Part 55: Pre-Update 45: Juggernaut pre-fight overview

Juggernaut pre-fight overview


Juggernaut
HP: 72000 (can be lowered to ~43200), STR: 60, TEC: 45, VIT: 49, AGI: 28, LUC: 51
Skills:

• Berserk Cry: Uses the head. Increases all party members' and Juggernaut's physical/elemental attack by 100% for 6 turns. Has a 10% speed modifier.
  
• Tusk Strike: Uses the head. Deals 115% melee STR-based Stab damage to one party member, with line-piercing effect. Has a 10% speed modifier and 90 base accuracy.
  
• Brandish: Uses the head. Deals 110% melee STR-based Bash damage to one party member, with splash damage. Attempts to bind hit targets' arms, with a 20% base chance. Has a 10% speed modifier and 90 base accuracy.
  
• Eradicate: Uses the legs. Deals 110% melee STR-based Bash damage to the party. Reduces hit targets' physical defense by 50% for 4 turns. Has a 10% speed modifier and 99 base accuracy.
  
• Putrid Breath: Uses the head. Attempts to inflict blind and poison on the party, with a 25% base chance and 60 base poison damage (around 98 adjusted for level). Has a 10% speed modifier.
  
• Violent Cry: Uses the head. Used if any party member has any buffs 5 turns after Berserk Cry. Dispels all buffs on the party and deals 30% ranged TEC-based Almighty damage to anyone who has buffs dispelled. If Juggernaut uses Violent Cry, he will follow it up on the next turn with King's Rush.
  
• King's Rush: Uses the legs. Deals 250% melee STR-based Bash damage to the party. Attempts to bind all body parts of hit targets, with a 10% base chance. Has a 10% speed modifier and 120 base accuracy.
  
• Reckless Barrier: Uses the head. Used in response to being damaged with Fire/Ice/Volt. Increases Juggernaut's physical/elemental defense by 75% for 6 turns. Has a cooldown of 3 turns or so, where Juggernaut will not recast it if he is damaged with Fire/Ice/Volt again/

Drops:

• Normal: Guardian Skin. 100% chance. Sells for 8700 en. 1 needed to make Guardian Staff (+143 ATK, +60 HP, +5 TEC).
  "Sturdy hide fitting for a guardian beast. So hard, some smiths refuse to work with it."
  
• Conditional: Sky Metal Tail (Kill while legs are bound). 100% chance. Sells for 17500 en. 1 needed to make Sky Metal Mail (Ronin ultimate armor; +92 DEF, +3 STR, +3 AGI).
  "Tail said to be made of the mythical Sky Metal. Gained by sealing the limbs of the juggernaut."

Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 150% 150% 150%
Disable resistances:
50% 75% 25% 25% 0% 75% 25%
0% 0% 10%
25% 50% 25%
AI pattern:

• Normal loop:
  • Turn 1: Berserk Cry
    
  • Turns 2-6: Attack, Eradicate, Tusk Strike, Putrid Breath, or Brandish
• If any party member has any buffs at the end of turn 6, Juggernaut will cast Violent Cry, and then use King's Rush on the next turn.
  
• If the above condition is not triggered, Juggernaut will cast Berserk Cry on the next turn instead, and start a new loop.
  
• Juggernaut prioritizes normal attacks on the first loop, but starts using skills much more often on subsequent loops.
  
• Skills listed in the loop are ordered roughly based on how Juggernaut prioritizes them.
  
• If Juggernaut has both the conditions for Reckless Barrier and Violent Cry triggered on the same turn, he will cast Violent Cry, ignoring Reckless Barrier. This does not activate the cooldown.

An ancient protector, dreaded for its tough skin and myriad of horns and claws.


(I apologize for the lack of a fancy render, but my 3DS model viewer doesn't map Juggernaut's textures to his mesh correctly.)

Juggernaut is my favorite boss in EO2U, and very high on my list of favorite bosses from the entire series. He doesn't have any summons to deal with, first off--that's already a huge plus in his favor. Secondly, who doesn't like a boss that gives you an almost-free 100% damage buff? Thirdly, instead of being a test of how well your party can wipe out summons before a designated "fuck you" turn, Juggernaut tests you on how well you can create a party that can handle a fairly varied skillset, and work around both limits on how you can use buffs, and a direct counter to the most effective method of damaging him.

