SMT5: Vengeance [CoV] - Mastema (Low Level, No Fusion/Demon Modification, Hard)

Описание: Rules:
1. Hard difficulty, New Game.
2. No fusion or using essences to alter the skillsets of demons.
3. Essences used for Nahobino's resistances may only be Proto-fiend essences, purchasable from the Cadaver's Hollow, or be from recruitable demons at or below the Nahobino's level.
4. No resistance-altering passives on Nahobino.
5. EXP gain is limited to forced battles, Main Quest completion, and abscesses, minimized when possible. Additionally, abscess completion will be delayed as long as possible.
6. No Balms, Incenses, Sutras, Gospels, Grimoires, use of petrified demon statues, Omagatoki: Luck, or stat-boosting Miracles.
7. The Demon Haunt may not be used for stat boosts or items.
8. No use of the Skill Manifestation miracle.
9. Guest party members or demons may not be used when their level exceeds that of the Nahobino.
10. No Dampeners, Block skills, Tetrakarn, Makarakarn, Attack Mirrors, Magic Mirrors, or Luminescent Mirage.
11. No Taunt/Fierce Roar.
12. No Enhanced Summon.

Yep, that's right, after having to break and abandon some rules for multiple of the major bosses, we finally have a boss where not a single rule was broken! (Unless you count me continuing to use non-Proto-Fiend skills and using items with my demons as a rule violation, but I don't consider it one because I abandoned those rules entirely for the remainder of the run) In fact, I even abided by the unofficial rule of not stacking Omnipotent Succession with any other Magatsuhi effects.

Anyways, Mastema is the very definition of a gimmick boss. To start, Mastema's innate, Crime and Punishment, makes it so that every time you hit a weakness or get a crit, he gets one extra flashing press turn icon on his next turn, and he has 2 press turns by default. In other words, he punishes you for playing the game correctly, and sometimes even for getting a random crit. Despite having an innate revolving around getting hit with weaknesses, Mastema's resistances are ridiculously good, he repels Ice and Force and nulls Light, and only has one weakness in Fire. He doesn't even have any Ailment weaknesses! Because of his resistances and innate, the best build for Nahobino to have is to simply refuse to play his game and use either a strong Physical attack or Thunder Reign as your main offensive skill. Since I didn't want to invest in Elec potential this late in the run, I chose to use Madness Nails, which is stronger than Nihil Claw or Catastrophe on a single target.

In terms of skills, Mastema has a ton of them. He has Dark Sword, Seething Mansemat (an AoE Phys skill that always crits and has an extra crit damage multiplier), Zanbarion, Untainted Wind (strong AoE Force skill that inflicts Charm and double Debilitate), Hamabarion, Mahamabarion, Freikugel, Great Lament (strong AoE Almighty skill that can inflict Poison or Mirage and does more damage on targets inflicted with ailments), and Luster Candy. Fortunately for us, he can only use his unique skills and Luster Candy if he gets extra press turns. The best affinities for Nahobino to equip are Ganesha's, which are purchasable from Cadaver's Hollow and resist Phys, null Force, and are neutral to Light.

The combination of a problematic innate with an extremely varied skillset may seem like the recipe for an extremely hard fight, but there's another gimmick to this fight: Mastema has a turn cycle. At the start of the fight, he only uses his Light skills. After passing a certain HP threshold, he gathers Magatsuhi for an Omagatoki Critical Mahamabarion. After that, his next turn will be Phys skills, and then he starts to alternate between Phys turns and Light turns. Then he gathers Magatsuhi for an Omagatoki Critical Phys turn, then his next turn is Force skills, then the cycle is Force-Light-Phys, gather Magatsuhi for Force turn, next turn is Almighty skills, then the cycle is Almighty-Light-Phys-Force. Because of this turn cycle, we do not need to use any barriers, all we need to do is swap in demons that null Light on Light turns, resist Phys on Phys turns (or null if your name is Gigachad Gogmagog), null Force on Force turns, and swap in demons with high HP on Almighty turns while using Kannabi Veil and Guarding. Note that, since Nahobino with Ganesha's affinities nulls Force, you can use Fire Gems (or Agidyne with Queen Medb) on Force turns without worrying about taking damage, but I didn't do that in this attempt. Most importantly, due to our constant demon swapping, we don't need to use Luster Candy in this fight, we can instead use Inflaming Divinity, since Nahobino is our only real source of damage.

Just like with Dazai and Abdiel, there is one more source of challenge for this fight: conserving our MP items. We really do not want to use a single Chakra Pot on this clown. So, you can grind Chakra Drops with your Navigator and take advantage of Magatsuhi Wellspring and Invigorating Defense. With this strategy, this fight is very easy but also very long.