Basic Information
- Max HP: 1980
- Weight Class: Heavy
- Threat Level: High
- Damage Affinity: Normal
- Armor Hits: 2
- Devil Trigger Armor Hits: 7
Overview
The teleporty enemy spawner. This demon uses long range swiping attacks, teleports out of damage and can also summon other enemies. Has lots of HP and can deal a fair bit of damage. Usually appears alongside other enemy types. Quite a troublesome enemy if you don’t have a plan or don’t know how to deal damage to it.
Attacks & Quirks
Hell Judecca has a projectile barrier. It blocks gunfire and other projectiles while it is in between attacks. Judecca also moves around by teleporting and can be quite elusive. When knocked back, or when taking damage in the air, Judecca can teleport out to safety as well.
Judecca favors attacking from long range, but has a fairly varied movelist. It will primarily try to make space and throw its long range swiping and poking attacks at you. At long ranges it will also summon a flame pillar attack and teleport around to try to confuse you.
If you approach it, it can backdash away or do a close range stab with the backs of the blades. If you strike at it while it is doing this attack, it can parry you and counterattack which might catch you off guard. Judecca can also teleport and then appear from the ground directly underneath you for a rising spin surprise attack, or it can appear right in front of you for a surprise stab assault attack.
After it backdashes away, it will do the surprise stab assault. If you are on the ground it will appear right in front of you. If you jump or are in the air, it will appear from beneath your feet.
Judecca can also summon Hell Caina and/or Hell Antenora if left alone. It does this by putting its blades into the ground and creating a portal on the floor. If you spot this, you can stop it by attacking it from the front and parrying the summon attempt.
Strategy for Fighting Hell Judecca
Judecca excels at fighting in tandem with other demons to pressure you from long range, or pop up on you with surprise attacks. The main challenges with this enemy are reading its attacks, isolating it from other enemies and negating it from teleporting out of damage.
Since Judecca usually appears with other demons, you’ll need to be able to manage crowd control on other mobs in order to single the Judecca out and finish it off. Refer to the Standout Moves section on each character’s Overview Page for which moves are useful for crowd control. Alternatively, you can leave the Judecca alive so that it can spawn more demons for you to kill so you can style more. Your call.
Judecca’s blades light up whenever it is starting an attack. It also has some very unique audio cues. As long as you are paying attention, you should be able to respond to incoming attacks and get ready to evade. But the teleporting surprise stab assault attack doesn’t really have a tell unless you watch for its backdash. So be on the lookout for misty looking red portals appearing in front or underneath you.
If you are attacking it at close range, it’s a good idea to expect it to be able to parry you, so that you can react when it happens and evade. Recommend that you don’t strike again after the parry clash or you’ll get hit.
To negate the Judecca from teleporting out of damage, you will need to inflict crumple stun, hard knockdown or heavy stun. Then once you are dealing damage, you can repeat the hitstun type(crumple stun doesn’t repeat as well the others since it requires the enemy to be standing) to extend the window to attack more. But if it starts to flinch and break free from the stun, don’t use knockback moves or lengthy air combos.
If you are using crumple stun, recommended that you wait until Judecca is already falling flat on the ground before you start attacking. If you attack while it is still on its knees, it will just get up again. Also be careful that moves with hard knockdown will fail if the Judecca crashes into a wall before it lands.
If you manipulate the camera to keep the Judecca off-screen it will stop attacking and instead teleport or walk slowly to get on screen first. You can use this as a form of crowd control.
Below are some character specific strategies for Judecca. Emphasis on negating it from teleporting out of damage.
Nero Strategy
One of Nero’s more challenging demons if you don’t have a plan.
Your bread and butter for crumple stun are the hollow tip bullets from High Shot. But since Judecca blocks gunfire while it is in between attacks, you’ll have to fire the bullets while it is attacking or during its backdash. 2 shots should do it unless it’s in Devil Trigger.
Red Queen Aerial Combo finisher sends Judecca crashing into the ground in front of Nero. You can then use Payline (Not EX ver) to dive on it and then land some quick Red Queen strikes causing it to flinch while laying down netting you a hard knockdown. You can also remain in the air and use Snatch or a High Shot once Judecca touches the ground. For a Snatch, you pull Judecca back into the air and you can loop this sequence repeating Roulette -> Aerial Combo –> Snatch. If you use High Shot once it touches the ground, you score a hard knockdown. If you were charging up Charge Shot, the explosion can relaunch Judecca into the air while it is grounded.
You can also net a hard knockdown from moves that ground bounce, particularly Hard Way and Red Queen Combo D finisher. After the bounce, use a move that’s fast and has a lot of hits to cause the Judecca to flinch the moment it hits the ground. Rawhide’s Side Winder is very good at this, but you can also use High Shot.
Rawhide can also inflict heavy stun at a slow rate against Judecca so it’s all-round a solid pick for this matchup.
Judecca’s Devil Trigger poses quite a threat to Nero’s gameplan. The Snatch loop seems to become less effective and ground bounces won’t work on it while its in DT. It is for this reason that Nero should kill Judeccas as soon as he can.
