Undying Monolith
The Undying Monolith is a foe that appears in Epic Battle Fantasy 4. It is mostly found in Graybone Cemetery, particularly in the two sealed tombs.
Appearance
The Undying Monolith is a massive slab of grey stone that seems to have been carved into a demonic tombstone; the words "RIP" (Rest In Peace) can be seen near the top and a pentagram is visible near the bottom right corner. A horned skull is embedded in the middle of the stone, with dull red lights in its eye sockets and a round red crystal in its mouth. Black fluid drips from the skull's lower jaw, pooling around its base and the various bones scattered around the monolith. Three ribs and a spinal column can also be seen embedded in the rock; the former are on its upper-right corner (beside the "RIP"), while the latter snakes along its lower left side to connect with the skull.
Overview
Compared to other types of Monoliths, the Undying Monolith has comparatively low direct damage output, but it compensates by inflicting status effects with all of its attacks. Aside from The Dead, which is partly Bio-based (and capable of inflicting a lot of Poison), all of its moves are Dark-based; Bones can reliably inflict Doom while Flying Skulls hits the entire party three times, with each hit stacking Weaken, Tired, or Curse at random. It will Charge itself up every third turn, heralding its deadliest attack: hitting each active party member with Death Spike for moderate Dark damage and a rather high chance of Instant Death.
Evade-based strategies can accentuate Death Spike's below-average Accuracy, but Death resistance remains the best option to negate the threat of the Undying Monolith's charged attack; as a bonus, it also stops Bones from inflicting Doom. If that's not possible, try to kill or at least Syphon it before its fourth turn; prior to the v2 update, the party could also benefit from a programming bug that left the topmost player completely safe from the triple Death Spike, even if they're the only one left alive. Aside from that, status-clearing support and/or Bless are useful to stop its ailments from wearing down the party; high Defence is more useful against its attacks, since its only spell (Flying Skulls) is very weak, especially before the Battle Mountain update.
Unlike many other foes in Graybone Cemetery, the Undying Monolith is immune to Fire, along with Thunder, Ice, Bio, Wind, and Water. Fortunately, it is still weak to Holy, so there's a chance the party would already be equipped to hit it hard. As a Monolith, it also has low Evade and a vulnerability to Bomb attacks; on the other hand, it absorbs Dark damage. Status-wise, it's immune to Burn, Stun, Freeze, Poison, Stagger, Doom, and Instant Death; it also resists Syphon after the Battle Mountain update.
Enabling "More Foe Resistance" allows the Undying Monolith to absorb Earth and Bio, leaving its Bomb and Holy weaknesses as the only elements that will actually damage it. Additionally, it becomes immune to Tired and Accuracy debuffs.
Statistics
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Undying Monolith | EBF4 |
|---|---|---|
| A haunted gravestone which uses dark and poison attacks, and can inflict many status problems. | ||
| Statistics | ||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP |
| 400 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 110 | 15 | 15 | 70 | 25 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | - | 100% | -80% | 100% | 100% | -80% | 200% | |||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | - | 100% | - | 100% | 50% | - | - | - | 100% | |
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
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| Icon | 
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- | - | - |
| Name | Bottled Darkness | Dark Matter | Curly Horn | Solid Spike | - | - | - |
| Chance | 30% | 5% | 60% | 40% | - | - | - |
| 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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Poison
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 Doom(if Death fails) |
 Regen
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| Immune | Immune | Immune | -16.(6)% |
| Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||
Prior to the Battle Mountain update, no Monoliths had any Syphon resistance.
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Undying Monolith | EBF4 |
|---|---|---|
| A haunted gravestone which uses dark and poison attacks, and can inflict many status problems. | ||
| Statistics | ||||||||||||
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| Base Statistics |
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Exp | AP | SP | Gold | Hit2HP |
| 400 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 110 | 15 | 15 | 70 | 25 | |
| Elemental Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 200% | 200% | -80% | 100% | 100% | -80% | 200% | |||
| Status Resistance |
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| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | - | 100% | 50% | - | - | - | 100% | |
| Debuff Resistance |
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| - | - | - | - | 100% | - | |||||||
| Item Drop Rate | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon |
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- | - | - |
| Name | Bottled Darkness | Dark Matter | Curly Horn | Solid Spike | - | - | - |
| Chance | 30% | 5% | 60% | 40% | - | - | - |
| 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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| Immune | Immune | Immune | -16.(6)% |
| Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down. | |||
Attacks and Abilities
| Attack List | ||||||||||
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| Attack | Target | Power | Type | Element | Status Effect | Acc | Crit | RdF | ||
| Flying Skulls | All | 39/3 | 
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100%
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66% | 3x 3x 3x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Notes: Status effect is chosen at random for each hit. Prior to the Battle Mountain update, this attack had 18 total power instead. | ||||||||||
| Bones | Single | 50 | 
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50%
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80% | 5x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| The Dead | Single | 60 |
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50%
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100% | 5x |
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100% | 10% | 10% |
| Charge | Self | -- | -- | ---- | -- | 2x | 
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-- | -- | -- |
| Notes: Charges to cast Death Spike x3. | ||||||||||
| Death Spike x3 | All | 40 |
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100%
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50% | -- |
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90% | 30% | 10% |
| Notes: Used every four turns if able, indicated by the Charge status the turn prior. Prior to the v2 update, a bug in its targeting caused it to attack the player in the 2nd slot (middle) once and the player in 3rd slot (bottom) twice, completely ignoring the slot 1 (top) player, even if they were the only one alive. | ||||||||||
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.
- Spent 3 turns without Charge status → Charge on the same turn;
- Syphoned → Nothing;
- Charged → Death Spike x3;
- Otherwise → Flying Skulls (1/3), Bones (1/3), The Dead (1/3).
Trivia
- When the Undying Monolith casts Flying Skulls, the animation shows several red words flashing in front of it: "Hurt", "Hell", "Troll", "Die", "Pain", "Evil", "Dead", "Sex", and "Rape".
- The projectiles used for Flying Skulls' animation slightly resemble the skulls of Skeleton Cats from certain minigames in Epic Battle Fantasy 2 and 3.
- The Undying Monolith joins the Cosmic Monolith as one of the only Monoliths with an idle animation; the skull embedded in its front subtly opens and closes its mouth when not attacking. Interestingly, this animation is unaffected if the player opts to turn Idle Animations off.
- Among EBF4 Monoliths, the Undying Monolith is the slowest to charge its special attack (barring the Sky Monolith, which doesn't follow a specific charge pattern), taking three turns rather than two.
- The Undying Monolith's ability to cast Triple Death Spike every four turns may be a nod to how the number 4 is considered unlucky in Japanese culture (due to one character used for the numeral being pronounced the same as the one for "death").