Jerold

Jerold is the fifth hero in the game's hero table (ID 10005, after Terrence, Viola, Benita and Norwood) and the hero of the Tides of Oblivion expansion, a swordsman who calls the cursed, long-forgotten land of Ichthyosauria home. Mechanically he is the most unusual of the campaign heroes: instead of one Rage bar he juggles four things at once, namely Rage, a small pool of Soul Dew, a row of up to six energy grids from his Sendril Ordeal stance, and the Sendril marks (internal name "Griminess", not to be mixed up with Norwood's resource of that name) that his enhanced attacks leave on enemies. This page collects his numbers straight from the game's data and scripts. For the mark mechanic in detail see Sendril marks; for his skills see Jerold talent tree.

Overview#

The game's tutorial text presents Jerold as a nimble fighter who can dodge several times in a row, who charges his Sendril Ordeal to brand enemies with marks, and whose combat skills hit harder the more marks an enemy carries. The data bears that out:

• Two chains, two families of arts. Light and Heavy chains are five hits long. Pressing Heavy after Light hits gives a Soul Sword art, pressing Light after Heavy hits gives a Serene art. Which art you get is decided by how long the chain has been (see Hidden mechanics).
• Enhanced strikes. While at least one energy grid is lit, or while Sendril's Arrival is active, every Light, Heavy, dodge-attack and art is replaced by an enhanced version with a bigger rate, more Poise and Resilience damage, and a Sendril mark on every hit.
• Sendril's Arrival. At full Rage, holding Special turns Jerold into a short-lived berserk state in which combat arts are free and every attack is enhanced.
• Extreme evasion. A dodge that begins just before a hit lands becomes a slow-motion "extreme evasion" that can be chained into an attack, refunds a dodge and, with the right talent, fills a grid.

Jerold does not start in your party. The expansion text says you begin by accepting his request at the bottom of the Holy Tower in Katib, then, after finishing the Edith chapter, meet him on the shores of Edith. The join is two quests, both commented "Jerold joins" in the quest table: 95162 enables Jerold (and Benita) as heroes and 95163 puts him in the party (es_storyquest.lua QuestId 95162 and 95163; the code's DLCHeroJoinQuest is 95162). If no Jerold save entry exists, he copies Terrence's level and experience with every attribute point unspent (see Hidden mechanics). He has a single outfit in the skin table (Skins). His achievement, "The Foreign Swordsman", is for activating every maxed talent of his tree, and his Immundus stone is the Sea Tooth Bone, used at an altar to unlock his deepest talents.

Base stats#

Starting attribute points come from HeroData row 10005. The stats below were computed with the game's own rate tables (the same method as Terrence).

How he compares with the other heroes at the start:

Jerold has the lowest starting Stamina of the campaign heroes. This hurts, because his arts cost 95 Stamina and his enhanced chains 55 to 75 per swing.

What each attribute does#

The table shows the stat when only that one attribute is raised from its start value to 99 and everything else stays at the start value.

Endurance is clearly his damage attribute: it gives nearly four times the Attack that Strength does, plus Stamina. Strength is the better pick only for Defence. See Attributes#What each attribute does, per hero and Leveling.

Arcade and Challenge builds#

In Arcade mode Jerold uses a fixed level-30 build from the ArcadeHero table (attributes 14, 14, 20, 12, 13, 27 plus the hidden 1) instead of your saved one (Obsession Challenge Standard Mode uses its own table, ES_StoryChallengeHero row 5, with the same level and attributes but six preset trophies, see Obsession Challenge#Standard Mode (preset heroes)): Health 1037, Stamina 395, Attack 121, Defence 60, Crit rate 45, Crit damage 267, Fire resistance 71, Pierce resistance 295. He is on the Arcade hero list.

Weapons and style#

Jerold fights with a single sword (inferred from the move names, "Soul Sword", and the game text calling him a swordsman; the data has no weapon table for heroes). Every hit in his move table is Physical, and the only non-Physical damage he causes is the mark detonation, which has no damage type at all.

The Special button is not a guard like Terrence's. It is used for the Sendril Ordeal stance (tap) and Sendril's Arrival (hold at full Rage). While in the Ordeal pose he can deflect attacks, and the game says poison and shadow attacks can be blocked this way.