I really can't tell you a lot more about his skills that you couldn't infer from the descriptions, so just one more thing: notice how Juggernaut has only 28 AGI, and all of his skills have 10% speed modifiers. He's basically the single slowest enemy in the game, and even our slowest party members (Colette, Jackie, pretty much any staff user) can probably outspeed him.

So, let's move on to party member descriptions, shall we?


Damage dealers

Zack: Zack can use the chasers again, but the party needs to specifically be built around that, or else he's going to be near-dead weight.

Freyja: Juggernaut having 25% resistance to head and leg binds means inflicting them is kind of a pain in the ass, meaning Freyja will basically need Sophie, but otherwise, Ecstasy is as ridiculous as it ever was, especially with the Berserk Cry buff. She's unfortunately pretty susceptible to being either severely injured or even one-shot by Juggernaut's stronger skills.

Stardust: Stardust is pretty much the best option for damage against Juggernaut, due to his severe elemental weaknesses, but she'll either need Rheine in the party, or I'll have to stock up on a bunch of Metopons.

Asriel: Asriel is certain an option. He can't really take advantage of Juggernaut's elemental weaknesses, unfortunately. He's also ever so slightly more susceptible to being pasted by certain skills.

Jackie: Jackie can easily exploit Juggernaut's elemental weaknesses, much like Stardust can, and she can even probably avoid the normal Charged skills extra damage penalty, because Charged skills actually have higher speed modifiers than all of Juggernaut's skills.

Tyler: Anyone with access to elemental damage is pretty good in the Juggernaut fight, even if Tyler's overall damage output isn't as great as some other party members. His high HP and average VIT mean he's less susceptible to being suddenly pasted than most other party members.

Ranger: Ranger's entire thing is heavy elemental damage. You thought you saw some big numbers before? Berserk Cry + Transform already means Ranger deals triple the damage he normally does, and god help us all if he gets paired up with Milly.


Defense

Phoebe: Front Guard cuts down on Juggernaut's damage a significant amount (it's a 70% reduction at level 20), and hell, I could even use Perfect Defense if I want to get lax with dispelling Berserk Cry and make Juggernaut waste a turn doing nothing with King's Rush.

Ursa: Ursa can tank Tusk Strike, and probably Brandish (as long as her arms don't get bound), but Eradicate will almost certainly kill her. True Endurance, like Perfect Defense, can let me make Juggernaut waste a turn basically whiffing King's Rush.


Support

Nadia: Juggernaut's AGI being low, combined with some of his skills having lower-than-average accuracy means Nadia can try dodge-tanking with Chain Dance, and then follow it up with burst damage from Hazy Arrow, which will hurt like hell with Berserk Cry. Blind and paralysis, additionally, are useful ailments against Juggernaut.

Realga: Realga is mostly useful for keeping Ursa alive if she's brought along. Aside from that obvious use, she can also easily patch up non-lethal damage, especially if Phoebe is spamming Front Guard. She can also fairly easily get rid of arm binds from Brandish, and ailments from Putrid Breath.

Milly: Juggernaut already takes care of giving us a normal attack buff, meaning Milly's primary use is casting Preludes on our big damage dealers, and using a Fantasia (probably Shock Fantasia) to make Juggernaut even weaker to a given element.

Sophie: Sophie is our single best bet for getting the conditional now and not having to worry about it later. Creeping Curse also means that Juggernaut's 25% resistance to several good disables isn't as bad as it could be. Head binds, in particular, almost completely shut Juggernaut down, since almost all of his normal skills, along with Violent Cry and Reckless Barrier, rely on the head.

Colette: Barrier doesn't have that many uses in the Juggernaut fight, since none of his disables have high enough base chances for me to be particularly worried about them. Ailing Slash will hurt like hell with Berserk Cry, I can say that much.

Rheine: Rheine is, bar none, one of the best supports for Juggernaut. She can use Ad Nihilo Juggernaut to get rid of his Berserk Cry and Reckless Barrier buffs, White Noble to get rid of Berserk Cry before the Violent Cry turn (and Eradicate, if applicable), Prevent Order to prepare for Putrid Breath, and Link Order to contribute some extra elemental damage. This is one of the few times in the game where I'd say stacking Milly and Rheine isn't that big a deal, since they both have very different roles in the fight.


Vote for a maximum of five party members, at least one from each category. Don't vote for the same party member more than twice, though--that did not work out so well last time.