Oh yeah, Gogmagog made me think of Phys Block for my earlier comment, and it got me wondering how the big Qadištu fight's gonna go down. With Phys Block off the table and no Null Phys options (since the earliest one is, ironically, Gogmagog at Lv61), I could easily see Eisheth tearing you to shreds with her party's 5 Press Turns.

i think using gems to put people to sleep is illegal

*Number of boss battles not impacted by Innate Skills: 12 / 22* *Vouivre* - Willpower is just as useless here as it is for Daisoujou. *Gogmagog* - The only one here who _didn't_ raise the count. Vengeful Might turns his myriad weaknesses into an asset by making his critical hits extremely dangerous, even at the "intended" level range, and his skillset is clearly designed to take advantage of that. Phys resistence (or the hilariously broken Phys Block) is basically a must because of Vengeful Might. *Anansi* - The MP restoration of Wisdom Unleashed is meaningless because bosses basically have unlimited MP anyway. *Gurulu* - Just like the two Andras accompanying Eligor, Gurulu doesn't deal enough hits to one target in a turn to make the boost from Catastrophic Gales into anything meaningful.

finally a battle where my boy Shiki-Ouji has a big role

27:30 Damn Anansi really went ham this turn

I fear how bad of a dps check Onyankopon is gonna be with these restrictions. He was already pretty painful playing normally no less

i think five is after four

name a more iconic duo than smt5 and WEAK TO ICE

I have a huge problem with Battle - Bounce and Roll-. It’s that it doesn’t play more often.

This is my first collection of Vengeance’s optional bosses, which were ones that I didn’t consider unique enough to be featured in their own videos but were still interesting enough to record. While these bosses are still challenging, most of them weren’t designed the same way as bosses that I’ll feature separately, since most of them tend to act unpredictably and also use basic attacks and gather Magatsuhi randomly, like enemies in random encounters. While there were several optional bosses that were new to Vengeance prior to these, none of the ones before Shinjuku are really that interesting so I chose not to show them. I’ll probably have another set of optional bosses in Shinjuku and maybe another for some Taito bosses, but I’m not certain yet. 0:00 Vouivre This battle was completed before the Power Horde. Vouivre is the first new optional boss that actually presents a good deal of difficulty, with her three press turns, poison infliction, and Physical attacks. She uses Toxic Cloud, Blight, Venom Chaser, and Matarunda, and thanks to the significant level difference, her poison will quickly kill anything if ignored. Since Vouivre is weak to Ice, a similar approach to Khonsu can be used. Jack Frost can do so much damage under Omagatoki: Dance that a second Ice Breath user isn’t even needed, and Mermaid and Koropokkur can boost that damage with Pandemonic Feast and Frigid Melody. This time, the battle can be opened with Omagatoki: Dance without even debuffing Vouivre, and the second Omagatoki: Dance should be nearly enough to finish her off. Vouivre often uses Toxic Cloud on her first turn, so Mermaid is generally able to survive since the Nahobino can use Vouivre’s resistances for poison immunity. During the other few turns while the Magatsuhi gauge is refilling, Oni, Nozuchi, and Shiki-Ouji can handle Blight and Venom Chaser, then Naga can be brought back in to use Omagatoki: Dance again. Dealing with poison in this battle is made much easier by the obscure fact that poison damage does not trigger when demons are swapped in and out of the battle for reasons that are unknown to me, even though every other action will trigger poison damage. Thanks to this, some simple maneuvering can prevent most demons from dying to poison, which helps the Physical-resistant demons a lot and also allows Mermaid to have Pandemonic Feast active for the second Omagatoki: Dance turn. Although this battle and Khonsu’s clearly show how powerful Omagatoki: Dance can be alongside Pandemonic Feast, it won’t be helpful for most bosses that don’t have Ice weaknesses since the distribution of Fire Breath, Shockbound, and Wind Breath among recruitable demons is much worse than that of Ice Breath. 6:41 Gogmagog This battle was completed after the Power Horde. Gogmagog is one of the few bosses in the game with Physical immunity but also has more weaknesses than any other enemy so far. It uses Titanomachia, Rampage, Power Punch, and Critical Aura, and its unique passive Vengeful Might increases its critical damage by 25%, although that’s mostly overkill here since it can already one-shot almost anything on a critical just by the stat and level disparity alone. This battle is very unkind to anyone not using Phys Dampeners or Phys Block, but using a Physical-resistant party can prevent criticals from Titanomachia and Critical Aura. Gogmagog only uses Critical Aura with its last action, but can also gather Magatsuhi to critical through resistance so that’s a major concern. Among the three strongest available Physical-resistant demons, only Shiki-Ouji has much offensive value here, so it’s actually best to reserve one party slot for a second attacker without Physical resistance to speed the battle up greatly. There are several demons that can fill that role, so any of them that die can be replaced without much drawback. Shiki-Ouji and the second attacker should try to get a lot of damage off early in the battle to weaken Gogmagog’s Power Punch while the Supportobino supports them. Gogmagog’s Seal weakness can also be exploited with Makajama to impede Critical Aura or Omagatoki: Critical, although it may not be reliable the second time due to the game’s ailment mechanics. Even with Physical resistance, Gogmagog can still be quite dangerous since it can use Titanomachia and Rampage on the same turn, and even its basic attacks can do a lot of damage under Omagatoki: Critical. Baphomet also got hit for 790 damage total when Gogmagog used Rampage after Critical Aura, which was a bit unnecessary but shows what happens when you attempt this battle without Physical resistance. By the end, my party was pretty much out of juice so I had to finish it off with a Bucketgetter Special. 20:18 Anansi This battle was completed after the Power Horde. Anansi is faced when siding with Onyankopon in their questline and is worth featuring for his design alone, even if this battle isn’t that complex. He only has three skills with his signature What Comes After Four, which basically has a 100% instakill rate here, Bufudyne, and Makajamaon. Dark immunity is very important here, and luckily there are a lot of decent Dark-immune demons at this level, including Forneus who also absorbs Bufudyne. With 200 HP, the Nahobino can just barely survive Anansi’s Bufudyne at -2 attack so he usually isn’t at much risk of dying with three demons summoned, but Anansi tends to one-shot most demons if he doesn’t attack into an immunity. While there are many Fire attackers that can be used here, most aren’t that great and revivals are often necessary, so this is a pretty long battle further exacerbated by Anansi’s constant use of Makajamaon. 41:21 Gurulu This battle was completed after Khonsu. Gurulu can be a bit tricky due to its ailment use, but even without Me Patra this battle is winnable now that the Nahobino is level 37 and Tao can be used. It uses Mazandyne, Dark Sword, Nihil Claw, and Slumber Vortex, and is more dangerous for putting the party to sleep rather than only its damage. While Slumber Vortex cannot be blocked with Sleep resistance alone, having the Nahobino use Sandman’s resistances can at least allow him to consistently cure the party with the use of Tao’s Saint’s Prayer passive, which cures the ailments of any ally that is returned to the stock. With Tao in the fourth party slot, the Nahobino can swap Yoko in for a demon that has an ailment to use an Amrita Soda on Tao, which allows her to heal the party if necessary. Gurulu is the first boss in a while that the Nahobino can actually strike the weakness of, so he can deal most of the damage with Hamaon, and he’s also the only party member worth using Inflaming Divinity on since the others may be swapped out to cure their ailments. Cironnup is also decent here thanks to Hama and Cautious Cheer, while Setanta and Yakshini can be swapped in and out to use Fang Breaker and Pierce Armor in between Rasetsu Feast uses, plus they also cover Mazandyne. Nihil Claw can easily one-shot most party members even with only two hits, but Gurulu only used it once in this attempt.

