Does it at least grant you resist spoiler?

Best I can tell, disabling “Internet” in the settings is the only way acquire Resist or Null Spoiler

The Opposition Demi-fiend is faced along with an assortment of seven allies that are summoned in a set sequence, up to three at a time. Demi-fiend 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 less 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 believed. I was not amused. 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 13000 HP. Don’t ask me why those are the HP thresholds and not perfect fourths. Those four uses are absolute, but he also may or may not use it once his HP drops to about 54000 after he has used Mediarahan. In most of my attempts (including this one) that was the case, but it wasn’t every time from what I remember and I’m not quite sure why. I think that it might have something to do with the turn count since his last Chaotic Will, but if that’s not it then I have no idea. I’ve also seen some claims that Demi-fiend may use Chaotic Will randomly after using Mediarahan, but I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed that aside from this case at 54000 HP. That’s a 24000 HP gap between uses so the turn count thing is the most logical explanation for me. This isn’t relevant to my attempts but if Demi-fiend is prevented from using Mediarahan through ailments, he still will use the Chaotic Wills that he normally would have, although I believe he skips the one at 54000 HP. 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 buffs 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’ve only seen them use ailment skills into immunities a few times, but I think they just use Megidolaon once those 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 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, skill potentials, 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). 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, 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 that they have a high skill potential for. Multi-target attacks are almost completely unusable in this battle without stat boosters since they cost too much and miss very frequently, often thanks to Demi-fiend’s 99 Agility, so every attacker only had one single-target attack. Normally, 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. However, without stat boosters or Sutras, dealing enough damage to Cerberus is just too difficult, so it’s best to just ignore him when using single-target attacks. That reduces the necessary amount of attacking elements to four, so I used three Dark attackers, four Electric 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, 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 many demons need an additional resistance passive to an element they’re exposed to as well. If other demons had a free skill slot then Donum Gladi was a helpful filler skill to slightly boost the Nahobino’s damage output, while Amon had Dragon Eye to fix his horrible Agility. For my demon selection, the pool of suitable Force demons was less than desirable, so I used Inanna with Raging Tempest which has much better power than other options and a better MP economy as well. However, that still wasn’t enough, so I gave Raphael High Restore in place of Force Pleroma so I wouldn’t have to worry about his MP while sacrificing a little power. I also used Zeus with Keraunos since he was the best Electric attacker despite the threat of Retaliate from Cu Chulainn, and Belial was the only Dracostrike user I used since he had the Strength and skill potential to make it passable. 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 good enough to keep them alive. Idun and Demeter were exceptions since they would be better to use for a longer period with Somas and Chakra Pots, so HP was more valuable to them. They all 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. 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’. The only support demon without it was Hayataro, who I was kind of using just for kicks and planned to use when Sandalphon or Vishnu were summoned, since they have innate Physical immunity. Finally, the last demon slot 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 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. With these restrictions, the two offensive demons need to be focusing on a single target in order to keep pace and eliminate them on time, since their relatively low damage output doesn’t provide much leeway. Omagatoki: Critical is often necessary to increase their damage output to a respectable level, and also boosts the Nahobino’s firepower greatly with a Murakumo critical build. 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. Since Demi-fiend’s summons always proceed in a set order, my planned targeting cycle was the same in every attempt. The battle begins with Cu Chulainn, Girimekhala, and Pixie, and I had two Dark attackers to target Pixie first. Cerberus is summoned next, but since he is so much more difficult to take out, I would just ignore him for the rest of the battle. That also allowed me to get by without having any Ice attackers at all, which is nice since team slots are tight for this battle. At that point I would bring in Electric attackers for Cu Chulainn, then Force attackers for Girimekhala and Thor, then Fire attackers for Parvati and Jack Frost. When the summon loop begins again, Cu Chulainn should be targeted first, then Pixie, then at that point Cerberus will be skipped in the summons and the targeting loop will be the same as before with Girimekhala and Thor. It’s important to target Parvati and Pixie as soon as they’re summoned since Media and Dia can instantly derail any attempt, so ideally they shouldn’t be able to act more than 8-10 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 before the summoning loop begins for a fourth time. 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 very difficult or impossible 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 (except for Vishnu and Sandalphon), 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. 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. There are also many other important considerations that can make this battle more manageable. One of the most helpful is keeping Idun summoned as long as possible, since she’s much better than the rest of the support demons excluding Demeter. Most of the Chakra Pots and Somas should be used on her, since she makes better use of the MP than any other demon. However, she doesn’t have space in her skillset for Resist Elec here, so she becomes a liability as long as Thor is summoned as he can use both Maziodyne and Shockbound. Fortunately, this issue can be sidestepped if Inanna is summoned while Thor is present, since her Electric immunity will prevent Thor from using either of those skills and allows Idun to remain in the battle at almost any time. When the offensive demons have extra actions that aren’t necessary for eliminating a target before Demi-fiend uses Gaea Rage, it’s often helpful to begin whittling down the next demon in the sequence, either by attacking directly or with Gems, or by swapping to the next set of offensive demons. During Omagatoki: Critical, some demons can also contribute by attacking Demi-fiend directly or using Donum Gladi on the Nahobino, which slightly shortens the battle when attacking his demons isn’t necessary. Also, it’s important to recognize when it’s unwise to attack if the odds of missing are too high. Usually, I won’t attack if the targets have a higher buff status than those of the Nahobino’s team since the risk is too great, but being too cautious when buffs are even is generally detrimental since there isn’t a lot of leeway in eliminating Demi-fiend’s demons on time. Keraunos and Raging Tempest are notable exceptions to this since they have higher base accuracies than normal skills, so I sometimes have Zeus and Inanna attack even when at a buff disadvantage. It’s also better to use both of them in the first slot since it’s less important for the Nahobino to use Dispel Charms before they attack, whereas other demons shouldn’t take that risk. 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, it would be nice to be able to guard, but in most cases Demi-fiend ends up using it right after an Omagatoki: Critical turn, so guarding there instead of using Murakumo would severely neuter the Nahobino’s damage output. 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.

