Smoky God/Strategy

NOTE: This page currently under construction.

(This page is for The Smoky God strategy guide. For the standard The Smoky God page, click here.)

Overview

Example description

Highlights

Class: Tank

Gameplay Role:

Pros

+ example pro

Cons

- example con

Gameplay Role

Tank/Support

As a None unit, Smoky God is interesting for having no [On Miss] skills, and instead mainly relying on [After Being Hit] skills for defense/sustain. Due to having WORLD as an element, DazzleATK Down by 0.7x ~ 0.35x for 3 turns (Debuff) in a wide range, and a chance to gain EvasionDEF Up by 0.01x ~ 0.005x for 1 turn (Buff), his ability to survive through hits can be quite good in quests with multiple enemies on the weaker side. On the flip side, this means that he can also be taken out quickly in quests where firepower is concentrated onto one enemy, since [After Being Hit] only applies to the second hit and beyond in terms of damage calculation. So despite being labeled as a tank here, The Smoky God would definitely appreciate additional layers of defense. Each hit can also accumulate 8000 flat damage onto the enemy, a rather substantial amount for flat damage, whittling the enemy's HP suited for stall strategies.

In terms of sustain, The Smoky God's main source of healing is through his CS, which is charged up when he is struck for +20 CP each hit. This again means that a player would ideally maximize the number of hits The Smoky God receives, making him be placed in the front lines most of the time. His CS is also Blow range, so he will also need to be there to activate it. Since The Smoky God has no [On Miss] skills as mentioned before, his CS should ideally be activated as much as possible, since there is no benefit otherwise. As this is also his main source of healing and not particularly substantial, he will again appreciate external sources of healing from his teammates.

Before the following discussion of the most important aspects of The Smoky God, there are two overshadowed skill effects: removal of all debuffs on the team every five turns and +50 CP to the entire team every six turns. The effects themselves are fairly powerful, but being on a timed basis with a fairly large gap in between makes them unwieldy to use deliberately. The latter effect however at least helps to accomplish the previous goal of having The Smoky God's CS activate as will prove important later.

Countdown Applier

This is the trickiest part of using The Smoky God and severely limits team composition with him: the fact that he applies Countdown-10000~-20000HP/turn for 2 turns (Debuff) to everyone every seven turns. On paper, The Smoky God's CS should be activated right before to have Nullify DebuffPrevent receiving debuff once for 4 turns. Vanishes after use. (Buff) and prevent the status from affecting the team. This can work, but it supposes many things in practice. First, this strategy will fall apart if any debuff is applied in the interim, which means that enemies who apply debuffs are particularly troublesome. Second, the existence of a previous Nullify Debuff can prevent a new one from being applied since status effects don't refresh, so Nullify Debuff may expire right as Countdown appears. This is an issue because The Smoky God wants to use his CS as much as possible as stated before, but more importantly if there is an extra source of Nullify Debuff from an ally, careful attention has to be paid to their skills as well. Third, allies' Reflect DebuffReflect debuff once for 4 turns. Vanishes after use. (Buff) will reflect Countdown back to The Smoky God and will bypass his Nullify Debuff on reflection. Lastly, The Smoky God's CS may just not be ready in time at all to pull this strategy off. Due to these reasons, units who have access to Remove DebuffRemove one debuff (Buff) on demand are very helpful for using with The Smoky God, especially for stall-oriented strategies.

One particularly good ally for The Smoky God is Itzamna. The reason is three-fold. First, he provides additional defensive support which The Smoky God appreciates. Second, Itzamna's reliable access to Nullify Debuff and Remove Debuff help to address the Countdown issue while also keeping down the number of debuffs on the team in general. Finally, Itzamna's Glint+10% skill activation rate for 2 turns (Buff) and ConcentrationATK Up by 1.1x ~ 2.2x, skill activation rate +10% for 2 turns (Buff) complements The Smoky God's Drastic Skill Activation Rate IncreaseIncreases skill activation rate by 50% for 1 turn (Buff) in increasing allies' skill activation rate, and his spreading ability allows him to pass the buff to teammates out of range of The Smoky God in the first turn on wide maps.

