Rock Troll

The Rock Troll is an Emblem Heartless that appears in Kingdom Hearts III. It can appear as either a boss or a common enemy depending on the fight.

Design
The Rock Troll is a gargantuan, brutish Heartless which wields a large axe. Its body is purple and covered in armor, with an opening in the middle where its head sticks out, surrounded by chains attached to the armor. It has a jagged yellow mask covering its lower face, with the rest of its face darkened. Above its yellow eyes is a purple helmet where its Heartless emblem is placed. Above its head is the top of its body, surrounded by two massive dark shoulder plates which feature golden hexagonal outer plates and a massive cracked horn on each. On each of its arms is a jagged purple plate of armor with a chain wrapped around it. Its legs are smaller than its body, and have two plates of armor above its golden feet.

The massive axe it wields has a golden handle with a purple Heartless face in its center and blocky blades on each side.

Strategy
Rock Trolls are one of the heftiest and most powerful common enemies in the game, and are fought in three separate locations during the main story. Most of the Rock Troll's attacks involve its axe, which also doubles as a mask that it will regularly put on in all encounters outside of the ones in Olympus and The Keyblade Graveyard during the main story.

In its unmasked state, the Rock Troll has access to four main attacks: Mow Down, Continuous Mow Down, Downswing, and Spin Rock Shot. All of these attacks (with the exception of Spin 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).

Mow Down 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 Continuous Mow Down, the Troll will swing its axe left then right, with the second swing breaking Sora's guard if blocked. Downswing 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 Continuous Mow Down and Downswing 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, Spin Rock Shot is the Rock 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 (excepting the forced fights mentioned above), the Rock 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 Mow Down as an attack from the unarmored phase. Its new attacks when masked up are Face Tackle and Front 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. Front 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 Rock 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 Rock Troll will be completely unable to use any attacks that spawned rocks previously, namely its Downswing and Spin 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.