th, 2019, version 5.0.8 was dropped. With it came… uhhh, a mixed bag of updates. There’s the decrease of materials needed to get your Homunculus, less floors in the B10s and all, but a serious Chakram Dancer nerf. Don’t worry, I’m just as upset about the death of Shaina as everyone else. But I digress. With this update came two new monsters, the Demon and Gargoyle! For this article, I’m gonna take a first-look at the Gargoyles. Part 1 was about the Demons. Disclaimer: As of this writing, I do not own any of the Gargoyles, nor am I factoring in multipliers or skills when fully skilled up.

Kunite (Fire Gargoyle) [Defense]

You may have noticed that, though I have listed the Gargoyles as Defense-type mons, the screenshot says “Support.” This is a mistake acknowledged by Com2uS, and will be fixed next update. Anyway, let’s begin! Stone Claws: Attacks the enemy to inflict damage that increases according to your Defense and increases your Defense by 20%. (Accumulates up to 5 times) –sniffsniff– Do you all smell that? That’s the smell of an incoming Gargoyle nerf. I mean, if the Gargoyles use their first skill five times, then they’ve literally doubled their Defense, and they deal damage based off said defense. Destructive Claws: Inflicts damage on the enemy in proportion to your Defense and destroys the target’s HP by the amount of damage dealt. Afterwards, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts. While you are a statue, you won’t be able to move. But you will gain immunity against inability effects, receive 30% less damage and recover your HP by 10% until the statue state is gone. (Reusable in 5 turns) So this is the main gimmick of the Gargoyles; the “statue” effect. It’s not a status effect like buffs or debuffs or one of those purple statuses like the Lightning Emperors’ Knowledge as far as I know, but nevertheless, here it is. Statue of Protection (Passive): If your turn ends with full HP, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts. The damage dealt on allies will be reduced gradually if the ally gets attacked with multiple hits when you are turned into a statue. [Automatic Effect] Did you know that, apart from the Liches, the Gargoyles are the only four-star family to have only passives? This is the other gimmick of the Gargoyles; the Statue of XYZ passive where, if they end their turn with a certain requirement fulfilled, they’ll be turned into a statue, and based on this part of their passive, something will happen. Here, I think Kunite’s passive is pretty good. There are a lot of multi-hitters in the game, and this reminds me of the Light Beast, where his shield takes less and less damage under multihits.

Tanzaite (Water Gargoyle) [Defense]

Stone Claws: Attacks the enemy to inflict damage that increases according to your Defense and increases your Defense by 20%. (Accumulates up to 5 times) Same first skill. Earth Strike: Inflicts damage on all enemies in proportion to your Defense and provokes them for 1 turn with an 80% chance each. Afterwards, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts. While you are a statue, you won’t be able to move. But you will gain immunity against inability effects, receive 30% less damage and recover your HP by 10% until the statue state is gone. (Reusable in 4 turns) Here’s the second version of the Gargoyles’ second skill, Earth Strike. It’s actually a lot better than the first version, mainly for the AoE provoke and Statue of Robust (Passive): If your turn ends with less than 30% HP, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts. The target that attacks you will have its Attack Power decreased for 2 turns when the target attacks you when you are turned into a statue. [Automatic Effect] This one’s sort of an underwhelming statue passive. Not only does he have to be within a very reasonable “can one-hit kill” range to turn into a statue, but the only special thing he does as a statue is decrease attack power.

Malite (Wind Gargoyle) [Defense]

Stone Claws: Attacks the enemy to inflict damage that increases according to your Defense and increases your Defense by 20%. (Accumulates up to 5 times) Same old, same old. Earth Strike: Inflicts damage on all enemies in proportion to your Defense and provokes them for 1 turn with an 80% chance each. Afterwards, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts. While you are a statue, you won’t be able to move. But you will gain immunity against inability effects, receive 30% less damage and recover your HP by 10% until the statue state is gone. (Reusable in 4 turns) I’m starting to think after we get past the water mon and talk about the newest second skill I’m just not going to say anything until the third skill. Statue of Pain (Passive): When you are turned into a statue, inflicts damage that’s proportionate to your Defense to the target that attacks you. Also decreases your skill cooldown time when you get attacked with a critical hit. [Automatic Effect] I think this is going to be another case of where the wind nat4 is the best in the family, just like with Skogul and the Giant Warriors. This is really good: he counterattacks every time someone attacks statue-him and he’ll decrease his cooltime every time he’s hit, meaning that if he gets hit enough, he could instantly refresh his second skill and become a statue again so he can start counterattacking.

Phenaka (Light Gargoyle) [Defense]

Stone Claws: Attacks the enemy to inflict damage that increases according to your Defense and increases your Defense by 20%. (Accumulates up to 5 times) Earth Strike: Inflicts damage on all enemies in proportion to your Defense and provokes them for 1 turn with an 80% chance each. Afterwards, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts. While you are a statue, you won’t be able to move. But you will gain immunity against inability effects, receive 30% less damage and recover your HP by 10% until the statue state is gone. (Reusable in 4 turns) Statue of Trial (Passive): When you are turned into a statue, increases the skill cooldown time of the target that attacks you by 2 turns. [Automatic Effect] On second thought, it looks like Phenaka could be the better of the Gargoyles. I’m not sure how many times he can increase skill cooltime (e.g. just once like Nyx’s old passive or every time like the refresh of Malite), but either way this is really cool, and I myself would like to play around with a Phenaka if I had one.

Onyx (Dark Gargoyle) [Defense]

Stone Claws: Attacks the enemy to inflict damage that increases according to your Defense and increases your Defense by 20%. (Accumulates up to 5 times) Destructive Claws: Inflicts damage on the enemy in proportion to your Defense and destroys the target’s HP by the amount of damage dealt. Afterwards, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts. While you are a statue, you won’t be able to move. But you will gain immunity against inability effects, receive 30% less damage and recover your HP by 10% until the statue state is gone. (Reusable in 5 turns) Statue of Immortal (Passive): When your turn ends, you will be turned into a statue until the next turn starts with a 30% chance. You can’t get defeated when you are turned into a statue. [Automatic Effect] Okay, so Onyx looks like he’s the weakest of the Gargoyles. He’s got a 30% chance to randomly turn into a statue (not counting his second skill), and he’ll basically have permanent Endure up for as long as he’s a statue. But remember he can’t do anything as long as he’s a statue, so I dunno how to feel about this skill. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this article! Did any of you get the Gargoyles yet, and if so, what is your opinion of them? Malite and Phenaka look like they could be really fun to mess with, but alas, I don’t have any of the Gargoyles yet. I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!  ]]>