Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance - Masakado Superboss Fight [HARD]

This fight was terrible, he heals way too frequently...
Even with that cheesy setup, it took me well over 10 tries to pull through (used my Vitality Incense stock on my Mother Harlot.)
Setup (at the end of the video):
- Nahobino Almighty Strength Crit build.
- Yoshitsune (put first for extra press turn thanks to his signature move.)
- Demeter Heal + Buff build.
- Mother Harlot Repel/Absorb All (except Fire because I need Michael's Essence for it, which I don't have as I haven't reached an ending yet, so I contented myself with Null instead) + Taunt so the enemy loses all their Press Turns unless it's an Almighty Move.
It's a strat I came with last minute, in a last attempt before lowering the difficulty to Normal. Hope this helps anyone looking for doing Masakado on Hard, although I don't recommend it since he's very much the essence of "cturne".
Only the Demi-Fiend left now, I guess.

[@lewisspring35]

Right, so, a couple of comments on JohneAwesome's video on Masakado showed how Masakado's AI works. Whatever elements you hit him with during your turn, he will replace the corresponding elemental attack with Diarama during his next turn. Whatever Null, Drain or Repel he attacks into, he will replace the element that got NDRed with Freikugel next turn. And Freikugel seems to take priority over Diarama. Note: This applies to True Masakado, but it seems to hold up for regular Masakado too. EDIT: Looking at said video, I think Ive figured out what his Magatsuhi phases do. Masakado always attacks in a pattern through all seven elements excluding Almighty. At the starts of the fight, his pattern is as follows: Phys>Fire>Ice>Elec>Force>Light>Dark However, whenever he gathers Magatsuhi, he will shift that pattern to the left once. So after one Magatsuhi phase, his pattern is Fire>Ice>Elec>Force>Light>Dark>Phys Every time he gathers Magatsuhi, he will shift the pattern once, with him replacing his attacks with Diarama and Freikugel as applicable. As for Recalcitrant Execution, its most likely HP based.

[@rigby8701]

So is Recalc Execution confirmed to be HP based? I notice he sometimes uses it to replace Freikugal when I forgot I nulled an element from a previous turn. Fight is pretty straightforward before then.

[@lewisspring35]

@@rigby8701 Wait what? Oh god, if thats the case... He must switch Freikugel for Recalc when he gets below a certain amount of HP, and thats buttfuck terrifying. I cant confirm personally, Im nowhere near this point in-game yet, but jesus fuck.

[@rigby8701]

@@lewisspring35 It might be just scripted at a certain hp percentage because I had him in a loop where he was unable to ever pull off a Freikugal but after about a little less than half health he just pulls it out Recalc Execution out of nowhere. Not a big fan of that.

[@lewisspring35]

@@rigby8701 It could be that he uses Recalc as his first action every turn, which is... worrying, to say the least.

[@thepyrokitten]

This is very helpful information that I can do basically nothing with. All my demons are set up to NDR nearly everything :(

[@tespenkr9924]

I feel like this Masakado fight is an SMTIV reference. The Sega Genesis music, 5 press turns, some stand-by skill he uses for 3 of them, a ridiculously powerful unique. The signs are all there. Only difference is that he's using the Nocturne and Soul Hackers 2 model instead of being a severed head.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Well, I haven't played IV, but I like this fight, so I'm glad they added it in.

[@mastemaherald9939]

Did it without Taunt at lvl 96, but with a party that had basically all resistances covered. Also did it on a CoC first run so no CoV exclusive skills like the dodge one. Strategy was to push for damage with MC and Gabriel using ice multihits with Huang Long in party (Omagatoki Dance was the go-to damage booster), huang long had donum magi to help MC as well. Final slot was Konohana Sakuya doing her thing. Every turn I'd end with huang long blocking, and Sakuya if she didn't need to heal that turn. This mostly took care of the Freikugel spam problem since MC's massive stats could tank it and Gabriel was the only one exposed. I've noticed this fight has 3 "phases", an initial one where he mostly uses phys and elemental dracostrikes (and magatsuhis from him go down an element list), a second one where he breaks the first one's magatsuhi's cycle and strats throwing freikugels in, which can sometimes just decide to kill someone but enduring souls help ease the RNG a bit, and a third one that can go to hell when he gets down to his hurt animation HP and magatsuhis for a Recal Execution. The first execution is doable given that god shield can be setup, but every turn after he'd throw an execution as his second action, making it a race against RNG to get him down to enough of a HP range where a final omagatoki dance was enough to finish him off. Overall, the fight was really dumb and I'm not looking forward to the True Version since that just seems like more of a slog fest with further RNG as it's longer. Maybe the route exclusive demons could give me more options (Looking at Danu in particular, a 15% damage reduction for free is significant and her magatsuhi with Dagda could be really strong since it guarantees you can let everyone guard, making for a discount God Shield with extra damage/setup on top).

