Giants Formula

FOR L/D ONLY

November 26th 2020

My goal with this guide is that by the time you are done reading this your understanding for this dungeon will be somewhat to significantly improved as well as you knowing all your options to use as of today. Now since one of the last updates, they made every boss do the exact same skills on every level, aka Giants B1 through B12 use all the same skills, same AI, same everything. Of course the stats go up as well as resistance which can get tricky. As your rune quality goes up, so does your floor level but the strategy never changes. Every dungeon basically has a formula to have the best chance of beating it safely. NOTE: I recommend ignoring mini boss adds in this dungeon as they are not very threatening other than freezing you which can slow things down a bit but with mini boss controlled with attack bar control victory will eventually be yours.

Giants boss gets attack buffed by one of his towers and the other one defense breaks your whole team. The boss also counter attacks every 7 hits done to him so beware of how many multi hitters you are bringing.

There is a basic formula for almost literally every aspect of the game:

You need 1-2 Damage dealers, 1-2 support monsters may that be healers or buffers or cleansers and you need some kind of crowd control unit that can preferably AOE control the enemies to keep your team alive and of course hopefully there is a good leader skill in there to further buff your stats. So, how does one counter this as L/D only? Lets go through all the options available to most L/D players.

I won’t be going over every monsters entire skill sets, just what is relevant for each section.

For his AOE Defense break we have:

Veromos (Dark Ifrit) has passive AOE cleanse every turn.
Fran (Light Fairy Queen) has S3 AOE immunity to prevent def break and S2 single target cleanse.
Light Homunculus has S2 AOE immunity to prevent def break, not as reliable since only 1 turn but also has a path for S3 AOE cleanse and def buff which is very good.
Shushu (Light Howl) has S3 AOE immunity for 2 turn IF after her heal everyone is full HP. Not as reliable unless you have a super tanky team or a backup healer that heals before her.
Dona (Light Penguin Knight) has S3 AOE cleanse, not recommended here as there are much better options.
Haken (Dark Bearman) has S2 AOE cleanse, not recommended here as there are much better options.
Jamie (Dark Bounty Hunter) has S3 AOE cleanse, not a terrible choice as he can also provide good damage and attack buff.
Of course there are several other good Nat 4 and Nat 5 options but I won’t go through those as I think you get the idea by now.

For his attack buff we have:

Loren (Light Cow Girl) has a reliable S2 strip with amazing attack bar control.
Belladeon (Light Inugami) has a reliable S2 strip with great healing and attack bar increase.
Elsharion (Light Ifrit) reliable strip with every hit and steals the buff applying it to your whole team, BEST choice for this specific job.
Eshir (Light Werewolf) has a reliable S3 strip with moderate healing and attack bar increase (If 2A) as well as speed buff.
Dark Homunculus has a path to strip and is very reliable.
Mantura (Dark Serpent) has S1 strip but not reliable for this specific job.
Gina (Dark Witch) has a reliable S2 strip but her other skills don't bring much else to the fight.
Walkers (Light Bounty Hunter) has a reliable S2 strip and can dish out some good damage.
2A Sorin (Dark Fairy) has a reliable S2 strip and her S3 bring a lot to the table as well.
Cassie (Dark Cow Girl) can strip with S2 but not reliable however she deals good damage.
Eludain (Light Inferno) can reliably strip with S3 but not recommended since high cool down and better options.
Elpuria (Light Serpent) can strip with S1 but not reliable.
Of course there are several other good Nat 4 and Nat 5 options but I won’t go through those as I think you get the idea by now.

Counter to counters:

Well there are a few ways you can deal with this.

