown cork.

In EBF5, the Tanuki Dog gained a more detailed appearance, with lighter-colored fur on its underbelly and small claws visible on its toes.

Overview

The Tanuki Dog is a low-level foe that uses basic physical attacks against single targets. Its Burning Dive is its strongest attack, dealing Fire damage with a good chance of inflicting a Burn on the target. It can also heal itself by taking a swig from its flask, which also has an additional effect that changes between games.

The Tanuki Dog always absorbs Fire while being weak to Ice and Bio.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

The Tanuki Dog has two single-target physical attacks to choose from: a basic non-elemental strike and its Burning Dive. The latter deals pure Fire damage with a good chance of inflicting a Burn (especially on higher difficulty levels); it also Burns the Tanuki Dog, but its Fire absorption turns the status into a weak Regen effect. If it needs a bigger heal, it can drink from its flask to restore about half of its HP; this also makes it go Berserk, increasing its damage output.

Aside from the obvious solution of hitting the Tanuki Dog for more HP than it can recover at a time, its healing move can be disabled by Syphon and Berserk; conveniently, this means that using Alcoheal gives you a few turns to wear it down without worry about it using the move again. Which status is preferable depends on the party's equipment; Burning Dive is stronger than Backflip even before Berserk is factored in, but its pure elemental damage can be easily dampened with high Fire resistance.

The Tanuki Dog has a Fire absorption, but no other resistances; on the other hand, it takes extra damage from Water, Bio, and especially Ice. "More Foe Resistance" makes it immune to Ice, Freeze, and Wet and resistant to Dark and Wind.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Despite being encountered in a (mostly) verdant forest, the Tanuki Dog is a Fire-elemental foe with a few single-target physical attacks to work with. It has some basic non-elemental attacks, but its strongest move deals pure Fire damage and has a decent Burn chance. On Hard or Epic difficulty, the move has a better chance to burn the target and the Tanuki Dog itself; since it absorbs Fire, this actually lets it heal slightly each turn.

Like most EBF5 Dogs, the Tanuki Dog will focus its attacks on the player who last damaged it: however, if that player is suffering from Burn or Scorch, it will target a different player if possible. This allows you to somewhat predict its actions and control who it attacks, although it's generally weak enough that it's not an especially serious issue. One way to exploit its behavior is to afflict it with Berserk and then attack it with a player who has Fire and Burn immunity; it'll be left impotently spamming Burning Dive on that player until it dies, the Berserk wears off, or someone else hits it.

If its HP falls below half, the Tanuki Dog has a high chance to take a mid-battle drinking break, restoring a lot of its health in exchange for suffering a mild Accuracy debuff. Applying Tired can further aggravate its Accuracy issues while simultaneously boosting one of its elemental weaknesses, but it's generally easier to just hit it harder than it can recover from or kill it outright with Instant Death. Other options include immobilizing the Dog (preferably with Stun, since it has a decent Freeze resistance) or afflicting it with Syphon or Berserk to prevent it from using Alcoheal.

The Tanuki Dog's biggest weakness is Ice, but Bio attacks will also deal significant damage. Conversely, it absorbs Fire while resisting Bomb, Chill, and Freeze. Enabling "More Foe Resistance" removes its Ice weakness, gives it a Holy absorption, and makes it resistant to Earth and Wind.

Statistics

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

	Tanuki Dog	EBF4
	This dog is an alcoholic. It uses fire attacks and can burn and berserk itself.

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP
	132	4	4	4	4	4	4	15	2.1	2.1	12	50
Elemental Resistance
	150%	-	-80%	-	-60%	-	-	-60%	-	-
Status Resistance
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Debuff Resistance
	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon					-	-	-
Name	Fine Fur	Red Feather	Magma Sample	Beer	-	-	-
Chance	15%	10%	10%	20%	-	-	-

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Poison	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
-3.5%	4.8% per stack, up to 43.2%	25%	-33.(3)%
Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down.

Statistics with More Foe Resistance enabled.

	Tanuki Dog	EBF4
	This dog is an alcoholic. It uses fire attacks and can burn and berserk itself.