[@jackfavvv0280]

This fight is extremely luck based. Sometimes he's hit you with Freikugel 3 times in a row. And Mother Harlot will be dead.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Yup. It's a poorly-designed slugfest.

[@tomatopawah6877]

The ending was so painful to watch, congrats.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Gotta play aggressively sometimes. If I went for the trouble to heal, he would've either healed or killed me. Thanks!

[@ahalexstarlight5686]

Masakado is tough even using demi-fiend as your ally. Able to defeat regular form Masakado using luminescent mirage + Fierce Roar, then demi fiend using chaotic will. (only beat him in normal as i am not brave enough to playing on hard)

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Yeah, it has some luck-based elements, which is what I hate on bosses like this that are way too tanky...

[@SirCrispyChew]

what essence you got on your nahobino?

[@SirCrispyChew]

for the affinities, i mean.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@SirCrispyChew I usually interchange between Demi-Fiend and Alilat. Demi-Fiend has all Null (including ailments, which is very useful) and Alilat has Null for 3 ailments and resist the 3 others. Alilat is necessary for the Demi-Fiend fight since if you Null phys, he'll just spam Freikugel and Chaotic Will.

[@EzLopez]

So I've just given up on this fight and decided to move on (on "new game newbord" hard, came from CoV), but I can share what around 10 hours of blind demon building and dying to this guy taught me, together with what I've read online (now that I actually decided to see how other people beat him). To start with this is a true "super" boss so full party at least lv 90+ is required. Lewisspring35 commented here on how his attack pattern works for the most part so I'd suggest reading it, although I explain it below. Since he is weak to all elements (except almighty which was my only skill for main char before switching for full phys), as long as you don't miss you always get a "free" attack with everyone, which is hinting you that something is off with this fight, and is related to his healing. To not get destroyed with his multi-elemental attacks, you have 2 options: either attempt to have a party with all-element blockers (drain/repel would be better) which on new game is tough, you will most likely run out of essences and will have a few resists or free spots in which case you would be relying on luck which won't be on your favour if the fight gets long, or use the taunting strategy (which I attempted and Kaiser here successfully pulled it out), in which you have a specific demon with Taunt that that can short-circuit his attacks and keep them off your party. You would be wise to pump most of your vit incenses to this demon as it will get hammered with Frei's later on (my Asura was geting hit for 340 while guarding a Frei and went down to 250 with 12 extra vit points, which compounds when you receive 3 Frei's in a row). In my tests, tauting is only a guarantee for the first hit, very likely for the 2nd hit, somewhat for the 3rd and then seems to lose effect, so your other members are not out of the hook entirely. Masakado will hammer you with a Frei once for each draco that you managed to halt the previous turn, and he also follows the same elemental pattern as depicted when viewing elemental weaknesses left to right. So if you block a Fire, Ice and Storm on a turn, he will do 3 Frei's in a row, but if you repel or drain the first Fire, his turn will end then on the next turn he will ONLY do one Frei and then continue with elemental attacks. So to optimize defense, it's better to put on your taunting demon repel/drain elements that are either alternating, or in a LATE row (storm, wind, white, black). Masakado will shift his starting element once for each Magatsuhi turn, so if the fight drags on then it will eventally start with storm, wind, white or black and the fight gets harder at that stage so it's better to cut his turn short by then. Whenever Masakado is not using Frei, he might use Diarama depending on the different elements he was hit with before. So if you see he doing multiple Diarama's on the same turn, it's because you hit him with different elements like physical, wind, fire, etc. on the turn before. He heals consistently for 2k which is a considerable amount so it would be good to build damage dealers around the same element so he only heals once. Around 60% health he seems to start a 2nd fase, normally with a turn with 3 Frei's in a row, and from that point he will sparingly switch any draco attack for a Frei, and this is where the fight actually starts. He still follows the elemental "pattern" though, so instead of doing storm, wind and white, he might do storm, Frei and white, without you blocking his wind attack previous turn. Now... when he is around 40% health, he will start using Recalcitrant Execution. As far as I can tell, he is just replacing what WOULD be a Frei (because you blocked his corresponding elemental attack before or a random draco-to-Frei replace) to this horrendous skill. Masakado's build is pretty smart, this skill cannot be halted (nulled or repelled) and can CRIT, and if you weren't paying attention, his passive ability increases his crit RATE and damage with each abnormal status he has. Which means that the more he is debuffed, the higher the chance of he criting and doing boosted damage, and that's why you see that atrocious damage. At this point, as long as you keep blocking his elemental attacks, it's a DPS race, and I mean it. Relying on defense is RIP, because he will keep Diaramin' to your attacks and every now and then wiping half of your demons, which you will try to regain only to be wiped again. You can withstand this skill with a full guarding party (takes between 200 to 300 hp with full defense buffs, remember that guarding invalidates crit) or with Shield of God, but I'd strongly suggest (and every video I've seen does this) to try to go for the kill. Enduring soul seems to be pretty much a must at this point of the fight so you can keep hammering him. Hope this helps