Method 1: Everyone on your team is tanky enough and you have enough support healing.
Method 2: Bring a resurrection monster in case of a death.
Method 3: Make your multi hitters very tanky (as they are most likely to proc the counter).
Method 4: Bring Darion (Light Vagabond), Dias (Dark Death Knight) or Priz (Light Elmental), their passives mitigates the damage significantly.
Method 5: Rune someone with high base hp with shield runes to increase the amount of damage your whole team can take initially to help them survive burst.
Method 6: Putting artifacts on your damage dealers that reduce damage vs certain elements. Example: Putting a -13% damage from water elements artifact on your monsters with less defensive stats would reduce all damage from water monsters by 13% on that monster, its very good when you think about it. Also, there is a good amount of people that farm low level artifacts just to equip them on their monsters for the extra stats as they are cheap to power up!

Crowd control:

Mostly if your having a hard time getting to boss with all monsters safely.

2A Gorgo (Dark Warbear) has S2 AOE attack breaks with a serious chance to stun if he crits.

Prom (Light Grim Reaper) has S3 AOE stun and defense break, excellent choice if your choosing a very aggressive approach but be warned, he is very squishy.
Jeanne (Light Paladin) has S3 AOE provoke for days, debateably one of the best crowd control monsters in the game. Will definitely keep your team safe.
Veromos (Dark Ifrit) has S2 AOE semi reliable stun, not a bad choice at all.
Of course there are several other good Nat 4 and Nat 5 options but I won’t go through those as I think you get the idea by now.

Healers:

Shushu (Light Howl) can actually single and AOE heal quite nicely and bring situational immunity but has low stats since she is a Nat 2.
Jansson (Light Viking) has a poor AOE heal but bring excellent attack bar increase (Budget Verdehile).
Teon (Light Garuda) is an underrated monster if I've ever seen one. Good AOE heal, can rez, turn cycling, stuns, what can't this birdy do.
Ahman (Light Bearman) has an excellent heal every single turn. If built correctly, solid choice.
Tien Quin (Light Drunken Master) between his S2 and S3 healing he is a good healer as well but built for more aggressive team and better rune quality.
Fran (Light Fairy Queen) everyone's favorite. AOE healing and attack buff, single target healing and cleanse, attack break, this queen can be used literally everywhere in the game.
Belladeon (Light Inugami) has a great AOE healing, great attack bar boosting, very good choice.
Eshir (Light Werewolf) has a moderate AOE healing with AOE speed buff.
Rasheed (Dark Epikion Priest) is now a reasonable choice as a healer/cleanse/buff extender since her recent buff but there are better choices.
Basalt (Dark Battle Mammoth) has a good AOE healing and AOE defense buffer.
Light Homunculus is a good secondary healer with a variety of buffs depending on skills chosen.
Of course there are several other good Nat 4 and Nat 5 options but I won’t go through those as I think you get the idea by now.

Leaders:

When it comes to leaders in Cairos you want more Speed/ Attack Power/ Critical Rate/Health Points or Defense. You should be runeing Accuracy into your monsters and don’t waste your time with Resistance.

Attack power leaders:

Prom (Light Grim Reaper) 30% attack power to light only.
Loren (Light Cow Girl) 18% attack power to all.
Elsharion (Light Ifrit) 33% attack power to all.
Shamman (Light Griffon) 30% attack power to light only.
Hellea (Dark Harpy) 30% attack power to dark only.
Thrain (Dark Grim Reaper) 30% attack power to dark only.
Cassie (Dark Cow Girl) 18% attack power to all.
Eirgar (Dark Vampire Lord) 38% attack power in dungeons.

Speed leaders:

Walkers (Light Bounty Hunter) 23% speed to light only.
Fran (Light Fairy Queen) 10% speed to all.
Rumicus (Light Charger Shark) 23% speed to light only.
Lucien(Light Elven Ranger) 15% speed to all.
Janssen (Dark Viking) 10% speed to all.
Calicus (Dark Charger Shark) 23% speed to dark only.

