Gunsmoke Boss Guide: Cryokeros | Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium

Hi there. With Blade Titan having been the  Gunsmoke boss for the past three seasons,  

I’m assuming we’ll be switching to the next one: a  frost variant of the Tusk Beasteel. While I don’t  

think Mica officially announced the new boss yet,  it’s probably best to be prepared either way. With  

that said, let’s quickly go over its mechanics so  that those of us willing to give it a try have a  

better chance of achieving a high score. Let’s  start with the good news: like the Blade Titan,  

this boss has about 17 million HP, 5k DEF, and  175 Stability, so we’re getting a brief reprieve  

before the bullet sponge gets even spongier. Every  round, the boss uses an attack against the nearest  

and farthest doll. Here, the first hit is directed  at Phaetusa in front of the boss. This deals  

Freeze damage in a 3-by-3-tile AoE and applies  1 stack of Deep Freeze. The translations in this  

showcase are unofficial, but since everything  revolves around this debuff, let’s go with this  

naming. Each stack of Deep Freeze reduces the  carrier’s defense by 5% and lasts for 3 turns.  

The second hit targets the farthest doll, here  Mechty, again dealing freeze damage and applying  

a stack of Deep Freeze in the AoE. Note that the  goal is to gain as many stacks as possible on your  

two best DPS units, because Deep Freeze will get  converted into a damage bonus. Ideally, you’d want  

to position your dolls close to each other so that  the attacks hit everyone, and no stacks are lost.  

Then, with its next skill, the boss applies Icicle  to all dolls on the field, unless you break it too  

quickly, in which case only the 3 dolls with the  highest ATK are targeted. This debuff gets applied  

on turn 1 and 4 and takes effect at the end of  your team’s next round. To see what it does,  

let’s jump ahead to the end of the team’s second  turn. Everyone is still affected by the debuff.  

After all dolls had their turn and we’re about  to transition to the boss’ second round, Icicle  

activates, detonating on each of the targets,  dealing freeze damage in a 5-by-5-tile AoE and  

applying 1 stack of Deep Freeze to everyone in  range. After Icicle popped, everyone is afflicted  

with 5 stacks. More importantly, this includes  the boss as well. By positioning the team within  

close range, it will also receive the damage  and debuff stacks. Remember that each stack  

reduces the carrier’s defense by 5%, so at most  you can lower the boss’ defense by 25% this way.  

The stacks are applied to the boss at the end of  round 2 and 5 and will then essentially last for 2  

of your team’s rounds, meaning on turn 3, 4, 6 and  7. As noted, try to avoid breaking its stability  

on round 1 and 4 so that you obtain Icicle 5 and  not just 3 times. Now let’s go back to where we  

left off on the boss’ first turn. The final skill  of this round is again directed at the nearest  

target, dealing freeze damage to everyone in a  7-tile wide fan-shaped area. This ability is used  

often and with proper positioning allows you to  more deliberately choose which dolls receive the  

most Deep Freeze stacks. One thing to note about  Deep Freeze is that while it is not cleansable,  

2 stacks are removed each time you receive  healing. Here you see Phaetusa with 2 stacks.  

With her attack and the healing due to Basti,  the stacks are gone. Characters like Basti or  

Springfield who can’t control their healing make  it impossible to play around this mechanic. With  

someone like Yoohee you can exert some influence  by choosing her second rather than her first extra  

skill when necessary. It’s still somewhat of a  hassle, because you want healing some of the time,  

just not always. Moving on to the Icicle  detonation that you’ve seen before. Remember that  

this occurs right before the boss’ second turn  starts. Because this applies 5 fresh stacks of  

Deep Freeze to everyone, you do have at least some  stacks at this point. Unless you have Springfield  

on the lineup, who heals automatically when taking  damage. As the boss’ actual turn starts, it uses  

as always the ability that targets the nearest and  farthest doll to apply Deep Freeze in a 3-tile AoE  

around the targets. Even if you had healing during  your team’s turn, you can regain up to 7 stacks of  

Deep Freeze this way. This matters because with  its next ability, the boss chooses two dolls  

with the highest number of Deep Freeze stacks and  converts them into an equal number of Icy Spikes  

stacks. This increases the doll’s damage by 5% per  stack. Since everyone except Mechty had 7 stacks,  

the boss randomly chose Basti and Lind for the  conversion. You can still see the debuff stacks on  

Lind right next to the newly gained buff stacks,  but Deep Freeze is removed after the attack.  