[@areia17]

hey your comment has been helpful! the later into the fight im just bombarded with freikugels tho what am i supposed to do about that, like he stops casting draco and just frei for everything

[@areia17]

nvm somehow i did it, holy shit, shield of god was so clutch the entire fight, im never fighting him ever again

[@DMSwordsmaster]

I think my strat was, quite literally, overwhelming his offense with sheer greater offense. Sort of. I had Bub do debilitate stuff, I had Mephisto for solid damage, additional support and, most importantly, inflicting Mirage on Madakado near the end of the fight. I actually outfited the MC with Akashic Arts over Murakumo. Mostly because of weakness stuff and how it does more damage on crit than Murakumo. But he wasn't my main damage dealer. Would you believe me if I told you my main damage dealer was actually Eisheth? Not so much a raw consistent damage dealer, no. More of a "checkmate finishing move" kind of thing. How it worked is, she practically spent the whole fight guarding while keeping a charge from a charge gem while everyone else did okay damage to Masakado. Then when I got him down to about 70% or so, I started to try and inflict mirage on him with Stagnant Air. When that landed, on my next turn I went full offense. Threw up Savage and went nuts. Eisheth did *_40k damage in one hit._* He didn't survive the turn. In hindsight I should have had my party, at first, be Bub, a healer (probably Azazel with High Heal, I had one of those but I sort of glanced it over), Eisheth and MC. Would have likely swapped Bub out for Mephisto after Bub debuffed the boss. That way I'd have a little more MP to go around and a healer that wasn't "exhaust bead chains". Fun fight, though! Hard but manageable. It's neat how the weakness thing flips the dynamic around. He'd be intolerable otherwise. Also I guess I should add this was on normal lol. I imagine he's significantly less fun on hard.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

He's the opposite of Demi-Fiend in the weakness regard. Very nice strat, at least not cheesy like mine (although that's my mistake for trying to go for him without post-game demons.) I considered reverting to Normal, but I stuck to my repel strat and it paid off. Mother Harlot saved me so much trouble lol. 100000 HP is annoying to get rid of, especially with constant Diarama of 2000 HP.

[@jaffinator2166]

So what confuses me about this fight is if he can read affinities or not. I originally had Naho with Demi Fiend’s affinities and after killing my squad, he spammed Freikugel until I died. But here, it seems like he’s an idiot and attacks into Mother Harlot’s nulls

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Yup. Demi-Fiend has this same AI pattern: if you null phys, you're guaranteed to get hit by Almighty attacks only, instead. Resist Phys is a strong option, to avoid his spams.

[@stingerredshock3418]

Here, Mother Harlot used Taunt to neutralize his AI.

[@ubermaster1]

I definitely appreciate having more Superbosses other than Shiva and the final boss but "more phases", Masakados was a hellish experience on Hard, cant imagine how its like on Godborne

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Did it on Godborn yesterday. He's way tankier but at least his heals aren't as bad.

[@KatanaRikku]

Okay I didn’t even know dude was in this game but I am more surprised that they kept his theme from SMT IV

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

The theme slaps.

[@ZeroOmega-vg8nq]

well we also get SMT4 satan and his theme remixed as an ultimate superboss

[@_CE53]

@@ZeroOmega-vg8nq does he know

[@thestarfromyugioh]

5:34 Always good to see another SMT Fiver playing in the Japanese dub ⭐

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Bless! Yeah, I always play with the original voices because I don't want anything lost in translation (I mean in voice acting especially), plus I don't enjoy the more feminine voice of Nahobino in English. I find the contrast between his androgynous face and deep voice amazing. (Also, I think it's the same voice actor than Terry in DQ6, which is even more amazing since I love the guy.)

