Hieronymus is a single entity boss fight who can be focused down with strong single target damage dealers. However, healers must be brought to this fight to engage with the Relics to get past Hieronymus's naturally high DEF and Damage Reductions. The fight itself may be considered simple, but the challenge in Hieronymus is being able to build a team which is capable of sustaining both continuous damage and continuous healing.
The green/red lantern is classified as an ally, and starts at 5% health. It has 500 DEF (Normal~Extreme), 2,500 DEF (Insane), or 5,000 DEF (Torment), and may be damaged by Hieronymus's attacks.
The purple lantern is classified as an enemy, and starts at 100% health. It has 2,000 DEF, 999,999 CRIT RES and cannot be targeted by normal attacks or basic skills.
Deals 350% damage to enemies in a circular area. Increases damage by up to 50% the lower the target's current HP.
ウルガータ
Vulgate's Sacred Book
EX
Inflicts curse on one enemy for 10s, continuously dealing 20% damage over time. After 10s, the target will explode dealing 325% damage in a circular area around them. If the target is healed to 100% HP, the curse will be removed.
獅子の救済
Reaper's Execution
EX
Deals 90% damage to enemies in a circular area.
砂漠の苦痛
Desert Penance
EX
Every 10s, deals 40% damage to all enemies. If Hieronymus's ATG gauge is full, deals damage to each enemy equal to 1000% of their Max HP.
聖なる光(聖遺物)
Holy Light (Relic)
Passive
When a relic is healed to 100% HP, drains all HP and decreases recovery rate by 50% for 20s and activates one of the following effects depending on the relic:
Green Relic: Increases Hieronymus's damage taken by 55% until the end of battle. Effect can stack up to 5 times.
Red Relic: Interrupts Hieronymus's currently active skill. If a skill is successfully interrupted, increases Hieronymus's stagger gauge significantly and increases the skill cost recovery speed of up to 4 students by 2500 for 1s.
Difficulty
Insane
ダマススの招請
Damasus' Call
EX
Deals 350% damage to enemies in a circular area. Increases damage by up to 50% the lower the target's current HP.
ウルガータ
Vulgate's Sacred Book
EX
Inflicts curse on one enemy for 10s, continuously dealing 20% damage over time. After 10s, the target will explode dealing 325% damage in a circular area around them. If the target is healed to 100% HP, the curse will be removed. In addition, the recovery rate of cursed enemies is increased by 3,000 for 10s.
獅子の救済
Reaper's Execution
EX
Deals 90% damage to enemies in a circular area.
砂漠の苦痛
Desert Penance
EX
Every 10s, deals 30% damage to all enemies. If Hieronymus's ATG gauge is full, grants invulnerability to all enemies for 10s, deals damage to each enemy equal to 1000% of their Max HP, and increases recovery rate by 2,000 for 10s.
聖なる光(聖遺物)
Holy Light (Relic)
Passive
When a relic is healed to 100% HP, drains all HP and decreases recovery rate by 50% for 20s and activates the following effects:
Green Relic: Increases Hieronymus's damage taken by 55% until the end of battle. Effect can stack up to 5 times.
不净なる光(聖遺物)
Unholy Light (Relic)
Passive
When a relic reaches 0% HP, activates the following effects:
Purple Relic: Increases the attack power of all Strikers and Special Students by 25% and reduces their recovery rate by 7,000. In addition, decreases Hieronymus's defense by 1,500 until the end of battle. Students who are cursed will have their recovery rate increased by a further 4,000 for 10s. (Purple relics are not targets for normal attacks or normal skills.)
In the first half of the fight, there is only the green relic. In the second half of the fight, there will be both the green relic and red relic. After activating their respective effects at 100% HP, the relics will stay at 100% hp for 10 seconds, after which the HP will fall to 0% and the recovery rate debuff will be applied. Re-entry of the fight with another team will reset the status of the relics, and remove any green relic debuffs applied to Hieronymus.
The Green Relic: The Green Relic stacks up to five times. After reaching max stacks, the green relic will disappear from the current fight. The relic will re-appear amongst re-entry. The applied debuff will last for the entire duration of the current fight.
The Red Relic: The Red Relic cancels the cast of Hieronymus's next skill. If a skill is already in motion, it will not be cancelled. The amount of cost recovered by the success of the Red Relic is equivalent to 1 bar if you have at least 4 students on the team
Stagger Gauge Hieronymus can only be put into the stagger state when his skills are successfully cancelled by the Red Relic. Unlike other bosses, it is impossible to put Hieronymus into the stagger state with weak attribute attacks.
Hieronymus's ATG Hieronymus's ATG does not increase in the first phase of the fight. It will only start to generate in the second phase of the fight. Even when Hieronymus is in the stagger state, the ATG will continue to increase. The ATG increases at a fixed rate, such that on the cast of the 11th "Desert Pain" (which will occur at 110 seconds after the beginning of Phase 2) , Hieronymus will always be ready to cast his special instant wipe attack. This special attack can be cancelled with the Red Relic. When Hieronymus begins casting this attack, the ATG bars are immediately consumed, after which the player has approximately 3 (?) seconds to activate the Red Relic before it is no longer possible to cancel it.
Queen of this raid and more important than your damage dealers because you will deal no damage if you don't heal the lanterns. A low investment Serina can still clear but it's recommended that you level her auto heal to the point that she can heal the lantern with one activation of her normal skill and up her EX skill so she can heal the lantern with one kit too.
Ayane
Can compete with Serina due to having an AOE heal and might be better if you can get her to heal both the lamp and your low HP students at the same time.
Hanae
Can heal the lamp to max even with debuff active so she's excellent for that but might want to pick one of the above two if you also need to heal your units.
Hanako
Passive skill buffs the team's healing while being a healer herself. Like Hanae but instead of strong regen to one unit, she gives a weaker regen in a big AOE circle. Great as a second healer if you want stronger heals.
Hibiki
If one healer is enough then you can take her for more damage. Properly align her circles so all 5 hits land on the boss for maximum damage and remember the mantle on the back isn't a hitbox but the staff on the front is.
Front
Koharu
Once available, becomes core for this raid. Koharu takes up a valuable striker slot, but provides excellent healing output to both activate the lanterns and keep the team healed.
Azusa
Excellent for this raid and will likely be great for other red raids to come. Will deal the most damage out of your team while debuffing defense using her normal skill. Time your damage rotations and skills when her defense debuff is active for maximum damage.
Serika
Great damage dealer for this raid. Low cost EX, great damage capabilities, cheap to raise and can obtain her fragments from hard nodes. Easily a top student on this raid.
Akane
Here only for her EX skill that applies a defense debuff because she will deal almost no damage. Keep in mind that she will rush to the front and take most of the damage so hope she's either beefy enough to survive this or to use some of your heals on her to keep her alive for long enough to be useful.
Yuuka
Other tanks like Eimi, Hoshino or Tsubaki or any tank you have invested on could be good for this raid too because they will take most of the damage from Hieronymus and you don't have to worry about healing them. If you are using a character like Akane that rushes to the front then a tank like Yuuka could be useful because she will take cover in front of Hieronymus and force Akane to position herself away from his attacks and be significantly easier to keep alive