HEARTBEAT

HEARTBEAT

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How to defeat Peppy Jack
By El-Chubbo
(SPOILERS) A 3 step strategy to defeat Peppy Jack, a post-game boss that is the single hardest fight in the game.
   
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Small Disclaimer
This strategy was used on normal mode. I do not know how much harder or easier the fight is on the other difficulties.
Team Formation, Skills, and Items
The team I used for this fight is shown here.


Klein, Nyx, and Io are the mogs you're going to need. They don't need to be level 99 but by this point in the game all characters are going to be at minimum level 90. I had also completed all the belt challenges in the sewers, so if you haven't done those they should be pretty easy. This strategy does not require any skills bought from the shop in Carona woods and I've beaten Peppy Jack without using them, although the skills "ESP Rockin'" and "White Thicket" can help.

As for your Xoth alien buddy, the transformation I used the most was Tiny Nyx, although if everything else in the strategy goes smoothly you may not need much of the alien's help. Having transformations that have big damage or reviving abilities can also help.






Lastly, make sure you have plenty of healing items, beat restoring items, and especially pocket defibs. Klein is extremely important in keeping the team alive so having means of keeping her up is vital. Elemental items aren't needed.
The Strategy
Peppy Jack basically has two moves. An attack that will nearly one shot your entire party and an attack that will one shot one person. Brute forcing won't work, as the boss deals way too much damage to both be healing and attacking at the same time.

The solution? Reduce Peppy Jack's ability to attack as much as possible.

Step 1. Freeze the Cheese
Klein and Nyx are the two that will keep the party alive as much as possible. The first couple turns will be a bit rough since you won't have the buffs up but you should start the battle fully healed and able to tank about one hit. Before you begin attacking, Klein should use "Cat's March" at the start to ensure nobody gets one shot by Peppy Jack before they get to take their turn. Nyx will use "Freezing..." repeatedly until Peppy Jack is frozen. Eve will defend or being the one using items and Io will use "All eyes on ME" to make sure she doesn't get one shot. On turns where Klein does not need to heal anyone or speed buff again, she should use "Steel Screech" to give the party a chance to survive should they get hit by Peppy Jack. Remain on the defensive until Peppy Jack is frozen.

Step 2. Get ready to Cook
Made it without dying this far? Good. After Peppy Jack is frozen, him unfreezing takes up a turn, so you have a warning before he attacks again. Attacking Peppy Jack unfreezes him faster, so spend a turn or two preparing buffs or using items before attacking. Some notable skills to use in preparation include: Have Eve use "Double Up" on Klein or "Settle Down!" on the boss, have Io use "SPICY!", and have Klein use "Steel Screech." While I did not use it during my run, Nyx's move "White Thicket" that can be bought from Zhengy is also useful for reducing the boss's defense. If Peppy Jack unfreezes while you're not ready, revert back to step one.

Step 3. Melt the Cheese
Peppy Jack has a whopping 5000 health and no elemental affinity, so how are we going to do enough damage? At this point all that's been done is Nyx freezing Peppy Jack and maybe Io has been able to get a couple hits in. Our main source of damage is going to come from Eve and Io. By this point in the fight, you should have 100 Heart. Change Eve's element to fire. Have Eve and Io use fire moves and try to inflict burn on Peppy Jack. Try to save your 100 Heart attacks for Io to use, as her ultimate attack has an extra burn chance on it. If you don't already know, burn inflicts percentage damage per turn. Peppy Jack's strong defense can't do anything against 10% damage per turn. Should you inflict a burn, it will do 500 damage per turn, way more than if you had each character attack normally. If you don't inflict burn, don't worry, the defense debuffs that Eve and/or Nyx inflicted back in step 2 should boost your damage to reasonable levels. Klein and Nyx can attack as well, but should be on item duty to make sure everyone's Beat is at a stable level. This strategy can take awhile, it all depends on when you inflict burn. In my run I got burn very late into the fight but still managed to beat him in about 10 minutes and on my first try using this strategy. (In total I took about 40 minutes trying to defeat Peppy Jack. Only on the last run did I try to freeze and burn him.)

Should everything go correctly, you should have Jack burnt to a cheesy crisp!

