hypersheep
Member
Does this game seem harder than DS1? I'm only on Day 2 and the demons are taking chunks out of me. Fatal Strike is such a brutal move and I feel so much more fragile. Maybe I've grown too accustomed to playing New Game+ in DS1.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 |OT| Big Dipper and Bigger Boobs
- Thread starter Kazerei
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Koroviev
Member
I'm having a hard time in free battle in the start of Day 2, too. Those snakes in a vase are getting free hits on me from a distance and causing all kinds of trouble. Io is doing well. My MC is hanging in there. Joe and Daichi, not so good. Anybody have some demon fusion tips or teams? I am level 13. Have 300 game dollars for buying demons. Kinda embarrassing.
For me, it was harder than DS1 the first 2-3 days and at the final boss, and easier the rest of the time. The worst (or hardest) period is when your only option in free battles are against groups with evil flow/basilisk/jambavan etc., it can be a bit tough.
As for the physical attacks, i'm pretty sure the agility-dependent skills determine damage from strength and number of hits from agility. Hinako and Keita are both savage if you get some of the agility/physical skills on them along with some crit passives+pierce.
If you have put all your points into strength and vitality or just have low agility in general, you can always go for berserk/hassohappa/deathbound/power hit etc. Jungo is a good party member to test this out on, although i have never used him since i like the above option a bit more and never have more than one physical attacker in my team at a time.
Fusion tips hmm, i usually just put all my effort into making an awesome non unique caster. Then i register them and pull out three identical ones for the rest of my team. Bonus points if their race skill is a heal, since it frees up space for attack spells. Sarasvati/Brigid/Laksmi got me through the game. By the time i got to Laksmi, everbody had one with Ice/Fire/Force dances + Null Phys/Fire/Ice. For the last four spots i make whatever physical fusions are available at the time, i change those up more often.
As for the physical attacks, i'm pretty sure the agility-dependent skills determine damage from strength and number of hits from agility. Hinako and Keita are both savage if you get some of the agility/physical skills on them along with some crit passives+pierce.
If you have put all your points into strength and vitality or just have low agility in general, you can always go for berserk/hassohappa/deathbound/power hit etc. Jungo is a good party member to test this out on, although i have never used him since i like the above option a bit more and never have more than one physical attacker in my team at a time.
Fusion tips hmm, i usually just put all my effort into making an awesome non unique caster. Then i register them and pull out three identical ones for the rest of my team. Bonus points if their race skill is a heal, since it frees up space for attack spells. Sarasvati/Brigid/Laksmi got me through the game. By the time i got to Laksmi, everbody had one with Ice/Fire/Force dances + Null Phys/Fire/Ice. For the last four spots i make whatever physical fusions are available at the time, i change those up more often.
hypersheep
Member
The free battle on Day 2 is so hard at the start. I actually retreated from a free battle because my demons were low on health and my leaders had poison. I don't remember poison being so bad but now it takes 20 hp each turn you take. I would just grind free battle and look for the red data cards. Those generally give ~500 Macca or so. I would also reset constantly to get new demons in the auction and buy only high quality ones.
Multi-hit (and Multi-strike) are STR based damage calculations with AGI based # of hits calculations.
Multi-Hit and Multi-Strike use AG to determine the number of hits and ST for the damage (physical skill). Deathbound/Berserk is very nice when pumping ST. For Pierce you need 15 ST; for Pierce+ it's 21.
Wha.. 300?! How is that possible dude?
Around that level, I recommend Genma Jambavan for his brutal strength, fast movement and reduced turn cost, Dragon Toubyou for hitting the enemy from a distance and Femme Kikimora for healing. Touki Bilwis is also a heavy hitter but he's level 10.
Koroviev
Member
Guess it's not such a good idea to have multi-hit assigned to my agile mage mc :x
Koroviev
Member
Wha.. 300?! How is that possible dude?
Around that level, I recommend Genma Jambavan for his brutal strength, fast movement and reduced turn cost, Dragon Toubyou for hitting the enemy from a distance and Femme Kikimora for healing. Touki Bilwis is also a heavy hitter but he's level 10.
$300 game bucks. Sorry about the miscommunication. I'll pick up a Genma Jambavan or fuse one. I have the other two. I didn't think I could use a distance attack with my Dragon Toubyou. Thanks for the tips.
