This will be a work in progress to present the information in the best way possible, but i wanted to compile important information on how to approach Subjugation. I'm not an expert but have learned a lot from the various videos and information posted in the Discords. I thank everyone who has contributed in some way.

Explanation of Commonly-Used Terms:

• Q4/Q5 is Quest 4 and Quest 5. The guide will cover basics that work for any quest, but most tips will center on Q5, with some about Q4. It doesn’t make sense to do explain anything pertaining to any of the lower quests at this point in the game.
• DPS refers to characters whose main goal is to deal a high amount of damage.
• Support refers to characters whose main goal is to help stack and maintain damage buffs.
• Elemental Support/Boon/Crush/Haste refers to the various elemental specific buffs (Blaze/Tempest/Liquid/Lucid/Void)
• Passives is the usual term we use to refer to the abilities characters and weapons have. 
• EX weapons refer to the Dark Memory weapons that you upgrade with cubes.
• Bold vigor abilities multiply your damage above a specified HP percentage.
• Caged vigor abilities multiply your damage below a specified HP percentage.

What is Subjugation?

Subjugation is a game mode where you take three teams of three and try to do the maximum amount of damage possible to a poor moose god within the time limit. It is important to develop well-optimized teams that can stack a ton of buffs to multiply their damage to the max. It will require patience to build your teams for each of the elements and learn the timing it takes to chain your skills in a beneficial manner. Going for higher scores will also require extreme patience as you will need to reset for bad rng.

Please note you need at least an SSS1 score to unlock Quest 5.

Basics of Building a Loadout

See the PvE Tier List. This tier list is mostly tiered according to subjugation usefulness.

• Q5: 1 DPS, 2 Supports per wave
• Q4: Wave 1 can be a combo wave if you have low damage, so bring more dps that have 4-5 hit CS if you want.

DPS are characters with high damage CS (1500% plus elemental bonus usually). Your aim will be to use their CS twice in knockdown.

Supports are characters who offer buffs like Valiance, Render (very important in Q5 compared to Q4), Elemental Support/Crush, Ire, etc.

• One of your main goals will be to stack and maintain 10 stacks (10 stacks  = 100%) of both Valiance and Render during the battle to make sure they last throughout Knockdown. 
• Have 1 source each of a 60s Valiance and 60s Render. Buffs stack and refresh the timer to the longer of the 2 durations so make sure to use your lower duration buffs to refresh the timer back to 60s.
• Additionally, you will add buffs like Ire, Pursuit, Elemental Crush/Support to further multiply your damage. You will use whatever combination of skills, CS, and companions it takes that work best for what you have.

DPS Equipment

Main Weapon:

•  Will usually use an off-type weapon but there are cases where using proficient weapons will work (eg. season haste bonus, haste in general, short CS/skills cooldown)

EX Weapons are the main choices to equip your dps with. Some recent newer weapons come with skills similar enough to EX weapons to be a good alternative (eg. Stellar Halberd). Ex weapons that offer 2 skills that each do 100%x5-hits with an elemental boon and another buff are best. Non-EX weapons should come close to this.

Sub Weapons:

Weapons with strong damage-based passives such as Bold or Caged Vigor, Elemental Boons, Pursuit, Elemental Haste, etc. It is usually best to stack different types of passives to avoid diminishing returns, with some exceptions.

Memoirs:

You want roughly 100% crit rate and 200% crit damage. Do this by using:

• 3 separate crit rate main stat with rate/damage substats
• half crit damage set (The Wanted Man) with Atk/Crit rate and a separate Crit rate piece
• half zerker set with (A Chance for Conflict) Atk/Crit rate and a separate Crit rate piece
• Full sets of the above sets work if your character or weapons have crit passives.

Debris:

• Most players will need to use the 3* 8% Vigor debris.
• If you are lucky (or a whale) you might have the better (15 or 20%) Vigor to use on your best dps. 
• You might also have the Bold/Caged Vigor or Elemental Boon (don't use the ones that specify a time limit) debris which are even better.
• First strike Debris are special debris that fill your CS gauge faster. Use this if you have it and are having timing issues with your CS gauge being charged.

Support Equipment

Main Weapon:

•  Must use an off-type weapon to limit auto attacks and animation time.

Valiance and Render are some of the first buffs to look for in a support weapon as this will usually be one of your main methods of building unless you are able to get enough through companions and CS. The standard is typically 30% for 30s although some CS and Companions have 60s versions that are preferable. If you can find a way to stack and maintain these through other means (companions, CS) then prioritize Ire and Elemental Crush/Support weapons.

