Boss battle in the train

[borizb]

I'm having a difficult time beating this boss. I did it before on the original and portable, but it somehow is harder for me now.

-I am at the same level as anyone else according to online data function
-max weapons and gear from tartarus / shop on all characters
-enough items and personas on MC with elemental magic arsenal

-The enemy hits a little too hard
-doesn't have an elemental weakness i can exploit
-the boss summons allies with unknown affinities at random and has a rather short time limit on top
-the enemy has group attack skills but i don't have group heal at this point of the game,

I beat all Tartarus floor bosses on first try, i opened all chests and bought all gear. Yes i can lower the difficulty, but just having media on Yukari at this point would make this a fair battle, let alone groupwide -kaja or -kunda skills.
I don't get why Atlus needs me to grind 50exp battles in Tartarus for hours in order to get Media to make the boss fight fun. It's a little frustrating this early in the game.

[mdesaleah]

Buffs, and debuffs.

They are required since weakness spamming wont work for most bosses.

[armymdic]

I just focused on the boss and ignored the adds, worked for me. It helps if you have a persona with ice resistance equipped.

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Buffs, and debuffs.

They are required since weakness spamming wont work for most bosses.

Train Boss actually has no weaknesses...

If you're really struggling you could try this
* Get a fortune buff from the club
* Go to Tartarus and START FROM 1
** Do this in order to get a full Arcana Burst
* (As soon as you have Arcana burst) Go to the top most floor where you still get enemies
* Run between that floor and the one below that one to farm golden hands (Make sure to pick staff arcana to further boost exp if you can manage to down them/ All out attack them)

Above principle will level you FAST so use in moderation unless you want to trivialise the game... I went a tad too far on this one; entered Tartarus the day after I beat the train boss and rofl-stomped myself all the way up to the next barrier on the first day......

[borizb]

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Buffs, and debuffs.

They are required since weakness spamming wont work for most bosses.

No. I just beat it on second try without any buffs. The buffs are not goupwide, so i can spend 1 turn to buff 1 character with tarukaja for three rounds. i could as well just hit the enemy directly instead of buffing which would deal roughly the same amount of damage in total.

Originally posted by armymdic:

I just focused on the boss and ignored the adds, worked for me. It helps if you have a persona with ice resistance equipped.

Exactly. I hit it like mad in spite of very low hp on all chars and hoped for the best. It came down to luck, not skill. It cost me 2 revival beads and one full revival bead, but it worked in the end. The thing that nearly got me over the edge was when Yukari got Media on levelling up >>>after<<< the boss battle. smh


I stand by what i said in the first post. This battle is too hard for being the first boss fight.

[Overeagerdragon]

If you don't want to farm... here's a straight forward manner...

Get a physical Persona-deck with ice-resistance/block/repel but mainly get something like Rakshasa, Valkyre, Berith, Nekoshogun (though I think he's lvl 17)... you should be able to get the first 3 via fusion augmented with S-links (most physical persona's are either Strength or Chariot; both socials are behind the gymclub....the very first club you can join)

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by borizb:

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Buffs, and debuffs.

They are required since weakness spamming wont work for most bosses.

No. I just beat it on second try without any buffs. The buffs are not goupwide, so i can spend 1 turn to buff 1 character with tarukaja for three rounds. i could as well just hit the enemy directly instead of buffing which would deal roughly the same amount of damage in total.

Originally posted by armymdic:

I just focused on the boss and ignored the adds, worked for me. It helps if you have a persona with ice resistance equipped.

Exactly. I hit it like mad in spite of very low hp on all chars and hoped for the best. It came down to luck, not skill. It cost me 2 revival beads and one full revival bead, but it worked in the end. The thing that nearly got me over the edge was when Yukari got Media on levelling up >>>after<<< the boss battle. smh


I stand by what i said in the first post. This battle is too hard for being the first boss fight.

You are going to hate the second area then... enemies are very narrowly defined in weaknesses and start spamming insta-kill spells... the Barrier boss(es) is/are a high evading Light/Dark insta-kill spammer with no weaknesses either

[borizb]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

You are going to hate the second area then... enemies are very narrowly defined in weaknesses and start spamming insta-kill spells... the Barrier boss(es) is/are a high evading Light/Dark insta-kill spammer with no weaknesses either

You know, it's odd. I started playing Atlus games with Nocturne almost 20 years ago which i'd say was pretty hard, but rarely unfair (except maybe for the >>>optional<<< fiend battles if you come totally unprepared). Besides Nocturne, I also beat SMT V, P4 and 5 multiple times. The only games i ever had trouble with and thought were unfair / unbalanced for no reason were P3 and SMT IV.

