You'll get a variety of answers for what to fuse. I got lucky and made a really good one very early on; and the last time I played the game I used it from 4/19 until the last month of the game. In order to get it though, you have to get to level 17 on 4/19, so that can be kind of tough/boring. The one I make is Sarasvati with all 4 elemental spells and Resist Physical. She has Invigorate 2 as well, so you never really run out of SP for the main character and can get through dungeons in one day (just go back to an early dungeon and defend to get SP back) easily. It's not necessary to make her on 4/19, but you can get it much easier then. I still have exactly how I made my Personas, which I guess were okay.
An easy way to get to that level is to have I think an Angel, which gets Regenerate 1 so you can heal without using SP (although slowly).
The weapon shop will make a weapon or armor once you have sold the guy a certain number of loot; it doesn't appear to be random.
I liked Rise's the best, because Rise is the best! (aka Yukiko's reminded me of Fuuka, and Chie's was ok).
A general tip would be to check the Fusion Forecast; you can get a couple of abilities (like Null to elements) much earlier via the FF and those are usually one day in the entire game.
Unless it is 7 penalty cards and one persona and you fought a crappy monster, try to do shuffle time whenever you can, due to the Arcana Chance effect. You may want to type out a little text file to keep track of what the effects do; some can be very useful.
You should start messing around with fusion as soon as you have a few personae. There's not necessarily any one that you should aim for early on, but I would say to make a Black Frost as soon as you can (probably when you're in the fourth dungeon).
You need to sell specific materials, but if you're fighting most of the enemies you should be alright.
Be wary of death from random enemies. It happens a lot more frequently in this game compared to your average RPG. Pop out of the dungeon to save frequently. Also make sure to make use of your buff and debuff spells. They're very useful in this game.
Bag everyone who isn't named Chie. That's the best advice I can give on that front.
To those more informed about Atlus's development schedule, what's the likelihood of Persona 5 anytime soon? Don't want to get my hopes up and then have to wait the same amount of time between 2 and 3.
In addition to the previous poster's advice, always have at least one Goho-M item when you go dungeoning; that item will warp you to the entrance where you can save and return immediately back to the floor you were on. When you are first going through a dungeon, you can easily play it safe and warp out every other floor or so just to save your progress and return back. Goho-M's don't cost very much (900 regular price iirc) and can save a lot of frustration.
Don't feel like you have to rush the game either. I spent about 4x as long as the average person that played it before really finishing it.
To those more informed about Atlus's development schedule, what's the likelihood of Persona 5 anytime soon? Don't want to get my hopes up and then have to wait the same amount of time between 2 and 3.
They haven't mentioned anything about it at all. But the other thing to keep in mind is that Atlus is cranking out tons more games now than they were between 2 and 3. They typically don't announce a game until it's less than a year out.
To those more informed about Atlus's development schedule, what's the likelihood of Persona 5 anytime soon? Don't want to get my hopes up and then have to wait the same amount of time between 2 and 3.
Nothing of certainty, but back in the Persona episode of Retronauts, Nich Maragos commented that ATLUS doesn't seem to like to overexpose a subset of Megaten, so if anything we'll either get more new SMT gaiden-type or, heaven helping, a new Shin Megami Tensei mainline title. It's been a long time coming.
Thanks for tips and this looks like a great build. I was wondering though - I've already cleared out the first dungeon and it's past 4/19... is there any reason why 4/19 is the best time to do it?
Right now I'm even having a tough time choosing between the Drama and Music club. Hooray for dating sim mechanics. :lol
On 4/19 you get the Zio spell if you fuse anything with a Magician arcana (fusion forecast), so it's easier to get Garu+Agi+Resist Physical as 3 of the 4 abilities, since you get Zio no matter what for using Pixie in the fuse. It's totally possible to get those 4 abilities anytime, but it may take a really long time to get those exact 4 abilities. If Resist Physical doesn't matter, then with some time you can still get Garu+Agi+Zio on her normally. Once she learns Null Wind naturally, she won't have any weaknesses which makes her even better.
