Golbez

Marksman

With the aid of his shadow dragon, Golbez can release a veritable barrage of sorcery and make fodder of his foes. He can also freeze enemies in their tracks with Binding Cold, affording them no reprieve from his thaumaturgic thrashings.

Original Appearance: Final Fantasy IV

*In the USA, this was originally released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as Final Fantasy II.

Year: 1991

Role: When circumstances and conscience drove Cecil to defect from the depredatory Red Wings of Baron, Golbez replaced him at the helm of the world’s most powerful airship force. The mysterious, armor-clad summoner shows none of Cecil’s remorse, striking people down to gather crystals for the king. Throughout Cecil’s journey from the dark to the light, Golbez was his most persistent adversary. But as with Cecil, Golbez is not an irredeemable villain, with secrets buried deep inside, kept even from himself.

Other Noteworthy Appearances: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (2009), DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY (2009), DISSIDIA 012 FINAL FANTASY (2011)

Arsenal

Bravery Attacks

HP Attacks

EX Skills

Bravery Attack Breakdown

arctic assault

Golbez fires a homing ice chunk at his adversary. This is his most basic attack on the ground, taking a frigid shot directly at whatever’s in front of him. The homing effect is mild, enough to curve toward and strike prey that isn’t moving too much. Someone dashing in a wide turn or sidestepping suddenly can dodge it, though.

The difference between this and the Heat Blast  variant is that airborne  is a dumbfire attack, literally—it’s a fireball, and it has no homing ability. Otherwise the attacks are similar, with similar durability against other magical projectiles and thrown objects. Aside from shooting at aggressors barreling straight for Golbez, Arctic Assault is also a strong, quick follow-up to many of the slower threats he can put onscreen. Airborne at low altitude, cast Aqueous Orb for a long-lasting homing threat, guard cancel to fall straight down, then launch Arctic Assault to bolster the water globe. And on the ground, follow up after Gale Sphere the same way by evasion canceling. Golbez can still move a bit while launching Arctic Assault, so he can push or run a little while hurling these projectile attacks.

When Golbez has a bit more breathing room, and the relative quickness of grounded  isn’t immediately needed, prioritize launching grounded or airborne +  first, his slower-moving, better-tracking ranged attacks, or setting down a dart-producing grounded +  orb. Aside from shooting at aggressors barreling straight for Golbez, Arctic Assault is also a strong, quick follow-up to many of the slower threats he can put onscreen. Airborne at low altitude, cast Aqueous Orb for a long-lasting homing threat, guard cancel to fall straight down, then launch Arctic Assault to bolster the water globe. And on the ground, follow up after Gale Sphere the same way by evasion canceling. Golbez can still move a bit while launching Arctic Assault, so he can push or run a little while hurling these projectile attacks.

gale sphere

Golbez launches a noxious, tracking green cloud that chases his prey. The homing ball of damaging biological waste is like a faster, shorter-lived version of Aqueous Orb, and the moves work well together. Perform airborne +  low to the ground, drop after releasing the water sphere by guard canceling, then perform Gale Sphere (+ ) on the ground when Golbez stops guarding. Evasion cancel out of Gale Sphere to launch yet another attack more quickly, or to chase the dancing homing balls to their targets.

Lingering spark

Golbez beckons the air, and a dark, sparking orb materializes before him. After a second of gathering energy, the orb launches five small, quick darts of dark energy at Golbez’s chosen target, then it winks out of existence.

The darts are small projectiles with mild homing ability. They’ll mutually annihilate the opposing team’s small projectiles, but they’ll be overpowered by bigger bolts (like Golbez’s own Arctic Assault and Heat Blast). In the brief moment before it launches the darts, the dark orb is actually an impediment to enemies, and will damage them if they dash into it, so setting down an orb with Lingering Spark gives Golbez a temporary shield against overzealous aggressors. An enemy who jumps on Golbez with physical attacks after he drops Lingering Spark may also find their combo broken, as the orb shoots them in the back, saving its master.

While conjuring the orb, Golbez can still move around a bit, though not at full speed. Once he drops it and recovers (or evasion/guard cancels), he can go about his business elsewhere. Lingering Spark is drop-and-forget. Because of this, there’s never a bad time to conjure Lingering Spark if enemies aren’t bearing down presently. Both Golbez and his allies can easily capitalize on dart hits, tacking on a Bravery or HP Attack. Other combo follow-ups are possible, like with Golbez’s Biting Cold EX Skill, which can lock a victim in place just after the darts nail them, leaving them vulnerable to whatever follow-up the team can manage.

heat blast

Golbez generates and hurls a fireball right at the target. If the Shadow Dragon is accompanying Golbez, the fireball’s range and power are increased. The fireball doesn’t have any homing capability though, so it’s easily dodged (or blocked) if the opponent is paying attention.

