Part 115: The Sadistic Stud-Keeping Secretary
Okay, so, one last bit of prep before we step through Pandora's Door. Gonna get four Tomes of the Void from Abaddon, and a bunch of skill cards from all over the place. What cards? Well, let's look at my Personae loadout for a second:
Michael is gonna be coming along for those Auto-kajas and nothing else. You won't be seeing him again in this update. Sorry, Michael.
Odin is, on paper, extremely not allowed for an Ultimate Boss fight. Pretty much every other one in the series would look at this Odin and tell you to get the fuck out and come back with a sensible loadout. Here? He's draining all 3 phys elements and Wind as a precaution.
Messiah is not in his perfect form. This is a crap Messiah I threw together to expedite grinding cards and serving one use here: Salvation and nothing else important.
Magic Skill Up is unique to Messiah and is Portable exclusive. It a 50% increase to all spells. All of them. Even Almighty, yes. And because it's not actually an Amp, despite being an Amp effect, it stacks with normal element Boost and Amp skills. He learns it at level 98 and it cannot be fused onto anything else. Keep its existence tucked away in the back of your mind for later. It won't be relevant today.
Surt, Norn and Skadi are all here as well as backups for if things go wrong and I don't feel like starting over. They all have the same loadout but with their respective unique spells (Panta Rhei for Norn and Niflheim for Skadi) as the only differences. Don't expect to see them in action.
Mara makes this update officially Not Work Safe and is gonna be doing all the physical labour. I don't care about his Ice weakness, because he won't be suffering any unexpected shrinkage from enduring the elements. Apt Pupil increases his crit rate to help make sure we can definitely hit one of Margaret's rules if we get bad RNG. Vorpal Blade is our main source of damage; Pralaya is the strongest backup and its pretty weak in comparison sadly.
Maralagidyne is still here because he only needs 7 skills. Its his unique spell and is Ragnarok but multitarget. 650 attack power, Fire elemental, slightly worse accuracy (95% vs 99% for Ragnarok) and it costs a whopping 32SP! That's 2 more than normal! We won't be using it here, though.
Okay, let's step into Pandora's Door and see what Margaret can really do...
Unavoidable Battle
So, since Margaret starts off the fight neutral to everything (except Expel/Curse, obviously) we'll just do burst damage ASAP.
Thunder Reign is the best pick to start off with since it guarantees Shock. Even without
Then everyone else just basic attacks for that guaranteed crit. Aigis might be able to get away with Akasha Arts if it double hits, but Ken and Mitsuru need to do basic attacks for sure. She's immune to Knock Down so we just get crit damage which is enough anyway.
Ken even has Primal Force and Vile Assault but they're straight up weaker than his regular attack. Primal Force is close but the high HP cost makes it lose out overall.
Speaking of Akasha Arts, lets see what Margaret can do. From her first turn onwards, she switches Persona around according to what phase of the fight she's in. Each one lasts for 10 of your turns. That's important.
Because, you see, Margaret does not get 2 actions in one turn. She gets 2 turns a round. That is a very important distinction, since it technically means debuffs last half as long as normal (this only matters sometimes) and you can get Analyze results for the wrong thing. Yeah, Analyze tells you her resistances. We won't use it though, since its technically inaccurate more often than not.
In the event Margaret crits, she'll use Power Charge here. Her first 10 turns are all Physical and her personae are the four Devas. Her resistances are affected by which one comes last on her turns; if its just an attack, she drains that element and is neutral to the other two. If its Power Charge you need to pay more attention:
Zouchouten drains Strike and is neutral to Slash and Pierce. Nullifies Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind. Uses God's Hand and Akasha Arts.
Jikokuten drains Slash and is neutral to Strike and Pierce. Nullifies Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind. Uses Brave Blade and Vorpal Blade.
Koumokuten drains Pierce and is neutral to Slash and Strike. Nullifies Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind. Uses Primal Force and Myriad Arrows.
