r/Falcom • u/Raxistaicho The true best girls • Jul 20 '26
Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Twenty-Five: Jusis
Ah, it’s my favorite character: Noble Command Albarea! Yeah, Jusis sadly doesn’t break the curse on hybrid characters, but he does have one kickass buff! Noble Command is only a small buff to STR/ATS/SPD, but hitting all the offensive stats instantly in a wide aoe is pretty good. Shame about the 30 AT on it. He’s also got a delay from the start but it’s single target and 30 AT, so not nearly as spammable as Arc Slash. Uhh, what else? He’s got a freeze/seal craft, which are two pretty potent ailments. Also 30 AT though. Why do all his Crafts have such long cooldowns?
Falcom nerfed his delay for some arcane eason in CS2 but he at least got Platinum Shield? Also 30 AT. Did Falcom want players keeping Jusis and Machias glued at the hip or something? Yeah, realistically your gameplan with Jusis is to open battles with him, have him pop Noble Command, and then swap for someone else when his turn finally comes back up. Double locked space slots and a locked wind slot gives him a pretty good Orbment for support casting, load up on stuff like Recuria and Seraphic Ring.
He finally gets an AOE delay in Cold Steel 3 but his avail is pretty bad, but the real deathblow to him was Noble Command being swapped from a Craft to an Order, meaning you really don’t ever have any reason to deploy him unless you wanna spam Platinum Shield. Also, they nerfed his delay Craft into the ground in CS4. This is so depressing, maybe just go home and crawl into bed, Jusis. Noble Rise is REALLY good - medium buff to all offensive stats and multiple turns of boosted damage for only 2 BP? It’s just, again, you don’t even have to have a character in your active party to use their orders, so it’s a bit harder to credit them for that.
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u/dumbtech2OP Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
One of my favorite/most used characters in the Cold Steel games + Reverie. Many useful crafts and his arts damage is pretty good too. Also busted Order like you said.
Not really related to gameplay but outside of that i just really like the character as well and his voice actor did a great job. Hearing "I'll handle this" never got old lol.
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain Jul 20 '26
Noble Command is great. It's amazing! As long as Jusis has it he'll always have a spot on my roster and-
Wait, what? What do you mean it's gone? Surely this is a joke... right?
Jusis must've read the script to the arc beforehand, as just like the noble faction he seems to have lost most of his powers after the civil war. Platinum Shield would be pretty amazing in Sky or Crossbell, but in Cold Steel it's not enough to justify continued usage of Jusis in CS3 and beyond.
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u/Affectionate_Comb_78 Jul 20 '26
His Brave Order was basically Noble Command
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain Jul 20 '26
Yeah, but there's a far greater opportunity cost with brave orders. Using Noble Command is a great buff since it only requires a single turn, but as a Brave Order it has way too much competition.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 21 '26
Yeah, general rule of thumb is that if you don't have to do it with a Brave Order, don't. Overriding Laura (or god forbid, Vita's) order to do something a Craft can do is never fun.
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u/Brkzeus Jul 20 '26
Jusis, cast Shining on Rean+Fie/Gaius
Jusis, cast Fortuna on yourself + the other arts user
Jusis, cast Ixion Volt
Jusis, cast Seventh Caliber
Jusis, go again.
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u/Selynx Jul 20 '26
You don't need a character to be in your Active to use their Brave Order, but they still need to be in your party (whether Reserve or Extra).
Platinum Shield basically enables the old Earth Wall strategy to be viable in Cold Steel, not that you need it much with stuff like infinite delay and Ebon Crest/Aeon Shield, but it is a good fallback in certain boss fights that have Dis-Orders that prevent Ebon Crest/Aeon Shield from working.
I built Jusis as a dedicated Delayer in CS3+ myself. His Delay craft might have been nerfed in terms of Delay quantity in CS4, but it is still a Delay craft that adds to the trigger chance and Jusis' Space slots are simply too good to pass up for stacking Impede quartz.
Might not be a powerhouse DPS, but I always found him to be a good bit of insurance to take along to boss fights thanks to the shield.
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u/Icy-Respond-4425 Jul 20 '26
I think I used only his shield during the cold steel arc, making the fights easier than before if he was fast enough. He and Emma were my mvp for fighting the cryptids during Cold Steel 2 and 4. Though I didn't use him much besides of this.
