SMT V - Demi-fiend (Low Level [87], Hard, No Incenses/Mediarahan Skip/NG+)
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Well, I tell you one thing...it sure was an ordeal that I went through trying to record this, as detailed in my community post yesterday. But here we are, only a week away from the release of SMT V: Vengeance, and I'm finally done with Shin Megami Tensei V for good. I didn't think that this version of the Demi-fiend battle would be as good as the other one, but it greatly exceeded my expectations and I believe it's fair to now consider this battle to be my greatest SMT achievement, dethroning the other version after less than two weeks with that title. Don't get me wrong, the other version is still amazing, but the edge in difficulty definitely belongs to this one. Having access to Balms, stat-boosting Miracles, and Sutras just doesn't match the challenge provided by taking on an additional five-level disadvantage, and that's really reflected at numerous points in this attempt. If I had known it would turn out this well, I might have done this one first.
Once again, I wanted to go into the effects of these restrictions like I did for the other version. A lot of my commentary is the same in my rules explanation and very long strategy summary, but I indicated all the parts that I changed for this version in the comment chain below. There are also timestamps for a lot of the notable moments in this battle at the end of that comment chain too.
1. The level of the Nahobino and any demons used may not exceed 87.
2. Hard difficulty.
3. The stats of demons may not be boosted through the use of Incenses. Balms and stat-boosting Miracles are allowed.
4. No DLC demons or essences may be used, and no additional Balms from DLC quests other than Return of the True Demon may be used.
5. No Accursed Poison and/or ailment-based Mediarahan skip.
6. No Omagatoki: Adversity.
7. No Phys Block/Phys Dampeners.
8. The battle must be completed in a New Game playthrough.
![SMT V - Shiva (Low Level [80], Hard, No Accursed Poison/DLC/Stat Boosters/NG+)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rcsjhpSgiRs/mqdefault.jpg)
Since a lot of the information here is the same as for my other Demi-fiend video, I ended up copying most of it here. However, the parts I did change are [bracketed], so if you want to see the changes relevant to this battle, they’re easier to find. I also had to break down some of the sections differently here to fit the comment character limit. A list of notable moments and their timestamps is also included at the end of this.
Rules and Explanations
1. The level of the Nahobino and any demons used may not exceed 87.
As always, the level difference between the player and adversary plays a major role in damage calculation in SMT V, so attempting this battle at level [87] instead of level 99 is a major challenge. Based on the extensive data collection that I performed comparing level effects on damage (which I believe is consistent among all skills, but I’d have to actually see the damage formula to be sure), the Nahobino and his demons take around [50]% more damage from Demi-fiend’s attacks here relative to level 99, around [35]% more damage from Demi-fiend’s allies, and the Nahobino [and his demons] deal around [50]% less damage to Demi-fiend while the Nahobino’s demons deal about [30]% less damage to Demi-fiend’s allies. Additionally, the Nahobino and demons have lower HP and MP (around [10]% each) that further hampers their survivability, and I believe that level effects may also play into several other battle mechanics, such as ailment infliction rate, instakill rate, opposing critical rate, and accuracy, although these would all be very difficult to confirm and quantify.
2. Hard difficulty
Makes the game harder.
3. The stats of the Nahobino or demons may not be boosted through the use of Incenses.
[For this version, I did use Balms, stat-boosting Miracles, and Sutras to boost the stats of the Nahobino and his demons, but those only help make up a fraction of the level disadvantage in this battle. Balms grant the Nahobino 11-15 more points in every stat plus 140 more base HP and MP from Health Balms and Stamina Balms, while most demons get 15-18 extra points in every stat from the Warrior’s Conception Miracle and up to 20 extra points in every stat from the Prayer Miracles. However, the boosts from Balms, Miracles, and Sutras are finite, which is why I allowed them; with some effort and knowledge of the game, anyone could acquire the same boosts without farming for stat-boosting items for an unreasonably long time.]
[If I were using Incenses to boost stats, then I could grant one or two demons massive boosts in VIT, AGI, and LUK (potentially over 100 points each) and boost the HP and MP of a single demon significantly with Health and Stamina Incenses, which would be especially helpful for a demon like Idun that I was planning to use for as long as possible. Stacking all of my Incenses on her would make her nearly unkillable, and Incenses are also farmable with a lot of time so they’re theoretically limitless. While Balms are theoretically farmable as level-up gifts from demons, the odds of receiving them are incredibly low and I did not use any Balms acquired through luck-based events.]
4. No DLC demons or essences may be used, and no additional Balms from DLC quests other than Return of the True Demon may be used.
This honestly isn’t the most significant, but it does rule out using Cleopatra, Mephisto, and the Fiends, some of which would be pretty helpful for this battle. Trumpeter’s resistances also might actually be the best option for the Nahobino if allowed. [Also, the rewards for the DLC quests for Artemis, Cleopatra, and Mephisto include 3 Health Balms, 3 Stamina Balms, and 5 Vitality Balms, which would provide a further edge to the Nahobino had I chosen to use them. The Fiend battles all have Balm rewards as well, but I decided to use those since they’re required to defeat before battling Demi-fiend.]
5. No Accursed Poison and/or ailment-based Mediarahan skip.
Accursed Poison’s guaranteed ailment infliction (in this case, Seal on Demi-fiend) is laughably broken throughout the game, and even more so here. With it, Demi-fiend can be prevented from using several of his most powerful skills, such as Mediarahan, Gaea Rage, and Chaotic Will with knowledge of the HP thresholds or turns he’d use them. Preventing him from using Mediarahan alone would reduce the damage necessary to inflict on him from over 90000 to 60000, which would reduce the battle’s length by over ⅓ with my strategy. Forcing Demi-fiend to skip Mediarahan with any ailment outside of Accursed Poison would be much less reliable, but is not allowed for the same reason.
