Metal Troll

The Metal Troll is an Emblem Heartless that appears in Kingdom Hearts III. It appears as the first boss in San Fransokyo.

Kingdom Hearts III
A Metal Troll attacks The Bridge in San Fransokyo, backed up by Tireblades and Pole Cannons. Big Hero 6 attempt to stop it, only to be beaten back. Sora, Donald, and Goofy arrive to help take out the Metal Troll and its lackeys.

Following the defeat of Catastrochorus, a new Metal Troll appears to replace it as the leader of the Heartless attacking the city.

Design
The Metal Troll resembles a mechanized version of the Rock Troll. It has a bronze color scheme with a round body, and the Heartless emblem is between its shoulder blades. Its face is at the center of its torso and surrounded by a cog, while its eyes are jagged and yellow. Its shoulders are massive and outset by yellow orbs at the top. Rivets with yellow X designs are littered on its body, mostly at its shoulders and leg joints. It wields an axe with its own Heartless emblem and orange blades.

Strategy
Metal Trolls are almost identical to Rock Trolls in all aspects, with the former's higher HP being the only difference between the two.

In its unmasked state, the Metal Troll has access to four main attacks: Sweep, Combo Sweep, Downward Swing, and Spinning Rock Shot. All of these attacks (with the exception of Spinning Rock Shot) have components which will break Sora's guard and leave him completely vulnerable to any of the other enemies in the arena; if Risk Dodge is not available or unequipped, evading these attacks is the best course of action. Occasionally, Trolls will roar or simply walk around in their unmasked state; they cannot perform any other action during these times, making them the safest opportunity to attack. These openings are also a good opportunity to lower the Troll's Reaction Endurance in order to stagger it, however keep in mind that it only takes damage to its Reaction Endurance when hit directly in its face (telegraphed by the face slightly wiggling from the impact of the attack).

Sweep has the Troll very quickly smack any party members near itself with its left hand, and tends to be used most frequently when Sora or a party member is directly under the Troll. Its extremely fast speed compared to the Troll's other attacks makes it the most important attack to look out for when engaging in your own offensive. During Combo Sweep, the Troll will swing its axe left then right, with the second swing breaking Sora's guard if blocked. Downward Swing is exactly is its name implies and is the Troll's single strongest move, but is relatively slow to come out and is not hard to react to. Although both Combo Sweep and Downward Swing are well-telegraphed, be careful when attempting to block these moves when very close to the Troll, as every swing can sometimes hit Sora's defenseless back instead in this situation and 'go through' your Block. Lastly, Spinning Rock Shot is the Metal Troll's only ranged attack in its unmasked state; the rocks from this move have multiple arcs that they can follow that are dependent entirely on Sora's vertical position at the time the attack is activated, and generally speaking three rocks from the volley will sent in Sora's direction.

Every 50 seconds, the Metal Troll will alternate between placing its axe on its face as a mask and then removing it to use it as an axe again. When masked up, its attack pattern will change entirely and it will gain armor; the armor's value represents how damaged the Troll's mask is and will be retained if the mask is removed. Firstly, when armored, the Troll's footsteps can damage the party (known as Trample in the table below), so players should avoid being directly under it if possible. As its axe is now a mask during armored phase, the Troll also loses access to all of its moves that use the axe as a weapon and therefore only keeps its Sweep as an attack from the unarmored phase. Its new attacks when masked up are Face Tackle and Frontal Rock Shot. The former has the Troll charge towards Sora in a straight line; if deflected or blocked (this move will break Sora's guard), the Troll will briefly stagger before attempting to charge again in the direction of whoever blocked the first. Frontal Rock Shot is a stream of six rocks fired sequentially at Sora from the mask's mouth and has a relatively long range.

There are many options available that are effective in breaking a Troll's mask. Shotlocks and attacks with many hits like Double Arrowguns's Auto-Shot or Mirage Staff's Avatar Barrage are excellent at shredding the armor gauge, as is Artillery-style Magic from any forms with access to it. Link finishers will also deal a single large chunk of damage to the armor gauge, at the cost of all of Sora's MP. If none of these options are available, for example due to PRO Codes being active, counterattacking with reprisals after blocking each of the Troll's attacks in this phase is likely the next best bet for players.

When the armor gauge is fully depleted, the Metal Troll's mask will break and it will get flung backwards, giving a brief opening to attack it uninterrupted. After its mask is broken, the Metal Troll will be completely unable to use any attacks that spawned rocks previously, namely its Downward Swing and Spinning Rock Shot, and it will be much less aggressive, which manifests as it roaring and walking around much more frequently than when its axe/mask is still active.

The encounter with the Metal Troll in San Fransokyo during the main story is unique in that there are multiple destructible cars in the arena that give access to the Cover Shot Situation Command. This ability sends out a stream of magic projectiles at foes; its damage increases with Sora's Magic stat. Cover Shot is notable as it increases the Situation Gauge extremely quickly, allowing players to build up all of their Formchanges essentially on demand, and it also provides a safe and easy way to deal light armor damage to the Troll when it is masked up. As mentioned above, however, these cars will be sent flying and destroyed by the Metal Troll's attacks until none are left on the bridge.