Thanks for tips. Now to put it in battle.
I purchased the Gold fusion membership for 1000 Macca. That left me with 300 Macca. I have a slew of demons. I can't resist a good auction.
Slowly making progress; Day 5 boss down. Kind of sad how easy they've been so far, but I guess I lucked out with my MC still sporting
.
Because you like three of the Magic girls more? That and a good Physical attacker is basically always useful so might as well make it the MC, I guess. I prefer Magic MC though, but I'll probably do a STR route eventually. I can see good reasons for it.
Though, I like Hinako so it's hard to just ... not use her instead.
Force Dance
Because you like three of the Magic girls more? That and a good Physical attacker is basically always useful so might as well make it the MC, I guess. I prefer Magic MC though, but I'll probably do a STR route eventually. I can see good reasons for it.
Though, I like Hinako so it's hard to just ... not use her instead.
RPG_Fanatic
Member
At the end of day 6 now. Kicked the day 5's boss no problem. Day 6's boss was annoying, but eventually went down.
Looks like it is about time for me to pick my side.
And suddenly I have so many fusing options.
Looks like it is about time for me to pick my side.
And suddenly I have so many fusing options.
hypersheep
Member
How did you guys handle the Monday Boss? I barely managed to beat it by rushing the MC and Daichi over and dropping as much damage on it as possible and winning with a Zan from my 10 hp MC. Is there an easier way of going about it?
Deified Data
Banned
Excellent, thanks for the help. I guess my MC's build is on track, then.
Depends. Do you have the Macca to summon another one or two? I used 3 demons, first a Snake and a Kishin
to prevent them from killing the civilians. Then I switched out the Snake for a Titania that could use Recarmloss (to get rid of bad status effects).
ugh... Im almost at level 50 and I just realized something... I don't have much demons that have good STR bonuses and everything I fuse gets a shit ton of MAG bonuses instead, any tips? I have a few demons with decent STR bonuses but MAG bonuses still override them during fusion. Macca won't be a problem though, I spend a lot of my time just doing Free Battles.
semiconscious
Member
i consider ds1 (well, up until wendigo, anyway) to be the noob-friendliest megaten game of them all - a relatively gentle & clear intro to all the fundamental mechanics. &, having just beaten the day 3 boss, i agree - the same can not be said of ds2
...not that i'm not loving it
...No, i was trying to make a no free battles run but i guess i'll have to bite the bullet. Should i give priority to a Kishin (Jikokuten) and maybe give recarm to my MC (yeah, i too cannot fathom how i didn't crack samarecarm or recarmloss in my first playthrough) or Remiel which has samarecarm?
Easy, go to the auction and get 4/5-star demons that come with ST bonuses, then just fuse those together and use the result as fusion fodder for your new fusions, either directly or indirectly.
Freyjadour
Member
i consider ds1 (well, up until wendigo, anyway) to be the noob-friendliest megaten game of them all - a relatively gentle & clear intro to all the fundamental mechanics. &, having just beaten the day 3 boss, i agree - the same can not be said of ds2
not that i'm not loving it
Other than the boss that moves around the pier, I didn't have much trouble with DS2. The last boss was pretty tame even.
Get the Kishin since you will be needing him to attack twice in the civilian rescuing phase. Then get a Titania, she will learn Recarmloss during the fight. Recarmloss is important because it both heals and restores the entire party, not necessarily for reviving since your demons won't die. You can level up from this battle so unless you need Macca you needn't grind.
semiconscious
Member
can't really say i've been having trouble, either - tho i'm pretty sure my love of grinding'n'fusing have played a big role in this
...i consider ds1 (well, up until wendigo, anyway) to be the noob-friendliest megaten game of them all - a relatively gentle & clear intro to all the fundamental mechanics. &, having just beaten the day 3 boss, i agree - the same can not be said of ds2
not that i'm not loving it
I don't know, i think everyone will have different experiences with the games, but i would have liked it (2) to be a bit more consistent with the difficulty. DS1 for me was fairly steady throughout, DS2 is either a cakewalk or super frustrating. Mostly the former.
