Jio Takinogawa build, teams and tier

Overview

Jio is a solid all rounder in theory, but in reality his primary reason to be played is his unique 25% armor shred and ability to deal decent break damage. Jio's main gimmick comes from his Venom, a damage over time [DOT] debuff that deals a little damage per tick based on how many stacks are on the enemy. When the Venom reaches its cap it will detonate, dealing AOE damage to all nearby enemies. While the damage can be improved, including making the detonation crit, it's not enough to consider him a main DPS when compared to the dedicated DPS characters. His break damage is also quite good, but not exceptional enough to call him a dedicated breaker. However, no other character in the game can apply armor shred, which combined with the above factors results in a surprisingly good character.

Venom

Jio’s unique debuff. It’s a poison effect all of his attacks apply, and can stack up to 20 times. At 20 stacks, the Venom detonates, dealing damage and applying Venom to enemies (note that the detonation does NOT reapply to the enemy whose Venom detonated). While the DoT cannot crit, the detonation can crit. The DoT damage isn’t particularly impressive, and the detonation multiplier isn’t much better. The detonation is considered an additional attack. After an enemy's DoT detonates, there are a few frames before Venom can be reapplied to them. Now that you know what this does, know that none of it matters when its primary purpose is activating his passive 1, which decreases the defense of enemies affected by his Venom by 25%.

Primary Attack

Typical 3 stage melee attack. Nothing too notable here, it’s a standard filler option if you need to recover stamina. 2 stacks of Venom per hit.

Secondary Attack

Two part attack. First attack is a forward moving kick, second attack is a slow overhead kick. Unfortunately the second attack takes a little too long to come out in most situations, although it’s a good way to build up some break on the enemy if you have the time to do it. You’re mostly using this to advance forward then cancel into his strategy skill. 2 stacks of Venom per hit.

Counterattack

Deflect counterattack (can only deflect physical attacks). Applies Venom but is otherwise just a normal counterattack. 1 stack of Venom per hit.

Strategy Skill

Jio does a flurry of punches for as long as strategy skill is held. Rapidly applies Venom to enemies hit. Damage isn’t great, as is customary for Jio, but its ability to quickly apply Venom makes it arguably his best DPSing tool. Insane synergy with certain tension cards due to the sheer number of hits per second it does.

Ultimate Skill

Costs 2 Tension Bars. Jio drops poison on all enemies on the field. Sadly the damage multiplier on this is pretty bad, but it tracks all enemies so it’s not the worst tool for mobbing. Applies 5 stacks of Venom on enemies hit.

Chain Skill

Slightly below average damage for some reason, but applies Venom. 2 stacks of Venom per hit.

Combos (If Operating)

Jio has a ton of free form cancel opportunities in his attacking allowing for a lot of depth to his execution. But realistically if you’re piloting him you’re doing it so you can hold his strategy skill button down so you can pretend you’re Kenshiro. You’ll want to toss out some Secondary Attacks when possible to help break enemies faster, but it’ll all depend on how aggressive the enemy is at the time.

Tips

1. Make sure that the Venom gauge is active before you start dropping ultimates so it benefits from the armor shred.
2. If you’re fighting multiple enemies, Jio can apply and detonate on multiple targets for a ton of damage output.

Potential

Just max his passive 1. The extra venom stacks on passive 2 is only relevant in multi target fights, which Jio can already clear out easily. Spare points can go into Fighting Instinct for a bit more damage or Survival Instinct for more stamina.

Dupes

It’s all about T3.

• T1 adds some duration which is mostly irrelevant since Jio should be constantly applying it anyways.
• T3 makes every Venom detonation give 10 TENSION. Tension gain is extremely rare right now so this is automatically very good, but its ability to further push Detonator allows for a ton of damage output coming from Jio. Potential gems are good on Jio, but not insanely powerful so T2/T4 are just fine.
• T5 is cute for AOE content, but we lack any substantial multi target encounters where this would matter right now.

Operating Character

Unless you like seeing a ton of numbers pop up and are running Detonator, Jio is generally best left to the AI. He’s not AMAZING mind you, but he’ll do his job well enough (maintaining Venom on enemies) to enable your DPS. Still fine to manually operate if you prefer and are running AI friendly DPS (Miu or Iroha).

Conclusion

Currently unique in his role, Jio is our best (and currently only) real debuffer. Because of this, he doesn’t really have much competition in his job making him the best “Support” we have. However, he isn’t really necessary to clear content with and can feel pretty win more in most teams.