Icy Spikes lasts for 2 turns, so the damage buff  is essentially active during the same time window  

as the defense shred against the boss, meaning on  turn 3, 4, 6 and 7. If you have no healing on the  

lineup, you’d want to position your best damage  dealers to always receive the most stacks. If you  

have single-target healing, you can deliberately  lower the stacks of your support characters. With  

the boss’ third turn, its cycle concludes. 3 out  of the 4 skills here are familiar and don’t do  

much apart from reapplying new Deep Freeze stacks.  So there is only one more ability we need to go  

over. On round 3 and 6, the boss starts by using  an attack that deals AoE freeze damage to everyone  

and applies Frozen for 2 turns. Then, as part  of the same attack, the boss consumes all Deep  

Freeze stacks from your team and gains an equal  number of Icy Spikes stacks. Here, it gained 28  

stacks for a total damage bonus of 140%. But more  importantly, it also gains a damage reduction  

effect that scales with the number of Icy Spike  stacks. If the number of stacks is below 10,  

it gains 10% damage reduction, 15% if between  11 and 20 stacks, or 20% if more than that. To  

prevent the boss from gaining too much damage and  mitigation, it’s best to minimize the number of  

remaining Deep Freeze stacks before you end your  third and sixth turn, respectively. The easiest  

way to accomplish this is by spamming healing.  Remember that the boss converted Deep Freeze to  

Icy Spikes for your dolls on the previous round,  so at this point the stacks have no benefit.  

After plenty of healing from Yoohee’s first extra  skill, the boss doesn’t gain any Icy Spike stacks,  

resulting in a damage reduction of only 10% and  no damage bonus. The damage reduction buff has no  

duration but gets removed from the boss after  receiving 5 instances of damage from the same  

ammo type. It’s not always completely clear which  attack has which ammo type, but having multiple  

users with the same weapon type or individual  characters with multiple attacks is a good way  

to tackle this mechanic. Here, Alva who uses  an assault rifle makes two interceptions. Then,  

the passive of Voymastina’s S2 triggers. Next,  Yoohee launches her attack for the fourth AR  

hit. And finally, Alva makes the fifth and final  hit with her S1. As the attack goes through, the  

damage reduction buff disappears and gets replaced  with a 10% vulnerability debuff, lasting for this  

turn. With that, you’ve seen all the mechanics of  this fight. This is the rotation of the boss for  

the first 3 rounds, which then gets repeated. Its  actions on round 7 don’t matter, so we can safely  

ignore them here. Every round, the boss will  attack the nearest and farthest doll with a 3-tile  

AoE and apply one stack of Deep Freeze in the  area. On 4 out of the 6 rounds, it will also do  

its fan-shaped 7-tile AoE attack directed at the  nearest doll, again for 1 stack of Deep Freeze.  

While you want to ensure that your best 2 damage  dealers get the most Deep Freeze stacks, it’s  

probably easiest to group up everyone in front of  the boss for the fight, as constant repositioning  

will likely be the quickest way to uninstalling.  With that out of the way, we can remove the fluff  

and focus on the key abilities. On round 1 and  4, the boss applies Icicle to all dolls which  

detonates at the end of your team’s turn. Avoid  stability break on these rounds so that everyone  

receives the debuff. Ensure that you’re close  enough to the boss so that the Icicle explosion  

hits it as well for a total of 25% defense  reduction. This is active starting from the  

end of round 2 and lasts until the end of round 4,  and then gets reactivated at the end of round 5,  

lasting for the remainder of the match. On the  boss’ second and fifth round, it will convert  

Deep Freeze into Icy Spikes for the two dolls  with the highest stack count. This lasts for 2  

turns and aligns with the 25% defense reduction.  By the end of the second round, you can have 10  

stacks at most for a damage bonus of up to 50%. By  the end of round 5, you can have up to 13 stacks  

for 65% bonus damage. If you can, try to have the  most stacks on your 2 best damage dealers, while  

keeping the stacks low on everyone else. Lastly,  on round 3 and 6, the boss will consume all Deep  

Freeze stacks from your dolls and gain Icy Spikes  plus a scaling damage reduction effect. Avoid  

having more than 10 stacks in total at this point  via healing or repositioning. Removing the defense  

reduction buff via 5 same ammo type attacks  applies 10% vulnerability to the boss. Since you  

don’t want to break the boss on round 4, you’re  probably looking at your best damage opportunities  

on round 3, 6 and 7. That should do it for this  quick guide. Hopefully, the mechanics of this  

fight became clear enough to feel reasonably well  prepared. Don’t feel too stressed about getting  

the number of Deep Freeze stacks right. Selective  healing is quite uncommon nowadays, and popular  

characters like Springfield, Yoohee or Basti are  still integral to their team comps. I’d say you're  

gaining already something just from hugging the  boss for the 25% defense penetration, and any  

additional damage bonus is simply a welcome extra.  If you’re using autoplay, set your doll’s behavior  

to aggressive so that they don’t run away from  the boss. In any case, I wish everyone the best  

of luck in chasing their high scores. Thank you  so much for watching, see you next time.