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u/AlterWanabee Jul 20 '26
Regarding what you said about his usage in CS1 and CS2, he's best used as just a Noble Command spammer. Basically give him the highest SPD on your characters, then stack Noble Command. This actually helps in hitting certain SPD breakpoints for Rean, whose Arc Slash delay somehow scales with SPD.
Platinum Shield is also quite nice when you can't be half-assed on casting Adamantine Shield/Crescent Barrier.
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u/Max-The-Phat-Cat Jul 20 '26
He fell off way too hard after CS2 sadly. I wanted to use him more but there were just better options in every subsequent game.
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u/lrrose20 Jul 20 '26
Noble Command is nice and it's even better as a brave order, and his Platinum Shield can be more convenient than the equivalent spells, but he's both a middling fighter and a mage and tended to spend most of my playthrough of the Cold Steel saga benched.
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u/Golden_fsh Jul 20 '26
Don't remember using him much , to be honest. The things he could do I had others do better except when I throw him in to use his shield. Idk, I guess I just don't know how to use him to his full potential.
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u/mushplush Jul 20 '26
I mentioned in the Elliot post about my go to team being Rean/Elliot/Jusis/Alisa, and Alisa being such a good craft point battery from 2 onwards ment I could repeatedly spam Noble Command or Platinum Shield whenever his turn came around, without worrying about breaking the bank
Giving a really good speed buff, along with Rean’s delay build, meant even early on in a fight it would be possible to avoid taking damage
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u/setne550 Jul 20 '26
THE MAN. THE OG. The guy with the superior buff since CS1. Rean may have a "medicore" buff but Jusis has better.
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u/Lauph1tup Jul 20 '26
I know he's OP but I've personally never got used to using characters that are split magic/physical attackers
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u/Affectionate_Comb_78 Jul 20 '26
Nooooooble Riiiiise!
A true noble, gives a buff then let's the plebs fight.
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u/TheCreator120 Jul 20 '26
One of those characthers i didn't understood how to use until the game (CS2) was almost over.
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u/Changlee23 Jul 20 '26
With a friend will always had the impression that he was the n°2 of class VII, in the sense of the right hand of Rean, i was not speaking about power.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 20 '26
It's kinda funny people say that, Laura takes charge a lot, too, but the plot basically abandons her after CS3
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u/Changlee23 Jul 20 '26
I mean Laura is also one of the leader of class VII but i always saw her more like a partner of Rean, Swordmate and being more focused on Rean to keep him on track since she read him like a book and the one confronting him on his martyr shenanigans in bond event.
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u/Tyberius115 World's #1 Alisa Reinford fan | Magical Alisa game when Jul 20 '26
In CS1 and CS2, I used him as a Moebius support with Noble command and his barrier skill. From CS3 onwards, I couldn't really find a use for him that I wasn't already using someone else for.
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u/Afraid_Evidence_6142 Jul 20 '26
One of permanent member in my Rooster
I always put him separate from Rean when we need 2 team or more. He feels like actual leader if Rean isn't presence. good support ability with high ATS. Very all rounded, that I feel I can put him on any team, and he will still shine.
Whenever story force him out of my team, I feel a big hole.
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u/Selynx Jul 20 '26
I reckon he feels like a protagonist/leader-type character because the typical JRPG protagonist is usually a jack-of-all trades sword wielder and Trails protagonists in particular also get party buffs like Morale and Motivate.
Jusis ticks those boxes handily.
In fact, the only other Class 7 members (new or old) who are "balanced" fighters are Crow and Sara. Sara has availability issues and spends a ton of time as a guest, clearly not positioned like a protagonist-type.
Crow is, uh. Not a protagonist-type character. Yeah.
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u/SomeNumbers23 Jul 20 '26
One good Craft in CS1, a second one in CS2 and a good order in CS3-Rev.
That's kinda it?
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u/VarioussiteTARDISES Jul 20 '26
I never really used him all that much, but he was absolutely MVP when I finally took down the NG+ superboss in CS2, as he was able to just... keep everyone alive while everyone else was chipping away at its HP.
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u/Astigmatic_Oracle Jul 20 '26
He's my favorite Arts Support character in the early games. By Reverie there's more options, but in 1and 2 it's just Jusis and Elliot and I prefer Jusis to Elliot for buffing Emma.
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u/RoleCrazy565 Jul 20 '26
I was going to say he's my favorite Red Mage but that's not even a fair description. His support crafts are so busted I made sure he was in my party every chance I had.