Bishamonten drains Slash and is neutral to Strike and Pierce. Nullifies Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind. Uses all six of the above.
These all apply regardless of circumstance, except Bishamonten. His drain switches to whatever element he attacks with, which is why paying attention to that is easier. He just defaults to Slash for Power Charge.
At some point when Margaret drains Slash, I'm having Mitsuru use a Magic Mirror.
Margaret is okay with this.
Every now and then I'm gonna use a Megido or Megidolaon Gem to do damage when I normally couldn't. This isn't super crucial, but it helps a bit. If Margaret is missing at least 5000HP after 10 turns pass, great! You can continue the fight. If not? You just broke one of her 5 rules and get Megidolaon'd for 9999 damage.
Those rules, by the way, are really simple and easy:
- Don't use an Omnipotent Orb, specifically. You can drain/repel every element and be immune to all ailments and she won't care so long as you're not using the Orb.
- Do a cumulative 5000 damage every 10 turns. She needs to be missing 5000HP after turn 10, 10000 after turn 20, 15000 after turn 30 and 20000 after turn 40.
- Despite that, you have to win the fight before 50 turns pass. This rule applied in Persona 4 as well, so Margaret's consistent at least.
- Don't use Armageddon. Obviously this only applies if you don't finish her off with it.
- Don't use Valhalla or Infinity. Full invulnerable is even worse than being cheap about it.
She switches phases every 10 turns provided her HP threshold has been reached; 5000 is pretty easy all told. The first phase alone makes it possible to average nearer 10000, if not more with some good crit luck. She switches here from the four Deva to Mokoi for ailments.
She always follows it up with Poison Mist at the start, so that Magic Mirror earlier ensures it can't hit you. How nice.
During this phase, she's neutral across the board to all damage. Gonna be taking advantage of that, then.
For her turns here after the first, she goes ailment > ma-dyne for the most part.
If anyone is inflicted with any ailment, she just drops damage and Hamaon/Mudoon constantly instead. She can and will Hamaon/Mudoon in lieu of damage sometimes, but its mostly after hitting a weakness or when an ailment already exists.
Her second persona here is Neko Shogun. He's also neutral to everything like Mokoi, so we can do lots of burst damage no matter what.
She doesn't have overly many ailments at her disposal here, but it's not like it matters. Charm is obviously really, really bad with basically any team combination for obvious reasons. Having a setup where no-one has Diarahan is doable (Junpei and Koromaru), but Tome of the Voids are better so that's why we're packing those.
After 20 turns pass, you might not notice anything different at first. After all, Magarudyne was in Neko Shogun's wheelhouse as well...
But now she's dropped the ailments and is pure damage. She's using the four Mitama as spell equivalents to the Deva. I'm a bit disappointed its not the Si Xiang, but Margaret has a tendency to prefer humanoid Personae. The Mitama don't count directly, but they directly represent parts of the human soul so I guess it's close enough.
Much like the four Deva, her resistances switch around here but are much meaner than before:
Ara Mitama drains Fire, is neutral to Ice and nullifies Elec, Wind, Slash, Strike and Pierce. Only uses Maragidyne.
Nigi Mitama drains Ice, is neutral to Fire and nullifies Elec, Wind, Slash, Strike and Pierce. Only uses Mabufudyne.
Kusi Mitama drains Wind, is neutral to Elec and nullifies, Fire, Ice, Slash, Strike and Pierce. Only uses Magarudyne.
Saki Mitama drains Elec, is neutral to Wind and nullifies, Fire, Ice, Slash, Strike and Pierce. Only uses Maziodyne.
Yeesh. If Margaret hits a weakness here, she doesn't use Mind Charge. She just keeps on attacking and sometimes even uses the ST Dynes but very, very, very rarely. Like with the Deva, the one that comes last in Margaret's turns is what we have to pay attention to.
If she can attack in this phase, Mitsuru will be pretty decent but since that's only 25% of the time, this is pretty much entirely why I have Surt, Norn and Skadi.