Of course, a 4-elemental Black Frost is very good, too, but that's later on in the game. After a couple of plays, I got tired of keeping track for any new playthroughs, so I just typed out what the Fusion Forecast was for every day from about halfway through the game until the end, then did the first half as I played through on that new game. It may seem annoying to always check 2 days at a time, but some of the stuff you can get throughout the game can really help out.
I will hopefully be picking this title up within the next few days in honor of my birthday. Dunno how much time I'll have to play the game in the upcoming weeks, but I'm really looking forward to it!
On 4/19 you get the Zio spell if you fuse anything with a Magician arcana (fusion forecast), so it's easier to get Garu+Agi+Resist Physical as 3 of the 4 abilities, since you get Zio no matter what for using Pixie in the fuse. It's totally possible to get those 4 abilities anytime, but it may take a really long time to get those exact 4 abilities. If Resist Physical doesn't matter, then with some time you can still get Garu+Agi+Zio on her normally. Once she learns Null Wind naturally, she won't have any weaknesses which makes her even better.
Of course, a 4-elemental Black Frost is very good, too, but that's later on in the game. After a couple of plays, I got tired of keeping track for any new playthroughs, so I just typed out what the Fusion Forecast was for every day from about halfway through the game until the end, then did the first half as I played through on that new game. It may seem annoying to always check 2 days at a time, but some of the stuff you can get throughout the game can really help out.
Too bad it seems that inheritances are somewhat random. I must say, this is probably the most in depth RPG that I've played in a while and it's somewhat frightening!
Each Persona has an "affinity" for getting certain abilities. One of Igor's tutorial's gets into it. Like physical-based ones are more likely to inherit other physical attacks, so if you want other stuff that the 'ingredient' personas have, you'll want to eliminate the wimpier attack abilities so they won't get inherited by the new persona. Like the Sarasvati one, she tends to inherit heal spells/cure spells, so if you want her to more likely get the 4 elementals, you'll want to get rid of stuff like Dia/Me Patra so she'll more likely inherit the spells you do want.
They can only hold 8 abilities, so once they learn their 9th onward, you have to drop one. So you are more able to get rid of stuff if you fuse a persona that gets 4+ abilities passed on, then level it up to learn it's normal abilities and overwrite some stuff.
A tip for doing that/levelling up Personas in general would be to get the 'Growth' skills on as much stuff as you can; those give the Persona experience without it being equipped, so you can level them all up faster. A useful Persona for that is Cu Sith. He's only level 10? or so so you can make him, and he learns the Traesto spell (same effect as a Goho-M; try to have something in your current roster with it) and learns Growth 1..then you just fuse him with stuff to pass on Growth 1 (and Traesto if you want) to other things.
you'd think that after experiencing getting demolished and losing an hour of progress a ton of times over the course every SMT game, it would stop stinging! It doesn't
This game is awesome though. Definitely my second favorite Atlus rpg after SMTIII.
you'd think that after experiencing getting demolished and losing an hour of progress a ton of times over the course every SMT game, it would stop stinging! It doesn't
This game is awesome though. Definitely my second favorite Atlus rpg after SMTIII.
It doesn't stop stinging, but that's why proper stockpiling and usage of Goho-M's is so important in this game.
After a few times losing progress I was pretty much popping out to save every 2-3 floors. It at least prevents you from losing too much progress at once.
OK this is my first persona game and I will give you my impressions
The game really started out slow for me but after awhile the characters really started to grow on me. I really like the art style of everything and the cool japanese music.
Whats the best way to go about making new personas? It seems rather complicated. Anyone have a noob guide? There seems to be tons of types and stuff and I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm working on saving the victim right now and I haven't made any personas.
OK this is my first persona game and I will give you my impressions
The game really started out slow for me but after awhile the characters really started to grow on me. I really like the art style of everything and the cool japanese music.
Whats the best way to go about making new personas? It seems rather complicated. Anyone have a noob guide? There seems to be tons of types and stuff and I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm working on saving the victim right now and I haven't made any personas.
And don't forget, if you want to keep an old ability from a persona, make sure to attempt to create that persona 3000 times. If it doesn't show up in the new persona's list by then, chances are it can't inherit it. :lol
I'm at level 74 and things were going really well I got it to 1/4 life and it did that Nebula Oculus thing after all it's bonuses the first pass through took 400 HP which I with stood but then it did it again right after for another 400.