It's a shame they reserve something that - because of its visual design and gameplay - is already niche, for hardcore audiences because of it's difficulty / learning curve. Now i gotta stop complaining or else the hardcore fans will be upon me in no time

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by borizb:

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

You are going to hate the second area then... enemies are very narrowly defined in weaknesses and start spamming insta-kill spells... the Barrier boss(es) is/are a high evading Light/Dark insta-kill spammer with no weaknesses either

You know, it's odd. I started playing Atlus games with Nocturne almost 20 years ago which i'd say was pretty hard, but rarely unfair (except maybe for the >>>optional<<< fiend battles if you come totally unprepared). Besides Nocturne, I also beat SMT V, P4 and 5 multiple times. The only games i ever had trouble with and thought were unfair / unbalanced for no reason were P3 and SMT IV.

It's a shame they reserve something that - because of its visual design and gameplay - is already niche, for hardcore audiences because of it's difficulty / learning curve. Now i gotta stop complaining or else the hardcore fans will be upon me in no time

Lol; I'd considder myself a tad of a hardcore fan but I honestly think your opinion IS valid though a tad misguided; but not through any fault on your part....

IMHO I would considder P3 the hardest in the series; they hit you with some steep curves straight from the start (like that first train boss that gets a 3min timelimit or the fact you can face up to 4 enemies in the second area that will start slinging Mudo-spells at you en masse without you having any form of protection against it, reasonably speaking and these are generic encounters...not even the elite ones that ALSO get introduced in that area)....

HOWEVER
That's mainly because the game lays a frickton of info on you straight from the start and doesn't really point out which of that info is crucial and what can be taken in passing...

Stuff like Arcana Burst, for example, CAN'T be ignored or you'll start lagging behind eventually... The fusion system also works a tad different... In p3 you're incentivised to breed a GOOD persona and then level it out till it has gotten all of it's abilities and through the Arcana Burst system this is usually ALSO a persona you can find on those floors... causing you to distill top-line persona's quite rapidly... at which point you leave all those arcana choices behind and pick the other ones like global exp or health-restore... you hardly ever choose the money one except if you manage to down a goldenhand via one-more/all-out because the amount of junk you find will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams already; any boost to that is overkill

P3 kinda expects you to be VERY familiar with how its systems work...making it a hard entry point for people who are less familiar with them

[FolkvarArt]

Originally posted by borizb:

I'm having a difficult time beating this boss. I did it before on the original and portable, but it somehow is harder for me now.

-I am at the same level as anyone else according to online data function
-max weapons and gear from tartarus / shop on all characters
-enough items and personas on MC with elemental magic arsenal

-The enemy hits a little too hard
-doesn't have an elemental weakness i can exploit
-the boss summons allies with unknown affinities at random and has a rather short time limit on top
-the enemy has group attack skills but i don't have group heal at this point of the game,

I beat all Tartarus floor bosses on first try, i opened all chests and bought all gear. Yes i can lower the difficulty, but just having media on Yukari at this point would make this a fair battle, let alone groupwide -kaja or -kunda skills.
I don't get why Atlus needs me to grind 50exp battles in Tartarus for hours in order to get Media to make the boss fight fun. It's a little frustrating this early in the game.

The summons are weak to one of the 4 basic; fire, ice, wind, lighting. By this point you may have a couple Persona capable of area spells (and O believe shifting to). Spam them shift to Junpei (if it’s there) and than spam physical attack “spells”. Use Yukari to heal as well as healing items. Did this on hard.

[borizb]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

Lol; I'd considder myself a tad of a hardcore fan but I honestly think your opinion IS valid though a tad misguided; but not through any fault on your part....

IMHO I would considder P3 the hardest in the series; they hit you with some steep curves straight from the start (like that first train boss that gets a 3min timelimit or the fact you can face up to 4 enemies in the second area that will start slinging Mudo-spells at you en masse without you having any form of protection against it, reasonably speaking and these are generic encounters...not even the elite ones that ALSO get introduced in that area)....

HOWEVER
That's mainly because the game lays a frickton of info on you straight from the start and doesn't really point out which of that info is crucial and what can be taken in passing...

Stuff like Arcana Burst, for example, CAN'T be ignored or you'll start lagging behind eventually... The fusion system also works a tad different... In p3 you're incentivised to breed a GOOD persona and then level it out till it has gotten all of it's abilities and through the Arcana Burst system this is usually ALSO a persona you can find on those floors... causing you to distill top-line persona's quite rapidly... at which point you leave all those arcana choices behind and pick the other ones like global exp or health-restore... you hardly ever choose the money one except if you manage to down a goldenhand via one-more/all-out because the amount of junk you find will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams already; any boost to that is overkill

P3 kinda expects you to be VERY familiar with how its systems work...making it a hard entry point for people who are less familiar with them

This.
Fully acknowledged.

[borizb]

Originally posted by nicfross51:

The summons are weak to one of the 4 basic; fire, ice, wind, lighting. By this point you may have a couple Persona capable of area spells (and O believe shifting to). Spam them shift to Junpei (if it’s there) and than spam physical attack “spells”. Use Yukari to heal as well as healing items. Did this on hard.

To me, grinding for better skills is not fun, but a chore and was imo invented to stretch playtime to give players a better feeling of value for their money. P5 instead offers way more content than grind, and also grinding in P5 means 99% running over low level shadows with your car, only the tougher battles are being fought manually - which is tons of fun.

Also in other Atlus games, it doesn't take forever to level up. It's such a drag in P3 even if you make the exp bonus your choice every single time, missing out on lots of money, skills ore personae. This is what bugged me in the original, and it has not changed a bit with the remake, which imo is a shame for anyone that's not a hardcore player.

[SushiJaguar]

Originally posted by borizb:

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Buffs, and debuffs.

They are required since weakness spamming wont work for most bosses.

No. I just beat it on second try without any buffs. The buffs are not goupwide, so i can spend 1 turn to buff 1 character with tarukaja for three rounds. i could as well just hit the enemy directly instead of buffing which would deal roughly the same amount of damage in total.

This is dumb thinking.

Originally posted by armymdic:

It helps if you have a persona with ice resistance equipped.

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Buffs, and debuffs.

They are required since weakness spamming wont work for most bosses.

This is smart thinking.

The fight definitely did come down to luck and not skill, but not in the way you believe. You were lucky to have beat it, because your skills are so incredibly lacking. You *can* grind the game out hardcore and power through everything, which is why the game tells you on floor 18 or 19 that the enemies are so weak that you should use the Rush command to auto-attack 'em to death. The game also gives you every -kaja and -nda skill in the game on the first "tier" of Personas you can fuse in Thebel (except the multi-target ones). They're huge bonuses, and are literally designed to be worth losing damage for one turn on one of three party members to get it. Door-kun can't target a weakness? No worries, Tarukaja on Junpei and do over 80 damage, right at the start of the game. It's stupid strong.

But you don't have to do that. Which is why the game repeatedly tells you to target weaknesses, make use of your unique ability to swap Personas, and perform All-Out Attacks for reliable damage output on enemies that are giving you trouble. Case in point, getting to the train means you fought the beetles in Tartarus. They're not *resistant* to physical attacks, but they have such high defense that they're not recommended. The bug is weak to Wind, though, so Downing it with Garu and then using an All-Out Attack pays off with a roughly 40-45% worth of HP knocked off. The train boss adds are also named according to which elemental weakness they have. Skeptical Tiara is weak to Electric, etc.

P3 and P3R do give you levels slower, sure, but if you get to the top floor of Thebel and bother to fuse Personas regularly, then you shouldn't have trouble with the boss. It's not the pacing that's the problem, it's not that the grinding is worse, or more tedious, or pays out less - it's you, dude. I'm sorry, but you aren't as good as you think.

(Also Arcana Burst didn't exist in the original P3, and is fully tutorialised along with all the other basics, including Shift. Which you should also know how to make full use of because you say you played P5.)

[Sengan]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

You are going to hate the second area then... enemies are very narrowly defined in weaknesses and start spamming insta-kill spells... the Barrier boss(es) is/are a high evading Light/Dark insta-kill spammer with no weaknesses either

I just poisoned it and watched it kill itself haha

[Ooka Shaka]

I always found it was a rite of passage to have the first proper boss in the persona games to be the hardest in their respective base games. Original Shadow Yukiko being the worst offender. I guess its the litmus test to see if the player has got to grips with the combat system.

[Tegridy Farms]

Here's one tip for buff efficiency when fighting bosses in the early game when you don't have area of effect buffs. 1 debuff on the boss takes 1 turn and is numerically the same as applying the same buff too your entire party which would take 3 turns. By that i mean putting Rakunda on the boss has the exact same impact on your damage output that putting Tarukaja on your entire party would.

This fight should be completely manageable if you just keep tarunda and rakunda on the boss the whole fight. Junpei and Yukari can exploit the weakness of 2 of the summons and if MC has a lightning skill that's the 3rd summon covered. Use the 1 mores that you get from exploiting the weaknesses of the boss summons to heal and reestablish debuffs on the boss as necessary but make sure to finish off the summons before they get a chance to act as this will make the boss waste turns summoning more. Eventually she will run out of summons this is the point where you want to start keeping tarunda up (as long as you keep party HP above 100 you can probably get away with only having Rakunda up for this whole fight as long as she is still in the part of her script where she summons adds) because then she will be using all her rounds to attack if you get this far in her AI script though you are probably cutting it pretty close too a train crash. It's even ok to let 1 party member fall below 100HP at a time as long as it's not MC just make sure to have a revival item ready and to revive them before their turn gets skipped incase the big aoe frost attack comes outThis is the strategy i used to beat the boss on merciless on level 10 (before you even get media. Thought i was going to have to come back with a persona that also knows tarukaja to buff Junpei with to get the damage out to finish the boss off in time but i was just barely able to pull it off with 0 seconds left on the killing blow.