Could use some tips for the true final boss. (SPOILERS)

[⭐Lemeza⭐]

Been at the Shinki finale in Pandemonium for 3 days now.
Trying some stuff here and there, and feels it's doable, but could use some suggestions.

My team is near maxed out, and using the top 3 sleepers: Shinki, Kikuri and Sariel.
Sumireko and Sariel are on Heal/Debuff duty, while Shinki and Kikuri are damage.

- What's the best affinity to fuse on the entire team for this fight ?

- Also, what's the best use of SP ? I'm using "Prevent Turn" when she mass debuffs, but maybe there's better.

- Am I missing some gear that might prevent conditions on Sumireko ? It's when she's paralyzed or confused that stuff starts going haywire.

- Skill-wise, I feel I'm ok (HP/MP Spring on everyone for example), but maybe I'm missing some big meta skill combo I'm not seeing.

[Kupi]

This is where I'm at in the game right now. I haven't won yet, but here are my observations and the strategy I'm working toward:

Shinki has more abilities than are listed on her analysis page. In particular, she's got a number of Bullet-elemental attacks, including Poison Dart, Tranquilizer Dart, Bullet Hell, and Guard Pierce. However, I've never seen her use a wide-angle elemental skill, which is good because she appears to have every elemental Amp skill as well (another source of status effects). Assuming she uses her skills with equal probability, this means she has almost as much chance of using a Bullet attack as she does all the other elements combined. This means that many of the late-game Sleepers are booby traps; Shinki, Shingyoku, and Kikuri are all weak to bullets. What I'm working toward now is getting Mima and Orange up in level through Sacrifice Fusions (that 90% discount for a full database helps a lot), to use the former as an attack caster and the latter as a fast support to throw Dai-Atma and Dai-Para around as necessary. The remaining slot is Yumeko, who's immune to Bullet and mercifully doesn't require as much power-leveling.

For the actual damage/battle strategy, I'm relying on Yuddha-Samira to bypass the resistance-shuffling. Right now I've got my casters using Yomisol with Yomi Amp for sustainability, and my physical attackers just running Guard Pierce or God Fist.

Since all of the attackers have such compressed attack sets, there's room to slap a ton of passives on everyone-- I'm putting Cleanse, Debilitating Aura, HP Spring, and MP Spring on everyone, because there's plenty of status effects to go around, passive debuffing is always welcome, and it's going to be a slugfest, so you want as many HP and MP as you can get.

I suspect there might be a possible cheese strategy using Yukari's [Master of Reality], but it would require you to use it at least twice (once to bring Shinki's MP down to match her initial HP value, then again once she'd drained enough MP for the swap to HP to be a meaningful amount of "damage").

Seija's [Social Distortion] could be an effective means of controlling the buff/debuff situation, but I'm not keen on navigating the fusion chain to get it onto a relevant unit unless I absolutely have to.

I hope any of that helps!

[Kupi]

Reporting back to say that I've beaten her, largely with the strategy I outlined above. This was my final team, levels all in the mid-90s except for Sumireko at 99:

Mima (Attacker 1)
- Yomisol
- Yuddha-Samira
- Himedisol (never used, may be better replaced with Resourceful)
- HP Spring
- MP Spring
- Cleanse
- Yomi Amp
- Debilitating Aura

Yumeko (Attacker 2)
- God Fist
- Magnum Shot
- Yuddha-Samira
- Hideluo (never used, may be better replaced with Resourceful)
- HP Spring
- MP Spring
- Cleanse
- Debilitating Aura

Orange (Supporter 1)
- Himedisol
- Helping Hand
- [Social Distortion]
- Cleanse
- HP Spring
- MP Spring
- Debilitating Aura
- Resourceful

Sumireko (Supporter 2)
- Himedisol
- Helping Hand
- Dai-Para
- Cleanse
- HP Spring
- MP Spring
- Debilitating Aura
- Resourceful

Stats-wise, my Sumireko has 70-ish VIT and INT, high-70s AGI, 50-ish MAG, and the rest into LUK, which you could probably distribute into VIT and INT if you want more damage safety at the cost of likelier status effects. I used Chimata's affinities on Sumireko, making her immune to Bullet and Lightning but weak to Yomi. It's important that Sumireko have as much AGI as possible without having more than Orange.

It turned out that getting [Social Distortion] onto Orange was trivial; you can database fuse her from Shinka and Seija in a single step.

Use Boosters to start the battle at full SP.

Stock up on Energy Drinks by converting Sangyouku into an item; Yumeko is going to need them. You will also want a good stack of First-Aid Kits, Life Chunk Bundles (if you can get them), and Dai-Para and Dai-Atma Stones.

For the majority of the battle, you want to be cycling the attackers between Yuddha-Samira and their attack move. You might want to have them use an item if things get very dicey, which is where having Resourceful on them as well would help.

