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ꦡBy the July🔜 Full Moon Operation in , you’re definitely familiar with the ins and outs of battle, so the game shakes things up on you by making you fight two shadows again – but this time, they’ll come at you one at a time, back to back.
The first of the pair is the Hierophant, and between its multi-target electric moves and insistence on canceling your statu▨s-buffing moves, this fight can be a bit of a pain. For some help getting through the battle with the Hierophant arcana in Persona 3 Portable, follow along with our guide below.
Though we&rs🌌quo;ve focused on the battle itself, this guide will still contain spoilers for the third Full ꧙Moon Operation in Persona 3 Portable.
Hierophant Arcana Battle Setup
The Hierophant arcana is encountered on 7/7, during your third Full Moon Operation.
Recommended Party
For this Operation, we recommend bringing Yukari, Akihiko, and Junpei.
Yukari doesn’t actually give you a choice here – she demands to join the party, and you cannot swap her out for this fight by speaking to some🤡one else like you can at the start of oth🎃er battles.
Yukari is pivotal for her healing and support skills, especially given that she learns Diarama at Lv. 25. This skill will moderately restore HP to one party member, and is essentially a more p𒐪owerful version of Dia.
Additionally, with Hierophant capable of afflicting fear to your party, keep Yukari with you for easy access to Patra to dispel fear quickly.
Party members who are afraid may opt out of attacking on their turn, 🉐which you can’t afford to let them do ✨during a boss battle.
You will, however, need to be mindful of Yukari’s electric weakness. Be sure to level Yukari up a bit before the fight to try to reduce the damage as much as you can.
Junpei is great for both physical offense and additional support skills. He’ll definitely know Rakukaja by the time you begin this fight, so one use for Junpei is simply as support for this battle.
If you have time to let him get off some of his physical-damage moves, definitely take them! Hierophant is one of the few bosses you&rsqu𝓰o;ll find who doesn’t have a physical resistance, s𒀰o take advantage.
Akihiko is your real ace in the hole here, though. Not only does he resist electric magic, making Hierophant’s Zio skills effectively useless against him, but he also has fantastic physical damage output.
A boxing champion is sure to hit hard, but you can also boost Akihiko’s strength stat by visiting the police station and giving him armor or accessories to boost his strength.
Recommended Level And Personas
The Hierophant is a Lv. 24 shadow, followed immediately by Lovers, who’s Lv. 25.
We’d recommend being at the very least around these levels, if not higher. You’ll be okay combating the damage around these levels, but your teammates all learn some helpful moves for theไ fight just past the levels at which you encounter the shadows.
By this point in the game, you’ll likely have access to a Persona that knows Getsu-ei, which is a single-target move 🏅that inflicts medium slash damage.
However, the real power comes in using Getsu-ei during Full Moon Fights, as its power is boosted on the Full Moon.
You probably have either Ares, Tam Lin, Taraka, or Take-Mikazuchi in your Compendium, all of whom innately💎 know or will learn Getsu-ei.
Be sure to use it not just for this boss battle, but for any Full Moon operation where you fight a shadဣow without strength agai🃏nst slash damage!
Hierophant's Stats And Attacks
Below, you'll find a full affinity table for the Hierophant Full Moon boss, including its weaknesses and affinities.
Persona Affinity Table Key
Label |
Explanation |
Str |
This shadow is strong against this element, and attacks of this element deal less damage. |
Wk |
This shadow is weak against this element, and attacks of this element deal more damage. |
Rep |
This shadow will repel attacks of this element, reversing the damage onto you. |
Nul |
This shadow will nullify attacks of this element, and as such, they deal no damage. |
Drn |
This shadow will gain health from attacks of this element, so attacks of this heal the shadow. |
- |
Attacks of this element deal normal damage to the shadow. |
Hierophant Full Moon Boss Affinity Chart
Affinities and Weaknesses |
|||||||
Phys. |
Fire |
Ice |
Elec. |
Wind |
Light |
Dark |
Almi. |
- |
- |
- |
Rep |
- |
Nul |
Nul |
- |
Skills and Attacks |
|||||||
Mazio |
Light electric damage to all foes, with an 8🍷% chancꦛe to inflict shock |
||||||
Zionga |
Medium electric damage to one foe, with a 10% cha🌺nce to inflict shock |
||||||
Mazionga |
Medium electric🐓 damage to all foes, with an 8% chance to inflicꦡt shock |
||||||
Strike Attack |
Standard attack dealing strike damage |
||||||
Swift Strike |
Light strike damage to 🍒all foes that hits ꩵeach foe 1–3 times |
||||||
Prophecy of Ruin |
Afflicts fear to all foes |
||||||
Sukunda |
Decreases one foe's hit and evasion rates |
||||||
Dekaja |
Cancels stat boosts given to one foe |
How To Take Down Hierophant
How To Find Hierophant
Unlike most boss battles, you'll need to find the Hierophant shadow before you can fight it.
It's located on the third floor of the hotel, in theꦰ furthest room from the stairs - the one with an ornate curtain hanging above it.
Beware of the shadows that will try to fight you as you navigate the hotel - they're not hard, but you'll want all the HP and SP you can have for the fight ahead.
How To Fight Hierophant
Outside the obvious irritation of Hierophant having not one but two multi-target electric moves and Yukari forcing her electric weakness into the battle, you definitely need to be mindful of your team’s HP.
That usually goes without saying, but Yukari will likely take some pretty heavy damage, so be prepared to have her heal h🔯🐼erself with Diarama as needed.
If Hierophant manages to afflict fear onto the team, use the Patra skill or a gem with the same effect. You don’t have time to waste wit🌠h yo🔯ur party members too scared to fight, so heal this ailment as soon as you can.
Yukari will not have a good damage output for this fight, so make Yukari focus on support while yo♉u and the remainder of 𒐪the team lay into the shadow.
This is another battle where you do not want to use All-Out Attacks. Critical damage is definitely encouraged, but getting the boss on the ground may force it to waste a move getting back up.
Even if it does stay down, you'll just have that many more chances to lay into it, which are erased when you opt for an All-Out Attack.
And while it’s a bit of a cheesy strategy, one option you have is to use Junpei to spam Rakukaja on the party, as the more people who have stat boosts applied in your party, the more likely Hierophant is to use Dekaja.
Though that is definitely frustrating to lose your stat boost, Dekaja would be its only move on that turn.
Essentially, if you can make it waste a turn canceling your stat buffs, it has that much less time to attaꦍck you. The more stat boosts you can apply in that time, the better.
On the chance that it doesn’t use Dekaja and does attack the group outright, you’ll still have that defensive boost ♊applied on anyone on whom Junpei has us🦂ed the move before the attack, dampening the damage taken.
Outside these strategies, the battle is pretty much an outright exchange of damage. Choose your heaviest attacks from your hardest hitters to whittle down Hierophant’s HP ༺to fini🃏sh the battle.
However, be prepared, as Hierophant is not the only shadow you’ll take on during the July Full Moon Operation🅰 – the Lovers boss shadow is waiting to take on the SEES Team at the 🃏very same hotel as well.