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP
	132	4	4	4	4	4	4	15	2.1	2.1	12	50
Elemental Resistance
	150%	-	100%	-	-60%	-	50%	-60%	-	50%
Status Resistance
	-	-	100%	-	-	-	-	-	100%	-	-	-
Debuff Resistance
	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon					-	-	-
Name	Fine Fur	Red Feather	Magma Sample	Beer	-	-	-
Chance	15%	10%	10%	20%	-	-	-

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Poison	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
-3.5%	4.8% per stack, up to 43.2%	25%	-33.(3)%
Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

	Tanuki Dog	EBF5
	This dog is an alcoholic! It'll hold a grudge against the player who hit it last, but it will try to leave burnt players alone.

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP	Catch
	132	4	4	4	4	4	4	15	2.1	2.1	12	50	45
Elemental Resistance
	150%	-	-80%	-	-50%	50%	-	-	-	-
Status Resistance
	-	-	50%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Debuff Resistance
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon					-
Name	Fine Fur	Leather	Beer	Magma Chunk	-
Chance	33%	20%	20%	10%	-

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
-1.75% per stack, up to -15.75%	-3.5% per stack, up to -31.5%	4.5% per stack, up to 40.5%	9% per stack, up to 81%	25%	-33.(3)%
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.

	Tanuki Dog	EBF5
	This dog is an alcoholic! It'll hold a grudge against the player who hit it last, but it will try to leave burnt players alone.

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP	Catch
	132	4	4	4	4	4	4	15	2.1	2.1	12	50	45
Elemental Resistance
	150%	-	-	50%	-50%	50%	-	50%	150%	-
Status Resistance
	-	-	50%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Debuff Resistance
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon					-
Name	Fine Fur	Leather	Beer	Magma Chunk	-
Chance	33%	20%	20%	10%	-

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
-1.75% per stack, up to -15.75%	-3.5% per stack, up to -31.5%	4.5% per stack, up to 40.5%	9% per stack, up to 81%	25%	-33.(3)%
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.

Attacks and Abilities

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

Attack List
Attack	Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
Backflip	Single	19		----	--	--	--	100%	10%	10%
Burning Dive	Single Self	28 --	--	100% ----	50% --	3x 2x		100% --	10% --	10% --
Notes: On Hard and Epic difficulties, status chance on players is increased to 100%.
Alcoheal	Self	MaxHP/2	--	----	--	3x		--	--	30%

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Attack List
Attack	Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
Hit	Single	16		----	--	--	--	100%	10%	10%
Backflip	Single	19		----	--	--	--	100%	10%	10%
Alcoheal	Self	MaxHP / 2	--	----	--	15%		--	--	--
Burning Dive	Single	28		100%	33%	3x		100%	10%	10%
Notes: Status chance increased to 66% on Hard or Epic difficulties. Gives self 3x Burn 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 4

• Syphoned → Backflip;
• Berserked → Burning Dive;
• Otherwise → Backflip (1/3), Burning Dive (1/3), Alcoheal (1/3).

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Action

• If catch score >55 and all players are Lovable → Surrender;
• If Syphoned → Hit (1/2), Backflip (1/2);
• If Berserked → Burning Dive;
• <49% HP → Alcoheal (6/9), Hit (1/9), Backflip (1/9), Burning Dive (1/9);
• Otherwise → Hit (1/3), Backflip (1/3), Burning Dive (1/3).

The Dog will target the last player who attacked them with their attacks. That said, if their selected target happens to be Burned or Scorched, they'll switch to a different target (unless no other targets are available).

Counter (only if Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled)

• 25% → Backflip.

Additionally, if any front line player has equipment that scares Beasts, the Tanuki Dog will simply Surrender on their turn.

Summon

In EBF5, the Tanuki Dog can be captured and used as a summon. It uses a powered-up Burning Dive on the targeted foe, dealing physical Fire damage with a high chance to Burn them.

	Tanuki Dog							SP
	Leaps at a target with a fire attack, which burns them.							25	Kept
Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect			Acc	Crit	RdF
Single	145		100%	100%	3x		100%	10%	10%