Resources#

Rage#

Rage works as for other heroes (Rage#Gaining Rage): every hit on an enemy gives a little (2 to 7 per enhanced swing, see the cost table) and arts spend 30. Jerold's two special rules are that marked targets give extra Rage in his Lunatic state and that all Rage gain stops while Sendril's Arrival is active.

Soul Dew#

Soul Dew is the "Power" property in the code. Each swing that connects adds 3. It also recovers by itself at 0.6 per second, except while Sendril's Arrival is being cast. Sendril Ordeal needs and spends 30; Soul Sword: Finale spends all of it.

Energy grids (Sendril Ordeal)#

The row of up to 6 grids (the UI element is called the "J bar") switches on the enhanced moves. Grids are earned by:

Grids drain over time, and the more you hold the faster they go:

A full row therefore lasts about 40 s if you do nothing. Gaining a grid refills the new top grid to full. Every enhanced swing you start removes one grid and gives the lower grid a fresh full timer. Outside Arrival, at 0 grids you are back to the plain moves.

Sendril's Arrival#

At full Rage (100), hold Special. The cast hits twice (flat power 150 at an 80% rate each; the second part has 124 armour), fills all 6 grids and begins the Arrival state:

• Rage drains at 6 per second (decay 60 per mille of a 100 bar), so it lasts at most about 16.7 s.
• Combat arts cost no Rage, and no Rage is gained from hits.
• Grids are frozen at 6 and every attack is the enhanced version.
• It ends when Rage runs out or when you press Special again. The second press is a knock-back blast (flat power 180 at 180%, 124 armour) that sets Rage to 0 and clears the grids; the 1-second window of the blast counts as a counter, which is what the Brier talent builds on.

While he is in the Abnormal or Lunatic state (any sanity stage other than Normal, IsHeroSanNotNormal), the talent Sendril's Arrival: Brier lets a well-timed Special press count as a counter that keeps the leftover Rage, though the Arrival still ends.

Moveset#

Buttons: Light, Heavy, Special, Dodge, Interact. "Enhanced" means the version used while at least one grid is lit or Sendril's Arrival is active.

Inputs and unlocks#

Damage#

"Raw attack" is the figure that enters the Damage formula: flat power plus Attack times the rate. The last two columns show it at the starting Attack of 62 and at an example high-level Attack of 200 (reachable with Endurance and Strength near their caps, inferred from the growth table). Slashes separate successive hits or steps; plus signs separate the two parts of one move.

Costs and side effects#

Every swing that connects also gives +3 Soul Dew. Marks column: 10101 is the Sendril mark, 10103 and 10104 arm the detonation fuse (see Sendril marks). Hit-less rows show "-".

Soul Sword: Finale in detail#

The Finale is entered by holding Light with 100 Rage. Parts 1 and 2 are the hold-to-charge and the lunge, and parts 3 and 4 follow on their own, but only if the hit check at part 3 finds an enemy (code advances part 3 to part 4 on a hit). Part 5 needs a Light press and Grand Finale, and part 6 follows it. The in-game text says three strikes follow the lunge automatically and two more come with Grand Finale; the table splits them as 3-4 and 5-6 (part numbering inferred). The Rage (100) and Soul Dew (all, 100) are charged on part 3, not on the cast (inferred from where RageSub and PowerSub sit in the table), so a lunge that hits nothing seems to cost no Rage.

Parts 1 and 2 take 75% less damage while their armour is up (DamageSub 750 on rows 456-457, and on 462-463 for the enhanced hold). All four striking parts apply a mark and re-arm a 2-second fuse, so a full Finale plants up to four marks and detonates them about two seconds after the last hit.

Talents that change moves#

The full tree is on Jerold talent tree.

Dodging#

Jerold's tutorial says he can evade up to four times in a row. In the data the chained dodges are three normal dodges (each 65 Stamina) and a fourth, longer "big jump" dodge that appears once the dodge counter reaches 3 (inferred from the move conditions). The counter resets after 1 second without dodging, when he starts an ordinary attack, or when he is hit. An extreme evasion (a dodge started just before a hit) has follow-up parts that cost no Stamina, plays a time-slow effect (time scale 0.32, held about 0.35 s) and takes one off the counter so you can dodge again. See Dodging#Perfect dodges (Jerold and Elena) and Stamina#Costs of common actions.

