Wind Phantom Thief (Julien)

Stats

Skills

Leader Skill (Awakened): Increases the HP of ally monsters in the Arena by 33%.

Skill 1: Scene of the Crime [400%ATK]: Inflicts damage to announce the crime and stuns the enemy for 1 turn with a 20% chance.

• Lv.2 Damage +10%
• Lv.3 Harmful Effect Rate +10%
• Lv.4 Harmful Effect Rate +10%
• Lv.5 Harmful Effect Rate +10%
• Lv.6 Damage +15%

Skill 2: Surprise Visit [600%ATK]: Attacks with a 30% Critical Rate bonus and stuns the enemy if the attack lands as a Critical Hit. Additionally inflicts damage that ignores all damage reduction effects. (Reusable in 3 turns)

• Lv.2 Damage +10%
• Lv.3 Damage +10%
• Lv.4 Damage +10%
• Lv.5 Cooltime Turn -1

Skill 3: Showtime [150%ATK x 3]: Attacks all enemies 3 times. Each attack has a 30% chance to stun the enemy for 1 turn. (Reusable in 5 turns)

• Lv.2 Damage +10%
• Lv.3 Damage +10%
• Lv.4 Harmful Effect Rate +10%
• Lv.5 Harmful Effect Rate +10%
• Lv.6 Cooltime Turn -1

Rune Recommendations

Patch Notes

Updated 2018.1.30

• Showtime: Stun rate increased from 10% to 30%

Updated 2018.7.4

• Surprise Visit: Added effect – Ignores all damage reduction effects
• Showtime: Decreases the cooldown time by 1 turn (6 turns -> 5 turns)

Site Review

Dungeons: Julien can be a powerful monster for GB10 teams. With strong stun potential, elemental advantage, great multipliers and base attack, Julien hits very hard while still offering a good amount of utility. If you got Julien very early on, you can use him well in speeding up your starting GB10 team, as he should be able to easily destroy the trash waves and deal some nice damage against the bosses. However, he still gets outclassed by the much better Lushen and arguably Akhamamir, whose ignore defenses and increase damage for debuffs allows them to output far more damage than Julien. Akhamamir also has the added bonus of being far tankier than the Wind Phantom Thief. In the end, while Julien works well for newer players, there’ll come a time where better nukers will easily outperform him here.

Raids: Literally every one of Julien’s skills has a chance to stun, but that’s it. He offers no other utility beyond that. As such, while his stuns can be useful for most of PvE content, it simply doesn’t work in Raids, since the boss is immune to immobility effects. With the addition of his squishiness, Julien just doesn’t quite cut it.

ToA: Julien’s stuns means he’s a perfect monster for ToA, especially for newer players who have a limited amount of monsters built. If you’re lacking better CC monsters and are still very early in the game, building Julien for his raw damage output and stuns is killing two birds with one stone! If you build him on Despair for this aspect of the game and have his 3rd Skill max, it means he has a 70% chance overall to stun with his 3rd Skill! That being said, once you have the resources to build other, better CC monsters, Julien will be easily phased out, so building him solely for ToA is ONLY recommended for new players.

PvP: Julien works as a standard AoE nuker for PvP Offense, but with the added bonus of having a good chance to stun on his 3rd Skill! He’s best paired with a Galleon-Julien-Bernard + 1 for both Guild Wars and Arena Offense. Based off his multipliers and base attack alone, he can definitely be a good contender for one of the hardest hitting Nat 4* in the game. However, his poor bulk and element disadvantage to fire, which is very common in PvP defense, makes it difficult to use him as much as you’d like. As you progress through the game, the increasing prevalence of Will runes makes it even more discouraging to use him, as a lack of a good and reliable stripper in your offense can cost you your wins. To top everything off, he is virtually outclassed by Lushen, arguably the best AoE nuker in the entire game. To summarise everything, newer players can use Julien early on, but his unreliability (due to Will runes and chance of your stripper and Galleon not landing their debuffs) and squishiness just doesn’t warrant him a use past mid-game.

How to Counter

While Julien hits hard, he doesn’t do that well if he isn’t paired with a defense breaker and attack buffer. However, you still have to be wary of his stuns. Will runes or skills are definitely the easiest way to counter Julien. Alternatively, you can just bring a good fire nuker or bruiser, they’re probably more than enough to take care off Julien from the get-go.

Other advice:

• Both Rage and Fatal rune sets are great for him. Fatal works well because of his excellent base attack, while Rage does increase his overall damage slightly better. Just go with whatever has better rune quality as a whole!
• Since his one stand-out is his stuns, try to get a decent amount of accuracy on him. For a PvP nuker, accuracy is important, but shouldn’t be that huge of a priority. Aim for around 40% accuracy and you should be good.
• While Despair is one of the recommended rune sets mentioned above, you should only choose it if you’re prioritizing his stuns more than his damage. Fatal and Rage are still much more effective if you’re using him as your primary nuker. Despair also works better if you already have someone like Lushen, since you should be focusing your best nuker runes on him. Use Despair only if he’s a pure ToA monster or if you’re using him as a utility nuker for stuns. The drop in damage isn’t worth the slight increase in stun rate as much as you’d expect.

Editor’s Note

Julien’s a pretty fun monster to build. If you can get him early-on, he’ll be your best fodder farmer in Hydeni Hell, and maybe Aiden Hell when you get slightly better runes on him. However, his utility drops considerably past mid-game, where his only use is as an Arena Offense AoE nuker if you have a powerful and reliable stripper and only if you don’t have Lushen. For most players, the day they obtain and build Lushen is the last time Julien will be out of your Monster Storage.

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