In any case, i think both of them are fairly easy (or forgiving) in comparison to other SMT games, you can often fuck up multiple times in tough battles and still scrape through. If you were unable to revive teammates with recarm, it would be a lot different.
semiconscious
Member
agreed - the difficulty curve in ds1 was a whole lot smoother than ds2's...
&, afa 'cakewalk' goes, i also like the way that the skill-cracking mechanic adds a layer of complication, & makes even an ordinarily easy battle require at least a little bit of strategy...
CornBurrito
Member
Wait, there is a Pierce+? I never once saw that skill. What does it do, and where do I find it?
Because that would mean having to use Hinako, who is arguably the worst character in the game next to Airi.
I totally agree, some of the best kind of challenge in these games is when you have to plan out in advance and limit yourself when it comes to which party members can kill which enemies for skill cracking. But then that's also much easier for the most part in DS2 because of joint skill-cracking.
Pierce+ is like pierce for the whole party, you equip it on your main dude as far as i remember.
If you don't like Hinako (what's wrong with you man? lol), you can always go for Keita. Their stats are not that different.
CornBurrito
Member
Did you play through
the mysterious detective dude story
CornBurrito
Member
CornBurrito
Member
Oh wow, I am really warming up to this game. Day 1 was nice, day 2 kinda meh, but now I'm in day 4 (near the end) and just can't put the game down anymore. My biggest problem is homemade, in the sense that I am a bit of a perfectionist which leads me to lots of grinding to keep my team up to date with good demons. I just created a baphomet which is STrong against everything except for the element it innately NUlls... Coupled with drain it should be nearly unkillable at this point in the game. Oh and it has chaos wave and is not unique. I could summon several of those...
Yeah. Talk about "contrived" crisis. She was rather happy until I explored that event... she can't honestly be suggesting she's useless when she's a top notch demon tamer. If she's "useless" then what does that make the rest of the "normal" demon tamers?
Urgh, Airi puts it best. "Stupid Hinako"
Urgh, Airi puts it best. "Stupid Hinako"
She defintely becomes much more likeable. Not as good as Otome, though. Otome is easily the best character in the game along with not!Kaworu.
Not!Kaworu = Otome > Makoto = Airi > Joe > Jungo > Fumi = Daichi > Io = Hinako > Keita > Ronaldo > Yamato
I like Airi the most, then Otome, then Fumi, and everyone else can fuck off. Hinako is the worst girl. Makoto is better than Io. I don't rate the guys because they're generally all totally awful.
Fumi is good because while she's a pretty awful person, she just doesn't give a fuck. That's respectable.
Fumi is good because while she's a pretty awful person, she just doesn't give a fuck. That's respectable.
You didn't like not!Kaworu? He is totally moe, man!
CornBurrito
Member
How do you dislike Joe? FUCK YOU!
I disliked Makoto, but I thought her character was at least done well.
Also I like Io better than Daichi, even though her final situation was handled poorly. Also Yamato was a cool guy.
Not!Kaworu was ace though. We both agree on that. Also Otome was awesome.
You also rate Fumi too low.
Agreed. It was just a huge "wtf you serious?" moment for me.
TheContact
Member
A little OT here but can someone give me a little synopsis of what Persona is? I played some version on the PSP a little while back at some game store, but it was just all talking parts. If I like Final Fantasy tactics will I like this game? It seems really different than most JRPGs, but a lot of people like it and I love RPGs so I will probably like it too.
CornBurrito
Member
I absolutely loathe Final Fantasy Tactics, and I love this game.
I've never actually played any games in the Persona spin-off. Devil Survivor is another spin-off of the SMT series. The game isn't only talking parts. The battle takes place on a battle grid with up to 4 player characters, each controlling up to 2 demons. Unlocked skills can be swapped freely between the 4 characters.
Most of the strategy takes place pre-battle. You have to analyze enemy composition, and then give your team members appropriate skills for the situation. If you plan correctly the battle is significantly easier. Though sometimes the game throws non-obvious surprises at you, and altering your strategy mid-battle is sometimes necessary.
I find that I tend to lose the battle when the surprise is first revealed, but when I reload my save and can plan around the surprise it becomes infinitely easier. Still a hard game, and you'll like it if you enjoy SRPGs.
As long as we agree that Not!Kaworu and Otome are awesome, it's all OK.