The thing is, I do not want to play reading a freaking guide, so can anyone give me some tips on how to build a strong team naturally? Things like...
Should I focus leveling my personas or just fuse them whenever I can?
What´s the difference between the types (hiero, strengh, magician, fool)?
Should I grind as well? Or does that take away from the game challenge?
Also, is it hard to get the true ending? Do I need a guide for that?
Anyway.. overall tips please..
1. Level them until you get their skills, then fuse them. If you level up your social links as much as you can it takes far less time for them to learn all their skills.
2. The arcanum of a persona determines what social link gives an experience bonus to the persona, and what social link gets a bonus when you start one with them in your stock. There are general stat and skill trends throughout an arcanum, but these aren't necessary to know, especially since Golden lets you pass skills on onto whatever you want.
3.You will need to do some grinding. Golden hands are fantastic for this. They give tons of experience if you can beat them before they run away. Focus your attacks on 1 hand at a time if you find them running away too often. use status buffs to increase your damage output, and abuse Physical, "X Break" and Almighty skills when possible Team setup is the biggest factor for success, but levels will help you fuse better Persona (Or Persona skills, should you need to get them) and give you more HP.
4. You WILL need a guide on your first time playing through. The first branching point (there are 3, as well as a special bad ending condition) for the endings is difficult to get through, and the final one is completely unintuitive.You will also need to complete the aeon social link if you want the best ending.
5a Don't neglect social links, especially those of party members you use often. The exp boost from any arcana is a massive time saver and will get you many useful skills without grinding. Leveling up party member social links also gives them useful new skills and battle perks and will also enable their persona to transform, which will give them new resistances and eventually enable a 2nd transformation that gives them an immunity and an ultimate skill. As a final note, maxing a link gives you an ultimate persona of that particular Arcana. Standout examples come from the Hierophant, empress ( those 2 are hard to do first time though) Devil, Chariot, Hermit, fortune and Tower
5b. Level up the hermit link, it helps
tremendously. SP regeneration is much cheaper the higher it is You will probably need a guide to do it though.
5c.The Death social links doesn't require a matching persona to help advance it. Yay.
5d Getting all the social links on your first playthrough is almost impossible and would probably ruin the game for you. Don't sweat them too much.
5e. Build up your social stats (courage, understanding, etc.) frequently, and I do mean frequently. Some social links can't be started or advanced without high enough stats, and maxed out stats will help immensely on a 2nd playthrough.
5f. Be mindful of your team setup. Give your party members specific roles and pay attention to their strengths. Any party member (especially the one from september) is viable on a team as long as you understand how they're going to fit on the team and you have a firm idea of what they should do.
5g. This game is fairly tough, like all games under the Shin Megami Tensei umbrella. Don't give up and take every defeat as a learning experience.