Did I just get unlucky? Or am I doing something wrong?
You can do fine just experimenting and seeing what you can make, but if you really want to make sense of the fusion mechanics, it's one of those rare cases where reading the goddamn manual is actually useful and worthwhile - there's a big-ass table of what arcanas fuse together into what other arcanas (fusion is entirely based on the arcana of the ingredients, and their level; a magician and a priestess, for example, will always fuse together into a moon, with the exact persona being determined by the levels involved).
Unfortunately the manual doesn't include the table for triangle fusions (which are a little more complicated - iirc it first fuses the two lowest-level personas using the normal spread table, then fuses the result of that with the highest level on a seperate table). Check the fusion guides on gamefaqs or whatever if you really want to get into it (oh, and this utility is amazingly handy, mostly for the search functionality so you can find out what personas in a given level range have a particular skill you might be looking for).
And don't forget, if you want to keep an old ability from a persona, make sure to attempt to create that persona 3000 times. If it doesn't show up in the new persona's list by then, chances are it can't inherit it. :lol
I'm so glad Devil Survivor apparently lets you choose which of the possible skills you want to inherit in fusions. I hope this becomes standard in the future games because having to spend so much time retrying adds nothing to the game as you still get the same results in the end, it only takes longer.
I'm so glad Devil Survivor apparently lets you choose which of the possible skills you want to inherit in fusions. I hope this becomes standard in the future games because having to spend so much time retrying adds nothing to the game as you still gets the same results in the end. It's just annoying.
Devil Summoner 2 also had a ton of great improvements to the system. Devil Survivor looks like it took those ideas and ran with them (different types of slots, manually selection for each slot, etc.)
It's not arbitrary which skills cannot be inherited, by the way. Each Arcana/Family of Persona/Demon has its own list of what type of spells can be inherited. Frost in DS2, for example, can't learn any Fire skills at all. The Death Arcana can't learn any healing spells. Beyond that, there's different weighting for different types of skills. Magician in P3 had an affinity with Fire, so there was a huge change for any fire skills to show up in the hereditary list.
Devil Summoner 2 also had a ton of great improvements to the system. Devil Survivor looks like it took those ideas and ran with them (different types of slots, manually selection for each slot, etc.)
It's not arbitrary which skills cannot be inherited, by the way. Each Arcana/Family of Persona/Demon has its own list of what type of spells can be inherited. Frost in DS2, for example, can't learn any Fire skills at all. The Death Arcana can't learn any healing spells. Beyond that, there's different weighting for different types of skills. Magician in P3 had an affinity with Fire, so there was a huge change for any fire skills to show up in the hereditary list.
I'm aware they aren't arbitrary, that's why I feel it makes so little sense to make it the way it is in P3 and P4 (before P4 was released I was wishing they would change it). Since you can retry as much as you want with no penalties until you get the best possible selection, it just becomes bothersome. A selectable list of which skills the new demon can learn from its "parents" based on affinities makes for a much better system.
You just reminded me I need to try the Devil Summoner games one of these days.
I completely agree with Fuu that it's not necessary to do the whole slot machine game with skills. They could design a different system that dictates which skill a demon can inherit, or just do away with the aspect of chance altogether.
Seems like it might remove something from the game, but I feel like there aren't any particular skills that are overpowered in SMT games. You can have everything that seems awesome and still get destroyed rather quickly.
I'm aware they aren't arbitrary, that's why I feel it makes so little sense to make it the way it is in P3 and P4 (before P4 was released I was wishing they would change it). Since you can retry as much as you want with no penalties until you get the best possible selection, it just becomes bothersome. A selectable list of which skills the new demon can learn from its "parents" based on affinities makes for a much better system.
You just reminded me I need to try the Devil Summoner games one of these days.
Yeah, I agree, I've always disliked some aspects of the SMT fusion system, and I'm happy to see them actually making significant changes to the system after nearly two decades. The explanation wasn't aimed at you, in particular, just at the taking forever before realizing something can't be learned that people were discussing.
