Pandora Saga Juggernaut Guide

Pandora Saga Juggernaut Guide by SanctumSeven

So you want to be a juggernaut? Well, there are a few things you should know.

First off, you’ll need to start out as a Warrior. As far as race is concerned, you have a couple of options.

Deciding Your Race

Enkidu – great for str-type juggernaut. Strong Arm as a racial ability gives 10% bonus damage to any 2-hand weapons you would consider using as a jugg – Sword, Spear, Axe. Another option, though less desirable is going to be Stone Skin, but since your juggernaut will end up in pretty good defense armor anyways, it’s not really necessicary.

Myrine – Want to make a crit-build? This is the race to start with. The Acute Senses racial ability gives each strike you make an additional 5% chance to critical strike. Or, if you wanted to go agi (which I wouldn’t recommend) Sharpness is the ability for you.

Lapin – If you pretty much just want to be adorable, go lapin, and go Magic Resistance.

Dwarf – Dwarves have the highest base strength, which means less pumping into STR as you level, and Stronghearted has a small chance to keep you alive at 1hp when the source of your damage could have killed you.

Human Male/Female – There’s no real reason to ever go either of these classes for a Juggernaut, but if you feel that you MUST be one of them, your viable options are Pharmaceutics which increases potion effeciency (on top of Brewer, a skill you’ll get anyways) or Adaptability, which nominally reduces the duration of ailments.

Elf Male/Female – Same as human. If you need to be one, you have two options for a racial, but they won’t benefit you nearly as much as an Enkidu or Myrine. Your options are Steadfastness, which gives a small boost to charm resist, or Nature’s Harmony, which reduces your MP costs by a couple of points.

Deciding Your Weapon

Juggernauts can be broken down into two primary categories: Sword juggernauts, and Axe juggernauts. Axes tend to be a bit more powerful, but have a slower rate of attack, while Swords have less power, and faster attacks. Both are viable options, and I’ll break it down by skills aquired. (Note also, that Juggernauts are capable of getting up to 90 points into thrust, slash, or cleave, which is spear, sword, and axe respectively. I’m not including Spear juggernauts here, because if you want to go full spear, you’re going to be better off making a dragoon.)

Sword

Whirling Strike (2h sword only) – this move sends your juggernaut into a single spin, whirling about and hitting all enemies in the immediate circumference around your juggernaut, knocking them back. This move is very useful for escaping when surrounded by enemies.

Parry (2 handed weapons) – essentially just causes an enemy attacking from the front to miss with their next attack. Note, that they can still get behind you, and hurt you while you are in the parry stance.

Concentration (any) – Increases your accuracy by 100 for your next attack. I would recommend any juggernaut get this skill, regardless of primary weapon (26 slash to get)

Brutal Strike (most melee weapons) – a fairly powerful single-strike move.

Sword Mastery (passive) – increases the attack power of sword skills. Passive.

Dice (sword only) – 3 hits in rapid succession. Used in conjunction with Raging Soul, Desparado, and Warcry, you have one mean mage-killer.

Axe

Clobber (axe) – a single-strike attack that has an increased chance of being a Critical Hit.

Riposte (most melee weapons)- Parry’s more ferocious counterpart. Not only does it negate all damage done to the person in reposte stance, they then deal back the damage that would have been dealt to them. Also, only works if the attacks are frontal, you will still be hurt if you take a back-attack.

Roar (axe) – Increases your critical hit rate for a period of time.

Split (axe) – a powerful AoE skill that damages all enemies grouped in front of the user.

Desparate Strike (axe) – The most powerful move that an Axe juggernaut can dish out, but also the most dangerous. This skill does massive amounts of damage, and stuns your enemy, but if you miss while using this skill, you take all the damage that you would have dealt out.

How do I choose?