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 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 92, three Murakumos should average around 14500 damage total, and the reflect on Girimekhala inflicts an additional 230 damage. Conveniently, since Demi-fiend doesn’t use his final Chaotic Will until he drops below 13000 HP for some reason, enacting this at just the right time allows that to be bypassed entirely, which is incredibly helpful. However, it’s not easy knowing exactly when it’s safe to commit to the Bucketgetter Special finish. Demi-fiend enters his low health animation when dropping below 15000 HP, which leaves a window of about 300-500 HP in which a Bucketgetter Special may fall just short of finishing him off. That’s obviously undesirable, but at the same time pushing him below 13000 HP and triggering Chaotic Will could easily spell defeat as well. Reading Demi-fiend’s health bar is almost impossible to do accurately, so I had to determine the exact appearance of his health bar when it was in the suitable range beforehand. This is a bit convoluted and hard to visualize, but what I found was that when the right side of Demi-fiend’s health bar was closer to the vertical line that could be extended upwards from the right side of the lower-case “d” in Demi-fiend’s name than the vertical line that could be extended upwards from the right side of the box showing Demi-fiend’s resistance to Force, his HP was low enough to finish off with the damage from Girimekhala’s reflect and a Bucketgetter Special. This seems pretty ridiculous, but it legitimately dictated my approach at the end of the battle when I wanted to ensure that Demi-fiend’s HP was in that range. 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 Belial 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, and Demi-fiend had an uncharacteristically low amount of criticals with Freikugel. He used it a total of 11 times in this attempt, but only one resulted in a critical. The result may have still been the same regardless of a critical in some of those cases, but it was still extremely fortunate. I don’t know what his actual critical rate with Freikugel is, but I’d guess that it’s probably around 30-40%. Although I was very fortunate with Dia, Media, and Freikugel, I was put in some pretty tough situations thanks to a number of other unlucky factors. Two of the Nahobino’s Murakumos missed Demi-fiend and Parvati had a very untimely dodge on another turn, and there were several other times when ailments, deaths, and excessive Luster Candy/Debilitate use from Demi-fiend’s demons put my back up against the wall. I was forced to delay Gaea Rage by swapping in a new support demon three times in this attempt, and there were more than a few close calls in addition to those. I was pretty cautious when it came to MP management in this attempt, even though that might not have appeared to have been necessary. I was using Chakra Drops throughout the battle, sometimes hoping to maximize the MP restoration provided by Somas, but at the end of the battle I still had four Chakra Pots left as well as a few support demons that could have filled in for a few turns. That was mostly because I had been able to use Idun for the majority of the battle and she conserves a lot of MP, whereas in other attempts I had been much closer to expending all the MP from my support demons and all my Chakra Pots and Somas. Although I still had a little left in the tank, I ended up summoning my entire stock of demons in this battle, which I’ve never managed to do before.

