Jecht

Assassin

This blitzball legend worms his way in close to foes and lets loose on them with pure aggression. Cancel out of moves with Fake Out to throw off opponents’ timing and leave them at the mercy of his onslaught.

Original Appearance: FINAL FANTASY X

Year: 2001

Role: Jecht is Tidus’s father and a renowned blitzball player for the Zanarkand Abes. The mystery behind his disappearance becomes a relevant point of Tidus and Yuna’s journey to defeat Sin, a being thought to be a manifestation of humanity’s punishment for their reliance on machina.

Other Noteworthy Appearances: DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY (2009), DISSIDIA 012 FINAL FANTASY (2011), Theatrhythm FINAL FANTASY Curtain Call (2014)

Arsenal

Bravery Attacks

HP Attacks

EX Skill

Bravery Attack Breakdown

Feral Charge

Jecht goes in for an uppercut, and whether he makes a mark or not, he follows up with a ruthless step-kick and finishes with a wild swing of his sword.

Feral Charge is a close-range three-hit combo that can be fully executed on whiff. The first fist strike is limited in its range, but you can continue into the step-kick and sword slash to extend your reach. And like most melee attacks, all three strikes can be effectively evasion canceled to keep you safe from potential retaliation.

Much of your combat strategy revolves around Feral Charge, especially since it’s one of the few moves that can be used during Fake Out, making it an excellent follow-up to offensive pressure sequences and custom combos.

Additionally, as a three-part combo, Feral Charge is superb for setting up team combos. If your allies are close by, you can go for a two-hitter, and instead of finishing the combo, let your teammates decimate the stunned foe. With proper team coordination, this Bravery combo alone makes Jecht an excellent partner to have nearby.

Rising Fist

Jecht launches the opponent into the air with a rising spinning uppercut, then dunks them into the ground with a powerful sword slam.

Rising Fist is a unique attack in that it has essentially no horizontal reach. However, it’s an attack with a built-in high jump, giving you extra vertical mobility, especially if it’s evasion and dash canceled.

It can be used as an anti-air for enemies above you (around jump height) and can be considered an alternative to using your normal jump. However, since it’s a grounded attack with limited range, it can be an awkward attack to implement in certain scenarios, as Feral Charge and Eagle Talons will likely be preferable thanks to their reach and versatility.

Quick Block

Jecht briefly projects a red shield before him, nullifying Bravery projectiles and countering melee Bravery Attacks. Successfully parrying a melee attack causes the attacker to stagger, leaving them vulnerable to retaliation.

Using Quick Block effectively takes timing and dedicated practice, but it’s well worth the effort. If you can predict or react to a Bravery Attack, you’re rewarded with a boost to Jecht’s unique EX Skill gauge (successful counters reduce Fake Out recast time by one second). So while you aren’t rewarded with a stagger and a free combo for blocking projectiles with Quick Block, you indirectly punish your opponent for giving you a recast reduction to Fake Out and making you a more effective combatant.

Blocking melee attacks is much more difficult, and it can take some prediction. The more you play and actively practice parrying attacks, the more sense you’ll gain of how and when enemies attack you. Additionally, Quick Block can be evasion canceled early into its animation, making it relatively safe to throw out.

Eagle Talons

Jecht lunges at the foe with a left hook and a headbutt, then finishes the sequence with a heavy sword slash.

Eagle Talons is identical to Feral Charge, making it a staple in your arsenal. It should be your go-to for most close-range situations (i.e., when you and your target are both on the same horizontal plane).

Foot Sweep

From the air, Jecht drills downward at an enemy with a diving kick, then delivers a devastating blow, launching his victim airborne.

Foot Sweep is one of two main gap-closing Bravery Attacks in Jecht’s arsenal. It has a downward trajectory, making it apt for swooping down on enemies beneath you. It shines against enemy characters who prefer fighting from a grounded position. However, it’s not a true dive-bomb attack like Cloud’s Braver and doesn’t fully descend to ground level (its ground-drop distance is roughly from double-jump height).