When you see [Paradise Lost], have Orange cast [Social Distortion], and have Sumireko use Dai-Para. This is why you want Sumireko to be slower than Orange; Orange will transfer her debuffs onto Shinki, and then Sumireko will cure the rest of the party, leaving Shinki fully debuffed and your own party clean. However, when she gets below 30% HP, Last Resort will kick in and she'll be faster than your entire party. At this point, respond to Paradise Lost by having the supports use a Dai-Para Stone and a Dai-Atma Stone. The boost from Resourceful will let you move before her so you don't get hit with a maximum buff/debuff difference.

Use Helping Hand with the supports if, by some miracle, nobody is damaged and the attackers have Yuddha-Samira up.

Status effects should be patched up with the Green Dragon Stone or a Hideluo Stone if there's more than one on the party.

If you see Shinki use Focus, consider defending with Orange and Sumireko at minimum, and the attackers if they don't have Yuddha-Samira loaded. Even at level 99 with high INT and VIT, a Focus-boosted Yomisol can wipe out two-thirds of Sumireko's health. On the other hand, if you see Charge, go nuts; she seems to prefer using her Bullet attacks with Charge up and since the entire team is immune to Bullet that's an empty turn.

Even with all the advantages I brought it was still a solid ten-to-fifteen minute fight, and I wiped out a few times as I was fine-tuning the strategy. You may be able to find something that works better. Good luck!

[⭐Lemeza⭐]

That's insane. I'm surprised you even went with two different sleepers than the top 3.

I had a 25 minute fight earlier, and even used up all my drinks, coffee, tea and life chunks.
Didn't even win. Truly a boss not meant for the impatient.

[kay!]

my strategy was verrrry unoptimized but i beat her with a team of sumireko/meira on front, and yumeko/kokoro on the back (levels 99/94/88/80, with sumireko's main stats being 99 mag/vit/int, and having reimu's affinities of drain pierce, block force, and weak to elec)

effectively my strategy was just have everyone back up sumireko while she tears into the boss, especially by making sure that once paradise lost was dealt with through prevent command + dai-atma+dai-para, to debuff her attack as fast as possible from multiple party members (with JUST bala-para, since hi- would be too expensive in the long run)

but it's not a particularly -fast- strategy, if she switched to being weak to phys or pierce, i would have to end up taking it a bit more slowly, though it does make regaining sp much faster

my sumireko's speed as an attacker is whatever imo since like at worst you'll probably hit a drain in the later parts of the fight when the boss' speed increases (i THINK it increases anyway? it felt like later on she got faster or started using paradise lost sooner but i may also just be going insane)

also regarding resourceful: i think it's near-effectively required on at least everyone on the whole team, especially if you're like me and didn't take cleanse on anyone lol

first-aid kits also heal status if i'm not mistaken, and if you need more life chunk bundles, you can hijack kikuri

i'm currently messing about with hopefully a better strategy, involving having hecatia's sp skill, heaven and hell being put on orange, probably swapping out kokoro for someone more defensive, and actually using focus on sumireko for once and seeing where that gets me
heaven and hell costs 100% sp, but it does effectively let you skip a step in having to put out dai-atma or -para since it's a full invert of buffs and debuffs

[kay!]

update: yeah once you level up orange to be fast enough using heaven and hell makes it a breeeeeeeze (at least for the first part)
i -wasn't- going insane, she does in fact get faster later on in the fight so having resourceful on already very fast sleepers with dai-atma and dai-para stones helps a lot

edit: d'oh i can't read apparently last resort was mentioned lol

[Lenarity]

Just beat her after maybe 5 hours worth of attempts, grinding and swapping builds. I basically had to totally change my strategy -- I breezed through every other boss and this was the first time I was hit with a wall. Some key factors that gave me an edge:

Most of the passives that Kupi mentioned feel mandatory. The game changer for me was resourceful. When Shinki's last resort kicks in, she will out speed everybody in your party, so being able to pop items during this phase is so important. HP and MP spring also feel like a must. Debilitating aura is very nice to have.

Taking the time to farm items also helped significantly. Energy drinks, first aid kits, dai-para/atma stones, and life chunk bundles specifically. Try to get 15-20 of each and be liberal with using them. Hideluo stones are nice to have too.

This was probably more of an issue for me but I had to reset my Sumi build. I played the whole game with her being a physical attacker, but changed her into a mage at the end. She just did not have enough MP to juggle between Yuddha-samira and god hand. Changing her to magic damage made MP management a lot better. I had Shinki and Sumi as magic attacker, Yumeko and Shingyouku as full supports.

