The Giant’s Keep, fondly known as GB10 or GB12 among Summoners War players, is the first pivotal challenge of your Summoners War roadmap to building powerful teams and unstoppable units in 2023.
Many players aim to defeat it early to farm essential runes and gear up their monsters. This guide will provide a comprehensive walkthrough, ensuring success as you venture into Giant’s Keep.
Key Takeaways for GB10 and GB12
- Team composition: Prioritize units that offer reliable control, debuffs, and sustain.
- Runes are vital: Ensure your team is well-equipped with the correct runes to withstand the Giant’s powerful blows.
- Rune recommendations: Included are recommended runes for each unit we mention.
- Understanding the Giant’s abilities: Know when he will hit the hardest and counteract his moves.
- Clear reliability and speed: Ensure that you have a reliable farming team that can clean DB10 on auto mode before you start swapping units for your speed team. A run where you die is an absolute waste of energy and time.
- 2nd Awakening: 2nd Awakening for your units is not required to complete GB10 on auto mode (though it will improve run speed and clearance reliability), but this is a must for a fast, reliable GB12 team. Always try to prioritize units you will use outside of Giant’s Keep.
Why Should You Farm Giant’s Keep?
Before diving into team compositions and strategies, it’s crucial to understand why Giant’s Keep is an essential part of the Summoners War journey.
- Runes: Giant’s Keep is the primary source of Swift, Despair, and Energy runes. These runes can substantially boost your monsters’ capabilities.
- Progression: Clearing Giant’s Keep consistently allows players to progress to other dungeons like DB10/DB12 (Dragon’s Lair) and NB10/NB12 (Necropolis).
- Essential Materials: Apart from runes, you get rainbowmons, mystical scrolls, and other valuable resources.
Ideal Team Composition for GB10 Starter Team
Your team’s composition can make or break your GB10 run. Here’s what a beginner-friendly and reliable team might look like.
Note – Runes suggested are optimized for survivability and not speed. Always ensure that you are clearing your runs on auto first, then focus on speed later.
Below, we have included a table of all the runes you require for your starter team.
Veromos (Dark Ifrit)
- Role: Cleanser/Continuous Damage Dealer
- Essential Runes: Swift/Energy with Speed, HP%, and Accuracy% (slots 2,4,6).
Veromos is an all-star in GB10, thanks to his ability to cleanse harmful effects from your team, Aoe stun, +33% HP leader skill, and ability to apply continuous damage to the boss.
Belladeon (Light Inugami)
- Role: Healer/Defense Breaker
- Essential Runes: Swift/Focus with Speed, HP%, and Defense%.
Belladeon is a versatile healer sought after by many early-game players. She can recover the team’s HP by 30% and increase the attack bar by 30%.
Additionally, her first skill can defense break, making the boss easier to defeat, while her second skill removes beneficial effects, stripping the Giant of its attack buff.
Shannon (Wind Pixie)
- Role: Buffer/Debuffer
- Essential Runes: Despair/Energy with HP%, Defense%, and Accuracy%.
Shannon is a buffer and debuffer that plays a pivotal role in GB10. Her third skill, Pep Talk, boosts the team’s attack and defense for three turns, while her second skill can apply AoE slow and glancing hit debuffs.
Equipped with Despair runes, she can also serve as a crowd controller, stunning the enemy waves on your path to the boss.
Bernard (Wind Griffon)
- Role: Speed Booster/Debuffer
- Essential Runes: Swift/Focus with Speed, HP%, and Defense%.
A swift griffon from the Tamor Desert, Bernard provides your team crucial speed and attack bar boosts.
His Tailwind skill increases the team’s speed and fills up their attack bar, ensuring your units get more turns. Additionally, he brings both attack and defense breaks, vital for reducing the Giant’s damage and increasing your own.
Darion (Light Vagabond)
- Role: Damage Reduction/Defense Breaker
- Essential Runes: Energy x3 with HP%, Defense%, and Accuracy%.