[@ItsYourXLNC]

His "true form" is a lot harder with 150K+ hp.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

I'm planning to do that next, in Godborn mode (level 150)

[@ToadtheGreat1]

@@kaiserkreuz2110True form godborn is gonna run you an least an hour and a half, good luck

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@ToadtheGreat1 probably not, with the setup I got. I'll tell you tomorrow.

[@ToadtheGreat1]

@@kaiserkreuz2110 Oh damn. The only existing hard mode run is an hour long so i’d be very impressed

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@ToadtheGreat1 Apparently, he played too safe while fighting him. Plus, there are so many 100k+ HP bosses in Godborn that I can grasp how much time it'll take me.

[@jackfavvv0280]

You don't need Michael's Essence. You can just get fire drain from Belial instead.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Yeah. Drain or Repel is fine, but I was locked out of both in that playthrough anyway. Also, it is more useful to get Repel for chip damage.

[@Magnet977]

Its wild how hard Masakado can be even on normal if you don't have a solid strategy and enough damage. Sometimes near the end of my fights I'd just give up a little bit of momentum to guard in order to prevent his outrageous crit damage from Freikugel or R.E from blowing me up. I'm amazed you had the patience to try it on hard, thanks for showing us how to do it! I'm wondering if just having Mother Harlot guard could help in really bad situations, if only to prevent crit damage and maybe lessen the pressure? You might have to give up some ground in terms of damage, but if it prevents a one shot could it help?

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Thanks! Well, considering he loves to heal himself, it's better to sacrifice guarding for damage (with Donum Gladi), otherwise you get a situation where he just keeps healing himself and you can't outdamage him, which is more of a waste of time than losing and trying again.

[@markhovscrch4050]

Does anyone notice SMT 4 intro of prologue theme while speaking on masakado?

[@JackFrostAegirine]

Yep. It's Masakado's theme from IV (simply just called ''Masakado''). It's actually the exact same track and wasn't remixed.

[@manutdfan231]

Just beat this last night on hard, if it wasnt for my suped up stats, this fight would have fucking destroyed my soul 😂😂😂. He wiped my team like 3 damn times!!! 😭😭😭

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Yeah it's very annoying to deal with. Can't blame you for suping up your demons. Great job!

[@LilAngelPrincess95]

I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall on this fight. He keeps opening his turns with triple mediramas. Healing 6k a turn. Then eventually he starts using almighty to one shot people.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@LilAngelPrincess95 Yeah, it's not a fight you're supposed to win on NG, but all you really need to do is maximize the press turns and have your meat shield with enough Vitality to tank 2-3 hits.

[@patrickripleyiii134]

Also remember that debuffs buff his crits, in a tight spot it's not worth it to debuff

[@LilAngelPrincess95]

@kaiserkreuz2110 I wasn't struggling too much with survival after a few runs, but he is just spamming medirama. It's incredibly frustrating to burn half my MP pool and then see him back at full health after one bad turn. I'm not joking when I say every 3-4 press turns of him was just medirama, then he'd attack. For the life of me, I can't figure out why he's casting it so much.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@LilAngelPrincess95 Yeah, I hear that. My issue with him is when he spams Almighty, but aside from that, get aggro from a demon with Repels so you have a chance to eat his turns. The rest, sadly, is RNG...

[@nala3509]

Good job but this fight is just so stupid. Why does this dude go for only Freikugel on my Demons when i have him at like half hp i don't get it at all.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

It's either his second phase, or you have your Nahobino and all other demons in null phys. The enemy AI reacts accordingly to null'd elements.

[@nala3509]

​@@kaiserkreuz2110 i have everyone on reist phys except mother harlot of course. idk it seems like he has a pattern at times but at the same time it seems so random

[@nala3509]

oh god i got it now i was so lucky this attempt. i know that im not gonna go for the harder version now lmfao😭

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@nala3509 yeah, I feel ya on this. I think it's just the phase where he starts spamming Almighty attacks, which is a pain.

[@soranagisa6318]

What essence are you using for nahobino?

[@OrangJuice100]

In case you’re curious apparently he replaces his weaknesses with heals. So if you use a physical skill on him, when he uses a physical skill it will be diarama. Same for any element. So if you use electric and he uses storm draco it will instead be diarama.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Damn! I wish I knew that ahead of time... but that means I can actually do him low level now. Interesting! Thanks for the pointers.