I don't get it. At 9:03 Turdak uses Rasetsu Feast and after that it's still his turn. How so?

Love the desperation last turn with the B team.

Using Dance was such a surprise I audibly popped off when I saw it. Then it all came together with Pandemonic Feast. Peak cinema

7:27 is fucked up, why did he do that

Hee ho casually doing ~800 damage per Ice Breath is beautiful Also will you even have access to Fairy Banquet in this run? Can't remember if it's unlocked by a quest or not

7:26 i legit did not know khonsu had diarama. i would be livid if he healed the turn before death

*Number of boss battles not impacted by Innate Skills: 9 / 18* Divine Dismantlement requires allies to be able to do anything, and Khonsu has no allies in this battle.

Oh boy, time for my favourite boss fight in SMT V: Vengeance.

As Urameshi stated, I think the loss of Debilitate really hurts this battle normally. However I think that’s made up for on both Godborn and the VR trainer as Khonsu is a VIT God (especially at 999)

PANDEMONIC FEAST this plus rampage masakado against masakado with adversity or even just savage is crazy

It is great that they expanded on Miyazu and Khonsu more in this route, bit of a shame Khonsu had to lose his debilitate to do that.

listening to dancing crazy murder just makes me imagine some guy pelvic thrusting at a disco

Oh yeah Bucketgetter since you’re getting very close to it wanted to let you know about something. During the Agrat chase sequence towards the end of Shinjuku, the game does not stop you from interacting with the area. Most notably, you can totally fight Pale Rider while she’s chasing you

You didn't need to violate him with that Sakanagi ;-;

That's some bleak ost at the beginning

The goat of the OG low level run Black Ooze is back, let's go

Question about the rules. Are you not fusing demons at all? I haven’t seen fusion-only demons like Xuanwu and Fortuna in the run

*Number of boss battles not impacted by Innate Skills: 8 / 17* Isis has the useless one here, since Mother of Ploys was clearly designed to be a player-usable skill and nothing else - enemies never really switch their parties around (except to replace their dead allies in a scant few battles), and there are no Deities in this party. However, the Lamias' Burden of Talent is worthy of note (worthy enough that the counter remains at 8, anyway) - the 1.15x multiplier against your weaknesses makes it more dangerous to field weaknesses against their attacks, but the 1.4x boost to their ailment vulnerability could make ailment-based strategies more viable against them.

Anyone else find it odd that they dont use a battle theme here and the VR Battler does give them one?