Wound Up

While dashing, Jecht bombards the opponent with a corkscrew attack, boring into them with his sword and then knocking them into the air with a mighty kick.

Wound Up is a gap closer that covers more distance than his Eagle Talons and is primarily used to catch fleeing enemies. Unlike Foot Sweep, its trajectory is largely parallel to the ground. Since it’s a dashing attack, you can naturally transition from a neutral dash into this mid-range drill while chasing an enemy in the air (or for a horizontal ground-to-ground assault).

As with Feral Charge, engaging foes with Wound Up works superbly when you have Fake Out available, since you can cancel out of its recovery to safety or to keep up your offensive pressure.

HP Attack Breakdown

Hot Steel

With his sword enveloped in flames, Jecht lunges toward his enemy, assaulting them with a flurry of slashes.

Hot Steel is an extremely effective HP Attack, greatly complementing Jecht’s overall toolkit. It covers more range than Feral Charge and deals a respectable amount of Bravery damage before its final HP-damaging strike.

Equipping Hot Steel is ideal for mixing up enemies at close to mid-range. If you can make your way into the enemy’s melee zone, you can bait the opponent into putting up their guard barrier, then punish them with this unguardable attack (which you can even cancel with Fake Out in case you miss). 

Triumphant Grasp

Jecht’s fist is charged with explosive energy as he plummets from the air into the ground, where it causes devastation to foes within its blast radius.

Triumphant Grasp is a strong dive-bomb attack with a relatively large explosive radius on landing. Jecht leaps into the air in a steep arc before coming down with the attack. Its steep arc makes it difficult to counter since it adds a bit of evasive functionality to Jecht’s trajectory.

Additionally, because it’s a dive-bomb-type attack, and since Jecht doesn’t have a Bravery Attack that causes a full descent from any altitude to ground level, setting this as your HP Attack can provide needed air mobility.

Meteor Shot

Jecht calls down a meteor from the sky, crushing his enemies from a distance.

Meteor Shot affords an increased safety thanks to its range advantage over both Jecht Beam and Hot Steel while being a projectile attack. However, its start-up time is significantly longer than those of the aforementioned HP Attacks.

Meteor Shot excels in situations where you can surprise clumped groups of enemies, but it may be difficult to use effectively if you’re constantly under attack by a vanguard.

Unlike other projectile HP Attacks in DISSIDIA, Meteor Shot adds a substantial amount of Bravery damage. Additionally, unlike Jecht Beam, Meteor Shot’s explosive effect hits all enemies in range, and not just your primary target.

Jecht Beam

Jecht quickly projects a short-range beam from his eyes at his target. As it pierces his victim, Jecht follows up with another explosive energy blast.

Jecht Beam doesn’t cover as much range as Hot Steel does, but makes up for it with a couple of unique properties. It’s a ranged attack with a relatively quick windup time and a high amount of up-front Bravery damage, making it an excellent guard-breaking tool for defensive-minded opponents.

Its drawback is in its limited range, so it may not be an ideal HP Attack in certain scenarios. For instance, it may be difficult to use effectively in wide-open high-verticality maps. Furthermore, its “explosive” effect is purely a visual one, as the second hit doesn’t affect enemies other than the target hit by the initial beam.

EX Skill Breakdown

Fake Out

Jecht emanates an orange aura and seamlessly transitions the vulnerability of his attack into a backflip from which he’s free to act.

Fake Out is a skill that’s particularly special compared to most attacks and skills in the game. Unlike other abilities in DISSIDIA, Fake Out can be performed during any other attack. Fake Out doesn’t do anything on its own, instead acting as a complementary skill to Jecht’s move set. During the Fake Out animation, you can perform any of the following:

Guard, sidestep, and inputs of neutral , + , and + . Note that if you cancel a grounded attack with Fake Out, the follow-up attack will also be the grounded version. (In other words, Jecht doesn’t change to an airborne state during grounded Fake Out, like characters do during lock-on dashes for example.)

