Zombie Hand

The Zombie Hand is a foe and a summon in Epic Battle Fantasy 5. It is largely found lingering about Redpine Town's graveyard, but it can also be found in various underground areas and The Rapture.

Appearance[]

The Zombie Hand is an emaciated hand emerging from the ground; based on its name and Bestiary description, its owner was reanimated by unknown means. It has rotten green skin and dull grey fingernails, as well as a thin strip of ragged grey cloth around its wrist. It spawns in with a random melee weapon (see below for chances).

*When viewed in the Bestiary, the Zombie Hand has an equal chance to carry any of the Hands' weapons, including the Magma Sword it cannot use in-battle.

Overview[]

A Hand can change its weapon held depending on the weaknesses of the players. It has five different weapons available, each with different stats, and can change them every time it submerges itself for an attack. On Hard or Epic difficulty, it will be more likely to wield a weapon that exploits the party's weaknesses, and the chance of it switching weapons between turns increases. Applying Berserk prevents the Hand from switching weapons.

The Zombie Hand can use a knife, an axe, a hammer, and two types of sword. It has the same physical attacks with each weapon, but each has a different element and associated status effect:

The Sword is Non-elemental and can inflict Bad Luck. Its attacks are slightly more accurate than normal and do a moderate amount of damage; stronger than the Knife and Ice Sword, but weaker than the Evil Axe and Mallet.
The Knife deals part-Wind damage and has a low Dispel chance. Its attacks have very high Accuracy, but they're weaker than any other weapon.
The Evil Axe inflicts part-Dark damage and can Curse the players it hits. It's the second-strongest of the Zombie Hand's weapons, but its Accuracy is also slightly below-average. It's the only weapon that can't use Triple Hit.
The Mallet deals Non-elemental damage with a small chance of Stagger. It's the most powerful and least accurate weapon; it also lacks a Burst, limiting the Zombie Hand to Triple Hit and Swing.
The Ice Sword inflicts part-Ice damage, with a fair chance to apply Chill. Its damage output is the second-lowest of the Zombie Hand's options.

Aside from its weapon attacks, the Zombie Hand has some magic at its disposal. It can cast Acid to hit a single target with modest magical Bio damage, also inflicting Burn and a decent Magic Defence debuff. Alternatively, it can afflict a player with Doom, but a six-turn timer gives them plenty of leeway to cure themselves; even on Hard or Epic, they'll still have four turns to remove the status unless Bad Luck is an additional factor.

Zombie Hands have a chance to enter battle with a few stacks of Virus, healing them each turn while potentially spreading to players and other foes. On higher difficulty levels, they will be under Poison status if they aren't "suffering" from Virus, ensuring that they can heal over time for a while. If you don't feel like dealing with Virus, cast Purify on the foes at the start of the battle to cure the Zombie Hands.

The Zombie Hand can only hit one player at a time, which can be exploited by a Target Tank to draw its fire. Even discounting the possibility to lock it into a weapon with Berserk, it's even more exploitable on higher difficulty levels; since it looks at the entire party's resistances when choosing a weapon, it can be "tricked" into attacking the tank with a weapon they resist by manipulating the other players' gear to make them more resistant to every other element it checks. If trying this strategy, consider tricking the Zombie Hand into using its Knife, which has the lowest base power of its weapons.

The Zombie hand is severely weak to Fire and Holy, with a lesser weakness to Earth; conversely, it absorbs Bio and Dark while being immune to Doom and Instant Death. This combination makes it particularly vulnerable to Matt, but the other four party members have plenty of options to send it back to the grave; if other Fire-weak foes are present, Natalie or Lance can hit them all with Fire Storm, Bullet Hell. or Flame Burst.

Activating "More Foe Resistance" makes the Zombie Hand neutral to Fire and resistant to Water, also reducing its Holy weakness by 30%.

Statistics[]

	Zombie Hand	EBF5
	Always remember to double-tap, or this might happen. Sometimes they may carry a deadly and infectious virus!

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP	Catch
Base Statistics	166	4	4	4	4	4	4	21	2.2	2.2	14	50	35
Elemental Resistance
Elemental Resistance	-80%	-	-	-50%	200%	-	-	-	-80%	200%
Status Resistance
Status Resistance	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	100%
Debuff Resistance
Debuff Resistance	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon					-
Name	Solid Water	Hand Bomb	Shuriken	Bio Virus	-
Chance	25%	33%	33%	15%	-

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Scorch	Poison	Virus	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
6.3% per stack, up to 56.7%	12.6% per stack, up to 113.4%	-3% per stack, up to -27%	-6% per stack, up to -54%	Immune	-33.(3)%
Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down.

Statistics with More Foe Resistance enabled.

	Zombie Hand	EBF5
	Always remember to double-tap, or this might happen. Sometimes they may carry a deadly and infectious virus!