Ire is a teamwide Pursuit and a somewhat rare buff that is incredibly powerful as it multiplies the damage of any attack that does more than a specified amount of hits. Courtly Devotion, Holly Spiral, Jubilant Spirit, and Sublime Sacrifice are all weapons with 60s Ire so these should always be used in your strongest wave when possible. Courtly Devotion has Valiance as well, making it one of the most powerful support weapons in the game. Iron Signpost is only 30s Ire but has 30s Valiance as well, making it still a strong support weapon. You should aim to have at least one of these weapons in a wave if possible unless there is no other way for you to stack Valiance and Render. There are other lesser versions of these weapons out there, but these are the must have support weapons.

Elemental Crush and Support are element specific buffs that some weapons might have as well in addition to Valiance and Render. These are amazing to have on top of Valiance and Render so look for weapons like that (eg. Xmas Saryu's staff Starlight Trial that has Valiance (30% for 30s) and Void Support (15% for 60s) skills).

Sub Weapon:

Similar to dps, but supports will utilize more EX and Elemental Haste weapons to ensure their buffs come out on time or faster (Support skills like Ire have long cooldowns).

• Q5 Wave 2 nuke hits hard, so you can use Toughness passives too.

Memoirs:

All Allies’ Attack up (Seafaring Cradle Tales).  

Only use this set as you need to boost your dps as high as possible. All HP main stat is good if you need them to survive easier, otherwise throw in any combo of hp, attack, crit (only 1 can have crit per set. See the Memoir Guide for further info.)

Debris:

• Most players will need to use the 3* 8% Vigor or 8% HP debris.
• Fully Exalting a character will unlock a 5% teamwide elemental boon debris that matches their 2* weapon. This isn’t much, but is a slight boost to your main dps, so use this if you have it.
• First Strike Debris are special debris that fill your CS gauge faster. Use this if you have it and are having timing issues with your CS gauge being charged.

Can I use an amazing support weapon if it doesn’t have the elemental advantage?

No. At least, not anymore. In the first time-limited version of subjugation it was possible to use your best support weapons regardless of element (eg. Using Iron Signpost on every element). This way you would always have the best buffs.

With the redesigned permanent version of subjugation, it is required to only use weapons with the elemental advantage (eg. Using fire weapons against the wind moose). If you even try to bring an off-element weapon, the moose will basically go berserk and enrage, firing off way more skills at higher damage than normal. It is not possible to survive and work around this.

Bold and Caged Vigor

Bold and Caged Vigor are one of the staples of passive abilities you will usually be building your loadout around. When building your dps for either Bold or Caged Vigor, be aware that there are two versions of each but they are called the same thing. We refer to them as Dynamic or Static. This will apply to character passives, weapon passives, and weapon skills

• Static Bold Vigor will always do the specified amount above the specified HP. (eg. you will always gain 40% damage as long as you are above 70% HP)
  
• Dynamic Bold Vigor will incrementally do more damage the higher your HP is, up to the amount specified. (eg. you will only gain the maximum of 30% damage when you are at or close to 100% HP)
  
• Static Caged Vigor will always do the specified amount below the specified HP. (eg. you will always gain 20# damage as long as you are below 60% HP)
  
• Dynamic Caged Vigor will incrementally do more damage the lower your HP is, up to the amount specified. (eg. you will only gain the maximum of 40% damage when you are at or close to 1HP). See the increment thesholds in the table b
  
  
  Percent and HP values may differ between different Bold and Caged Vigor abilities.

Companions

Companions will need to be sorted out to cover all 3 waves appropriately.

• 1 Elemental Support per wave is required
• 1 Elemental Shutdown is optional if you need it to survive (especially in Q5 wave 2)
• 1 Valiance and 1 Render per wave will usually be the way to go unless you have another source of a 60s version of these buffs (eg. Abyssal Prisoner has 60s Render in his CS)

If you are having trouble reaching knockdown with your skills, you may choose to arrange your companions in a way where the Elemental Support will be on your dps. Companion skills are based on the stats of the character they are equipped to, so they will do more damage on your dps than on your supports.

• Bear: Precious is a Blaze Support companion with a unique skill that ignores the target’s defense. On a fire team, it is possible for the bear to damage cap which is a rare thing for a companion to be able to do. This will fill the knockdown gauge a lot. Use this to your advantage if necessary.

Q5 Wave 2 has a powerful nuke that can kill most players without enough HP. If you are having trouble surviving, see if you can fit a Ripper (reduces enemy attack) companion to mitigate the damage without sacrificing Valiance or Render.