Notable Moments There were a ton of significant moments from this attempt, so I’m going to provide the timestamps for those and go over some background information about them. 0:09:47 Turn 6: Demi-fiend uses Chaotic Will for the first time, which kills Amanozako and cuts the party’s press turns with only one turn to finish off Cu Chulainn before Gaea Rage. On the next turn Zeus comes just short of taking out Cu Chulainn with Keraunos, and Retaliate subsequently triggers his Enduring Soul. The Nahobino had to summon Qing Long to finish off Cu Chulainn with an Elec Gem, averting the crisis. 0:20:16 Turn 12: The Nahobino misses Murakumo on Demi-fiend at +1/-1, which is a bit of a damage setback. 0:22:47 Turn 14: Khonsu Ra misses an Agibarion on Parvati with both at neutral buffs, which is pretty catastrophic since Belial is also charmed. This puts the party in a horrible position since Parvati still has over 12500 HP entering the third turn of the cycle. 0:24:09 Turn 15: Idun swaps to Huang Long to delay Gaea Rage since it’s not possible to eliminate Parvati within three turns. 0:25:05 Turn 16: An Omagatoki: Critical turn almost falls apart after Demi-fiend uses Javelin Rain and Jack Frost and Parvati both use Luster Candy. Khonsu Ra has to use a Concentrated Agibarion into Parvati at 0/+1, then the Nahobino has to use a Purge Charm and later use a Charged Murakumo on Parvati since Belial had been Sealed and couldn’t contribute enough damage to finish her off without the Nahobino’s help. 0:26:48 Turn 17: Demi-fiend hits the Nahobino with a Freikugel critical, consuming Enduring Soul. 0:30:30: Turn 19: The Nahobino misses a second Murakumo, this time at -1/-1. If all attacks on Demi-fiend had been accurate this turn, then he would have used Mediarahan on Turn 20. Instead, I made the questionable decision to not heal and keep attacking since I wanted to ensure that he would use Mediarahan in the next cycle. I was just hoping that Demi-fiend wouldn’t target the Nahobino with Freikugel since the other demons had Enduring Soul, and I might have been bailed out from a bad decision when Megidolaon from Cerberus missed and prevented Demi-fiend from acting a second time after summoning. The Nahobino’s party didn’t miss any more attacks for the remainder of the battle after this turn. 0:36:24 Turn 23: Demi-fiend uses Mediarahan, which I would have liked to trigger at least by the time I eliminated Jack Frost. I pushed Demi-fiend below 30000 HP on the same turn as finishing off Cu Chulainn, which prevented Mediarahan from interrupting a Gaea Rage cycle. 0:41:25 Turn 26: Demi-fiend hits the Nahobino with a non-critical Freikugel, dropping him to 164 HP. 0:42:58 Turn 27: Demi-fiend uses Chaotic Will for a second time at around 54000 HP, which was the use that I hoped would be skipped, and it consumes the Nahobino’s Whittled Goat. 0:46:15 Turn 29: Demi-fiend hits the Nahobino with another non-critical Freikugel, dropping him to 114 HP. 0:49:07 Turn 31: Demi-fiend uses Chaotic Will for a third time at around 48000 HP. On the same turn, Inanna is killed by a barrage of attacks from Demi-fiend and his demons. During the next turn, Idun swaps to Alilat to delay Gaea Rage since Thor cannot be eliminated within three turns. 0:52:28 Turn 33: Demi-fiend hits the Nahobino with another non-critical Freikugel, dropping him to 323 HP. Unlike the other times, the Nahobino would have been able to survive this Freikugel even if it had been a critical, although a follow-up attack by a demon could have killed him. 1:02:39 Turn 39: Demi-fiend uses Chaotic Will for a fourth and final time. 1:04:28 Turn 40: Hayataro makes a bold proclamation to Cu Chulainn. 1:06:21 Turn 41: In one of the most pivotal moments of this battle, I examined Cu Chulainn’s remaining HP for about 10 seconds, then made the decision not to attack him with Murakumo since I thought that Odin would probably do enough damage to finish him off, and if he didn’t then Hayataro would have a chance to finish him too, even under the effect of Mirage. Odin comes up 98 damage short of the KO, and Hayataro has to try to save me from this evident mistake. Note that I would not have been able to delay Gaea Rage on this turn since Sandalphon was summoned and had previously been revealed to have Physical immunity, so he would have had to swap out instead. This is why bringing demons with Physical immunities other than the support demons was kind of risky, but my options were limited. 1:06:51 Turn 41: Hayataro hits a historically clutch Elec Gem on Cu Chulainn through Mirage, saving me from a nearly inevitable Gaea Rage (while it could have been avoided if one of Demi-fiend’s demons had missed, Cu Chulainn and Cerberus almost never miss because of Dragon Eye, likely only leaving Girimekhala). Note that Mirage cuts accuracy significantly and also has a chance of redirecting attacks to unintended targets, so I think the odds of success here were only around 30-40%. 1:07:14 Turn 42: Demi-fiend hits the Nahobino with another non-critical Freikugel, dropping him to 57 HP. 1:14:10 Turn 46: The Nahobino’s party is put in a very poor situation as Raphael is Panicked in the first slot, but he manages to use Zanbarion. The party might have been in real bad shape if he hadn’t been able to attack there. 1:16:53 Turn 47: The Nahobino uses Murakumo on Demi-fiend and finally pushes him below 15000 HP. However, the Nahobino’s party also comes up just short of finishing off Girimekhala within three turns, so Mada swaps to Tao to delay Gaea Rage. 1:17:47 Turn 48: The party is in dire straits entering a turn in which Lakshmi had been killed, the Nahobino was Panicked, and Gaea Rage could not be delayed further. The Nahobino manages to use a Force Gem through Panic that doesn’t finish Girimekhala, but allows the party to recover and summon a new demon on that turn. In hindsight, it might have been better to use Odin for Girimekhala instead of Lakshmi since Demi-fiend was so close to Bucketgetter Special Range and Odin still had Enduring Soul left, but I managed to make it through anyway. 1:19:30 Turn 49: From this point, the next three turns are all just preparation to ensure that I can finish off Demi-fiend with a Bucketgetter Special. I examined his health bar for over ten seconds to convince myself that it was low enough, which it was, and I decided not to attack him before the final turn to avoid pushing him below the final Chaotic Will threshold. Over the next few turns, I thought long and hard about how to maneuver to set up buffs and ensure the team’s survival, and I also brought in Demeter for Eleusinian Harvest. Despite my supposed carefulness, I almost messed up by bringing in Gabriel before realizing that I needed to cover her Electric weakness. 1:23:34 Turn 51: On the second-to-last turn, I set my plan in motion by swapping in Girimekhala and Amon, using Taunt, and buffing to max. Going into this turn I had buffs at +1/0, which was good enough to enact this strategy, but if that weren’t the case then I might have had to do without Taunt to max buffs and gamble on Demi-fiend attacking into Girimekhala on his own since I couldn’t delay Gaea Rage for another turn. 1:24:38 Turn 52: Demi-fiend attacks into Girimekhala and I execute the Bucketgetter Special with Omagatoki: Savage. By my count, Demi-fiend had 14116 HP remaining entering the final turn and I managed to do 14489 damage including the reflect from Girimekhala, just barely squeaking by. If I had failed to finish him off, Demi-fiend would have used Gaea Rage with his first action of his next turn, so this truly was a do-or-die moment to finish the battle.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Also, if there's anything else that you want to ask later my Discord is bucketgetter8162, which I don't use often but I at least have notifications on.