Statistics
Base Statistics								Exp	AP	SP	Gold	Hit2HP	Catch
Base Statistics	166	4	4	4	4	4	4	21	2.2	2.2	14	50	35
Elemental Resistance
Elemental Resistance	-	-	-	-50%	200%	-	50%	-	-50%	200%
Status Resistance
Status Resistance	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	100%
Debuff Resistance
Debuff Resistance	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Item Drop Rate
Icon					-
Name	Solid Water	Hand Bomb	Shuriken	Bio Virus	-
Chance	25%	33%	33%	15%	-

Status Damage
Damage taken from status effects, in % of maximum health (per turn), including elemental resistances:
Burn	Scorch	Poison	Virus	Doom (if Death fails)	Regen
3.5% per stack, up to 31.5%	7% per stack, up to 63%	-3% per stack, up to -27%	-6% per stack, up to -54%	Immune	-33.(3)%
Damage taken from first four is decreased by 30% on Easy and 65% on Zero difficulties. Final damage is randomized by ±5% (except for Doom) and rounded down.

Has 20% chance to enter the battle with 3x Virus on self. On Hard/Epic, the remaining 80% is taken up by 3x Poison.

Attacks and Abilities[]

Attack List
Attack	Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect		Acc	Crit	RdF
Triple Hit (Knife) Burst (Knife) Swing (Knife)	Single	30.6/3 25.2 26.1		50%	20%	--	150%	10%	10%
Triple Hit (Sword) Burst (Sword) Swing (Sword)	Single	40.8/3 33.6 34.8		----	33%	3x	105%	10%	10%
Triple Hit (Ice Sword) Burst (Ice Sword) Swing (Ice Sword)	Single	34/3 28 29		50%	33%	2x	100%	10%	10%
Burst (Evil Axe) Swing (Evil Axe)	Single	36.4 37.7		50%	33%	3x	95%	10%	10%
Triple Hit (Mallet) Swing (Mallet)	Single	47.6/3 40.6		----	20%	1x	85%	10%	10%
Acid	Single	35		100%	100% 100%	3x 25%	100%	10%	10%
Doom	Single	--	--	----	100%	6x	300%	--	--
Notes: Status strength decreased to 4x on Hard or Epic difficulties.

Battle Logic[]

Choosing a weapon

Standard weapon array: Sword, Knife (twice), Mallet, Evil Axe, Ice Sword.
On Hard and Epic difficulties, chooses the best element to use (including Lovable players) between Wind, Dark, Ice and Bomb, adding more weapons to the array depending on the outcome:
- Wind → Knife twice
- Dark → Evil Axe twice
- Ice → Ice Sword twice
- Bomb → Sword and Mallet
Then selects any position of the array to equip, with equal chance for each. For an example, on Hard/Epic and with Ice being the least resisted element, final chances would be: 1/8 for Sword, Mallet and Evil Axe, 2/8 for Knife and 3/8 for Ice Sword.
Whenever the Hand burrows itself after attacking, it has a 25% (50% on Hard/Epic) chance to switch its weapon when it emerges again. The Hand cannot switch weapons if it's Berserked.

Attack patterns

The following describes general logic of the enemy and attack patterns, with chances of each attack to be used. Conditions are listed from highest to lowest priority unless specified otherwise.

If catch score >55 and all players are Lovable → Flee;
If Berserked;
- If using Knife/Sword/Ice Sword → Triple Hit (1/3), Burst (1/3), Swing (1/3);
- If using Evil Axe → Burst (1/2), Swing (1/2);
- If using Mallet → Triple Hit (1/2), Swing (1/2);
If Syphoned;
- If selected target doesn't have Doom → Doom (1/5);
  - If using Knife/Sword/Ice Sword → Triple Hit (4/15), Burst (4/15), Swing (4/15);
  - If using Evil Axe → Burst (2/5), Swing (2/5);
  - If using Mallet → Triple Hit (2/5), Swing (2/5).
- Otherwise;
  - If using Knife/Sword/Ice Sword → Triple Hit (1/3), Burst (1/3), Swing (1/3);
  - If using Evil Axe → Burst (1/2), Swing (1/2);
  - If using Mallet → Triple Hit (1/2), Swing (1/2);
If selected target doesn't have Doom → Doom (4/25), Acid (5/25);
- If using Knife/Sword/Ice Sword → Triple Hit (16/75), Burst (16/75), Swing (16/75);
- If using Evil Axe → Burst (8/25), Swing (8/25);
- If using Mallet → Triple Hit (8/25), Swing (8/25).
Otherwise → Acid (1/5);
- If using Knife/Sword/Ice Sword → Triple Hit (4/15), Burst (4/15), Swing (4/15);
- If using Evil Axe → Burst (2/5), Swing (2/5);
- If using Mallet → Triple Hit (2/5), Swing (2/5).

Before the v2 update, the Zombie Hand had no Syphon behaviour.

Counter (only if Counter-Attacking Foes is enabled)

25%;
- If Syphoned → Swing;
- Otherwise → Acid.

Summon[]

The Zombie Hand can be captured and used as a summon, or be randomly summoned by The Deceased. It afflicts all enemies with Doom; it has a shorter timer than the foe version, but still works best when Bad Luck is set up beforehand.

The summoned Zombie Hand always uses the Evil Axe for its weapon, but this is purely cosmetic.

	Zombie Hand						SP
	Gives doom status to all enemies, causing them to die instantly after 3 turns.						28	Kept
Target	Power	Type	Element	Status Effect		Acc	Crit	RdF
All	--	--	----	100%	3x	100%	--	--