Character Skill Gauge 

You generally want characters with fast-filling gauges in order to fit your support’s CS before or to trigger knockdown, and to have your dps do double CS inside knockdown. Max ascended characters get a gauge reduction, so this is usually required at this point. It is important to know what contributes to gauge filling.

• Auto attacks - 50 points per hit (5-hit AA will fill 250 points)
• Getting hit - 50 points
• Skills - 250 points
• Companion - 400 points

Let’s see what it takes to fill a char’s gauge. 

Using Celebratory Yuzuki as an example, he has a base 1440 B Gauge, but at max ascension, he has an 1152 C Gauge. Using both weapon skills and a companion will contribute 900 points to the gauge, so he’s almost there but needs 252 points to fill it. Depending on your situation he might be able to get enough auto attacks or take some hits (6 attacks/hits total). If he is using a proficient weapon, he may get lucky with 1 or 2 multi-hit AAs (auto attacks) and fill the gauge pretty quickly. If not using a proficient weapon, it will take a bit longer.

Let’s look at two amazing supports. 

Yuletide Akeha has a gauge of 960 at max ascension, requiring only 2 autos/hits after using skills and companion. Abstract Rion is another great support (though seeing less use in Quest 5 compared to supports with 60s buffs) with his gauge the lowest a 4* character can be (and very few of them have it) at 840. He requires no extra hits outside of skills and companion to recharge his gauge.

Quick-charging support gauges like this enable doing double CS to stack their buffs right before entering knockdown. In Rion’s case, you can instantly CS >Skill/Skill/Companion>CS. Akeha will require a little extra, but will still have her buffs stacked very close together to last throughout  knockdown (or at least most of it).

CS gauge info is all listed in the character database so use this knowledge to your advantage when picking your team and skill order.

Haste and Elemental Haste Passives

All EX weapons come with a Haste passive and some newer weapons come with an elemental version of Haste that only activates with the corresponding element as your main weapon (eg. Subweapon has Blaze Haste – it will only activate with a fire weapon equipped to your main slot). These two versions of haste work together with each other as if they were the same passive.

 

As you get more familiar with the fights, you may notice a need for your dps or support to need their skills to come out faster. You can play around with adding or removing haste abilities to get your skills where you need them.

Using Proficient or Non-Proficient (aka Off-Type) Weapons:

Using a proficient weapon means using the weapon type a character prefers (eg. Gayle prefers 1H Swords)

Using off-type weapons means using any weapon other than a proficient weapon (eg. Gayle using a gun, staff, 2H Sword, or spear)

Why does it matter?

• When a character uses an off-type weapon, it generally uses a faster animation than preferred.
• Off-type guarantees 1-hit auto attack
• Supports always use off-type weapons because any time they’re doing actions takes away from the time your dps is hitting the moose.
• DPS generally use off-type as well as most of your damage comes from your skills, which isn’t affected by off-type usage.

Some cases of DPS using proficient exist

• Certain characters like Celebratory Gayle have very fast auto attack animations so most of her damage comes from auto attacks. She sees less use in Q5 compared to characters with high CS damage, but she may still work for some people. She usually works best in Wave 2 of Q4 Water Moose while equipped with her EX weapon Blade of Parting IV.
• If the DPS can still fit all their skills in during knockdown while doing multi-hit auto attacks, they can use proficient weapons
• New powerful weapons are being introduced that grant additional effects if being used by proficient user. 
  • (eg. Celebratory Yuzuki's sword Type-2 Sunset has a proficiency bonus on its first skill that increases dark attack damage by 50% for 15 sec.)
• You might need your CS charged by a certain turn in the fight to deal with moose skill timing issues and ensuring it is up when you are ready to enter knockdown. If using off-type weapons, your dps' auto attacks will only charge 50 gauge because of being a single hit. If using a proficient weapon, they might get multiple hits that will charge up to 250 gauge while only using one turn of battle.

Using Fast Mode and Timing Issues

Be mindful when using fast mode in subj, especially in knockdown. It may affect auto attack timing along with many other factors that affect timing such as weapon types, character positioning, and skill delay. but resetting in subjugation can be extremely time consuming, and you might consider using fast mode while waiting for skills and turning it off so you waste no time pressing them. It also helps to speed up the incredibly slow animation of the big nuke the moose does.

Here’s a further explanation of each thing that tends to affect timing.

Weapon types 

• Even when using off type weapons, each weapon type has differing animations. Guns and Staves don’t require a character to move, so they are usually the fastest animations. Melee weapon types (1H, 2H, Spear) obviously will require a character to move close to the boss to hit it, and then they’ll float back to where they started.

Character Positioning 

• This goes hand in hand with weapon types, because a character being in the middle vs left/right might make them run farther when running to the boss to him them. You can move your center character around which might help, but it’s not an exact science.