Golbez’s other attacks have more homing, or place more projectiles on the field, or they last much longer. But none of Golbez’s attacks strikes faster to the edge of its range (unless his Biting Cold EX Skill is ready!). To take quick shots at any inattentive enemy, or to shoot an enemy, lock-on dashing right for Golbez out of the sky, or to opportunistically tack an extra hit onto an ally’s flurry, Heat Blast  can’t be beat.

aqueous orb

With a backhand toss, Golbez launches a homing water sphere at the enemy. The water sphere homes in on the target while traveling unusually slowly. On contact with an enemy, the sphere explodes in a wide splash, potentially damaging other foes too. Only one water sphere can be active at a time; if you try to throw another before the previous one evaporates or explodes, the first one will vanish.

A slow projectile is always a good thing to have. The enemy has to worry about it longer on the battlefield, and it may even last long enough to save Golbez as a kind of combo breaker if it’s targeted against aggressive vanguards and assassins. Keep water spheres in play whenever possible. With the Shadow Dragon, the sphere will travel for seven seconds; without the dragon, five seconds. During this time, Golbez can use the cover of the water sphere to reposition on the battlefield, and to put other projectile attacks into play too. In particular, Terrastorm, Gale Sphere, and Abyssal Quasar coordinate well with Aqueous Orb to give the opponents a lot of things to think about at once.

To return to the ground quickly to follow up a water sphere with ground attacks, hold while casting the sphere, which guard cancels the recovery and plunges Golbez back to earth.

To put a water sphere into play without committing to an actual jump, tap and release (with the left stick centered/neutral), then immediately perform + . It might not look like it, but grounded characters go airborne during neutral dashes.

Terrastorm

Sweeping his arm before him, Golbez conjures a fan of five stones in front of him. For a moment, they form a flat, 90-degree arc in front of him, like a projectile shield, then they zoom off in homing in on the target. The small boulders will be eaten up by larger projectile attacks, like anything the size of Arctic Assault and Heat Blast or bigger. But they’ll cancel out smaller bullet and knife type threats (like the shots from Golbez’s grounded Lingering Spark, or Onion Knight’s knives).

Surprisingly, these rocks have the longest range of any of his attacks, and they’re relatively quick and low-commitment to fire off repeatedly. In the air, this is Golbez’s main workhorse (with apologies to the Shadow Dragon). With Aqueous Orb in play and drifting slowly toward the target, Golbez has time to throw Terrastorm two or three times, peppering the opposition with small stones while the water sphere serves as a higher-durability projectile in the mix.

Hold + while firing Terrastorm to have Golbez evade-cancel forward after releasing the rocks, which allows for a faster follow-up attack behind them.

Abyssal Quasar

Using a Bravery Attack while dashing, whether grounded or airborne, makes Golbez begin the short windup for a dark void attack, centering swirling forces around the target. After a second and a half, this energy explodes in a sphere of pain, tossing aside any foes caught within. Abyssal Quasar is a bit like Biting Cold without the freeze effect. It has slightly more raw range (when the dragon is active), but the area-of-effect splash is much smaller and doesn’t expand. Like Biting Cold and Twin Meteor, Abyssal Quasar has no problem hitting enemies behind cover.

Initiate Abyssal Quasar on a foe who’s also dashing and they’ll vacate the darkening space before it explodes. But Abyssal Quasar  will make short work of enemies who are changing direction, or who just got hit by something else and bounced up, or who just plain don’t notice the gathering dark force.

HP Attack Breakdown

Nightglow

After a second of windup, Golbez unleashes a wave of tall pillars of dark energy. The pillars flare up one after another in a destructive path toward the target. With the Shadow Dragon, a splash of explosive energy also erupts around Golbez himself alongside the first pillar in the chain. Eight pillars in all spring forth from Golbez, with the final pillar striking halfway between the range of charged and uncharged Genesis Rock.

Nightglow takes the same time to throw as uncharged Genesis Rock, while striking farther. Charged Genesis Rock reaches more distant targets, but takes almost twice the time to release. Nightglow’s tall pillars also ensure that it hits foes jumping or dashing vertically out of reach of other attacks, and the tall pillars are capable of clearing out more projectiles along the way. If one of the pillars is struck in the process by an opponent’s equally sturdy projectile attack, it’ll stop Nightglow short. But the big pillars easily cut through smaller projectiles.

genesis rock

Golbez gathers strength for a second, then launches a hefty boulder straight at the target. It travels quickly, with a mild homing effect. It’s not enough to catch dashing foes, but it can clip enemies who happen to move a bit but who perhaps aren’t aware a boulder is headed right for them.

For a projectile, the range on Genesis Rock is not terrific. The main benefit of the attack is that it can plow through incoming Bravery Attacks and marksman shots/spells to interrupt the incoming aggressor. When the Shadow Dragon is active, Genesis Rock can be charged by holding down , giving it longer range. This almost doubles the start-up time, though, and the charged range is still just middling.

Although Genesis Rock’s range isn’t amazing, its start-up and speed are pretty good for an HP Attack, making it easy to opportunistically launch Genesis Rock at close- to mid-range foes when they’re already eating something else, like an ally’s Bravery Attack, or projectiles that you’ve chased in after them.

Twin Meteor

Beckoning the heavens, Golbez calls down a meteor rain right above the target’s head. With the Shadow Dragon boosting his strength, Golbez pulls down two HP-crushing meteors, the first tinted red, the second purple. If the target is moving quickly, the red meteor will miss, but the purple meteor tries to track them. If the target merely sidesteps the red meteor once, the follow-up still hits!

