In an attempt to exert power and authority, the Corpus have continued to refine their most lethal security proxy. The Jackal. Determine its location aboard this vessel and destroy it.
Jackal is the Corpus boss of the Venus system. 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 an interest in utilizing Corpus tech, or that they have simply purchased merchandise. The Jackal is fought on the mission Fossa, Venus. After defeating it and finishing the mission, the player will receive 
Rhino component blueprints, as well as a chance to get a 
Stahlta or 
Stropha blueprint.
A Terra variant may spawn in Orb Vallis during high alert state, which is considered a common enemy and will neither drop blueprints nor anger the Stalker. A Corrupted variant appears in The Circuit Assassination as a boss with some alteration to its mechanics.
Appearance[]
The Jackal is a blue and white, quadruped mechanical proxy of the Corpus, modeled similarly 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 machinery ball-socket-jointed to the chassis.
Behavior[]
The Jackal can stomp around with its massive legs and uses various gunfire and grenade weaponry.
- Turret: Two cheek-mounted turrets fire volleys of machine gunfire.
- Rippling Shockwave: Stomps the ground with its massive legs, producing a shockwave that knocks Tenno off their feet and disables Warframe Abilities.
- Plasma Grenade Cluster: Deposits a volley of plasma grenades that shortly explode after sticking to the ground.
- Grid Wall: After one of its legs is shot, the Jackal floats into the air and deploys a large grid wall in an X shape, which sweeps around the room. They start off blue, but begin to do damage after turning red. In subsequent phases, the grid wall will pause to rotate in the opposite direction. The wall can be bullet jumped over, and the Tenno can wall jump and wall latch on the walls at the edge of the room to stay above it.
- Massive Shockwave: Following the Grid Wall, the Jackal drops down onto the ground, creating a large shockwave, but is left vulnerable to the Parazon.
- Electric Field: An environmental hazard created by the four pillars in the room of Phase 2 when destroyed by the Jackal's attacks, dealing high
Electricity damage.
Strategy[]
Phase 1[]
After activating the terminal to "Deploy Jackal", the platform in the middle will rise to reveal a rather small MOA, much to the Lotus's surprise who expected it to be bigger. Shortly after, the real Jackal drops in from the ceiling, crushing the MOA under its massive frame.
The Jackal's main body is protected by invulnerable shielding, but its four legs are vulnerable. Destroying one of the legs will force it to engage its Grid Wall and Massive Shockwave. Afterward, it will attempt to auto-repair its damaged leg. Approaching the Jackal in this downed state will prompt a Mercy stab with the Parazon, interrupting its auto-repair and preventing the damaged leg from being restored.
It is recommended to use the MK1-Paris or another type of bow, as using a rifle or other weapon that can destroy multiple legs at once will softlock the fight (see below) if you are not careful, and the MK1-Paris has a very controllable single - shot property.
Phase 2[]
After being stabbed once, a cinematic shows the Jackal retreating to an adjacent, identical room, followed by the Tenno's Parazon lasso. The process simply needs to be repeated three more times on the Jackal's remaining legs.
Summary[]
- Phase 1: Destroy one leg, survive Grid Wall and Massive Shockwave, then stab with Parazon.
- Phase 2: Repeat above three more times until it is defeated.
Softlocking[]
- The fight only progresses by the amount of times a Parazon is used, not how many legs are destroyed. Because of this and the two facts that destroyed legs do not heal back and that multiple legs can be destroyed in a single Parazon use, the amount of legs left can be lower than the amount of Parazon uses needed to defeat the Jackal. In layman's terms, destroying multiple legs in between cutscenes makes the fight impossible to win.
- Letting the Jackal auto - heal when more than 1 leg is destroyed, or simply only destroying 1 leg every cycle will prevent the fight from bugging out.
Variants
Trivia[]
- The Jackal boss fight was completely reworked in Update 28.0 (2020-06-11). The Jackal's outer texture was changed from yellow to dark blue with white stripes. The model itself has not changed (though has been slightly upscaled) but received several new skeletal animations.
- The Jackal is the first Corpus boss (excluding Orb-Mothers in Orb Vallis), and the first non-quest boss that players will encounter.
- While players only fight it on Venus, the Jackal is perhaps the most ubiquitous boss in the game. Aside from the Jackal itself and its Vallis counterparts;
- The Jackal's design serves as the template for the Lynx and the Razorback, with the Lynx, in particular, appearing in one Grineer Data Vault layout;
- The Clan Dojo's Energy Lab has a partially-disassembled Jackal suspended from the ceiling; and
- The Jackal, either in one piece or in individual components, serves as an occasional decoration in various tilesets.