Darion, a frontline tank, lessens the damage your team takes with his passive, which reduces incoming damage to allies by 20%.
Furthermore, he can apply defense break and attack break, debuffs that significantly enhance your team’s survivability and damage output against the Giant.
Each unit brings a unique utility to the team, making your runs smooth and consistent.
The Importance of Turn Order
Once your team is set, it’s crucial to synchronize their turn order. Ideally, Bernard should go first to boost the team’s speed, followed by Shannon for buffs, and then Veromos and Belladeon for cleansing and healing. Lastly, Darion can provide damage reduction.
Turn order will affect how quickly you clear the dungeon, improving the rate you earn better runes and upgrade your team.
GB10 Starter Team Rune Recommendations
Runes are the backbone of your monsters in Summoners War. Properly runed monsters can perform exceptionally well even with average stats. Here’s a quick breakdown for our recommended GB10 team:
| Monster | Main Set (4 runes) | Sub Set (2 runes) | Rune Stats (2/4/6 slots) |
| Veromos | Swift | Energy | SPD, HP%, ACC% |
| Belladeon | Swift | Focus | SPD, HP%, DEF% |
| Shannon | Despair | Energy | HP%, DEF%, ACC% |
| Bernard | Swift | Focus | SPD, HP%, DEF% |
| Darion | – | Energy x3 | HP%, DEF%, ACC% |
You will spend most of your time in Summoner’s War farming runes, so you must know how to farm them efficiently.
If you want to know the most efficient farming methods, we recommend this incredible rune farming guide.
Giant’s Abilities and Countering Them
The Giant in GB10 & GB12 has several powerful abilities, but understanding and anticipating them can drastically improve your success rate.
Seismic Toss
- Description: Deals substantial damage to one target.
- Counter: Ensuring your monsters have enough HP and defense to withstand this attack is crucial.
Earthquake
- Description: Deals damage to all enemies and decreases their attack power for 2 turns.
- Counter: Shannon’s buff and Veromos’s cleanse can help mitigate this ability.
Counterattack
- Description: Launches a counterattack when attacked with a critical hit.
- Counter: Units must have high enough HP to survive the counterattack.
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Having the right runes with the proper stats is more critical than having high-grade runes. For instance, a 5-star rune with perfect stats can be more beneficial than a 6-star rune with subpar stats.
Advanced Units for GB10 And GB12
Once you’ve built a reliable team and consistently clear GB10, you can start looking into advanced strategies to speed up your runs and increase efficiency. Also, these units will help you clear GB12 once you have acquired better runes from GB10 and other game sources. You must replace your starter units!
While the initial team of Veromos, Belladeon, Shannon, Bernard, and Darion serves players well in their early GB10 conquests, faster options are available as you progress.
The quickest and most successful GB12 teams require the boss not to get a single turn.
Here is a list of the best options (table of runes listed below):
Galleon (Water Pirate Captain)
- Role: AoE Defense Breaker/Attack Buffer
- Essential Runes: Swift/Focus or Violent/Focus with Speed, Attack%, Accuracy%.
Galleon is an absolute beast for GB12. Galleon’s Time to Loot provides both attack buff and defense break, causing your entire team to deal substantially more damage throughout the dungeon.
When building your speed team, Galleon must attack first so all units attacking after Galleon can deal optimal damage.
Lushen (Wind Joker)
- Role: Heavy AoE Damage Dealer
- Essential Runes: Fatal/Blade with Attack%, Critical Damage%, Attack%.
Lushen’s Amp Magic can clear waves swiftly, speeding up your runs. He is one of the few units that can completely ignore enemy defense, making his 3rd skill devastating!
His lead skill, which increases the attack power of wind monsters by 50%, is a huge bonus for GB12.
Sigmarus (Water Phoenix)
- Role: Damage Dealer/Control
- Essential Runes: Fatal or Violent/Blade with Attack%, Critical Damage%, HP% or Attack%.
