Despite additions to the roster in the 3DS version, Jessica remains the closest party member to the ‘mage’ archetype that you will find. Others will be able to contribute of course, but her high magical statistics and equipment choices mean that she will be the one capable of generating the highest magical damage numbers. This being a Dragon Quest game however, means that there’s often a great deal more required of your team than simply one type of damage, so we’ve put together the following builds to help you make the most of your feisty bombshell.
Supportive Jessica
- (Sex Appeal) – 100 Points
- (Whips) – 23 Points
- (Staff) – 57 Points
Thanks to her kit of automatically learned spells, Jessica is always going to have the ability to deal tremendous amounts of spell damage, no matter the skill point allocation. With that in your back pocket, perhaps you would like her to contribute more than just big flashy numbers? We’re not about to tell you that she’ll become a master of support and assist you through any situation, but digging a little deeper into her toolkit will reveal some powerful skills to help you on your way.
There are two main benefits that can be found here, these being forms of healing and some quite reasonable physical damage. By investing all the way into Sex Appeal, you will be able to unlock a useful party heal, and whilst it’s not going to get close to beating the Hero for sheer health restoration, it can be useful when high incoming damage is expected. Adding to this is the 23 points in Whips, which grants Jessica the fantastic Twin Dragon Lash. Again, she isn’t going to break any records in this regard, but having the option available for particularly resistant foes is a nice bonus. Finally, the 57 points invested into the Staff will, along with its other benefits, unlock the Caduceus skill, which is essentially a free single target heal! All of this combines to make Jessica support the team quite effectively… Well, in between rounds of blasting out her most powerful spell, that is.
Build Features
- Investing 100 points into Sex Appeal will allow Jessica to access a group heal, which she would otherwise have no access to, outside of using items or equipment in battle.
- Similarly, 57 points in Staff will unlock Caduceus, which is a single target heal that can be used for free.
- Broadening her horizons further, investing only 23 points into Whips will unlock Twin Dragon Lash, which is a powerful double physical attack.
- Now, don’t expect huge amounts of health restoration or physical damage from this build, but do expect it to allow Jessica to be useful in more than just offensive situations.
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Full Mage Jessica
- (Sex Appeal) – 16 Points
- (Staff) – 84 Points
- (Fisticuffs) – 52 Points
Likely the most logical, and indeed probably the most frequented of builds for Jessica is that of the full mage build, which opts for spell damage ahead of everything else. We can totally understand players going for this build, and to be honest we’d probably encourage you to do so, after all it’s very satisfying to see her flinging about flashy explosions and ripping showers of ice, but we want to draw your attention to two additions that will make your life a great deal easier.
See, investing 84 points into the Staff weapon will grant her everything that she needs to keep throwing out damage. Her MP pool will be greatly increased, will restore itself each round and hell, she’ll even get a free emergency heal out of it. These are all great benefits, but you absolutely must be cognizant of her defensive capabilities, after all a dead mage isn’t exactly going to be of much use to you. To this end, you’ll want to grab yourself 16 points in Sex Appeal and 52 points in Fisticuffs. Whilst the former is not necessarily essential, since it basically just gives her a chance to charm enemies, the latter will provide her with a massive amount of evasion when unarmed. This might sound unusual, after all you’ll surely want to give her a staff of some sort, however having this 50% evasion in your back pocket for difficult boss battles is a tremendous advantage. Such a high chance is unheard of on any other character, so ignoring it would be foolish, especially in the late and post game sections of DQ8.
Build Features
- This build focuses much more on the Staff section of Jessica, meaning that she’ll get access to all of that lovely bonus flat MP, and it takes enough points to get the ticking regeneration during battle.
- Sex Appeal is taken simply to get a somewhat useful charm chance. It’s not necessarily reliable, however it will occasionally save you some time and effort.
- Fisticuffs are taken to the point where 50% evasion is unlocked. It should be noted that this is only active when Jessica has no weapon equipped, so be sure to remember this when you’re expecting high amounts of incoming damage, or are struggling to keep her alive.
- Overall this build focuses on high magical damage, with a few elements of defence to keep her going.
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Ultimate Jessica Build
- (Sex Appeal) – 100 Points
- (Whips) – 100 Points
- (Staff) – 84 Points
- (Fisticuffs) – 52 Points
It doesn’t exactly take a mathematician to determine that our ultimate Jessica build is mainly a combination of the other two. Unlike some other party members, she tends to have very specific benefits yet finds herself limited outside of these. You can play around with the numbers to your heart’s content, but she’ll inevitably get at least 80% of her use from simply dealing spell damage to your targets. Rather than just repeating what we’ve noted above, we’ll instead go into a bit of detail around the things we’ve skipped, because understanding these will detail why her builds are limited relative to others.
Knives then, have been completely skipped. We could perhaps understand that certain models combined with her skills could, potentially, create a nice build that poisons or outright kills enemies, but this would see her rely on RNG, and she has so many better options for guaranteed damage that it makes no sense. Sure, you could argue that she will also gain access to Swords, which are powerful and generally very useful, but you’re very likely to have picked these up with at least one other party member, and a team that specialises in the same things isn’t exactly adaptable now, is it?
At the end of the day, the ultimate build for Jessica is one that combines her supportive elements, these being healing, physical damage, mp management and evasion, with her specialisation of making things explode with flashy spells. Venturing too far outside of this simply creates a weaker version of other party members, so why not simply steer into the skid?
Build Features
- Fully levelling through Whips will unlock the most powerful Whip based attack, being Serpent’s Bite. This will decimate groups of opponents, and lets you take advantage of some great late game whips.
- The build features all of the ‘supportive’ and ‘mage’ elements noted previously, ensuring that Jessica brings great damage, some small healing and reasonable amounts of physical damage.
- Fisticuff investment will mean that you can keep the fantastic 50% evasion when unarmed, which is tremendously valuable in the post game.
- This unlocks pretty much everything that is desirable for Jessica, though it’s worth noting that we still avoid Knives. There’s some value to them, and indeed from unlocking Swords, but they do not approach the usefulness of her main options.
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Categories: Dragon Quest VIII