Regarding the additions of Dazai and Yuzuru to the party, did anyone find dialogue when doing optional side quests in previous areas while they were in the party? I know there wasn’t any for the King Frost fish hunt quest in the second area but that was the only one I tested since I got 600 EXP from doing it so I don’t know about if any other quests gave EXP from it. That aside, it is unfortunate you can’t use the guest characters here due to level reasons. Although, while it does break the rules of the run, when I got to this part of the playthrough, I only used guest characters for both Khonsu and the Yakumo and Nuwa boss fight only using guest characters, funnily enough the basic Aogami essence comes in handy for the latter fight. At the very least, this was one of the details as to why this was my favourite part of the plot.

funny how they give you yuzuru and dazai as party members for like 2 battles in a normal playthrough and they're not even that good

Thoughts on Evergreen Dance?

Setanta criticaling a lot like he in steroid.

All my friends are dead. Dazai isn’t my friend, but he’s dead too.

Nah bro I just charged + Physical and hoped for the best.

Im glad a team of little guys got to take the big EXP

reaaaaally late, but I've also started doing a similar low level apocalypse run, with the caveat that I allow fusions in exchange for reducing the amount of non story XP gained to 0. anyway, the relevant part is that I have reached the boss at 14, and just beat him (after a lot of work). keeping up with healing is abysmal, but it *is* possible, even without media. what I've used is the following: nanashi with zio+8, rakukaja+5, rarely diarama+4 started the fight with two random demons with fang thruster, got him to -3 attack, and swapped out to: oni with healing kh, rs ice, sukukaja, rakukaja, damascus claw spriggan with healing & atk kh, rs ice, rakukaja, makakaja zombie cop with cough+5, healing kh zombie cop was fusion accidented into at random whilst farming accidents. I almost loaded the game when I got him, but I decided to stick with it *just in case* the cough+5 is useful. hint: it proved REALLY damn useful. yes, the skills my demons/nanashi have are absurd, blame fusion accidents and me grinding a crapton of macca on top of that. all the buffs were early mutations that managed to get enough xp to unlock them, rs ice off napaea, VERY early fang thruster off an accident into ictinike, diarama I forget off whom. but yeah, the damage he was dealing was pitiful. I was more or less able to stay on top of healing with asahi, and spamming medicines off the team's healing knowhows. daze was mildly annoying as it wasted some turns, but nothing a patra gem can't fix.

That last Power was determined to be as annoying as possible lol

Eligor: Screw your strategies, I have Gram Slice. Power Horde: Hah, That's Cute. *Proceeds to spam Critical Wave*

i always forget how unhinged bugs sounds

Are you sure about the instakill modifier? Because I always instakill them a LOT

that last power refused to die damn

*Number of boss battles not impacted by Innate Skills: 8 / 16* All Frontline Adaptability really does is make Panic less effective, and it's unlikely that you're even gonna try to use Panic here anyway. At around the "intended" level in a normal playthrough, you'll be encouraged to spam Mamudoon and Dark Shards and take advantage of Magatsuhi effects carrying over from one wave to the next (that's certainly what I did). At lower levels, you might be tempted to use ailments to make the bigger waves more manageable, but even then... you have much better options than Panic for that. Charm, Seal, even Sleep are just better ailments, Innate Skill or no.

Battle Seraph is such a banger. I’m glad we can hear it outside Metatron and Maria

also i love how basically everything in this game including bosses has multiple weaknesses, especially satisfying for those who came from persona or nocturne. hell even 4 and apoc had their fair share of NO WEAKNESS or only weak to ailments

looks like now is when the level gaps get bigger, maybe even relevant to the damage calculations. also i find it funny how crit level scaling still matters for above level 150 in virtual trainer so you basically get no crits against level 999 outside of 100% crit attacks

Why not keep it going? Eight Powers, thirteen Powers... Last week, someone asked if I thought this battle would be possible in this challenge without taking advantage of any instant-kill effects. I’m not going to do it, but I’m pretty sure that the answer is yes. The first two waves aren’t tough either way and the third wave should still be manageable with Koppa Tengu using Mazan in place of the Mamudo users, so long as Critical Wave isn’t being used too often. However, the wave of five Powers just wouldn’t be reasonable to approach normally since they simply deal too much damage and have an extreme critical rate. What I would have to do is leave a single Power from the third wave alive to set up for the final wave with Inflaming Divinity and maybe a Concentrate Gem, then wipe out the five Powers before they could even act with a Bucketgetter Special that I think would be moderately humorous, for reasons I’ll leave unexplained. I did a rough check of the numbers, and the Nahobino should be able to do enough damage to handily take them all out together. However, over 100000 EXP is a lot to miss out on for three demons that could have been in the party rather than in the stock at the end of the battle, so.this strategy wouldn’t be desirable if there were alternatives.

0:51 lmao nice timing

That description be hitting hard

Excellent skill based game! It's so amazing that they released a complete version after the 70 usd demo but still decided to leave in the gremlin that can just decide "Nah you're losing five hours of progress because of bad math." Oh and I did notice that Atlus is out of ideas, I mean they even copied Bear Witness 1:07 from Elden Ring, that's not sliding by me. Can we get real men like Kaneko back, please?