[@XIdivinityIX]

I didn't even know this was a boss fight till now😢

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

I got lucky to unlock it without a guide, since there's a step that requires you to own a specific demon.

[@breadandm5007]

trying to beat this fight on my own too, any tips for building that Mother Harlot?

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

It doesn't have to be her specifically, but tou need: - a demon with at least 2 innate repel/drain elements (she's the only one available with another I forgot about, when not in NG+) - 5 other repels (in MH's case, you get Fire from Michael, if you went the Law route, which I didn't, so I had to settle with Null Fire. Ice and Force from the archangels' essences, doing the "The Holy Ring" quest. Repel Dark from Vishnu's Essence, which is either collectible or obtainable after leveling him up enough. And Repel Light from Metatron.) - For the remaining slots, you use Fierce Roar for aggro so he doesn't try to slap your Nahobino instead, and Donum Gladi/Magici depending on your build, for double Str/Mag damage. Enduring Soul is not necessary. I should replace it with Great Life Spring so she can tank more than just one Freikugel lol Hope this helps!

[@thepotatooffire1368]

​@@kaiserkreuz2110I've been trying this with an all-Null Sandalphon (just the easiest for what I had) and he just ends up critting Freikugel and melting the rest of the team immediately. Any way to avoid that?

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@thepotatooffire1368 go for Repel/Drain, not Null: it'll cancel all his press turns in one go. Thay means less chances to get rekt by repeated Freikugel, although it may still happen, like in the video. If you have Null Phys on your Nahobino, it might also play in the favor of the Almighty spam (since it's been proven to be a thing with Demi-Fiend.)

[@fenrir517]

Masakado joining is hard to do since you need to have room in your demon party otherwise he will not join it happens to me and i had to start over

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

You unlock the fusion anyway, so you don't have to redo the fight. But yeah, I had room for him to join, so I didn't get that issue.

[@highwizard6764]

Just finished this. Was wondering if the Mastema passive + Omagatoki Strategize strat would work nicely here

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

You can definitely make use of it. If you have the Dagda DLC, you can even use the Dagda x Danu special to reset your turn count and have even more actions taken.

[@highwizard6764]

@@kaiserkreuz2110 I thought of that but I'm currently working on finishing True Neutral so Danu x Dagda isn't an option at that time. (Also not sure if the reset works since I only have Dagda though). I had to do with Arioch and pray. Was lucky as hell when Belial drained his fire attack 😅

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@highwizard6764 you need both Danu and Dagda, then only one in your active party. Danu can be gotten before your True Neutral ending, in the Empyrean. Also, he usually starts with Fire Dracostrike, so Belial/Michael is a good pick yeah.

[@touma5340]

Wow i just finished the game(vengence canon)on normal and didn't know this exist, where do I fight him?

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

You need to be on the Canon of Creation to fight him. However, if you got the Kiou Sword in Shinjuku, you can also fight a stronger version of him when you go back to it. You need Yoshitsune in your team once you arrive to Chiyoda (3rd zone in CoC, instead of Shinjuku) and do the questline that starts with him.

[@touma5340]

@@kaiserkreuz2110 oh so they added new quest on the canon of creation? That's actually cool that they even added new stuff on that version.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@touma5340 yeah, it's the definitive version of the game to play.

[@sephirothv5057]

Do you know where the lord's blade is located at?

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

It's from a quest you get in Kanda-no-Yashiro (the temple where you get the talisman before fighting Surt), but I forgot the conditions to trigger the quest. I think you have to free Oyamatsumi (the big rock guy from the start of the game) then go to them. I only did this in my first playthrough, so I kinda forgot after I kept blitzing through endings.

[@GanonAutumn777]

Does he go for freikugul more often if u debuff him? I only had shiva as my debuffer so masakado only had his defense down from tandava,i came so close to beating him until he spammed triple freikugul on nahobino and i died

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

He only spams Almighty attacks after he's down to 2/3 HP, then it's all a matter of you having buffed defense, or high enough Vitality to mitigate the damage.

[@GanonAutumn777]

@@kaiserkreuz2110 i see Ill keep trying then,at this point i got him down just gotta keep at it and pray he doesnt annihilate nahobino or my dps demons near the end Thanks for the answer ^_^

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@GanonAutumn777 he's the kinda boss you need to play aggressively against. If you have the Herald talisman and a Herald in your active party, you can use Shield of God to lower the Freikugel damage.