Don't be greedy. It does suck having to defend after casting yuddha-samira, but you definitely want to defend on certain units if you see Shinki cast charge and/or focus. This is where I would use the SP ability Prevent, especially if you cast yuddha-samira beforehand and dont want to waste a turn defending. Otherwise, holding onto SP to fully heal is also an option if you are overwhelmed and need your supporters to focus on removing debuffs and ailments.

Additionally, don't be afraid to have your damage dealers use items. Sometimes there's just too much for your two supporters to handle, or they might be paralyzed. That's why I gave everyone resourceful just in case.

I think pierce block or heal is a must for Sumi. I used Reimu's affinity, which unfortunately makes Sumi prone to electricity so I would need to defend with her if Shinki used focus.

[⭐Lemeza⭐]

Just wanted to update that I finally beat the super boss, but not fully legit.

I was about to give up on it honestly, but then I realized I completely forgot about the Grimoires. I activated two of them (the extra damage on weakness one, + other can't recall) , and then was able to beat Shinki on first try after. Made a pretty big difference.

Props to those who beat her without them though.

[terry.langeveld]

I had not as much trouble with this boss as many others had. The setup that I had when I met her was already pretty good, and I needed just a few adjustments to beat her. My party was already at/near max level at that point.
I think her mind attacks are a lot more dangerous then the other elements. So I had Sumi use an affinity set that made her immune to both mind and gun. Worked out pretty well.

Status ailments can mostly be dealt with by having someone faster cure the affected person. (first-aid kits indeed cure status ailments.) I dealt with paradise lost by having 2 people faster then her use buff/debuff removal items. Below 20% she outspeeds my party so I used the special action skip turn instead.

My final party:
Sumi - Front row. Outspeeds Shinki. Mage setup with max vitality. Never got to low hp.
Mima - Front row. Does not outspeeds Shinki. But her stats and resistances make her very tanky here while doing good magic damage. She can also do non-elemental damage.
Yumeko - Back row. Outspeeds Shinki. Good physical attacker.
Kokoro - Back row. Mixed attacker. Reliable damage but dies a lot.

All characters had HP Spring and all except Kokoro Debilitating aura. This worked well. Damage was high enough that I did not require many mp restoration items. The only weakness was Kokoro who died several times. I suspect Chen with her resistances would take the same role a lot better.

Fun fact: I got the 'Optimized' achievement during my first attempt. Apparently you can get it if the opponent deals over a 1000 damage as well. Was the end of that attempt tho :)

[Hors de vue3021]

Yeah I'm done trying to beat this comically overblown HP sponge.
It's a constant luck-based juggling act between frantic healing, clearing status ailments and elemental affinity guesswork.

I was expecting a challenge, yes - but not a: 'Screw you and your current build. Now go and find the only optimal way to beat me.' Thanks for this kick in the nuts, Holographic.

[terry.langeveld]

Originally posted by sierra044:

elemental affinity guesswork

You can just use Analyze command every time she uses [Paradise Lost]. So you never have to guess.

[WarioMCP]

Originally posted by terry.langeveld:

Originally posted by sierra044:

elemental affinity guesswork

You can just use Analyze command every time she uses [Paradise Lost]. So you never have to guess.

Better yet, if Shinki is in your database and you have the upgrade that lets you see affinities you don't have to guess at all

[Joeyjoejoejoejoe]

I used a strategy trying to kill it before it could kill me off of Last Resort Momentum in a really unlucky way on me which was where I was failing, I made 1 party member just stacked with all DPS boosting options and had them deal 1500+ damage a turn to hopefully paired with who they're mimicing to only have to have 1 character with the DPS buttons to click to hit weaknesses.
Once I see feel sub 5000 HP is there I just click mimic on everything and prayed which worked first try when I got that far with this.

Sumireko level 91 (Patchouli resistances weak/weak/res/res/res/res/null)
Laido Kanata / Prismriver Trumpet / Metal Face / Demon Armor / Beast Claw
(Should have prob used the Wizard/Witch equipment for MP sustain but this worked)
Stats : 842HP/679MP 10/104/41/104/90/10 (IIRC I think Sumireko only needs 61AGI really but I put in 90 as a precaution and it just worked so I didn't change it)
- Hiapahani-Kopa (makes me & the main cover support)
- Every single target X-Sol Spell (5 slots)
- HP Spring
- MP Spring
Gives the next party member and effectively all of them a good DPS option and Hiapahani-Kopa just makes you hard to kill when trying to recover from a potential wash up turn.