6. No Omagatoki: Adversity
As many of you may already be aware, the 3x or greater damage boost (I don’t actually know the specifics on this one) provided by Omagatoki: Adversity when at or near 1 HP is simply too powerful and has the potential to turn any battle in the game (not just this one) into a damage check in the form of a basic algebraic expression. When combined with damage boosts from Pleromas and Impaler’s Glory/Impaler’s Animus with Figment Slash, Demi-fiend can be one-turned at around level 92 or 93 just with the Nahobino. It’s actually not that difficult to set up and isn’t that interesting once you’ve seen it a few times, and that was over two years ago.
[Honestly, I’m not even sure if it’s possible to one-turn Demi-fiend when taking into account the massive damage reduction at level 87. However, Omagatoki: Adversity is still broken under low HP conditions so I banned it regardless.]
7. No Phys Block/Phys Dampeners
Phys Block is much too strong in this battle, since it can easily neutralize Demi-fiend’s attacks and prevent him from using Gaea Rage on certain turns at little to no cost. Unlike innate immunities, Phys Block and Phys Dampeners can remove Demi-fiend’s press turns without affecting his behavior on future turns, which is extremely overpowering in this battle.
8. The battle must be completed in a New Game playthrough.
Attempting this in a single playthrough limits path bonuses and rules out NG+ exclusive demons and the Repel Phys and Drain Phys passive skills, which are only obtainable through Abdiel and Nuwa’s NG+ forms. For the purposes of this battle it’s a no-brainer to choose the Chaos route here, primarily because Inheritance Violation is invaluable for enabling fusions that would otherwise require extremely time-consuming essence farming or be entirely unrealistic. It also allows Tao to remain as a party member, plus Inanna is an amazing attacker.
The Opposition, Part 1
Demi-fiend is faced along with an assortment of seven allies that are summoned in a set sequence, up to three at a time. He has two press turns and is the most predictable of the enemies, since all of his actions are dictated by turn counts or specific HP thresholds. However, the specifics of many of his actions are very complicated, so I’ll break them all down individually.
Call Allies: If fewer than three of Demi-fiend’s allies are present, he uses this to summon one, two, or three demons. Demi-fiend’s summon order goes Cu Chulainn, Girimekhala, Pixie, Cerberus, Thor, Jack Frost, and Parvati. If Demi-fiend’s next summon in his sequence is already present in the battle, then he’ll just skip them in the sequence.
Javelin Rain: Demi-fiend uses this in all non-special scenarios (when he does not have to summon or perform an action that was triggered by a turn count or dropping below an HP threshold) unless a Physical immunity has previously been revealed from the currently present members of the Nahobino’s party. In this battle, once a resistance has been revealed it is permanent and nothing can be done to reset that. Javelin Rain has a higher base power than Deadly Fury and a very high Seal chance.
Freikugel: If Demi-fiend is able to act a second time on a turn in which he has used Call Allies, he will use Freikugel. However, if no Physical immunities have been revealed from the currently present members of the Nahobino’s party, Demi-fiend will prioritize Javelin Rain over Freikugel. He also uses Freikugel if all members of the Nahobino’s party have had Physical immunity revealed or if Taunt has been used on a demon with Physical immunity that has been revealed. Freikugel has a very high critical rate that I believe may be boosted further by the level difference or Demi-fiend’s Luck stat.
Deadly Fury: Demi-fiend uses this in all non-special scenarios if a Physical immunity has previously been revealed from the currently present members of the Nahobino’s party and if there are also targets in the Nahobino’s party that either have been revealed to not have Physical immunity or targets with unrevealed physical resistances. Demi-fiend will never use Deadly Fury on any target that has had a Physical immunity revealed. Deadly Fury always criticals unless the target has Physical resistance or guards.
Gaea Rage: As it is infamous for, Gaea Rage is essentially an instant-kill move that deals massive piercing physical damage to the entire party. Not even the Shield of God Magatsuhi skill can reduce its damage enough to make it manageable. Pretty much every online source that I’ve seen (and I checked around ten of them) states that he uses Gaea Rage every fifth or sixth action if one of his allies hasn’t been eliminated, which is a bit concerning to me since that’s…just not true. Basically, the real way it works is that he will use Gaea Rage with his second action of his fourth turn after one of his demons has been eliminated unless a different demon is eliminated before he reaches Gaea Rage in his skill cycle, with the turn he uses Call Allies (usually) being the first turn in the sequence. Effectively, the Nahobino’s party has to eliminate one of Demi-fiend’s demons every three turns to prevent Gaea Rage. However, if Demi-fiend doesn’t get a second action on his fourth turn in the sequence due to him or his demons missing or attacking into immunities, then Gaea Rage will be delayed until his first action of his fifth turn, giving the Nahobino’s party an extra turn to eliminate one of his demons and reset his Gaea Rage counter. Gaea Rage also arrives a little later at the very start of the battle, when he uses it with the second action of his fourth turn after using Call Allies, and if he has just used Gaea Rage his counter resets and he will use Gaea Rage again with the second action of his fourth turn after that turn. Finally, Demi-fiend will use Gaea Rage if Tetrakarn or an Attack Mirror is in effect.
I usually count the turns from Gaea Rage based on when Demi-fiend uses Call Allies, but I have to specify differently here since in one attempt I eliminated Jack Frost on the same turn as pushing Demi-fiend below 30000 HP, and he proceeded to use Mediarahan but wasn’t able to act a second time that turn because one of his demons missed an attack. He used Call Allies the next turn instead and I assumed that Gaea Rage would then arrive three turns after that, but he actually used it two turns after that since it was actually linked to when the Nahobino’s party actually defeated one of his allies and not when Call Allies was used, as I had previously believed. I was not amused.