Devil Summoner 1's fusion system was fucking awful, but DS2's is the best (at least up Devil Survivor). You had to level up the demon's Loyalty meter to max before it could be used in a fusion, while in DS2 filling that meter only gives a bonus passive skill.
Yeah, some of the randomness in the fusion needs to stop. I spent roughly an hour and a half trying to get the skills I wanted to get in a recent play though of Nocturne.
On a side note, I just finished watching fan subs of Trinity Soul. It was quite good and, like RE: Degeneration, it's kind of a shame that it wasn't a game.
I completely agree with Fuu that it's not necessary to do the whole slot machine game with skills. They could design a different system that dictates which skill a demon can inherit, or just do away with the aspect of chance altogether.
Apparently that's essentially what they have done in Devil Survivor (with some slight tweaks). Each demon there gets 6 skill slots, divided into 3 active slots and 3 passive slots, and you can choose which skills from the parents you want to inherit.
Seems like it might remove something from the game, but I feel like there aren't any particular skills that are overpowered in SMT games. You can have everything that seems awesome and still get destroyed rather quickly.
Hmm. While there aren't any individual skills that are overpowered, you can put together some pretty broken combinations, especially at endgame (stuff like P3's null-all Abbadon, where the only things that are any threat to you at all are almighty spells; although given the level required to fuse it, even regular personas are pretty broken vs the storyline bosses at that point...). With freely-selectable skill inheritance, those broken builds would be far easier to set up, and could probably be done at much lower levels. The active/passive split in Devil Survivor is probably there at least partly to combat that sort of thing.
But i don't think anyone who's played SMT3 or P3/4 would claim that rerolling the skills a thousand times in order to get a good combination is a good gameplay mechanic, so anything they do to get rid of it would probably be good.
But i don't think anyone who's played SMT3 or P3/4 would claim that rerolling the skills a thousand times in order to get a good combination is a good gameplay mechanic, so anything they do to get rid of it would probably be good.
I enjoy it. Trying to figure out what abils to give to the ingredient ones so I can get my superawesome stuff is pretty addicting for me. Just being able to hand out the powers would make things a little too strong throughout the game; if there was a middle ground between the random rolls and simply picking and choosing, that could be cool. I remember talking about it before but I forget what sounded cool (maybe random rolls with the ability to purchase an ability with money or 'points' that abilities cost/make one always show up or never show up).
I did make my P3 Alice like my P4 one yesterday; think that took about 2 hours of fusing the ingredients then her. It felt really good to get her finally.
I enjoy it. Trying to figure out what abils to give to the ingredient ones so I can get my superawesome stuff is pretty addicting for me. Just being able to hand out the powers would make things a little too strong throughout the game; if there was a middle ground between the random rolls and simply picking and choosing, that could be cool. I remember talking about it before but I forget what sounded cool (maybe random rolls with the ability to purchase an ability with money or 'points' that abilities cost/make one always show up or never show up).
I did make my P3 Alice like my P4 one yesterday; think that took about 2 hours of fusing the ingredients then her. It felt really good to get her finally.
I agree with most of what you're saying here - there would definitely have to be some system of limits in place, since just doing it exactly like it is now, but with exactly the skills you choose being inherited would just let you build absolutely monstrously broken demons/personas way too easily.
On the other hand, the only thing really preventing you from getting exactly the right skills inherited right now is that going back and forth into the fusion menu and selecting the ingredients repeatedly will eventually drive you completely insane. Making it possible, but mind-numbingly tedious/vanishingly unlikely just strikes me as bad design. There has to be a better way to limit things.
I'm looking forward to trying the Devil Survivor fusion system, it sounds like an interesting take on it.
If they're the ones i'm thinking of (immune to all regular damage), all you can really do is head back to the velvet room, and see if you can fuse something with Megidola/Megidolaon (whichever one is the next step up from the one that isn't doing the job right now). Or maybe just a persona with your current almighty spell, but a higher magic stat. I can't remember exactly what tier of spells i had available at that point, but i do remember easily taking them out with a single almighty spell.
