Step-by-Step, Chapter 25: Rift Dungeon – Dark Beast

Chapter 25 of our player progression series is about clearing the Dark Beast in auto-mode with at least “Rank A” result.

As one of the requirements in upgrading the Homunculus’ skills, you need to farm the Dark Beast to obtain Pitch-black Dark Crystals. You will need 300 of them to unlock up to the 1st skill upgrade, 700 more for up to the 2nd skill upgrade, and 500 more for 3rd skill. This sums a total of 1500 Pitch-black Dark for a max skilled Homunculus (Attack).

The Dark Beast’s signature skill is the Dark Roar which grants a Soul Chain effect to a nearby enemy. The monster will then be excluded from battle and will only be removed when you hit the boss a designated number of times. Once cast, it will randomly select one monster on the frontline to exclude from battle, which is why we recommend you to have at least 3 frontline monsters in your team placement. Having a 3 or 4 frontline set-up will increase your team’s survivability and protect the remaining monsters from the Dark Beast’s Thorn of Despair.

Countering this skill requires your team to have multi-hit attackers to quickly release your monsters affected by the Soul Chain. Seems like a familiar strategy right? This is similar to countering the Necropolis’ Soul Barrier. Knowing this, we can use our core NB10 monsters in conquering the Dark Beast.

Dark Beast Overview

Understanding the Dark Beast’s mechanics will give us an idea to create an effective team. Let’s take a look at the Dark Beast’s skill.

 Dark Sweep:

Becomes enraged whenever an enemy gains a turn. Attacks all enemies 2 times. Greatly increases the damage proportionate to the number of times the Beast becomes enraged and the rage effect will reset after the attack.

• Bring only a maximum of 3 supports (1 healer, 2 utility) and the rest should be Damage Dealers to avoid stacking up the enrage damage.

 Dark Roar:

Attacks all enemies 3 times with a chaotic roar and grants the [Soul Chain] Effect on 1 nearby enemy. This will become stronger every time the Dark Roar is used.

Soul Chain: This effect will completely exclude you from the battle. It will be removed when you hit the boss a designated number of times. The amount of damage you receive will increase proportionate to the remaining Soul Chain Effect state.

• Utilizing multi-hit units like Xiong Fei are highly recommended to counter this skill. Having Violent runes on your monsters is a plus factor.

 Thorn of Despair:

Attacks the enemies in the frontline 2 times with a sharp thorn. The damage increases substantially as the target’s Defense decreases. This attack will target the backline if there are no enemies left in the frontline.

• Minimize the damage by placing monsters with high DEF in the frontline (at least 800 DEF with 3 to 4 monsters in the frontline).

 Dark Rageful Breath:

Removes all beneficial effects on all enemies and attacks them 6 times with dark breath. The enemies under Soul Chain Effect will be defeated instantly and will become impossible to revive.

• This skill is cast at the end of the Dark Beast’s skill pattern mostly when your team struggles to quickly bring the boss to groggy state. Having a high damage nuke prevents this skill from being cast, most importantly before the 1st and 2nd groggy state.

 Twisted Body (Passive):

Weakens the effect that inflict damage proportionate to the HP with a twisted power and gains immunity against all harmful effects. The immunity against all harmful effects will be removed during the Groggy State.. Additionally, increases the damage dealt to and received from Light Monsters by 50% each.

• Light damage dealers are highly favorable to use because of the additional 50% damage.

Conquering the Dark Beast in Auto-mode

We will be using 2 key monsters from our NB10 team, Xiong Fei and Colleen. Multi hitters help in removing the Soul Chain effect, but we must be aware that our lineup should also deal a substantial amount of damage to quickly bring the boss on groggy state since the longer you drag the battle, the stronger the boss becomes. For our damage dealers, we can use monsters like Tarq and Theomars as they are both capable of hitting multiple times and also provide utility. If you want to take lead of the element advantage, Fran and Darion are some of the farmable Light monsters you can effectively use in battle. Using Verdehile is a double edge sword because it feeds enrage stacks from boosting your team’s attack bar; but is also good for minimizing the boss’ attack turns thus preventing Dark Rageful Breath to be cast on 1st and 2nd groggy phase.

Farming this dungeon gives us Pitch-black Dark Crystals and Condensed Magic Crystals, and our target is to get at least an A rank with the current monsters that we have. Do remember that it is not necessary to kill the boss in order to gain crystal rewards. Player ranking is based on the amount of damage to the boss, as well as meeting certain conditions (for higher ranks). Defeating the boss outright will automatically award players an additional 500,000 damage to their total for ranking purposes.

Getting an A rank only requires you to bring the boss on second groggy state and achieve a total damage of 1.6M. The trick is to bring a balanced team of multi-hitters, damage dealers and 1 dedicated healer. We recommend you to bring a maximum of 3 supports so the other 3 can focus on bringing the boss to groggy state.

Getting an A rank usually gives an average of 6 Pitch-black Dark Crystals. Since you need a large total of 1500 crystals to fully max the Homunculus’ skills, you will have to grind a rough estimate of 250~270 runs.

Team Composition and stats

Xiong Fei’s attacks hits at least 3 times on both of his skills, and beyond that he also has a 15% heal buff onto all allies and high chance of a constant armor break whenever his 2nd Skill is used. Xiong Fei really thrives well on NB10 and Dark Beast Dungeons because of its utility and capability to tank the frontline. On the other hand, Colleen is also perfect for the Dark Beast Dungeon and will be enough as your steadfast support as multi-hitter and utility via heal and ATK buff.

3 to 4 units are recommended as frontliner to avoid leaving one unit when another monster is under the Soul Chain effect. Darion is another great option if you’re having trouble filling slots in the frontline; you can also put Colleen on frontline as long as she has 800 DEF and 25k HP. Lastly, for the backline, you can fill it using the usual Rift lineup like Hwa, Tarq, Theomars and the likes.

Frontline (Tank and Support): Xiong Fei, Colleen, Darion, Belladeon

Backline (Damage Dealers and Support): Theomars, Tarq, Verdehile, Sigmarus, Mav, Hwa, Tesarion, Light-type monsters

Monster	Rune Set	Slot 2,4,6	SPD	ATK	CR	HP	DEF	Accuracy
Colleen	or /	SPD / HP% / HP% or DEF%	180	Non-priority	Non-priority	21k (Backline) 25k (Frontline)	750 (Backline) 800 (Frontline)	Non-priority
Xiong Fei	or /	SPD or DEF% / CD% / DEF%	130~140	Non-priority	Non-priority	14k	1500	Non-priority
Theomars	or /	SPD or ATK% / CD% / ATK%	180	1.6k	65%	15k	800	Non-priority
Darion	/ / or or	HP% / HP% or CD% / DEF%	130	Non-priority	50%	24k	1200	Non-priority
Mav	or /	SPD / HP% / HP%	150	Non-priority	Non-priority	17k	650	Non-priority
Tarq	or / or	SPD or ATK% / ATK% or CR% or CD% / ATK%	160	1.5k	65%	14k	650	Non-priority
Hwa	or / or	SPD or ATK% / CD% / ATK%	150	1.5k	65%	16k	800	Non-priority
Verdehile	/	SPD / CR% / ATK%	180	1.5k	100%	15k	750	Non-priority
Sigmarus	or /	SPD or ATK% / CD% / ATK%	120	2.0k	65%	12k	700	Non-priority
Belladeon	or / or	SPD / HP% / HP% or DEF%	180	Non-priority	Non-priority	21k	900	Non-priority

Dark Beast Video

Game Progression Guide

Rune Changes/Upgrade:

• Transition from Swift to Violent rune set while maintaining the minimum Speed requirement for: Veromos, Theomars, Verdehile, Spectra, Belladeon, and Mav.
• Transition from Fatal to Rage rune set while maintaining the minimum Crit Rate requirement for: Sigmarus and other damage dealers that do not scale their damage on speed.

Key Monsters to Level Up / Upgrade:

• With enough multi-hits on your NB10 team, change the rune set of Xiong Fei to Vampire / Revenge so you can use it on both R5 and NB10.
• Increase the attack stats of your damage dealers while keeping the required minimum stats (Ex: Verdehile 6th rune slot from HP% to ATK%). Use grindstones and enchanted gems as necessary.
• Collect Ifrit Summoning Pieces and summon all 3 Ifrits.

Skill-ups:

• Save 13 Devilmons in preparation for Homunculus (Attack) Skill-ups

NB10 and R3 improvements:

• All Monsters should be max-skilled
• NB10: Xiong Fei and other debuffers should have at least 45% Accuracy
• NB10: Lapis can be replaced for a legitimate damage dealer in Theomars or a SPD decrease debuffer like the Rakshasas.
• Upgrade these Glory Buildings to strengthen your stats in this order
  • Sky Tribe Totem
  • Ancient Sword
  • Crystal Altar
  • Guardstone
  • Fallen Ancient Guardian

Rune Upgrade:

• Use Grindstones and Enchanted Gems to improve your current runes.
• Farm for ideal 5* and 6* Rage and Will runes (At least Hero/Purple grade).
• Power-up to +15 on all your slots 4/6 6* runes.
• Power-up to +12 on all your slots 1/3/5 5* runes.

Resource Management

• Sell slots 4/6 5* Rage runes unless ATK% Hero grade with 2-3 ideal stats.
• Allocate crystals for energy refills.
• +15 your 6* main stat runes (2/4/6) especially SPD, HP% and ATK%.
• Keep an eye on 6* Hero and Legend runes on Magic Shop. Buy when it fits the desired stats.
• Remember to collect guaranteed crystals from defeating your rivals every time they are up.
• Collect rewards from events, they give plenty of resources.

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