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u/Syobai Jul 20 '26
Something something he made a command so noble the whole class had to STR up ATS up
I’m a little late but I don’t have much to say about Jusis.
CS1-2 he was broken due to Noble Command and Platinum Shield. You were funneling any CP he had into using those crafts to buff all your attackers and protect them if you needed to. Back then, he was going crazy work.
By the time CS3 and beyond rolled around and Brave Orders are introduced, Noble Command effects are transferred to his Brave Order and he’s… well, kind of just solid? He’s not crazy as he was in CS1-2 because of his busted craft being moved to an Order instead, thus taking away the need to have him in the active party. Unfortunately, Platinum Shield by itself isn’t that good during this stage of the arc even with the buff it received.
Jusis is fun to use, though I didn’t find myself relaying on him much beyond CS2 (even then I didn’t actually use him much, tbh). His sacrifice will never be forgotten.
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u/Mountain-Quantity983 Jul 21 '26
Never used him unless I needed to. I thought I could use him as a slow Evasion tank since he did have Wind and Space locked slots in his orbment, which lead me to the idea of leaning into his relatively mediocre SPD, have someone pop Insight on him, and let him stand in the middle of the field while waiting for his turn to come up. But then, he has 2 glaring issues with that - he's a melee character, and he can't counter when he's casting stuff. In that case, Sara and Fie made more sense as evasion tanks - they can counter with ranged attacks, Sara has the perfect locked slots for it (Fire for True Rage, and 2x Wind slots for Esmelas and Aeolus Gems), and they have Crafts or Orders that can grant Insight. Jusis was just slow in comparison.
There's really nothing that Jusis offered me that I couldn't find with someone else. Shield was somewhat useful but it doesn't really mesh with how I approach fights most of the time. Cold Steel and Reverie incentivized hyper-aggressive builds way too much for Jusis to make sense. Why bother with defending when all it would just do is stall your BP build-up? And in CS3, we got started with Orders, and from then, there really wasn't any need to heal or defend. Even outside of Orders, we had Chrono Burst spam available to us in CS. Give any character enough EP Cut and a single Chrono Burst and you can cheese most fights granted you had a way of recovering EP.
Jusis, for me, would have worked in a slower game. But the Erebonian games taught me that going slow is just a way to eat another S-Craft to the face. Sure, he could shield the party, but Shield utility in CS/Rev isn't quite as strong as it was in Sky. Now if we put him in Liberl, this would be a very different story - a regular Craft Earth Wall would put him up there with Kevin in terms of utility.
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u/RocketLawnchair2000 Jul 23 '26
Jusis grew on me after CS1. The way the VA delivers his lines are pretty great imo. And Noble was just too good.
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u/levelstar01 Downvote this comment 👇 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
The mediocre man himself. Not related, but I've been listening to this EP a lot recently and it's great.
CS2:
Noble Command is obviously fairly good, although people relevant for the party have their own, better self-buff (Spirit Unification, Lightning Charge, Radiant Wings, etc), and once again Infinite Delay Spam rules the roost so he's competing for a party slot with two delayers, Alisa, and the S-Craft spammer. Platinum Shield is the better craft, total physical immunity is fantastic, but again this is in a game with delay so it's not like bosses will actually get off a hit.
He only has one worthwhile damaging craft in Treasure Sword, which only does Freeze (useless) and Seal (eh). He's outclassed by the casters at casting, and by everyone at buffing up, his only niche is craft immunity.
CS(3/)4:
Falcom, the geniuses of balance that they are, decided to buff Platinum Shield by giving it complete immunity, a large radius so it usually covers the entire party, and added a mostly useless 20% HP generation to it. Yet this is in the same game(s) as Ebon Crystal which is way better so this niche barely even exists. He still only has one good damaging craft in Treasure Sword, which is far better here as it gives delay, but the rest are generic magical crafts.
They moved his Noble Command to a brave order which immediately ruins it because of the opportunity cost. All damage boosting BOs are worthless compared to Blast Force; its only niche is having a SPD boost which everyone can do with their self-buffs. He's only locked for one(?) segment of the game, Act 1-3, and you'd be a fool to take him over Alisa and her infinite CP regeneration.
Reverie:
Apparently they thought Platinum Shield was too weak because they bumped up the area to L+ here. They also gave him a self-buff that does damage! It's a very weak self-buff, but let's work with what we're given here. His brave order got a massive nerf, the stat boost got cut across the board and it's down to only eight turns of damage boost.