It's worth noting that Margaret's stint in the second phase makes it really, really easy for her to drop to critical HP about now. It's honestly super simple to finish the fight in this phase with almost any team composition as a result. Even if you don't have great elemental coverage, for whatever reason, you can just Armageddon when she's at sub 10k HP and that still counts.
For the sake of argument, let's let 30 turns pass. At this stage, she enters a pretty simple pattern.
She uses Clotho to Mind Charge and Power Charge. She always uses both here.
...This is your reminder that Reflect is 100% legal in this fight. Clotho is neutral across the board to damage.
For her next 2 turns, she uses Lachesis to debuff or buff herself somewhat. She's not consistent about it, but she'll use Marakunda, Tetrakarn, Makarakarn...
Or Spirit Drain. She has other stuff as well, but they're more response oriented to very niche scenarios.
As you might expect, it's not your normal, everyday Spirit Drain.
Lachesis also happens to be neutral to all damage. If the fight somehow gets to this stage, it's not getting past it.
For her follow-up to Lachesis' large variety, she gets pretty boring honestly. Megidolaon for Mind Charge pretty much constantly. Just a normal one, but there's always a moment of doubt that it's not gonna be.
Fortunately, Atropos is ironically the safe Megidolaon here. Even with Mind Charge, she doesn't really crack 400 damage all that often.
Almighty Physical attacks don't exist here, so her Power Charge runs straight into mirrors every time without fail.
She'll hit herself for around 2000 damage a go with Vorpal Blade quite a lot.
Because I'm trying really, really hard to not win here (it's genuinely harder than it sounds!) I'm using a buncha stuff to just drag things out. Messiah heals, I use items to restore SP, if the Music Box we got for Christmas had a unique sound I'd be sick of it by now...
But let's let it get to turn 40. At this point, you've already lost and don't realise it yet. She's swapped to Pixie at this point, but this is a normal Pixie not her 9999 Megidolaon Pixie.
Oh yeah, she has two 9999 Megidolaon Persona. Slime for enrages and Pixie for if you're not good enough.
Problem here is that on turn 40 she will almost always cast Diarahan.
Can you do 30,000 damage in 10 turns? It's theoretically possible but...
Margaret finally gets serious here. She'll switch Personae constantly and they all have new surprises:
She has a new Persona for every element and they superdrain the one they use. Welp, so much for that idea then.
Thor here superdrains Elec and is immune to Slash for good measure. Always does Mind Charge into Maziodyne.
Surt superdrains Fire and is immune to Strike. Always does Mind Charge into Maragidyne.
Jack Frost superdrains Ice and is immune to Pierce. Always does Mind Charge into Mabufudyne.
Cu Chulainn superdrains Wind and is also immune to Pierce. Always does Mind Charge into Magarudyne.
But she has every element, remember? Metatron uses nothing but Mahamaon, and obviously he can't drain that. Instead, he nullifies Fire, Ice, Force and Elec and resists Slash, Strike and Pierce. Great.
And she has Alice for Mamudoon too. Mercifully, she only nulls Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind. No Phys resist here, which is good enough for me.
Oddly enough, her Pixie here is the best thing to see. If its first turn is Spirit Drain then the follow up is always Diarahan. But if it's Mind Charge, then you get Megidolaon'd instead.
It's not her Super Pixie, so it's managable. Pixie ends up being the best because it's neutral to all damage.
For the phys elements, she brings back the Deva from before. Exactly the same as the start of the fight, in fact, so their drains are just normal drains.
But if turn 50 comes and goes, well, you lose. Try again. Honestly, if it gets to the Moirai, then I'd be worried that something's gone wrong already. It should definitely never get past them, though, without purposefully letting it and even that's easier said than done. Plus, like, it takes about an hour to run out of time anyway, so you really have to be dragging your feet there.