[In the time since I posted my other version of the Demi-fiend battle, I’ve learned that there is an additional element at play that determines which turn Demi-fiend uses Gaea Rage. I’m not exactly sure on the specifics, but I believe that if Demi-fiend or his demons strikes a critical or weakness and the demon after Demi-fiend is able to act a second time during a given turn, then Gaea Rage actually gets moved up in the sequence of Demi-fiend’s actions unless one of his demons is eliminated before that. I didn’t realize this when I did my level 92 version since Demi-fiend would never critical and I would rarely expose my demons to their weaknesses, so the few times I did encounter this phenomenon I assumed I had just miscounted the turns. However, when I was attempting this version, I would sometimes expose demons to their ailment weaknesses, and that’s when I realized that I wasn’t actually miscounting the turns, especially when Gaea Rage would be the first action of one of Demi-fiend’s turns. It became extremely obvious that something was up when I tested this battle without physical resistance, since Demi-fiend would always score criticals with Deadly Fury and he would then use Gaea Rage as early as his first action of his third turn after having one of his demons defeated if one of his demons also struck a weakness, as opposed to the second action of his fourth turn in the sequence as I would expect under the circumstances I normally deal with in this battle. I also think that this may not apply to turns on which Demi-fiend uses Call Allies, otherwise Freikugel criticals would result in Gaea Rage being moved up in the queue, or maybe it only takes effect if a turn advances beyond Demi-fiend’s second action more than once in a Gaea Rage cycle.
It's really tough to test out all the specifics of this mechanic.]
[Although this is very convoluted, I assume that this mechanic is supposed to serve as an additional punishment for allowing your weaknesses to be struck. While I still don’t understand what the rule establishing when Gaea Rage is used actually is here, I can say for certain that this additional mechanic that I’ve learned about can be avoided by simply preventing Demi-fiend’s demons from striking weaknesses. I managed to win my level 92 version without having any knowledge of this mechanic because I didn’t allow weaknesses to be struck, and I won here similarly by doing the same, although there were a few times when I screwed up and I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t get punished for it with Gaea Rage. I’m not particularly motivated to run more tests on this matter, so I’m just going to leave it at that.]
Mediarahan: Demi-fiend uses this when he drops below 30000 HP, or half health, but only once per battle. Mediarahan takes priority over every other action he has except for maybe Gaea Rage.
Chaotic Will: Demi-fiend uses this at specific HP thresholds to halve the press turn count of the Nahobino’s party while also inflicting an instant-death effect. He first uses it when dropping below 48000 HP, then after dropping to about 48000 HP after using Mediarahan, then when dropping below 30000 HP a second time, and finally when dropping below about 12000 HP. Don’t ask me why those are the HP thresholds and not perfect fourths.
[Additionally, Demi-fiend has a second condition for using Chaotic Will. He has a counter based on his uses of Freikugel, and when he has used Freikugel five times, his next action will be Chaotic Will. His Freikugel counter is reset every time he uses Chaotic Will, regardless of whether it’s due to an HP threshold or his Freikugel counter.]
[Amazingly, I didn’t even realize this was the second Chaotic Will condition until I had already recorded this battle. I knew that there were Chaotic Will uses not linked to his HP thresholds, but I couldn’t quite figure out what the condition was, if any, since it seemed that he used it if too many turns had passed since his last Chaotic Will use but was quite inconsistent. I didn’t truly figure it out until I was looking through my record log for both this battle and the level 92 version. Those two battles involved three unexplained Chaotic Will uses, but with variable turn counts since the previous Chaotic Will: one was 21 turns after the previous Chaotic Will, another was 17 turns after it, and the third was 16 turns after it. I thought about the number of times Demi-fiend had used Call Allies during those intervals, but that didn’t match up either, and it finally hit me when I thought about Freikugel uses. I remembered a random comment I had read somewhere that claimed that Demi-fiend would spam Freikugel and Chaotic Will if the Nahobino and his demons were all immune to physical, so I tested that on Safety difficulty, which made this use condition extremely obvious. After every five Freikugel uses, Demi-fiend uses Chaotic Will with his next action. It sounds so simple when put like that, but it’s almost impossible to figure out when not using a team with full Physical immunity. In all honesty, I can’t believe I was actually able to piece it together just from the records of those two battles.]
The Opposition, Part 2
Demi-fiend’s allies all have a single press turn and play both an offensive and support role in this battle. Generally, they tend to act randomly, with very few circumstances in which their actions are predictable. All seven of them carry two or three offensive skills of their primary element and/or Physical, plus Megidolaon and a party-wide ailment skill. Pixie, Jack Frost, and Parvati carry Luster Candy, while Cu Chulainn, Girimekhala, Cerberus, and Thor have Debilitate. All of them are also able to use Dekaja and Dekunda and will immediately use them if buffs or debuffs cross a certain threshold. I’m not entirely certain on this, but I believe they are triggered when the sum of buff or debuff stages on all targets of a side surpasses 12. For example, using Luster Candy or Debilitate once is fine because all four targets have their three stats raised one stage, but as soon as one more stat on a single target is raised or lowered beyond that, Dekaja or Dekunda will be triggered. However, if these limits are never exceeded, then Dekaja or Dekunda will never be used.
There are also a few characteristics of the individual demons that are notable for this battle. First, Pixie carries Dia and can heal Demi-fiend for over 8000 HP, while Parvati carries Media and can heal Demi-fiend for over 10000 HP while healing the other demons for between 2000 and 3000 HP. Frustratingly, they can use these skills randomly, and I’ve even seen them use them on their first action after being summoned. While these may be used less frequently than their other skills, based on my observations I would guess that they have around a 10% chance to use them on any given turn. Cu Chulainn and Cerberus both have the Dragon Eye passive skill, which drastically decreases the odds of their attacks missing, and Cu Chulainn also has the Retaliate passive skill.
Demi-fiend’s demons also remember which resistances of the Nahobino’s party have been revealed over the course of the battle, and will never attack into immunities if they have been previously identified. If there are relevant immunities revealed, they will instead use Megidolaon in place of their party-wide or multi-target attacks of that element, and for single-target attacks I believe they just avoid those targets. I think they just use Megidolaon once ailment immunities have been identified as well.