I am about 2 months of game time from finishing. Should I be trying to max out the Fox link? Is the benefit in the dungeon's really worth it/needed? I only have it at level 3 so far
If they're the ones i'm thinking of (immune to all regular damage), all you can really do is head back to the velvet room, and see if you can fuse something with Megidola/Megidolaon (whichever one is the next step up from the one that isn't doing the job right now). Or maybe just a persona with your current almighty spell, but a higher magic stat. I can't remember exactly what tier of spells i had available at that point, but i do remember easily taking them out with a single almighty spell.
Just started playing this recently, I have one quick question:
Any point in keeping Personas that cant learn anymore skills? Specifically Im talking about Izanagi, the original Persona of the Main Character. I dont see any point in keeping him since he cant learn anything anymore, but getting rid of him makes me feel like Im gonna regret it later, dunno.
Oh, if they're those ones, i seem to recall having a lot of luck with physical abilities, which seemed to crit at a vastly-increased rate compared to normal mobs (then an all-out attack would finish them off nicely).
I was thinking of some you run into later, which are Nul-EVERYTHING, so literally the only way to do any damage to them at all is with Almighty.
The gold hands in general are puzzle-y - there's always an easy way of taking them out, the hard part is just figuring it out. So if you find yourself beating futilely against a massive healthpool that you can't seem to whittle down before they run, try a different approach (there are some later on, for example, who don't have any regular elemental weaknesses, but have absolutely ludicrous amounts of hp, so the only way to take them out is with light/dark instakill skills).
Any point in keeping Personas that cant learn anymore skills? Specifically Im talking about Izanagi, the original Persona of the Main Character. I dont see any point in keeping him since he cant learn anything anymore, but getting rid of him makes me feel like Im gonna regret it later, dunno.
Just fuse him into something closer to your current level and more useful, he'll still be in the compendium if you want him back later for some reason (although i can't think of any particular reason you would).
Same goes for any others; just remember to register them before fusing them off if they learned skills you might want to pass on via fusion later.
Any point in keeping Personas that cant learn anymore skills? Specifically Im talking about Izanagi, the original Persona of the Main Character. I dont see any point in keeping him since he cant learn anything anymore, but getting rid of him makes me feel like Im gonna regret it later, dunno.
I had that guilt too when I played Persona 3 but yeah, definitely fuse him away. Any persona you get will be registered in your compendium and yes, you do use him for a later fusion but that's so far long down the road that it's pointless to hold him til then.
Its pretty weird though, awesome character design, its in the cinematics, etc, and you get rid of him early in the game ... meh, bizarre design decision.
I had that guilt too when I played Persona 3 but yeah, definitely fuse him away. Any persona you get will be registered in your compendium and yes, you do use him for a later fusion but that's so far long down the road that it's pointless to hold him til then.
Its pretty weird though, awesome character design, its in the cinematics, etc, and you get rid of him early in the game ... meh, bizarre design decision.
It's just your basic starting one..think of him as the dagger or cloth armor of Personas. You can make infinitely better stuff throughout the game. ALICE
It's just your basic starting one..think of him as the dagger or cloth armor of Personas. You can make infinitely better stuff throughout the game. ALICE
Not reading any post in this thread because I don't want to be spoiled. As someone who could not care less about JRPGs I must say I am entranced by the GB Endurance Run. I just finished the part where they beat
Yukiko's shadow
. Making good progress considering I started watching from the start a week ago.
Persona in video form is the only way I could handle this game. If I had control I'd be running around to every pedestrian to see if their dialogue changed or spend all day analyzing Persona combinations. Would probably take me 500 hours and add 20lbs to my belly.
Not reading any post in this thread because I don't want to be spoiled. As someone who could not care less about JRPGs I must say I am entranced by the GB Endurance Run. I just finished the part where they beat
Yukiko's shadow
. Making good progress considering I started watching from the start a week ago.
Persona in video form is the only way I could handle this game. If I had control I'd be running around to every pedestrian to see if their dialogue changed or spend all day analyzing Persona combinations. Would probably take me 500 hours and add 20lbs to my belly.
I'm still watching the endurance run, but the last couple weeks haven't been too funny imo. And now I'm kind of starting to get pissed off at their playing for 50+ hours now and not knowing/doing some things I don't agree with.
I was yelling at them when they made their Black Frost..they should have kept it 4-elemental.