Jackal is the final boss of the Venus system, and represents the first Corpus boss that players encounter. Although a more bulky and old model compared to more recent Corpus robotics, the Jackal possesses invulnerable shields, a giant shockwave ability to knock players down, and one of the most powerful corpus weapons, the Plasma Grenade Cluster. Dissected models of the Jackal can be found in some Grineer tilesets, either showing that the Grineer have interest in utilizing Corpus technology, or that they have simply purchased merchandise.
It can be found on the mission Fossa. After defeating it and finishing the mission, you have a chance to receive the Rhino Neuroptics, Chassis, or Systems blueprints.
Appearance
The Jackal is a yellow-green, quadruped mechanical proxy of the Corpus, modeled similar to the real Jackal anatomy-wise. Its head is composed of an ocular piece attached to its chassis in a ball-socket joint manner, of which it has two yellow mechanical-eyes with two short antennae strewn forward abductively along with a long downward "jaw" attached, much like an osprey's ocular piece. It mounts a pair of heavy turrets hidden inside its ear shutters along with a pair of presumably ammunition boxes. It has four three-jointed mechanical legs connecting in a hinge-jointed manner with three-fingered mechanical fingers on its end, much of it composed of machineries ball-socket-jointed to the chassis.
The Jackal, like other bosses, has unique taunts. Here is a list of them:
- "Trivial threat detected."
- "Enemy analysis: Organic. Threat level: Impotent."
- "Threat Level Upgraded. Classification: Pathetic."
- "Prototype engagement test: Ready. Tenno destruction analytics: Recording."
Behavior
The Jackal's main body is protected by invulnerable shielding. Disabling two legs by damaging them will cause it to collapse, disabling its shield. There's a time limit and damage tolerance that it will take before it recovers. Note that the Jackal will be invulnerable for a short time when recovering.
Offensively, aside from heavy machine guns, the Jackal can launch a barrage of missiles; its missile strike deals moderate damage and is capable of knockdown, although not lethal. It can also fire Plasma Grenade Cluster in a wave, and it will Stomp Shockwave in close combat.
Abilities
|
|
Plasma Grenade ClusterThe Jackal launches a volley of Plasma Grenades directly ahead, inflicting massive damage to its enemies. | Strength:Moderate (Damage) 20 (Grenade Count) |
| Duration:2 Seconds (Fuse) | |||
| Range:10 Meters | |||
| Users:Jackal Razorback |
- After the clusters stick onto a surface, it will explode in two seconds and deals
Blast damage within 10 meters.
- Damage scales with level.
- As with regular Plasma Grenades, the projectiles can latch or stick onto a player, which will guarantee heavy damage.
- Plasma Grenades cannot be removed via Rolling.
- Has a very distinctive activation sound.
- Has a delay before exploding.
- Has a fairly small area of effect.
|
|
Rippling ShockwaveStomps the ground with incredible force, generating a shockwave that ripples outward and knocks down any enemy caught in it. | Strength:Low (Damage) |
| Duration:N/A | |||
| Range:5 / 10 Meters | |||
| Users:Anti MOA Jackal Lynx Scavenger Drone Shockwave MOA |
- The stomp creates a shockwave with a 5 meter radius which will expand and peak at 10 meters. Those who got caught in the ripple will be knocked down and suffer mild damage.
- Damage does not scale with level.
- In Anti MOA's case, it fires an energy shot the bounces off surfaces a few times, then creates a bright-blue shockwave with the same knockdown effect and low damage. It will expand up to 5-meter in diameter before dissipating.
- In Scavenger Drone's case, it will cast a bright-yellow shockwave with the same knockdown effect upon successfully confiscating any loot. It will expand up to 10-meter in diameter before dissipating.
- Shockwave MOAs have a 10 second cooldown before it can use this ability again. The Jackal can use this ability in quick succession.
- Knocking down a Shockwave MOA will not stop the ability being executed if casting animation has progressed to where its leg is dropping to strike the ground.
- Knockdown radius are dependent on the surface ripples, you can jump in front of a Jackal when it stomped the ground to avoid knockdown.
- This ability can be interrupted on the Jackal by shooting down one of its legs.
- Relatively easy to dodge, compared to Seismic Shockwave.
- Rippling Shockwave can be avoided simply by moving behind thick cover relative to the position of the caster; the Ripple animation will still penetrate cover, but will not have the knockdown effect.
Strategy
Jackal has a massive amount of firepower in the front, necessitating that any Warframe it targets seek cover quickly. It also uses a Stomp Shockwave which causes knockdown and is avoidable by jumping over it, hiding behind a pillar, or simply keeping out of range. Sometimes, it will spew a group of Plasma Grenade Clusters that will deal 100-200 damage each; they have a distinctive element of it emitting a very bright light during the fuse period. When the Jackal launches a barrage of missiles, using a melee weapon to block it will parry most of the damage and knockdown.
It is also advised to shoot down as many Mine Ospreys as possible while taking cover from the Jackal's gunfire in order to keep the amount of mines under control.
Carrying an accurate weapon with Radiation properties is also very effective against Jackal; a player using a properly-outfitted sniper weapon can disable Jackal with a single shot to a limb, allowing uninterrupted fire to the head. As soon as Jackal regains mobility, the sniper can disable Jackal again.