Dante Strategy
DSD Aerial Rave finisher sends Judeccas crashing into the ground in front of Dante. This gives him enough time to Ground Trick teleport in and use Cerberus attacks or the bike to make the Judecca flinch while laying down to net a hard knockdown.
If you Air Trick to a Judecca while it is still standing, then use Cavaliere Air Combo A first hit, then Air Combo B second hit, you can keep it in check to some extent. You can even ignore its parry attempts and keep it locked down by looping this sequence.
Balrog’s Pyromania also ignores Judecca’s parry attempts and you can keep it locked down when standing to some extent, but this attack is quite a dedication so this can be risky.
For more hard knockdowns, use Cerberus Long Revolver, Cavaliere Braking, Crossline(let the whole animation play out). While the Judecca is down you can deal damage to it. If it starts flinching while on the ground, use one of these again to loop the stun.
For even more hard knockdowns, Cavaliere’s Idling works(only the juggling part, and without DSD helper swords), as well as Coyote-A Charge Shot buffed Gunstinger, if you can land it (DT state automatically shoots Charge Shot variation). You can also use DSD Stinger while in DT, but the knockdown will not work at point blank range so you have to space it about a Trickster dash away.
For crumple stun, use Cerberus Percussion, Balrog Blow Mode’s Cruiser Dive while in Ignition(only the explosion), Bantam Revenge (right side ver), Royal Revenge and somewhat less effective because of Judecca’s projectile barrier, E&I Rainstorm.
To inflict heavy stun, use Cerberus’ Percussion while in DT and Balrog Blow Mode attacks. Judecca seems to have a relatively low resistance to heavy stun so it shouldn’t take too long to put him into a daze
You can also trigger a hard knockdown from a ground bounce, particularly Balrog’s Feather Combo while in Ignition, Cruiser Dive while in Ignition and Cavaliere’s Idling helper swords in Swords Formation/DT. Ground bounces are more consistent if Judecca is off its feet. Netting a hard knockdown after the ground bounce follows the same logic as the DSD Aerial Rave finisher mentioned above. Land quick Cerberus or bike attacks to make Judecca flinch as it lands after the ground bounce. This method is not desirable, as Dante has way more consistent ways to lock Judecca down.
Dante can farm DT blocks on the flame pillar attack by using Ground Trick to teleport right in front of the Judecca when the attack starts, then switching to Royal Guard and mashing Blocks.
Vergil Strategy
Vergil has very easy access to hard knockdown with Blistering Blades. This will launch the Judecca really high and when they land they won’t be able to teleport for awhile. Just be careful about when you use it because the Judecca can parry this attack and negate its effect. Aim for after its parry attempt, or during its backdash action.
Yamato Aerial Rave A finisher sends Judecca crashing into the ground, but if you teleport after him and land a Rapid Slash as it lands, you can make it flinch on the ground earning you a hard knockdown. You should be able to follow-up with any fast move that has multiple hits. This can also work after Lunar Phase‘s ground bounce.
For crumple stun, use Yamato Void Slash, or a well spaced Rapid Slash (try to hit with the very end of the attack).
To inflict heavy stun, use Mirage Edge’s Million Stab and High Time. With Concentration Lv2, get in close and use High Time -> High Time(follow them into air) -> Trick Up -> Helm Breaker for a 1 turn heavy stun. Judecca seems to have low heavy stun resistance so you can pop it fairly quickly on him.
You can also use Mirage Edge’s Deep Stinger to lock the Judecca down and kill it in 1 action as it cannot teleport out of this move. But this is kind of expensive.
V Strategy
Yet another enemy that V lacks a tangible gameplan for.
Try to land Shadow’s Skewer to score a hard knockdown, but with the way Judecca teleports around and how slow this attack is, this will prove difficult.
Try to read the book as much as you can and air taunt every 20+ seconds to keep your Devil Trigger gauge up. If one of the familiars dies, pop DT and have Nightmare deal some damage. Don’t let the DT gauge drop below 3 stocks unless it’s an emergency. Try to be patient and don’t over extend yourself.
Keep your eyes peeled and good luck, I guess.
Danger Case: How This Demon Can Kill You
It pecks you with long range attacks or pops up on you and stabs you. It’s in DT, you don’t see the attack until it’s too late and then your whole lifebar is gone. What even happened?
Judecca kills you when you allow it to be on screen, but lose sight of it. He will not hesitate to swipe at you while other close range enemies are attacking. You can be so busy focusing on the Caina in front of you that you don’t see what’s going on in the background, and then you eat a tentacle blade and frown.
Killing him first is a good idea. If you want to leave him for last, you have to either pay attention to him or keep him off screen completely. In any case, be super careful of him when he just goes out of the camera shot. There are cases where you can put him off screen accidentally or intentionally while he has just started an attack. Then you eat a tentacle blade and frown. Enter the comments like “But BK, you said…” Nah, I didn’t say eat a tentacle blade.
All jokes aside, this enemy can be a pain to keep track of, and a pain to track down unless you know some effective strategies for it.
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