Health points leaders:

Teon (Light Garuda) 17% health points to dungeons.
Groggo (Light Golem) 30% health points to light only.
Grotau (Light Minotaur) 30%health points to light only.
Baekdu (Light Beast Hunter) 21% health points to dungeons.
Dona (Light Penguin Knight) 30%health points to light only.
Lusha (Light Warbear) 15% health points to all.
Kumae (Dark Yeti) 25% health points to dark only.
Kamatau (Dark Minotaur) 30% health points to dark only.
Kuna (Dark Penguin Knight) 30% health points to dark only.
Veromos (Dark Ifrit) 33% health points to all.

Defense leaders:

Sia (Light Harpu) 25% defense to light only.
Ahman (Light Bearman) 30% defense to light only.
Marble (Light Battle Mammoth) 30% defense to light only.
Seren (Dark Harpu) 25% defense to dark only.
Haken (Dark Bearman) 30% defense to dark only.
Basalt (Dark Battle Mammoth) 30% defense to dark only.

Critical rate leaders:

Eludain (Light Inferno) 23% critical rate to light only.
Shren (Light High Elemental) 23% critical rate to light only.
Drogan (Dark Inferno) 23% critical rate to dark only.
Jumaline (Dark High Elemental) 23% critical rate to dark only.

Note: These are all the leaders available for F2P but some are definitely better than others. I just don’t want to limit your creativity :)

Of course there are several other good Nat 4 and Nat 5 options but I won’t go through those as I think you get the idea by now.

General stat requirements:

To be put simply, you want your weakest units to be able to take 2 hits from the crystal towers because lets say you get odd RNG and your units only have enough time to kill the Golems but left the crystals to have a turn each. So now your whole team is about to get smacked twice. See the logic? In any case, these are the stats you should have at the BARE minimum for Giants B12 for things to go well. Keep in mind these calculations are WITH MAX glory towers / MAX guild bonuses but NO leader skills.

17000 Health points (If you have more HP then this then you can have a bit less defense).
1000 Defense (If you have more defense than this then you can have a bit less hp).
170 Speed (To ensure you get a turn before the 169 speed enemy monsters).
54% Accuracy needed on monsters that apply (Like Loren for attack bar control and strip).

Due to popular demand, I also have rough calculations on required stats WITHOUT ANY towers / guild bonuses or leader skills.

19500 - 21500 Health points (Depends how high the monsters base Health points are)
1200 - 1350 Defense (Depends how high the monsters base defense is)
185 - 195 Speed (Depends how high the monsters base speed is)
Note: These calculations are without a leader skill as calculating all leader skill potentials would take forever. So if you just can't match the health points requirement then use a HP leader to close the gap as an example.

If all your towers and guild bonuses are about half way then you need about half way in between the two stat requirements I previously mentioned. The most important thing is that all your monsters move before any of the enemies. In these 2 following pictures you will see what your team might look like after 2 tower attacks. My Kro is just above the minimum stat requirements.

Yup, those are the only stats you really need to know for now. Obviously, your support units and healers are at least this tanky but probably tankier by the time you are ready for B12. Your damage dealers however, are a bit more tricky to rune since you want to squeeze every ounce of damage stats in as you can. Your teams are really easy to tweak, just pay attention, watch who is dying and why. Think of it as a puzzle you need to solve, you need the right pieces to go in the right places.

For damage dealers, meet the above requirements then everything else is damage stats! IF you just cant seem to get those tankier stats on your damage dealers, consider using an HP/ Def leader, using shield runes, using water damage reducing artifacts or Darion/ Dias/ Priz as a passive damage reduction. NOTE: They all absorb different amounts of damage so you can tweak which to use depending on your need and rune them accordingly. IF you have just tried everything and it just seems a bit out of your league, I recommend staying in B11 a bit longer till you find a few more rune upgrades on your current team as the stat requirements (including speed) are roughly 10%- 15% less overall). Same with if B11 is too hard then go down to B10. Damage dealers should have at least 1500 attack or defense, 70% crit rate and 150% crit damage at the bare minimum.