While all seven demons have different stats, the most important is undoubtedly their HP. Pixie has 14000 HP, Jack Frost and Parvati have 15500 HP, Cu Chulainn and Thor have 17000 HP, Girimekhala has 18500 HP, and Cerberus has 20000 HP. However, they also have Vitality stats that scale with their HP totals, so the differences between them are even more drastic than that.
Team Build and Setup, Part 1
[Before I get into the actual team, I have to mention how I fused my demons to maximize their stat boosts from Miracles. The Prayer Miracles are simple; for every level they gain, they gain an extra point in every stat if all five Miracles are active, but only for the first 20 levels above their base level. This means that only demons with a base level of 67 or below can fully take advantage of the boosts provided by the Prayer Miracles, although demons level 80 and above have naturally higher stats to account for the boosts that they are unable to receive from the Prayer Miracles. The Warrior’s Conception Miracle is much more complicated; the stat boosts of the fused demons are dependent upon the stats gained by the fusion material demons, with a maximum stat boost dependent upon the base level of the fusion material demons. The maximum stat boost ranges from 10 in every stat to 20 in every stat; if the combined base levels of the fusion material demons is 59 or below, then the maximum stat boost is 10, from 60 to 69 the maximum stat boost is 11, ranging up to a maximum of 20 when the combined base levels are greater than 150. This is why fusing with Elements isn’t good for acquiring maximum stats, since the maximum based on the combined base level of the components will almost always be below 100. However, there is also a secondary maximum based on the Nahobino’s current level. If his level is 95 or above then the maximum stat boost is 20, if his level is from 90-94 then the maximum is 19, from 85-89 the maximum is 18, and so on. For the purposes of his battle, the maximum stat boosts can be acquired when the combined base levels of the fusion material demons are 130 or greater, although many demons have to settle for a lower maximum stat boost for their optimal fusions. Also, the combined base level rule doesn’t apply to Special Fusion demons that require three or four fusion components, and it’s much easier to fuse those demons with the maximum stat boosts. For example, Alice has four fusion components that have a combined base level of 107, but she can still be fused with a maximum stat bonus of 18 or greater even though that wouldn’t be the case for normal demons.]
[To actually make use of the Warrior’s Conception Miracle, I fused several low-level demons with all the skills I wanted to fuse with prior to battling Shiva in my playthrough, then visited all 19 petrified demon statues to boost their stats from the Prayer Miracles while powering up my demons to battle Shiva with a level 80 Nahobino, which gave them enough stat boosts to acquire the maximum stat boosts from the Warrior’s Conception Miracle. From that point I registered them in the compendium and fused upwards until I had a lot of potential fusion material demons that I could actually fuse into the demons I wanted with the maximum stat boosts, which took a lot of time but worked for every demon. It was a lot easier once I had fused the demons above level 80, after which I could acquire the Unforgotten Memories Miracle to more easily ensure that my fusion component demons had high enough stats to fuse targets with the maximum stat boosts without having the resulting demons exceed level 87.]
There is a lot of thought that went into my demon choices for this battle, and it’s tough to cover everything that’s important here. Basic considerations include a demon’s resistances, stats (mostly Magic, Agility, and Vitality), base HP and to a lesser extent MP, and base level since lower-leveled demons’ HP and MP don’t scale as well as higher-leveled demons (I had to perform a lot of statistical analysis for this that I won’t go into). [However, for this version, demons’ base stats were much less important than in the other version, since the Prayer Miracles and Warrior’s Conception Miracle provide such a massive stat boost, making many more demons viable attackers, plus their actual skill potentials didn’t matter at all as long as they were positive. This was especially notable for the Magic stat of many demons, since the damage increase beyond 100 points is significantly less than when under 100 points, so I only needed most demons to have 90-100 Magic to be nearly as powerful. Because of these factors, my demon choices for this battle were often more dependent upon their resistances, since that would allow some of them to forgo resistance passives that would otherwise be necessary.]
Team Build and Setup, Part 2
There are three main roles that need to be filled in this battle: a primary attacker for Demi-fiend, attackers for Demi-fiend’s allies, and support. The Nahobino is best suited to prioritize Demi-fiend since Murakumo is the most powerful and consistent piercing attack in the game, and his inability to swap out makes him ill-suited for attacking Demi-fiend’s allies or a support role. That leaves two demon slots for attacking Demi-fiend’s allies and one for support, which should be sufficient. Regardless of their roles, nearly every party member needs to have Physical resistance or immunity to prevent Deadly Fury criticals, Abyssal Mask to reduce the odds of ailment infliction and Chaotic Will instakills, and Enduring Soul as a safety net since many kills would be otherwise unavoidable. Most party members also need Great Life Spring since their base HP would be insufficient for this battle.
The Nahobino should have a build optimized for damage with Murakumo, High Almighty Pleroma, Almighty Pleroma, and Critical Zealot. A full supply of Charge Gems and Critical Gems is sufficient for him to fulfill this role, leaving the other four skill slots open. Metatron’s resistances, Resist Phys, and Great Life Spring should be enough to allow him to withstand almost anything other than Freikugel, Chaotic Will, or Gaea Rage, and Abyssal Mask, Enduring Soul, and the Whittled Goat give him a reasonable chance to survive the entire battle.
Since demons can be swapped out at little cost, all other attackers should be built to attack with a single element. [While multi-target attacks are usable in this battle when stat boosters and Sutras are used, they’re not as good as one might expect since they still carry a significant miss chance and they’re often not good for controlling when Demi-fiend’s allies are eliminated, so most demons just use single-target attacks.] There are five elements that are needed for all of Demi-fiend’s demons: Dark for Pixie, Electric for Cu Chulainn and Girimekhala, Ice for Cerberus, Force for Girimekhala and Thor, and Fire for Jack Frost and Parvati. [The demand for certain elements is greater, so I used two Dark attackers, three Electric attackers, two Ice attackers, four Force attackers, and four Fire attackers.] Having that many options for each element was important due to MP concerns, plus it allowed me to make better use of Enduring Soul across the team to prevent deaths.