Animation Cancelling 

• Using certain skills (eg. Buffs that do no damage) after the moose does an action will skip the animation. You can use this to your advantage to fit more skills in a certain time frame than would normally be possible.

Moose Skill Delay

The moose will use and queue skills on a turn-based system.

Knockdown

After doing a certain amount of damage via skills, the boss will enter a staggered or broken state called Knockdown (his antlers will break and he’ll look pretty cool too)

Knockdown multiplies your damage according to the wave and quest you’re doing.

• Normal damage cap outside of knockdown is 1,500,000.

Here is how it works in Quest 5:

• Wave 1: 900% damage multiplier. Damage cap is 13,500,000
• Wave 2: 1000% damage multiplier. Damage cap is 15,000,000
• Wave 3: 1100% damage multiplier. Damage cap is 16,500,000

As you can see, this greatly increases your damage. You want to buff your dps as much as possible so that they hit this damage cap or get close to it as much as possible (especially with their CS).

Your goal during knockdown is to have your dps do as much damage as possible. This is why we limit supports to off-type weapons so they only waste animation time with 1-hit auto attacks. Since most of your damage will come from skills, you might have your dps using off-type weapons as well unless their animations are fast enough that you can still fit all your desired skills in knockdown.

There may be cases where you want your dps to use a proficient weapon, but if they do even one too many auto attacks, you won’t fit your skills in knockdown. You may choose to reset for a perfect amount of auto attacks here.

A good example is Celebratory Levania who has a passive which guarantees at minimum 3-hit auto attacks with a proficient weapon, but there is still a chance he can do 4 or 5 hits. If doing 4 or 5 hits prevents fitting your skills in, you might reset until he only does 3 hits every time. This would be better damage in the end than giving him an off-type weapon with only 1-hit auto attacks.

It should also be noted that character and weapon skill that specify damage will be increased based on combo length (eg. Frozen-Heart Fio and her weapon) do not gain any damage in knockdown, and are therefore not recommended in Subjugation.

Season 005 New Quest 5 (+2600% Difficulty Score Bonus)

FIRE MOOSE

Wave 1: Attacks target one member and increase its own attack. Attacks target the character with the highest attack and inflict burn.

• You can use either Bold or Caged Vigor here depending on if you can build your support with more attack than your dps

Wave 2: Powerful attacks target the party, and the enemy character skill gauge will be filled to 100%.

• This is now the defacto Caged Vigor wave in all elements as the boss nuke is extremely powerful and he will do a targeted burn on your highest attack character
• Some form of mitigation via ripper or ward skills is recommended to survive with low HP
• You may be able to use Bold Vigor here too, but it's harder to do. It would require taking a healer like Xmas Gayle and take advantage of the nuke recharging your CS gauge to have her do a double heal. This would also require not needing her CS for any damage buffs.
• You can avoid the targeted burn from being queued with the big aoe nuke with careful skill order and queuing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

Wave 3: Removes all negative status changes and debuffs, as well as all buffs and positive status changes on the enemy character.

• You can choose whether to build a Bold or Caged Vigor DPS here depending on if you choose to reset based on who gets hit or doesn’t get hit. 
• After a while, the boss will clear all buffs so you need to either reach knockdown before this or you will need a team that can stack buffs again very quickly.
• You can avoid the cleanse from showing up too early with careful skill order and queueing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

WATER MOOSE

Wave 1: Attacks target one member and increase its own defense. Attacks target one member and damage it receives from x3 or lower attacks is halved.

• You can choose to build a Bold or Caged Vigor DPS here and reset depending on if they get hit or not.

Wave 2: Powerful attacks target the party, and the enemy character skill gauge will be filled to 100%.

• This is now the defacto Caged Vigor wave in all elements as the boss nuke is extremely powerful and he will do a targeted burn on your highest attack character
• Some form of mitigation via ripper or ward skills is recommended to survive with low HP
• You may be able to use Bold Vigor here too, but it's harder to do. It would require taking a healer like Xmas Gayle and take advantage of the nuke recharging your CS gauge to have her do a double heal. This would also require not needing her CS for any damage buffs.
• You can avoid the targeted burn from being queued with the big aoe nuke with careful skill order and queuing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

Wave 3: Removes all negative status changes and debuffs, as well as all buffs and positive status changes on the enemy character.

• You can choose whether to build a Bold or Caged Vigor DPS here depending on if you choose to reset based on who gets hit or doesn’t get hit. 
• After a while, the boss will clear all buffs so you need to either reach knockdown before this or you will need a team that can stack buffs again very quickly
• You can avoid the cleanse from showing up too early with careful skill order and queueing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

WIND MOOSE

Wave 1: Attacks target one member and increase its own attack. Powerful attacks target one member.