Some things to look out for
If you get enough attack debuffs from Klein on Peppy Jack, you may be able to attack him with him unfrozen, as he'll do little enough damage that Klein can safely heal the party without anyone in threat of being one shot. Eve has a move that you can purchase from Zhengy called "ESP Rockin'" that has a chance to burn, circumventing the need to change Eve's elemental affinity. I did not use this skill during the fight however, so it is not required. You can also try similar strategies that involve disabling Peppy Jack wherever possible, such as using Kon's pheromones, but going "Half-Cold, Half-Hot" was what worked for me.
Your Reward
For winning against Peppy Jack you get...

  • The Denim Blade for Klein

  • One happy booby lady

  • An achievement

  • A secret code if you have the soundtrack

  • An expansion pack of gacha cards that Xiu can give you

  • Chibi Chee and Tiny Oni Tony DNA if you show Chee your mogs

  • And a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Hope this helps, and please thumbs up if it did!
8 Comments
Paragon 28 Jul, 2020 @ 11:08am 
You could also farm Mog essence from the Hot Springs. And Alchemy materials from the 5 Den town roads from the throne room. Synthesize Chilly Fries and other items to overlevel your stats.

I got Eve to a point where she could Multi-bonk every enemy for 450 and 1-shot them with 580 on all stats. My record for soloing Hot springs with just Eve was 6:42 for 35 Mog Essence every time.

When your stats are about 250 for any character even bosses do only 1 damage, at that point you can solo the entire Hot Spring run with just Eve and using double up.

I ended up with Eve being so powerful she can double up and solo Peppy Jack on the 3rd turn.
I also got Nyx, Klein and Troz to 250-300. Steamrolled the rest of the game.

The only thing that can kill you is poison if you let it keep hitting or some insta kill skill.
[HTT] im wooser 28 Sep, 2019 @ 8:52pm 
Some extra tips:

Use double up on klein and have klein use steel screech twice, then cat march and another steel screech, alternate this. If peppy's attack is lowered enough you can survive very easily. This also works for every other boss in the game if you want an easy way to win anything, though peppy is still capable of dealing 100+ damage even with attack debuffed to its lowest.

Nyx's freezing is still absolutely necessary and gives you the turns needed to setup debuffs.

Kon is very useful for both the party-wide defence buff and the burn chance skill (requires DNA frags to buy). I use nyx as the item-user once peppy is frozen.

The best possible mott form has to be bakenawa. PULSE.WAV lowers all of peppy's stats for multiple turns and its other attacks can inflict poision which work in conjunction with burn.

With all that together I was able to defeat peppy on my second try.
LevinSeve99 6 Jul, 2019 @ 1:21am 
I found using Shep in place of Io was fairly effective. Shep's basket bomb has a good chance to burn and goldify hits pretty often.
El-Chubbo  [author] 10 Feb, 2019 @ 3:29pm 
@smjjames Oh, I had all its stats at 100,100,100. I liked keeping it balanced.
smjjames 10 Feb, 2019 @ 7:36am 
No, I mean the builds as mentioned in this guide: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1614737446 and on the wiki.
El-Chubbo  [author] 10 Feb, 2019 @ 1:21am 
@smjjames I used the TinyNyx transformation for most of the fight, but any transformation that can disable Peppy Jack, do big damage, or heal is good.
smjjames 9 Feb, 2019 @ 1:12pm 
What's the recommended Motti form for the Peppy Jack battle? Or perhaps, which one did you use?
Zen Dragon 9 Jan, 2019 @ 3:16pm 
With me, I ended up using Pike instead of Io and relied on Pike's solid chance to blind to cheese my way through. I also used the healing sheepsquatch for my alien buddy but literally never used them again after they turned back because that turns out to cause some funky things to happen with status ailments (being that it causes a turn to skip forward, which pretty much makes the timers for all of those ailments 2 instead of 3). Pike's blind lasts a lot longer than freeze which, after it lands, leaves Pike able to be versatile as support for the team with items. Beat management was rough as Pike AND Nyx are beat hungry, but Pike alleviated that with her access to items. The original draft DID contain Io but that was because I was going for a physical rushdown build with Klein in her cat sith form.