For most demons, the best offensive option is using Mudobarion, Ziobarion, Bufubarion, Zanbarion, or Agibarion boosted by two elemental Pleromas, while the rest of their skill slots are usually dedicated to keeping them alive. Great Life Spring, Resist Phys, Abyssal Mask, and Enduring Soul cover four slots, and some demons need an additional resistance passive to an element they’re exposed to as well. [It actually might have been more helpful to only use a High Pleroma on some demons and use Life Spring or Endure as an extra safety net instead, but I didn’t really want to sacrifice their damage output in return. Alice and Adramelech were the only demons I gave Endure to since they were at a greater risk of being killed, and I also gave Black Frost and Belphegor High Restore so I would only have to dedicate two spots in the stock to deal with Cerberus.]
[While demons in this version of the battle have more opportunities to attack Demi-fiend directly, I found that having the piercing elemental skills such as Ice Age or Trisagion were only about 25% stronger than Bufubarion or Agibarion when used against Demi-fiend under Omagatoki: Critical, for some reason. I didn’t know this beforehand, but I guess that the resistance multiplier under Omagatoki: Critical is actually greater than 50% damage, but I couldn’t explain why. This means that the benefit to using Ice Age or Trisagion is almost negligible, plus it makes them worse at damaging Demi-fiend’s demons, so they’re not really helpful to use.]
[Notable demon selections for this battle include Seth and Loki, which I built to be my only multi-target attackers with Maziobarion and Mazanbarion, aided by High Restore and Dragon Eye respectively. Seth was built to help get damage under control at the start of the battle and midway through after Demi-fiend used Mediarahan, while Loki would be able to contribute when both Girimekhala and Thor were present. While I could have used multi-target attackers for a few other elements, doing so wouldn’t have been that helpful since it’s more important to get damage on the primary target with respect to Pixie, Parvati, and Cerberus, and multi-target attacks are also too prone to missing, sometimes even when Dragon Eye is used. Zaou-Gongen and Fionn Mac Cumhaill were also helpful demons thanks to their ailment immunities, especially when trying to take out Parvati in a three-turn window. A final selection that seems ridiculous but is actually really solid is Loup-Garou, whose Souffle D’éclair skill actually becomes respectably strong when the Prayer Miracles and Warrior’s Conception grant it 35 more points in every stat. It’s actually still not quite as powerful as Ziobarion on a demon with over 90 Magic, but Loup-Garou actually has very nice HP, VIT, and AGI to make up for that. Even though it also carries two weaknesses, neither of those are relevant during the time it makes sense for it to be summoned, which makes it a surprisingly good choice to use.]
Due to the necessary role compression in a single party slot, every support demon needed to be able to use Mediarahan, Luster Candy, and Debilitate, or have a skill with those effects. Selecting demons to fulfill that role wasn’t difficult since there are a lot of decent options that have positive Healing and Support Skill Potentials, but there are definitely several must-use demons. Idun is invaluable for Golden Apples since the healing it provides is usually enough to get by without using Mediarahan, which saves a lot of MP and an action, Demeter has Eleusinian Harvest to heal to supermax HP, and Tao has Light of Order so that a Dispel Charm doesn’t have to be used and also provides some extra healing.
Since most support demons were specifically fused to only be used until they expended their MP, I gave most of them Great Mana Spring in place of Great Life Spring since Enduring Soul was usually good enough to keep them alive. Idun was an exception since she would be better to use for a longer period with Somas and Chakra Pots, so HP was more valuable to her. All the support demons had Boon Boost EX so they wouldn’t have to apply buffs and debuffs as often, although this was also a bit of a double-edged sword as I’ll explain later. I also didn’t bother covering the weaknesses of most of the support demons since I would be able to swap them in when they wouldn’t be exposed to those elements, unlike the offensive demons. [Idun was also an exception here, since I gave her Resist Elec in place of Enduring Soul in this version because it was more important for her to be able to deal with Thor’s Electric attacks. I expected for her to die several times over the course of the battle anyway, so I thought that the benefit from being able to use her throughout the battle was more important than preventing a single death during a very long attempt.] Lastly, all of the support demons I used had Null Phys, which would prevent Demi-fiend from using Javelin Rain on nearly every action. Having Null Phys on the support demons was more desirable than having it on the offensive demons since there would always be one support demon summoned at a time, so I wouldn’t have to make an effort to have a Physical immunity present in every team configuration. It was also better than having it on the Nahobino for reasons I’ll explain later, plus the Nahobino didn’t need Physical immunity to survive while the support demons lacked the bulk to withstand Demi-fiend’s attacks in addition to his allies’.
[Since most support demons are very similar unless they have a unique trait that obviously sets them apart, I did have the opportunity to select a few weaker demons that were still viable thanks to having a positive skill potential in both Healing and Support for the humorous element. The ones I went with were Pixie, Muu Shuwuu, and Ame-no-Uzume. I used Muu Shuwuu since she was the Accursed Poison demon I kept around for my entire playthrough despite not actually using Accursed Poison, and I shouldn’t need to explain the other two.]
Finally, the last demon selection was reserved for a Girimekhala with Taunt, Luster Candy, and Debilitate, which I’ll explain later.
The optimal setup for this battle slots the Nahobino second and the support demons fourth, with the first and third slots for all the offensive demons. The Nahobino can perform a lot of actions from the second slot that wouldn’t be as effective or viable if he were in the fourth slot, such as summoning a new demon when Demi-fiend kills a target or swapping other demons as necessary. Having the support demon act last also helps reduce the burden on them since they often need to perform two actions with healing or reapplying buffs and debuffs, and acting from the second slot would force them to use some of their actions for Purge or Dispel Charms, Chakra Pots or Somas, or Amrita Sodas or Amrita Showers. When the Nahobino uses those items instead, the support demons can better keep the team healed and buffs and debuffs at +1/-1, which is very important for keeping the battle running smoothly.