Sigmarus’ AoE attacks not only deal significant damage but also apply crowd control effects, slowing or freezing enemies.
Her attacks scale off enemy HP, enabling her to deal huge damage to bosses.
Mellia (Wind Dryad)
- Role: Continuous Damage Dealer/Debuffer
- Essential Runes: Despair or Swift/Focus with Speed, HP%, ACC%.
Mellia excels at consistently applying continuous damage effects, which are invaluable against high HP bosses like the Giant. Furthermore, her ability to reduce the enemy’s attack speed ensures that the Giant’s turns are kept in check.
2A Kro (Dark Inugami)
- Role: Damage Dealer/Debuffer
- Essential Runes: Rage or Fatal/Blade with ATK%, CRI Dmg, ATK%.
After his second awakening, Kro’s damage potential becomes remarkable, especially in teams that apply consistent debuffs. His third skill’s damage amplification based on the number of harmful effects on the target allows him to deliver crushing blows, particularly when the Giant is heavily debuffed.
Sath (Fire Grim Reaper)
- Role: Wave Clearer/Damage Dealer
- Essential Runes: Fatal or Despair/Blade with Speed, ATK%, ATK%.
Sath’s high base attack and AoE skills make him a menace when clearing trash waves. Especially when runed for high damage or added stun utility, Sath can swiftly take down the initial waves on the way to the boss.
Teshar (Wind Phoenix)
- Role: AoE Damage Dealer
- Essential Runes: Fatal/Blade with Attack%, Critical Damage%, Attack%.
Teshar’s Tempest AoE skill can obliterate waves, especially if paired with Lushen, making dungeon runs super quick.
Se also boasts a 33% CRI Rate leader skill for additional damage.
Lyn (Light Amazon)
- Role: Heavy Single Target Damage Dealer
- Essential Runes: Fatal/Blade or Rage/Blade with Attack%, Critical Damage%, Attack%.
Lyn’s skills deal damage based on the enemy’s max HP, making her hit incredibly hard against the high HP GB12 boss.
Her skills make her very usual in a wide variety of boss content, so utilizing her will make her useful throughout your Summoners War journey.
Hraesvelg (Wind Barbaric King)
- Role: Attack Buffer/Continuous Damage
- Essential Runes: Fatal/Blade or Violent/Blade with Attack%, Critical Damage%, Attack%.
Hraesvelg boasts a useful branding effect, attack & speed buff can significantly speed up runs by enhancing the entire team’s damage.
Orochi (Wind Ninja)
- Role: Damage Dealer/Continuous Damage
- Essential Runes: Swift/Focus or Rage/Blade with Speed, Critical Rate%, Attack%.
Orochi is especially great for stacking continuous damage on the boss, which speeds up the boss kill time.
Akhamamir (Wind Ifrit)
- Role: Damage Dealer
- Essential Runes: Despair/Blade or Fatal/Blade with Attack%, Critical Damage%, Attack%.
Akhamamir excels in clearing trash waves and also offers solid damage against the boss, especially when there are many debuffs.
Hwa (Fire Rakshasa)
- Role: Attack Bar Reducer/Damage Dealer
- Essential Runes: Swift/Focus or Violent/Blade with Speed, Critical Damage%, Attack%.
Hwa’s primary function in GB12 is to control the boss’s attack bar and reduce its speed. Her passive skill, “Burning Whip,” has a chance to reduce the enemy’s attack bar with every hit, making it harder for the boss to take turns.
Additionally, whenever she lands a critical hit, the target’s attack speed is reduced for 2 turns. This combination ensures the boss gets fewer turns, minimizing the damage it deals to your team.