Well, neither weapon is “better” than the other, it’s all about preference, and what kind of build you plan on having. Note, that for the final skills listed in either category, you need 71 points into slash or cleave respectively, but that leaves room to add into other things. I recommend that all juggernauts get Dash, which is 8 points into evasion, as it is a move that has both offensive and defensive applications, and no juggernaut should be without it. But, there are hybrids. I would say that any axe juggernaut in their right mind would want to put the 26 points into slash for Concentration to pair with D-strike, to be more certain that they’ll land the blow and not suffer a miss.
There is a certain amount of exparamentation to be done, but some good weapon builds are

71+ slash
54 thrust (for Dismounting Stab, Triple Stab, Quad-Stab, and Spear Volly, to give yourself a bit of protection against horses)
8 evasion

71+ slash
41 cleave (for Riposte, giving a sword jugg an anti-melee option)
8 evasion

71+ cleave
26 slash (for concentration)
8 evasion

The list goes on and on. So, if you know what kind of weapon you want to use, the next step is

Deciding Your Build

As far as juggernauts are concerned, there are a few builds that have proven to be worthwhile. I’ll go over a couple of those now.

The Beast

The goal of The Beast build combines the power of the Juggernaut with the survivability of a tank-class. Essentially, your build is this:

99 STR
35 DEX
and all of the rest of your points go into STA.

What this gives you is a heavy hitter that still manages to have 7k+ hit points. These juggernauts are great for breaching front-lines, and smashing mages, archers, monks, clerics, and even other juggernauts. Their downfall? They have a lot of difficulty hitting anything that has points pumped into Agi. Due to their immense survivability, this is probably one of the best juggernaut v. juggernaut builds. Good races to use for this build? An Enkidu with Strong Arm, or a Lapin with Magic Resistance. This build should probably only be a Sword build, since you won’t want to be using D-strike with such low dex/acc.

The Huntress

The goal of the huntress build is to have maximum damage payout, plain and simple. These juggernauts need, and I mean NEED a Warlord with them at all times, protecting them from harm. Low survivability by themselves, but insane damage output.

99 STR
all of the rest of your points into DEX

This build will give you very low life (3k or less low), but if you manage to have a warlord with you at all times, you’ll destroy anything in your path. I would recommend Myrine with Acute Senses, just to further increase your critical hit chance, and also going with an Axe. This build is for laying down crit after crit after crit, while still having the damage output of a full strength jugg, and the accuracy to not brutalize yourself with misses.

Avoidance

The goal of avoidance, is to, as the name suggests, avoid. It’s an old-school anti-melee build that is becoming less popular.

99 AGI
40 STA
rest of your points into Dex

If you’re buidling an agi-based juggernaut, you need to go Myrine, and you need Sharpness as your racial. This adds about 20 extra points to your dodge score, which will assist you in not getting struck by melee. Here are the problems with this build: While it is possible to gear yourself to hit 110 agi, there are melee builds that will still be able to hit you. With all of the +accuracy gear that has been released, the Huntress type, if equipped appropriately will be able to hit you, and since all of your damage as an agi is coming from your weapon, the Huntress will dish out about 4x as much damage as you. I would not recommend Juggernaut as an agi build, if you need to go Agi, use a horse, or build an assassin.

Stat Breakdown, and average juggernauts

Alright. So, we have a few “types” of juggs listed. Confused by what these stats mean? Here’s a bit of information.

STR or Strength, is your attack power. Increasing it increases how much damage you do per hit, with significat boosts at intervals of 10. If you’re going a 99 str juggernaut, it’s best to get at least 1 extra in your equipment to put you at an even 100, but better yet is 110, for a phenominal boost in attack power.

DEX or Dextarity, is your accuracy and critical-hit chance. You recieve 1 accuracy for each point into Dex, and also 1% critical hit chance for every 10 points into Dex (if I’m not mistaken)

STA or Stamina, is your survivability. Each point into Stamina (as a juggernaut) increases your maximum LP by about 50, and also increases your recovery rate, and how long you’re affected by negative status effects.

AGI or Agility, is your dodge and attack speed. The attack speed increase is about 1% for each point into Agi, and for each point you also recieve 1 dodge.

SPI or Spirit, affects your mana pool, and mana recovery. Most juggernauts won’t put any points into SPI

INT or Intelegence, affect skill cooldown and mana cost. Most juggernauts won’t put any points into SPI

So what’s your average juggernaut build?

Most juggernauts will have

99 STR for maximum damage output.
35-50 DEX for better accuracy, less chance of missing your foes.
35-50 STA for better survivability. It’s hard to run out there solo without a bit of life to keep you on your feet.
No points pumped into AGI, SPI, or INT.