The Strategy, Part 1
This battle mostly revolves around defeating one of Demi-fiend’s demons every three turns to prevent him from using Gaea Rage while slowly whittling down Demi-fiend’s HP with free actions. [Unlike in the other version, the Nahobino’s demons are actually powerful enough to focus on more than a single target at a time thanks to the extra damage provided by stat boosts and Sutras, so it’s much easier to stay ahead of schedule with respect to Gaea Rage. Even though the demons’ damage is much better, Omagatoki: Critical is still needed to boost the Nahobino’s Murakumo damage to chip down Demi-fiend, and the demons can contribute some damage as well by attacking directly since sparing skill slots for Donum Gladi isn’t as good an option in this version.] There also aren’t many other Magatsuhi skills that would be helpful for this battle, and even if there were they would be Race-dependent in a battle with more demon swaps than any other battle I’ve done in an SMT game. The Magatsuhi gauge should consistently fill up in three turns, so the opportunity to use Omagatoki: Critical aligns nicely with the demon targeting cycle. The Nahobino should always use Charge Gems when possible to maximize damage on those turns and may also use Critical Gems with Murakumo during the other two turns for additional damage, but aside from that I mostly just have him use items to support [and guard when necessary].
[With demons that have a better damage output, there’s more freedom in choosing which of Demi-fiend’s demons to target at each point in the battle. The battle begins with Cu Chulainn, Girimekhala, and Pixie, so I used Alice to eliminate Pixie while using Maziobarion with Seth to chip down Cu Chulainn and Girimekhala early on in the battle. Seth’s damage over the next few rounds is generally enough to finish off Cu Chulainn, and by that point Girimekhala would be at low HP and an Ice attacker could chip down Cerberus too. Once Girimekhala had been defeated, either Cerberus or Thor could be finished off before Parvati would be summoned, upon which she would become the primary target, then Jack Frost and Cerberus or Thor could be eliminated to begin the cycle again.] Generally, the cycle would stay pretty consistent, but regardless of if the other demons are weakened, it’s important to target Parvati and Pixie as soon as they’re summoned since Media and Dia can instantly derail any attempt. Ideally, they shouldn’t be able to act more than about 10 times over the course of the battle, the few turns at the beginning of the battle with Pixie excluded. If all goes well, the battle will hopefully be complete [midway through the fourth summoning loop].
While the role of the support demons seems straightforward in keeping the team healed and buffs/debuffs at +1/-1, the opposing Dekaja/Dekunda mechanics of this battle sometimes restrict how they can act. These come into play when the total amount of buff or debuff stages on a side exceeds 12, so if there are even a few excess buff or debuff stages active, Luster Candy or Debilitate cannot be used without triggering Dekaja or Dekunda. This isn’t really relevant with Debilitate since Demi-fiend’s team only changes a single member every three turns, but for Luster Candy it’s a major problem. The two offensive demon slots are constantly occupied by different demons, which resets their buffs while the Nahobino and possibly the support demon retain theirs. If none of Demi-fiend’s demons use Debilitate to remove those buffs prior to the new demons being swapped into the battle, the support demon has to wait for the previous buffs to expire before using Luster Candy again. This is why Boon Boost EX is both a boon and a hindrance in this battle. For the same reason, the Enhanced Summon Miracle is actually detrimental here since using Luster Candy on top of that single bonus buff will trigger Dekaja, so that was actually another reason I played through the entire game to prepare for this battle (that better be one of the disableable Miracles in Vengeance).
Of course, this battle will never proceed smoothly as Demi-fiend and his demons will constantly wreak havoc and disrupt planned approaches. Chaotic Will’s press turn removal and instakill effect, ailments, missed attacks, and simple random deaths all cut into the party’s damage output and may make it difficult to eliminate one of the targets within three turns, resulting in Demi-fiend using Gaea Rage. However, since he only uses Gaea Rage with his second action of his fourth turn after one of his allies has been defeated, simply preventing him from getting that second action will result in Gaea Rage being delayed until the first action of his fifth turn and provide an extra turn to finish off one of his allies. This will happen if Demi-fiend or his demons attack into an immunity or miss, but of those possibilities the only reliably exploitable one is Demi-fiend attacking into a Physical immunity. Normally, Demi-fiend will use Deadly Fury randomly between targets that have been revealed to not have Physical immunity and targets with unrevealed Physical resistances, so swapping in a single demon with Physical immunity won’t guarantee that he’ll target it. However, if the only demon present that has been revealed to have Physical immunity is swapped out, then Demi-fiend will instead use Javelin Rain since he isn’t currently aware of any immunities, which guarantees that he’ll attack into any new immunity brought in and lose a press turn. This is why I chose to only give my support demons Null Phys; when they’re swapped out for a different support demon, the Nahobino and the two offensive demons don’t have Physical immunity, so Javelin Rain strikes the immunity of the new support demon and results in Gaea Rage being delayed until the next turn. Javelin Rain is somewhat crippling in its own right since it’s even stronger than Deadly Fury and has a very high Seal chance, but of course is nothing compared to Gaea Rage. This is another reason why I had such a large supply of support demons to make use of, since the ability to delay Gaea Rage like that is invaluable. [Since the Nahobino’s demons have a much better damage output in this version, the ability to delay Gaea Rage generally isn’t quite as important, although it will likely still be necessary at least a few times during this battle.]