• You can choose to build a Bold or Caged Vigor DPS here and reset depending on if they get hit or not.

Wave 2: Powerful attacks target the party, and the enemy character skill gauge will be filled to 100%.

• This is now the defacto Caged Vigor wave in all elements as the boss nuke is extremely powerful and he will do a targeted burn on your highest attack character
• Some form of mitigation via ripper or ward skills is recommended to survive with low HP
• You may be able to use Bold Vigor here too, but it's harder to do. It would require taking a healer like Xmas Gayle and take advantage of the nuke recharging your CS gauge to have her do a double heal. This would also require not needing her CS for any damage buffs.
• You can avoid the targeted burn from being queued with the big aoe nuke with careful skill order and queuing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

Wave 3: Removes all negative status changes and debuffs, as well as all buffs and positive status changes on the enemy character.

• You can choose whether to build a Bold or Caged Vigor DPS here depending on if you choose to reset based on who gets hit or doesn’t get hit. 
• After a while, the boss will clear all buffs so you need to either reach knockdown before this or you will need a team that can stack buffs again very quickly
• You can avoid the cleanse from showing up too early with careful skill order and queueing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

LIGHT MOOSE

Wave 1: Attacks target one member and lower enemy attack. Attacks target the character with the highest attack and inflict burn.

• You can use either Bold or Caged Vigor here depending if you can build your support with more attack than your dps

Wave 2: Powerful attacks target the party, and the enemy character skill gauge will be filled to 100%.

• This is now the defacto Caged Vigor wave in all elements as the boss nuke is extremely powerful and he will do a targeted burn on your highest attack character
• Some form of mitigation via ripper or ward skills is recommended to survive with low HP
• You may be able to use Bold Vigor here too, but it's harder to do. It would require taking a healer like Xmas Gayle and take advantage of the nuke recharging your CS gauge to have her do a double heal. This would also require not needing her CS for any damage buffs.
• You can avoid the targeted burn from being queued with the big aoe nuke with careful skill order and queuing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

Wave 3: Removes all negative status changes and debuffs, as well as all buffs and positive status changes on the enemy character.

• You can choose whether to build a Bold or Caged Vigor DPS here depending on if you choose to reset based on who gets hit or doesn’t get hit. 
• After a while, the boss will clear all buffs so you need to either reach knockdown before this or you will need a team that can stack buffs again very quickly
• You can avoid the cleanse from showing up too early with careful skill order and queueing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

DARK MOOSE

Wave 1: Attacks target one member and increase its own defense. Powerful attacks target one member.

Wave 2: Powerful attacks target the party, and the enemy character skill gauge will be filled to 100%.

• This is now the defacto Caged Vigor wave in all elements as the boss nuke is extremely powerful and he will do a targeted burn on your highest attack character
• Some form of mitigation via ripper or ward skills is recommended to survive with low HP
• You may be able to use Bold Vigor here too, but it's harder to do. It would require taking a healer like Xmas Gayle and take advantage of the nuke recharging your CS gauge to have her do a double heal. This would also require not needing her CS for any damage buffs.
• You can avoid the targeted burn from being queued with the big aoe nuke with careful skill order and queuing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

Wave 3: Removes all negative status changes and debuffs, as well as all buffs and positive status changes on the enemy character.

• You can choose whether to build a Bold or Caged Vigor DPS here depending on if you choose to reset based on who gets hit or doesn’t get hit. 
• After a while, the boss will clear all buffs so you need to either reach knockdown before this or you will need a team that can stack buffs again very quickly
• You can avoid the cleanse from showing up too early with careful skill order and queueing. See Moose Skill Delay section for a little more info.

Quest 5 Required Damage / Combo Bonus

Should I go for max combo bonus?

For Q5: The quest difficulty multiplier being so much higher (2600% compared to Q4’s 700%) greatly devalues combo bonus. You are still choosing characters and weapons with 4-5 hit skills because more hits is more damage, but it is not generally recommended to try for a long combo bonus. Knockdown meter is also harder to fill in this quest which makes it much harder to go for a long combo while also reaching knockdown.

 

For Q4 and below: Wave 1 is generally the wave where you will choose to do your max combo for combo bonus. You will want characters with 4-5-hit CS and weapons with 4-5-hit skills. This needs to be done before or after knockdown. Very high damage can outweigh combo bonus though so you may opt not to do a combo wave.

Quest 4 Required Damage / Combo Bonus