Lunatic state#

In the Abnormal state (Sanity at or below 70%, and therefore also when Lunatic) every hero is changed; see Abnormal state#Effects by hero, Sanity and Lunatic state. The game describes Jerold's version as: attacks against Sendril-marked enemies give 10% more Rage, Shadow resistance is cut by half, and Rage is lost when his attack is countered.

Sanity talents shape it:

• Sendril Affinity raises the Rage multiplier to x1.15 then x1.20 (the base 100 is multiplied by 1.5 and 2.0).
• Calming Rage cuts the 10 Rage loss by 25% / 50% (to 7.5 / 5).
• Sendril's Arrival: Brier only works while he is not in the Normal sanity stage (the Abnormal state, and the Lunatic state after it).
• Lucky Madness adds +5 / +10 to the drop weight of every trophy entry (the in-game text says "combat items"; see Sanity talents and trophies#Lucky Madness by hero).

Jerold's changes apply in both stages (the Lunatic stage starts at 50%).

Hidden mechanics#

• Marks mostly come from enhanced moves. The plain Light, Heavy and dodge-attack rows carry no mark at all, and neither do the plain Esquive, Thrust and Echo arts, which only arm the detonation fuse. A mark is added on every hit of an enhanced move, the Serene arts (plain or enhanced) and the Finale strikes; the full list of sources is in Sendril marks#How marks are applied.
• The first mark does not weaken armour. Only marks 2 to 6 lower Physical Defence (-17.5% at six); see Sendril marks#Stacking and the Defence effect.
• Detonation damage ignores Defence. Each mark deals ceil(0.3 x Attack + 29) with no damage type: 48 per mark at Attack 62, 89 at Attack 200. The formula, table and the extra Poise and Resilience damage are in Sendril marks#Detonation.
• Chain length picks the art. Each swing sets a hidden tier: Light hits give tiers 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 and Heavy hits give 6, 7, 8, 8, 9. The tier only rises: after any Heavy hit a Soul Sword is no longer possible, and the largest tier reached decides which Serene you get. Using an art, or letting the chain end, resets it.
• Dodge attacks are chain starters. Light or Heavy after a dodge sets the chain to "one hit done", so the next press is the second hit.
• Enhanced Light gains more than enhanced Heavy. At Attack 62 the enhanced Light combo hits for 1.5 to 1.9 times the plain one (81 vs 43 on hit 1), while the enhanced Heavy combo is only 8% to 11% stronger. The extra value of the Heavy chain is its Poise and Resilience (20 and 16 instead of 12 and 10) and the mark.
• Arrival has no upkeep except time. Arts are free, but Rage does not grow, grids never decay and Soul Dew still recovers (apart from during the cast).
• Soul Dew only trickles. It recovers at 0.6 per second but each swing adds 3, so Ordeal (30) is usually available within about ten hits.
• Move 24 is an unexplained pose. The Special pose has two data rows: move 43 (30 Soul Dew, starts unlocked) is the one the Ordeal uses; move 24 (100 Rage and 30 Soul Dew, guard 999) is unlocked by the Sendril's Arrival talent together with the cast (talent 15104 lists moves 23, 24 and 61). No code names move 24, so what triggers it is not established (unverified).
• Rage lost on interruption is small. 10 Rage out of 100, only in the Lunatic state, only for the local player's Jerold, and only when he is hit while performing a move that carries armour (a move with no armour value does not trigger the loss).
• Night's Embrace trophy. With this trophy, any enemy that carries a mark counts as a Sendril-type target for the damage-versus-type bonuses, even when the mark came from another source than Jerold (see Sendril marks#Related effects for the rules; animalbase_value.lua 1768-1792).
• Wheel of Reversal trophy. Each extreme evasion restores 50 Stamina (DodgeAddEnergy).
• Shared experience on first join (see also Dedication#Hidden mechanics). If your save has no stored Jerold entry, he is created with Terrence's level and experience and with all attribute points unspent (level - 1 points), and every attribute allocation set to zero.
• Serene fires bolts. The enhanced Serene finishers launch straight-line projectiles from the first trigger of the move: one bolt for the enhanced Begone, Upraising and the first three Serene steps (moves 35-37, 57-59) and for the plain Star Crossed and fourth step (moves 34, 56), two for the enhanced fourth Serene step (move 60) and three for the enhanced Star Crossed (move 38). Bolts fly at speed 50 up to 30 units, 0.1 s apart (code constants; they use the same move row for damage). The plain Begone and Upraising fire none.
• Maze availability. In Deep into the Dark Mist he is only enabled if the Tides expansion has been entered and his join quest is complete (inferred from CheckHeroEnable).
• Cosmetic poses. The Ordeal pose cycles through 5 stances (PoseMax 5) in a fixed rotation; they have no effect on gameplay. The internal name of the move is literally "striking a pose".