One other critical moment comes when Demi-fiend uses Mediarahan, since that heals all of his demons without resetting the Gaea Rage counter. Because of this, it’s pretty important to eliminate one of Demi-fiend’s demons on the same turn as pushing him below 30000 HP, otherwise he’ll heal off all of the damage they’ve taken and it may not be possible to eliminate one of his demons before he uses Gaea Rage. Demi-fiend reaches 30000 HP when the meter of his health bar reaches the right side of the dot of the leftmost question mark on his health bar, and it’s easiest to push him below that limit and defeat one of his demons on an Omagatoki: Critical turn. [In this version, it’s usually possible to push Demi-fiend below 30000 HP upon defeating his seventh demon of the battle, just before Pixie is summoned for the second time. This is helpful since it means she likely won’t be able to cripple an attempt with Dia while she’s summoned, plus it provides an opportunity to bring Seth back into the battle to help chip down Cu Chulainn and Girimekhala again to get ahead of schedule again since only one Dark attacker is really needed to handle Pixie.]
Keeping the Nahobino alive throughout this battle is also a major challenge, one that is also largely out of the player’s control. The Nahobino can revive twice with Enduring Soul and the Whittled Goat, but those are bound to be consumed over the course of the battle by Chaotic Will and Freikugel criticals. Aside from those cases, the Nahobino should be relatively safe on most turns as long as he has more than about 600 HP, although being targeted twice by Deadly Fury or an onslaught of Megidolaons may be too much sometimes. In the case of Freikugel, while the Nahobino can guard sometimes, doing so on Omagatoki: Critical turns severely neuters his damage output so it’s often not a good option. Realistically, not much can be done about Freikugel or Chaotic Will, so making it through this battle with the Nahobino’s survival mostly comes down to luck. Enduring Soul and the Whittled Goat can also save the Nahobino from Gaea Rage, but it’s best not to mess around with that at all since it’s difficult to survive with an entire team intact.
[It’s also important to cover the party’s weaknesses throughout the battle due to the Gaea Rage mechanics I mentioned earlier. The support demons usually have exposed weaknesses, but having a demon with immunities to those elements or ailments present at the same time will prevent Demi-fiend’s demons from gaining press turns from striking those weaknesses or using those skills altogether. This is easier said than done since there’s so much to keep track of in this battle, and there were several points here in which I failed to keep the weaknesses of my support demons covered.]
The Strategy, Part 2
I had a plan prepared beforehand to finish Demi-fiend off with a Bucketgetter Special when he dropped to low health, although here that’s significantly more complicated than in other boss battles. Having buffs and debuffs maxed is necessary to maximize the Nahobino’s damage output, but Demi-fiend’s demons will immediately use Dekaja and Dekunda to remove those if given a chance, not to mention that there are a wide variety of other possibilities that could also cripple the opportunity for a Bucketgetter Special turn. The key to preventing this is forcing Demi-fiend to use Deadly Fury on a target with Repel Phys or Drain Phys so his demons don’t get a chance to act, which allows the Nahobino’s team to set up fully on the turn prior without any risk of Demi-fiend’s team compromising that setup. The optimal approach here requires the Nahobino to have a Critical Gem in effect and at least one of Luster Candy or Debilitate active entering the second-to-last turn. The Nahobino can swap Girimekhala into the third or fourth slot to use Taunt and Girimekhala and the support demon can use the other three actions to max buffs and debuffs, while a Tyrant demon is swapped into the first slot. After Demi-fiend uses Deadly Fury on Girimekhala, the Tyrant can use Omagatoki: Savage to double damage on that turn, then all demons can be withdrawn for the Nahobino to use three Critical Gem-boosted Murakumos to finish off the battle. Using Omagatoki: Savage here is just a bit better than Omagatoki: Critical since three guaranteed criticals at 2x power comes out to 6x, whereas Omagatoki: Critical only comes out to 5.8x over five actions with a Charge Gem beforehand, and Critical Gems have the added bonus of guaranteeing that the Murakumos won’t miss.
[With the stats of my Nahobino at level 87, three Murakumos should average around 10240 damage total, and the reflect from Girimekhala inflicts an additional 230 damage. Keeping track of Demi-fiend’s HP after he uses Mediarahan is too difficult and time-consuming, so I just tried to deal about 4500 damage to him after pushing him into his low health animation at 15000 HP. Once I had counted out about 5000 damage, it would be safe to commit to the Bucketgetter Special finish.]
Since I had specifically banned using Taunt on demons with immunities relevant to the battle in every other battle in my low level playthrough, I should explain why I allowed it here. Basically, for this single case, it’s not actually broken since all it does is boost the odds of Demi-fiend attacking into Girimekhala once from 50% to a guarantee (from what I understand, Taunt is 100% successful for the first attack). If I had chosen to use Loki as my Tyrant for this scenario and given him Null Phys instead of Resist Phys and had that immunity revealed earlier in the battle, Demi-fiend would treat both him and the single support demon as ineligible targets for Deadly Fury, leaving the Nahobino and Girimekhala as the only potential targets to be chosen between randomly. Simply hoping that he would attack into Girimekhala there would involve no more skill on my part and the 50% odds of success is absolutely reasonable, so I chose to eliminate that uncertainty altogether since Taunt still cost a potentially valuable turn of setup and there was still a lot of other strategy involved in merely setting up that final Bucketgetter Special turn.
[In this attempt, I was able to win because I was very lucky with respect to a few of the most problematic skills of Demi-fiend and his allies. Most notably, Pixie and Parvati never used Dia or Media in 9 possible actions, and Demi-fiend only landed four Freikugel criticals out of 14 uses, times when he used it on guarding targets excluded. I’m not sure what his actual critical rate with Freikugel is, but it feels truly ridiculous at level 87; if I had to guess, I’d say that it’s around 50% or greater, so in that respect I was fortunate in this attempt, although I likely saved myself at least once by guarding with the Nahobino. Although I was also fortunate with Dia and Media, I was put in several extremely tough situations over the course of this battle due to a number of other factors, which I’ll mention in the notable moments.]