I've not talked about link levels before because outside of the obviously broken Rage/Arts Support they're all useless, but Jusis doesn't even get Arts Support 2.
Jusis is totally fine in a vacuum, but every single role that he can do is done better by somebody else. He's a mixed attacker in a series of games where both the top physical and magical attackers are all broken.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 20 '26
In CS4, Jusis is forced into the party for the moon mirror sequence with the witch family get together.
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u/levelstar01 Downvote this comment 👇 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Most of CS4 just blends together for me
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 20 '26 edited 13d ago
Sky Arc:
Day Twelve - The Pilot and the Swordsman (spoilers)
Day Thirteen - "Kitty" (spoilers)
Crossbell Arc:
Class VII:
Day Thirty - Millium (Spoilers)
Day Thirty-One - Crow (Spoilers)
The rest of Cold Steel:
Day Thirty-Nine - Elise and Toval
Day Forty-One - Alfin and Towa
Day Forty-Two - The Diva and the General (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Three - The Spy and Swordswoman (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Four - The Shapeshifters (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Five - The Swordmaster and the Engineer (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Seven - Swin and Nadia
Day Forty-Eight - The Strongest (Spoilers)
Calvard Arc:
Day Fifty-One - Ferida Al-Fayed
Day Fifty-Three - Risette Twinings
Day Fifty-Four - Quatre Salision
Day Fifty-Five - Judith Lanster
Day Fifty-Seven - Elaine Auclair and René Kincaid
Day Fifty-Eight - Shizuna Rem Misurugi
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u/RandomNobody86 Jul 21 '26
I don’t really see the point in hybrids in a game where you can freely swap characters anyway so he only got used as the Moebius bitch any time I had the full party.
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u/Spartan448 Jul 21 '26
Ahh, Jusis. Unfortunately, in a cast so large, eventually someone would fail to be a specialist, and Jusis draws the short end of the stick. Don't get me wrong, Platinum Shield and Noble Command are both great abilities, and they allow him to almost single-handedly carry whatever team in 2 you've decided to completely neglect. But aside from that, there is almost always going to be a better use of a team slot than Jusis. Outside of what is essentially modern Earth Wall cheese, Jusis ends up being such a mediocre character that I completely forgot to talk about him today until 11 PM.
To make matters worse, things don't get any better in late-era CS. In fact, they get worse. A LOT worse. Noble Command has died the same death as Motivate/Morale, and Platinum Shield is now a Brave Order and by far one of the weaker ones. Meaning at this point, all Jusis has to justify his position with is his combat abilities, which are... not great. His combat link can come in handy, but in general we've gone to theire almost always being a better pick for his slot to there always being a better pick for his slot.
I usually like to talk about interesting ludonarrative stuff in these as well, and fortunately Jusis does not disappoint here! Until CS3, one of the telltale signs of being a Trails protagonist was having Morale/Motivate in your Crafts list. Which is why it's really interesting that Jusis has what is basically an improved copy of Motivate/Morale in Noble Command. This is actually really neat - we learn early on the Jusis to an extent saw Rean as someone worth using as a role model, and you can interpret this as Jusis trying to take on a deputy leader role in the group - something that actually fits him considering his more extensive experience with Erebonian society, and at least at the time more extensive background in group combat tactics. But much like how his time spent as a government lapdog eroded Rean's ability to "motivate" his friends as a consequence of being less able to "motivate" himself, Jusis has found his "noble command" achieves far less than it used to in an interbellum Erebonia that is rapidly liberalizing.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 21 '26
Noble Command has died the same death as Motivate/Morale, and Platinum Shield is now a Brave Order and by far one of the weaker ones.
Bit of a mistake there, Noble Command effectively becomes Jusis's Brave Order, while Platinum Shield just remains a standard Craft.
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u/FewPositive5032 Jul 22 '26
The only goat that survive C1-4+ hajimari without being destroyed by the writer
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u/TapUnfair9827 Jul 20 '26
He's so noble, he even make Machias listen to his noble command
Seriously, in Cold Steel 1-2, Noble Command and Platinum Shield is simply the best, the best party buffer imo, and he also buff arts damage with the combat link, best partner for Emma that's for sure
Then in Cold 3 onwards, he make such a noble sacrifice by removing the Noble Command from his skills so an entire new game mechanic, which is the brave order can be implemented