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If you’ve played a Persona game before, you may be expecting to bump into The Reaper at some point throughout your adventure, and definitely doesn’t disappoint. Debuting in P3, this is a famously-difficult battle, as your foe is as strong as can be and knows just about any attack you ca🦩n think of.
That said, defeating The Reaper is not impossible, and in fact, doing so leads to some pretty sweet bonus levels in Tartarus. If you need some help🌸 taking on the famously tough Reaper fight in Persona 3 Portable, you’ve come to the right guide.
While we focus ൲on combat, beware of any stray spoilers for the plot of Persona 3 Portable ꩵin our guides!
How To Spawn The Reaper
Thankfully, for as tough as this optional mini-boss can be, he’s not that diffic🍒ult to summon &🌠ndash; even on accident.
To make The Reaper spawn, simply stay on one floor of Tartarus for a while. The time needed to make The Reaper spawn in P3P can range greatly depending on the size of your current floor, with larger floors taking more time.
However, outside of teleportation floors, The Reaper can spawn on almost any floor of Tartarus. This means that, unless you’re planning to fight him, don’t stay on one floor for too long.
How To Know When The Reaper Spawns
Mitsuru or Fuuka will fire a warning shot on the navigation channel, depending on who is guiding you at the time, warning you that they sense Death approaching.
After this warning, you and the team have roughly 30 seconds to get out of there before The Reaper spawns in. Your nav person will ping you a second time about Death, and when you hear the rattling of chains after their second message, it means that The Reaper has spawned.
While you cannot slow his arrival outside not spending too much time on any given floor of Tartarus, there are things you can do to make The Reaper spawn faster.
- Exploring a floor without shadows.
- Exploring a floor with only red, powerful shadows.
- Exploring a floor with more shadows than normal, all of which are golden hands.
- Drawing a cursed card with a black skull from Shuffle Time.
The rewards on the cursed cards in Shuffle Time will often be higher than what’s normally available in that area, to tempt you into choosing it.
Picking a cursed card doesn’t immediately spawn The Reaper, but simply speeds his spawn time. If you think you can get𓆉 away quick enough or are ready to fight, the cards lead to plenty of extra cash and weapons!
When you hear the sound of chains, The Reaper is on his way. If you’re not ready to fight him, though, you can leave the floor to despawn The Reaper.
However, if your party is split up and he catches someone as you’re trying to leave, they’ll be caught off guard and roped into battle.
You can either join the fight to try to save them or use the time that The Reaper is distracted to leave the floor yourself.
If you leave the party member behind, they’ll be back at the entrance to Tartarus again the next time you go down there as if they🔯’d been fighting an ordinဣary shadow.
Wait To Fight The Reaper Until Late-Game
While you can trigger The Reaper’s arrival within any block of Tartarus, it doesn't mean that you should. We can’t stress enough how much we recommend waiting to fight him.
The Reaper, regardless of where he’s encountered in Tartarus, is a Lv. 99 shadow. He knows the heaviest versions of every elemental attack, he’s got Element Break spells to negate your party’s strengths, multiple insta-kill moves, and 5,000 HP you need to deplete before he falls himself.
Even with properly powered teammates, you’ll find that most of your offensive moves amount to chip damage. That’s because The Reaper is strong to every element that he doesn’t totally nullify.
That’s except Almighty, to which he has a regular weakness.
However, these strengths can be negated with your own Element Break spells. Casting the🥂m on The Reaper works like any other shadow, allowing you to hit that element for norma💜l damage instead.
Because of all this, we recommend waiting until your party members are properly leveled. If they’re too far below roughly Lv. 70, it may be ♏best t☂o skip the fight altogether until you’re strong enough.
Defeating him will unlock an achievement/trophy, called "The Reaper Becomes The Reaped."
However, if you’re looking to fight The Reaper as part of one of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Velvet Room Requests, which leads to the unlocking of The Monad Depths, ten bonus floors of Tartarus, you’ll need to fight The Reaper with Request 53 active.
The Reaper will not drop the Bloody Button you need to bring back to your attendant as proof of the battle if Request 53 isn’t active, meaning you’ll need to🎃 fight him a second time after accepting the reque⛄st later on.
Between that and The Reaper’s level, many players opt to wait until late in the game to attempt the fight.
The Reaper's P3P Affinity Chart
Below is the absolutely massive affinity chart for The R🥀eaper 𓃲in Persona 3 Portable.
