Reverse: 1999 Guide | Jessica

Jessica, as a Powerhouse DPS, is the heart of the poison team, and she is the best reality DPS we will have in a long time. Now, when I mention the Poison Team here, we're not talking about stacking poison damage over time. It's more about boosting Jessica's damage by applying poison to enemies.

Jessica is like the Centurion of the plant element. But instead of relying on Moxie, she gets a huge damage Boost from poison. Her ultimate is also much better, as it adds even more poison to enemies instead of stripping them like how centurion's ultimate consumes her Moxie.

Insight, Skills & Psychube

Jessica's inside passives are all related to poison. Insight 1 gives her a 20% damage bonus against poison enemies, and at turns 1, 3, 6, 9, etc., she will automatically apply a stack of poison to all enemies. Her insight 3 allows her to apply a stack of poison whenever she attacks an enemy that is not currently poisoned.

On multi-wave stages or stages with mobs in general, this can be very useful to jump-start the poison on the enemy. If you apply this during the off time of her inside one poison, she can even have two poisons on the enemy for 1 turn, all by herself. The poison team is one of the only teams that can consistently keep up more than two negative statuses on a target.

Because each poison stack is counted separately, this means that, in a proper team, she will have 100% uptime for Blasphemous of the Night, making it her best slot in slot Psychubes. Between the 20% damage bonus from her insight and more from Blasphemous of the Night, she's already looking at a 32% to 44% damage bonus, depending on the application.

On top of that, there is also the 18% incantation might, which is multiplicative with it. This leads to a 55% damage bonus to a 70% damage bonus on her base incantations. Well, with such a high damage bonus, did they dial back on her skill? No, her single target skill, White Blankie, started with the standard 180% damage multiplier.

However, this multiplier increases if the target has poison on them. This goes up to 260% as three stacks of poison, which is the highest tier of multiplier in single Target skills. In comparison, even when the follow-up attack is triggered, Lilya’s single Target skill, Crosswind Takeoff, still only has a 240% multiplier.

Her AOE skill, Good Friends, is the same as Bkornblume’s AOE skill, with a base multiplier of 135%, but it goes up to 165% if the target has any debuffs on it. This also causes the highest damage to AOE skills. This is the preferred skill for applying her I3 effect when necessary since the damage bonus can be triggered with any debuff, not just poison.

Resonate

For Resonate, there is the standard attack, crit, and attack plus damage bonus build. My suggestion is to stick to the attack build unless the stage gives a related buff, or you can use her with the tooth fairy. Her crit tech is definitely on the lower side, and the board itself also has a relatively limited amount of critical chance and damage.

Team Comps and Combat Tips

If you want to use Jessica to her full potential, then you must have poison support in the team. While she does have some poison in her kit, she cannot provide enough Poison by herself to consistently trigger Blasphemous of the night. Even If other support, such as Satsuki, provides other negative statuses for Blasphemous, she would still miss out on damage from her multiplier and insight.

The best team to play with Jessica is undoubtedly Bkornblume and Sotheby. Sotheby’s AOE poison application gives Jessica access to both damage bonuses from her insight and Blasphemous of Night, and her being a healer also allows Bkornblume in the team.

Now, you might be thinking Sotheby’s ultimate completely removes all poisons on the enemy. What do we do with that? As mentioned before, Jessica will automatically apply poison to all Enemies at the beginning of turns 1, 3, 6, 9, etc. So, you can use Sotheby’s ultimate on turns 5, 8, and 11, which is right before the poison appears.

If you start the next turn with Sotheby’s poison, the target will have two poison stacks. And if you have Jessica’s ultimate, you can use it right after Sotheby to bring the stack number to 3. If you do not have Sotheby, there are still some other options for you. You can achieve roughly the same amount of damage output by using Tooth Fairy and Kanjira.

Kanjira has a relatively accessible poison with her skill, Hey, Punji. Unfortunately, it is a single-target attack. There are two things you need to know about this poison. One, if you get her to portrait 1, her poison will last 3 turns instead of 2. If you use it on the turn, her Jade's Fortune is active, which happens every 3 turns; starting turn 1, she will apply 2 stacks of poison instead of 1.

Also, check our Reverse: 1999 review and other guides below:

• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Mercuria
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Kakania
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Lucy
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Windsong
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Isolde
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Charlie
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Kaalaa Baunaa
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Shamane
• Reverse: 1999 Guide | Ezra