Final Boss (Persona 3 Reload, Solo, No Items, Merciless)

[@KatelynTea]

--um actually the movie song is burn my dread last battle for nyx not self redemption-- nah but fr gonna be using this as reference for my solo run good job

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

You can't tell me Siegfried is bad in P3 Reload

[@bothdoorscares3878]

He's only good as fodder (Like Thanatos for basically all versions of the game). Chernobog is objectively better as an endgame target for slash damage. Due to how Theurgia is calculated, using Chernobog who will innately get 80s in both St and Ma at 99 without incenses will do more damage. He nulls slash as well so you can't die to Brave Blade repels like Siegfried. The dark weakness is also a detriment. That is inherently more dangerous than fire weakness. And if one must cover it up, the ingredient that gives Null Fire (Shiki-Ouji) has been available to give the passive when you can unlock Chernobog. In comparison to Siegfried, who needs a resist dark from a Judgement persona (no arcana boost) or null dark from a level 65 persona (literally 11 levels later). You only need one step to get Chernobog from Siegfried. Fuse with Okuninushi. With that Null Fire suggestion, you just need to do Hanuman + Shiki-Ouji first. Lastly, as Elizabeth's request has Siegfried as one of its parts, making a build out of him lowers ease of completing this request in subsequent playthroughs. He's merely fodder for Slash Amp, Critical Rate Amp and Auto-Rebellion for these many reasons.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

@@bothdoorscares3878 I guess testament to how poorly balanced P3 Reload gameplay is. Why does this series keep putting Phys on such a pedestal...

[@bothdoorscares3878]

@@kichiroumitsurugi4363Personally I think it's more on availability for this game. Magic can keep up but it needs Magic Mastery. Basically a mutation locked skill that you need to be around level 90s to take full advantage. While peak Physical damage appears at level 54-56. Now that's a big difference. Before that there's Getsu-Ei melting literally anything too. The implementation of getting them balanced all throughout the game is what I'd consider to be the failure of the game in this case. That and the atrocious AI of the bosses.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

@@bothdoorscares3878 Even with Magic Mastery, Phys wins. Welcome to Crit City, buddy

[@bothdoorscares3878]

@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 perhaps you need to look at it with a more nuanced point of view. While yes, Physical will do more damage if it does a critical compared to magic, it also does not hit a critical every time. And the list of phys skills that can do that output that's worth it to use is literally a handful. Brave Blade, Akasha Arts, God's Hand and Masquerade. Heaven's Blade here? You can clearly see it's inferior to magic even with Criticals. Its merit is something else. Brave Blade? Yes it will do more but you have seen it only doing 1.5K for a Critical against Nyx compared to magic's 1.4K. And considering how it will not do a Critical every time, the idea is clear. The difference is how consistency is shown on the latter. God's Hand has a really bad Critical Rate and hit rate so it's the most inferior among those five. Akasha Arts is more consistent with raw damage. But its Critical rate is also abysmal. You're only going to be hoping it would do a Critical for damage rush applications. It's a fine skill but it is not consistent. Masquerade is the most consistent and has great Critical rate. As a DLC skill, that is more than expected. So I'm not surprised by the least. This rings true to even Theurgia. I would have needed a Critical to do that last attack to kill using Scarlet Havoc. But I went for magic knowing it will do it 100%. Overall, looking at it with everything at one's disposal, magic consistently keeps up with phys. I'm not sure why you're looking at it only with peak damage output in mind, because that's not the whole picture. But the difference on how easy to get everything lined up between the two makes the difference in balancing as stated earlier.