[@GanonAutumn777]

@@kaiserkreuz2110 i have metatron as my only herald so far,may as well put him out close to the end to shield of god the onslaught of freikuguls there and his signature aoe move

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@GanonAutumn777 Fire of Sinai can also be good thanks to his Innate Skill, so I suggest using him, yes.

[@blackquill9776]

Wanted to say thanks for showing me the taunt aggro strat, I'd have never thought of that and it worked wonders. Thanks to you, I managed to beat him on Hard! In my winning run I tweaked it slightly The strat I used involved a Shiva that I made immune to everything with taunt. When it was up I just had him guard every turn. This meant he was immune to the freikugel crits that came in the latter half of the fight where he starts spamming it. It wasn't always super reliable as Shiva would still die after 4 of them but I had everyone buffed and Masakado debuffed using debillitate. Beelzebub's ability was pretty good with debillitate although in hindsight I don't know if debuffing him is smart given he gets increased crit rate and crit damage from it I believe(?) My main damage dealers were Protag and Dagda both with a crit focused build. I'd throw on charge stones then use the crit magatsuhi. One final thing I'd like to mention as being somewhat helpful was kannabi veil. Not only did it help weaken the freikugels the tank would have to put up with but Masakado's worst attack is the almighty AOE that has a decent chance to crit someone for insanely high damage so it somewhat helps with that too.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

Thanks! I came up with it on the fly, since I noticed he loved single-target attacks. Your strat is good too. I kept Shiva as a defense-breaker instead, but it works too. I didn't debuff him because the damage difference isn't that huge, and couldn't be bothered to change my demons every two turns. I don't recommend guarding unless you easily outdamage him, because he heals at every occasion. Congrats on beating him!

[@zadkal8873]

No. Actually, debuffing Masakado is one of the most serious mistakes that can be made in this bossfight: The increase in rate and critical damage generated by his unique ability are GREATER than the decrease generated by his own debuffs. Only a - 2 Debilitate increases its critical damage by 60%, so it is absolutely NOT worth it and can seriously risk leading you to defeat (especially against "True" Masakado). Surely your Shiva would be able to tank it for more turns, without the debuffs.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

@@zadkal8873 yeah, his Innate is insane because debuffs count for it. I'm glad I didn't bother with it against him.

[@blackquill9776]

@@zadkal8873 Yeah at the time I was doing the boss fight I had no idea how strong his passive actually was - I just assumed the gimmick of the boss fight was that he hits SUPER HARD and you had to keep buffs/debuffs up at all times while having someone tank After unlocking and using Masakado myself the difference those effects make on his crit rate and damage is so insane, once I get around to the true masakado fight I'll likely just use buffs with a tank strat and kannabi veil/god's shield while ignoring debuffing all together. Although one thing I will say about the debilitate - My Shiva wasn't taking crit damage at all because he was guarding every turn and guarding completely nullifies critical hits, what got my Shiva killed was having to tank 4+ freikugals in a row; even while fully debuffed.

[@zadkal8873]

@@blackquill9776 True, but still the REAL danger of debuffing him does not come from Freikugal, but from Recalcitrant Execution, which damages everyone and can easily destroy your team in one shot.....a possibility that increases enormously in percentage, if it has also been debuffed previously. Taunt can't protect you from that, and Enduring Soul can only do it once. So the best solution to the problem is to predict the turn in which he will perform the move on you (I think he starts doing it when his HP drops to around 20%, at least in the videos I followed), exploit the first turns to damage him a little and preserve the last four to guard with the whole team. At least in a normal strategy, of course.

[@nahulscorp5152]

How yoshitsune do only crits ?

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

It's his Hassou Tobi, it's his signature move and it does 100% crit.

[@sonicsucks2961]

Will you be doing the other superboss (not shiva or demi fiend) on hard? Able to destroy demi fiend and shiva but the other superboss is giving me a run for my money. Havent tried masakado yet.

[@kaiserkreuz2110]

I'll try doing Satan once I get fully prepared, but he and Demi-Fiend, I lowered the difficulty because I wasn't too happy of losing 30 min and dying near the end. I already almost gave up on Masakado, so I'm happy I could at least find a reliable strat against him. Shiva is by far the easiest superboss, even on Godborn. If there are other bosses you have trouble against, feel free to tell me, maybe I have strats for them.