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
Mysterious and charming, 
Smoky God is a unique take on a support unit. His Default alone defines his gameplay, beginning a countdown of cleansing and empowering his allies across the board before dooming everyone, himself and his team included. He is equipped with the tool to prevent this in the 
Nullify DebuffPrevent receiving debuff once for 4 turns. Vanishes after use. (Buff) from his CS, but may require external aid to keep everyone safe. Enemies attacking him will suffer 
DazzleATK Down by 0.7x ~ 0.35x for 3 turns (Debuff) and a tremendous HP down while he can grant himself 
EvasionDEF Up by 0.01x ~ 0.005x for 1 turn (Buff) at decent rate. Meanwhile his allies can benefit from 
Nourishment+150~300HP/turn, ATK Up by 1.1x ~ 1.5x for 3 turns (Buff) and the unique 
Drastic Skill Activation Rate IncreaseIncreases skill activation rate by 50% for 1 turn (Buff), the latter of which can patch up many units' reliability.
Highlights
Class: Tank, Mixed Support
Gameplay Role:
Pros
+ His Default can greatly benefit his team as long as it is played around properly.
+ Has impressive tanking potential which can also leave enemies greatly weakened.
Cons
- Default poses high risk to himself and his team and requires playing around, meaning he cannot fit into every team composition.
- Beyond Default his proc rates can be unreliable, which can hinder his tanking capabilities.
- Discouraged from moving due to self-inflicted 
WeaknessDEF Down by 1.2x ~ 2.4x for 1 turn (Debuff), needing allies to move him for repositioning.
- No means of self-sustain or protection, and since he must suffer at least one hit before his EvasionDEF Up by 0.01x ~ 0.005x for 1 turn (Buff) can be up he will need team support in this regard.
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.