There are other methods of handling Countdown. One is to use units with immunity to the debuff, but there are not very many units who are immune, the most being WOOD units since they can equip the Fisher King AR and its analogue. It is even more limiting to build a full team around Countdown immunity, and this still would fail to solve The Smoky God's lack of immunity. Another method is to use units who abuse Guts+1HP when HP is at 0 at the end of the turn for 5 turns. Removed once activated. (Buff) such as Tadatomo. This is not an ideal solution since The Smoky god uses many [After Being Hit] skills, and they would fail to trigger when his HP is depleted. The other method is to just ignore the status entirely, either by winning the battle before its application or by surviving past the status through flat healing. Healing is very difficult since there are two ticks of Countdown, but not impossible. Quick clearing is situational and does not tap into The Smoky God's strength for the most part. Overall, having a unit who can remove debuffs on demand is the easiest way to counter the detriment due to Countdown.

Drastic Skill Activation Rate Increase

Conversely, the status Drastic Skill Activation Rate IncreaseIncreases skill activation rate by 50% for 1 turn (Buff) opens up a lot of synergies between The Smoky God and other characters. Characters with otherwise very low skill activation rates can for one turn receive reasonable rates due to this status effect. While this status effect may not elevate the ceiling of what a character can do, it at least allows them to approach it without having to reset constantly. Units with low proc rates who can use this status to the fullest advantage can be roughly divided into the following categories:

Rare/Powerful Debuffs

One example in this category is Hephaestus. With The Smoky God's buff, he can realistically apply all three debuffs simultaneously to his enemies, WeaknessDEF Down by 1.2x ~ 2.4x for 1 turn (Debuff), ParalysisATK Down by 0.9x ~ 0.45x, cannot move at will for 5 turns (Debuff), and StigmaDEF Down by 1.15x ~ 2.3x, -150~-300HP/turn for 3 turns (Debuff). This is on top of having his usual CritATK Up by 2x ~ 4x for 1 turn (Buff) bestowed to himself and allies, making him deal a great amount of damage alone. He also gives Nullify DebuffPrevent receiving debuff once for 4 turns. Vanishes after use. (Buff) to himself and allies, making him an exceptional partner for The Smoky God on account of having extra insurance managing Countdown.

Rare Buffs

Pollux (Christmas) is a good example, being able to allies EvasionDEF Up by 0.01x ~ 0.005x for 1 turn (Buff), Nullify DebuffPrevent receiving debuff once for 4 turns. Vanishes after use. (Buff), and Guts+1HP when HP is at 0 at the end of the turn for 5 turns. Removed once activated. (Buff) on miss at usually very low rates. The Smoky God's buff jacks up all these rates, allowing him to feasibly bestow all three status effects at once. Christmas Pollux is also a notable ally for The Smoky God since his skill evolution gives him the ability to remove a debuff on miss, providing another way to resolve the issue with Countdown.

Buff Removal

This is actually a situational area because The Smoky God's buff only lasts for the first turn. In this case, the enemies might not even have their buffs available to remove since their phase start timing hasn't happened yet. If this situation were to appear however, Goemon would be able to consistently steal and bestow to his allies the enemies' buffs.

Stats and Seed Usage

Example description

Team Synergy

Several options are mentioned in the Gameplay Role section. The following will expand on other options not presented there.

Debuff Removal

To handle Countdown, allies such as Horus, Kijimuna (Canaan), and Aizen (Jamboree) may prove useful.

Units with Low Proc Rate Effects

Yasuyori, Typhon (Make Sail), Triton, Astaroth, and Tanetomo are all potential examples to choose.

Additional Defense/Healing

Units such as Chernobog (Beachside), Kagutsuchi (Jamboree), and Ryota may prove to be useful. Equipping the Fisher King AR on these allies may be helpful as insurance.

Checks and Counters

Example counter

Example description

Teambuilding Options

This section consists of user-submitted builds that may not necessarily be viable for high level quests.

Arbitrary Team Name

Team Details (submitted by UserName)
The Smoky God 【Debuffer】	The Smoky God 【Moveslut, CP Battery】	The Smoky God 【Healer, Tank】	The Smoky God 【Support unit】	Licht 【example of variant call】	Anyone / no one 【Flexible】
Cost: ≥X

Example team function description.

Gameplay examples

• Example external link