In any SMT game, demons are one of the key things that sets the franchise apart from the others. Imagine is no different. Now before you pull a Dia and say "well I don't care about my demon" I recommend reading on to learn more about them first.
Choosing your demon:
So lets start with the basics. Currently there are about --->
300 demons<--- in the game (give or take a few), not including variations. That's a lot of demons. So your first question might be: Where do I start? What demon should I get? Well there are some questions to ask yourself first. Have you chosen a class? What is your play style? Your demon should compliment your play style and cover your weaknesses. For example typically you would want:
Melee:
Massive healing demon with some buffs and some crowd control to keep demons away from you.
Mage:
Some basic heals with some damage. Depending on your class of mage, DD wants heals while shotmage probably wants some extra damage/buffs
Gunner:
Similar to mage, however usually you want something to push everything away from you so you can blow a hole in its head :3
Enhance:
Very basic heals if any, with strong nuke skills. Your main damage is from your demon because....your a healer. NOTE: Demon Users are the easiest/fastest way to getting damage cap with minimal gear possible. Yes you dump a lot of money into your demon but.....it costs much less than trying to get gear for your char.
Note: You can really make any demon you want these are just suggestions :3
Features:
Features play a huge role in which demons are better than others. For example, a healer Pixie is not necissarily as good as an Elf healer because the Elf has a feature which boosts curative power. The English wiki features page *should* be up to date. But its best to cross reference between the actual demon page and the features page. (If something is missing please let me know and I can fix it)
Be sure to check out the Mitama Features. Some demons , like High Pixie, become really useful post-mitama. If you are starting out I would recommend keeping these in mind, but possibly picking your demon based on its Basic Features instead.
Next step in choosing your demon is choosing your alignment. Basically whichever alignment gives you the most boosts in terms of soul stones and tarots. You want a demon within this alignment for something called Summon Synchro. When your demon is contracted or above they get a damage boost. The more your demon likes you, the more boost you get. Remember to keep re-summoning your demon as this boost only lasts for 30 minutes (For Linked By Fate...it's less for lower friendships)
Fusing:
When fusing your demon try to plan out all the skills you want on it first. With WILDCAT (WC) runs, you can get skills using SP but it would be best to start with a set of skills you can run with for a while.
Check out the --->
fusion<--- page to see how to fuse demons. If you need help planing a demon feel free to leave a comment here and I can help get you a path. (More info in the FAQ)
Keep in mind some demons require trifusion and/or have plugins. Certain demon plugins are a pain to get so If this is your first demon, consider starting with a non-plugin double fusion one.
Rebirth:
Now that you have your demon, its time to start on the road of making them op. The first step is through rebirthing. Check out the --->
rebirth<--- page on the wiki to get some basics about rebirthing.
If this is your first demon, you should be good rebirthing 4 times in the paths that matter for your demon. If you want to max out your demon feel free :D
NOTE: Its a good idea to finish however many rebirths you want in each path. Its fairly expensive to move between rebirth paths as you need the runestones for that level plus the levels, and the money. For example if I want to move between R3 Pertho to R3 Tiwaz I would need 60k Macca, 5 Tiwaz Runestones, and 40 levels on the demon.
Typically, you want to rebirth your demon into their "final" path last.
Lets take a look at an example demon:
Atropos is pretty obviously a mage, therefore I want to have her end in Perthro as it will give the most spell stat boost as you level. So where do I start? Typically I start in Sowilo. Its an all stats boost which is a decent place to start. After typically you want to rebirth her into Wyrd as her mp pool is decent but wont hold up in longer WC runs.
After the Wyrd rebirth her into the other things that raise the spell stat, and then rebirth her finally into Pertho. Then tadaaa~ your rebirthing is done. Your ending path is totally your choice. Wyrd gives a slightly smaller stat boost but in every stat. Check out the stats at the bottom of the rebirth page to make your decision.
NOTE: If you plan on mitamaing the demon, you will want to get to rank 8 in all the rebirth paths. This includes the things you typically would not need (ie Tiwaz on a spell demon). As far as I know you need to have max R8 before you Mitama to make the best use of it. If this is a first demon, I would recommend planning around having only 4 rebirths in each path as 8 is costly and time consuming.
Soul Points:
So you have 8 skills on your demon. Your done right? Usually, not quite. Through WC runs you can get really good passives with SP. Once again ---->
click this<---- and get some reading done. Those passives are pretty great.
Using our example I can then change Atropos's skills to be:
Prominence, Tornado, Cocytus Pain, Overkiller 3, Overkiller 2, Hot Pursuit 2, Satisfaction 3, Spin Booster +
I've replaced all her original skills, but now without gear I have Lb chance, technical attack chance, higher crit, and better offensive skills.
The less skills you can replace, the better but SP skills are too good to pass up at times.
Devil Force
Here is the wonderful little --->
wiki link<--- for the quest that must be done to use this system.
Also the --->
wiki link<--- for an overview of the system.
You can feed random consumables to your demon to boost their base stats. While the base stats
don't raise that much with the new update they increase faster o.o, some of the passives found in the second link are pretty great. Since those are random however, sometimes its best to put things that you actually want on there. Devil Force items can do the job for you. --->
A list<---(scroll to the bottom)
As you can see those items allow you to specifically boost certain skills/stats you want.
By spending 40k sp at any yagiya in the cathedrals (second option) you can get DF items :D
Mitama
Mitama mitama mitama....the wonderful macca sink. Mitama fusions are crazy useful and super important in hitting damage cap with as little gear as possible. As per usual read up on the --->
wiki<---
Most of it is pretty self explanitory however I'll add in a few reminders:
-When planning your demon's mitamas keep in mind you can only mitama strengthen as many rebirths as you had pre-mitama. For example if I wanted both 25% Fire and 25% ice boost I would need r8 Pertho pre and post mitama.
-You will need 1 mitama for each strengthen you do. So yes....for 25% fire boost you need 4 Ara Mitamas to use. (yay rags shop...)
-For lack of a better way of explaining this one...I'll use an example. If you have 1 Ara, 3 Nigi, 1 Kusi, and 3 Saki Mitamas on wyrd you get 10% lb power and chance as well as the crit bonus. Basically you can get multiple passives from strengthening if you plan your mitamas correctly.
-Mitama Demon Growth Sciences is SUPER useful. I highly recommend everyone getting this at some point with the crazy exp cap. If you are a demon user I would get this over c5 enhance. I did it the other way around and it was a bit of a pain. The damage increase, the speed boost, the sp gain, all of it makes this worth it.
-Keep in mind that your demon force slots all unlock after mitama too.....and Digitalize (after Dlvl5) requires mitamaed demons to so...wooo *confetti*
Demon Sacrifice
-I suggest reading --->
here<--- for a list of demon sacrifice skills. If you are starting out Vinyl Strike is a good Demon Sacrifice skill to look into (you need a Moh Shyvuu to 94 anyway so you can either fuse or sacrifice the skill.) as you can hit damage cap with 0 gear on a super AoE.
Help with Demon fusion paths:
I do like poking around and planning demons. If you want some help planning please leave the following:
Character class
Alignment
Desired Demon
Skills Preferred (If you have any)
First demon or end game demon?
I'll get on the fusion paths as soon as I can as well as a proposed mitama path ^_^.
