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 Zenith's Brilliance cubes.
• Bold vigor abilities multiply your damage above a specified HP percentage.
• Caged vigor abilities multiply your damage below a specified HP percentage.
• AA refers to auto attacks, the turn-based attacks your characters and enemies will do automatically between skills

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 apply and maintain 10 stacks of both Valiance and Render during the battle to make sure they last throughout Knockdown. 
• Try to have at least 1 or more sources each of 45s/60s Valiance and 45s/60s Render. Each application of Valiance and Render additively stacks the strength of the buffs together. If the remaining duration on the existing buff is longer than the new one you're applying, it will keep that duration. If the new one is longer than the remaining duration, it will override the existing duration. 
• Knowing how to chain your skills in a way to continually extend and increase your buffs without letting them expire is a key component of building Knockdown gauge and keeping those buffs throughout Knockdown.
  Examples of how buffs stack:
  • You use a 25% for 60s Valiance companion, wait 20s, then use a 30% for 30s Valiance skill. You end up with 40s of 55% Valiance (5 stacks shown on the UI). Because the 30s skill was shorter than the remaining 40s on the original buff, the duration is not changed or refreshed, but the amount of Valiance is added to together.
  • You use a 30% for 30s Valiance skill, then use a 25% for 60s Valiance companion any time in that 30s duration before it expires. You end up with 60s of 55% Valiance. Because the 60s is longer than any remaining duration, it becomes the new refreshed duration.
• Additionally, add buffs like Ire, Pursuit, Elemental Crush/Support to further multiply your damage. These buffs apply separately from each other, thus multiplying the damage output further than if they stacked additively like Valiance. 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 offer 2 skills that each do 100%x5 hits with an elemental boon and another buff. 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, etc. Some passives are affected by diminishing returns (e.g. Elemental Boon) whereas others can be stacked indefinitely (Bold/Caged, Pursuit, etc.).

Memoirs:

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

• 3 separate crit rate main stat memoirs 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. This is mainly used on supports as it allows some of them to recharge their CS with only 2 skills and a companion. 

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).  

Use this set as you need to boost your DPS' attack 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.)

• All Allies' Attack Up by 10% for 60 seconds (Magical Pharmacology)

This set has some situational use to allow certain combinations of supports and companions so you're not relying on the companions to be your 60s Valiance buff. See some SSS+10 runs from Siro where he uses the crit book and an A3 Fractured Marie. Her A3 ability is the same as this memoir so if you don't have her, you can give this memoir set to one of your supports instead. 

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.

The Dynamic versions will typically offer the higher damage boost, so you will virtually always want your Bold Vigor DPS at 100% HP and your Caged Vigor DPS at 1 HP. This will take up a large portion of your time resetting waves until the moose either hits or doesn't hit who you want.

• 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 thresholds in the table below.
  
  
  Percent and HP values may differ between different Bold and Caged Vigor abilities.

(Bold Vigor values to be added)

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.
• Using the correct element companion at high combo chain can make the difference in achieving knockdown at the desired time. Try rearranging companions if you are just barely missing the knockdown.

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 

Previous auto attack gauge points have been partially incorrect. This has been verified and updated as of 9/18/2023.

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 for the first 3 hits. 25 points each for the 4th/5th hits. Up to a maximum of 200 points
  1 hit - 50 points
  2 hits - 100 points
  3 hits - 150 points
  4 hits - 175 points
  5 hits - 200 points
• Getting hit - 50 points (multi-hits still need to be verified)
• Weapon Skills - 250 points
• Companion - 400 points

Let’s see what it takes to fill a character skill 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 (7 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. First Strike debris and as a weapon passive from Recollections of Dusk weapons can enable double CS strategies for characters who normally cannot.

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 stack 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 skills to come out faster. You can play around with adding or removing haste abilities to get your skills when 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 with a proficient weapon.
• 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 a proficient user. 
  • E.g. 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 200 gauge while only using one turn of battle.

Using Fast Mode and Timing Issues

Be mindful when using Fast Mode in Subjugation, especially in knockdown. It may affect autoattack timing along with many other factors that affect timing such as weapon types, character positioning, and skill delay. Fast Mode charges weaponskill cooldowns slightly faster than normal, relative to the battle timer. It is not recommended to use Fast Mode in knockdown as it also depletes the knockdown gauge faster than normal.

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. If possible, use a gun/staff in the center slot and melee weapons in the side slots. The left slot is slightly closer than the right slot so this is a good choice for your main DPS if they use a melee weapon.

Animation Cancelling 

• Using certain buff skills (eg. Buffs that do no damage) immediately after the moose or party member begins 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. This is useful to skip certain support CS animations, such as Yuletide Akeha or Bloody Argo. The CS cannot affect the moose in any way, so anything with damage, render, crush, etc - basically anything that gives a debuff to the enemy will not get skipped. Skills like Yuletide Akeha that does no damage and only gives buffs to the party will get skipped if queued at the right time. 

Moose Skill Delay

Bosses begin charging their attacks on a strict turn schedule and execute them on the first available turn after they finish charging. Turns taken during knockdown are ignored. Every auto attack, weapon skill, companion skill, character skill, boss auto attack, and boss charge attack takes a turn. Thus, we can manipulate when the boss begins charging their attacks by choosing to let more or fewer auto attacks happen before starting the skill chain, or by using a proficient weapon to do more auto attack chains, which uses up more time, which can be used to charge weapon skills with longer cooldowns.

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).