Without the dragon, Golbez simply calls forth a single red meteor. Dragon or no dragon, the max rock-dropping range is the same as an uncharged Genesis Rock’s reach. Twin Meteor doesn’t interrupt minor projectiles afield between Golbez and the target. But as a unique advantage, meteors can be dropped on foes who are behind walls or obstacles that would otherwise block Genesis Rock and Nightglow.

Black Fang

With orbs of dark power circling him, Golbez builds toward a scary spell with infinite range. Black Fang requires 3.5 uninterrupted seconds for Golbez to cast it, but the payoff is unparalleled in his arsenal: a gigantic black tooth erupts from the ground underneath the target, no matter how far away they are.

The pros and cons are immediately apparent. Three and a half seconds to cast is a long time, long enough for most other characters to squeeze in several actions, or to travel huge distances with dashing. A dashing target will also speed out of the way of Black Fang as it rises from underneath. Still, infinite range is hard to argue with. No other attack lets Golbez harass the full arena. This also gives Golbez an extremely easy way to strike summoning cores from anywhere, while everyone else scrambles to do it from much closer in.

Like most of what Golbez does, Black Fang cast attempts are great just after the launch of an Aqueous Orb. This is the only Golbez projectile that outlasts a full Black Fang cast, so it provides at least some cover.

EX Skill Breakdown

Shadow Dragon

Using the dark Lunarian power churning through him, Golbez summons a Shadow Dragon to amplify his magic attacks. With the Shadow Dragon by his side, Golbez’s projectiles fly farther and hit harder. The Shadow Dragon also enables the use of his other EX Skill, Biting Cold.

Golbez begins every encounter with the Shadow Dragon active, but he loses it if he takes 1000 damage or more from an HP Attack. If he survives an HP Attack for 999 damage or less, Golbez keeps his pet. Losing the dragon starts a 60-second timer before it can be resummoned.

When the dragon is missing, Golbez’s EX Skill resummons it, and the timer for Biting Cold starts. Golbez also regains the Shadow Dragon when he resurrects after being incapacitated, though the price of dropping a point for the team is steep indeed.

Biting Cold

Golbez and the dragon conjure magic together, drawing a thin white ring in the air around the target while icy energy gathers in the middle. After 1.5 seconds, a freezing wave expands from the ring, dissipating a half-second later. In effect, this works like an ice grenade, freezing foes caught in the frost explosion. Targets frozen by Biting Cold are stuck for four seconds, unable to move and totally vulnerable to attack.

Since Biting Cold strikes really quickly compared to most of Golbez’s other attacks, hitting as an area of effect with very good range only 1.5 seconds after the button press, it can be used as a confirmable follow-up after some of Golbez’s slowest-hitting attacks, especially Aqueous Orb, Lingering Spark, Terrastorm, and Abyssal Quasar. It can also be tacked on after an ally’s offensive barrage, perhaps enabling them to bridge their own attacks where they otherwise couldn’t.

Whichever way it’s applied, don’t let Biting Cold go unused. Holding on to it too long risks wasting it entirely, since losing the Shadow Dragon means starting a 130-second climb back to Biting Cold being ready!

Battle Plan

Golbez is a burly marksman who can put lots of slow and delayed physical attack spells into play. Calling forth the powers of the four elemental archfiends, he can hurl ice chunks, fireballs, stones, water spheres, and dark energy at the other team. His spells can serve as crowd control, as frontline fire support, and as a general agent of chaos.

The ability to put lots of long-lasting stuff on the field at once means that Golbez should be prepared to shift targets a lot. Potentially, Golbez can launch Aqueous Orb at one foe, whirl to the next target, hurl a boulder storm with Terrastorm, guard cancel quickly to the ground while switching targets yet again, ending with Lingering Spark to give some time to gauge how the situation is developing before the next salvo.

Up close, Golbez is not quick or well equipped, so put the full team to good use and huddle up with melee-oriented fighters for strength in numbers. Keep them wary of a constant projectile creep with Aqueous Orb and Gale Sphere, and quickly tack onto an ally’s block pressure or combos with Arctic Assault/Heat Blast. A couple of friends teaming up to make a defender block several times back-to-back is just as good as scoring a clean hit, since they can’t block forever.

In crowded scrums, Golbez doesn’t have high-poise attacks he can rely on to plow through stuff quickly. Aqueous Orb, Abyssal Quasar, and Biting Cold () are all noteworthy for their splash damage, with explosions that hurt anyone within an area of effect. This can help keep hostile pairs from ganging up on teammates, and give Golbez breathing room when enemies storm past vanguards to get at the armored marksman.

Fellow assassins and vanguards are more likely to be directly engaged with the enemy’s brawlers, so be watchful for summoning cores to appear, and go after them aggressively. When equipped with Black Fang, Golbez can strike at any summoning core in the arena! When the opposing team makes a coordinated beeline for a core, Golbez doesn’t have to bother chasing them down. He can get right to smacking the core while they’re dashing to get into typical attack range.  

Gallery

appearance

Weapons