Having a lightly modded melee weapon and equipping yourself full-melee can work surprisingly well to stunlock him in his own animation; proper melee would break one of its limbs before it finishes its recovery animation, resulting in endless loop of locking. This has been tested with unranked Skana.
There is a bug if you hide behind a column and continue shooting his left front or right front leg that he will not be able to attack you. This is rather tedious and should only be performed when soloing the boss fight. When The Jackal spawns Ospreys, it may become rather annoying to shoot them down as they continue to bombard you with bombs.
Utilizing Warframe Abilities
An easy way to knock it down, if using the Loki, is to cast Invisibility and take him head on. You can quickly walk up to its hind legs and melee it up close, resulting in a quick knockdown.
If you are playing as an Excalibur, save your energy for Slash Dash. Once you see it go down, use Slash Dash on him as many times as possible.
Using Rhino's Iron Skin to get close is also an effective method to shoot it up close as it will block its Stomp Shockwave and deprive most of its firepower—Be aware that its wave of Plasma Grenade can still destroy Rhino's Iron Skin easily.
Playing as Volt allows you to freely AoE down the Ospreys which also drop more energy than you'd use by casting Shock. This will allow you to relentlessly melee the boss, only occasionally needing to run around and catch the energy drops.
Using Mag's Pull even from behind pillars can allow you to safely destroy the Ospreys without exposing yourself to counter fire. Combined with the "Hiding behind a column" bug/exploit you can repeatedly clear the area of enemies without suffering any damage, making this boss easy to solo even at low levels.
Notes
- Jackal will be waiting in the center of the room upon entering the boss room, and the opening cinematic will begin once all players have gotten within 10 meters of it.
- Its legs will regenerate health if they are not taking sustained fire.
- If you scan the Jackal before it is active, the scan will complete but no data will be given for the codex.
Trivia
- The Jackal is the first Corpus boss, and the first non-quest boss that players will encounter.
- Jackal is one of the few bosses that is not distracted by Loki's Decoy and Saryn's Molt abilities.
- Mesa's Peacemaker will not automatically target the boss' limbs, but will target the boss himself.
- Prior to Update 6.0 (2013-01-29), upon players entering the room, it would ascend from a large hole in the middle of the room by elevator before beginning the battle.
- The elevator was removed due to issues with players becoming stuck in the area beneath it. Wall running had not been implemented at the time, making it impossible to escape without Loki's Switch Teleport.
- The Jackal is the only Corpus boss that players will have to defeat in the assassination type Alert Corpus missions.
- Jackal remains can be found in the Grineer Galleon tileset featuring a room where its assembled variant hangs on cords in the center, another is in the Clan Dojo Energy Lab featuring engineering components trying to pry open the unit, while third is found in an Invasion mission on the Corpus side, cargo with Jackal parts can be found on the outer hull.
- When Jackal was first introduced, sustained fire from high damage weapons could take down the Jackal quickly without having to focus on disabling its legs, although this took considerable firepower that new players do not possess. However, in the current version of Warframe, the Jackal's shields are invulnerable until a leg is shot out.
References To Dark Sector
- The original Dark Sector demo showed the Lasrian troopers releasing a Jackal on Hayden Tenno.
- Unlike its Warframe counterpart, this model was shorter, chunkier and is equipped with a more visual set of Gatling guns.
- He is also shown in the trailer (2004) of Dark Sector under a completely different design, yet still heavily resembles Jackal.
Bugs
- Occasionally, when Jackal fires his missiles he will launch into the ceiling. After a brief period of time, these missiles disappear completely, or sometimes, return to hit the floor.
- Sometimes, these missiles do not return for the Jackal's intended targets, as if the missiles are fired at the ceiling for nothing.
- If one or more players are standing on top of the Jackal before the cutscene begins, they will still be suspended in the air, both in game and in cinematic. Players can shoot without falling down, but moving in any way (including being knocked with Stomp Shockwave) makes one fall to the ground.
- If something is holding the doors open (an enemy or a decoy) when the cutscene begins, the doors will not be locked. Due to its size, Jackal is unable to enter the doors, allowing players to exploit this bug. On the other hand, if the blockade has been been killed/destroyed from the respective doors, it will be closed and will not be opened normally until the Jackal has been destroyed.
- If Jackal is being damaged by Zephyr's Tornado, the ability's casting duration is halved.
- Occasionally, players that fell into trenches of the Jackal's room tile will not be reset back to their original locations.
- Occasionally, if Jackal is knocked down too quickly after the cutscene begins, his appendages will be invincible once he gets back up, making him impossible to kill. Confiremed
- When the Jackal is down, you can run up and press up against it such that when it stands up, you can run underneath it where it becomes unable to hit you with the shockwave attack. This allows for an extremely quick takedown before the Ospreys and the Plasma Grenades even become an issue.
- Briefly, after Hotfix 20.0.4 (2017-03-27) and Hotfix 20.0.5 (2017-03-28), the Jackal would drop Gorgon Wraith parts because of a bug that shared the drop table update to the Razorback Armada.
- If a player is invisible and undetected by Jackal even if they take out all 4 of its legs it'll never enter the damage phase, effectively soft-locking the boss fight. Popping out of invisibility will not fix this, you'll have to reset the mission by aborting, this happens primarily when taking him on solo as other players would prevent this bug from happening at all.