...But well, okay. Let's actually fight Margaret for real now. Gonna keep the exact same Persona loadout as detailed above, but Surt/Norn/Skadi are straight up irrelevant so feel free to ignore them. Only change is that Ken and Mitsuru are dropping their Tomes for a different accessory. The limiter is being removed.
The Sadistic Stud-Keeping Secretary honestly just watch this its way shorter than you might expect
So, we'll be handling Margaret the same as before for the first 10 turns. Thunder Reign opener, everyone goes burst for Phys, then kick her around with Power Charged Vorpal Blades and/or Pralaya. Everyone else attacks, buffs or heals as needed.
It's super easy to fly past 5000 damage, so we'll get right to the second phase where things... change a little.
We'll be using Salvation a fair bit to remove Charm of course, but also Poison. Poison needs to disappear too, where possible. Remember, she'll do nothing but attack if anyone is inflicted with any ailment. We don't want that... from these.
It's wholly RNG how long she takes to do it, unfortunately, but her third and final ailment here is Rage. Good. We want this.
Remember, only Kotone and Aigis have Tomes of the Void. We could get away with Aigis also not having one, but that'd require good luck with Infuriate after a Matarukaja and this removes that risk.
See, here's the thing about Margaret using Rage here: it costs her the fight. She has no damage resists at all with Mokoi or Neko Shogun. Mitsuru and Ken both the same accessory equipped and it grants that there Raging Tiger passive skill.
Raging Tiger takes the Rage damage boost and increases it further. Combining that with Rakunda, Tarukaja and Thunder Reign for guaranteed crits? That's how you get Mitsuru to do over 1000 damage with a basic melee attack.
But, well, Rage has two more effects as you might remember from forever ago when we used it to destroy a Tartarus boss. It doubles damage taken, sure (Neko Shogun DOES use God's Hand, Primal Force and Brave Blade in this scenario instead of the Dynes, to fish for 2k+ damage crits), but the advantage is more in our favor because Enraged characters attack twice.
So, Mitsuru does ~2100 damage in one round with her basic attack. That's pretty good.
Here's the kicker, though: Ken is better.
Ken's basic attack in this scenario matches a Power Charged Vorpal Blade in Great status. You wanted Ken, you got Ken.
Why is Ken so good at this? Well, let's check his skills real quick:
He has Spear Master. Ken's still not the best person for this, though. He only hs 65 Strength with the Pinaka. Akihiko is technically marginally more optimal for this strategy but Ken still does around 2700 damage. I feel like at that point you're just splitting hairs.
Needless to say, taking upwards of 5000 damage in a single turn means that Margaret just kinda melts and never even makes it to the Mitama phase of the fight.
Odd that she gives any EXP at all, really.
Oh and I wasn't kidding when I said Margaret was the overall hardest fight we'll get here. The hardest part is probably the first 10 turns since without a good Phys loadout, you're just straight up fucked and there's no indication of why you've failed when you get 9999'd the first time.
Also the worst part about Margaret is that her "no!" voice clip plays for every hit in an attack animation, which gets really annoying really fast.
End Between Doors
I haven't had that much fun in a long, long time. You've made me a happy woman. I'll give you this, to symbolize how both of our powers touched.
I must go now, but I'll leave the Vision Quest Hall open. I'll continue to watch your battles from elsewhere... Stay strong... Kotone.
As promised, she just leaves now and won't be seen here again. You can still do the refights and halls for stat boosts/cards/items as you like (and you may have noticed that I sorta overdid the Luck one as a precaution, heh...)
The Bookmark we got from her is just gonna sit in our Key Items screen now and forever. It doesn't do anything else, but it doesn't really need to either.
Blues of the Soul
I have no doubt that you caused you a great deal of trouble, but I ask you to please forgive her. (sic) ...Still, it would seem that you have been strengthened by the ordeals she set before you. I would appreciate it if you would take heart in your growth.And with that, we can finally bring the Vision Quests to a close. All that's left now, is at the top of the tower. We still need to finally meet Nyx, and I think she's been kept waiting long enough.