- The Test MOA that appears in the Jackal cinematic has been named "Popcorn" by the community and developers.
- Hotfix 28.0.1 (2020-06-11) added Popcorn to Iron Wake.
- Using Zenith's alternate fire indicates that the Jackal has two heads unlike most enemies.
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.
- It is also shown in the trailer (2004) of Dark Sector under a completely different design, yet still heavily resembling Jackal.
Bugs[]
- 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.
Patch History[]
Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)
- Fixed getting hit by Jackal's gridwall attack even while taking cover in a spot below it and made other general improvements to lasers vs. obstacle interactions.
- Fixed being able to apply crowd control effects to the Jackal on Venus, preventing unintended behavior.
Update 33.5 (2023-06-21)
- Fixed a camera “pop” occurring when it collides with Jackal’s grenades.
Update 30.5 (2021-07-06)
- Fixed Warframe or weapon becoming invisible during Jackal Assassination mission (Venus - Fossa) when standing close to the wall in either of the hologram display objects to the right/left of the main entrance wall.
Update 30.3 (2021-05-25)
- Fixed Warframe and/or weapons becoming invisible depending on where you are standing in the Jackal Assassination mission.
Hotfix 30.0.7 (2021-04-22)
- Added the option for players to start the Jackal boss fight after 30 seconds if no other players reach them.
Hotfix 29.5.1 (2020-11-19)
- Fixed a script error that resulted in the Jackal Parazon stab not functioning, which resulted in an inability to progress the fight.
Update 28.3 (2020-08-12)
- Increased Jackal Grid Wall damage attack but removed its ability to apply a Status Effect.
- Fixed standing dead-center underneath Jackal's Grid Wall resulting in only dealing initial damage and never ticking again. As reported here.
- Fixed Jackal assassinations not counting in the ‘Corpus Boss Kill’ profile stat.
Update 28.1 (2020-07-08)
- Visibility improvements towards the Jackal’s stomp ability FX.
Hotfix 28.0.6 (2020-06-24)
- Pets & Sentinels no longer take damage from Jackal's Grid Wall attack.
- Fixed Clients sometimes being left in the first stage Jackal arena if you died/Revived before the second stage.
- Fixes towards spamming the Parazon Finisher for the Jackal as a Client breaking the Finisher animation.
Hotfix 28.0.5 (2020-06-17)
- Fixed missing wall geometry in the Jackal Assassinate tileset that Wisp can Wil-O-Wisp through and fall out of the world. This results in respawning in the first room of the Jackal arena which has every door closed and locked.
- Fixed being able to stand on destroyed pillar geometry mesh in the Jackal arena.
- Fixed "Massive Flexplates" transmission during the Jackal fight replaying multiple times.
- Fixed a script error when a pillar is destroyed in the Jackal arena.
- Fixed a script error during the Parazon Finisher cutscene during the Jackal fight.
Hotfix 28.0.3 (2020-06-12)
- Removed the unintended Riven Sliver drop from the Jackal when it is below Level 41. We have, however, kept the Riven Sliver drop if the Jackal is above Level 41 (Sortie).
- Fixes towards Clients sometimes being left in the first stage Jackal arena if you died/Revived before the second stage.
- Fixed the Parazon Jackal Finisher not working if you Revived after he landed into his stun, were using an Exalted weapon, or Transferred to the Operator.
Hotfix 28.0.2 (2020-06-11)
- Removed the ability to skip transition cinematic in the Jackal Arena fight due to resulting in many broken states.
- Fixed the Jackal getting stuck in midair while doing its ‘UFO’ attack, resulting in an inability to progress in the fight. If you still see this, let us know.
- Fixed a crash when attempting to skip the Jackal 2nd phase cut scene after a Host migration had occurred.
- Fixed electric sparks audio in Jackal arena not ending when the FX expires.
Update 28.0 (2020-06-11)
- JACKAL REWORK
Return to Fossa to face an upgraded threat. Equipped with a suite of the latest technology and upgraded combat capabilities, the Corpus have spent mind-boggling sums of Credits for the sole purpose of taking you out.
- (Undocumented) The Jackal encountered in the Orb Vallis has been renamed Terra Jackal.
Hotfix 27.4.2 (2020-05-04)
- Fixed an issue with Jackal functionality in terms of boss properly navigating rooms.
- Fixed the Jackal getting stuck in various room geometry.
Update 7.8 (2013-04-19)
- Sniper ammo now drops from containers during Jackal fight
Update 6.0 (2013-01-29)
- Fix for Jackal falling through elevator and not spawning in proper room.
Update 5.4 (2013-01-14)
- Jackal will now spawn if players run in to the elevator pit before encounter has started.
- Potential fix for Jackal stomp loop.
