How do I defeat Jaguar Javier in Guacamelee?

The previous bosses all had observable attack patterns and were easily defeated. Jaguar Javier has no attack pattern that I can see; he just seems to spam his moves and regenerate shields before I can deal any significant damage. How can I defeat him?

Solution 1:

I found a (cheap/exploit?) strategy that worked:

Break his shield and immediately headbutt him into the nearest wall. He should bounce off the wall back towards you. Headbutt him again before he hits the ground. Continue to headbutt him into the wall while you have stamina remaining.

Repeat until he is defeated.

Solution 2:

Jaguar Javier, the boss in Sierra Morena, is kind of a piece of work.

• When it attacks, you can't stun him.
• He attacks almost all the time.
• He throws up various shields repeatedly (although thankfully no white or green shields).
• He also does dimension shifts repeatedly.
• He has a knack for doing either, or both, just before your attack connects.
• He has two undodgeable attacks with very little warning.
• He also has high attacks you can't jump over.
• He also has wide attacks you can't dash (B+left) through.
• Actually, most of his attacks are a combination or the above.

He does not have a lot of life, but it's really hard to get any damage in at all. What do?

Well, meet your new best friend: LT the dodge button.

What you're going to want to do is to generally keep your distance, then hit LT and roll towards him as he attacks. If well timed, and he isn't using his fire attacks, this should allow you to avoid taking damage and get you an opening for breaking his shield. Of course it's easier if he has a blue shield (e.g. LT+right B+right), rather easy if he has a red shield (e.g. LT+right, B+up) and quite hard if he has a yellow shield (e.g. LT+right B+right; if you catch him in between attacks, try and go for the headbutt, otherwise repeat LT+right; it helps, as DrTwox said, if you can catch him against the wall).

Once you do connect, and you do catch him in between attacks, it's time to take the Combo Pollo's advice to heart and just keep pounding, possibly with copious amounts of aerial combat. Follow up a B+right with a B+up and X X X; it is possible to get significant amounts of damage in if you can lock him into an X+up throw loop against a wall; once he does resume attacking, keep rolling and attacking when in range to get free damage in before his next shield goes up. You're not going to kill Javier just through shield breaking.

Finally, do not try and trade damage with Javier. It's not going to work. He can throw up a yellow shield anytime and ruin your day. His sweeping fire attack give you VERY little warning and it's quite hard to jump out of the way in time and you can't dodge it (although occasionally for some reason it'll fail to connect). It isn't really possible to get a flawless victory vs him, but with a sufficiently lucky sequence of shields it should be possible to take him down without losing too much health at all.