[My MP management in this attempt also really came down to the wire. I ended up using all of my Somas and Chakra Pots and a fair amount of Chakra Drops, plus I expended all the MP on nearly all of my support demons. By the end of the battle, I only had enough remaining MP between Demeter and Alilat to heal and buff for a few more turns, and I might not have been able to make it through if I hadn’t been using Idun so much, who was the recipient of most of my Somas and Chakra Pots. I also finished the battle with only 1 Charge Gem, 4 Concentrate Gems, and 4 Critical Gems remaining, so it was extremely tight on that front as well. There’s also a good possibility of running out of Dispel Charms in this battle, but I was able to avoid that by making great use of Tao’s Light of Order to remove debuffs. I ended up making solid use of every demon in my stock in this battle, so I think it’s fair to say that I managed my resources well.]
And that’s it…I’m finally done with Shin Megami Tensei V. It’s almost time to log out of UA-cam to avoid the spoiler wave…but I hope that I’ll be back with a Vengeance.
Godspeed, bucket...
Back with a VV 👀
“And I will have my Vengeance, in this life or the next!”…but preferably this one
@@Bucketgetter can't wait until one of them says "You were the Shin Megami Tensei V:Vengeance, all along!" kino
Sheesh... Your word become better
Bettergetter... Hehehe
this truly was the getting of the bucket of all time
Can’t wait to see you do this on Godborn mode :D
Thats.....messed up, almost impossible
@@LeonardoSouza-dv4yr nothing is impossible for bucketgetter 🗣️
@@LeonardoSouza-dv4yr Ond guy managed to beat Demi Fiend from DDS in human form, so nothing is impossible
at level 99 with no strategize or adversity or excessive vitality apparently the onis with hell thrust are good for godborn demi at level 99. jaffinator did it but on normal
Thank you so much for the documentation on all of the V videos! It's always great to see people have such incredible knowledge of a video game and sharing it with others. Hope you can avoid spoilers for Vv and that you enjoy the game o7
Super impressive stuff here. i've done demi-fiend before on Hard W/O skipping his heal and no DLC but level 87, no essences no stat inceases and new game is actually cracked, bravo!
I do have to say that “No Incenses” shouldn’t be confused with “No stat increases.” My demons actually have boosts averaging over 30 in every stat and the Nahobino has a significant number of boosts as well. It’s just that those boosts should be replicable by anyone who has more or less 100%ed the game and has the necessary Miracles without investing too much time, which wouldn’t be true with boosts from Incenses.
@@Bucketgetter Ah gotcha 👍
This is impressive. Also cool seeing fionn and tao still being useful in the hardest fight.
Dam this is epic asmr for 2 hours fight 🎉
This was a nice way to say goodbye (the usual masochism) to SMT V, Bucket. Hope to see you back with Vengeance later! Spoilers are no joke so I get you. Especially within the Atlus community.
Super impressive stuff! Also does guard actually work against chaotic will?
I believe so. It doesn’t reduce the activation rate to 0, but in my experience it improves the odds of surviving it. In a lot of my attempts I would have Idun guard for the first Chaotic Will and I think it only activated on her once or twice in those cases.
oh my god
I know you're trying to stay off youtube, but I have a question. I'm wondering how you get so many Balms and if there's any way of getting Somas besides chests and guaranteed drops? I'd like to fight the Demi-fiend sometime but I'm not sure if I can find enough recovery items.
Most of the Balms come from the Miman rewards, which should be 7 of each. The rest are either one-time navigator item spawns throughout the game, probably a few post-battle rewards (mostly the Fiends I think), a few quest rewards (also the other DLC quests, although I didn’t use those), and a few through Special Conversations. Aside from that, you pretty much can’t get them any other way aside from just going for 100% completion in quests and exploration if I’m remembering everything. In this playthrough I sided with Black Frost to get a Health Balm and I can’t remember if I sided with Futsunushi or Adramelech for 2 Strength Balms or Stamina Balms. I think the only important Special Conversations are Fionn Mac Cumhaill with Setanta for 2 Strength Balms, Zeus with Daemon for 2 Stamina Balms, and Vishnu with Hanuman for 2 Health Balms (extremely important, and conveniently becomes available at level 87).
I think the only way to farm Somas are by defeating Chi Yous. I just had 5 since I didn’t use them anywhere else in the playthrough.
it's been a while since I played 5, how did you get high almighty pleroma?
Shiva essence, since I had to use the Metatron essence for the Nahobino’s resistances
@@Bucketgetter how did you get shiva essence without being the levels for it? does beating shiva give you his essence?
@@clyde3465It does, yeah.
Really cool fight, especially love the recovery from the disaster starting at 58:30. Would you call SMTV Demi Fiend one of the best boss battles in the franchise, or is the myriad of ways in which the battle can be cheesed too much of a dampener on it?
I think that if you start judging bosses with respect to extreme cheese strategies, you’re probably not going to be impressed with many battles in this game. Pretty much any setup that is overpowered here can also be used for any of the late-game bosses.
I can understand why others wouldn’t like this battle (mostly because of Chaotic Will, Parvati and Pixie’s healing and its length), but the reasons I really appreciate it are how it gives you a lot of options of how to approach the battle to progress when it comes to Demi-fiend’s summons, plus there’s the unique balancing act between damaging him, the summons, buffing, and healing that throws a lot of variables at the player and often encourages changing approaches throughout the battle.
WHAT
It would've been really poetic if you could beat him at level 86, the same level you've used to finish off your Low Level playthrough, but good job regardless!
The Lucifer battle actually provides enough EXP for the Nahobino to become level 88, not that he needs it
@@Bucketgetter just wondering, why 87?
Because 86 isn’t happening, it took the most specialized team I’ve ever created and all 10 Chakra Pots, 5 Somas, and 51 of my 60 Charge, Concentrate, and Critical Gems to win
@@Bucketgetter you could just fight him with a 10 level difference... and that would still be better than this... But I digress.
Not a long enough battle by my standards