Questions

1. Is Celestial Spike affected by defensive stats? If so, which ones? Most likely physical.
2. What Passive Defense's damage reduction, if any, affects Celestial Spike? None; tested it on Wight (Level 3 Heavy Stander) and Zombies (Level 3 Natural Shield and Mana Deflector) and they both took damage normally.
3. I heard using Celestial Spike after Girgashiy's Mineral Hail/Crystal Meteor Shower will stun it longer?

Using Shield of Trust during Girgashiy's Mineral Hail will cause it to be stunned (a spiral will appear around Girgashiy). Using Celestial Spike during his stun will cause him to fall to his knees for another few seconds

In addition to this, if you use Judgment Blade while he's on his knees, I believe he will take more damage than usual from it. I might get back into Mabinogi because the Apostle raids seem interesting to me.

It seems that in order to make Girgashiy kneel after its Mineral Hail is shunted by Shield of Trust (extended stun), the Spiker needs at least rA Celestial Spike.

I've seen many correctly timed sub-rA Celestial Spikes fulfill their training for countering just to have the Girgashiy stand back up without kneeling.

And on the subject of "It also weakens an Apostle's defense against the Smiting skill." I have certainly seen this.

It seems that if Judgment Blade is used on an Apostle who was countered with Celestial Spike (kneeling), he will take two hits from Judgment Blade. One hit for seemingly normal damage, and then a second bit of damage doing more than the first hit.

In your first point, it could vary per difficulty. It also could be that multiple lower ranked spikes can cause Girgashiy to kneel.

Doesn't the Girgashiy in G19 finale kneel from Rank N CS?

Yeah, I forgot to mention that I only tested actively on Easy, oops!

And as Infodude said, it probably is based on difficulty.

I wish I'd tested the other difficulties before I ranked my spike.

(I didn't say that...)

Oh you were just asking if he kneeled from rN. I read wrong and assumed, sorry.

I don't remember much about my own finale fight, other than it being hectic and annoying, so I can't remember if it kneeled from rN CS.

I should ask around and find a rA spiker who can test if it's enough to make Normal/Hard Girgashiy kneel.

No problem, it's easy to get confused with the wrong person these days.

All I remember in my finale is death, death, and more death. I had no opportunity to spike because DEATH.

I guess I got lucky in my finale, since after a minute one of the Girgashiy went out of range and stopped interfering.

Okay, slight update.

Tested multiple times with friends.

Hardmode Girgashiy does not kneel from rA+ Spike. In fact, the highest spike we could test was r3, and that didn't make him kneel either.

Then I did a small amount of testing in Normal. A rank 5 spiker couldn't make him kneel. And a rank 3 spiker couldn't make him kneel.

Either it needs r2/r1 or it just needs more spikers. I can't test any more with these ranks, though. Anyone else got some ideas or info?

It doesn't sound like you ever got him to kneel, regardless of rank.

Sure you guys timed it right, and didn't accidentally hit him right before he landed?

If not then chances are glitch?

I think we timed it right. Got training for Countering with spike. That means the timing was good, right?

And yeah, for our tests, at least with only a single spiker, we never got Normal or Hard Girgashiy to kneel.

In that case, where does the "rank A+" come from?

Testing in Easy mode.

rB didn't make the Easy-level girgashiy kneel, while rA did.

With a single spiker, at any rate.

If you can't get the Normal level to kneel, I'd recommend doubling back to Easy and verifying the requirements there.

Yeah, that'd be good to verify again, but... Hard to double back completely, without skill untrain capsules, though.

See about finding a rB spiker and see if that won't make Easy Girgashiy kneel.

Slightly related but does Shield of Trust causing Girgashiy's stun phase also determined by rank?