Affinities and Weaknesses |
||||||||||
Slash |
Strike |
Pierce |
Fire |
Ice |
Elec. |
Wind |
Light |
Dark |
Almi. |
|
Str |
Str |
Str |
Str |
Str |
Str |
Str |
Nul |
Nul |
- |
|
Skills and Attacks |
||||||||||
Agidyne |
Heavy fire damage to one foe |
|||||||||
Maragidyne |
Heavy fire damage to all foes |
|||||||||
Budufyne |
Heavy ice da꧃mage to one foe with a 10% chance 🥂to inflict freeze |
|||||||||
Mabufudyne |
Heavy ice damage to all foes with an 8% chance to in♍flict freeze |
|||||||||
Ziodyne |
Heavy 😼electric damage to one foe with a 10% chance to inflict shock |
|||||||||
Maziodyne |
Heavy electric damage t൲o all foes with an ✃8% chance to inflict shock |
|||||||||
Garudyne |
Heavy wind damage to one foe |
|||||||||
Magarudyne |
Heavy wind damage to all foes |
|||||||||
Hamaon |
40% chance to ins🍰ta-kill one foe using light magic |
|||||||||
Mahamaon |
35% chance to insta-kill any foe on the 💞field using🦩 light magic |
|||||||||
Mudoon |
40% chance to insta-kill one foe using dark magic |
|||||||||
Mamudoon |
35% chance to insta-kill any fo𓂃e on the field using dark magic |
|||||||||
Megidola |
Heavy almighty damage to all foes |
|||||||||
Megidolaon |
Severe almighty damage to all foes |
|||||||||
Myriad Arrows |
Medium pierce damage to all foes that hits 1–๊3 times per foe |
|||||||||
Vile Assault |
Heavy pierce damage to all f🦄oes, dealing 1.5x damage to downed foes |
|||||||||
Vorpal Blade |
Heavy slash damage to all foes |
|||||||||
Pierce Attack |
Standard attack dealing pierce damage |
|||||||||
Fire Break |
Decreases one foe's affinity for fire magic to average and cancels any nullifications |
|||||||||
Ice Break |
Decreases one foe's affinity for ice magic to average and cancels any nullifications |
|||||||||
Elec Break |
Decreases one foe's affinity for electric magic to average and cancels any nullifications |
|||||||||
Wind Break |
Decreases one foe's affinity for wind magic to average and cancels any nullifications |
|||||||||
Life Drain |
Drains 35HP from one foe |
|||||||||
Spirit Drain |
Drains roughly 80 SP from one foe |
|||||||||
Mind Charge |
The next magic attack will deal double damage |
With insta-kill moves on hand, be sure to bring a few Homonculi into the fight, which can absorb one insta-kill move each.
The Reaper Battle Strategy
Which Party Members To Use
Unlike with almost evꦛery other boss in P3P, we don’t have an exact party recommendation for The Reaper - be💫cause The Reaper himself is unlike every other boss.
One of the reasons we suggest you wait a while before attempting the battle with The Reaper is that your teammates learn Amp and Break skills throughout the game t🤪hat can cancel and/or exploit The Reaper’s resist♚ances for three turns.
In conjunction with these, they’ll also learn -dyne versions of their elemental spells, which will be of massive help in the battle🐓 ahead.
Below, you’ll find a table of these helpful Break/Boost moves that your party members can learn, as well as when they’ll learn 🌼each move to help you make a plan of attack to fight The Reaper♔.
"Boost" passive skills increase the power of the element listed by 25 percent, while "Amp" passive skills will boost it by 50 percent.
Your Teammate's Most Helpful Moves For The Reaper Battle
Teammate |
Skill |
Learns At |
Yukari Takeba |
Garudyne |
57 |
Wind Break |
60 |
|
Junpei Iori |
Fire Break |
60 |
Agidyne |
64 |
|
Mitsuru Kirijo |
Ice Break |
61 |
Ice Amp |
76 |
|
Akihiko Sanada |
Ziodyne |
53 |
Elec Amp |
76 |
|
Aigis |
God's Hand |
77 |
Ken Amada |
Ziodyne |
55 |
Primal Force |
65 |
|
Koromaru |
Agidyne |
45 |
Fire Amp |
77 |
|
Shinjiro Aragaki |
God's Hand |
77 |
It may work out best for you to assemble your own roster of Personas before assembling your SEES teammates, though.
If you’ve waited a while to fight The Reaper, you’ll likely have access to high-level Personas from your Compendium, like the ones that result from maxed social links.
These are the Personas most likely to learn moves dealing severe damage. Below, you’ll find the names of those moves, as well as the Personas capableꦐ of using them.
Severe-Level Magic Attacks
Skill |
Element |
Persona |
Arcana |
Learns At |
Ragnarok |
Fire |
Surt |
58 |
|
Niflheim |
Ice |
Skadi |
86 |
|
Thunder Reign |
Electric |
Odin |
63 |
|
Panta Rhei |
Wind |
Norn |
(Innate) |
These four moves all consume massive amounts of SP, so come prepared with items to replenish it.
