Overview[]
Tengu is the incarnation of the monster with huge stats capping off a turn of set-up with a massive Explosion. Sadly, the only interactions in the game that center around a monster's stats is debuff damage - turning Tengu's huge stats against it. All of Tengu's passives focus on either increasing its stats or increasing its damage; with more monsters taking on flex roles where they can both inherently increase buff capacity, provide a turn of set-up, and then provide damage as needed, Tengu's complete lack of teamwide Auras (outside of Magic Barrier) limits the type of teams it can optimally fit. Additionally, Tengu's lack of synergy with monsters with powerful Tribal auras like Magic Penetration or Nature's Wrath frustrates it further in terms of finding a team for it.
On the positive side, Tengu has access to Sure Strike and First Impact, granting it the ability to bypass dodge and land an Explosion or Fireball for great damage. Access to both Berserk and Killing Dance gives it some utility in Charge Buff teams who can grant it both buffs enhanced by Buff Mastery and Charge stacks to conserve Tengu's damage output for the next turn. As many damage dealers on Charge Buff teams prefer to accumulate Charge stacks to become impenetrable in later turns, Tengu needs to leverage its immediate damage potential early on to stand out from its competition.
Damage Dealer[]
Equipment[]
- Swallow
- Needle
- Shield Generator
- Warrior Flask / Mage Flask
Food[]
- Cookie Mushroom x3
Build Details[]
Tengu's kit solely revolves around raising its stats and preparing for a single non-critical hit for large damage. However, with no passives that grant it increased AoE damage, enemy teams tend to gather enough bulk that after Tengu uses its Ultimate, further use of AoE attacks will not be a significant threat. Poison Cloud is the exception to this rule - as many monsters reliant on Dodge such as Vaero, Monk, Aazerach, and Ascendant - are weak to Earth damage and tend to be played together to compound those Dodge chances, making them food for Tengu's Static Strike attacks.
Tengu's equipment is noticably different in order to support 4x Mana Overload. Swallow remains the best weapon, beating out Scepter with its 15% multiplier and beating Summoned Sword because of Hybrid Mastery. Needle offers over 120 Attack and Magic on Tengu, so it's our next selection. Shield Generator offers a big boost to Attack and Magic as well, with its shielding capabilities every turn help Tengu's toughness. Warrior Flask & Mage Flask give us more passive sustain (quite a bit of it, with nearly 1000 attack & magic) and a nice damage multiplier. Cookie Mushrooms are a bigger damage bonus than Oranges and also boost our shielding.
We focus on giving Tengu higher Attack so that it can utilize its Ultimate Meteorite Shower and grant its team a considerable Shield, though focusing on Magic damage and utilizing the Mage Flask can be useful on more Might-focused teams who need magic damage to circumvent physical resistant monsters.
An aside: you don't have to worry about breakpoints
Mana Funnel and Magic Barrier both state that their bonus increases for every 100 mana, but in reality the bonus scales precisely with how much mana you have and is capable of being a fraction, so there's no need to worry about hitting the next 100 mana threshold to make these skills more powerful.
Team Options[]
- Tengu likes having both buffs and Charge stacks to make use of Killing Dance. Support Vertraag has Purify to remove Blind stacks, Multi-Sorcery to make use of Tengu's Buff Catalyst, Static Glory to add an additional multiplier to Tengu's non-Critical Hit attacks, and Charge Amplifier to increase the power of Tengu's charge stacks.
- Buff Mastery monsters with the Aura Heroic Party further improve Tengu's damage output. Raduga & Salahammer both fit this niche, with Salahammer also contributing Charge Stacks through double Critical Buffs.
- Pairing Tengu with Tanuki gives Tengu a full Shield as it enters combat, as Tengu takes advantage of both Magic Barrier as a Mage and Tanuki's Sheltered as a Nature monster. Tanuki provides excellent debuff removal and Improved Assault to further assist Tengu's damage output once it accumulates buffs.
- If you want to use Tengu on a Might team, Kame is the only Might monster who also incorporates Charge Stacks with its Load Up ability and also has Static Glory to give Tengu further firepower.
Checks and Counters[]
- Blind still ruins Tengu's damage. Since its largest damage multipliers are reliant on single-hit attacks, it loses all of its damage (and thus has no chance to trigger Killing Dance) if it misses.
- Tengu normally has no way to break past Phoenix Affinity, which means it will need a whole extra turn to take out monsters who have it, and this will also lead to not getting a Killing Dance trigger, as knocking a monster into Phoenix Affinity doesn't count as knocking them out (however, being paired with a monster that has Blood Magic, while not usually recommended, can enable Tengu to apply bleed with its attacks).
- Barrier teams - especially those with Improved Barrier and shield generation - gain considerable toughness early in games, shoring up their defenses faster than Tengu can blow past them. As most of Tengu's teammates do not specialize in removing enemy buffs, Tengu can become a liability as its lack of damage and killing potential can give the enemy the luxury of blowing through its teammates while fearing little from Tengu's single-hit attacks.
- Blood Drive stall teams can also cripple Tengu if it cannot defeat them quickly enough, as Congeal is both super effective and deals damage based off Tengu's large mana pool, and with Tengu's high attacking stats, Burn can do decent damage even if Tengu resists it.