Jailer

He may have lost his prison, but he kept his stun gun.

## Unlock Requirements

### Price

Obtained by purchasing the Starter Pack for approximately (in USD) $6, or $2.50 when on sale.

 **Jailer** is a prison guard specializing in close-range combat. He is armed with a stun baton and dressed in a khaki long sleeve prison guard uniform with a black tie, black pants, brown belt with a yellow buckle, and a black prison guard's cap.

To unlock Jailer, players must purchase the Starter Pack using real-world currency, unlike all other unit packs which are bought with in-game money. Every other time Jailer's pack is offered, it will be at a 50% discount. It is highly recommended that players planning to purchase the Starter Pack do so when it is offered at the lower price.

## Functionality

### Basics

Jailer is a **fighter**, meaning he will attack enemies and the barricade at close range.

Jailer is a decently strong melee unit as his unit pack would suggest. He has a moderate amount of health and fast movement speed while keeping a low courage cost and moderate preparation time. While his damage is still low and his critical hit is even slower, it comes packing with a stun ability.

Some time after dying, Jailer will turn into Tipsy.

### Perks and Abilities

Jailer's critical hits stun enemies, stopping them from moving briefly.

As an automatically upgrading unit, Jailer's level will increase to match the player's bus level.

Upon reaching level 13, Jailer's special ability can be unlocked, which fires lightning arcs that stun up to three random nearby enemies when he lands a critical hit. This cements his role as a support unit, as now he can easily assist other units in need to great effect and deter small hordes, all while being able to avoid enemy fire. Considering he also scales to the Bus' level, the ability can be much cheaper than it initially seems as one does not need to pay any power points or coins just to upgrade him, making it a excellent investment for what it does. It should be noted that this effect is only applied if the enemy attacked survives the hit and is stunned, otherwise it will not apply.

## Gameplay

### Main Campaign

Jailer can stun enemies on critical hits. Stun duration will be reset if Jailer crits his target again, giving him the potential to lock an enemy in place long enough to kill them without taking too much damage. This is a rather unlikely outcome since enemies mostly attack in groups, so he will frequently need support from other melee or ranged units since Jailer works much better alongside others to take full advantage of his stun with him.

Jailer has fairly high base health among units in the fighter class, only surpassed by Rogue and Cashier. He also has good damage and movement speed for a low courage cost with only a moderate preparation time. Due to this, he is quite powerful as a starter unit as his unit pack would suggest. However, towards the endgame, he is largely overshadowed by Rogue or Mechanic. His preparation time doesn't allow him to be the most effective spam unit and his stun perk is also a bit underwhelming in later stages of the game due to the tougher enemies encountered as well as his slow critical hit speed making it tougher to stun enemies before they first hit him. His health though fairly high for Fighter standards is outpaced by the raw damage inflicted by late-game enemies, usually netting him an extra hit or two before falling.

Rogue is the direct upgrade of Jailer, having the identical perk of being able to stun enemies, the exact same prepare time and speed, a higher base health and courage cost, a significantly higher base damage, the added perk of not turning into a zombie upon death, as well as not requiring microtransactions in order to purchase. Jailer however does have a higher Crit Chance, which certainly can differentiate him more as a stun centered unit compared to Rogue, and Agility statistic, which certainly helps in lesser investments into the stat overall but otherwise doesn't affect gameplay all that much. He also has automatic bus leveling, which is a nice addition though at later locations performance of the unit dies off. The one benefit Jailer has over Rogue however is his SA being much more useful, as bullet resistance has negligible benefits outside of Stage 3, and is completely useless past Stage 5. This all in combination makes Rogue the much superior unit, meaning purchasing the Starter Pack for the Jailer is ill-advised, even if purchased at a discounted rate. A combination between Jailer and Rogue is possible however, with the mediocre preparation time of both units and better uses for the slots later causes the combo to lose steam, though it can be used to great effect if both units happen to be very lucky with crits.

### Skirmish

In League, despite his decent health and fast speed, Jailer suffers from the same issues all fighter class units do: the lack of bullet resistance. His health is hardly an issue for most ranged unit and his slow critical hit speed could be an issue when fighting against enemy melee units who possess faster attack speeds. In the few cases where he does manage to get close to an enemy unit and retaliate, however, he will be able to kill any units just fine as his stun perk can stop them in place, leaving them helpless to a follow-up attack of his own or from another teammate. In most cases though, he can simply serve as a replacement for Private or Redneck if cannon fodder melee units are part of the player's team composition.

### Item Sets

As would be expected, Jailer works best with the Gentleman set which is easy to obtain early on, as the damage provided after a critical hit will become extremely helpful for the unit as the main goal of it will always be to gain critical hits to stun enemies as much as possible, and the added bonus damage can make him quite capable. SwissMade is a possible option for raw damage output though Gentleman will prove superior in most cases. Fitness can also be a great option for those who don't wish to bother improving Jailer's low agility stat but rather invest into lowering his preparation time.

Although Jailer suffers from a high preparation time for a Fighter unit, + Agility watches are necessary for success of the unit given it's low agility, which would otherwise have the unit it pausing between attacks nullifying it's one perk. % Crit. Chance books can also prove extremely useful for him, as high amounts of crits will lead to higher stun time likely benefiting the team more often and increasing his survivability. Likewise % Crit Damage Books can also be useful in his overall DPS if his Crit Chance is instead increased through use of substats, and can make him a poignant damage dealer, otherwise +% Melee Damage works well for Jailer. Prep Time decreasing substats also work well for Jailer given his longer preparation time, allowing him to become a somewhat more spammable unit.

## Skins and Synergies

Jailer is a part of the Jailers team.

 Team

Jailer doesn't entirely benefit much from the Jailers team, rather he acts more along the lines of filler than anything else. The only useful attribute that directly affects Jailer is the 5/5 Jailer preparation time decrease of 30%, which can bring him down to effectively a 9 second prep time making him much more usable, however this comes at a large investment. It should be noted that the 3/5 Jailers 25% stun chance on crit melee is completely useless to him, as the unit *already* stuns when he crits. Unfortunately because of the team's lackluster standing overall, he best works in combination with varied units rather than sticking to the synergy.

## Trivia

* According to Jailer's deleted backstory:
	+ The warden of the prison is named Mr. Norton. This is a reference to Stephen King's novella titled Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.
	+ The way Jailer escapes the prison through a drainpipe is also a reference to the famous scene from its film adaptation.
* Jailer is one of the five Jailers, the others being Sniper Polina, Guard, Gunslinger, and Willy.
* Judging by Jailer's old concept art, he was originally supposed to be a convict, before becoming a prison officer.
* Jailer's description refers to his stun baton as a stun gun. While it can be argued that a stun baton is simply an extended stun gun with a grip to put more distance between its user and the attacker, a stun gun usually refers to an electroshock device the size of a TV remote that has a little more range, such as Willy's weapon.
* During the 2023 Reddit Developer Q&A, it was stated that, between the "What's next for the game" announcement and then, someone had actually already guessed correctly what Jailer's new Special Ability would be, likely in a comment on an official announcement, but they didn't say who guessed it.

## Gallery

Jailer concept art as seen in a VK Interview.Ditto. (Recreation)

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