Weapon skills, character skills, and companion skills are the only things that fill the knockdown gauge. Auto attacks do not contribute. Naturally, the more damage you do, the more the gauge will fill from that skill. The most the gauge can fill from a single skill is 20% gauge.

Knockdown multiplies your damage according to the wave, amount of knockdowns, and quest you’re doing.

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

Here is how it works in Quest 5:

• First Knockdown: 900% damage multiplier. Damage cap is 13,500,000
• Second Knockdown: 1000% damage multiplier. Damage cap is 15,000,000
• Third Knockdown: 1100% damage multiplier. Damage cap is 16,500,000

Keep in mind that the multiplier is dependent on the amount of knockdowns you've done. (eg. If you got to knockdown in wave 1, didn't get to knockdown in wave 2, and then get to knockdown in wave 3, that is your second knockdown so you will get the 1000% multiplier.)

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 as close to it 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)

Wave 1

Attacks:

• Turn 14-buff/debuff attack
• Turn 20-powerful Calamity attack
• Turn 26-buff/debuff attack

Strategy:

• You can build your DPS for either Bold or Caged Vigor. Caged Vigor may be more difficult to achieve because the boss has no attacks that target the entire party.
• If all your weaponskill cooldowns are in the 14-20s range, you can try to knockdown before the Calamity attack. If you have a 28s support/ire weaponskill, you may need to aim for after the Calamity, unless you have a cooldown reduction CS on the team.

Wave 2

Attacks:

• Turn 0-Swift Exorcism begins charging and will complete in approximately 1:10 minutes (0:50 seconds remaining on the battle timer). This attack charges every character's CS to full.
• Turn 14-buff/debuff attack
• Turn 20-powerful Calamity attack
• Turn 26-buff/debuff attack

Strategy:

• This is now the de-facto Caged Vigor wave in all elements.
• Some form of mitigation via Ripper or Ward skills may be needed to survive with low HP.
• Alternatively, you may be able to use Bold Vigor here, but it's usually lower damage overall. A healer like Yuletide Gayle would use a healing CS directly before and after the nuke to heal the DPS to full. This comes at the cost of CS-based damage buffs.
• Ordinarily the Swift Exorcism party nuke completes its charge around the same time as the Turn 20 Calamity attack, creating a wombo combo situation that is difficult to survive and leaves very little time to knockdown afterwards. It is possible to "decouple" the Calamity from the nuke by ensuring that it completes its 1:10 minute charge before the 20th turn of the battle.
  • You can accomplish this by using a combination of long autoattack chains (a proficient weapon on your main attacker is essentially required) and charging at least two CS for use during the first weaponskill chain.
  • Here's an example skill order that works: 8 autoattacks including party and boss. Input your first weaponskill early during the boss' 2nd autoattack animation in order to prevent another autoattack afterwards. Four support weaponskills, followed by companion, main attacker's two weaponskills, then CS. Finally use a long duration support CS (e.g. Yuletide Akeha) after the boss' buff/debuff attack that started charging during your weaponskill chain. This puts the nuke exactly on Turn 19 and thus the Calamity won't begin charging until after the entire nuke animation finishes, giving you plenty of time to input your next weaponskill chain before that.
  • Use Fast Mode to charge the moose's nuke faster and thus make it more consistent that it'll finish charging by the time the first weaponskill chain finishes.

• Swift Exorcism's CS charge effect enables some unique triple CS opportunities when used in conjunction with First Strike (via debris or subweapon ability). Characters like Summer Gayle can contribute a massive 45% damage buff by using her CS directly before and twice after the nuke. Other notable characters who can take advantage of this include Yuletide Akeha, Bloody Argo, and Fabled Saryu.

Wave 3

Attacks:

• Turn 14-buff/debuff attack
• Turn 20-powerful Calamity attack
• Turn 22-cleanse (Soaring Catastrophe)
• Turn 26-buff/debuff attack

Strategy:

• You can build your DPS for either Bold or Caged Vigor. Caged Vigor may be more difficult to achieve because the boss has no attacks that target the entire party.
• On Turn 22, the boss will clear all buffs and debuffs so you need to either reach knockdown before this or you will need a team that can stack buffs again very quickly.
• If all your weaponskill cooldowns are in the 14-20s range, you can try to knockdown before the Calamity and cleanse. If you have a 28s support/ire weaponskill, you may need to aim for after the Calamity, unless you have a cooldown reduction CS on the team.
  • You'll notice that the cleanse attack appears on Turn 22 with no cast time whatsoever. That means you need to have all of your 2nd round weaponskills completely inputted BEFORE turn 22 even starts. In most cases, that means you need Fast Mode and some high autoattack chains in between your first and second rounds of weaponskills to get off cooldown.

Element-specific tips

• Fire Moose
  • Wave 1's Calamity always targets the character with the highest listed attack on the loadout screen (not their current attack with temporary buffs). You can use this to your advantage to either bait attacks away from your Bold Vigor DPS or attract attacks toward your Caged Vigor DPS.
  • Blackhorn Spite, the subjugation water spear, can be used to provoke attacks away from a Bold Vigor DPS. This is best used in Wave 3.
• Light Moose
  • Wave 1's Calamity always targets the character with the highest listed attack on the loadout screen (not their current attack with temporary buffs). You can use this to your advantage to either bait attacks away from your Bold Vigor DPS or attract attacks toward your Caged Vigor DPS.
  • Yuletide Saryu is an optimal choice for Wave 1 because the burn effect from the Calamity attack will take her down to 1HP, maximizing her Caged Vigor passive. Use Caged Vigor sub-weapons and EX 063y sword—its 2nd weapon skill actually exceeds her CS damage.

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