Fake Out is a central and versatile asset in Jecht’s kit. Since he’s an assassin, it gives him extra survivability and essentially grants him a “get out of jail free” card. For instance, you can take a gamble on an aggressive, risky HP Attack and then immediately use Fake Out to transition into an evasive sidestep.

With creativity, you can link separate Bravery and HP combos together with the use of Fake Out, such as the following sequence against a cornered opponent:

Hot Steel > Fake Out (after four hits of Hot Steel) > Feral Charge > wall pin > dash cancel > Hot Steel

Battle Plan

Jecht is an offense-based assassin who can quickly home in on and decimate enemy marksmen and other vulnerable targets while mitigating his own exposure to reprisal thanks to Fake Out. With a relatively short recast time, Fake Out can be used frequently to apply an overwhelming pressure on opponents. To complement his aggression, mastering +  (Quick Block) greatly enhances your efficiency since each successful counter reduces Fake Out’s recast time. Although Quick Block timing is highly skill-based, it’s a vital skill to master.

Jecht’s effectiveness lies primarily in close-combat scenarios, and even though your strategy should focus around getting into melee range, you aren’t totally defenseless at long range. Deflecting Bravery-based projectiles with Quick Block can give enemies pause from blindly firing ranged attacks at you, potentially granting you a window to flank and isolate marksmen and other valuable targets as you and your team jockey for position.

Once you’re in melee range, Jecht’s grounded  (Feral Charge) and airborne  (Eagle Talons) are your staple attacks for most scenarios. These exceptional Bravery Attacks have the “force combo” property, meaning they can be extended even on whiff, increasing your effective range. Fake Out makes these attacks even more dangerous for foes since you can—at any time—cancel your whiffed and blocked attacks instantly, allowing you to evade retaliatory attacks or simply continue your barrage of combos. Against cornered opponents, you can use Fake Out to amplify your combos since you can nullify the recovery of any move (including HP Attacks) to transition into Feral Charge/Eagle Talons and +  (Rising Fist)/airborne +  (Foot Sweep). With the Jecht Beam HP Attack, you can set up two-hit Feral Charge combos canceled with Fake Out into sidestep (left, right, or forward) into an immediate Jecht Beam, potentially scoring some Bravery damage into an un-guardable HP-damage finisher.

Rising Fist and airborne +  (Foot Sweep) have unique uses and implications when it comes to mobility; the former is an angled ground-to-air attack and the latter is an air-to-ground assault. Both of these attacks are quick and grant Jecht some utility in vertical attacks. Dashing  (Wound Up) is your primary air-to-air attack, allowing you to chase down fleeing enemies, and can be canceled with Fake Out for combo opportunities.

Depending on which HP Attack you equip, you can enhance various aspects of Jecht’s gameplay. For instance, Hot Steel is an exceptional complementary close- to mid-range attack against enemies, as it outreaches Feral Charge and is unguardable, providing a viable mix-up to punish guard-prone opponents. Triumphant Grasp allows for greater vertical mobility, giving you an option to descend from any altitude to ground level and wreak havoc on enemies below you, and is highly recommended for most stages with high verticality. Jecht Beam adds a significant amount of Bravery damage, has a fast windup time relative to his other HP Attacks, and is excellent for ending Fake Out-cancel combos. Meteor Shot is strictly for dealing area-of-effect Bravery and HP damage from a distance. For team compositions revolving around dealing constant HP damage (teams with Shiva), saving Fake Out for your unguardable HP Attacks like Triumphant Grasp is a highly effective strategy.

While his move set is minimal in its lack of variety and range, the sum of Jecht’s kit adds up to an elegantly powerful and straightforward playstyle that revolves around relentless close-up aggression with attack-canceling techniques, along with a parry mechanic that allows for skillful players to enhance Jecht’s effectiveness further. Although his mobility options aren’t as versatile as Tidus’s, Jecht’s Feral Charge/Eagle Talons are superior to his son’s attacks in terms of setting up team combos.

Gallery

Appearance

Weapons