Thunder Reign specifically is a fan-favorite, as it inflicts shock, so long as it hits. The Reaper is susceptible to shock, and physical attacks will land critical hits.
If you’ve got any of those four Personas, it’ll be best to bring them and a teammate with that Break spell if your Persona doesn’t have it themselves. That way, you can count on a teammate to cancel the resistance and your Persona to take advantage.
Even with the strongest teammates and Personas, this battle will take a while. In tandem with your Break/Boost moves, be sure to bring a healer or two, as you’ll definitely be losing health๊ and probably teammates throug🍨hout the battle.
Though it may be helpful to focus on also having Personas that drain certain elements, beware that The Reaper seems to factor strength and weakness into choosing his moves, so your Personas draining or re🥂pelling moves may not fact꧒or in.
A good way around this is to bring Personas with as few weaknesses as you can.
Don't Use Barriers, Omnipotent Orbs, Or Too Many All-Out Attacks
Because the fight wasn’t already stressful enough, The Reaper doesn’t like it when you use a handful of different items or spells to try to give yourself an adﷺvantage.
Makarakarn and Tetrakarn are usually great options to use to erect either a magic or physical barrier, respectively. This will usually shield each teammate from one magic or physical attack and repel it back at the attacker.
Additionally, if you’ve lucked into an Omnipotent Orb, which can be obtained on a one percent chance from Messiah’s Heart Item, or in a NG+ run of P3P after defeating The Ultimate Opponent.
However, don’t use Makarakarn, Tetrakarn, or Omnipotent Orbs during this fight. Doing so will immediately coerce The Reaper into using Megidolaon, which deals severe almighty damage and will likely prꦅove f♛atal to anyone whose level isn’t maxed out.
It’s unlikely that this will happen unless you’re playing your team very carefully, but if you have the chance to perform two consecutive All-Out Attacks on The Reaper, reconsider.
Hitting The Reaper with two All-Out Attacks on back-to-back turns may also cause it to use Megidolaon.
However, using too many All-Out Attacks can also cancel The Reaper being dizzy after you’ve downed it.
If you can shock and then physically attack The Reaper, he’ll be too dizzy to get up, which will force him to waste a turn. This is a great time to pull off any buff or debuff moves without fear of being hit.
How To Beat The Reaper In One Move
We know we’ve offered▨ quite a lot of strategy info above, but if you’d rather avoid the long and arduous baꦛttle with The Reaper, there’s a way to do so.
The owner of Shinshoudo Antiques, located at Paulownia Mall, is able to sell you Fusion Spells after she opens on 6/9. These are ultra-powerful moves that only your protagonist can use in battle, offering a variety ඣof effe🦩cts depending on which you purchase.
The most powerful of these Fusion Spells is without question Armageddon, which is described as “deal[ing] ultimate damage to all foes.” By that, the owner of Shinshoudo Antiques means that the attack deals 9,999 damage to all enemies in battle.
And while The Reaper does have plenty of HP, having your protagonist deploy Armageddon will kill The Reaper in a single turn.
However, the Fusion Spell definitely doesn’t come cheap. It’ll cost you 99 Malachite and 10 Rubies.
Malachite is easy enough to find, and you’ll likely f👍ind yourself maxed out before too long unless you’re spending it regularly.
Unfortunately, Rubies are hard to come by. Like any gemstones, you can find them in Tartarus by defeating shadows. Those shadows, however, are only in later blocks of Tartarus.
Shadow |
Spawns on Floors |
Block of Tartarus |
Mighty Beast |
165-179 |
|
Jotun of Blood |
180-190 |
|
Noble Seeker |
245-261 |
Even from these shadows, obtaining rubies from drops depends on the Luck stat of the Persona you’ve got equipped.
You can boost your Luck stat on any Persona using cards from Shinshoudo Antiques.
However, you can also get a total of six rubies𒁃༒ through other means.
- Request 71 in the Velvet Room will yield three Rubies.
- Tanaka’s Amazing Commodities will sell one Rubies on 11/8.
- Tanaka offers two Rubies on his program as well on 12/6.
Once you’ve got the 99 Malachite and 10 Rubies, go to Shinshoudo Antiques, select “Trade for Item,” and scroll to the very bottom to locate Armageddon.
After you’ve got the Fusion Spell, simply trigger The Reaper’s spa๊wn, wait for your protagonist’s turn, deploy Armageddon, and watch as The Reaper goes down, probably before it even gets to atta🌟ck.