GB12 Advanced Units Rune Recommendations
| Monster | Main Set (4 runes) | Sub Set (2 runes) | Rune Stats (2/4/6 slots) |
| Lushen | Fatal | Blade | ATK%, CRI Dmg, ATK% |
| Sigmarus | Fatal/Violent | Blade | ATK%, CRI Dmg, HP% or ATK% |
| Mellia | Despair/Swift | Focus | SPD, HP%, ACC% |
| 2A Kro | Rage/Fatal | Blade | ATK%, CRI Dmg, ATK% |
| Sath | Fatal/Despair | Blade | SPD, ATK%, ATK% |
| Teshar | Fatal | Blade | ATK%, CRI Dmg, ATK% |
| Galleon | Swift/Violent | Focus | SPD, ATK%, ACC% |
| Lyn | Fatal/Rage | Blade | ATK%, CRI Dmg, ATK% |
| Hraesvelg | Fatal/Violent | Blade | ATK%, CRI Dmg, ATK% |
| Orochi | Swift(4) with Focus(2) | Rage(4) with Blade(2) | SPD, CRI Rate, ATK% |
| Akhamamir | Despair/Fatal | Blade | ATK%, CRI Dmg, ATK% |
| Hwa | Swift with Focus(2) | Violent with Blade(2) | SPD, CRI Dmg, ATK% |
You will spend most of your time in Summoner’s War farming runes, so it is essential that you know how to farm them efficiently.
We recommend this incredible guide if you want to know the most efficient farming methods.
Each of these monsters has unique advantages, and the ideal team will also depend on the synergy between them and the quality of runes you have.
Consider balancing damage, control, and survivability when replacing starter units in GB12.
Artifacts
Artifacts can further boost your monsters’ performance in GB12. Put complete focus on adding additional substats that will boost the damage of your units.
For example, you should equip Lushen with an artifact that boosts CRIT DMG or ATK%, to significantly increase the damage of his AoE skills, enhancing his Amp Magic’s damage.
Preparing for Auto Runs
Consistently clearing GB12 on ‘Auto’ is a significant milestone. To achieve this:
- Boost Monster Stats: Ensure all monsters have at least +15k HP (more for wind monsters) and +600 DEF. Speed is vital too, especially for healers and cleansers.
- Skill Ups: Max out your monsters’ skills. Skill-ups can reduce cooldowns and boost effectiveness.
- Test Runs: Run GB12 on ‘Auto’ multiple times to ensure consistency before settling on a team.
Managing AI and Target Priorities
Certain monsters, like the crystals in GB12, can deal heavy damage.
If you cannot clear GB12 reliably on auto mode, setting your team to target the most dangerous foes first can prevent unnecessary deaths. For instance, focus the crystals before the golems in the trash waves.
However, this suggests that your team is unprepared for GB12, so try to upgrade your runes, awaken all your units, and level up their skills.
What Should I Do After Giant’s Keep GB10?
After completing Giant’s Keep GB10, your next objective is Trial of Ascension 100 Normal difficulty (ToAN 100). This is a natural progression as you can use many of the same monsters to get you started for ToA as your GB10 team, but you will eventually want to swap a few units for a reliable TOA auto team with better speed and clear time.
For a full guide on maximizing your account, including everything you need to work towards to conquer every aspect of Summoner’s War, consider this guide, as it will teach you absolutely everything you need to know about Summoner’s War!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: Can I replace Veromos with another cleanser?
A: Absolutely! While Veromos is a popular choice due to his farmable nature and passive skill, other cleansers like Konamiya (Water Garuda) can also work, but Konamiyaa must be well-runed.
Q: My monsters are dying too fast, what should I do?
A: Firstly, ensure your monsters are at least 5-star, preferably 6-star. Next, check their runes. Upgrading runes, especially slots 4 and 6 to +12 or +15, can drastically increase survivability.
Q: How vital are skill-ups?
A: Very! Skill-ups can reduce cooldowns, increase the effectiveness of skills, and overall boost a monster’s performance.
Q: Can I use damage dealers instead of support monsters?
A: As you progress and your runes improve, you can gradually replace support units with damage dealers to speed up runs. But ensure that your team can consistently survive.