Scorsese called, he told me it was worthy of being labeled “cinema”

Not sure I think that was necessary, but I appreciate the enthusiasm to enjoy a good SMT battle

I won't be concerning myself with Demi-fiend again for quite a while, my priorities will lie with everything else new with the game and it won't be until I try to work with all of the Vengeance-exclusive content before returning to Canon of Creation battles and the old DLC but it's definitely something I'll consider later.

then again i remember hearing that demi's ai can only be cheesed if the drain/repel is passive rather than innate so unless the video shows otherwise i'd assume you can't really use giri to cheese him

Generally, when people mention Drain/Repel Phys cheese, they referring to the idea of bringing almost a full stock of Drain/Repel Phys demons, then swapping a new one in on most turns while the rest of the team has Physical immunity so Demi-fiend attacks into them with Deadly Fury and he's constantly blowing his team's turns. This only works one time per demon, so the maximum amount of turns that can be bought over the course of the battle is 21, since Demi-fiend uses Javelin Rain at the start of the battle. In a New Game playthrough, doing this three or four times (if Mother Harlot is included) can be helpful, but it doesn't come close to carrying the battle in the same way. The space of a single demon in the stock also has value in itself, so there is a trade-off being made by choosing to bring one of those demons. Using Girimekhala here in this way definitely provided ample value to me, and I also considered using Rangda as a support demon but decided against it.

@@Bucketgetter oh it still works with innate repel/drain? maybe i was thinking of something else

Well the underlying mechanics work the same way with innate resistances, but to actually abuse it and force Demi-fiend to attack Drain/Repel Phys demons you also need other demons in the battle with Phys immunity so you'd probably have to at least fuse Null Phys onto those. Even then, you'd still only have four natural Drain/Repel Phys demons to work with unless you were fusing with the passives.

@@Bucketgetter ah

In addition to the accuracy decrease, Mirage also has a less-memorable effect that causes afflicted targets to occasionally have their attacks redirected to unintended targets. Critical Aura counteracts the accuracy decrease, but not the misdirection effect if the battle involves more than one opponent.

@@BucketgetterI must’ve been really lucky with my fogged up murakumos then lol

That battle will always be one of my favorites, but it really didn't require much preparation at all since I was playing exclusively with demons recruited from random battles. The difference between that battle and this one is almost like night and day with how much time and effort I had to put into figuring out how to win, including all the testing I did, fusing for hours, and then executing the strategy during the battle which requires a ton of active thinking.