Part 240: Magician Personas

Welcome to the Velvet Room: It's a Kind of Magic

Today is actually only tangentially about magic, but the title is appropriate anyway because we're going to talk about The Magician in a whole bunch of contexts.

So, The Magician is the first proper card in the Tarot deck (the Fool being the zero) and if I understand right it signifies both confidence and immaturity. Mythologically it's associated with Hermes (who you may recall has already come up in connection with this Arcana in the game) and in Persona 3 it's associated with Junpei and that little creep Kenji who we'll be seeing more of in The Chariot's Social Link. We'll talk about how well it fits him later on when we've seen more of his Link and the story, but already we've seen him do some dumb shit stuff because he thinks he's a badass and that's one of the things this Arcana is about.

Magician Personas for the most part are exactly what the Arcanum's name suggests, casters. They most often focus on Fire, though a rare few focus on the opposite. Let's look at them in a bit of detail:

Nekomata- The very first Magician we can get, this is actually a very solid early Persona. She's resistant to Fire, has no weaknesses, and gets a good variety of skills.

Jack Frost- Everyone's favorite little frost fairy is always pretty weak in persona, but he's got his uses. He is immune to Ice and weak to Fire, gets a lot of nice Ice attacks and some utility, and has a Heart Item that renders you immune to the Freeze status (which can prevent you from dodging after you're hit by an Ice attack sometimes).

Pyro Jack- A serious step up in raw stat power from Jack Frost, Pyro Jack has the opposite immunity, weakness, and skills. He gets second tier fire skills but since Frost gets Ice Boost a properly leveled one could actually match him in damage pretty well. He also has a Heart Item, which when equipped lets you retreat more easily.

Hua Po- This little fairy is where we start getting some serious bite. She's immune to Fire and vulnerable to Ice like so many Magicians, and she both gets second tier power and Fire Boost. Even better, she is a source of Fire Boost as a skill card. Very worth making and using.

Sati- One of my personal favorite mid-level Personas. She's got good Fire skills, can heal, and can automatically get you out of battles with Trafuri. She's a great Persona to use Fire Boost from a Hua Po on, really, and can supply you with Media cards if you need them.

Orobas- An odd duck of the Magician Arcanum, this is a Wind Persona that is vulnerable to Ice and resists Darkness. It's got strong Wind magic and some physicals as well, and does a weird little dance thing that some people find really funny. If you find yourself needing a Wind user in its level range you could do worse.

Rangda- Rangda takes us back to proper Fire users, but she has a really weird set of elemental properties you need to keep in mind. She repels Strike attacks, but is only resistant to Fire (as well as Dark) and for this has Weaknesses to both Ice and Lightning. She does get some very nice spells, though, like Agidyne and Matarunda, so don't discount her out of hand just because she has crippling weaknesses, one of which is the most common one among your allies. Unless you're me, where that pretty much makes things a non-starter, then do discount her for those things.

Surt- Can you believe we're already at the end of the Magician? Surt is a solid, if somewhat low level, max rank Persona. He Drains Fire and is Weak to Ice, gets -dyne level fire and both the Boost and Amp, gets the Severe single target Fire skill Ragnarok, and has a Heart Item that renders the wearer immune to Fire. He's great if you max out Junpei's link in time to actually get him when you're in your fifties so make sure you do that so you can get some fun out of him before his tragically low level renders him comically useless in comparison to higher tier Arcana.

Magician Shadows are much like Magician Personas, they almost all focus on Fire or Ice and are vulnerable in turn to one of those two. Magicians have a lot of variety of form, commonly appearing as Hands, Magi, and Tables (as well as Mayas, of course). Generally they will use one of Agi and Bufu and be weak to the other, though you have to be a crazy person like me to actually remember which ones will be which.