Yuki (level 92) (honestly anyone but they had the highest MATK when I browsed)
(I kinda wish I just Mokou for flavour)
- Mimic
- Napalm death (Big number to use SP if it comes up)
- War Stance +50% (need cover support for this)
- Immolation (Need cover support for this)
- Last Resort +?% just a lot
- Agni Amp +15% to fire
- MP spring
- resourceful
She's constantly 1hp but stacking every DPS boost in the game really and it feels like Christmas when the boss becomes weak the fire.
She's also the one using the Dai-para/atma stones as items during the mass buff/debuff she does with her usual cover support

Kikuri (Level 94) (Healing battery & back up cover support)
- Cover (uses this during Dai-para/atma phases of the fight to save Yuki)
- Mimic
- Himedisol
- Cleanse
- Debilitating Aura
- Last resort
- Mp Spring
- HP Spring

Patchouli (Level 91) (Main Cover support with omni magic resist + high int which works well) You Just think rip bozo if a physical attack comes up and cope.
- Cover
- Mimic
- Himedisol
- Cleanse
- Debilitating Aura
- Resourceful
- MP Spring
- HP Spring

Then just 3 more 2hu with Kikuri's moveset as just in cases since she'll run out of MP eventually.
Once I got this team set up took 3 tries, for consistency can prob just have 1 mimic touhou to copy Sumireko & have all the amps for status scamming instead if that works but I felt dealing more numbers would get me that good run quicker and it did.

[King Yamato]

Shinki can RNG screw you out of any situation in the game for the most part. Honestly one of the few bad parts of the entire game in my opinion since there are many ways you can simply lose the fight on account of the boss deciding to focus fire everything on a character.

That being said, I believe I've come up with the most stable, RNG-free, as consistent as possible, quickest way of beating her. If you're having trouble with her try following this guide and she should be down in some quick minutes (maybe less than 2 if you're playing without combat animations)

1 - Sumireko:
Sumireko's stats should have maxed int and vit, and enough speed to go first.
I used Toyohime's resistance set just to have Sumireko have no weaknesses.
Skills: Mimic, Himedisol, Resourceful, HP Spring, MP Spring. Pick anything else for the rest except Cleanse.

2 - Sleeper Skill Set:
Since there's only really one optimal strategy to deal with the RNG in this boss fight, all of your sleepers should have the maximum damage level 3 single target element spell,with the exception of physical (because you can just hit her normally in that case so no need to waste skill slots): Magnum Shot, Agnisol, Acalasol, Ajirasol, Yomisol, Resourceful. There's one free slot left which I recommend using HP Spring for.

3 - Which sleepers to use:
Pick people who are faster than Shinki and also durable. Most sleepers before the postgame have bad stat distribution which won't allow them to be as tanky as Shinki and Yumeko sleepers which seem tailor made for this fight. My third sleeper option was Iku Nagae for a very specific reason.

4 - Why Iku?
Iku is one of the only sleepers with a good Int + Vit + Agi balance, and at high enough levels she's able to outspeed Shinki. Fusing an Iku with Heaven and Hell allows very easy cruising through the fight.

5 - Additional preparation
Before facing Shinki, you should accept that status ailments are your allies, and get everyone poisoned (Fly over to one of the forest dungeons with poison to quickly get that). Once all 4 of your characters are poisoned, you become immune to all the other, much more annoying, status ailments. All at the cost of some chip damage at the end of the turn. For this reason, do not pack Hideluo or Cleanse on your characters, since you will never want to clear your statuses.

Seriously. Not having to deal with statuses gets rid of most of the RNG in this fight.

Also, before fighting Shinki, visit Geidontei and get a drink that restores your MP at the end of the turn so you won't need to care about sustaining your MP so much. There's more than enough time to spam magic (both healing and DPS) and defeat Shinki before it runs out.

Make sure to have your SP at full because Shinki will always use her special skill turn 1.

6 - Facing Shinki in combat
Once you get everyone ready, the fight becomes a simple flowchart:

a. HP management
Is everyone at full/near full HP?
If they aren't, use Sumireko's turn to cast Himedisol to make sure everyone survives attacks. If they are at full HP, Sumireko should use Mimic to copy someone else's offensive magic.
Did someone get attacked badly and now they're almost dead and they need a lot of healing?
Use someone else's turn to use healing items as well just to make extra sure. Any sleeper loss in this fight can quickly snowball into an easy loss.

b. Dealing with Paradise Lost
Shinki will always cast this as the last thing in her turn.
Do you have full SP and she isn't in Last Resort HP? If yes, then use your fast sleeper's turn to cast Heaven and Hell. When this goes off, you will have so many buffs that survival for the next turns becomes trivial and you can simply beat her up without caring too much.
Do you not have full SP/Shinki is in Last Resort? Use two of your sleepers to use Dai-Para and Dai-Atma stones. The other two might have to spend their turns also using healing items to keep everyone topped off. If possible, use boosters so that you can start skipping her turn to rush the final bits.

Keep blasting whatever element Shinki is currently weak to with the other sleepers otherwise and you will keep a steady stream of high damage.

Even being this overprepared may fail if the RNG isn't in your favor, or if you forget to play around Last Resort. In either case, just try again until it works.