Summary:

Now that you see what you need and your options are laid before you, you get to pick what you want to use. Yes, there are a lot of options, yes there are overall better options than others and yes with good enough runes literally any combination is possible to beat it with as long as you follow the formula. You need to be careful making a team with multi hitters in Giants, take this for example: Eirgar, Loren, Fran, Kro (2nd skill), Cassie, this team has it all but will it live vs the final boss? What do they all have in common? They ALL multi hit just about every turn making the boss counter like MAD which can easily cause wipes, just be aware of that fact.

There are many Nat 4 and 5 monsters I did not touch on since you ether need to have gotten the Hall of Heroes or need to have summoned it. I will leave it to your digression to look at your uncommon monsters skill sets and see if they fit better than any of the F2P options. I will however answer any questions, do more focused guides, advanced guides and expand on the options as time goes on. This is mostly so you understand the dungeon without me telling you exactly what you should be doing, more like just guiding you, thus this GUIDE ;)

Theory crafting:

Now, lets go over some of the most commonly used monsters for this dungeon, this applies to B1-B12 levels depending on rune quality.

Lets say your trying a more aggressive team to start. Note: I did not go over damage dealers as the sky is the limit since anyone can really be runed to deal descent damage. I will let you experiment but I will give advice of course :) When building a team in almost every situation you want your attack bar controls/ defense breakers/ buffers/ strippers to move before any damage dealers. Keep that in mind.

Eirgar (L) (one of best offensive dungeon leaders possible with attack buff and vampire buff for sustain as well as epic single target debuffs).
2A Kro (not rivaled by many in the single target damage output department).
Loren (defense break setup almost guaranteed and insane attack bar control, pretty much locks down 1 monster from moving including bosses and let's not forget about her strip).
Belladeon (great AOE healing and attack bar increase, plus can strip boss attack buff and add defense break).
2A Gorgo (good AOE damage plus crowd control also AOE attack break with minor attack bar reduction).

The turn order should be: Loren, Bella, Gorgo, Eirgar, Kro.

On paper this team makeup looks SOLID! Now, lets say you keep getting to final boss and Kro never seems to make it or if he does make it, you end up wiping because the boss counter one shots your units one by one. You have a few choices, make Kro/ your other units tankier reducing your damage and potentially slowing down runs, switch out a unit for another healer/ maybe defense buffer, adding shield runes, adding water damage reducing artifacts, make the leader skill HP/DEF leader or add a monster like Darion to soak up damage.

Now that you have re-evaluated, this is what your new team might look like:

Eirgar (L).
2A Kro.
Loren.
Belladeon.
Basalt (Added for def buff and better team survivability as well as AOE attack bar control).

The turn order should be: Loren, Bella, Basalt, Eirgar, Kro.

Okay, now Kro is staying alive, mostly, but runs seem to have slowed down but more consistently successful. Hmm, what to do, your not quite happy about the run speeds. Well, the boss still seems to one shot occasionally because of that darn defense break in between defense buffs. Lets see what we can do about that!

Veromos (L) (Added for AOE cleanse, crowd control and HP leader).
2A Kro.
Eirgar.
Belladeon.
Loren.

The turn order should be: Loren, Bella, Eirgar, Veromos, Kro.

If somehow the giant gets a turn and everything lines up for him, the picture below is likely what you will see. You can understand the importance of Veromos cleanse on picture above.

Now this team seems to do well and your happy overall with the success rate and speed for now. Notice it has 1-2 Damage dealers, 1-2 supports/healers and crowd control. You can also take it one step further on safety, remove Eirgar and add Darion/ Priz/ Dias. Yes it will be slow but that team is pretty ironclad. If you are still failing, have tried all the suggestions in this guide, its likely you are too high on the levels and need to go down a notch and increase rune quality once more. Remember, these dungeons are all about tweaking your stats to be just right. Analyze your teams. Understand where and why you are dying and adjust accordingly. There are a ton of other comps and options i did not mention so have fun combining potential options! :)

I hope this all somewhat makes sense and that it's helpful, if it helped at least one person then it was worth it! In the future I will be making speed team guides!

Here is a video of how your run will look like set up right: