Fire Lich (Antares)

Stats

Skills

Leader Skill (Awakened): Increases the Critical Rate of ally monsters in the Arena by 24%.

Skill 1: Soul Summoning [160%ATK x (2 ~ 3)]: Summons the souls of the dead to attack the enemy 2 – 3 times. Each attack has a 40% chance to decrease the enemy’s Attack Speed for 2 turns.

• Lv.2 Damage +10%
• Lv.3 Damage +10%
• Lv.4 Harmful Effect Rate +10%
• Lv.5 Damage +10%
• Lv.6 Harmful Effect Rate +15%

Skill 2: Sinkhole [110%ATK x 3]: Inflicts damage to all enemies with a hole that consumes souls and recovers by 50% of the inflicted damage. Absorbs the enemy’s attack gauge by 15% with a 25% chance for each attack. (Reusable in 4 turns)

• Lv.2 Damage +10%
• Lv.3 Damage +10%
• Lv.4 Damage +10%
• Lv.5 Cooltime Turn -1

Skill 3: Transcendance (Passive): Gains a turn with a 15% chance whenever an enemy’s turn ends. If this effect activates, your Attack Power and Critical Rate is increased for 1 turn. (Automatic Effect)

Rune Recommendations

Passive Annoyance – Despair + Will (HP% / HP% / HP%)

Damage Build – Despair + Will (ATK% / CRIT R% or CRIT D% / ATK%)

Site Review

Dungeons:

• GB10 – Not recommended. With an elemental weakness, low damage and weak passive here, he’s a completely unnecessary addition to any GB10 team.
• DB10 – Not recommended. There’s pretty much no use for Antares here. Sure, he can get a turn or two with his passive every run, but so what? His damage isn’t spectacular, and he’ll just take up a spot that could be used for something better.
• NB10 – (Rating: 6.5/10) A decent-ish monster for starting DB10 teams. Like all Liches, his multi-hits and debuffs are for sure to be appreciated for. However, the fact that he’s lacking one of the best damaging skills in the game, Deadly Touch, makes him far inferior to the other Liches. There’s zero practical reasons to use him over Fuco, Rigel or Grego. Unless you don’t have access to them as well as any other NB10 multi-hitter, Antares is an alright choice here.

Scenario:

(Rating: 6.5/10) With a semi-hard hitting AoE attack on his 2nd Skill, Antares can be pretty decent as an early-game fodder farmer in Tamor Desert. However, his overall lack of bulk and outstanding damage will hinder him later on.

Raids:

• R5 – Not recommended. Apart from the slow and minuscule attack bar reduction, Antares doesn’t bring anything to the table. His unique passive is pretty useless here too.
• Element Rift Beasts – Not recommended. You want good burst damage or support monsters in Beasts, and Antares doesn’t fill either of those roles. Give him a pass here.

ToA:

Not recommended. Sure, you can use him as a pesky cutter here, but in all likelihood, there shouldn’t be that many opportunities for the enemy to get a move off in the first place.

PvP:

(Rating: 7.5/10) There’s only two places in PvP where you’ll want to use him, Rush Hour Arena Defense & World Arena. The RNG-factor of his passive makes him an unpredictable force there, since some luck in his favor can lead to a quick cut and disrupt the speed tuning of the enemy team. Of course, this will require him to have Despair runes to be effective. Even then, immunity buffers and Will runes will shrug off his attempts. However, a plus side is that he can be a good counter to Tiana, since there’s always a chance for his passive to kick in immediately after she uses Wind of Changes. Overall though, he’s a pretty underwhelming monster, especially since his passive only has a minute 15% chance of proccing, making it not that reliable for practical play. That being said, he can be a situationally useful unit in World Arena, as seen by video showcases by Fwa, a top-ranked player in the game.

How to Counter:

As mentioned in the PvP section, any Will runes or immunity buffers will have no issue against Antares. His multipliers aren’t all that amazing, so the only thing you need to watch out for is the chance of him cutting in and stunning you. He might work as a counter to your Lushens if they’re not on Will runes, but generally it shouldn’t be a problem.

Other advice:

• Both tank and damage builds will work on Antares. You can go for a tanky set to make him more of a supportive turn-cutter in World Arena, or a damage build to deal significantly more damage against the enemy. However, due to his average multipliers and base attack, a tanky build will work better.
• You don’t really need speed on him since his passive will ensure he gets the next turn off.

Editor’s Note:

Overall, Antares is a pretty underwhelming monster. He is able to fill in roles that other monsters can’t provide, but the low success rate of his 3rd skill just makes him pretty weak in short fights. The only reason why you’d consider building him is to be a deterrence in Rush Hour Arena Defense. On the plus side though, the fact that he is so reliant on his passive means he doesn’t really need skillups, so if you have the 5* food to spare, you can consider building him to see whether he’ll be able to synergize with your team.

Patch Notes

– Updated on 2015.10.28

• Soul Summoning – The number of hits has been increased from 1 to 2 or 3 hits. (Average damage has been increased by 8%.) The chance of casting a harmful effect has been decreased from 75% to 40%)
• Transcendance (Passive) – The skill will additionally grant the monster and Attack Power and Critical Rate increase that lasts for 1 turn.

Updated 2017.11.29

• Sinkhole: Enemy’s Attack Bar absorption rate 15% -> 25%