This is a guide for the Consul J boss fight found in the Pentelas region in Chapter 3 of Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

View Full-size

Consul J is the final boss of Chapter 3 in Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

How to Beat Consul J¶

Name	Level	Type
Consul J	29

Fresh off the heels of a previous boss, you’re thrust straight into another, this time against yet another Consul. Consul J may be small and look like he’s little threat to your merry band but don’t underestimate him, even if he is a little easier than the recent Consul/Moebius battles.

One of the toughest parts of this encounter is that it can be tough to see Consul J amidst the chaos of the battle due to his size so make sure you’re paying attention to the positional marker if you’re using Arts that are reliant on them. Party makeup shouldn’t matter too much so the ever useful 2:2:2 (T,A,H) setup will work fine here. More importantly, you’ll unlock Ouroboros Orders for your Chain Attacks, which will make a massive difference to the kind of damage you can start outputting.

Consul J does have some nasty Arts available to him, and you can learn a little more about them below:

• Fatal Pierce: Consul J will strike in front of him, dealing minor damage and inflicted the Bleed debuff to all targets it strikes.

• Whip Crash: Consul J flicks his whip and slams it into the ground to hit all targets around it for moderate damage and inflicting Daze.

• Valiant Deed: Consul J will buff himself with the Attack and Critical Rate Up buffs.

• Ruined Marionette: Consul J will rise in the air, linger for a while and then come crashing down, dealing moderate damage and Blowdown to all targets.

Consul J is definitely a case of a battle with two halves, before and after Enrage, but your new tools should make life a lot easier. Until he’s enraged, all of Consul J’s Arts are easily dealt with, and he rarely chains them together, so you have plenty of time to recover through them. Hopefully you have someone with Cure Bullet so that you can remove the Bleed debuff he can inflict with Fatal Pierce however.

The main threat in this first part of the battle is the rare times he’ll use Ruined Marionette as that will hit the majority of the party (outside of maybe your controlled character if you back away) and deal Blowdown, especially dangerous if you have Bleed on some characters at the same time.

View Full-size

1

2

3

4

(1 of 4) You can keep stunlocking Consul J with Topple Combos

There is a trick to Consul J however, he is strangely highly vulnerable to Combos, and provided you have the right Arts set (Riku & Manana are a great Hero to bring to this battle), you can essentially stunlock him by constantly doing the Daze Combo. You can even use this to knock him out of Ruined Marionette since it has a large charge time before he can use it.

Once Consul J becomes Enraged, however, the battle becomes a bit trickier. There are no new Arts to contend with, but all of his previous Arts will be stronger, and he’ll begin chaining them together. This means that Fatal Pierce into Whip Crash becomes a real problem as you’ll find yourself low on HP and with the Bleed debuff on you.

The best strategy, then, is to spend the first half of the battle building either Noah and Mio or Lanz and Sena’s Interlink to Level 3 and saving the Chain Attack until he Enrages. Once Enraged, have your chosen pair Interlink and then initiate a Chain Attack as soon as it’s available. This will allow you to perform an Ouroboros order from the start without ending your Chain Attack, a massively powerful modifier to Chain Attacks. Depending on your party’s level, if this doesn’t outright kill Consul J, it will leave him low on HP, allowing you to finish the battle.