Trivia#

• The mark's internal Chinese name means "Griminess" (filth or contamination); the English text calls it a Sendril mark and uses "Griminess" only for Norwood's gauge. The detonation status is named "Griminess Clear" internally. See Sendril marks.
• The Chinese internal names of his chains are "Light 1" to "Light 5" with a "changed" suffix for the enhanced set, and his transformation is "special transformation" and its cancel "release transformation".
• A complete AI script for Jerold exists (attack10005.lua). It chooses moves using his chain-tier counter (for example "tier between 1 and 3"), not the number of marks; who uses it is not established by the files read (unverified).
• The achievement "The Foreign Swordsman" needs every maxed talent of Jerold. See Achievements.

Sources#

• ES_StoryChallengeHero _id 5 (hero 10005, six preset trophies 60042, 60036, 60411, 60406, 60412, 60050); ES_ArcadeHero _id 5 (same attributes, no trophies).
• Data: es_herodata.lua HeroId 10005 (Attribute_1-7, HpAddNum 2, MpAddNum 4, UIRageMin 30, GuardEnergyRatio 0.25); es_heropropertydata.lua HeroId 10005 rates and es_heroattributedata.lua curves via build/wiki/data/characters_b/stats.json and stats2.json (computed start, per-attribute and Arcade/Challenge stats); es_skilldata.lua HeroId 10005 (all numbers in the move tables, 120 rows); es_skillchaindata.lua HeroId 10005; es_statusdata.lua rows 10101-10104 (lines 4109, 4232 for 10101 and 10104); es_trophydata.lua Night's Embrace (rows 77, 108, 127, 146; LogicType 130) and Wheel of Reversal (rows 78, 109, 128, 147; LogicType 129); es_storyquest.lua QuestId 95162 (row 2310: ActionType 10, heroes 10003;10005) and 95163 (row 2311: ActionType 12, hero 10005), ms_storyquest.lua DLCHeroJoinQuest; es_herotalent.lua TalentId 15104 (moves 23, 24, 61); es_skilldata.lua rows 456-463 (DamageSub 750 on the hold-Light parts), 490-493 and 520-521 (moves 23, 24, 43); es_storyskin.lua HeroId 10005.
• Text: GameTextData HeroData 10005 (UISanityDescription), tutorial entries 1080-1082 ("Jerold"), achievement 40008, talent texts 15101-15209, item 50005 (Sea Tooth Bone), trophies 60089 and 60090.
• Code: logic/player/hero10005.lua 58-158 (energy grids), 176-217 (skill conditions), 219-245 (hit handling), 255-326 (deflect and extreme evasion), 328-419 (dodge counter), 421-505 (swing start), 559-640 (triggers), 642-684 (bullets), 694-703 (grade), 725-741 (Rage cost); logic/playervalue/hero10005_value.lua 11-61; gamedata/playerdefine/hero10005_define.lua 125-185; logic/player/animalbase.lua 5248-5330 (AddStatus), 7506-7549 (statuses from hits), 8962-8970 (Rage loss), 16780-16789 (CalculateStatusDamage); logic/status/status124.lua, status125.lua, statusbase.lua 109-155, 209-232, 284-348; logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua 441-442, 1586-1624, 1768-1792, 2744-2753; structdata/ms_statusdata.lua 49-51; structdata/ms_itemdata.lua 66, 83-84; structdata/fs_herolist.lua 74-97, fs_herodata.lua 544-554; structdata/fs_savestory.lua 2970-2982; ui/controller/arcadectrl.lua 112-119.
• Talents: reports/talent_trees.md Jerold section (slots 101-418).
• Scripts: build/wiki/scripts/jerold/gen_tables.py.